by Scott, Helen
“I'm naked!” she cried in outrage.
“Why?” I asked, before my brain thought it through.
“Because those bitches stripped me before spelling me. They like to layer their humiliation as thickly as possible,” she snarled.
I was slightly startled by the venom in her voice, but thinking back on everything that had happened in the few days since we arrived, I wasn't surprised, especially if this type of thing had been going on ever since she started training. Six years of this bullshit? No, thanks.
The weather in the Northern California and Oregon area was cool and unpredictable this time of year, at least when it came to rain, so we had jackets; the problem was they were in the SUV, which was miles upon miles away at this point.
“What a cunt,” Cade muttered, his frustration bleeding into his body language as he started to shift on his feet and move around in place.
“Look, we've got jackets and stuff, but they are back in—”
Before I could even finish my sentence, Gideon had his t-shirt off and had tossed it to Barclay. The wolf snagged the material from the air as though it was his favorite treat, before trotting around behind the big tree to the right.
“I appreciate the offer, but if I put clothes on, the spell just burns them up,” she called out, her voice sounded defeated, and that, more than anything else, pissed me off.
“If we run back, will you follow behind us? We promise not to look, right guys?” I asked.
A chorus of promises rang out, and I watched as Barclay disappeared behind the tree once more.
“I'm just embarrassed, usually I don't care about nudity. It's not like it would be the first time I've been forced to parade around naked. There's something about you guys seeing, though, that makes me scared . . .” With an audible snapping of her teeth, her jaw clamped shut.
She hadn't meant to say those words aloud, and taking a glance at my brothers' faces, I wasn't the only one who realized that. Barclay's wolf had the strangest effect on people, and apparently, it helped Marcella open up.
“There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Do you want us to strip and run naked as well?” Cade asked.
A soft, feminine giggle sounded from behind the tree as I glared at him. There was no way I was running naked through these woods.
* * *
Cade
Did I feel like getting my cock out and baring my ass to the woodland creatures around me?
Hell no.
But for that little giggle Marcella just uttered, Maker, I knew there wouldn't be much I wasn't willing to do, and while that freaked me out something fierce, when she stepped out into the open, so I could see her, my breath about froze in my chest.
She was perfect.
Perfect.
A word that didn’t often whisper through my mind and never left my lips.
“You don’t have to strip,” she told me, her eyes glued to mine rather than the others. I wasn’t sure why she was looking at me that way, wasn’t sure why she was focusing those gorgeous eyes of hers on me and not the others.
I’d seen her do the same with Gideon and Raven, and knew she had a way of making you feel like you were the only damn man in the world. But this, having all her attention zeroed in on me when the six of us were together, was intense. Incredibly so.
Curling my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching out to her, I gnawed on my bottom lip to prevent my eyes from raking over her like an X-Ray machine.
Shit, it was hard. I wanted to gape, wanted to gawk, and wished she’d look at one of the others, so I could. They were all getting their fucking fill, leaving me to try and act the gentleman.
I’d never been gentle. Hadn’t been reared that way, but fuck, she made me want to be better.
And what the hell that meant, I didn’t damn well know.
She licked her lips, and I watched the motion with eyes that felt heavy with needs she inspired in me but were impossible for her to slake. I managed to croak out, “Who did this to you?” She’d said ‘bitches,’ but I wanted names.
Her nostrils flared, and I sensed her outrage, but she let it simmer down, dampened it as though she’d flung a wet cloth over the flames, and in a calmer tone, whispered, “The usual suspects.”
Barbie.
I gritted my teeth. “She’ll pay.”
Marcella’s mouth pursed, but that flare of energy whipped out once more. Maker, her control was fierce. “No.”
“No?” I ground out, furious with her rejection.
“No. It won’t get me anywhere. This happened because I rebelled. I listened to you, and I knew I shouldn’t have.”
For the first time, Keiran spoke, and it wasn’t the lame-assed shit he’d been spouting all evening. Crap about having to wait, about us having no choice, no say, in getting tied up with Marcella because . . . shit, I didn’t even want to think about because.
The more time I spent with this woman, the more time I wanted to spend with her.
She was fucking with my head, and she wasn’t even trying to. That was the only thing that didn’t piss me off about this situation. She and the rest of my brotherhood were just as lost to this link that had flared to life between us.
Keiran could continue to bitch, but we were all acting out of character. Barclay had locked onto her scent, Gideon, too. Raven had given her blood, and she’d offered her own to me, as well as the promise of a blood debt to Gideon. Then there was Keiran himself—he was just as ready to jump to Marcella’s defense, even if he claimed zero interest in her.
Whatever the fuck was happening here was beyond our control. For the first time in my life, I embraced the chaos because she was in it.
“You’re a powerful contender, Marcella. Why shouldn’t you show the Academy your skills?” Keiran asked quietly, but then, he was always quiet. He was the most gentle of the lot of us. His skills required a delicacy, after all. The ability to slip into people’s subconscious wasn’t exactly easy.
“Because they always make me suffer for it. If I keep my head down, if I just focus on my studies and let Lily get her own way, then maybe they’ll give me another brotherhood to work with and won’t keep me here.”
Anger ricocheted inside me at her matter-of-fact statement. “Another brotherhood?”
She peered up at me. “Yes. Another brotherhood.”
She dismissed us so casually that I felt like I’d been knifed in the belly. “Even if you’re meant for us?”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do!” I roared. “We will not accept what the Academy wants to palm off on us. I will make her pay,” I bit off, stepping forward. I didn’t even realize she’d stepped forward, too, that both of us were stalking toward one another with our anger aimed outward, until her finger was prodding my chest and she was up in my face.
“You. Will. Not.” She punctuated each word with a prod of her finger, and her fire in the face of my rage made me feel overheated.
“I will,” I spat back.
“It will do you no good,” she raged back, facing me down without even flinching. I was known for my temper. I knew the guys always avoided me when I was in this mood, but this one small woman felt no fear getting in my face, in making sure I knew what was what.
“It will. Politics will lump us with Barbie. Well, fuck politics.”
I could sense the unease behind me. Knew my brothers were wondering what the fuck I was thinking, talking this way, but the words slipped from me as easily as oil from a bottle. This was right.
Marcella was right.
I knew it was a stupid move, but now we were closer together, and I could touch her. I grabbed her, pressed my hands to her hips, and hauled her against my chest. I’d kissed her once, and the sweet poison of that kiss had gotten inside me, wormed its way into my veins, wreaked havoc on my system to an extent I was only just realizing.
I needed more.
I craved more.
With her against my chest, a warm handful of nude curves that di
dn’t quit, I peered down at her and growled, “You’re ours.”
“I’m who the Academy deigns to dump me on,” she whispered back, and the sorrow in her voice nearly quenched the outrage her words inspired in me. But, I noticed, she didn’t pull away. She was totally nude, completely at ease with her bare skin around us, and she settled against me like she’d been made to be there.
Like she knew it as well as I did.
“Why would they be dumping you on anyone?” Keiran asked, and his voice was like water on still-burning embers. It sizzled and spat.
His comment didn’t make me move away from her, if anything it made my hands tighten around her hips.
Maker, the feel of her. . . .
I about shuddered.
“Because I am what I am,” she murmured, and that sadness was back, knifing me in the gut once more. “I’m here on . . .” Marcella shrugged and blew out a breath that was minty and soft and that I wanted on my cock. “Sufferance, I guess. I don’t think my father figured I would be as useful as I was. The Academy just put me on the housekeeping staff at first. Even when I was small. Then, when I started showing talents, one of the Masters informed the Headmaster, and I was put into the program.
“I’m not supposed to best their golden girl. They won’t let me survive that.”
Her words had me flinging my head back and letting out a howl of fury that would have matched Barclay’s in his other form. It was a purely human sound, but it went on and on, and I felt her shudder in response to my ululation of sheer fury. But I could no more stop it than I could control my outrage at the prospect of letting her go.
“Cade!” Gideon hissed, and I felt him at my back, his hand on my shoulder. “Stop it, dammit.”
Raven approached next, then Barclay—who’d returned to his human form—and Keiran. I felt them surrounding me, surrounding us and then, only then, did the howl cease.
I was shaking by the end. Shivering and torn. I didn’t know where the noise had come from. Didn’t understand why I hadn’t been able to control the howl when I wasn’t a fucking dog like Barclay, and yet, with them at my back, I felt it.
The connection.
With Marcella.
“What is that?” Keiran asked, and I didn’t know.
Wasn’t sure.
But I sensed it.
It was like a warm glow.
I knew Marcella didn’t understand what was going on, but we’d seen enough practice sessions at Eastbrook to know, even if we’d never experienced it for ourselves.
Her hands were on my chest, the fingertips digging into my pecs and her body was held snugly in my grip, and she was pushing herself into me, those handfuls of warm curves not just resting against me, but actively pressing into me.
The warm glow coming from her had put her in a trance.
It shouldn’t have been this easy. There were rules and regulations, a ceremony to make this shit happen, to trigger this kind of situation, and yet Marcella, a newbie Sixth, had been the catalyst without any further magicks from Masters, reverents, or students helping us connect.
Her power, at that moment, stunned me.
I’d known she was strong. It was one of the reasons she fascinated me. My entire unit was strong, uniquely so. We had powers that weren’t often melded together, and when Raven had mind-walked today and informed us of what he’d seen, it didn’t come as any surprise to me that Darius was using us as a pawn. Shoving three Walkers onto one brotherhood, throwing in a druid and a shifter to boot? To say that we had a lot of potential was like saying bears shit in the woods.
I recognized power because I lived with it, daily, but Marcella’s was unformed, still fresh. Like a rosebud that had just begun to blossom. Her potential had yet to be reached, and I knew that the minute she connected with us, it would start to grow all the more.
I wasn’t sure why this was happening, but I wasn’t about to do anything to stop it. Keiran, of course, had to be a fucking wet blanket. “We should stop this.”
I could hear the nerves in his voice. He wasn’t a pussy, not by any means, but the rules of the Academy had been bred into him. He didn’t like to disobey, so he was always a stickler for rules.
The man had zero rebel in him. Not even a tiny fucking streak.
I noticed, however, he wasn’t stepping back. Distance would break the link, I think we were all aware of that, and even though he was verbally against whatever Marcella was doing, physically was a whole other ball of wax.
I reached up to gently clasp her chin. Gently maneuvering her head, so I could stare her straight in the eye, I saw how out of it she was.
“What’s going on?” Raven asked.
“I don’t know,” Barclay murmured.
I felt Gideon stir at my back. “She’s powerful. More so than we knew.”
“So?” Keiran asked. “Her being powerful shouldn’t have instigated whatever the hell this is.”
To trigger the link with a Sixth, there was a whole six-day ceremony. It involved fasting, both of food and blood, and a sacred ritual to the Maker. I wasn’t exactly the praying kind, but even I’d been raised to respect the sacrament that came as essential part of finding and being joined to a Sixth.
The participants fasted, while those in attendance of the ultimate ceremony feasted. The overabundance of energies created a powerful cornucopia of magicks that would help tease the conduit from the Sixth’s soul into being, would coax it forth to meld with our own souls.
This, what was happening here, should have taken place on the sixth and final day of the festivities.
Marcella had triggered it after supposedly having her powers nullified, an extensive and exhausting run, and getting rebellious with me and . . . what?
I frowned, the realization hitting me. “We showed her concern.”
A hiss escaped Gideon. “Maker.”
Keiran mumbled, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Twice now, we’ve demanded she stand up for herself. We came to find her after we sensed she was in danger. I just stated that I’d make the people pay who’d hurt her.” It sickened me, but it was a past I shared. Sixths usually didn’t. They were pampered pursangs. The minute their families knew they had capabilities as a Sixth, they were adored and pampered even more.
At Eastbrook, tales like Marcella’s were too common.
As with most of us, she’d been neglected. Abandoned.
“No one has ever cared for her before,” Raven stated, his tone sorrowful.
“That can’t be enough to trigger the conduit,” Barclay countered, but he sounded uneasy, too.
“Maybe she feels what we do,” I murmured, looking deep into the eyes that were trying to ensnare mine in the silken trap she proffered.
“And what’s that?” Keiran barked, huffing his disbelief.
“Need. Want.” The final word sat on my tongue like a golden weight. “Possession.”
8
Marcella
Everything sounded like a dream. Voices drifted in and out as my mind flew this way and that. My whole world was covered in the golden glow of a setting sun, except I knew it was way past sunset. In fact, if I remembered correctly, then it was almost sunrise, which sent another flurry of nerves through me.
I knew I should be heading back to Westbrook, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the cocoon of emotion the guys had wrapped me in. It was warm and felt like paradise. The only thing that would be better was if we were all naked and in bed together. I wasn’t sure something like that would ever be in my future, let alone with these particular men. They were destined for something bigger, something more prestigious than me.
That didn’t feel right, though.
Rage whipped through me as soon as the thought entered my head. They were mine. I’d given up everything in my life or had it taken from me, but these men? I was going to fight tooth and nail to be their Sixth, and I would take down anyone who got in my way.
The viciousness of the thought surprised me
. It wasn’t that I never got angry, but there was something about it that didn't feel like me. It felt foreign and masculine, of all things. A wave of worry crashed through me, but again it didn't feel right, like it wasn't my own emotion. My brain was slow in picking up on things, but I knew without hesitation, as a sense of wonder moved through me, that these emotions belonged to the brotherhood that surrounded me.
The feel of skin on skin was almost too much as someone touched me, quickly moving my wet, naked form. I wanted to be back to normal, not feeling these overwhelming emotions that weren't even my own. I fought to get my mind under control, to filter out the emotions that didn’t belong to me and focus on what I was feeling. It was no use, though, everything was churning around inside me, but the most powerful, most overwhelming sensation of all, was the desire and the need to protect.
My whole body felt like it was burning up with lust, the likes of which I'd never felt before. It was enough to make me struggle in the arms of whoever was moving me. I wanted to get away from their touch and get closer to them at the same time. I wanted to touch and be touched, but I wanted to run away. The shroud of golden light didn't let up as we moved, either, which made my eyes hurt and the fog in my head that much more noticeable.
I wanted darkness, the ability to hide, to not feel so exposed and raw. Not just physically either, but emotionally as well. Most of all, I wanted to be back in my room and out of the damned forest.
Darkness swarmed my vision a moment later. I blinked furiously, and it was only when I opened my eyes that I saw I was back in my room.
With Cade.
The man was gasping for air as though we'd been underwater for a long time. His eyes were wide with confusion as he looked around the small space.
I wasn't used to anyone being in my room, and the size of it made him look like a giant. Cade's tall, muscular frame, sandy-blond hair, and stunning eyes were all that filled my vision. Everything else in the room just faded away as I watched him take it all in.
