CHAPTER 12
Lyra couldn’t remember how it had felt to have nothing around her wrists, no metal weighing her down or spell sapping her strength. Had it always felt like this?
She stared at her stained naked wrists as she walked through the dragon village, fascinated with them. They felt light, strangely so, and she could feel her strength returning, simmering just below the surface of her skin.
Shit, it felt good.
She wanted to show Grey.
There was a bounce in her step as she headed towards the centre of the village, put there by picturing how Grey’s pale blue eyes would light up with warmth and relief when he saw her shackles were gone and she was finally free.
Able to move on with her life.
Her steps slowed, the light that had been filling her fading as she entered the square and spotted Grey.
A beautiful female stood before him, her long crimson hair barely concealing her naked breasts, her red lips curved in a wide alluring smile as she spoke with him.
He said something back to her.
The corners of his lips curved.
Pain lanced Lyra’s heart and she took a step back, her hands falling to brush her thighs as she stared across the open space at Grey, watched him talking with the female. He wasn’t pushing her away, not as he had pushed Lyra away when she had tried to be close to him, had dared to risk everything all so she could kiss him.
He looked as if he might welcome it if the dragon offered her lips.
A vision of him dipping his head to kiss the female leaped into her mind and she couldn’t shut it out, even as it tore at her, ripped down that strength that had been flowing back into her and left her battered, weak all over again.
She backed off another step.
She knew about dragons. They bedded whoever caught their eye, scratched their itches wherever and whenever they could, and had no qualms about taking multiple partners whenever the mood struck them.
The female laughed, her eyes lighting up with it, and reached out to place her hand on Grey’s chest.
Lyra shook her head and stumbled back another step as the need to fight poured through her, had a growl curling from her lips and her claws extending before she could stop them.
No. She didn’t want to fight.
She didn’t want to fight for Grey.
Because he didn’t want her.
She forced herself to turn her back on him and walk away, but it was hard, her movements slower than she would have liked as her hellcat instincts pushed her to remain, to destroy the dragon who had dared to try to steal what was hers.
Grey belonged to her.
No. No he didn’t. He never would. She could see that now. She could see what a fool she had been to think anything could happen between them.
“Lyra.”
The sound of him calling her name shattered the hold her hellcat instincts had on her, freeing her from their chains, and she broke into a dead run, weaving through the huts and heading away from him as quickly as she could manage.
She didn’t dare look back as she sprinted towards the mountains, feared that she would stop if she saw him coming after her, or that he would break her heart by not being there.
That mocking voice whispered he would remain with the beauty he had been smiling at, the one he clearly wanted.
Her left leg ached but she kept running, didn’t slow even when she hit the foothills of the mountain. She scrambled up the loose rock, the sharp black stones cutting into her palms and her feet, and breathed hard as she reached what looked like a path.
She followed it, the ache in her leg becoming a dull throb that had her wincing with each step. It slowed her down and she cursed it as she rubbed her thigh and walked as swiftly as she could manage. She would rest when she was far enough away that the vision of Grey with that female no longer taunted her.
The black dragon had said the portal was this way.
Maybe she could reach it without stopping for a break and then she would be almost home.
She could forget about Grey.
Gods, the thought of him with another female was sheer torment, up there with the pain the slavers had put her through. She couldn’t handle it. She tried to shut it out, but it persisted, stabbed at her heart as she stumbled and tripped along the path, desperate to get away.
With every step she managed, the visions grew more heated, the images of the dragon female touching and stroking Grey, pressing her lips to his flesh and tasting him as Lyra wanted, and him welcoming it from the bitch, torturing her.
Her hellcat side flared up again, prowled beneath her skin and pushed her to turn back around, go back down the mountain, find the redhead and rip her to shreds.
If the female was dead, Grey would no longer want her.
Lyra staggered left as her leg gave out, hit a boulder hard and sagged against it, breathing rapidly. Her heart raced, sweat trickling down her spine, and she grimaced and growled as the throbbing in her leg grew more intense. She welcomed the pain, because it broke the hold the visions had on her, giving her a reprieve from them for a heartbeat.
She tried to push onto her feet.
Her legs buckled.
Strong arms grabbed her and a male growled in her right ear.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing running off like that?”
Grey.
A very angry Grey.
The relief that swept through her stole more of her strength, utterly shattered that vision of him with another female and let light pour back into her heart.
He had come for her.
He had left the other female behind in order to be with her.
He huffed and righted her, and then he was gone, pacing away from her. She lifted her eyes to him and weathered the growl he directed at her, and the fierce flash of fangs. His pale blue eyes glowed brightly, his pupils enormous in their centres, and his bare chest heaved as he paced, breathing hard and fast.
She could feel his fury, his anger.
His distress.
He shoved his hands through his silver hair, growled as he bent forwards, and then threw his head back and roared.
She tensed, her heart leaping high into her throat and lodging there. There was so much pain in that roar, agony she had caused.
He lowered his hands to his sides, exhaled hard and stared at her, an empty expression on his face. His eyes spoke to her though, relayed his hurt and his despair.
“How the fuck am I meant to protect you when you run away from me?” He looked down at her hands. “Or is it that you don’t need me anymore now that your restraints are gone?”
Gods, no. It was nothing like that.
“What am I supposed to do?” she bit out, his anger fuelling hers, together with the vision of him that haunted her, the sight of him smiling at another female when he wouldn’t smile at her.
When he didn’t want her.
“If I had stayed…” She looked away from him, not wanting to say it, not willing to risk herself again like that.
He laughed, the sound mocking and cold. “I understand. I do… it’s not the first time it’s happened to me… and it’s for the best.”
She had no damned clue what he was talking about, but she didn’t like that despondent edge to his deep voice, or the resigned look in his eyes.
“It’s for the best that I want to kill any female who so much as looks at you?” she snapped. “I suppose females getting upset when you look at another female is an every day occurrence for you then?”
His eyes widened.
He stared at her, his silence slowly destroying her confidence, pulling apart the strength she had mustered and making her squirm.
Damn. She shouldn’t have said that. She should have just walked away.
But she couldn’t.
She couldn’t walk away from him.
She had run, but all the while she had been aware that she wouldn’t leave him, that she would stop eventually and she would turn back.
Because she needed him.
She had never needed anyone the way she needed Grey.
He was everything to her.
“I was just trying to get information,” he said, his tone calm and even now, no trace of anger in it. No trace of any emotion. She could sense his wariness as he studied her, holding himself at a distance from her. His eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested in that female, and what’s it to you if I am? The last I checked, I wasn’t yours… and you didn’t want to be mine.”
She averted her gaze, stared off up the path to her left, and struggled to find the right words to say, the ones that wouldn’t leave her completely exposed and vulnerable.
The ones that wouldn’t hurt him.
She wasn’t sure how many times she had cursed male hellcats in front of him, but clearly it had been enough times to leave a mark on him and now he foolishly thought she didn’t want him.
She had tried to kiss him for gods’ sakes.
He took a slow, measured step towards her. “What’s it to you?”
She could feel his need to know the answer to that question, but she couldn’t say it.
He lifted his hand, and she held her ground when he hesitated, remained still as he struggled with himself, and a sliver of his fear ran through her veins. He was afraid this would be too much for her. It wouldn’t. She wanted to tell him that. She wasn’t fragile, liable to break if he touched her.
She would welcome it.
His palm gently cupped her cheek, his touch so soft and light that it completely undid her, stripping away her strength and leaving her weak, trembling inside.
She didn’t resist him when he applied a little pressure, enough to draw her head around to face him.
She tentatively raised her eyes to his.
Hell, they were tender as they searched hers, filled with warmth and need, a desire to know all the things she wanted to keep hidden from him.
“It’s no use hiding from me, Lyra,” he rasped, his voice thick and low, stirring heat in her veins as he stepped closer. “I can feel you.”
She closed her eyes, needing to shut him out again, but she couldn’t. He was in now, and he was in deep, way past the barrier around her heart, beyond the point where she could push him back out, not without hurting him.
Not without hurting herself.
“You’re upset,” he husked, a bare whisper, and leaned closer, brought his forehead to her right temple and rested it there.
She trembled at the feel of him so close to her and wrestled with the instincts that told her to lean into him, to move closer still, to tilt her head just a fraction of a degree and bring their lips into contact. She was sure he would kiss her then. He wouldn’t be able to resist her.
He would give her what she needed.
All of him.
She needed that with a ferocity that shook her, roused her hellcat side and had her verging on taking hold of him.
And never letting go.
His breath was warm on her skin, his enticing scent swirling around her, and that heat that always seemed to roll off him called to her, begging her to step into his arms and let him hold her too.
He murmured, “Gods… do you think it doesn’t upset me too when males look at you? Do you think it doesn’t drive me mad when you speak with them?”
His fingers twitched against her face, tense for a second before he dropped his hand from her cheek and turned away, breaking contact with her.
“I’m sorry.”
She grabbed his right wrist before he could pull away from her again, refusing to let him go this time.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
She wouldn’t let him escape.
“Don’t apologise,” she said and he tensed, his bare shoulders going rigid, but remained with his back to her. She pulled down a deep breath for courage, and put it all out there, because one of them needed to make their feelings clear. “You’re right. I can’t stand you looking at other females… because I want you all to myself.”
He finally looked over his shoulder at her, his striking blue eyes meeting hers, filled with incredulity and disbelief. “You really mean that?”
Lyra nodded, a little afraid of where things were going. It felt as if it was happening so quickly, even when the build-up had been long, and a touch infuriating at times.
The soft edge his eyes gained told her that he wasn’t going to use it against her, reminded her that with him, she didn’t need to be strong all the time. She didn’t need to guard herself so fiercely.
She could let him in and trust him.
“Why?”
That whispered question broke something inside her, tore at her heart as his blue eyes darted between hers, and his emotions swept through their fragile link, relaying everything to her.
All of his hurt.
His fear.
She frowned. “Why not?”
He tugged free of her grip and paced away from her, past his backpack that lay discarded on the trail, and only stopped when he reached the point where the path began to slope downwards into the dragon clan’s valley.
“I’m not exactly a prize,” he said to that valley, his back to her, his voice distant. “You can do better.”
Lyra’s frown deepened. What had gotten into him?
She had thought he had been keeping his distance because he either didn’t want to frighten her or because he didn’t want her.
But as she stared at his rigid back, and sifted through the emotions she could feel flowing through him, she got the impression it ran deeper than that.
He honestly believed he was unworthy of her.
“Is this because I’m a hellcat?” She wasn’t sure why it would be. It wasn’t as if hellcats were held in particularly high regard by the other feline shifter species.
He tilted his head slightly towards her, barely enough that he could see her out of the corner of his eye, and slowly shook his head. “It’s because…”
His silver eyebrows knitted hard and he angled his head downwards, away from her.
No damn way he was getting away with leaving her hanging like that.
She had bared part of herself for him.
She had let him in.
It was time he did the same for her.
She had half a mind to make him answer her, but the fear that flowed through him stole her voice and her breath. What was he thinking to make himself feel so afraid, so unsure and so hurt?
Whatever it was, it was cutting at him.
Deeply.
She pushed away from the boulder, her legs stronger from her rest, and turned towards him, but remained at a distance, giving him time and space, because she could feel how much he needed it. He was trying to fight the feelings, to muster the courage to finish what he had started to say.
“Grey,” she whispered and he lowered his head further, but the feelings that she could sense in him shifted, the fear fading a little. Because she had spoken to him, had said his name gently with every drop of the affection that she held for him? “I need to know why you feel I can do better than you. I want to understand you, Grey. Please don’t shut me out.”
She risked a step towards him.
“Don’t, Lyra.” It came out hoarse, strained to the point of breaking, and her heart bled for him. “Please?”
She couldn’t do as he had asked. He was hurting, and she needed to take that pain away.
She closed the distance between them and didn’t hesitate. She took hold of his hand, slipping her fingers through the gap between his thumb and his palm, and stepped around him, so she could see his face.
Gods.
The pain in his blue eyes stole her breath.
It echoed in her heart.
What had happened to the gorgeous warrior with a heart of steel who had saved her and the others from the hell of slavery?
What had happened to the powerful, confident male who was on a mission and wouldn’t let anything stand in his way?
She raised her hand and he edged backwards.
“Don’t touch me. I don’t… I can’t…” He closed his eyes and his voice dropped to a whisper. “If you knew what I was—”
His head snapped up, his eyes meeting hers.
“It was foolish of me to let things carry on this long, and I haven’t been honest with you… but I will now.” Those beautiful blue eyes gained a wild edge. “I need this over with because I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t bear lying to you… fooling myself into thinking you’ll look at me the same way once you know what I am.”
Lyra didn’t like the sound of that.
He broke away from her and fumbled with his black trousers, his hands shaking violently as he undid the button and dealt with the zipper. She moved back a step to avoid being hit by a boot as he toed them off and kicked them aside.
She caught a glimpse of him in all of his glory as he shoved his trousers down and then he had shifted.
She stared at the large animal in front of her.
Unsure what she was meant to see in him that he found so appalling, that he thought would put her off him and make her despise him for some reason.
Unsure what he had been lying about.
All she saw before her was a beautiful, breathtaking, white tiger.
Soulful blue eyes held hers, and then he lowered his head and turned it away from her a little, and his shame blasted through her, the depth of it startling her and bringing tears to her eyes as she realised what he had meant.
Gods, he thought there was something wrong with him because he had come out purest white and black.
Her beautiful male.
She went to him, eased to her knees in front of him and took hold of his cheeks in both of her palms. His white fur was soft against her skin, his whiskers tickling her forearms as she forced him to look at her.
It was all there in his eyes.
The hurt. The shame. The fear.
All this time they had been together, he had been thinking she would reject him the moment she had seen him in his tiger form.
It broke her heart.
The tears lining her lashes slipped down her cheeks.
She looked at him, trying to find fault in him and finding none at all. What should have been amber on him was snow white, reminding her of home, and his black stripes had an inky blue sheen as they caught the light, no doubt a product of his hellcat genes.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, voice a little hoarse as she fought the tears that kept coming. Tears that were for him, because someone had made him believe there was something wrong with him. Fuck, she wanted to hunt them down and kill them, wanted to make them suffer as he did. She stroked her fingers through his thick fur. “I’ve never seen a tiger as beautiful as you are. You’re incredible. You had me worried there for a moment… I thought you were going to transform into a wholly different creature.”
He tried to look away from her, and she lowered her right hand to beneath his broad chin and kept his eyes on her. He never had to be ashamed around her. Never. He was far more majestic than she had expected. Far more beautiful. If she had to tell him that every day of his life in order to make him believe her, then she would gladly do it.
“I don’t understand what your problem is,” she murmured.
And gasped when he suddenly shifted back.
He knelt before her, his head bent, silver hair falling down against his forehead and blue eyes fixed on the black dirt between them. “I’m a freak.”
Lyra stroked his cheek, running her fingers over the sculpted perfection of his cheekbones down to the strong defined line of his jaw. “You’re unique.”
“I came out wrong,” he bit out.
The pain in him increased.
“Gods, I fucking hate whoever made you feel that way,” she snarled and he tensed, his eyes leaping to meet hers, filled with surprise and a touch of awe, before they dropped to his knees. “Was it your family?”
He was quick to shake his head.
“Tiger society… it… our markings are celebrated. They’re the pride of our species.”
She could see where this was going.
“They’re just jealous.” She settled her palm against his cheek. “You’re more beautiful than they are and they can’t stand it.”
She never had been able to understand the mindset of people who treated others poorly purely because they were different to them. Everyone was different and that was what should have been celebrated. The tigers were stupid for celebrating everyone looking like a clone of each other.
“I wish I came out like my twin. I wish I was normal.” He closed his eyes.
No way he was shutting her out.
“What’s so great about looking like everyone else? Why would you want to look like your brother… why would you want to be someone else, Grey?” She smoothed her hand over his cheek. “When you shifted, all I saw was a beautiful tiger, made all the more beautiful by your distinct markings. When I look at you now, I see you. I see the male who saved me, who loves his brother so fiercely he’s trekking halfway across Hell for his sake, and one who wants to protect his pride even though they’ve clearly been treating him badly. Personally, I would have left them long ago.”
She sighed and lowered her hand to his jaw, and eased his head up. He still didn’t look at her.
“You didn’t. You had a mission to protect your sister, and you stuck with it, even though the pride were cruel to you. The freaks are the ones who treated you badly just because you are different to them, when they should have seen past your markings to the male beneath.” She dropped her hand to his bare chest. “They should have seen the heart that beats inside you, full of love and a strong desire to protect.”
She lifted her eyes to his as they opened to her and stared deep into them.
“They should have seen the beautiful male I do.”