by Elise Faber
She ignored the little voice in her head pointedly reminding her that she didn’t seem to mind most of his touches.
And kisses.
And the way he held her and teased her and—
That wasn’t the problem. Yes, she was attracted to him. Yes, she liked kissing and holding him, liked when he did the same back. But it was unexpected contact that was the problem, the stray touches that made her jump like an electrocuted cat. She hoped—no she would get over in time, she had to believe that.
Shaking off her ever-spinning thoughts, she eyed the ground.
It wasn’t the worst campsite she’d ever seen, but there were lots of rocks and the entire space was kind of moist. Without a waterproof layer between him and the ground, Mason would be soaked and chilled by the time the sun rose.
“I’ll be fine.”
She nodded and dumped her pile of sticks next to the pit he’d dug then bent to add several to the fire.
Should she invite him to share the tent?
Mentally, she shook her head, knew she wasn’t quite ready for that yet.
He crouched next to her. “You’ll just want to—” His voice trailed off and he cocked his head as she added sticks where they needed then neatly stacked the rest. “You’ve done this before.”
“Just a few hundred times,” she murmured with a smile, sensing his confusion. “The forest outside our trailer was my escape. The dirt and trees . . . they didn’t—” She shrugged “I ran wild a lot.” Her eyes met his. “It was actually fun.” Of course there were a lot of times where it wasn’t fun, where terror had gripped her, where she’d hid in the trees praying someone wouldn’t find her, whether it be her mother or one of the men—
Cutting the memories off in their tracks, she forced herself to breath.
Her mother was dead, and no one could exact justice from a pile of ash, even if she’d wanted to . . . which she didn’t.
Look forward. Move forward.
One step at a time.
She smiled. “Want to tell me how you lit this without making everything around us burst into flame?”
Eighteen
Mason
He studied her—the slight red tint of her cheeks, the way a few wisps of blond hair had curled up around her ears. Just thinking about fire and pale brown sparks had burst to life on the palm of right hand.
Clearly, her power was there, and readily available.
Her challenge was that she was on the higher end of the spectrum of magic and no one had ever taught her to control her powers.
“Did you use your magic often as a child?”
She shook her head, sighed. “No. My mom . . . well, she got really angry if I tried.” She hesitated then said, “I think because she’d lost the ability to use elemental magic when she turned, and it made her feel incompetent when I could.”
He bit back a curse, wondered again what kind of atrocities this beautiful, wonderful woman had suffered, amazed that empathy and love and kindness had managed to survive in her.
The Dalshie were fickle creatures, jealous and power-hungry, so maybe he didn’t understand why one would keep a child, let alone look after her well-enough that she had survived to adulthood. But he couldn’t hope to comprehend the way the Dalshie’s twisted minds worked, and more important was that Gabby had survived. And she was strong, and so damned good inside that the pureness he could feel in her mind threatened to take his breath away. But that goodness also held power. She was strong in both will and magic, so odds were that her mother had been very powerful as well.
And he couldn’t imagine Gabby’s mother having the fact that she could no longer control elemental magic—but her daughter could—thrown in her face made for fun family bonding time.
“What about your father?” he asked.
“What about him?” she asked, letting the magic go and staring at her palm as the sparks blinked out of existence. “He’s dead.”
He frowned at the way her voice had gone numb. “What happened?” he asked softly, not wanting to push, but knowing that holding on to pain would only make it harder for her to move forward.
“My mother killed him.”
A sharp stab of pain lanced through him, the vividness of her thoughts so much clearer than he could have anticipated.
Their connection was growing.
So strong, in fact, that once the initial wave of pain had passed through him, he was able to focus on the garbled images . . .
A hand descended toward Gabby’s face. She was little. Fragile.
Mason heard the crack as skin met skin, felt the sharp sting against his own cheek . . .
The images blinked out, faltering along their developing link.
“What happened?” he asked again.
Her eyes clouded. “My dad must have found out that she’d turned. They argued and I got in the way and my mother—” She swallowed hard. “When my dad came to check on me, to make sure I wasn’t hurt . . .”
The memory slammed into Mason’s mind . . .
Warm hands touched her face, softly probed her scalp, wiped away the blood. He’d told her to get into the other room, had followed her in and locked the door.
“Ouch!” She winced and fresh tears erupted in her eyes. “Daddy? What’s wrong with Mom—”
Thunk.
He came out of the memory, found himself on his knees with Gabby crouched next to him, the firewood abandoned. Thunk. He knew that ominous sound, similar to that of a pumpkin splitting in two.
“Mason, oh my God,” she said. “Are you okay?”
He hauled her against his chest, held her tight. The action was unthinking, instinctual, and didn’t take into account Gabby’s reluctance to touch at all. He should have waited for her to touch him, instead of grabbing her. Especially after what he’d just seen.
But the truth was that he had to hold her. That memory . . . fuck. She shouldn’t have had to see that, to bear witness to events that were so much worse than he’d imagined.
So he held her, and was just thankful that she let him.
“You saw it too?” she asked tentatively.
He nodded, knowing that he couldn’t speak calmly yet. Still, he understood that if he unleashed the rage inside of him, rage at all she’d been through, she would think it was directed at her.
And that was the last thing he wanted.
None of it was her fault. Not. One. Fucking. Thing.
“John came to me when I called,” she whispered. One of her hands wrapped around his shoulder and massaged the back of his neck, trying to relieve his tension even though she was the one hurting.
“I know,” he murmured, his voice guttural, his emotions still churning. And yet under her touch, he felt them begin to settle. Less tsunami and more giant ocean storm.
“I found the number in a box of my father’s belongings. He’d given it to me for safekeeping and somehow my mother missed destroying it when she burned everything else. I think he must have known something was happening.” She paused, her fingers tightening for one brief moment before they relaxed again. “I just wish I’d looked at it closer sooner.”
He released a long, slow breath. “Was it too painful?”
She rested her forehead against his shoulder, her breath warm against the bare skin of his throat. “Yes,” she said. “But if I’d looked at the box closer, if I’d seen the false bottom, found John’s number sooner I might have been able to save—”
It was as if someone had grabbed his heart in a flaming fist and squeezed hard.
“Oh, Sunshine, there was nothing—”
“Don’t say there was nothing I could have done. I should have—” She shook her head. “I could—”
He gently cupped her cheeks and forced her to meet his stare.
“Think,” he said. “Don’t let the denial rule you. For one moment, just honestly think about what you did and try to find a solution that could have magically solved everything.” It was part of what kept him up at night, what turned his
dreams into nightmares. Because he thought there were things he could have done to save Victoria and Daniel. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he spoke softly. “I think you’ll discover that no matter what you tried, the end result would have been the same.”
Her eyes slid shut and she didn’t speak for a long moment. But when she finally peeled back her lids, the slightest touch of humor was in those pale brown depths.
“How’d you get so smart?” she asked.
Decades and decades of darkness, he thought, though he merely smiled and pulled her close enough to whisper, “Enough slacking off. Let’s teach you how to be a pyromaniac.”
Gabby just might kill him.
The fire was blazing, a few pale brown flames that warmed the air around them mixed amongst the naturally occurring orange to blue. She had managed another lesson, had been able to call forth and then reign back it in successfully.
A huge step in the right direction.
More evidence to support his belief that her powers weren’t flawed in any way, but rather that her problem had been a lack of knowledge and practice.
So no, it wasn’t her magic that threatened to off him.
Especially when she blinked, released a deep breath and the flames of her magic extinguished. She turned and smiled up at him, and Mase froze, desire roaring through him.
And this was why Gabby might kill him.
From blood loss.
Or perhaps blood movement was more apt, because he had the perpetual hard on of a thirteen-year-old boy. Every time she smiled, or shifted closer to him on the log, each time her ponytail slide over her shoulder, lavender and lemon wafting up to tease his nostrils, her curvy as hell body pressing against her cotton T-shirt and jeans, more of his blood moved south. It was uncomfortable, embarrassing and—
“You okay?” she asked.
“Huh?” His head shot up. “I’m sorry, I was distracted.”
“If you need to check in with someone at the Colony, someone who might be missing you . . .”
Her brows drew together and he felt a blip of—oh.
For a moment, he was struck silent by the implication of her statement, by the slight burn of jealousy he sensed in her mind. “You think that I would kiss and touch you if I had someone back in my quarters?”
Cheeks flushing, she floundered for a few seconds before speaking. “It’s just that the bond came on kind of suddenly. I’d understand if you had—um—loose ends.”
“Bond or no, I can control myself.” He frowned, irritation warring with satisfaction that she was into him enough to want him for herself. “There isn’t anyone else,” he said, biting back a smile. “Well . . . except for Jessica, but—”
“Who’s Jessica?”
The grin escaped. “Well, actually both Jessicas—” He broke off at her expression, at the outrage coating his mind across their link. Laughter made his chest shake and though he tried to get himself under control, he found himself unable to.
“You’re not funny,” she muttered, but eventually she laughed with him, her eyes sparkling, her lips turned up in the sexiest smile he’d ever seen.
And all at once, his amusement cut off and he found himself fighting the urge to go all jungle cat, to pin her to the ground and take her. This desire to claim her was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Part of him understood that it was the biology of their magic that made the attraction so intense.
The rest of him didn’t care.
He wanted.
Wanted to take, to loot and pillage her body, to ply her with pleasure until she was too sated to move an inch.
Swallowing hard, he gripped the log he was sitting on, felt the brittle bark give way under his iron grip.
“Mase?” she asked. “What is it?”
Shaking his head, he released a long breath, counted to ten, did every single calming and focusing exercise he’d learned in his two-plus centuries on this planet.
Not one of them helped.
In fact—incongruously—the only thing that pulled him out of the caveman haze was the soft, sweet silk of Gabby’s palm stroking his cheek, catching slightly on the stubble growing there. Her skin was cool, a balm to the raging heat that boiled within him.
“What is it?” she asked again.
He reached up and pulled her palm from his face, pressing a kiss into its center. “Can’t you feel it?” he murmured, tapping his temple.
“Feel what?” she asked. Tentatively, her mind came into contact with his and he sensed her surprise at the voracity of his desire.
“I’m okay now,” he said, trying to reassure her. “I’ve got it under control.” Regardless of how close to the edge he was, Mason would never allow himself to cross that threshold. Never allow himself to frighten her, to take more than she was willing to give.
Hell, he’d teleport himself to Antarctica if that was what it took to keep her safe.
“But that’s what you’re feeling?” Concern filled her tone, and she cautiously touched his arm. “It’s so intense. If it would make things better for you, maybe we should just bond—”
He shook his head. “Sunshine, you have to be the sweetest woman on the planet for suggesting that.” Smiling when she snorted, he snagged up her fingers and kissed the tips. “But I’m not going to rush this bond between us just because I have the boner to end all boners.”
It was more than that and they both knew it.
But nothing had changed. The bond would be permanent.
Once it was invoked, if he and Gabby didn’t foster their connection, didn’t nourish their relationship, the bond would wither and die. If that happened, they would both lose their magic, and would eventually become mortal.
He didn’t mind humans, but he didn’t want to be one—to be powerless with a short life span. More importantly, he didn’t want Gabby to be altered either.
She laughed at his joke, a rich sound that filled him with a completely different type of pleasure. This woman had become so damned important to him, and he wouldn’t risk her or her happiness.
So, yeah, he could deal with a hard cock.
“I hear it’s worse for the male,” she said.
His gaze met hers, no doubt confused since he was so damned focused on his dick.
She stroked his jaw and his eyes slid closed—God, if taking it slow, if dealing with this perpetual need meant that she kept touching him, then he’d move at a snail’s pace. Because the contact was ecstasy. It was right—searing straight down to his DNA.
“Are you listening?” she asked.
“Mmmhmm.” He nuzzled his cheek into her hand when she stilled. Then smiled as the petting continued. “Male. Worse.”
“You’re incorrigible.” She laughed, but her fingers continued to move over his face then up into his hair. “Daughtry said her book on bonding talked about the biological impact of a bond, and it said the urge to bond is stronger in males—insert something euphemistic about spreading seed and male desires here.”
When he snorted, she laughed again but didn’t stop massaging his scalp.
A few minutes later, though, her fingers slowed and began sliding out from his hair. He wanted to reach for her wrists and pull her back to him, to beg her to continue the action. He didn’t. He also didn’t protest when she returned to her end of the log and picked up one of the granola bars that was their dinner. When she unwrapped it and handed it to him, he ate it.
Thank you, he thought. It wasn’t for the compressed, tasteless granola, but for everything else. For being there. For the support and compassion. For touching him as though she cared.
He repeated the sentiment aloud.
Because she was important.
She might very well become the most important person in his universe.
Nineteen
Gabby
She lay awake, staring through the mesh triangle at the very apex of the tent. It wasn’t that cold out and she’d opted to leave the waterproof covering off in favor of seeing the stars.
Or the little of them that she could spot through the tangle of branches overhead.
Still, the fresh air was nice, and she sucked in a large breath of the crisp, pine-scented stuff, enjoyed the way the heavy, moisture-laden atmosphere almost seemed to coat her lungs. It was like being cleaned from the inside out.
The entire day had been like that.
A soft laugh huffed out of her.
Not twelve hours before she’d been running scared, the fact that she’d loved her Dalshie mother eating a hole in her soul, but Mason’s reaction made her reconsider so many of her thoughts and actions that she didn’t know quite what to think.
When she’d been a child, her father had taken her to one of those traveling circuses, with the pop-up rides and the stands of cotton candy and corn dogs.
She had begged and begged to go on one called Stratosphere and eventually her father had relented.
Quickly, she had gotten way more than she’d anticipated.
Strapped to the side of a rotating room, she’d been spun until her stomach had clenched in displeasure and her throat had burned from holding back bile.
Despite the very different days, the end result was the same.
She was still spinning.
Part of her wondered why she’d been holding on to her fear for so long. Mason understood her motivations and though she wasn’t looking for someone to validate her feelings, it was kind of nice to have him agree with them anyway.
But the abrupt change, the weight being lifted from her chest, no longer having to hold onto the truth like a dirty, little secret, had left her reeling. And thinking.
So much thinking, so late into the night.
Eventually, she came to a conclusion.
Enough—enough worrying and obsessing over and punishing herself.
She didn’t need to love the Dalshie her mother had become, to accept the cruelty and horrific acts as anything aside from what they were. Awful. Evil. Soul-shattering darkness. But she could still remember the glimmers of kindness, still keep those good times close to her heart.
