by Adrian, Lara
Phaedra had never felt so helpless or bereft as she did watching Micah and his comrades file soberly into their war room together with the Order elders and Zael, then quietly close the door behind them.
Micah hadn’t uttered a word the entire drive back to the mansion. Phaedra knew Eli’s death was a void that couldn’t be filled, not with conversation or sorrow. But the stoic response he’d shown in the alley had hardened into a stony withdrawal by the time they arrived at headquarters.
He’d retreated to a dark place, and the look in his eyes chilled her to her marrow.
It was the same bleakness she’d seen in his gaze when he spoke to her about his psychic ability to hear the worst of mankind’s thoughts and sins. The same bleakness that seemed to live somewhere inside him, and made her worry that if he sank any deeper into that abyss, eventually, he might not come back.
Was the fear she felt for him just part of the soul bond that neither of them wanted to acknowledge? Did that explain how she could be coming to care for him so deeply after only a couple days’ time?
In truth, he’d been seared into her consciousness—into her heart—from the moment they came face-to-face in the Deadlands more than a week ago. She had worried for him, mourned him when she believed he’d been killed along with his men.
She hadn’t wanted to feel anything for the angry, violent man she’d encountered in the Rome command center, but destiny, and her heart, had given her little choice.
Concern for Micah stayed with her for the next couple of hours. Although Jordana, Jenna, Gabrielle, and the rest of the women had tried to make her feel welcome by inviting her to sit and talk with them in the tranquil setting of the residence’s library, she had been too restless to stay for long.
Instead, she wandered the corridors of the massive command center, torn between wishing she had never left her quiet life in Rome and dreading the dwindling hours before she would have to leave to return.
One thing she knew for certain was she couldn’t go without seeing Micah, whether he wanted her company or not.
The warriors’ meeting had broken up several minutes ago. She’d heard the rumble of deep voices in one of the labyrinthine corridors as she paced an aimless path up one hallway to the next. She didn’t know where to look for Micah in the maze of the compound, or even if she were permitted to be there.
Rounding a corner, she nearly collided with the big, muscled frame of Darion Thorne.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I was just—”
He frowned as she gaped up at him. His gaze was too knowing, and filled with warning. “He’s not in a good place right now. You probably don’t want to be near him.”
She let go of the breath she was holding. “No, probably not. Do you know where he is?”
Darion’s mouth softened, though not by much. He gestured to the empty corridor behind him. “I saw him in the weapons room a few minutes ago. Halfway down, can’t miss it. And Phaedra,” he added, as she started to walk past him. “Thank you for what you did tonight. If Micah won’t say the words, just know that all of us—the entire Order—is in your debt.”
She gave him a sad smile, wishing she’d been able to help Eli too. “Thank you, Darion.”
He nodded, his innate honor and confident bearing so much like his formidable father’s.
“Just be careful,” he said, then continued up the corridor.
Phaedra headed in the direction he’d indicated, her feet slowing as she reached an open doorway of a room stocked with enough weapons and ammunition to outfit the army of a small country. Guns, blades, chains . . . even a wall lined with a dozen swords of various lengths.
As she stepped inside, she saw there was an adjacent room set up for target practice. Cold fluorescent lights bathed the long, windowless rectangular space in a harsh, clinical glow.
And there, standing opposite of the targets at the back of the range, was Micah.
On one of the tables behind him were the large pistols he’d used earlier tonight, now cleaned and disassembled. On another table lay an array of terrible-looking blades. He was still dressed in his black combat gear, the scent of smoke and ash hanging thinly in the air.
Without acknowledging she was there, he picked up one of the daggers and threw it at the target dummy at the far end of the range. It struck dead-on in the center of the dummy’s chest, sinking all the way to the hilt.
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
Phaedra took a step past the threshold. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
He still wouldn’t look at her, but she saw a tendon jump in the side of his cheek in response to her quiet expression of concern. “I’m just fucking peachy. Another of my friends got ashed, Opus Nostrum set us up, left us standing around with our dicks in our hands, and there’s not a goddamned thing I can do about it until the sun goes down tomorrow.”
He picked up another blade and sent it flying. The hard thump as it hit home between the dummy’s eyes made Phaedra flinch. He retrieved a third dagger and sent it after that one, then another, and another. The target dummy exploded from the rapid-fire impacts, chunks of flesh-like rubber flying in all directions at the other end of the range.
Micah’s breath sawed out of him. His deep voice took on a sharper, more dangerous edge. “I’ll say it one more time. You should not be in here with me.”
“I know that.” She walked forward, her steps cautious but unyielding. “I know you prefer to be alone, Micah. I know you think you don’t need anyone, that you have to bear all of this pain alone. But you don’t.”
He blew out a caustic laugh and turned to reach for another weapon to launch but there were none left. His back to her, he snarled, “If you’re expecting me to swallow more of your Atlantean soul bond fairy tales, save your breath. I live in the real world.”
“So do I, Micah. I live in the same world you do. The one where there’s pain and ugliness and death. The same world, where there’s loss so sharp and deep that when it comes, it hollows out a part of you that you can never get back.”
He stilled as Phaedra stepped closer to him. “Losing your parents to an accident centuries ago isn’t the same as losing five of your closest friends because of your own negligence. It’s not the same as watching Eli fry right before my fucking eyes tonight.”
“No, it isn’t,” she admitted. “But I wasn’t talking about my parents. I was talking about my husband.”
When he swung toward her, she realized why he had avoided looking at her until now. His eyes were lit with fiery sparks. His pupils had thinned to the narrowest vertical slits in the middle of all that amber fire.
“Your husband.” The growled words might have been a question, but the sharpness in his expression made it seem almost an accusation. “What about fate and destiny?”
She shook her head. “Niccolo was mortal. We met after I left the colony to live in Rome. My husband was a kind, good man. Only a few years after we fell in love, I learned he was killed in the street after he tried to stop another man from beating his wife. If I had been with Niccolo—if I had been able to use my hands to stop his killing . . .” She looked down at her palms, at the faint glow that rose in them when she thought about Niccolo’s murder. “But I wasn’t there. After I lost him, I felt so powerless. I felt so terribly alone. Eventually, I realized I could do something after all. There were ways I could help other people, like the women and children who have nowhere else to go. I could do something to save them.”
Micah remained silent, his unblinking gaze searing. Then he smiled, baring those deadly fangs as if to remind her of the predator that lived inside him. “Is that what this is about? Is that why you came down here to find me? You think you can rescue me, Phaedra?”
She flinched at his cutting tone. The words stung, but so did the way he seemed so intent on pushing her away. He moved from where he stood near the table, his big body vibrating with dark challenge.
Prowling closer, he curled his lips back from his fangs on a dangerou
s smile. “You think I need saving?”
She knew he did. Deep down in the most tender corner of her soul, she knew she might be all that stood between Micah and the only thing powerful enough to destroy him.
Himself.
She just wasn’t sure her heart was strong enough to try.
“I don’t know why I told you any of this. It doesn’t matter, not to you, anyway. No one matters to you, not even yourself. You’d rather wallow in your grief and anger alone.” She shook her head, sad for him and furious at herself for being foolish enough to care when he didn’t. “You’re right, Micah. I shouldn’t be in here with you.”
When she turned to leave, his hand clamped around her wrist. Her breath halted at the contact. Her heart started to gallop, pounding so hard it was practically all she could hear. Micah’s strong fingers were like warm bands of iron that she wouldn’t have been able to break out of if she tried.
But she didn’t try.
No matter how furious the urge was to save herself—and her heart—from breaking with this dangerous male, she didn’t put up any fight when he turned her around to face him.
In his eyes, an inferno raged.
His fangs were enormous, the razor tips gleaming bright white as he pulled in a rasping breath, then hissed it out on a curse.
“Is this your fate, Phaedra? Is this what your precious destiny wants for you?”
Looking at him like this, with burning fury in his eyes and dark, lethal power in both his grip on her and in the dominating heat of his immense body, she couldn’t think of any cosmic reason for the two of them to have been thrust together.
And yet, he was the only man who had ever stirred such a wild longing in her. The only man she had felt was somehow a part of her from the moment their eyes clashed for the first time in the Dreamscape.
Fear and confusion made her palms warm with the rising of her power. Not the shielding light she had cast over the alley tonight, but the pulsing glow that she and every other Atlantean could wield as a weapon.
Micah must have felt the vibration through his hold on her. He knew what she could do. He’d watched Jordana throw her punishing light at the snipers who’d been firing on them outside Slake.
But Micah showed no fear with Phaedra. No, he seemed to welcome her ire.
Drawing her closer with his grasp still locked on her wrist, he brought her clenched, glowing fist up near his face. “Do it, Phaedra. God knows, I’ve given you enough reason.”
She made a small noise in her throat, one part protest, one part foolish, desperate hope.
Hope that he would let her go.
Hope that he wouldn’t.
His gaze seared her. A low growl built in his chest when she refused to give him what he demanded. He ground out her name like a curse. Then he hauled her against him and his mouth closed over hers in a hot, unforgiving kiss.
The shock of his lips on hers sent liquid fire rushing through her. The crush of his muscled body against her curves ignited every nerve ending, spreading like an electric current into her breasts, her limbs, her core. He was hard against her, his arousal an unmistakable ridge against her hip. She moaned and it was a hungry, shameless sound, one she couldn’t have held back if her life depended on it.
Micah tore his mouth away from hers on a snarl. “You shouldn’t have saved me, Phaedra. Not in that alley tonight. Not back in those Deadlands.” He scowled, his blazing eyes scorching her with rage and desire. “You’re the reason I survived that blast. I think I knew it then. After tonight, I’m fucking certain of it.”
Had she saved him from the detonation that killed his team?
Was that why fate had put her in the Deadlands with him—because the power of the crystals would never harm her, and his proximity to her had somehow shielded him from the worst of the blast as well?
He wanted to believe their destiny was a mistake. She had struggled to accept it could be true, too, but not anymore. Not when the thought of him dying ripped open an ache inside her that she felt all the way to her soul.
“I was so scared tonight, Micah.” The whispered admission gusted out of her. “After it was over, all I wanted to do was run to you and never let go.”
She knew he had little use for tenderness or soft emotions, but she couldn’t hold the words back. His expression hardened as he studied her, but his hand on her wrist and the one now cupping her nape remained.
“And now?” he rasped. “What is it you want now, Phaedra?”
“This. You.” She swallowed, already gone too far and unwilling to retreat. “I want you.”
His wordless reply rumbled against her like thunder. It was all the warning he gave her before he lowered his head and took her mouth once more.
There was fire in this kiss too.
There was demand.
His tongue invaded her parted lips, the fevered strokes stirring a wild need inside her. She knew where this kiss was heading. It had been a lifetime since she’d been with a man, but never had her desire erupted so swiftly into raw, urgent need.
On a moan, she melted against him, pulling her hand free of his loose hold so she could bring her arms up around his broad shoulders and hold him closer while he claimed her mouth in a blistering, soul-shattering kiss.
The hand that released hers skimmed beneath the hem of her shirt. The first brush of his fingertips against the bare skin of her belly made her shudder with desire. When he moved higher, palming the sensitive mound of her breast, all of the heated need coiling inside her spiraled into her core.
Micah broke their kiss, but only for a moment, drawing back to look at her. The molten glow of his transformed irises felt as hot as a caress on her face.
“I told you that you shouldn’t have come in here with me,” he murmured. “If you have second thoughts, you’d better voice them now.”
Her breath was racing, shallow pants that matched the speeding rate of her pulse. She couldn’t find her voice, but she had no need for words. Spearing her fingers into his short hair, she pulled his head down to meet hers and let her hungered kiss tell him everything he needed to know.
“Ah, fuck,” he snarled into her mouth.
His hips bucked forward, driving the rigid length of his erection against her. His free hand went between her legs, caressing her sex over her clothing. She wanted to feel his touch on her skin. Faith, she wanted that and more.
As if he knew what she craved, Micah deftly unbuttoned her dark jeans and tugged the zipper down. His fingers dipped into her cleft, and he let out a jagged breath when he found her wetness.
“Christ, you’re soft. So silky and hot.”
She whimpered a response, but it was lost as soon as he began to stroke her tender flesh. When he teased the tight bud of her clit, she cried out, aching for the release his touch promised.
Micah kissed her deeper now, using those skillful fingers to bring her to the brink of shattering. Beside her, she heard the door of the windowless target range close and lock on his mental command. Then cool air hit her backside as her jeans and panties fell to the floor beneath her. A moment later, her feet lifted off the floor and all her weight was held aloft on Micah’s powerful hands.
She didn’t know how he’d managed to free himself from his own pants, but the thick shaft of his cock now replaced his fingers as he stroked against the slick folds of her sex. Pressing her back to the wall, he rolled his pelvis into hers in a hard grind, his eyes smoldering.
“I need to be inside you,” he rasped thickly, his fangs filling his mouth.
Phaedra could only pant her reply. “Yes. Now.”
His jaw clenched in response. Shifting against her, he angled himself into position. Then, with his eyes locked on hers, he slowly filled her, inch by heart-stopping inch.
She couldn’t help the carnal sound that exploded from her lips.
He felt too big for her, too wild. And he showed her no mercy at all.
Raw pleasure shot through her body at the ferocity of him. Her head
fell back as he moved inside her, his hard, urgent thrusts breaking something open inside her, flooding her senses with an ecstasy she had never known. All of that sensation swelled to overflowing, too intense to contain.
Micah gave her no quarter. His tempo was aggressive and unapologetic, driving her to the edge of oblivion with every relentless stroke.
She welcomed every crushing pound of his body into hers. She needed it every bit as much as he seemed to. More.
Primal, unleashed power radiated from him, all of that dangerous strength and fury as shocking as a storm. It made her ache to be consumed. To be obliterated by the savageness of his passion for her.
Her senses careened like a leaf caught in a tempest, sensation like lightning in her veins and in every fiber of her being. She had no choice but to let the pleasure pour over her.
She cried out as the need inside her exploded into a release that rocked her to her soul.
CHAPTER 14
He knew it had been a mistake to let Phaedra anywhere near him tonight, but damn if he could conjure even a shred of remorse when he was buried to the hilt in her soft body.
Her orgasm broke over her in violent waves. He’d never seen anything more beautiful than Phaedra’s face gripped in release. The fact that he had been the one to give her that pleasure made him feel like a god.
More than a god, for those prolonged moments as she trembled against him, her tiny muscles gripping his cock like a fist, he felt as if she actually had been preordained to belong to him.
Soul bonded.
Fated mates.
All his dismissive comments and denials about destiny having a hand in bringing them together tasted as dry as ashes in the back of his throat when Phaedra opened her dusky golden eyes and held his stare as he thrust inside her.
“This feels so good,” she whispered, her lids drifting closed again as an aftershock contracted around his length in tiny ripples. “I wanted it to last, but I’ve never . . . I didn’t know how good it could be.”
He grunted, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry, I’m nowhere close to finished with you.”
