“I fucking hate you,” I muttered breathlessly, not able to contain it any longer, staring up at Elder Merrick from where I lay flat on my back on the mat, chest heaving, sweat drenching my body, all while he and Elder Zeller appeared completely unfazed, not even being gracious enough to appear a bit tired while they took turns teaching—beating the shit out of me—and the other took notes on the computer pad I wanted to bash over both their heads. “You’re cheating. I know you are.”
Elder Merrick bent from his standing position, his tone still void, the chill he had been gifting me for the last forty-five minutes as frigid as the artic. “No. I’m not. You just react first with your fists, instead of your brain. You may be tiny and think the only way you can win is to get the first punch in, but your brain will always be your best asset.” He rose, and moved to Elder Zeller, not even bothering to help me from the floor.
Even with the fury boiling my insides, keeping me nice and toasty warm, my damn chin trembled the barest bit. His fury was a force all unto itself. His pompous nature irritated the shit out of me. His cruel, merciless side I hated with a vengeance, but would probably have respected if it hadn’t been aimed at me, hurt me. But this…nothing…he was giving me struck a different chord altogether. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I didn’t fucking like it, the elusive emotion churning in my gut.
I rolled slowly, hiding my face, and cleared my throat quietly as I stood on exhausted legs, chancing a glance to the clock, praying I was close to being done here, needing the small reprieve of breakfast to pull myself together.
And that was when I felt it.
Through everything inside me, my Core thumped.
My breath caught.
It thumped again, and I quickly rubbed against my breastbone.
Buh-bum. Buh-bum. Buh-bum.
Harder…and harder it started to pound with magic, until it felt like another heartbeat inside my chest. My feet were moving instantly toward the pull. I felt as if I was in a daze of magical drunkenness, moving toward my destiny. “I have to go.” My voice was a mere toneless whisper, eyes on my destination, the door. “Have to go.” Elder Zeller was instantly in front of me, bringing a breeze, and I pivoted automatically, moving around him. “Gotta…go.”
“Kitten?” Leric asked inside my mind. “Are you on your way?”
“I’m coming,” I murmured aloud and through the bond, instantly ducking under Elder Zeller’s arm as he blurred in front of me again, his mouth moving, but I heard none of it, only Leric’s voice and the constant buh-bum, buh-bum filling my ears. “Is it time?”
“It is.”
I knew I should feel fear, but all I felt was the…pull…inside me to get outside. I blinked when Elder Merrick was instantly in front of me, walking backward; navy blue eyes scanning my face, his face still expressionless, but his lips were moving. I stared at them as I moved out the door, he beginning to walk up the stairs backward while I quickened my pace, my heart rate accelerating the faster my Core thumped. I shook my head at Elder Merrick, feeling dizzy, in a daze, pointing at my ear, stating loudly, “I can’t hear you.” I was starting to sprint up the stairs. “I have to go. Have to go. Have to go. Have to go. Have to go.”
He was managing to keep up with me, jogging backward, eyes trained on my face, and I shook my head. “It’s time.” I nodded, reaching around him for the door handle, thrusting the door open to the main floor, rubbing at my throbbing Core. “Grimm Reaper. I’m a fucking Grimm Reaper. Time to reap. Reap the fuck away. Reap…reap, reap.” And in essence, that was exactly what I was as the Chosen. “I’m not scared right now.” I was running through the halls, Elder Merrick keeping pace beside me, his face stone solid, attention avid on me, but his lips were no longer moving. “Not now. I just gotta…go. Gotta go. Gotta…go.” I laughed on a breathless chuckle, crazed, my mind chaotic as screams of the Damned, the trapped, began to fill my mind as I threw open the back door. “Insane. I’m going to be fucking insane. Another spirit…lost.”
Leric was there on the lawn already, face tilted down toward the ground, white rolls dangling about his face, glowing, his hands rotating, stars flying from them, not hiding his work this time—going to the Temple as I had suspected he had been doing previously for this—as spirit Guardians stood behind him, come from the Temple, a massive black, iron door beginning to form into the ground from his work. “Hurry, kitten.”
“Coming.”
Elder Merrick stopped abruptly when hands grabbed him from behind, and I kept moving, chest heaving, my mid-sized daggers materializing in my hands, already glowing, not sure when that had begun. I raced to stand beside him, staring down at the door. It beat in time to my Core…the Damned, those stuck between living and death, the truly evil which didn’t want to give in when it was their time, inside wanting free. I swayed back and forth to the beat, and my eyes drifted up.
There was a crowd on the lawn, everyone, plus house staff having followed me outside. All staring between Leric, myself, the Guardians, and the door, which even they stared at warily. Elder Farrar was knocking anyone back who started to take a step forward with a blast of his magic, or just flat out shoving them. But somehow, Elder Merrick snuck around the edges. I watched as he crept into the scooped tree line, but lost sight of him as he melded into the shadows.
“Grab the handle,” Leric ordered quickly, the door solidifying further from his working star-fueled hands. “You need to do this the first time now that we’re connected.”
I nodded instantly, no arguments, only the need to get inside. Tucking a dagger in the back of my shorts, I squatted and lifted the enormous wrought iron handle. “Open it?”
“Almost…” Leric’s stars power flew across me like a breeze onto the door, not hitting me, only its destination. “Yes, open it, and prepare yourself.”
My muscles strained and I grunted, shouting with the effort to open it, seeing my own power filter down into the door, the black ugliness of it slowly spreading to white from where I touched it, until the door glowed like the moon, and it flung open, hitting the grass on the ground with a juddering quake. Furious, enraged screams lit the air. Goosebumps instantly covered my flesh as the sounds of the soulful wretchedness in the world pounded.
“Let’s go,” Leric ordered in my mind, no other sound could be heard but the chorus of the Damned beginning to etch their way to the surface, their evil permeating the air, past the darkness. All appeared as they were on their deathbeds in the real world. One armless, another’s throat slit, another trying to squeeze through sporting multiple gunshot wounds in her chest, while another appeared perfectly normal, if only sick, not just Mysticals, but Commoners too. I inhaled heavily as Leric brushed his thumb over my cheek while a dagger, much like my own, appeared in his other hand. “You can do this.” He stepped off into the blackness taking two with him, the Guardians glowing spears pointed toward the door for any Damned that dared to exit or that got past us.
I inhaled again, still feeling no fear, knowing I needed to do this. Compelled to do this. Another inhale, my head tilting back. I sucked oxygen for a moment, opening my eyes to the brilliant morning sky, and saw glowing navy blue eyes staring down at me from high on a tree limb. I blinked up at Elder Merrick as he watched, face completely expressionless, getting a bird’s eye view of what awaited me. And I jumped, grabbing the other two around their necks, taking them down with me…falling…falling…into the encompassing darkness, their screams all I could hear in my head as my powers flared, and I felt their lives rush through my mind as I began dematerializing them, snuffing out their light, their evil, sending their souls back to their dying bodies for their end, my own screams heard as my feet eventually landed next to Leric’s, only bones landing with me, the two gone, then even their bones disappearing back to whence they came.
I was standing on a barren field of red dust, a cloudy permanent day overhead, the sun forever shadowed, red hills on nothing in the distance here in the space of the Barren. And the Damned surrounded us in hordes, limitless masses from what I could see, their thoughts pushing and pressing down on me, their completely deprived thoughts and murderous agendas and merciless deeds. Still shaking from the two I had killed, a rapist and a drug dealer, their heartless acts still churning in my mind, I managed to focus when Leric’s lips pressed against my forehead, fear and anxiety and torment now plaguing my thoughts as the pull diminished since I was here, and he whispered in my mind, “If it becomes too much, just stay near me and I’ll take care of them until you can acclimatize yourself.”
I nodded hastily, rubbing my wet eyes with the back of a glowing hand. “Let’s get this done.”
We moved out from under the cave we had descended down from into the desolate land.
I fought.
I killed.
Each one I took out, their depraved memories flooded through my mind.
I accumulated multiple injuries, their forms here just as corporal as in the real world, only any powers were dead here to them—not us, but they fought. They fought to be freed. They fought to get back to their lives and continue their own brand of evil on the world.
And I fought.
“Who is that?” I asked, my tone dead, our fight done, pointing a bloody blade toward the mountains. Now I knew why the dust was red, or rather, brown. All of the dried blood from previous battles. “That person?”
There was a lone individual standing like a shadow on top of one of the mountains, not coming to fight, but his presence was still evil…malevolent…of the deadliest sort.
“He waits,” Leric answered, his tone also void, breathless as mine was. “When he decides to try to escape, we’ll end him just like the rest.” Per the rules, we only killed those trying to escape. The rest would eventually die with time, the Barren a middle ground for all evil souls between the living to death.
We began traveling over the bloody field back to the cave’s entrance, both of us moving slowly, but I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder at the individual. “You’re positive it’s a he?”
“He approached once when I was younger, and then fled back to the mountains.” Leric paused, thoughtful. “He’s…silver.”
“Silver?”
“Yes.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Ever since I can remember.”
“He’s biding his time.”
“Yes.”
We went silent then, trekking through the bloody grounds.
I didn’t want to speak. Leric didn’t appear to, either.
My mind churning at the pure evilness there had been in the world, now gone. On this one day. Something which happened sometimes twice a week. Or more, Leric had stated. The depth of…darkness…that had existed within those now dead…earth shattering.
No, I couldn’t speak anymore. All I wanted was quiet. Peace and love and fucking sunshine quiet. Climbing the walls of the cave side-by-side with Leric, I concentrated on my task, the black rock slippery under my hands as it dug into them, slicing them…but it only helped fuel me on, the bite of pain a reminder I was still alive, any of my previous injuries healing rapidly on the battlefield, my use of powers making me heal quickly as the powerful being I was should.
Eventually, Leric shouted, “It’s us. Back away.”
I hadn’t even realized we were near the top, the area still pitch black except for our glowing eyes, our bodies glow dimmed by the blood we wore like gruesome paint. I lifted a hand from the darkness, and instantly felt grass under my palm as my wrist curled over the edge of the doorway, my fingers gripping down into the earth. When my head dipped out of the darkness, I squinted into the late afternoon light, realizing we had been gone for a very long time. Some of the Guardians had blood on them, the few we hadn’t taken down with us as we had fallen through the gateway between here and the Barren having tried and failed to get past them.
“Caro?” King Collins shouted from my right. “Caro?” I heard a shuffling sound as Leric and I continued dragging our tired bodies from the pits of what I would forever consider my own hell. “Let me through, dammit, or I will fucking hurt you!”
“I’m fine, King Collins,” I called loudly, but I knew it was a lie, my tone and voice, still dead.
“That’s a whopper if I ever heard one,” Queen Ruckler muttered lightly, also, off to my right, but her tone was like ice. “Jack, let’s give her a second.”
“She’s injured, goddammit!” King Collins growled. “No one bleeds that much and isn’t.”
“The majority of that isn’t her blood,” King Zeller stated, his voice cool and calm. “Just give her a moment.”
“They’ve been down there a long time, Jack.” Queen Cooper’s British accent didn’t grate on me as bad as it normally did as she continued. “Anyone would need a moment to recuperate after that long of a fight.”
“Thank you,” I muttered breathlessly, meaning it wholeheartedly, lifting and slamming the door shut, it turning back to black, instantly disappearing.
Leric and I flopped onto our backs onto the soft grass, breathing heavily of clean air, our exhausted bodies coated in dried blood, reeking of evil deaths.
He cursed quietly, staring up into the sky as I was, then muttered in my mind, “I’m going to pretend for now I don’t see him.” And, he shut his eyes. “I’ve had enough killing for one day.”
I stared up where Elder Merrick was sitting in the tree, but on a different limb now, one over—one that probably had a better view past the guards, eating a damn sandwich and sipping from a Coke calmly, gazing down on us mutely, face expressionless. I met his navy blue gaze with my own dead, cold one. Most would have flinched by what they saw in my gaze, turned and fled, or possibly just fainted. But, no. Not him. Instead, he only held my gaze evenly while taking a bored bite of his—what looked like—bologna sandwich. I blinked slowly, then started chuckling quietly, a completely inappropriate response for what I was going through right now, but it just seemed so damn serene watching him eat and drink casually while he held my death filled, tormented gaze.
“Hush.” Leric bumped my side with his slack hand, eyes still closed. “There’s birds singing in the distance.”
I huffed one more chuckle, watching how Elder Merrick lifted the can of Coke, taking a decent swig to wash down his large bite, and then I closed my eyes…and listened with Leric to the birds sing.
Eating dinner that night, I could tell others were trying overly hard to keep the conversations light. Airy. Free of any troubles. But all I really heard were their tones to give me this indication as I stared out a darkened window across from me, imagining it was sunny and I could see the picturesque landscape. My thoughts, and mind, were still in turmoil. Leric had recovered much faster than me, but I felt no shame for my longer recovery time. He had been doing this for a very long time.
I had not.
He continued to try to push his own tranquility down our bond, but I only barked at him through our personal line of communication to stop. This was something I needed to feel. It was something I needed to get used to. I needed to learn how to fucking deal with it without help, or else, I was screwed if he died before me, since this was a lifetime gig.
I didn’t even fear dying down there when I was ancient and decrepit because we had our powers, but I could seriously see myself going insane if I couldn’t get a grip on this, so many dark memories playing throughout my mind.
I breathed shallow, my hands beginning to tremble the barest bit, and I quickly placed them under the table on my lap where Isolde sat, curled up, damn near catatonic. “Fine,” I whispered in my mind, “Give me a hint.” Two…was better than one…sometimes, he had insisted. “How did you get through your first time?”
He took a long moment to reply where he sat next to Roselle, where I stared between them out the window. “Chess.” I saw him eat a bit of his roll from the corner of my eye. “I like playing chess. And I played it for two days straight worrying my mother to no end. But it kept my mind off it.”
I blinked slowly. “I don’t know how to play any games for…fun.” I hadn’t had a lot of that growing up. My “fun” games were ones of survival. “What else?”
“I’m going to remedy that injustice. Everyone should learn how to play chess.” His fingers tapped on the table. “But in the meantime…why don’t you and Sin ride the dirt bikes?”
My breath caught, my gaze flying to his silver ones. “Thank you.” I was instantly standing, tugging on Sin’s arm, holding Isolde in the other. “Let’s go for a ride.”
The table went quiet at my abrupt movement, and pronouncement, but Sin only wiped his mouth off calmly, placing his napkin on the table. “Sounds perfect, love.” He stood, taking my free hand in his strong familiar one, leading me down the long table and out of the room. And we went riding, even though I couldn’t concentrate well enough to drive one myself, so I sat on the back while Sin drove us on a hard, extended course, but…my mind lifted the barest bit in the evening breeze and bumps of the natural good fun.
Later that evening, I was in my favorite cozy Elemental living room curled up on the loveseat after managing to remember through the chaos of my settling mind from the bike ride that I adored the happy-happy, gushy black and white flicks. I couldn’t sleep, having attempted that, and snuck away from my room, managing to ditch my guards after going in a bathroom one way, and exiting through the other door. Sin was asleep, fully oblivious I had slipped away, and I nibbled on a fingernail, getting settled in when I heard the door open, close, and lock.
I didn’t bother looking. “Not now, Cain.”
“How easily my name rolls off your tongue when we’re alone,” he stated quietly, but his voice was still void as it had been all day. “How did you know it was me?”
“Forests before a rainfall,” I muttered, resting my head against the arm of the loveseat, hearing him move closer…only because he was walking heavily, as if he didn’t want to frighten me.
“You can truly scent me then?”
My teeth gritted, because he wasn’t leaving. “And when you’re aroused…forests before a rainfall spiced with evergreen.” I flicked a finger at the door feeling his heat from behind the loveseat. “Now, really, I’m not in the mood.”
A plate of food was suddenly hovering in front of my face, and he stated impassively, “You didn’t eat when you came back from fighting. Or at dinner.” The plate jiggled a bit, the smells heavenly, wafting as I stared at a mirage of carbs and protein. “Remember? You need to eat more.”
“Right,” I muttered, lifting my hands from the blanket, just on the cusp of grabbing what appeared delicious when only hours ago dinner had seemed like a sick, cruel joke. “Me, and my mothering hips, really need this.”
His wolf huffed quietly, but his voice was still toneless when he spoke. “Just eat it.”
My lips pinched, but I grabbed the plate as the brown gravy started to spill over the mounded wall of mashed potatoes onto the chicken and part of a buttered roll. “I could probably eat.” Lifting a large spoonful of potato goodness slathered in brown heaven, I paused, stating, “Thank you.”
He grunted, and I saw his hip lean against the back of the couch, and he flicked a finger to the television. “You’re watching this because…?”
Not bothering with manners, I stated around a mouthful, “Leric pretty much indicated I needed to do things I enjoy to keep my mind off of the shit that went down, all that,” my mind blanked for a moment, memories of darkness, and I shuddered, “evil. But since I don’t play chess, or whatever he uses to cope, I picked what I do like.” I pointed at the screen with my spoon. “I enjoy these movies.”
“Ah.” His wolf huffed quietly. “And bike riding?”
“Yes.” Isolde woke on my lap, staring up to him. After two more bites down, and he didn’t appear to be going anywhere, still as a statue behind me, but silent and watching the show, I sighed heavily. “Want to watch the movie with me?”
“I am.”
I grunted, and took another bite. “Fine. I didn’t want to share the loveseat, anyway. The last time I shared it with a Shifter I ended up getting squashed.” Not to mention, a lecture the next morning. “I can hate you just fine from where you’re standing.”
A moment passed, then he asked slowly, “What Shifter did you share this sofa with?”
I chuckled quietly, a bit evilly. “Not going there, Cain.” My gaze flicked back to his expressionless, stony face. “You took my virginity, not the other guy.”
His eyes narrowed the barest bit before flicking back to the television, and I saw his jaw ticking the barest bit, a crack in his stony façade. “Does your mate know you’re down here?”
I snorted, turning my attention to the show, taking another bite. “He’s not my mate. He’s my One. And after he peeked into the room to make sure Sin wasn’t sleeping in there—”
He snorted.
“he left for his own room.”
“And Sin? Did you leave him peacefully unaware?”
“Pretty much.” I ate another bite. “He’s stressed enough as it is.”
Another long moment passed. “He’s never kissed you like that before.”
My spoonful paused to my mouth. “No, he hasn’t.” I ate the bite slowly.
“Why now?”
Simple words. “Because he was frightened I’d really been hurt, plus, he’s figured us out.”
His fingers tapped on the back of the couch for a full minute while I tried to concentrate on the show, then he asked gradually, “What has he figured out exactly?”
I snorted about his finagled way of asking me my own thoughts. “Other than we’ve slept together?” My eyes flicked back to his striking handsome, stony profile, then to the television. “He’s also figured out we love to hate one another.”
“Hmm,” he hummed quietly with long minutes passing of his fingers tapping near my shoulder. “We’ve never just watched a show.”
“We haven’t done a lot together,” I mumbled honestly, continuing to eat my meal.
More tapping of his fingers, tempo speeding slightly, the only sign indicating what he was feeling. “Maybe I will sit for a bit.” Instantly, he was moving around the arm of the loveseat, blocking my view of the screen…also giving me a great shot of his bare back muscles flexing as he maneuvered on silent feet between the couch and small coffee table, his tight ass covered in soft cotton, black pajama bottoms. I immediately started moving my legs as he sat woodenly next to me, his frame even bulkier than Brann’s, so he utterly squashed me. “Christ,” he muttered, lifting his hips, pulling my feet out from under his legs not having moved them fast enough…and he placed them gently on his lap, his hand resting over them, keeping them there as he tried to get comfortable, “Elementals have the smallest damn furniture.”
I cleared my throat, ignoring the jibe. “Quit complaining and watch the show.” I pointed with my spoon, trying to disregard how he leaned even more on me after he rested his bare feet on the coffee table. “I like silence during a movie.”
His wolf huffed quietly while his scent enfolded me, his warmth surrounding. “Well, that’s one thing we have in common.” His large fingers started gently playing absently with my toes, and Prodigy toe ring, while I tried to concentrate on the movie. “Although,” he stated a few minutes later, shaking his head at the actor’s antics, his stony countenance starting to dissolve, “our choice in movies varies greatly.”
“Let me guess. You’re a blood and guts type of film lover?”
He chuckled quietly. “That was obvious.” His head tilted toward mine, and suddenly our faces were very close, his gaze instantly locking on mine. My heart stalled in my throat, and instantly, my mouth went dry as I started to fall into their complex depths, memories of our time together rushing me—the lie it had been, half his amazing features outlined in the light of the television, the other half shadowed in the darkness of the room. Much like the both of us in life. His smile slowly disappeared, his lips thinning, and he murmured softly, “I hate you so much you’re not my kind.”
I breathed a tortured, quiet chuckle. “And I hate you because you’re an unscrupulous asshole.”
We only continued to stare.
Heart stalling, I had to ask on a whisper, “Was any of it real?”
His lips thinned even more, his eyebrows slowly squeezing together.
“Right.” I cleared my throat, feeling it start to burn when he didn’t answer. “I under—” His finger against my lips stopped me.
“Don’t.” He shook his head slowly, little by little pulling his finger away from my lips. He ran a hand through his curls, turning his attention back to the television, giving me his profile, but his tone was still quiet when he spoke. “More than I’d like to admit was real.” I froze completely, and his gaze flicked to mine, holding. “But, you were still a job. I reported everything you told me in confidence to Elder Jacobs the minute I left you. My loyalties were not to you. I would have killed you in a heartbeat if I considered you a threat.”
I inhaled slowly. “And when you found out I was from the future?”
Simple words as he held my gaze. “I hated you even more.”
Tears filled my gaze, but I would be damned if I shed them in front of him. “I loathe you.” I hated so much he had used me. Had sex with me for his “in”. Hated the man he had been when I had thought him someone else.
The only consolation…his eyes. While his expression was absolutely neutral, they were just as tortured as mine. He held my gaze evenly, not flinching away from what he saw, and also, not hiding his own conflicted abhorrence. “As I despise you.”
I sniffed once, because it couldn’t be helped, and turned my attention from him, swallowing hard, and eating another bite, the food going down like sludge now.
“I won’t apologize, Caro.”
“As you’ve said.” I swirled a piece of bread in the remaining mashed potatoes. “Just like I’ll never feel anything but contentment for being an Elemental.” The spirit part was a burden, but out of all the Mysticals, I would still pick to be my faction, even given my current problems. Being an Elemental was part of who I was, part of what made me…me.
His wolf huffed quietly, then he turned his face to watch the show as I was. “So,” he cleared his throat softly, running his hand through his tight curls again, even as Isolde started to inch her way toward him, crawling stealthy, “what’s up with the tiger thing?”
My chuckle was harsh. “Don’t get your hopes up. I won’t be going furry.” Leric had explained it was just part of who we were, an integral part of our bone structure, making us stronger, but animalistic—tied to our emotions. “The tiger only erupts—sounds—under extreme feeling.”
His wolf huffed again more loudly, and after a moment he stated, “It also makes sense for Bindi’s assessment about,” his nose crinkled, “your mate’s body structure in King Collins’s report, which means you’re probably built much the same.”
I couldn’t comment on that, but I stated, “He’s my One. Not my mate.”
He grunted, his jaw ticking. “You have a damn bond, the closest thing two Mysticals can have magically. All the mate gifts, plus more. Not to mention you’re both incredibly possessive.” His fingers tapped on my feet, and it didn’t appear he noticed when Isolde crawled onto his lap. “You know I could take him, right? I won’t say anything about Sin, because I know you care deeply for him, so I won’t say I could take him too…since that’s a given, but,” his gaze flicked to mine, hard and cold, then back to the television, “you know I can take your mate, right?”
Instant. “My One, not my mate.” But, I stared, not believing what I was seeing or hearing. “Is this like one of those dick measuring contests?”
He snorted hard, arrogantly and confidently. “My dick’s definitely bigger than his.” He flicked a finger at me as I continued to gape at the side of his face. “Back to the issue. I’m not frightened of him. We’re of a like age, but I’m a wolf.” Said wolf growled a bit as if I had forgotten this. “I could rip his head off—”
I placed my finger over his lips this time, leaning a bit with the action. “As you’ve said…I’m a bit possessive, so don’t go threatening him.” My tiger huffed quietly. “I’m the only one that can do that.” That…was the truth, but…he was being damn adorable going all I’m-the-baddest-wolf-on-the-block, so I leaned a bit more and kissed the corner of his mouth softly, and felt him go predatory still at the touch. “But, yes, I believe it would be one hell of a battle between you two.”
He leaned a bit…just a smidge…keeping my mouth pressed to the corner of his, and he murmured, “I’d win.”
My lips curved. “God, I wish you hadn’t been such an uncaring asshole.”
“And I wish you were a wolf,” he stated just as gently, and then paused. “Hell, I’d even take you as a damn bird…and that’s fucking saying something.”
I tilted my head, and did what I wanted, stroking his lips full on, but very softly, still hurt…still so full of hate. “What’s wrong with a bird?” But, God, his lips were so damn perfect.
His wolf made a damn…huffing-growl-purr sound that had my libido thumping in time to my heartbeat as I stroked his unmoving lips again, and he spoke against my mouth, again pressing into the touch, but not adding to it. “They sometimes squawk during intimacies, just like my wolf growls.”
“Mmm, I agree,” my brows lifted, “that would be awkward.” I kissed him once more, and paused, faltering, holding my mouth against his when he cautiously kissed me back, the very softest of brushes. Air rushed past my lips, fucking grateful I wasn’t completely alone in this, and I pressed my lips to his more firmly, my eyes closing with the motion, not wanting to do any more than this, not after everything between us, and also, not after the horrible first day on the job as the Chosen I’d had. Our last joining had been heady, but these delicate touches were intoxicating as his plush lips pressed against mine more firmly, stroking my lips in a tender caress. I pressed even more firmly for a moment, holding my lips there, just being in this soft moment with him…Cain…him without an agenda I reviled, without his detest for relations outside his kind…just us…well, it was really nice. Peaceful, almost.
His hand cupped my cheek softly as our mouths melded so damn seamlessly, his thumb brushing over my jaw in soft strokes, his breath shuddering a bit against my mouth before he nipped delicately on my bottom lip, tugging it softly. “This changes nothing. You’re still a spirit bitch to me.”
“Agreed, she says to the uncaring asshole.” I chuckled against his lips, my mouth caressing, stroking his again with my words. “As I said, we love to hate one another.” Currently, there was no other way for us, both of us feeling…too much. I stroked his lips once more, his mouth, supple and soft brushing mine before pulling back gently, staring into navy blue eyes an inch from my own. “At least we’re being honest with each other now.”
Black brows lifted the barest bit. “That, we are.” His lips twitched. “And if I’m completely honest, I’d have to say your Vizoac’s seriously the most screwed up I’ve ever known.”
I blinked, and then glanced down. I stared. Isolde was lying on her back…on his lap…snuggling between my feet and his bare, rippled stomach…snoring softly. “Oh.” She looked damn cute. “She’s comfortable.”
His thumb brushed once more over my jaw before he lowered his hand, and his gaze, from my face, and with an extremely tentative motion, he used one finger to gently rub her belly. She woke, and he froze completely, but she only lifted her head, sniffed his finger…then dropped her head back, and not even a second later, she was snoring again. “Yeah,” his wolf huffed quietly, even as he started petting her again, “seriously the most screwed up one I’ve seen so far.”
“Hush,” I muttered, resting back against the couch, situating the blanket so he had some. “I want to watch the movie now, not listen to you make fun on my Vizoac.”
He grunted, but he carefully, and slowly, lifted her sleeping tiny body as he pulled the blanket over his legs, scooting down on the loveseat, and I quickly moved my almost empty plate to the arm of it when he pressed more of his upper body against my chest, resting the back of his head against my shoulder and neck, placing Isolde on his massive chest, then gently pulled the blanket up over them, so only her tiny head peeked out. His soft curls were tickling my cheek and his heavy muscled weight could have definitely been distributed differently, but I didn’t utter a word of complaint, not wanting to ruin this stolen moment as we began watching the movie in—what felt like—peaceful silence.
And, I realized…my mind had calmed while in his presence.