by S. L. Morgan
All of the work he’d done even convinced me, but I couldn’t get mad at the fact that he’d pulled one over on me. He admitted that the demon knew everything Dom knew about us because the bastard had been eavesdropping on everything since I’d locked it up.
He got into Dom’s mind enough to know our history at Dark Water…the thing was trickier than a leprechaun, which had me wondering if leprechauns were actually demons themselves.
We were set to have two days out here—cloaked in this enchanted cabin. Everyone had their own cozy rooms, but there was no way I was leaving Dominic’s side.
“Dom,” I said, curled up in my gym shorts and tank, arms and legs wrapped over his chest and legs.
He had been tenderly running his hand along my arm as we both sat in silence. “Yeah, babe.” He kissed my head, and I tightened my embrace around him.
“About us merging…”
Good God, how am I supposed to bring this up?
“Don’t,” Dom said softly. “Don’t bring it up. It’s not happening. We achieved what we needed, and we finished that demon off. There’s no need for us to merge right now.”
I sat up and straddled his waist. Dom repositioned himself under me and began running his hands along my legs. His eyes followed the trail of goosebumps his fingertips created as he slowly caressed my hips.
“Thank God for E being in my head, or I wouldn’t have been strong enough to go through with my plans of leading that creature on to believe I was going to claim you as my mate.” His eyes met mine. “Your breathing, sounds,” he smirked. “You almost ruined my plans. I could have taken you right then and there,” he finished with a sexy grin.
“I almost ruined your plans by going along with them? Are you trying to change the subject from what I know we need to do after you almost killed yourself, merging our wolves outside of the shifter norm?”
“It was all magic, Jen,” he shrugged. “I knew there would be some price to pay for doing it that way because we depended on magic for all of it.” He squeezed the outside of my hips. “I also knew you were strong enough to get me back. Like I said, it all worked out in the end.”
“Dom, I can sense how hard the struggle is and how massive the void is in you. Why won’t you do this? We have, what, a day or two before I fall to a leprechaun’s deathtrap you set for me?”
“Jen,” he grew more serious, “not here. When we merge these wolves and claim each other like shifters naturally do, it won’t be anywhere near this school and especially not in a witch’s enchanted cabin. It’s not going to happen like this.”
“I’m not accepting that,” I argued. “I can handle it. We can make up for our passionate and intimate moment some other time, but I’m not going to sense you feeling like this. It’s not right, and it’s not fair.”
“I will get over it,” he said, slowly and assuredly. “You forget that I can control my wolf, and right now, we’re both recovering from being juiced up like that. Your wolf will be fine too. We’ll make sure we stay in extremely close contact with each other. We’ll keep our bond close and reward ourselves after we graduate by becoming true mates. We’re not doing this at this school.”
“You act like you have it all figured out. What if I want it? Right here and right now.”
Dom’s eyebrow arched as if I’d provoked the Master Dominic side of him. “That’s what you want, Jenna Silvers?”
First and last name approach. Here we go.
“I want you, Dominic Rossi.”
Dom’s lips tightened, and then I was underneath his powerful body. Dom lifted my thin camisole top and gently pressed his lips to my stomach. For the first time since all of this crazy crap went down, I started to feel the electric sensations that only Dominic created in me. His hands kept my arms at my sides while his lips tenderly explored my stomach and ran up the center of my chest. He said nothing when my breathing picked up, and he continued to massage my highly sensitive skin beneath his lips that were now under my neck.
I softly moaned and tried to pull my arms from his hands, but he had me pinned. I felt like I was going to implode with all of these feelings that felt more real now than when I thought he and I were really going for it and going to merge our wolves.
The power that was pouring out of him had me craving and writhing beneath him, teasing my upper body with only his lips. His eyes finally met mine when I licked my dry lips and moaned, begging him for more.
That’s when he took my hands and pinned them above my head, and our lips met in a crushing kiss. Dom was driving me wild with his fervent kiss, then teasing my lips by nipping at my bottom one, my chin, then back to kissing me. He’d never kissed me like this before, and by glancing at his dark eyes and seeing his look of determination, I shivered under the strength of my man as he soared back to life.
“God, Dom,” I panted out after his lips toyed with mine one last time before he repositioned himself to claim more of my chest with his lips. “I’m going to go insane if you don’t go further than this.”
“Are you craving it, Jen?” he said in a low whisper. “Are you coming out of your skin for more of it?”
“What the hell do you think? Yes!”
I felt his warm breath against my skin, and then his brown irises met mine. “This is the exact feeling you and I will constantly feel for at least a month if we claim each other intimately and do this right here and now.” He intertwined his fingers with mine. “This will drive us both insane because we know we can’t follow through with how shifters live after they mate for life. Not only that,” he said, reminding my stupid butt about how screwed we’d both be if we went through with this, “I’m not doing it like this. Not like this with you.” He licked his lips and gently pressed them against mine. “It won’t be just a mating ritual between you and me. I plan to show you how much I love you outside of what our shifter instincts want. That means we’re waiting.”
I swallowed hard. “God, I hate this school.”
Dom laughed. “No more than I do.” He nipped at my chin, “I’m strong enough to overcome this feeling of loss—this void—but I’m not strong enough to not crave you every hour of every day for at least a month after we’ve given these wolves the union they want. The wolves can wait, and so can we.”
“What if we have to merge them to gain our strength to kill the evil that is most likely our next problem at the school?”
“We’ll deal with each day as it comes. Right now, we have clear heads. If we go through with this,” he kissed my cheek, “these feelings of wanting to have you, the desire for our mate…” he licked his lips, and I could tell he was experiencing what I was. “These feelings will be magnified, and we both will be the two strongest, most miserable sex-crazed shifters at that school.”
I smiled. “You’re right. Do you always have to be right?”
Dom softly laughed and rolled off of me, pulling me back to curl around his side. “Well, I am your instructor, and your strong alpha counterpart, so yes. I have to be right, or else both of us would be falling into Jenna’s idea to fix Dom because everyone is overreacting out there. They’re worked up from everything that went down, but it’s fixed, and it’s over.”
Dom settled me farther into his side, my drive to want him more not subsiding. He started running his hand through my hair, and I could tell a lot more than this was on his mind.
“I’m fine, Jen,” he said. “I do hope these weak emotions of mine leave me soon, or you’re going to pick up on me naturally wanting to constantly claim you as my mate.”
I laughed. “Shut up.”
“Trust me,” he ruffled my hair. “You do not want to be in my head when I’m watching you eat pie like it’s a rare steak, or trying to beat me in our workouts.” He kissed my head, “By the way, your butt looks nice in your workout pants.”
“Seriously?” I looked up at him like he was drunk or high on some fairy dust that must have entered the cabin. “You smoking the fairy dust, Dom?”
He smirked. �
�Nope, just speaking the truth. You’re suddenly picking up on my emotions, and I’m encouraging you to take some of your fairy power and use it to tune out your man’s daily thoughts about his girl.”
I rubbed his chest, becoming more serious. “God, I really thought that demon was you until my wolf showed me through her eyes what it really was.”
“I felt that in you, and it scared the shit out of me. Drove me to go harder at that demon, that’s for sure.” He held me closer. “I would never hurt you like that, Jen. I’m sorry that spawn screwed with you like that, but I’m thankful your wolf showed you the truth, or I’m pretty damn sure you would have let me die.”
“I was going to,” I said truthfully. “So, I think you owe it to my wolf to let her alpha claim her.”
Dom chuckled. “Why don’t we rest a little, then we’ll shift tomorrow and let these wolves run it out of their systems.” He kissed my forehead, “And quit trying to convince me when it’s taking everything I have not to go through with all of it.”
Dom was right, we were playing with fire as shifters doing the whole intimate mate-claiming game. It was no joke as to why shifters never left their mate’s sides. It was a yearning and craving that only new mates understood. The last thing we needed at this school was to be stuck in our rooms at every chance we got or kicking somebody’s ass for no reason because all we wanted was to be alone with each other.
We needed to be on the top of our game, and if Dom could overcome feeling the sensation of the wolves bonding, and then this void, we had to push through. We couldn’t let our guards down over what we wanted and knew we needed—this school wasn’t done with us yet. It was easy to see that demon inside me was only the prelude to what was about to go down. Now, it was just a matter of when.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I had never slept so well in all my life, even though I felt the longing for my wolf to be reunited with Dom’s like she was when they took out that demon. I managed to control the need for Dom and me to unite our hearts, bodies, and souls…even if my wolf seemed to revert back to the old days of having an equal say.
The difference between then and now was that I was the one controlling her, not the other way around. I molded my body tighter to Dom’s, enjoying the closeness of our bodies. It was strange how shifter mates worked to soothe each other with physical contact. Now that Dom was going to be dealing with the devastating feelings of losing a mate since he formed that bond with magic, I was sensing that he and I were going to be inseparable, whether or not we went through with sealing our bond.
“You awake?” he asked, sounding like he hadn’t slept all night.
“Yes,” I ran my hand over his chest. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a million bucks.” He sat up some and leaned back against the headboard. “If only I could move you into my dorm room at school, and sleep like that every night.”
He said it, but I could tell his mind was thinking about other things. “What’s going on? I can tell something isn’t right with you.”
“I’m working on getting particular emotions safely shut down.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Once that desire is knocked out, I’ll have my head back in the game.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t go through with all of it,” I said, sitting up and facing him.
Dom’s eyes followed his fingers as they ran over my collar bones. “The fact that you’re referring to something that will be extremely intense and intimate between us as something we would just go through is one of the main reasons it’s not going to happen right now.”
“Damn it, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Babe, I know.” He smiled and ran his fingers through my hair, his eyes looking like a starved wolf, craving the one thing in front of him that he couldn’t have. “There’s more to it than the fact that we’re not ready yet.” He let out a breath like he was trying to blow away the desire that I knew was consuming him. “While I was going after that demon in you, I picked up on some feelings or plans—whatever the hell that creature’s energy was pouring out to my wolf.” He looked up at the wooden ceiling in our room. “That thing was insanely powerful. It took a lot of work, magic, and continuous planning to make sure we destroyed that thing once we extracted it from you. The sinister power it had alone was enough to take over the whole damn school.” He invited me into his embrace by stretching out his arms, and I gladly molded my body against his. “Did you hear anything that oracle was saying to me about your mom?”
“I heard everything. Thanks for giving me a fighting chance, by the way.”
“Letting you die was never an option. That oracle could’ve said that I’d burst into flames if I helped you, and I wouldn’t have stopped. She didn’t know shit about the plans we were already executing, though. She had me worried I was going to lose E in all of it.”
“I heard him struggling to not kill me.”
“He’d been working with her the entire time.” Dom closed his eyes. “I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. I thought he was just working with an oracle of light who was helping fine-tune his inner owl since owls learn mainly from those things. I had no idea that freak oracle almost had him kill you, and that was after E worked his ass off to learn the spells with Vannah to get me to merge the wolves. It doesn’t matter now because she’s gone, and thankfully, E trusted my word over hers, and you’re here.” He brought his hand to his forehead. “It all boils down to your mom and the school, though. If that thing wanted us to merge our wolves and gain its power from that, then what makes us think whatever monster got ahold of your mom and that demon isn’t waiting for the same power to develop between us—and turn us both dark. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take for that reason alone.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” I rolled off Dom and onto my back. “Oh, my God.” I covered my face with my hands. “We both know that if we merge our wolves, we could be powerful enough to take down my…mom.”
I internally shivered at that thought. Since learning my biological mother was the evil lurking at Immortal Academy, I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t know the woman, so why would I accept it was my mom—ever?
“It’s not your mom,” Dom answered my thoughts. “Don’t ever go there; in fact, I shouldn’t have approached this conversation like that. It’s a dark force that most likely took a wonderful person and pulled off a full possession. The oracle said that whatever you had in you was stronger than what took your mom. We kicked its ass without a full merge, and we can do the same to the one that is a lingering threat at this school.” He pulled my hands from my face and laughed. “Listen, we’ve got this. We just have to always remember why we couldn’t go through with merging our wolves since the beginning.”
“Please remind me because all I’m hearing is that we’re going to need to merge—whether it’s a romantic occasion or not. Dom, you took that thing inside me down by merging our wolves with magic. You grabbed power to make your mental sneak attack on it with those wolves united. We’re going to need to do this, and I think you know that.”
Dom’s expression was unreadable. “No,” he simply stated. “You do remember that we couldn’t act on this before because we knew it’s what would kick the evil into full swing again if we did. Before, we were only worried the school would start in with possessed professors and students, killing innocents to feed whatever beast we’re eventually going up against. I’m very certain the true reason we can’t gain the power of uniting our wolves is because that beast wants us to. Does that make sense?”
“Makes perfect sense,” I said, defeated. “How do we take this thing on without the power we know we’d have together to kill it?”
“Magic,” he answered. “You need to hone in on your other genetics and try to discover the power you have alone and without me. I felt it. It is extremely powerful. You just need to start working with Vannah to understand how to use it.”
“True,” I answered. “So, when do you think I’ll be okay t
o start playing with my inner fairy-witch genetics at this school again?”
“You don’t have to use your magic. Just try to understand the power, and I’m pretty sure you’ll start gaining knowledge on how to use it. After that, it should all come to you. You’ve lived your life like a shifter without accepting the other, more powerful side of who you are.”
“Hopefully, Vannah can help. She did mention that she felt I was juiced up with a lot of power, and it was starting to wake up in me.”
“I know I mentioned letting the wolves take a run today, but what if you used the next day before we have to leave to work with Vannah some? Even Ethan is much more knowledgeable about magic after all the work and studying we did to kill that thing. He could probably help too.”
“As much as I wanted to enjoy a good run in our wolf forms, this is probably the only time I’ll be able to work with whatever magic I have without the school catching on.”
My stomach growled as we settled on our new plans to go after mommy dearest, who the oracle said would be awake at the school when we got back. I really did need to hone in on how to use whatever power I had outside of a full-blown wolf merge with Dom.
I had no idea how to use this magic, or I would’ve extracted that demon thing and killed it myself. Even after using my magic, I could admit magic scared the crap out of me, and that was because it wasn’t who I had ever known myself to be.
Now, it was time to start accepting Jenna’s secret magic power and shut all the evil down at this school. The supernatural realm already gave this school more power than it needed, not realizing they were giving control to a school that had a deadly monster in it, and all of its students were pawns in its game.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I worked with Vannah and E, and we got as far as me forming the magic ball at mental command—which frustratingly enough took all flipping day—when E, from out of nowhere, started to lose it.
