Assembly: The Feral Souls Trilogy - Book 2

by Woods, Erica

  And now, I wished to do the same for Hope.

  The need to feel her, to hold her, to soothe her and shoulder her every burden, expanded. It filled my chest and pushed at the cold presence there.

  The beast did not understand.

  Baser instincts demanded we uncover the truth. A name. The identity of a male who, despite what our sweet human might believe, was very likely dangerous.

  The predator grew restless at this bleak reminder, cool anger sharpening under the warning of a possible threat; rumbling when the female shook her head in mute refusal of Lucien’s questions. We were at odds, my beast and I. Until a sharp word from our packmate made tears glitter in soft, vulnerable eyes, and everything went silent.

  “That is enough.” I did not raise my voice. I did not yell or shout or roar. Inside, I was still. Not calm, not relaxed, not anything of the kind. Just an endless, expectant stillness.

  I blinked, and when light once more intruded, I found myself hovering above Hope.

  It had not been much, a second, maybe two, but I had lost time.

  While I attempted to get myself back under control, Lucien drew himself to his full height and slapped me with the kind of look that made all humans—and many lycans—wilt.

  “What is the matter with you? We cannot afford to protect her sensibilities. Not when the stakes are this high.” He yanked a hand through his hair, glanced at the wetness on Hope’s cheeks and recoiled. An endless minute ticked by in silence, then his expression darkened. “What if one of the things she hides ends up hurting our brothers? What if she hides something that ends up hurting her? What if she gets herself killed?”

  Killed?

  Something rippled in that place of stillness. A blue fire that roared to life, devouring all oxygen, all flesh, all thoughts, until the only thing left was cold. A calculating, cutting cold. I struggled to hold on to the human part of me, the part I had inherited from my mother, but like the river that cut across the land I had once called home, it would not dry up until nature forced its hand.

  I looked down at our little female, saw the need she had of me, of gentleness and comfort. I looked to Lucien, saw how close he was to breaking, to losing a war that had left him raw and bleeding. I saw my pack needing me, and I failed to beat back the beast, failed to deny the pull of the moon, failed to provide the security they both needed in that moment.

  I failed them.

  “You do not think you can protect her?” I forced the question past the bitter flavor coating my tongue, out through a jaw that felt stiff and not made for speaking.

  Lucien bristled. “Of course I can keep her safe. But a part of that is making her realize she cannot continue keeping things from us. How am I meant to protect her when I’m unaware of the danger? The female does not listen to us, Ash. She never truly did.”

  The female in question finally joined the conversation. “T-that’s not true,” she whispered. “I do listen.”

  “No, you do not.” Lucien speared her with a hard glare. “You occasionally listen to Ruarc, but in the end, you do as you please.”

  Hope gasped. “That’s not true!”

  “When we told you not to leave the house without us, what did you do?” Lucien’s reminder of her time on the porch and the subsequent attack made the chill coating my insides grow teeth. “When Ruarc made it clear you were not allowed to go shopping while he was away, what did you do? And when we inquire about your secrets, you refuse to divulge them. You see, Ash, she is not compelled to obey our commends, neither can we persuade her to talk when she’s unwilling.”

  I did not like to admit it, but Lucien had a point. Hope often appeared meek, unwilling to anger us, too scared to go against our orders. But apparently appearances could be deceiving for it was true she often disregarded our will and went on her merry way.

  Heat filled my chest and pulled at my lips.

  This show of backbone made me proud. Of her, for refusing to let fear define her, and of us, for making her feel safe enough to rebel.

  When I went back to study Hope with this new information, I was startled to see tears trailing down her cheeks. “Banajaanh . . .” I went to my haunches and tilted her head up. “What is wrong?”

  A delicate sniff and more tears welled. “I can never do anything right. Even when I try, I fail miserably.” She stared up at me with wounded eyes, willing me to understand. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to create problems for you, I swear, and the last thing I would ever want is to put you in danger.” A haunted look flitted across her delicate face. “If I could tell you, I would, but I owe him. It . . . it wouldn’t be right. Not until I’ve spoken to him.”

  With a contemptuous exhale, Lucien threw both his hands up. “This again!”

  Hope’s sad gaze went back to the floor. Seeing this, Lucien’s brows furrowed. He stood still, staring down at our female, then muttered a low curse and began pacing.

  With the moon bringing the feral part of me to the forefront, I struggled to understand our female’s turmoil.

  She is perfect. A little fragile, but strong.

  I found myself drawn to her vulnerability, her tender skin and fine bones. For a predatory species that valued power and strength, I should have been surprised at the fierce attraction I felt for our little female.

  But I was not.

  Strength came in many shapes and sizes, and the kind of strength Hope possessed was the kind that too often went overlooked. The rarest kind. It was the strength to keep living when the easier choice was dying. The strength to retain kindness when the world had only ever shown cruelty. The strength to stand up for others even when standing up for oneself was impossible.

  It was pure, beautiful, unselfish strength.

  And it infused every inch of her soul.

  Another tear fell to the floor. I could only stare at it, aching, while trying to understand the reason for her sorrow. Had I been my normal self, I suspected the matter would have been clear, but with my beast so close to the surface, human emotions seemed a distant, inexplicable thing.

  “Why are you sad, banajaanh?”

  Delicate brows squished together. “I . . . I just told you.”

  I mentally replayed the conversation, trying to listen with my human self, to convince my beast to retreat, if only for a little. “You will not hurt us.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “Is that not what you fear?”

  “Not . . . not the only thing,” she said, but her voice shook and a shadow fell over her expression, telling me if it were not her only fear, it was undeniably the biggest.

  “What else?”

  Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth. “Everything I said. I just . . . I can’t do anything—” She drew in a deep breath while I pretended her wobbly voice failed to disturb me. “Never mind.”

  “Please, banajaanh, do not shut me out.”

  Her whole body shuddered. “You have no idea how much you all mean to me.” Earnest eyes rose and stared at me with an intensity Hope rarely displayed. The unintentional challenge excited my wolf. “You have given me so much, while I . . . I give nothing back,” she finished on a brittle whisper.

  My heart ached.

  “That is not true.” I gripped her chin, forced her to meet my gaze, see a truth I would never dream of concealing. “You have given us so much more than you can imagine.”

  She snorted, the sound both filled with scorn and a breathless kind of anguish. “I’ve only given you problems. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I’d never met you. Then you wouldn’t be in this situation with the Assembly and the fighting between you and—”

  “Stop.” A ripple beneath my skin, an ache in my bones. The thought of never having met her, of our female wandering the highway wounded and alone . . . “Everything you just said is untrue. Do not begrudge us our choices or diminish them by regretting coming into our lives. Can you not see how you have changed things for us? And not for the worse,” I added when it looked
like she was about to cry. “I have never seen Jason laugh as much as he has these last few weeks, and you cannot tell me you have failed to notice the joy you have brought Ruarc. Before you, all he did was fight and patrol our borders.” I allowed my thumb to stroke across her cheek, savoring her softness, her trust. “No, banajaanh. You enrich our lives; you do not take away from them.”

  A bright light lit in the depths of our female’s expressive eyes. I could have basked in that light, bathed in it for years and never have grown weary of the sight. And when a tremulous smile shaped her soft lips, the heavy mantle always weighing me down lifted.

  “You really mean that?” she whispered.

  “I do.”

  I waited for her smile to widen, for her tears to dry, but instead, she shuddered and almost crumpled to the ground.

  I caught her, pulled her into my arms. “Hope?”

  Another shudder, then she tilted her head back, that tremulous smile wavering. “Sorry, I . . . I may have eaten too little.

  The lie was easy to read, but before I could puzzle it out, a hesitant touch to my chest had my world shrink down to the female in my lap and instinct took over.

  Female so close. My female.

  The sweet scent that was unique to the feminine bundle in my arms rose with taunting force. A deep inhale later, and my wolf bit through his shackles.

  We dipped our head. Shared her breath. Stilled.

  We waited, the wolf’s patience mixing with mine; both unwilling to scare our future mate.

  Hope didn’t move, didn’t blink. Eyes impossibly wide, she stared back at us.

  And then she licked her lip.

  Wrestling back control, I tasted her lower lip—so sweet—using my tongue to trace the path she had just ventured across. A high-pitched squeak was my reward. My wolf insisted she wanted to play, wanted us to chase her, catch her, mark her.

  But, I pulled back. Waited once more.

  Warm. Soft. Pliant. She remained in my lap, not stiff or tense, but wound tight. Her pupils had grown so big there was almost no brown left. I chuffed. The soulful brown color was my favorite.

  My hands found their way into her long, silky mane. Gently, not wanting to scare her, I angled her head back, her sharp intake of breath like being enveloped by fire. For the third time, I waited, and when she did not speak, did not protest, did not do anything but shiver, I nuzzled at her unmarked throat.

  Mostly unmarked.

  There were traces of both Ruarc and Jason, but only faint. It reminded me she was not ours yet, and that knowledge did not sit easy. Neither did my determination to claim her despite a life not yet fully lived, despite the risks.

  I should have feared for the fate of the world should she be taken from me. I should have feared for my pack, for myself, for the promises I had made when my life had burned. But the only thing I feared was not being enough. Not being able to protect her. Failing her like I had failed in the past.

  And yet, I could not stop. Not unless she, herself, told me to. I had made my choice, and she was it.

  “Little female,” I murmured as I kissed my way down her throat. “So sweet. So delicate.” I swiped my tongue over her pulse point, her gasp of pleasure a thrill greater than any hunt.

  But I was not the only one who heard.

  I listened intently to Jason getting up two rooms over, to the sound of Lucien’s pacing coming to a halt somewhere out at the terrace.

  Driven by instinct—not only that of my wolf, but that of the man knowing our female needed comfort, not questions—I grabbed her around the waist and jogged to the room I had claimed as my own.

  “Where are you go—Ash!” Lucien’s furious roar was cut off when I barred the door behind us. The cabin was built for lycans, and breaking through the door would take time.

  “Ash, what are—oh!” Hope’s confusion was cut off and turned into a wordless plea when my lips once again found her neck.

  Her fingers dug into my shoulders, but she didn’t tilt her head to give me freer access. Instead, she glanced at me, bit her lip, looked away only to steal another peek.

  Shy.

  A strong, protective instinct flared in my chest, chased by warm tenderness. Gently, I took hold of her chin, turned her to face me, and brushed my mouth over hers.

  She opened like a flower reaching for the sun, her breathy sigh mixing with the sound of relief I could not contain. Not when she responded to my touch like she had been born to be mine.

  “Are you scared, banajaanh?” I placed a tender kiss at the corner of her mouth. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “Ash . . .”

  I waited, but when she did not say anything else, I gave her a gentle nudge. “That is not an answer.”

  “I—no. No, I don’t want you to . . . to stop.”

  I carried her to the bed and placed her on her back, careful to hold my weight on my elbows as I leaned over her. “They have explained this, your other males? You know this is your choice?”

  At the mention of Ruarc and Jason she stiffened. “I know, but I . . . I shouldn’t.” She averted her gaze, but not before I caught a glimpse of guilt.

  “You should not,” I agreed easily, and when hurt flooded her face, I hurt with her. “But only if you do not want to. Know that despite Ruarc’s possessive tendencies, he will not be upset at sharing you with me. With the pack. If anything”—a wry smile twisted my lips—“he may be angry with me for stealing your time, but banajaanh, he will not hold anything against you. For Ruarc, your safety is the most important thing, and he knows any males who claim you will protect you with their life.”

  The assurance landed on deaf ears.

  “I don’t want anyone dying for me!” she cried. “And I don’t want them to be upset with you either.”

  “You are kind to think of me, but you worry too much. All you need to decide is if you want this. If you want me.” I kept my voice steady, free of the kind of vulnerability that came with laying my heart at her feet. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel any kind of pressure. “I promise you, neither Ruarc nor Jason will be hurt by us being together.”

  Hope bit her lip, the poor abused flesh already bearing several marks from the day’s emotional roller coaster ride. “I . . . I want you.”

  For several long moments, I could not breathe for the joy those words brought. I rested my forehead against hers, not moving until her hands hesitantly came to my temple, touching a braid.

  “I like these,” she whispered, rubbing one between her fingers, looking so transfixed that I could not help but claim her mouth in another kiss.

  After that, words became unnecessary. I let her explore—she seemed as obsessed with my hair as I was with hers—and while my beast thrashed in his bonds and my chest burned with need, I took my time, unwrapping her like a most beloved present; revealing bare skin one piece of clothing at a time.

  My grated patience was rewarded by tiny sighs and soft mewls of pleasure for every inch of smooth flesh I uncovered—and inevitably tasted. Her sounds cut through my control, and once she lay before me without a stitch of clothing, I knew it would not have mattered what she looked like. My response would always have been this.

  She is so beautiful.

  Smooth, unblemished skin. A sweet, feminine scent. Soft flesh with dips and valleys to explore. Naked and vulnerable, she was as lovely as the blush of a new sun. But it was her shy smile that stole my breath. Her half-lidded gaze that drew my beast. The rise of and fall of her chest, the beat of her gentle heart that captured mine in its entirety.

  I renewed my exploration, tasting her lips, her throat, the gentle slope of her shoulder, the delicate rise of her collar bone. Her eyes fluttered shut, her shyness replaced by need. She squirmed, tried to muffle her sounds by clamping her jaw shut, so I drew her nipple into my mouth and grazed it with my teeth.

  A sharp gasp, a drawn out moan.

  The skin along my back rippled, but I pushed the feral part of me down.

  She was in
nocent in her responses, completely honest in her passion. The effect of her was drugging.

  Wide eyes and a breathless gasp greeted me when I looked up after kissing my way down her body. “Y-you don’t h-have to—oh!”

  The sweetness on my tongue was heaven. I closed my eyes and savored her honeyed taste. But instead of giving into the throbbing yearning, of truly claiming her body the way mine longed to do, I tore my mouth away and continued down.

  A ragged gasp broke from her throat when I dragged my tongue over the pulse point on her inner thigh. A quick bite and another lick, and I followed the lines of her body until I reached her ankle.

  The journey was not made by accident—the vicious wound that had soured my stomach and reminded me of the killing rage lurking deep down behind all my layers of control was my true destination.

  Breathing through my nose, her scent filled every inch of my being. No hint of rot or blood or weakness of any kind, just as Ruarc had assured me. And remembering what else he had said—that Hope was ashamed of what had to be a vicious and angry scar—I did not prod at the bandage she no longer needed.

  I moved down to the curve of her heel, grazing my teeth over the skin there while she made a sound that was halfway between a groan and a giggle, and my lungs stopped working.

  I held her dainty foot, staring but not seeing, lost in a truth that was as wondrous as it was terrible.

  There is nothing I would not do to protect this female. No boundary I would not cross to save her.

  No one should be allowed to wield this kind of power over a mahír fáinn, not when madness howled in our blood and death had long since been etched into our bones.

  But the place that had been filled with the past now burned, filled only with her, with Hope.

  And though I knew it was dangerous, a risk I should have denied myself, I allowed the burn. Allowed fire to melt restraint, shackles, control.

  I burned.

  I was free.

  I had her.

  My mate.

  27

  Hope

  When Ash tensed and stopped his drugging kisses, old doubts crept back in. Thoughts of Ruarc and Jason and their feelings on my intimacy with Ash threatened to ruin this whole experience, but then Ash put my foot down and kissed his way back up my body and my doubts took a back seat.