Savage Possession

by Belinda Boring

  If I didn’t put an end to this fiasco, nothing would bring her back.

  I threw myself at her, pinning her to the ground with my body. The softness that I savored each time I touched her was gone, a painful reminder of what was at stake. If I ever hoped of having my wife back in my arms—whole—I needed to succeed.

  “Oh, how cute. You think you can stop me.” She smiled, staring up at me before violently shoving me off. She was strong.

  I was stronger.

  “We can either do it the easy way or the hard way,” I said, already moving to control her. “Either way, you’re going to end up in that cage.”

  “Says who?” She answered defiantly, fighting back. I’d managed to pin her again, my hands cementing her to the floor.

  She squirmed beneath me, but I ignored my body’s reaction. “This isn’t you,” I exclaimed, still desperate to somehow reach her.

  “Then you are in for a world of hurt, lover, because this is.” Darcy bucked up with her hips, gaining enough room to maneuver. The movement gave her the advantage as she rolled us over, her legs now straddling me. Any other time, the sight of her astride my waist would’ve been a turn on of epic proportions, but this was dangerous.

  Her fist connected with my jaw with such force I saw stars.

  Trying to protect my face, she showered down an assault that would’ve impressed me on any other occasion. That was when I realized my error. Darcy had known it long before I had.

  There was no way I would hurt her. While she had no problem inflicting damage on me, I couldn’t shake the fact I’d vowed never to lay a finger on her in anger or violence. I’d hoped reasoning with her would work, trying to use the love she’d felt for me to my advantage.

  The monster sitting on me truly wasn’t my Darcy. I wondered if she ever had been. She’d convinced us all she’d survived the process, but something told me the Darcy I’d fallen in love with had died the moment her heart stopped beating.

  “Enough. There’s no need for this.” I lowered my hands, looking up into her snarled features. Her face flickered again—my vision spotty.

  “Have I broken you, already? Hmmm, I thought you’d last a little longer than the others.” She grounded her behind into my crotch cruelly. “Is it because I look like this that you’re having such a hard time performing?” Darcy cocked her eyebrows, smirking. “There’s a cure for that, you know.”

  “I love you.” I didn’t know what else to say. I let all the fight drain out of me. With our connection still broken, there would be no way she’d see that I hoped to still overpower her. If I let her think she’d won, maybe she’d lower her guard.

  “You say the sweetest things.” She grabbed my mouth and squeezed it, moving my jaw side to side. “Funny, now that I have you, I don’t want you.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I’m sure you do. You’re pathetic. I’m about to kill you and that’s all you can say.”

  “You won’t kill me. I know you think you can’t come back from this, but I promise you, I’m not giving up on us.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Blah, blah, blah. Bored now.”

  It was now or never. I had to act.

  Her hand pulled back, sharp claws shooting out from the tips of her fingers as she partially changed. She’d never been able to do that before, the realization she could, momentarily stunned me. Any advantage I had evaporated as she slammed her hand down over my neck, driving her nails in deep.

  “Say goodbye, lover.”

  Not giving me a chance to reply, she yanked back, ripping out my throat, ending my life.

  This isn’t how it was meant to be, I thought as darkness rushed at me. We were supposed to be happy, forever.

  Licking the blood from her fingers, Darcy blew me a quick kiss as my eyes closed for the last time.

  Our love hadn’t saved us.

  There was no happily ever after.

  A scream exploded from me as I wrenched myself upward. My heart was pounding inside my chest, sweat dripping from my skin, as I stared into the concerned face of my wife. Not the savagely possessed Darcy, but the woman who I’d climbed into bed next to after returning from being out with Devlin.

  A nightmare. The damn thing had been a nightmare. Everything I’d just experienced had been a gut wrenching construct of my mind as it processed my fears.

  “Mason,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands were high on my chest from trying to wake me. “Oh, my gosh. You were thrashing about. You kept saying my name over and over. You scared me.”

  Wrapping an arm around her, I scrubbed my face with the other. I couldn’t keep the tremor from my hand as my mind scrambled to separate fact from fiction.

  It wasn’t real, I repeated over and over. It was just a dream. A horrible dream, but she’s safe. She’s here beside you and she’s okay.

  “Talk to me, please,” Darcy begged, propping herself up on an elbow so she could watch me.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but I was still struggling to catch my breath. It had been so real, part of me still expected to see blood and bodies strewn by the bed.

  “Mason?”

  Suddenly, it wasn’t talking that I needed. If I was going to drive away the demons, I would need to convince myself that the woman beside me was still her. The only way I knew how to do that was to feel her—possess her myself, so nothing else had room within her.

  “No talking. Just this.” In a move that painfully resembled what had happened in the nightmare, I rolled our bodies until I was over her. We were both naked, enjoying the fact we could now indulge in satisfying our physical desires without worrying about her virginity. I’d joked with her about never wanting to see her clothed and she’d taken me seriously. Once the bedroom door was locked for the night and we were alone, she’d vowed to always be completely available to me.

  I was grateful for that now, and I wasted no time in shifting my hips slightly so our bodies connected. I didn’t wait for her to adjust to me being inside her. I simply moved. Each stroke, each wave of pleasure that followed, felt like home. She didn’t utter a word, her eyes locked on mine as she gripped my shoulders, allowing me to take what I needed.

  I lost myself in her, drowning each fear in the depths of her body. With each breath I took, her scent filled me, comforting the frantic pressure in my chest. As I buried my head in her neck, I thanked whoever was listening that this was my Darcy.

  This was real—the weight of her hand as her fingers tangled in my hair, her lips pressed against my skin, the way her breath hitched as I increased the pace of our lovemaking.

  It was glorious. It was my salvation. It was the only truth I would ever accept between us.

  As I drove us toward the oblivion that came from two souls merging, I let go of everything else.

  She was mine; and come hell or high water, this would always be my reality.

  Chapter Twenty

  Darcy

  “So,” I asked, coming to stand beside Mason. I’d woken up with him gone and a short search had found him standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window. Quickly grabbing some blood, I knew better than to put off taking care of my needs. Draining the bag in one long gulp, I crumpled the plastic in my hand before tossing it into the trash bin. “We going to talk about last night?”

  “What about it?” Taking his gaze away from whatever held his attention, Mason pulled me into him, holding me loosely. There was a calmness in his features that hadn’t been there when he’d woken up screaming like he was dying. I couldn’t quite shake the dread that had filled me, the terror of being jolted from my own sleep to find him violently fighting and thrashing.

  “Take your pick. Me being a total jerk or whatever it was you were dreaming about.” I leaned into him, relishing the warmth I felt in his arms. Regardless of how the night had started, the way it had ended had been perfect. We’d made love twice; the second time drawing out the foreplay I loved so much. It was those gentle touches, soft kisses, the quickening of
each breath that completely held me captivated. Mason had needed the urgency and silence of our first time—I’d needed the soul searing lingering of the second.

  He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. “You’re okay. I understand why you were frustrated. I just wish you’d told me how you were feeling.”

  “What, before I fell apart like a child?” Basking in the light of a new day, it did seem pretty funny.

  “You’ve been under a lot of pressure. You were bound to get a little emotional. Just don’t shut me out.”

  “Daniel said the same thing.” There was the faintest shiver as Mason recoiled. “What?”

  Shaking his head, he tightened his embrace. “Nothing. So you finally got some good advice out of him, huh?”

  “Yep. He said it made sense that I’d struggle, but to stop being so hard on myself.” Resting my cheek against his chest, I could hear his heartbeat, slow and steady– nothing like the adrenaline-laced pace of last night.

  “Beating yourself up isn’t going to make things any easier,” Mason responded, his hand now firmly over the small of my back. “He’s right, by the way.”

  “Imagine that.” I chuckled. “He also said that keeping you in the dark about how I feel makes things worse. After watching you, and what I’m assuming was a nightmare, I think it’s time we talked.”

  Mason slowly let me go so he could tilt my chin with his finger. “With us not having our connection at the moment, it’s driving me nuts having to guess what’s going on in your head. I might be many things, but I’m not a mind reader. You have to let me in.”

  “I know, I know,” I confessed, suddenly feeling foolish for ever thinking I couldn’t share this part of myself with him. “I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “How could you ever do that?” He sounded stunned by my admission.

  “Both you and Devlin were so excited to see me do so well with the evaluations. You seemed to think that I’d get back to normal quickly. I didn’t want you to realize what a failure I was.”

  Mason’s smile vanished. “Is that what you honestly think? That a few slip ups make you a failure?” There was no hiding his incredulous tone.

  “I think my few mistakes, as you call them, were a little more extreme than that. Sometimes I worry that I’m never going to feel like me again, that taking on the new nature has completely altered me forever. I had to be compelled to release Devlin yesterday when I drank from him. Compelled. After doing so well beforehand, I totally screwed up. Plus, how long have I known you? I know what being Alpha entails and it’s never bothered me. It’s like my personality switched and I’m a new person.”

  “I wondered if you were freaking out and not telling me,” Mason kindly replied. “When you didn’t say anything, it was easy to assume that everything was okay. My gut told me something wasn’t right, but I didn’t push it. Maybe I should’ve.”

  I burst into laughter, amazed by what he was doing. “How do you do that? I’m telling you I made a mistake and that I don’t want any more secrets between us, and you manage to take the blame. You didn’t do anything wrong, Mason. This was me.”

  “There is no you and me, only us.” Lifting one of his hands from behind my back, Mason brushed the side of my hair, tenderly. “You’re not alone in this. That’s what I’m saying. That’s all. We’re in this together and I knew you were struggling.”

  “I love you so much,” I blurted out, grateful for the man before me. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “Keep talking to me and I’ll be a happy camper. I can’t help if I don’t know what is going on.”

  “I promise.” Rising up on my tiptoes, I placed a kiss over his lips. “You know that goes two ways, right? What did you dream?”

  Darkness flashed across his features, but that’s not what worried me. It was the blatant terror in his eyes. “I learned that you can’t ignore your fears forever.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Let’s just say, I never, ever want to dream that, again. I love you, too, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

  It was as I suspected—his nightmare had involved me. “I know you will. I feel completely protected with you by my side. I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”

  “Do you trust me to do a little experiment?” The corner of his mouth lifted, giving me the briefest peek at his dimple.

  “Anything,” I admitted.

  “Go for a run with me.”

  And just like that, a bucket of iced water crashed down over us.

  “Anything but that.”

  “Why, Darcy? I know you said your wolf was still recovering and making the adjustment, but I thought the spell Vivien and Helena performed helped that. It’s been a few days, and I really think that’s where the imbalance is. You want normalcy . . . well, what better way than slipping back into your routine?”

  “But . . .” Panic threatened to close my throat, my eyes widening. The last thing I wanted to do was to shift into wolf form.

  “No, but’s. You’ve been catering all this time to your vampiric nature, ignoring your wolf. I get why; but how do you know that everything’s okay if you’re not willing to test it? At least humor me, please?”

  Not taking no for an answer, Mason released me and began leading me toward the back door. I thought about dragging my feet, but that would simply raise more questions. Whether I wanted to or not, this was going to happen.

  There was still a slight chill in the air as the sun continued to rise in the sky. It was a picture perfect morning—birds chirping in the air as they flew about, searching for food, and the smells of the forest filling my senses.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to run, Mason. I’m scared.” Stopping by the table where we sometimes had our meals, I watched as he pulled his t-shirt over his head.

  “You know what I’m hearing a lot of? From both of us? Fear. Since when did we begin letting it dictate our lives? Give in to what you need. Trust me.” He wore a happy grin, the spark of excitement firing up in his eyes.

  “I do trust you, but do you trust me?” That made him stop, his thumbs beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  “Damn it; I’m pushing you, aren’t I?” Gone was the anticipation. Mason now looked apologetic.

  I shook my head. “No, you see a problem, determine a solution and want to fix it. I just . . .” I scrambled to find a way to explain how I was feeling. “I don’t want to lose control and hurt her. If I let her free and something goes wrong . . . I want to be careful. I need a little more time.”

  I studied his face, waiting to see the moment he believed me. “I’m not going to lie, Darcy. I don’t understand why you think this would damage your wolf. Shifting comes as easily as breathing. Even with your witch nature bound, she was able to come and go at will. I don’t see why this would be any different.”

  Letting out a frustrated breath, I bit on my bottom lip before staring out at the woods surrounding our home. “I don’t know what else to say, only that I can’t. Call me a coward. Call me foolish. But something in me whispers the need for caution.”

  All thoughts of running were gone as Mason stepped forward and cupped my cheek. “Then I trust you. If you need to wait, take all the time in the world. Okay?”

  I didn’t bother hiding my relief. “And maybe I should go talk with Helena some more. She did a different kind of spell, kind of like a meditation thing, and it helped a lot. It might be that I need a few more sessions with her before I feel confident in Changing.”

  Mason nodded. “I think you’re right. It won’t hurt to receive some extra healing. Anything that strengthens you is a great idea. You going to call her today?”

  “Yeah, I overheard her telling Vivien she wanted to stay to visit so I know she’s still here. And honestly, I enjoyed her company so much when we were in Salem. It might be nice to spend some more time together.”

  “As long as it doesn’t keep you away from me longer than a few hours, I say go
for it.”

  “A few hours, huh?” I smiled, crisis averted.

  “We’re still newlyweds, sweetheart. I remember promising to keep you in my bed for a month.” He brushed his mouth over mine, nipping at my bottom lip. “I’m not happy with all the interruptions.”

  My heart sank knowing it was my fault. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I’m not complaining, Darcy. It just means you can make it up to me.”

  “I’m sure I can figure out something.”

  “Oh, I’m absolutely positive you can. You were more than impressive, earlier.” The way his gaze heated as he stared into my eyes made me flush, my skin flaring in goose bumps.

  “If that’s all it takes, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  “Is that so, Mrs. O’Connor?”

  “That’s a promise. I’m not done exploring every inch of my new husband, either.” I offered him my best seductive smile, my fingers trailing down his chest to rest just above his jean button. “In fact, I’ve got a little time before I call Helena. Whatever should we do?”

  I whooped out in delight as he threw me over his shoulder, shirt forgotten, and raced back into the house. “Surprise me, sweetheart, surprise me.”

  If there was one thing I was good at—it was that.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mason

  I woke up with a huge grin on my face.

  I hadn’t planned on falling asleep, but snuggling with my arms around Darcy, our bodies fitting together so perfectly, I’d drifted off. Everything felt right, like things could finally return back to normal. We’d spent two hours ignoring the world.

  It had been heaven.

  Reaching for my wife for an encore performance, I tried to not feel too disappointed at finding her side of the bed empty. If Darcy was anything like me, she’d be back, a soft glow over her face. We were amazing together as a couple—phenomenal in the bedroom. Sex wasn’t everything, but damn. I’d never grow tired of seeing her curves on display, knowing she was mine to touch, hold, and worship.