by Trina M. Lee
My claws left deep gouges in the tabletop. Arys’s name was a constant cry as I spun headlong into the promise of ecstasy.
He never gave me a chance to catch my breath. Releasing his vice-like hold on my wrists, Arys turned me to face him and lifted me onto the table. Stepping in between my legs, he reclaimed my body with his.
He leaned in to kiss me, and I slapped him across the face. It was impulsive and instinctive. My claws left bloody red scratches on his cheek. Mischief gleamed in his eyes. He bared fangs at me in a cocky grin.
“Is that all you’ve got?” He taunted before shoving my arms down and kissing me with a heady fervor that left me breathless.
Even the wolf couldn’t stay mad at him. He oozed sex appeal and a sensual masculinity I couldn’t deny. I clung to him as together we raced toward paradise.
I sensed the bite was coming. I was eager for it when Arys went for my neck with the aggression of a rabid dog. My pained sound only encouraged him. The scent of blood and sex filled the room, an aroma that had come to be both heaven and hell for me.
The sensation of his lips and tongue on my wounded neck combined with the blissful pleasure between my legs easily drove me over the edge. I fell through a cloud of euphoria, becoming entangled in a sticky web of darkness. It threatened to devour me, to cover me in shadows until I was no longer the light to Arys’s dark but one with it instead.
I pushed Arys away. I needed to clear my head. The orgasmic rise and fall of energy was suffocating. He resisted but eventually stepped back, watching me closely.
My hand went to my neck. It wasn’t bad. The bleeding had already slowed. I tugged my robe back into place and hopped off the table. I wasn’t sure how to feel about what just happened.
Buzzing with an overload of energy, I cast a wary glance at Arys. “Wanna tell me what that was all about?”
His midnight blue eyes shone with remnants of our power, though the insane sparkle had thankfully faded. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes, but not the way you’re thinking.” I bent to retrieve my underwear, slipping them back into place. A large bruise on the inside of my thigh caught my eye. “Tell me what happened to you at the hospital. You really freaked me out.”
With a sheepish grin, Arys pushed a hand through his disheveled hair and dropped his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry about that. I’m not sure what happened. Something in the hospital set me off.”
“You think? It’s not funny, Arys. You could have hurt Shaz or me. Or worse. There was serious evil in that place.”
“I’m aware of that.” He turned away, disrobing as he headed for the bedroom. “Whatever is in the basement, it’s evil and it’s pissed.”
He disappeared from sight. I was forced to follow him to continue the conversation. I leaned against the doorframe, watching his fine, naked form slide between the sheets. He patted the bed beside him, but I knew how he worked. I knew that look in his eyes.
Remaining rooted to the spot, I crossed my arms and frowned. “That’s all you’ve got to say? It would have been nice to have you at my side when I faced the FPA. They cuffed me, you know. It was the only way they would let me see Kale.”
“Cuffs can’t hold a werewolf,” he scoffed. “Settle down, Alexa. I can feel your brimming anger like hot needles. I had no control over what happened to me in the hospital. Whatever is in there, it manipulated me. It was the power of the dead. I couldn’t resist it. But I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
Arys regarded me with a haughty expression. I sighed and shook my head. Power, blood and death, the combination was capable of doing bizarre things to a person. I’d seen it with Arys, Kale and even myself.
Trying to reason with him right now was senseless. I was just grateful he’d come down enough to resist tearing my throat out.
“Arys, the cuffs the FPA used were magically enforced. If I used my power, they reflected it back at me with a negative charge so I couldn’t re-absorb it. You can’t dismiss these people as harmless government idiots. They have resources that can be used against us.”
He seemed to ponder this revelation. The small bedside lamp light glinted off his jet-black hair, creating a blue sheen. The sheets were pooled haphazardly in his lap, inviting me to seek out what lie beneath.
I had to give myself a shake. The subtle but strong pull of his allure sought to draw me in again. I couldn’t shield against him. Not when I could always feel him inside.
We stared at one another in silence. I could see him turning it over. The FPA had been a silent threat, so silent that I hadn’t believed the rumors of their existence until I saw them for myself.
Simultaneously we said, “You can’t go back there.”
I laughed and Arys scowled. He was trying to downplay what the old hospital had done to him, but I wasn’t buying it. Not after seeing it with my own eyes.
“Works for me.” I ignored the seductive gaze he turned on me and kept talking as if oblivious. “If I never step foot inside that place again it will be too soon. I’m not sure what was worse, the FPA torture chambers or the dead people on the way up.”
“So what did they want from you? Something you couldn’t give them? Is that why you weren’t able to spring Sinclair from his prison?”
I saw him try to hide it, but his satisfaction was written all over his face. If I were Arys, I would have been satisfied, too. It still irritated me.
“The agent I dealt with accepted my offer of Veryl’s files. In fact, he was quite intrigued when I mentioned them.”
“You can’t even get into those files. If you hand them over and they find something they shouldn’t, you’ll be the one paying the price.” With his head tilted studiously, he rubbed a hand over his chin. “Is that really a risk worth taking?”
“Don’t ask me questions that you don’t want the answers to.”
The black tinted energy leaked from Arys like an oil spill, murky and thick. I was careful not to react, wary of setting him off again. It was going to take some time for him to come down entirely from the rush the hospital’s dark energy had given him.
Arys reclined against the mountain of pillows stacked against the headboard. Folding his hands beneath his head, he fixed me with a look that directly contrasted the casual appearance he exuded.
“I didn’t wait this long to find you just to watch you gamble your life away over another vampire. Be careful, Alexa. I’d hate to have to kill Sinclair to cure you of your recent bout of insanity.”
I gaped at him in shock. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. You’re not yourself right now, and I’m not in the mood to fight with you.”
He beamed a perfectly creepy Cheshire cat smile at me. “But, you’re so sexy when you’re pissed. I thought you were really going to let loose when you threw that slap.” He chuckled, and the sound made me weak in the knees. “Come here, my wolf. Show me the fire inside you.”
Immediately I wanted to go to him, to crawl over the bed to him and climb on top. I resisted with great difficulty. Arys was manipulating me with his intoxicating thrall, pulling me in like he so easily did his victims. I didn’t trust him, not with the predatory way he was looking at me.
“I’m not your victim, Arys, and I won’t be threatened.” I took a few steps toward the bed. “I’ll deal with the FPA however I feel is best. Got it?”
With a raised brow and a twitch of his lips, Arys nodded. “As you wish, your highness. I’ll sit back and watch you figure it out.”
Conflict. Always some kind of conflict. Now that I was more aware of it, I saw how embedded the battle had always been in our relationship. Arys and I had been butting heads long before we’d shared a bed. It was always in us, the inability to maintain the delicate balance of what we shared.
It would follow us always. I feared the day it would escalate from petty arguments to something that would truly put us at odds. It had happened once before, six months ago when I’d killed Arys’s sire. Things had gotten pretty bad. I couldn’t shake the sense of
foreboding that gripped me, telling me it would get worse yet.
I shoved the unwelcome feeling away and focused only on the current moment. Worry about a time that had yet to come was useless, so I gave in to the lure of the mesmerizing vampire instead.
The desire to have him inside me again was fueled by his drowning blue gaze. Arys crooked a finger, beckoning me to come to him.
“I believe we were just getting started.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I don’t like this, Lex.” Worry filled Shaz’s jade eyes. “There’s got to be another way.”
“I don’t like it either, but I need you to do what you do best: Be Alpha and take care of our wolves.”
We stood on the deck in Kylarai’s backyard. The sun had set an hour ago. The stars were peeking out through the dark veil of the night sky. The moon spilled silver light down upon us. That beautiful light would grow in its brilliance as the night went on. I ached to run down the deck stairs to the grass below, to plunge my fingers into the earth and be one with the beast inside. Instead, I would be spending the full moon with demons.
Shaz’s jaw was clenched, and his eyes were all wolf, the green obliterating the whites entirely. “What if you need me? Have you ever gone a full moon night without being wolf? It just sounds so dangerous.”
“No, I haven’t. All I want to do right now is tear my clothes off, drop to all fours and tear across that field at top speed.” I sighed, a sound of self-pity. “Arys will be with me though. It’ll be fine.”
“Or, he’ll make it twice as hard for you because he relies on you to keep the wolf at bay.”
Shaz was skeptical and rightfully so. The power of my wolf lived in Arys due to our bond. More than once, it had exceeded his control. The wolf couldn’t manifest through a vampire into a physical form. Arys relied entirely on my shift to ease the burden of the beast that lived deep within him.
“Or, he could wolf out,” I acknowledged as my gaze strayed to the glass patio doors.
Kylarai, Coby and Zak sat around the kitchen table enjoying drinks and small talk. Ky’s laughter carried through the glass panes as she cracked up at something Coby had said. She sipped from a teacup and reached to touch his arm, peering at him from beneath her long lashes. She was flirting with him.
I smiled, turning back to Shaz so she wouldn’t see me. “It will be easier for me to deal with Lilah if I know you are here. Safe.”
“But, I won’t have the same assurance about you.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he stared out at the tree line in the distance.
Shaz was conflicted, torn between his obligation to me and to himself, but I didn’t want to be an obligation. I needed him, but I could survive without him if it meant seeing him discover himself and find freedom from the dark world I’d drawn him into. I could let him go if I had to. As much as the wolf inside fought and snarled against that decision, she too knew that love sometimes meant letting go.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Shaz. Put yourself first for a change. Be wolf with the others and be happy. You’re far too beautiful to go giving yourself worry lines.” I gave him a playful nudge and swallowed the sudden burst of raw emotion.
He captured my hand, raising it to his lips. Pressing a kiss to my palm, he breathed in my scent as if afraid he would forget it if he didn’t memorize it now. We stood there with nothing more to say. Kylarai’s laughter was the only sound, muffled by the closed patio doors but musical just the same.
I smiled, but it hurt to do so. I didn’t want to leave my wolves, especially Shaz. I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe everything would go off without a hitch tonight. A demon with a price on my head wasn’t going to be easy to subdue, particularly if I really was all that stood between her and the freedom from her curse.
Death held more terror for me now than it ever had before. Because of the blood bond I’d formed with Arys, I was guaranteed to rise as a vampire upon my mortal death. I had grown to fear that transformation so desperately that I’d asked Shaz and Kylarai a few weeks ago to kill me if I became little more than a bloodthirsty maniac. Arys was not aware of my request nor did I want him to be.
“I should go,” I forced the words out.
With a nod, he released my hand, hesitating just a moment before he pulled me into his arms. Tucking my head under his chin, I closed my eyes and savored the comfort of his embrace. It reminded me of a time when we had been so close that people assumed we were lovers before we’d even kissed. Things had changed, but I could still feel that connection between us, buried under the rubble of our broken romance.
When he let me go, I felt like something was missing. My wolf leaped against my insides, demanding to be freed. It was getting harder to resist.
I turned to go, my hand on the patio door.
Shaz’s voice followed me. “Be careful, Lex.”
The scent of coffee and werewolf hit me when I stepped inside. Shaz remained on the deck, staring out at the night. After wishing the wolves at the table a nice night, I headed for the front door with Kylarai hot on my heels.
“Are you ok?” She asked in a soft whisper when we stood alone on the front step. “The tension between the two of you is suffocating.”
“I’m fine. I just wish I could stay.”
“Liar.”
“Ok, I’m lying.” Trying to hide anything from the mother hen of the group was hopeless. She knew both Shaz and me well. She was the big sister neither of us ever had. “I’m not fine. I’m coming apart inside and doing my damnedest to hide it.”
The confession felt good. Keeping everything buried was hurting me, not helping.
“You’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings. It’s one of the things I love most about you.” Kylarai’s grey eyes shone with warmth. She gave me a tight hug that crushed the breath from me. “We need to have some quality girl time. You don’t have to bear every burden alone.”
I nodded and bit my lip, trying to hold back my next words. “Shaz is leaving town, Ky. I don’t know how I’m going to survive without him.”
Her smile faded, and she gave a solemn nod. “I know. He told me. I’m so sorry, Lex. Maybe it will be for the best. Give you both a chance to sort things out.”
“I know,” I sniffled, cursing the few stray tears that had escaped. Clear and human, they mocked me in ways blood tears did not.
“He’s leaving because he loves you, Alexa. Because he wants to be the link to the light that you need to battle Arys’s darkness. He knows now what that means.”
“How is that possible when I don’t even know?”
Ky shrugged and pushed a blonde lock out of my eyes. “He has faith. And, so should you. Everything happens for a reason. Your link to Arys, your love for Shaz, it all has to mean something. Remember that.”
She was right. Staying strong would carry me through. That’s what I needed now. “Take care of each other tonight, ok? I’ve got to go.”
Arys was waiting in my car. I got in, started the engine and backed out of Kylarai’s driveway without a glance in his direction. I didn’t want him to see the pain I fought down inside. I had to change my focus. Tonight’s rendezvous permitted no room for crippling emotion.
I could feel the weight of his gaze as I drove. The vampire was a clever creature though, and he knew better than to ask whatever questions were dancing on the tip of his tongue. He allowed me to pretend everything was fine and dandy until we reached the outskirts of the city.
“Might as well head down to the Avenue. It’s still early but hunting down a snack shouldn’t be too hard.” Arys sounded uninterested. Bored.
The Avenue was a strip just off the downtown core, known for being a fast paced, highly frequented red light district. It was my hunting ground of choice when the demands of the bloodlust became too much. I wasn’t proud of the things I’d done there, but it was my best alternative to mindlessly slaughtering innocents. I just didn’t feel quite so bad about spilling the blood of a man that used and abused fi
fteen-year-old girls.
“That’s not what you really want though, is it?” I eased the Charger to a stop at a red light and glanced his way. “You like them with enough innocence to make it wrong. Don’t you?”
A wicked smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve seen my memories. You tell me.”
“If I wasn’t here, you’d be hunting one of the prostitutes. Or, maybe some random passerby that captures your attention. Someone that you can play the game with. Someone you can draw in, work into a frenzy, and devour.”
I wasn’t wrong. His silence confirmed that. The differences between the two of us were becoming more apparent all the time. Since I’d learned we were twin flames, I had been looking harder at each of us, seeking evidence of the light and dark we were both said to possess, and I was finding it. True to the yin-yang description, we each held a little of the other inside.
“Ladies choice tonight,” Arys said with a wink. “How’s that sound?”
“Fantastic,” I replied, my tone thick with sarcasm.
I pulled the car into the parking lot of a small, vacant church. We quickly joined the rest of the creatures of the night, prowling the streets for the perfect victim. The Avenue was not where I wanted to be. The stink of car exhaust and the filthy city streets made me long that much more for the clean earthy scent of the forest and the wolves that should be running at my side. Not being there with them, it felt so wrong.
We passed a row of abandoned buildings complete with smashed windows and graffiti. Dark stains marred the concrete in several places. The screech of tires echoed a few blocks away. Loud rock music poured out of a sketchy bar at the end of the street.
Arys captured my hand in his as if we were just a regular couple out for a stroll. “Your wolf feels wild tonight. Dangerous.”
His fingers were cool between mine, maybe more so because of the heat rushing through my veins. I burned with the wolf. Arys was hinting his concerns but not asking. Good man.
“I’ll be fine,” I tried to say with cool assurance, but it came out through gritted fang teeth. My fingers were tipped with deadly claws, and I had to concentrate hard on the human sights and scents around me. “I’m not sure I can do this. The bloodlust is buried so deep tonight. I can barely feel it at all.”
