I was bound to a man who saw me as a weapon. He’d maneuvered me just where he wanted me. I couldn’t get out. I’d tried finding a way to get rid of the bond before and there wasn’t one. Shifters bonded for life. I was stuck to Declan until death did us part, and even then…I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with this. I was humiliated and hurt beyond words.
Footsteps approached me from behind, and I turned to see Inarus walking towards me. He looked at my hands and then at my eyes, and rather than saying anything, he came and stood beside me, leaning against the trunk of my car. I bit my lip. I would not cry over a guy. I just wouldn’t.
Inarus wrapped an arm casually around my shoulders and just stood there. My body shook with suppressed anger that I fought to control. I should’ve brushed his arm away, but I didn’t.
Instead, I looked down at my hands as frustration ate at me like a gnawing hunger. I couldn’t waste all of my energy. I needed my strength. I needed to get a grip.
I closed my eyes and attempted to take deep and calming breaths. My breathing was ragged, but I repeated a mantra in my mind and after several moments, the flames receded.
Inarus tugged me closer, wrapping both of his arms around me. I melted into the embrace and breathed in the scent of rain that lingered on his skin. I hadn’t realized how badly I just needed a freaking hug.
“Come on,” he said, pulling away. “Let’s get you inside.” I nodded and allowed him to lead me inside, his arm a comforting weight across my shoulders.
Once inside, I slumped into a chair and watched Inarus across the room as he started a pot of coffee. It made me like him even more.
“Inarus, do you know what you do when life hands you lemons?”
He arched a single brow. “Eh, you make lemonade,” he said.
“Nope,” I told him. “You freeze them.”
Inarus looked at me like I’d gone mad, and maybe I had a little. This whole mate bond thing was getting to me.
“You freeze them so you can throw them at the people who are making your life difficult.” Inarus smiled. It was a brilliant smile that had his eyes crinkling in the corners.
“Life is handing me a lot of lemons right now,” I told him, “and I have no intentions of making any lemonade.”
The coffee pot made a slight chiming sound, and he poured me a mug. I gratefully took the cup, wrapping my fingers around the mug. I let the warmth seep into my hands.
“You want to fill me in on all the lemons life is giving you?” he asked, leaning against the counter beside me.
I tried to smile past the lump in my chest.
“Things are really complicated right now.”
“I gathered. Why don’t you fill me in, and maybe I can help uncomplicate them?”
I shook my head and stared down at the coffee in my cup. Where would I even begin? My life was such a mess. I was a business owner without any employees, I had a mother who was one of the bad guys and seemed to keep kidnapping children, and I had a mate who was a selfish bastard and was using me for my abilities. The last one trumped all of my other issues at the moment.
“Does this have anything to do with why the Pack decided to help out the witches? I didn’t think they’d—”
“I’m mated to the Alpha of the Pacific Northwest Pack,” I blurted out. There, I’d said it. No taking it back. I didn’t dare look up from my cup, though. Inarus was silent for several seconds.
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” he said, his voice suspiciously neutral.
“Should I be?” I asked bitterly. Inarus moved my cup aside and took my hands in his, drawing my attention to his face. He looked concerned.
“Aria, do you want to be mated to him?” I shook my head in a definitive NO. It didn’t matter, though. There was no way out of it.
“I didn’t go into this willingly. Things are—complicated.” The expression that crossed his face could only be described as relief.
“I know. Melody may have filled me in the other day when she stopped by to check in on me.” Of course she had. Melody could never keep her mouth shut about gossip, and to her, this was juicy.
“Wait, you’ve known this entire time and you didn’t say anything?” He shrugged sheepishly.
“I didn’t know how to take the news. You and I, I thought there might be something there.” He shrugged again. “I needed some time to process it and we had more important things going on. I was going to bring it up, but then you told me about the kid and, well, I figured we could talk about it later. It isn’t really any of my business who you choose to be with, regardless of my feelings for you. If you loved him…” He trailed off. I didn’t think I loved him. I’d been falling for him, sure, but love, no. I wasn’t that far gone.
Wait, what did he mean ‘regardless of my feelings for you’? Did that mean that…?
“If Mel told you about Declan claiming me, I’m assuming you also know that Mel and I have both tried to find a way to remove the bond.” He should know this wasn’t something I wanted. “It can’t be done.” I’d asked everyone who I thought might have a solution, and I’d come up empty.
“Yeah, she told me, and you’re right.” My shoulders sagged. Some part of me had hoped that he would know of a way. I should have known better. “That doesn’t mean you have to live with it, though.” I jerked my head up.
“What are you talking about?” Even now, I could feel the bond tying me to Declan. I could feel his concern and a warmth that tried to wrap around me in a protective embrace. I had tried to shut him out when I left, but I knew that my anger and hurt was seeping through the bond, and I was so angry because I felt hurt. I shouldn’t. It shouldn’t have mattered that he had never really wanted me. That this was all just some ploy to gain more support for the Pack. No wonder he’d supported the alliance with the witches. It was all about building power to him. I should have seen it all sooner. I shouldn’t have been so blinded.
“The bond will always be there. You’ll always be linked to him, but you can block him out. You can build a wall so high that nothing can cross it. I don’t know a lot about mate bonds, but I know that you’re emotionally connected, right?”
I nodded.
“So you can feel his emotions, and he can feel yours?”
“Strong ones, yes. Not always. Sometimes I try and block him out, and sometimes, I think he tries to hide his feelings from me, too, but things leak through.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Can you consciously block him out?”
“I can, but it isn’t easy.”
“Would it be worth it, though? If you really want to, I think I can help you block the connection. You can’t sever it, but blocking it is better than living with it.” He had no idea how true his words were.
“Hannah will be here in a few hours,” I told him, conscious of the clock and the little girl who was waiting on us.
“Then we’d better get started. And if this doesn’t work, you can always go back to throwing frozen lemons.”
Hannah met us a few hours later and we drove my Civic to the first warehouse location Inarus had provided. This was the one he’d said the HAC would have most likely taken her to based on where she’d been abducted from. I hadn’t bothered telling anyone else that part, knowing that Declan would want me as far away from the danger as possible. I had a job to do, and I intended to do it. I just hoped we weren’t too late.
We pulled up to a decrepit building. It stood three stories high with crumbling bricks and faded blue paint. The windows were boarded shut, and caution tape covered the front entrance in a large yellow X.
“It looks abandoned,” Hannah said. They were the first words she’d spoken since we left Sanborn Place.
“That’s the point,” Inarus replied without any heat behind the words. We closed the car doors as silently as possible and crept forward.
Hannah and Inarus’ steps were silent, while my boots made soft crunching noises in the snow. I frowned at them. How did they do that? Shaking the thought, I foll
owed closer to the building. Snow fell in flurries around us, quickly hiding any prints we made. We came close to a streetlamp, the glow faint as it flickered in and out. Inarus signaled for Hannah and me to move ahead. Hannah moved first, sprinting across the street with feline grace in a blur of motion that I had trouble following. She practically skated across the snow.
In a much less stealth-like fashion, I ran across the street, pumping my arms at my sides and praying that no one was looking out any of the windows ahead. I reached the building and hugged my body against the wall. Inarus was beside me seconds later.
Keeping our backs pressed against the rough brick surface, we followed the wall, bypassing the main entrance and heading towards the rear, careful to stay within the shadows. Garbage cans littered the alley. A putrid smell wafted through the air.
The wind picked up, stinging my cheeks, and my breath made little clouds with every exhale. I covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve to block out the smell, furrowing my brows when Hannah didn’t seem to be affected by it. Her shifter senses had to be making her eyes water with how badly the scent of rot and decaying food permeated the air.
We reached the back of the building, but instead of finding a back door, all we found was a small, barely visible basement window that was hidden behind an array of trash and debris. I hunkered down to see if there was anything inside, carefully pushing the garbage to the side as quietly as possible while Hannah and Inarus stood guard. A man walked past the window and I jerked away from view. I felt my eyes go wide and I looked to Inarus. Well, it isn’t abandoned.
We waited several seconds to see if the alarm would be raised, and when nothing happened, I released the breath I’d been holding and squatted down lower to peer inside.
The room was dimly lit. I could see several men in a far-off corner, seated around what looked like a card table, but I didn’t see anything overly nefarious until I scanned to the left. In the far corner was a manmade jail cell. I swore under my breath. What the hell was wrong with these people that they kept putting people behind bars and in cages like wild animals? I couldn’t make out much inside the cage, but a small body was slumped in a corner; a child-sized foot, bare and dirty, peeked out from the shadows.
I pointed at it through the window and stepped away so Inarus and Hannah could each have a look. Slowly, we pulled away from the window and moved further back the way we’d come. My boot slipped and I cursed, having missed the black ice. Inarus’ quick reflexes caught me by the elbow before I fell.
“Thanks for the save.” Hannah scowled at Inarus’ hand on my arm, her eyes narrowing, but she didn’t say anything.
“Do you think that’s her?” His voice was barely audible.
“I don’t know. Whoever it is, we can’t leave them in there.”
“I can feel the wards on the building when I try to port. I won’t be much help here.” He’d warned me before, but damn it would have been convenient if he could just go in, grab her, and port back out to safety. It was never that easy, though.
“You would think for a faction who hates paranormals as much as they do, they wouldn’t keep sourcing them for their abilities. How the hell did they find a witch or a mage strong enough to put up a ward that covers a two-mile radius?”
“They’re practical, and everyone has a price,” was Inarus’ curt response.
“We should call the others,” Hannah suggested. She was already pulling her phone free from her back pocket.
“What if it isn’t her? What if it’s just some other poor victim that the HAC decided to grab?” Inarus had a point. We needed to get inside and get a closer look.
“We can’t risk pulling the others away on a false alarm,” I said. “We can get the child out on our own, but we won’t alert the others until we know it’s Marcella. They need to continue their searches.”
“We can’t risk you going in there and getting hurt, either,” she hissed under her breath.
“I can take care of myself.” Inarus ignored our exchange and chose that moment to lean back against the brick building, shoving his hands in his pockets to wait.
“We don’t have a clear way in. The windows on the ground level are boarded shut. The second- and third-floor windows are all single panes. We’d have to break them to get in, and that would raise the alarm. Also, I don’t see a way up there. No ladder or emergency escapes. I can climb, but—” She looked Inarus and I up and down with an assessing gaze.
Hannah was right. We couldn’t use any of the windows for entry, Inarus and I wouldn’t be able to climb up the side of the building. Hannah could go up first and let us in from the front but I didn’t like the idea of her going in alone.
“The front door it is,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. I shifted my weight and began taking measured steps towards the door.
“You can’t go in there,” Hannah argued, coming up behind me. “Declan will be furious if anything—”
“Look, Declan is not my keeper. There is a little girl trapped inside. We’ll sneak in, see if it’s Marcella, and then you can call the others. Either way, I’m going in there. You can come inside or stay out here. I don’t care either way.”
Inarus was already at the door, twisting at the handle that was clearly locked. Hannah released a growl as she charged up the porch steps.
“Move,” Hannah snarled. Inarus raised his hands up in surrender and stepped to the side to give Hannah some space. His eyes widened as Hannah shifted her left hand, extending her cat-like claws. She inserted a single claw into the lock, and after several seconds of fiddling with the keyhole the door opened with a snick.
“You’re pretty handy,” he complimented. She smiled at the compliment before catching the expression and masking her face with a scowl. I bit back a laugh. She didn’t want to like him, but Inarus seemed to have a way with people. The baby blues he trained her way didn’t hurt, either.
“I want it on record that I am against this.”
“Noted,” I said. I drew the blades at my waist free from their sheaths and held them at the ready as Inarus pushed the door inward. The hinges creaked, and I winced at the noise as we crept inside.
I blinked several times as my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. As we made our way further inside, I noted that the building must have been a small hotel at one point. There was a lobby with a large front counter, abandoned and covered in dust. To our left was a wide doorway and a visible staircase, but it only led up. We needed to go down. The entire lobby was cast in shadows, giving it a gloomy feel.
A floorboard creaked and we all froze. My heart skipped a beat as I realized that someone was coming.
I could barely see through the dimly lit room, but was able to make out Hannah’s hand signal indicating that we should fall back. With careful steps, we all crept back to the large guest check-in counter and ducked down in front of it to avoid being seen.
Footsteps approached. I gripped the hilt of my blades in either hand. If whoever was up here came in the lobby, counter or no, we would be caught.
Hannah was crouched beside me, her body coiled and ready to pounce. Inarus was on my right, a large paperweight gripped in his hand. I tilted my head at his makeshift weapon. He shrugged his shoulder as if to say, “why not?”
The footsteps stopped just outside the lobby. “Randy, where ye goin’?” a voice called out.
“I need a smoke,” the man standing just outside the lobby said.
“Hurry up. The boss’ll be here soon, and ye know how pissed he gets when ye go outside the joint.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. The footsteps came closer. Randy must not have been paying much attention, because he cut straight through the room without so much as a backward glance in our direction. The front door closed behind him with a loud thud, and we all released a collective breath.
A second set of footsteps retreated further through the rundown hotel.
Creeping forward, I peered past the counter to make sure the coast was clear.
<
br /> “We can’t go in there,” Hannah hissed, her hand on my arm.
“We can’t wait here, either,” I told her, nodding towards the front door. “He’ll be back any minute. It doesn’t take that long to smoke. We need to move.” Her mouth was set in a grim line but she knew I was right.
“I’ll take the lead,” she finally conceded. I rolled my eyes but let her step past me, and I followed her through the darkened hallway, my eyes scanning for anyone who may have been lurking about.
The sound of a footsteps ahead had me increasing my pace. Hannah turned back to glare at me, but I ignored her.
“Randy? That you?” a voice called out. “Let me guess, ye forgot yer—” Before he could get out the last of his words, we were on him. Hannah jerked the man to her, covering his mouth with one hand while her other wrapped around his skull, giving it a hard jerk. With a sickening crack, he went down, his body motionless in a heap on the floor.
“Come on,” Hannah said. Eyes wide, I stepped over the dead man’s body and followed her, Inarus right behind me.
We came up to a door at the end of the hallway, finding a staircase behind it. We descended the stairs with Hannah taking the lead and Inarus bringing up the rear. I could hear several voices at the bottom as we slowed our pace and inched our way forward.
I couldn’t make out whatever they were saying, but Hannah clearly could, and her face was murderous. Before I could ask her what she’d heard, she shoved open the door to the basement. The door slammed against the drywall with a deafening crack that had the four men in the room pushing away from their card table, their eyes wild as their hands reached for what I could only assume were guns.
Hannah rushed them. Fur exploded across her skin, claws elongating from her fingertips while her faced contorted into a grotesque mask before taking on the form of a cheetah. The men froze before her. I had a feeling they’d never seen a shifter complete a shift before.
I called my fire to me but nothing happened. What the hell? I focused harder, but still nothing happened. I could feel my fire, but it was just out of reach, as though I was stretching for something on the top shelf, my fingertips brushing it but never close enough to grab.
Burned by Fire (Blood & Magic Book 3) Page 9
