by Eve, Jaymin
After a few hours I’d almost forgotten about Louis—almost—my back pressed to a sexy-ass bear shifter, and surrounded by others. I wasn’t usually this wanton with them, but my heart ached, and I needed this night. Louis kept breaking me, and I realized now that my pack put some of me back together.
Warmth bloomed in my chest then, and panic filtered in through the haze of alcohol that was keeping me content. Straightening, I swung toward the entrance and my heart almost stopped. The small breaths I was managing to squeeze in and out sounded harsh to my own ears. Crazy in Love started to blast through the room, but I barely heard it as I watched him stalk through the crowd. He didn’t move anyone out of the way; he didn’t have to, because they shifted for him. His power was flowing around him, not visible like the darkness, but it made my bones ache with the intensity.
Connor noticed my panic first, and he turned with a growl, placing himself between me and whatever was scaring me.
“No,” I whispered, stepping into his back. My hands wrapped around his biceps. “No, you can’t take him on… He will kill you.”
Connor looked down at me, and then lifted his head to his boys. They stepped up, all three on high alert. Louis didn’t care, though, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him this furious. His eyes were almost glowing purple, and shivers streamed up and down my body, covering me in goose bumps.
“Who the fuck is that?” Paulie asked.
“Louis,” Connor bit out. He knew there was only one supe in the world who could get me riled like this.
My chest ached, as did my arms and legs as I fought against running to the sorcerer. Why the hell did he have to be so gorgeous? He was close to the boys in height and breadth, and if you teamed that with his power, there was no supe more lethal … or attractive … than Louis.
“I need to deal with this,” I said, wiggling my way between the guys so I was slightly in front of them.
“No. Fucking. Way!” Connor bit out, and I heard the growl of bear in his voice. Multiple hands landed on me as they tried to pull me back.
Louis paused then. He was about ten feet away, and those glowing eyes were locked on me. On the hands touching me. His chest started to rumble, as did the floor we were standing on.
“Let me go,” I whispered urgently. “Let me go right fucking now or everyone is going to die.”
For once they took me seriously and I was released. I took a step toward Louis, fear keeping me alert and burning away the last of my drunkenness.
“Louis,” I said slowly, trying to draw his attention away from the three bear shifters behind me. “What are you doing here? I thought we decided to take some time.”
There was the slightest of twitches at the corner of his right eye, and I actually felt like I might pass out from panic. It didn’t matter how powerful I was, no one could take Louis on like this. I knew through our bond that the darkness remained under control, but it had left remnants behind, and that made for a slightly darker—even hotter, if that was possible—Louis.
Our standoff was drawing attention, but none of us shifted. I felt like the slightest movement was going to cause an eruption. Louis moved first, prowling across to me, sucking all the air from the room around us. He reached out and touched my throat, almost wrapping his hand around it. “You belong to me,” he rumbled close to my ear, and fuck if my legs didn’t go weak in that moment as heat flooded my body. “The next man to touch you dies,” he warned, lifting his head to stare over the top of me again.
Growls sounded from behind me, and I almost panicked as those purple eyes shifted to my pack. “Don’t test me, bears. I will rip you into pieces and not think twice about it.”
I growled then, and that drew Louis’s attention back to me. “If you touch them … harm one hair on their heads … I will make your life hell, Louis. True mate or not, they’re my pack, and they’re everything to me.”
A wave of darkness flickered across Louis’s eyes, and on instinct I reached out and touched him. He was so tall that even with my heels I still only reached his pectoral muscles, the hard planes flexing under my fingers. His jaw clenched before he worked it slowly, like he was trying to get himself under control.
“Dance with me,” I whispered. Dancing took away my darkness. Maybe it would do the same for him.
He regarded me silently, head tilting to the side as he tried to read me. Slowly, I linked our hands together and started to lead him further into the crowd. The humans were dancing again by now. Connor, Paulie, and James remained on high alert, but when I flicked my head, they relaxed slightly, and following my cue, headed back out onto the dance floor.
Candy Shop by 50 Cent blasted out into the room, and I started to move against Louis. At first he was stiff, but then his hands came out and rested on my hips. His grip was almost biting, just short of painful, and I clenched my legs together to stop the ache. I needed to get laid, as soon as possible.
We didn’t talk, because there was too much that needed to be said between us. We just danced. I’d forgotten how well Louis could dance; his rhythm matched mine perfectly, sexy, smooth, hands remaining firmly on the small of my back as he pulled me into him. His thigh parting my legs so I could press even closer. Desire flared strongly between us, and I wondered how I could possibly resist him.
I’d never even kissed Louis, but in my dreams we’d done so much more than that. I figured dreams were all I’d get. But he’d come for me. Pretty much the second I landed back on Earth, he was here, and that had to mean something.
Hope was the worst, because I was opening myself up to be destroyed again.
Don’t Cha was the next song, and this one had the sexy beat I preferred, so I swung around, pressing my ass back into Louis. He groaned, and I looked over my shoulder. “Are you trying to kill me?” he asked, looking pained. But the darkness in his eyes was almost gone now as he continued to calm.
I shot him a cynical smile. “You’ve been trying to kill me for years. Only fair that I get a little payback.”
He moved so fast then that I almost missed it. I was in his arms and my back was slammed against a nearby wall. A throbbing need rocked me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing my hips into him. His huge body crowded into me, and I let a small moan slip out. I had no defense against him, and he was reacting in a primal way to the fact I’d been dancing with the bear shifters. His face was buried into my neck as one of his hands tangled in the loose strands of my hair.
“I need you, Tee,” he breathed into my skin. “I’m fucking losing my mind without you, and the darkness…”
He trailed off, but we both knew what he wasn’t saying. He was struggling to fight the darkness again. In that moment, my decision was made. My heart was already destroyed. What did it matter if I let him wreck it a little more? I couldn’t say no to him … because I needed him too. I’d given him the week without me, and he’d still come the moment I returned. That had to mean something.
“Maybe this will help us move on,” I lied, knowing I would never move on. “Get it out of our systems.”
He almost smiled at that, his lips twisting as he pulled back to face me. “Not sure that’s possible, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”
I needed this moment, because I would always wonder otherwise what actually being with him was like. So even if I only got this short time, it would have to be enough.
“Let me tell my guys, so they don’t follow us.”
I murmured this close to his lips, not really thinking about what I’d just said. Louis’s chest rumbled and he slammed his mouth against mine, capturing me so thoroughly that I completely forgot I had anyone else in my life. His tongue dominated me, stroking and stirring the flames that had been flickering in my center since he first stormed into the room. “You have no guys but me,” he growled against my bruised lips. “You belong to me, Elizabeth, until I say otherwise.”
A small part of my brain protested this dominance he was showing, but a much larger part basically lost all
train of thought as desire rocked me. I had never, not even with my sister, seen Louis this primal.
He was claiming me. Devouring me. And I couldn’t get enough of it.
When he had thoroughly kissed the hell out of me, he let me slowly slide to my unsteady feet. I wobbled for a moment, and then gained my equilibrium. “Tell them not to come by for a few days,” he warned me. I started to move, pushing around him.
“And, Tee…”
I stopped and turned back. “Don’t touch them. I only have so much control right now.”
That much was clear. His eyes were barely even purple in that moment. If anything, they looked like stormy clouds, ready to lash out and slam chaos down onto the world below.
“Be right back,” I promised.
His eyes on me kept that thrum of energy zooming through my body, and I was hyperaware of everything as I moved toward Connor. He had remained on the edge of the dance floor, no doubt watching me closely.
When I neared him, he rushed toward me, and I held out my hands. “Please don’t touch me right now. Louis is a little—”
“Unstable,” he bit out.
I shrugged. “He’s powerful, and that means his darkness is also. He’s fighting it, but best we don’t push him over the edge.”
Connor studied me for a few moments before he let out a sigh. “Are you sure about this?”
Somehow he already knew what was happening.
I nodded, swallowing hard as I rubbed damp palms across my jeans. “I need this moment with him. I need to know what it’s like to be loved by Louis.”
Sympathy bloomed in Connor’s eyes, and I hated that. My voice was harsher then. “Don’t come by the cabin for a few days. I’ll let you know when he’s gone.”
His jaw was clenched so hard that I could almost hear his teeth protesting. “Don’t let him hurt you, Liz.”
I leaned in to hug him, like I always would, before remembering Louis. Pulling back quickly, I just nodded. “I’ll be careful. See you three soon.”
Connor lifted his head and nailed Louis with a fierce stare, and I had to say, I had never loved my friend more than in that moment. Everyone was afraid of Louis. Everyone in the entire freaking world. Including very ancient and powerful magic users. But for me, Connor risked the wrath of a sorcerer.
“Love you,” I whispered, and then quickly spun away before he could say anything.
Louis’s face was a storm cloud by the time I got back to him, and I knew he’d heard my last words to Connor, but I didn’t even care. He hadn’t been there for the past few decades. He didn’t pick up the pieces of my life. He didn’t give me the will to get back into the world. So he didn’t get to be mad because I found a family somewhere else.
This was my new reality, and dark or not, Louis was going to have to deal with it.
15
Louis
The five days that Tee was off my radar felt like the longest days of my life. Between the humans converging on Stratford, the armies threatening our communities with their weapons, and dealing with council members, I was pretty much ready just to kidnap my mate and hide in Faerie. I spent most of my free time tracking her, just waiting for the moment she emerged back on Earth. I also thought a lot about the future and what I wanted.
And I realized what an absolute idiot I’d been to think I could keep her at arm’s length. There was not a minute that she was not on my mind, and my need to touch her, to talk to her, to stare at her beautiful face … it grew worse every day.
The moment she returned, every spell I’d set up went off, and I knew exactly where she was. Alaska. I’d expected she would return to her home, and I was ready to go straight to her. The darkness inside of me felt out of control, not to a worrying level, but I was definitely unstable without my mate.
“Louis!”
Jessa snapped me out of my head and I focused on her and Jackson, who she was cradling close to her chest. Before I could say anything more, the baby turned his ancient eyes on me and then levitated out of his mother’s arms.
“Holy. Fuck!” Jessa whispered as we watched him sail across the room and land in my lap. I met Jessa’s gaze over the top of his little head.
“Did you know he could do that?” I asked her, keeping my voice even.
She just shook her head, eyes wide as she stared at her son. A beat later, Braxton burst into the room, looking around as he tried to figure out what had alarmed his mate. Clearly Jessa hadn’t shared it through their bond.
“Jackson can levitate,” Jessa breathed, turning from me to the dragon shifter towering over her. “He just fucking flew himself out of my arms and into Louis’s lap.”
The little boy reached up and touched my face, and some of the darkness thrashing inside eased. I hadn’t seen the babies since they were born, having been sucked into a demon hellhole on the same night, but the last few days had been a huge comfort as I watched them interact with their very obsessed parents and pack.
The children were special, and I had made the right decision to save them, no matter the personal consequences. “What are you trying to tell me, little one?” I whispered to Jackson, sending out lights of power to entertain him. The kids loved when I created light shows for them. “You think I’m getting a little too worked up?”
Jessa and Braxton were in front of me now, staring down at their son, a mixture of pride and fear in their faces. The unknown was scary, and we had two natural-born dragons in our midst for the first time. The possibilities of what they could do were endless.
“He soothed you?” Braxton guessed.
I nodded. “Yes, the darkness that wasn’t suppressed, the parts that will always be in my soul, have been more erratic since Tee left. Jackson’s power just calmed them.”
I stood, handing the child back to his mother before leaving a brief kiss on both of their foreheads. “But Tee is back now, and I need to go to her. We have a lot to talk about.”
First thing we would be discussing was the futility of running from me. We were going to have some very serious words about that. I’d always been a bit of a control freak, but now it was worse. So much worse.
She could handle it though. Tee had always known exactly how to deal with me. We were yin and yang like that.
“Will you be back in time for the meeting?” Jessa asked, cuddling Jackson against her shoulder. “I have a bad feeling about it, Louis. So many powerful supes in the same room. I mean … everything could go wrong.”
I nodded. “Yes, I won’t leave you all to face that alone. It’s the perfect time to plot death and destruction. I also need to convince the stubborn bastards that my ‘expose us all’ plan was a terrible one brought about through dark energy pushing me for more energy.” Dark energy did not care about possible deaths, as long as it meant more power. My darker alter ego had been willing to sacrifice many in our community, but I didn’t feel the same way now.
The meeting would be held in the next thirty-six hours or so, in the Sanctuary of all places, because it was neutral ground. “You know we’ll have to deal with the mystics, right?” Braxton told me, his eyes flaring with yellow. “They betrayed us and almost destroyed the worlds.”
The mystics definitely had to be brought into line. Their little trick with Grace and her jeweled sisters had been too far. “Except for your brother, of course,” Jessa rushed to reassure me. “Quale was nothing but helpful to us, at great risk to himself. I hope they haven’t hurt him.”
“He’s lying low right now.” I’d been in touch with him. “But he’s not sure how much longer he can stay off their radar.”
Luckily, we’d be there soon, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about the mystics any longer. As I was leaving the house, I passed Tyson and Grace. Grace had just returned from Faerie, even though her sisters remained there still. She’d been in Faerie a day, no more, and still it had been days away from her mate. I could see how happy they were to be back together—neither of them even noticed me as I strolled down their front porch
. They were too wrapped up in each other.
That sort of love was rare, even amongst true mates. It was more than the fated bond, it was genuine caring and respect. They didn’t just love each other, they liked each other too. Taking a sharp left, I exited the town and found myself in the forest, not too far from the Compasses’ house. I opened a step-through, cloaking myself in warmer clothes as I stepped out into Alaska—blending was important.
Tee had chosen a beautiful area to live in her reclusion, with a small town that I knew she was fonder of than she’d like to admit. I scented some shifters in the area: bears. I’d expected this; I knew they were friends of hers, and somehow during the years I’d kept an eye on her, I hadn’t killed them.
Her cabin was high in the hills, very isolated, but her energy was not there right now. Tee was in the town. This surprised me a little. But then, what did I really know about her day-to-day life here? Checking in on her a few times a year and keeping track of her energy didn’t tell me about how she lived. I’d missed all of that because I was a stupid, stubborn bastard.
It had been painful though, being near her and not being able to go to her, which was why I never stuck around. The ache of our lost friendship had been as strong as the ache Regina left in my life.
Following her energy, I stopped in front of a bar with bright purple logs lining the outside. A flashing sign advertised this place as Mary Lou’s, and I could hear the laughter and music from inside. Tendrils of energy swirled in my center, and I prepared myself for what I was about to see. This was the sort of place that Tee would have frequented in our youth, because she loved to dance. It was one of her favorite things to do, especially when she was sad or angry or hurting. Dancing took her away from her worries.
But was she here alone?
The guard at the front gave me a look, and I knew I didn’t have my shit together, but since he was human he couldn’t tell how dangerous a creature I truly was. Especially when I stepped through the door and caught sight of her.
