Only two things really got me going. Fighting and sex. Landus apparently understood this because he hit my switch, putting me in a different mood.
I made an unnatural noise within my chest and pulled him closer, diving my tongue into his mouth, tasting my blood in there, which only served to turn me on even more. I wrapped my arms around his neck and grabbed onto his black hair, pulling him into me with my legs wrapped around him. He tried to pull away, but I growled. He was mine now. I wasn’t letting go.
My lips moved along his strong jaw, down his neck along the vein that throbbed with his heightened pulse. When I found the delicate part I wanted, I opened my mouth and bit him. Hard. Marking him as mine. I kept my eyes open, glaring at the shifters over his shoulder, challenging them to tell me otherwise.
This man was mine.
A few of them wore their feelings on their faces. They wanted to tear me apart. Others held blank expressions, refusing to let me know what they were feeling. All of them weren’t happy though. I held their Alpha in my arms, I was making him bleed, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it without going against their Alpha’s wishes.
I added more pressure, biting down harder.
“Fuck,” Landus swore, his breath warm as it blew over my overheated skin. “Nyssa, let me go now.”
I growled and bit him again, right above the first.
His lips skimmed my neck, kissing it lightly and then returning the favor. Along with the bite, his energy flowed through me, overwhelming me. It was like he was breathing into his bite and through me. My body convulsed without my permission, and I let him go, the fight leaving my body. He slowly lowered me to the floor, my legs not wanting to work properly anymore. Holy shit. I practically had an orgasm just with his bite.
I gasped, taking in deep breaths.
“Landus, what the fudge? That hurt!” I swore, using all the words I picked up over the last six years to express myself. The stream of words flew out of my mouth as Landus kneeled in front of me, his eyes roaming all over my face looking for something. His expression relaxed when he didn’t find it.
“Welcome back.” His voice was still thicker than normal. The bite marks on his neck still bled, and I couldn’t help it and smiled triumphantly as something in me purred in contentment.
“I never went anywhere.”
“Yes, you did, but it doesn’t matter for now.”
He helped me to my feet and took in the room, the emptiness in me filling back up with sadness and the pain of possibly losing Cecil.
“Did you have to kill them all?”
I frowned, scrunching up my face. Did I kill them all? I shook my head and moved over to a small pile of bodies, moving them easily until I got to the one underneath. “He’s still alive. Should still be able to talk too.”
He was the one I’d stabbed in the abdomen without hitting anything important. He was still bleeding, his eyes dazed as he tried to work through the pain.
“Just kill me,” he whispered.
Landus jerked his head and a couple of shifters cautiously stepped into the room, keeping their eyes on me. Probably waiting for me to pounce. For fun, I moved my hand, and they all stiffened. I wasn’t sure if they were going to attack or flee. It was a coin toss. I smirked as I ran my hand through the tangled mess of my hair. When I lowered my arm and didn’t move, they came further inside and grabbed the man, lifting him up and ignoring his screams. The man’s skeletal face went ashen, and I was surprised he didn’t pass out. Actually, I was surprised he wasn’t dead. He barely even existed, all stick and bones, barely any muscle.
Before they tugged him away, I grabbed him and turned his face, leaning into him. “Who used poison on their weapon?”
The man blinked a couple of times before smiling. “Not telling.”
I growled as the shifters dragged him away.
“Make sure to check all the weapons for poison,” I said. “And check the bodies.” I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. The shifters began moving around when they realized I wasn’t going to attack and checked the bodies or the weapons. They were listening. Good.
“Nyssa, let’s get out of here before more come. The witches are already waiting to tear down the gate,” Landus said.
“Fine.” I stalked off, going back down the hall and through the gate. My shoes made a squishing noise with each step, soaked in all the blood and carnage. I ignored it, just wanting to get out of here.
My anger was accepted by the gate, and I felt nothing once again. I came out the other side to see our new guest on the ground, practically throwing up. Landus appeared behind me, nudging me away.
“The gate loves anger,” I said still staring at the man, thinking of everything I could do to get the answers I needed.
“What do you mean?”
I turned to Landus, pushing away thoughts of the make-out session we just had. I could still see my mark on his neck, knowing it was going to take days to heal. I smiled but it quickly turned into a frown. He wasn’t even mine and yet I had marked him. What the hell was wrong with me? I backed out of all the dangerous thoughts whirling in my head and focused on the now.
“I went through the gate angry, and it accepted me. No pain.”
“Can gates do that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t study them, I just go through them. I know they can give off energy that represents different emotions but to be able to accept or reject and act out against those that they rejected—I’ve never heard of it before.”
The last of the shifters followed us out. Landus grabbed onto my arm and pulled me away as Maura and her witches surrounded the gate. Some of them stared at me with wide eyes. I was sure I was a sight to see, covered in unknown bits and pieces. Blood and goo took over my clothes. Eventually, they focused on the gate while we stood off to the side, staying silent. At least until Landus broke the quiet with his deep, dark voice.
“What happened in there? Why didn’t you call for backup?”
I shrugged.
“Nyssa,” he said through his clenched teeth. He was pissed. His energy wasn’t gentle. It crashed across my skin, demanding answers.
“Maura said I felt grief.”
He looked confused.
“I’ve never felt that emotion before. I’ve never been in a position to have to feel that, and I’ve never allowed myself to be in that kind of situation. I’ve always pushed others away until I met Cecil. And then to see her like that, I practically broke. Maura said it was grief.”
“So you went crazy and charged through a gate not knowing what was on the other side.”
“Oh, I had a pretty damn good idea what was on the other side, and I wanted it to be true. When I found them, I let it all go.”
“No, you didn’t. You shut down. You ran away.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“You turned off your feelings. Fuck, Nyssa. I barely know you, and even I know you weren’t yourself. You fought with a cold ruthlessness that you didn’t have the last fight you were in. The last time at least you smiled as if everything was entertaining. But the you I saw just now was not even close to that. You’ve been very expressive since I met you. So answer me, what was that?”
Turning to him, I yanked his shirt toward me. I put my lips next to his ear and hissed, “That is who I really am. I didn’t run away, I just returned to the person I was originally. Didn’t you ever think that maybe who you’ve been seeing is only a persona I created for society? To fit in?”
I shoved him back a few steps before walking away, slowly making my way to Cecil. I pulled out the rubber band in my hair and ran my hand through the strands. When my fingers touched a piece of something wet and warm, I grimaced. I pulled it out and dropped it to the ground, not wanting to know what it was.
Landus followed, keeping his distance. His eyes stayed on my back the entire time, trying to burn a hole through me with his thoughts. He practically threw his silent questions my way. I ignored him because when I thought of him, I warme
d up and remembered the kisses we shared. I wasn’t one to share my emotions with the public, yet whenever I felt off and he was around, I couldn’t not touch him. And he responded to me too.
He let me touch him.
Chapter Fifteen
I remember staring up at the man, wondering why? Why did I have to go through this? What did I ever do to hurt like this? I remember grabbing his arm and asking him. Why was this happening to me?
—Nyssa’s Journal
“We’re bringing the prisoner back if you’re interested.”
Landus stood in the doorway to Cecil’s room, leaning against the door jamb. I barely spared him a glance before focusing back on Cecil, my chest heavy with emotions. Refusing to admit it to anyone, I was scared. Very scared. Not just sad and angry, with a little frustration tossed in there, but also terrified. The idea of Cecil no longer in my life was intolerable.
I grabbed her pale cold hands with my clean ones. I had quickly washed up when I got back and borrowed clothes from a witch who was close to my size. No one would think I’d just massacred a bunch of baddies with how clean I was.
I’d managed to lock myself in the room with Cecil for a little bit while the witches worked on the wards. Something about a ritual, spilling blood, calling on the sisters of the moon, and sacrificing a small bunny. Or not. They were just doing their little circle of chanting, adding onto the protection spells they already had. This new level should be able to keep any more gates from forming on their territory. Too bad they hadn’t had it up before the attack. Then Cecil wouldn’t have been hurt.
“Nyssa?”
“I don’t want to leave her,” I whispered, staring at Cecil.
“He might have answers.”
“Only if he’s willing to talk.” I looked over at Landus. “He doesn’t seem like the type to break.”
“Oh, we will break him,” he growled. “Repeatedly.”
I stood up and stretched, making it showier than it had to be. Landus’s eyes were trained on me, drinking in my body as I worked out the sore muscles. Games. I was playing games with him. At this point, distracting him was distracting me, and I definitely needed it.
“Are you in?” he asked again.
I nodded and followed as we went back outside. He headed toward a huge dark blue truck and waited patiently as I stared at the monster. The thing was massive. What was the point? The only reason I could see for having something so big was to run down enemies who were trying to get away.
I sighed and crawled up into the metal monster.
Landus followed the van with the prisoner inside as we headed back to pack land. We stayed quiet because what was there to say? Nothing. There was nothing that could be said to fix this. So instead, I spent the time glaring at the back of the van, where I imagined the man’s head to be.
When we pulled up to Landus’s cabin, they were already dragging the man around to the back. He wasn’t fighting very hard. Then again, how hard could he fight when most of his blood was already gone, leaving him weak and uncoordinated? We followed behind to a large shed, about the size of a double garage.
“Is this your torture chamber?” I joked.
“Yeah, having it in the cabin only fills the building up with blood and puts a lot of our younger shifters on edge.”
Made sense, I guessed.
“How do you feel about torture?” he asked. He was watching me weirdly again like he was expecting me to do some kind of amazing trick. Unfortunately for him, I was out of circus tricks. I only felt tired and needed a good night’s sleep.
“I don’t feel anything about it. Never done it. I’m more of a bulldozer. Just run in and ensure everyone is down for the count if not dead.”
“Of course. Definitely a bulldozer.” There was a flatness in his voice that had me bristling.
“What are you insinuating?” My voice came out just as flat.
He shrugged.
Oh, no. We were so not going to play this type of game.
I stopped him before he entered the building and pulled him a few steps away to get at least a false sense of privacy. “Landus, what is the matter with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked and laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound, and I saw flecks of anger in his eyes, giving his eyes a more metallic look to it. What the hell? “Nothing is wrong with me, but I really do wonder about you.”
“Me?” My eyebrows furrowed. “There is nothing wrong with me.”
“Really? Because from my standpoint, you don’t have any self-preservation. You practically throw yourself at the bad guys.”
“The only people I throw myself at are the ones I want to sleep with. I assure you, I have no interest in crawling into any of their beds.” I eyed him, letting him know I didn’t mind crawling into his bed though.
He shook his head and let out a harsh breath. “Unbelievable. Life was so simple until you appeared in my damn bathroom.”
“Well, simple is redundant and extremely boring.”
“Simple keeps people alive.”
“Are you saying I’m going to get people killed?” Now it was my turn to get angry. I wasn’t some kind of suicidal maniac without consideration for others. Well, not completely.
Landus was poking at me and now was not the time to do it. I was looking for a fight any way I could get it. Cecil would call it my coping mechanism.
“The complications surrounding you will.”
“Complication? What complication?”
“You’re a mystery, Nyssa. Hell, you don’t even have a last name.”
“What’s wrong with not having a last name, plenty of people don’t.”
“Yeah, beasts don’t. They create a persona and use it to blend in, but that’s about it. I’ve had to hunt plenty of them down because they figure out how to live in a settlement.”
My eye twitched at the word beast, and I had to admit the way he said it hurt a little. He was touching on one of the very few topics that hit too close for comfort. I didn’t need him poking at my insecurities.
“My name is not a persona, my name is who I am,” I said in a careful voice, making sure my face remained empty of any of my thoughts and emotions. I may try to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, but the one thing I knew about myself, the real me, was my name, and I would never let anyone take that away.
“And I don’t know who you are. That’s what I’m saying.” He waved his arm around. “You’re a secret, a massive mystery. Basically a black hole until you came out of nowhere six years ago.”
“I’m not keeping secrets. I’m pretty open.”
“Open.” He snorted. “You’re far from open. No one knows crap about you.”
“People know plenty about me. I just don’t understand the need people have to tell everyone what’s going on. Why do you guys rely so much on communication?”
He leaned forward until he was almost kissing me. His eyes swirled with so many emotions and most of them I didn’t even have a name for. Something within me tightened. I watched as his eyes lowered to my lips and then snapped back up to my eyes.
“Because we care,” he whispered and then turned away and stalked into their makeshift torture chamber.
~ * ~
Their torture chamber was more technologically advanced than I expected. When I walked into the building ten minutes later after collecting myself and with more questions than I ever had before, the room was empty except for a door that led downwards, into a dark secret passageway that led to who knew where. I thought they made movies about going into dark and dodgy places. I would say scary but not much scared me.
In fact, I was very curious about his little torture chamber. I descended, the air surprisingly clean. I expected it to be dank and dark, but the air vents allowed cool air inside, tickling my skin. Lights were set up along the wall so no one accidentally missed a step and plummeted awkwardly to the bottom.
At the base, a shifter stood guard. He watched me warily, and I could see the fear in his eyes, his
beast not doing well against the emotions. He was probably one of the ones who saw the carnage I created.
I slipped by him without a second glance and went through the massive steel door, entering a large room. It was bare, with only empty tables and some chairs stacked up off to the side.
“This doesn’t look so torturey,” I said.
The men were chaining the now unconscious and nearly naked man to a hook that hung off the wall. Air circulation was strong, the air clean, and the room well lit. A large industrial sink sat off to the right, and the only thing I did expect a torture room to have was in the middle of the room. A drain. All the better to wash the blood away.
“More like a multi-purpose room. It acts as a shelter if we are under attack, a meeting room, and to contain the unsavory if we need to hold onto them. The walls have spells in them to ensure our guests don’t escape,” Landus explained as he changed shirts. The one he wore still had blood on it from earlier. I watched, not even attempting to be shy around him. He knew it too because he put on just a little bit of a show, making sure his muscles rolled and shifted. He was all muscle. His abs held more than a six-pack, and I let my eyes devour all of the ridges and valleys. Damn. I practically panted at the sight before me.
Somehow, he made me feel tiny, especially without a shirt on. His presence demanded attention, and right now I wanted to give it to him with my tongue. I shook my head to break the trance he put me in and looked away, instead focusing on Slade as he glared at the prisoner.
“Glaring won’t get you your answers,” I said, walking over and leaning up against the wall next to him.
His ice blue eyes focused on me, and I swore we were transported to Antarctica with how glacial they were. His lips curled up before he looked away and re-collected himself. He was having trouble holding himself together.
I smirked, unable to help myself. “Maybe if you try threatening him with a joke.”
“Don’t,” he said in a growl. His skin rippled and he looked ready to shift.
I frowned. Something was up. Slade was almost as good as Landus when it came to control. Something happened.
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