And now you are here and alive and with Jai.
My eyes snap onto his and in the darkness his amber eyes glow and burn orange. Like embers of a flame that sweep over me, setting little sparks alight wherever they touch.
A fire which purifies, consumes the last of my fears. Sets me ablaze with a want so deep that I gasp. He leans in and captures my mouth. Kisses me and drinks of me deeply.
And then there is only a searing want.
A need that drives me so blind that I can’t see, or feel, or touch any more. That makes me surge against him, wrapping my legs around his waist, deepening the kiss even more. My hands grip his hair and I pull him close. Closer still. So close that it aches. Everything aches. My lips consumed by him. My breasts crushed under his chest. My arms gripping his back, running my hands over his naked skin. Feeling those muscles shift, shove, bunch as he slides his palms below my skin, lifting me off the bed. Turning to place me on his chest. As if I’m a child, dwarfed by him. Surrounded by him. As if he knows that I need to take the lead. That he’s given me permission, to bury my nose in his neck and smell him. That familiar smell of cinnamon and pine; and something else. Something edgier that I’d been trying to place from the first time I’d touched him. An earthy note like when the first rains hit parched clay and are absorbed instantly. Like the fluid that runs in the veins of the gods.
I flick my tongue out to touch the hollow at the base of his throat. The one which carries his essence, coiled there, deep, sweet, pungent, with a zing that bounces off my tongue. Protective. Cleansing. I lean in and bite him right there and he groans. The sound fills my ears, echoing in my brain.
It drives me a little over the edge.
I grip his muscles, my fingers stretched while trying to accommodate the width of his biceps.
At my urging he moves on to his back, taking me with him. Spread over him, I pull his arms back, pinning them above his head. And that arouses him further.
I feel him harden below me, feel the blood throbbing through his veins.
His eyes don’t leave mine. They are deep orange, burning with a fire that glows inside, seeming to ignite from his heart.
And he’s mine.
I know that.
And he knows it too.
Knows that I need to do this at my own pace. And he lets me take charge. For now. Lets me grip his arousal so it fills my hand, beats there with a pulse as strong as his heart racing below mine.
I hold him there.
Hold him. Feel him grow, harden, thicken. Sense the desire that sweeps through him, burning him up so the sweat breaks out over his forehead. Let the heat rise off his chest and slam into me, putting into words what he isn’t saying.
And that is my undoing.
Gripping him, I run my hand down the length of his arousal, again and again. Below me his body jerks. Another groan rumbles up his chest, through our joined skin, slithering over my nerve endings. I feel myself grow wet. I fit myself to him and feel the shock still his body.
His muscles tense, bunch, and I’m surrounded by his hardness. So unfamiliar. And so him. So right. His eyes flutter open and when he speaks his voice is gruff, strained, as if he’s holding himself back by a last shred of control.
He whispers, "Let me touch you."
And before he can even finish his statement I am moving, as if my heart cannot wait, is impatient with the knowledge of what it already senses. Can’t wait for my brain to catch up anymore.
Holding on to his chest, my nails digging into the muscles, marking him, I raise my waist and lower it on him. Slowly. Slow enough to feel every inch of him meet my flesh. Sink into the hardness of him, feel the smooth-roughness of him scrape my inner walls. It brings with it a pain so intense I cry out.
And it’s as if a part of me has called out to him and now he can’t stop himself. Now he must come to me too.
Jai grips my waist and raises me up. And lowers me on him. And this time pain shivers through both of us. Then he angles himself and suddenly he's deep inside, in a place I never even knew existed. He thrusts into me, going deeper, till he comes up against a last resistance. Hidden away, so secret almost as if it didn’t exist. He whispers against it, and that melts too.
I cry out again, only to have my breath captured by his lips and swallowed. And it's as if the essence that was mine and mine alone is now also his.
"Aria."
Hearing my name breaks through a barrier I never knew I’d had. A knotted blackness inside me dissolves, and is gone, just like that. Like I’ve lost a part which had never belonged to me.
In its place is just light.
Straining against him, I capture his lips with mine. Before he comes with a hoarse cry, his pain mingling with mine.
When they come for us the next morning, I’m ready.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The female stalks into the room and looks at the two of them standing by the window on the far end. She’s petite, only as tall as Aria, and dressed in black skin-tight trousers and boots. A long white flannel shirt over which she wears an armored vest. On one side she’s hooked a gun, on the other a sword.
Jai’s sword.
When she had asked for it, Jai had handed it over.
He’d had no choice. Yet a part of him had been happy to be rid of it.
He would no longer have to take responsibility for being the Guardian of the city. He’d be free. Free to hold Aria and be with her.
Taking Aria’s hand in his, he squeezes it so tight she winces.
But she doesn’t let go, just brings her other palm over his, enclosing his larger hand between both of hers. One again he realizes how small and fragile she is. When he’d found her naked and bleeding and seen the large shifter bent over her, clearly aroused and with a sword held to her throat, he’d known then what he had to do.
And the way she’d looked at the shifter, the way she’d raised her chest towards him, he’d known that she was thinking of killing herself. And his rage had ignited.
It had swept through him, woken something up deep inside, a hunger, a fire, a need to kill so savage that it had surprised him in its intensity.
He hadn’t realized that he’d been capable of such depths of emotion. Had never before felt this surge of anger so sharp that it had blinded him to everything else. Hadn’t even been aware of his fierce need to protect what was his. But seeing her helpless had pushed aside all these barriers. Barriers he’d spent a lifetime building.
He had been hiding behind them so he didn’t have to feel again, didn’t have to feel the piercing emotion that had taken over when his mother died. When his sister had been kidnapped.
But now they were gone and he was free to be himself. Free to let the emotions take over. To follow his instinct. To avenge. He’d known there was no turning back. No more holding back.
He’d wanted to just let it rip and kill. To kill that animal.
He wanted it so much he could taste it.
Wanted it more than anything else in his life.
He can’t even recall closing the gap between him and the shifter. Except, the next instant the shifter had gone flying through the air. Thrust away from her, as far away as he could fling him.
Jai had raised his sword then, and for the first time he’d felt its power. A surge of quick, red-violet lightning had shot up his arm, straight to his heart, squeezing it with great intensity, making his blood pump so hard that he’d gasped. And that force had pulled him, drawn him across the space over the broken wall between the two cabins and he’d found his arm raised and clutching the sword.
He hadn’t hesitated. He had brought the sword down with such intensity that he’d severed the shifter's head with one swipe. And he’d felt nothing. Just emptiness. And a relief that Aria was safe.
Turning to her, he’d raised the sword and seen her flinch. And he’d known then that the unseen scars inside would be much more difficult to push away. A feeling of such tenderness had swept through him that his eyes had teared
up. And he knew he was weeping for her, her lost innocence, his wasted years. For turning his back on what was so inherently a part of him that he’d not wanted to accept it.
It’s as if the power running through the sword has sparked off that sleeping, hidden part of him he’s tried to block out all his life. The wall that’s stopped him from sensing, from living, has gone.
And in its place is just him.
And it’s taken her, what he feels for her, to strip away the barriers he’s spent years building and perfecting. She’s connected him to the world again. And now those feelings rush out.
Love.
Desire.
A fierce need to protect what’s his.
A need to take care of her.
A need to save his father and his city.
A need to honor the promise made to his dead mother.
And right then, he knows what he has to do.
Just as he knows now. Knows that he can’t let anyone come between him and the promise made to his mother.
Not even if she’s his long lost sister. The one holding his sword – their mother’s sword – in her hand.
His jaw hardens. The chords of his shoulder lock into place and anger flares inside. A different kind, almost a helplessness at what he must do.
Sensing the turmoil in him, Aria squeezes his palm even tighter, and her touch cuts a path through the darkness in his head.
The female takes a step towards them and Jai stiffens, pushing Aria even more securely behind him, making sure she’s completely shielded by his body.
"How chivalrous of you, dear brother," she drawls and behind him Aria starts.
"Maya," Jai rolls the word on his tongue as if he’s still getting used to the sound of it. As if he’s not pronounced her name in a long time.
Her eyes snap on to Jai’s and hold, golden brown clashing with amber. Her eyes are so like his father’s. So like his own.
She tilts her head, looking at him, trying to read him, trying to figure out what he’s thinking. The intensity on her face is disturbing.
She stares unblinking, waiting for him to say something. Then she bites her lip to hold back the words in her head. The gesture is so like Ruby. Like his mother.
Jai’s heart rams against this chest and the pulse thunders in his ears. If he’s had any doubt that she is his long-lost sister, it has just been dispelled.
"Maya," he says again, his voice softer.
He hesitates, unsure what he should do. What should he say?
‘The last time I saw you—’
"I’d been a young girl, just an eighteen-year-old teenager with a foolish notion of trying to find my blood family."
"And did you?" he asks, his voice gentle as if speaking to a frightened child. Neither is aware that they’ve exchanged places in just a second.
Now it’s Maya who looks at him warily.
"I did," she replies.
Her eyes slide away and for just a second she looks like the child from the family photographs at home.
"I found I didn’t belong with them. With you and your family," she adds, her voice firm.
"We are family too," Jai insists
"Are you?" she lashes back.
Sensing her turmoil, the handsome shifter next to her puts out a hand and grips her shoulder.
"I found my place, where I am wanted. With my people." She rubs her cheek against his hand and the look in his eyes has Jai inhaling a sharp breath.
The male shifter loves her.
He may be a beast, but it seems they all have a very human side hidden inside them. But she isn’t a shifter, she’s Maya. A completely 100 per cent human. His sister.
"Why didn’t you come to me, Maya? I saw you at the poetry reading. You were in the audience, weren’t you?"
Three years ago he’d first run into Maya at the local coffee shop that he and Gilbert liked to frequent so much. She’d been a waitress there, and Jai had noticed her instantly. He had been drawn to her, had been sure that he’d known her; met her before. It wasn’t till his poetry reading a few days later that he recognized her. Something in the way she’d looked at him…he’d seen her then, seen Ruby in that anguished twist to Maya’s features.
And he’d known then who she was. His sister. But before he could call out to her, she’d disappeared.
"I looked for you, Maya," he says, his voice still soft, but with a thread of anguish.
"Well, you didn’t look hard enough," she snaps. "Not when the shifters kidnapped me as a child. And not when you saw me at your reading. You saw me and you didn’t even recognize me." She sounds more childlike than her years, as if she’s gone back to being the little girl she was when she was taken.
"You can’t blame me for that," he says, frustration twisting his voice. "You were five when they took you, and then seeing you years later, a grown-up woman, it’s no surprise I didn’t recognize you as my sister. In my head you were still a five-year-old, can’t you see that?"
A surge of despair has Jai taking a step forward, only to pause when the male next to her steps between the two of them. He aims his gun at Jai.
"Its fine, Luke." Maya lays a hand on his shoulder.
But Jai notices that Luke doesn’t move out of the way, much like he’s shielding Aria behind him.
He’s glad she’s had someone to look out for her. Someone other than him. Because he hasn’t been around to protect her.
And he won’t be able to shield her now that she’s back.
His little sister’s back. But yet not. She looks like Ruby, like part of his family, but she’s not. She’s chosen the beast inside, chosen to live uncaged. Uninhibited. Without walls. She’s one of them now. A shifter. She's wild. Free. More hybrid than human.
A part of him envies that, envies that she never had to put up walls. That she didn’t have to carry the heavy burden of promise. Of duty.
Except now, seeing her hold his sword, he realizes it’s that very vow to his mother that has defined him. He’s lived his life by it and now when someone tries to take it away, he can’t let go. Because he’s lived by the sword and that promise and now it’s so much a part of him, it’s become him.
And he has no choice but to see it through.
"Maya, you’ll hurt yourself," he says, meaning it.
He can see in her eyes what she wants. What she’s going to do. Why she wants the sword. And he can’t let that happen.
Not now.
Not when Aria’s life is at stake, when the lives of the thousands in his city are in danger.
"A little too late for you to be worried," she replies.
Then she moves fast. Jai has barely even registered that she’s closed the distance between them before she pulls out the sword and presses the blade against Jai’s throat.
Aria takes a step forward but Jai squeezes her hand, and she comes to a standstill. Her muscles tense, nails digging into his palm, but he doesn’t take his attention away from the woman in front of him.
The woman who’s a threat to the future of this city.
"I won’t harm you," says Maya. "Well, not yet at least, but for now you need to come with us."
At a slight nod from Jai, she lowers the sword. Then she stalks out on her heel, leaving it to Luke and the other shifters to make Jai and Aria march behind her.
Chapter Forty-Nine
A short boat ride away, we disembark. Wading through the shallow waters, we reach the rocky beach. It’s on the same island that Gilbert had pointed out on the trip to Elephanta.
I follow Jai up the winding path leading up the slope of the hill.
Maya leads the way with Luke right behind. Two other shifters bring up the rear. They don’t even bother to train their guns on us, as if very sure that we aren’t going to try and escape. And they’re right.
I know we’re in danger, Jai and I.
I know Maya is unpredictable too. She may be Jai’s sister, her eyes so like his, my heart catches in my throat every time I look at her, and yet there’
s a madness in them. A glint of something not quite human. As if living with the shifters has made a beast of her too. And then we turn a corner and I gasp. There facing us is a group of wolves, larger than any I’ve ever seen. Each animal is tall enough to tower over me in height, and broad enough to span the size of two full-grown men.
Shifters.
I’ve never seen them before, not like this. Out in the open, naked. No armor, no clothes. Just them. And us. And this island they call home.
And it is their home, for when I look past the group facing us, look up the slope it is to find the entire hillside covered with wolves.
Not hybrids.
These are wolves. The animal essence of the humans whose genes had been mutated by the fallout of the killer tsunami. The storm had been triggered right here, at the temple on top of the hill where Ruby Iyer had touched her sword to the sacred stone and triggered the start of the new world.
And now I’m back here, twenty-nine years later, with her son and her daughter holding the same sword she had once clutched in her hand.
A feeling of foreboding shivers down my spine and my gut twists with unease. Something isn’t right here.
And it’s not just the hordes of wolves who stand quiet as we walk by. It’s not just that they line the path, reaching out to touch Maya as she passes. Some of them brush her legs, nudge her affectionately. As if she’s more than their leader. As if she’s their savior.
It’s not just that the clouds have begun to gather on the horizon. Dark, gray, stormy, as if they’ve held on to a secret for too long and are now just waiting. Waiting. Biding their time.
Moving closer to Jai I squeeze his hand, and he grips mine back. Some of the tension leaves his shoulders. As if just by touching him I’ve managed to ease the stress inside him. As if I’m grounding him.
Then we move forward and walk up the slope to the plateau on top of the hill, where we pause.
There’s a break in the clouds and the moon shines on us suddenly. A full moon whose silver light picks out the gray-brown and gold in the pelts of the gathered wolves.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 144
