She stepped back, anticipating the way his hold tightened.
Because she’d been counting on it.
***
The sorceress jerked her hand to his chest as sparks of blue lightning rolled across her eyes. Searing heat punched through the center of her palm and straight into him.
The wolf howled in his head as he fumbled to clutch the bookcase. He’d drop without something to hold onto.
Releasing him, Elena stumbled out of reach, steadier than he was, but still hurting.
The bookshelf seemed to slip through his fingers and Vaughn dropped to his knees anyway, his body too stunned to respond to every mental order to get the fuck off the floor.
Elena cocked her head like she was straining to hear something he couldn’t. He didn’t need to hear it to know the crown was reaching out to her somehow.
A new kind of fear iced his blood. “Wait!”
“No more Simon Says, Barkley.” She turned, staggering into the end of the bookshelf before she caught her balance and disappeared around the corner.
He didn’t know how she’d done it, or how she’d gotten out of the car and room downstairs, but she’d need more than whatever it was to ditch him now.
He pushed to his feet, his knees buckling three steps in. He sucked in a breath, forcing his legs to hold him. “Elena!”
His vision went fuzzy at the edges, his eyes watering as if the heat had singed every cell in his body.
He paused, listening, then spun to the right. His coordination returned with each step. He rushed through the stacks, registering another set of steps somewhere behind him. Dare, he hoped.
“Elena!” Vaughn almost ran past her.
She was crouched in the middle of an aisle, gaze locked on something on the bottom shelf.
He backtracked, approaching her carefully. There was no way to know if she had any other cards left to play.
“You don’t want to mess with that, Ivy. We both know how unpredictable that kind of magic is. Let’s just talk, okay?”
“Now you want to talk?” she drawled.
“We both know I screwed up,” he admitted.
He’d taken one look at her after she collapsed, when she’d sat there waiting for him to acknowledge their bond, and he’d left her.
Again.
Because he knew if he stayed he’d never be able to go through with the exchange. Just like he knew it now. He couldn’t sacrifice his mate. He had to find another way. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the man his parents believed him to be. Wouldn’t deserve his sister’s faith in him, or ever earn the love of the incredible female in front of him.
Even after everything he’d put her through, Elena had tried reaching him, and he’d turned away from her.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again. “I need your help, Ivy.”
“How convenient,” she mocked, her attention locked on the box within her reach.
The wolf snarled in his head, both man and beast knowing her fascination with the crown was about to make a hell-and-gone situation a thousand times worse. He needed her attention off that box. Now.
“Dare says I need to trust you.”
She didn’t respond right away. “I wish it wasn’t too late for that.” She reached for the box.
This time he snarled aloud, the wolf wanting out. “It’s not too late. Come on, Ivy. Look at me.”
“She said she’s not my enemy.”
She? The Iron Queen? His gut twisted. “Is she talking to you?” He’d seen how Elena reacted in the chamber, but she’d never said a damn thing about hearing any voices.
She ignored him, preoccupied with something he couldn’t pick up on, but it was driving the wolf crazy. The animal in him was near savage, pacing and growling and pressing so close to the surface Vaughn’s skin grew feverish. “The Iron Queen is dead and that thing is playing with your head.”
“Maybe. But what if she’s right? What if the crown can save me, can save them all? I won’t have to lose another one.”
Lose another what? “It just wants to use you.” Vaughn didn’t have a clue if Elena could even open the box and channel magic that old, but he knew damn well whatever she was hearing was making her think she could.
And he didn’t want to test that theory today or any other.
“Maybe I can save her, too.”
He frowned. “Save who, Ivy?”
She parted her lips, but he didn’t wait for her answer. He threw himself at her, knocking them both away from the box and into the shelf behind her. Books rained down around them.
Elena jammed her foot between them as they hit the ground, using the momentum to throw him over her. The landing jarred him but he didn’t stay down.
Where the hell did that come from? Elena relied on magic, not physical combat.
He pivoted just fast enough to catch her ankle and jerked her toward him. This time he was ready for the leg she tried to nail him with, flipping her onto her belly.
She smashed her head back, clipping his chin. Blood pooled across his lip.
“What other secrets have you been keeping, Ivy?”
“You have no idea,” she snapped, jamming her elbow into his side.
Half prepared for it, he grunted through the pain and pressed her harder into the floor.
Like a pretzel coming undone, she snaked her leg between his, using the leverage to get to her side. Still not himself after the earlier shock of heat she’d nailed him with, he was slower to respond, but managed to keep her pinned beneath him.
For a whole three seconds.
So determined to trap her in place, his hand grazed her chest, and she took full advantage. Another sizzle of heat hit him, not as strong as before but carried enough kick to throw him off balance when she pitched her hips hard to the left.
She scrambled out from beneath him, leaving him between her and the crown.
Unfortunately, that still left her far too close as far as he was concerned.
“Take it,” he ordered Dare, who’d finally joined the party.
Elena craned her neck, watching Dare dart in to grab the box behind Vaughn and retreat. “Don’t. We need it,” she pleaded.
Dare hesitated. “Maybe we—”
“We can’t take that chance. It could kill her,” he snapped.
“And we wouldn’t want anything to happen to little ole me before the deal goes down.” She lunged for Vaughn.
He caught her around the waist. “Go,” he yelled at Dare.
Torn, his friend finally obeyed.
Elena shoved Vaughn back, spinning around as if she planned to cut Dare off.
Vaughn sprinted after her, knocking aside the books she shoved off the shelf in his direction. “Throwing obstacles in my path didn’t work so well for you the last time.”
She ignored the barb meant to provoke a response and increased her speed.
Shit.
He jumped a shorter set of shelves and missed snagging her shirt. The sorceress was quicker on her feet than he’d ever witnessed.
Did it have something to do with the crown or was there more to it than that?
He heard a door slam ahead, one Dare was hopefully already trying to lock or jam shut, trapping Elena in with Vaughn.
She rounded the last set of shelves three steps ahead of Vaughn, slamming her palms on the door when it wouldn’t budge. She didn’t waste time badgering Dare to unlock it, but whipped around to confront Vaughn. “I’m done playing nice.”
Whatever hold the crown on her, it had intensified since they first encountered it below the Wolf’s Den.
“The Iron Queen is gone.” Had been for a very long time if the myths were to be believed.
Elena shook her head, rubbing at the brand on her chest as though to soothe the pain there. “You don’t understand.”
“I know it’s not real.” She had to know that. She was far too smart to trust magic that old, especially when she’d witnessed firsthand what manipulative, ancient beings were capable of when
driven by revenge.
And he wouldn’t be surprised if the residual magic left over from a dead queen put down by her own family might hunger for vengeance.
Whatever was happening, though, it was his fault. He’d left his mate weak, vulnerable. He wouldn’t let that thing manipulate her when she’d already been through enough.
It ended here. Now.
She thrust a hand out. “Tell Dare to open the door.”
“I can’t do that.”
Her tracings vanished and then reappeared as she cried out. He reached for her, but she backed away. “What if it’s the only way I can save them? Save her?”
“So you don’t lose anyone else?” he asked gently, wondering if it had been her talking or the ancient magic influencing her.
She nodded, her attention straying toward the door.
Was it still reaching out to her?
He closed the distance between them. She was too distracted to notice until he was all the way in her personal space. “Tell me about them, the ones you couldn’t save.”
“No. I need—”
He grabbed her arm. “It’s gone, Elena.”
Her eyes flashed with a fury he recognized. Now there was his sorceress. Dare must have put enough distance between her and the crown to ease its hold on her.
“You want to be mad at someone, take it out on me.”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
“I know that’s probably what you want me to believe. Honestly? I don’t think you want to hurt me any more than I want to hurt you.”
“You kidnapped me, locked down my magic, drove me off the road, left me defenseless against a wraith, and taunt me with ancient magic that would crush you, all the while waiting to trade me away. I’ve got a hundred reasons to hurt you.”
“Then do it.” He reached for her. “You want to hurt me, then go ahead.”
“Don’t,” she warned, a sliver of panic creeping into her voice.
She might be furious with him, might never be able to forgive him for what he’d done, but she still cared. He could see it in the eyes she let slide shut a beat later. If she wanted to hurt him, this was her moment.
“You can’t keep doing this. I can’t…” she whispered, the rest of her words slipping away.
He cupped her face, wondering if it was possible to hate himself any more than he did at that very moment.
She gripped his wrist, tugging it away. “You gave up the right to touch me when you walked out on me in Vegas.”
The change in subject gave him hope that the crown’s proximity her biggest trigger. Needing her mind on something besides tracking Dare and the siren’s call of the crown, he’d talk about anything, even Vegas.
“Is that what you’re really pissed about? That I was the one who walked away and not you?”
Her gaze turned murderous, and he knew he finally had her full attention.
“Probably doesn’t happen often, does it?” He searched her face. “Unless… That wasn’t the first time it happened to you, was it?” He whistled. “Must have been a blow to the ego.”
“I know what you’re doing and it won’t work.”
“And what am I doing?” Aside from being an even bigger asshole than ever before.
“Get out of my way.”
“Not to sound juvenile,” he parroted, “but make me.” He was ready for anything. A burst of heat, one of her blue balls of fire, a kick, a punch, a knee to the groin. He’d telegraphed every possibility in his mind, except one.
She let her hands fall back to her sides. “I’m not going to hate you.”
“Two minutes ago you would have set me on fire if you could have.”
“That was…before.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re just trying to provoke me to keep yourself from feeling like a dick for not telling me the truth. That I’m your mate.”
“I think I liked it better when you wanted to set me on fire.” It made it a hell of a lot easier to fight the wolf’s need to hold onto her, and that didn’t compare to the need Vaughn felt to keep her close and never let go.
“You should have told me,” she said softly.
“The truth—” he tucked her hair behind her ear because he couldn’t not touch her, “—is that I that meeting you during the Gauntlet was like taking a hundred strikes of lightning at once. I was completely blindsided.”
Her eyes widened, and he almost stopped himself there. He wasn’t even sure who he’d been trying to spare by saying nothing—her or himself. But it ended now.
“I should have told you,” he continued, “I should have told that night in Vegas was the best night of my life.”
She shook her head, the haunting gray of her eyes slicing him wide open as the words kept coming.
“I should have told you that there isn’t a smarter, sexier, stronger woman I’d ever want for a mate.”
Her lids drifted shut and a shudder went through her.
He waited for her to look at him, completely undone at the tear that slid down her cheek when she finally glanced at him.
“And I should have told you that I think I fell in love with you the moment you called me Superman.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Elena had one moment of warning, one fierce beat of her heart that knocked against her ribs, signaling disaster, and then she had nothing left in the tank.
No witty comeback, no ounce of strength, no whisper of breath.
Between the physical exhaustion of fighting the brand, the Fae queen’s voice in her head, and the emotional upheaval every time Vaughn looked at her, she was just…done.
Her knees gave out, and then Vaughn was there, keeping her upright, arms locked around her like there wasn’t a force in this world that could ever tear her away from him.
Twice in twenty-four hours she’d found herself in this place, her world so out of focus she barely recognized it, and at the same time so painfully clear she couldn’t see anything but him.
A life of him holding her, kissing her, tickling her. A life of laughter and games and food they would hate and trade to one another. A life of adventure and new experiences and enjoying something as simple as curling up together on a rainy afternoon.
A few months ago none of those things had been in the cards for her. Her sister, her dysfunctional parents, the people she worked to save—they had been enough.
They were supposed to be enough.
So why did she crave him and a life together with a need so fierce it bordered on feral?
“Ivy,” he pleaded, for what she wasn’t sure. And then he captured her mouth in a soft, slow slide and nothing else mattered.
Sweet Avalon. She’d been so wrong. Now she was done. Exquisitely, meltingly done.
Clinging to the last bit of resolve that bubbled up from the deepest part of her, the part she held onto when her mother left, when her sister lost her way, when she realized she couldn’t save all of Morgana’s victims, she drew back.
She didn’t need much room, just enough to say one thing without brushing the lips she could sink into over and over again for the next thousand years. “If you do that again, you’d better not stop.”
He grinned and dragged her even closer.
She couldn’t inhale without feeling him move against her everywhere from her knees to the tops of her shoulders. The wolf was impossible to resist, and like always, he seemed to know it.
He caught her hand and tucked it around his neck, nipping the side of her jaw until she finally ran her fingers through the ends of his hair.
He growled in pleasure. “I won’t stop, Ivy. Not unless you make me.”
If there was ever a moment to stop all of this before she ended up with another scar on her heart, it was now.
Impossibly blue eyes burned into hers, waiting.
She tugged him down, pressing her lips to his forehead, lingering, falling even deeper. There was no saving herself her at this point anyway.
She was all in.
&
nbsp; The moment Vaughn realized that, he snatched her off the floor. She wrapped her legs around him as he carried her the few feet to the closest table, something within her surging to awareness, driving away the pain, the fever, the doubts.
She barely felt him set her down, lost in the heat of the mouth that never left hers, not for a second.
This kiss was so hot and hungry and perfect. It didn’t seem to matter where they were or whether or not they were trading barbs, eating, dancing or fighting at any given moment. It was always hot, always on the edge of wild and just…perfect.
He dragged her shirt over her head, his mouth finding the curve between her neck and shoulder, one hand tangling in her hair, the other warming her where his fingers gripped her arm.
Hours ago her world had fallen out from beneath her, and with every kiss that lasted a moment longer than the one before, every brush of his fingers across her heart, he rebuilt her foundation until it felt like nothing could tear her down again.
Vaughn stilled. “What’s wrong? Is it the brand?”
Something on her face must have given her serious thoughts away. “I’m fine.”
The lines around his mouth deepened.
“I’m okay,” she insisted. Maybe not entirely, but as long as he kept touching her she could survive whatever came next.
He didn’t look convinced.
“Unless you’re worried I’m just playing you.”
“No,” he said with such conviction, she felt it somehow echo through both man and wolf.
“How do you know?” She had to ask, had to know one of them was halfway in their right mind, because Avalon help her, it wasn’t her.
He caged her face in his palms. “Because this is what your face looks like when you’re holding onto the light.”
A handful of words and she was back on shaky ground all over again. Gods, she hadn’t stood a chance when she’d given him her heart.
She hooked a finger in the waist of his pants, drawing him as close as he could get. “I don’t remember telling you to stop.”
He punished the comment with another kiss so fierce it drew the warmth from the bottom of her feet straight to her core. Anxious to touch him, she worked his shirt off, sucking in a breath when she noticed the wounds from the wraith still hadn’t faded.
Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles Page 24
