I raise my chin and meet his gaze. “For someone who is supposed to be the smartest warrior of all the Fae Corps, you took your time figuring that one out, Soldier.”
My voice comes out in a drawl, and it sounds so wrong.
I should stop this, should just tell him why I had chosen to hide this from him. Why I cannot live without him. Why I need his help. The words are there at the tip of my tongue, all I need to do is open my mouth and tell him…but nothing comes out. My throat closes. My core clenches, and his dick hardens inside. My pussy clamps down around him. My body cannot stop itself from needing him, from arousing him again.
The tendons of his throat flex. “Why are you trying to push me away?”
I bite the inside of my lips. Tell him, tell him now, why you must leave, to go to your kids. But I can’t. To do so means he’ll insist on coming with me, and then what? I’ll be leading him to his death, for Boris will not hesitate to take him down. Either way, my girls are in danger. It’s best if I get out of here and get to them on my own.
The hair on my nape hardens, and my stomach churns. The energy of my dragon jabs into my rib cage, insisting that I go to them. Now.
I firm my shoulders. “I am simply trying to have a conversation.”
“What's on your mind, Fire?"
His voice is soft, almost gentle, and I am sure he understands me on some level, and that’s not possible, is it? This alpha who’d knotted me, who’d taken my heart, my body, my soul…will I give him my secrets, too? I want to. I open my mouth to almost tell him everything when he bends down and brushes my forehead.
I blink. It’s a soft touch, so sweet. Is he trying to tell me something?
He pulls out of me, and hot streams of cum overflow and spill down my thigh. He bends and hesitates. Then, almost as if he can’t stop himself, he scoops up the mixture of our fluids and rubs it into my pussy and over my thighs. He edges his body down the mattress between my legs, steps off the bed, then looks down at me.
“You are beautiful, Fire, and all mine. There’s so much I feel for you that I’d be insane to let you leave.”
His features close.
The blue of his irises lightens until they resemble ice chips. There is a furrow between his brows. He seems troubled, almost confused. His body is stiff, and he takes a step back.
All the warmth seems to follow him, for a cold burst of air rushes over me, and that’s strange, for shifters run hot, we never feel cold, never. But then not every dragon shifter realizes she is mated to a Fae, one she has to keep secrets from.
I raise my shoulders and swing my legs over the bed to follow him, only a tug on my hand has me falling back.
I look up to find my arm is tied to the headboard. “You restrained me?” My gaze flies to his face.
He watches me, unmoving.
I jerk my arm, and the bond allows me to change position. I try to shove my legs over the side of the bed, but the restraint stops me. Blood pumps at my temples. “Let me go.”
“I can’t.” His voice is low. He sounds almost regretful. “I will not let you put yourself in danger again.”
I set my jaw. “All you care about is your own selfish needs.”
Anger rolls off him in waves, but he doesn’t say anything.
I drop into myself, pull at my dragon’s energy and, yanking it out, I fling it toward the bond, only it bounces off and dissipates. I stare, then fear twists my guts. I turn on him. “What is it? What are the chains made of?”
“Telekinetic energy. As you said, you are not a weak human. I needed something strong enough to hold back a shifter.”
“You planned this all along?" I stare. "Bringing me back here to your space, in a city where there are only Fae, where there is no way I can escape?”
“I’d do anything to keep you with me. But tying you up so you can't leave is the last resort. Having you shot at? No, I never wanted that. I’ll never forgive myself for exposing you that way and I cannot risk having that happen again. It’s why I need to keep you here where you are safe.”
He turns and stalks toward the door.
Anger surges through my veins. My pulse thunders at my wrist, at my temples. My belly churns, and I taste the acrid taste of fear in my mouth. “Don’t do this, Chef.”
He pauses. “I am sorry, there is no other way out. Not when you are still keeping so many secrets from me. If this is the only way to keep you safe, then so be it.”
My shoulders still. How did he know that? How did he sense I was holding back from him? But then our relationship has never been just surface. The man knows every part of me. He’s been deep inside me. My cheeks heat. And this is no time to blush. Not now. Not when it’s the life of my kids at stake. “I can’t tell you everything, not without risking your life, don't you see that?”
He shoots me a glance over his shoulder. “I’d die for you. Can’t you sense that?”
And that is the problem.
I can’t risk his life.
I can’t put my kids’ lives on the line either.
I am caught in between them with no escape.
He swallows, and his shoulders hunch. The sound of the zipper being drawn up is loud. He stops at the chair halfway to the door, then stoops and yanks up the shirt that hangs there. He shrugs it on. “Don’t hate me for this.”
He stalks out, and the door shuts behind him.
“I don’t hate you.” My words fall as if stones in a ravine. “I love you.”
32
Tristan
I shouldn’t have left her tied up in my bedroom, but what choice had she given me? Everything in her body language pointed to the fact that the moment I turned my back on her, she’d leave. I’d never used my telekinetic energy to bind down a woman…definitely not the one who’s my mate. Her anger and hurt had reached out to me through the closed door, and I’d almost stalked back to her and gathered her in my arms and told her that I’d never hurt her. Ha! My actions contradict my words.
I’d left her needy and hurting, and that was only so I don’t end up knotting her again. She deserves more than just being fucked, though there is nothing simple about anything between us. Not the way we spoke or made love or exchanged banter. None of which excuses my actions.
I stalk away from the bedroom on the first floor of my newly allocated bungalow.
Doc had taken Jess to the infirmary, and when it had been clear that she was on the mend thanks to her shifter healing powers, I needed a space to move her to. One where I could keep watch over her, keep her safe.
Dante had insisted I take one of the newly furnished homes in the compound meant for mated couples, and I had agreed. Now I wonder if Dante had allocated me a house, assuming that I was mated?
Nah, he wouldn’t do that without asking me, would he?
I crack my neck. It’s exactly the kind of stupid-ass stunt he’d pull. The presumptuousness of his gesture slams a punch in my gut. Because, it’s true. I am all but mated…to a woman, I don’t know much about. Who’s hiding secrets from me. Who’s going into heat and who needs me, and I had left her. I pause half way up the corridor, “Fuck.” I turn, then slam my fist into the wall.
A crack appears, and some of the plaster from the ceiling falls on me. I shake it off and pound my forehead against the wall. “Fuck this shit.” Fuck me, too, while I’m at it.
When did everything get this complicated?
“Looking for a way to blow off steam, brother?”
I start at Doc’s voice, straighten my shoulders, and push away from the wall.
I touch my cheek, and my fingers come away wet, and it’s not with blood, so fuck me, but now I am crying, and over a female. This is it; I am losing myself. Losing the edge that made me one of the most ferocious warriors of the Fae Corps, other than Dante, and look how he’d fallen, right? But he didn’t have to face up to the kind of troubled history I had. Of being sexually assaulted and being completely warped when it came to my sexual preferences.
No woman should ha
ve to put up with that. Least of all a female with abuse in her past and secrets to rival mine that claw away at her.
“You okay, Chef?”
I shove away the concern in Doc’s voice. So what if he’d had my back in fights. Had helped me move on from my past to a position that helped me face myself every morning.
Right now, all I know is that I need to be rid of the echo of her voice, her scent that still clings to my skin, the need for her that tightens my belly and makes my heart ache. Every part of my fucking body writhes to be close to her, and I can’t allow myself that weakness.
“Just waiting to kick your ass, Doc. Remind me, when was the last time you ate mud from being whipped in a fight?”
Doc’s gaze narrows. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Chef. Just because we’ve known each other since we were this high”—he drops his hand until it’s somewhere in the region of his waist— “is no reason to get nasty, motherfucker.”
I scratch my jaw and pretend to yawn. “Save the histrionics for later, Doc. Just admit you don’t have a fight in you anymore, that you save your pretty hands for surgery nowadays.”
Doc bares his teeth, and his canines drop. And fuck if that doesn’t get my hackles rising, too.
We Fae are bloodthirsty. We may not be as emo as shifters, but hell, when it comes to venting our emotions, nothing gets our blood going more than a winner-takes-all kind of showdown.
Doc draws himself up to his full height. He’s almost as tall as me, as broad as me, just more streamlined. Every part of him is corded muscle; the fucker doesn’t have a single ounce of extra fat on him. He’s the faster runner of us, and the quickest teleporter, his endurance lasts farther than any of us.
He can outlast me in a fight unless I bring him down first.
“You're right." He lowers his chin. "I do minimize the use of my fists, and it's so I can put my hands to better use; like sewing up the wounds that you couldn’t protect her from.” He jerks his chin toward the door of at the end of the corridor.
Fucker lays the blame of her having been hurt on me.
And damn if he isn’t right. I know it. He knows it. But it doesn’t stop the anger that twists my gut. Doesn’t stop the remorse that churns my belly and makes my bile rise.
I step forward and close the gap between us until my chest bumps his.
A low growl rolls up from Doc.
I flick back my ears and snarl at him.
His nostrils flare. Then he stiffens. “Fucker, you mated her? Of all the women, you chose a dragon shifter, the one species the Fae still don't completely trust? The emissary of the Bureau on what is supposed to be a test mission to see if we can work together, and you had to go and screw it up, motherfu—”
My ears pop. There’s a ringing in my head, and I swing at Doc. My fist connects with his jaw.
He staggers, then rights himself. “That the best you can do? Lost your balls, oh mated one?”
My vision narrows, blood pounds in my head, and there is a pressure bearing down on my eyeballs. Anger screams through my gut then fades away, leaving a calm focus. “I am going to kill you.”
He’s baiting me. Doc’s only trying to get me riled and hot under the collar, enough to blow some steam. I know that and yet I can’t stop myself from rising to the bait. I let loose a growl, then crack my neck from side to side.
He sniggers. “The Tristan I knew would never waste his time talking. Maybe your expiry date has arrived, Chef?”
I lunge and go right through him. The hair on my forearms hardens, and all the oxygen in the space seems to be drawn out. The fucker teleported. With a roar, I drop into myself, pull the teleportation energy through my veins, then let the atoms of my body shatter. I teleport after him.
33
Jess
I yank at the telekinetic chains that tether me to the headboard of the bed. They seem almost ethereal and glow. I pass my fingers through them, and they don’t hurt me. Don’t sting. Nothing. I tug at them, and they give enough for me to turn my arms and move to a more comfortable position. It’s as if they are intelligent, almost sentient. The Fae are far ahead of the rest of the species—technologically speaking, that is. When it comes to mating, the alpha Faes are worse than shifter males. Growly, possessive, unable to see beyond where their dicks can find a home…and that’s not strictly true. The man had taken care of me, tended to me. He’d held me and rocked me to sleep; he’d made sure to feed me then clothe me in his scent. His cum. I bring my arm to my nose and sniff.
That tangy smell of his arousal, mixed with the deeper pinewood scent of Tristan, fills me.
It’s as if he’s in the room with me, and I’m sure that’s his intention. To leave me yearning for him. A few more hours until my heat cycle kicks in fully; when I lose all track of where I am and what I want and focus on just one thing, sex. More precisely, sex with my mate.
Not all dragon shifters go through this kind of intense heat cycle. I’d heard of it but had never experienced it. It happens only when your mate comes into your life unannounced, and usually when there is danger to either one of you. That fight or flight, or as we shifters refer to it, fight or fuck syndrome, kicks in, or both in this case.
I want to fuck him first, then fight him.
Neither of which is going to be possible unless I escape from here. If I am too late in getting to my kids... my heart squeezes and I yank at the chain again. It gives little then reforms. “How come the energy doesn't hurts me?” I can’t stop myself from asking aloud.
“Because you are his mate.”
“What the—?” I swivel around on my knees.
A woman stands just inside the door. She’s shorter than me, and her hair falls in clouds of gold about her shoulders.
She wears simple pants tapered at the edges, and her shirt comes to mid-thigh. They are cut at the arms and droop down over her front. She’s carrying a tray with a dish and a glass of juice on it. My stomach rumbles.
"Who're you?"
"I'm Alice," Her voice is soft.
I glare at her. “How did I not hear you enter the room?”
“Uh, I have a light step.” The gold of her hair halos around her face. She looks delicate. Ethereal.
“And I am human,” I snort.
She angles her head.
“Sorry, shifter in-joke.”
“I see.” Her tone is serious.
“It’s meant to be derogatory; you know?”
No change in expression. Maybe she’s as dumb as she looks. And that’s not fair. Not when I am a true blonde all the way down to the hair on my lower lips. “I meant I should have smelled you coming, if not heard you.” I frown. “But I didn’t.”
“I’ve been taught to cloak my scent and soften my gait enough to go undetected. When you are a human adopted by Fae, you learn to adjust.” She glides across the floor and comes to a stop at the table next to the bed. She places the tray on it. “You must be hungry.”
“Take your food and shove it where the sun don’t—”
She whips the cover off the dish. Delicious smells flood my nostrils. My stomach grumbles, yet my throat closes. I angle my body away from the food.
“What’s wrong?”
“He didn’t cook this.” My lips turn down, and I don’t get it. My stomach churns threatening to eat itself up if I don’t feed it. Yet my mouth is dry. My body wants the food, yet my soul refuses it. And this…this is bizarre.
“You mean Chef?” She stills, her gaze rakes over my features.
I can almost see the thoughts running through her head. I set my jaw. I refuse to be judged, and definitely not by some delicate human.
I toss my head.
“It’s okay, you know.” Her voice is soft. “He’s your mate and a damn good chef. It’s understandable that you only eat when he cooks for you.”
“Is it?” I growl. “So, pray tell me, then, goddess of all things mated, how exactly is it beneficial if I can’t eat food that he hasn’t made when we are not going to be spendi
ng much time together?” I snap my teeth at her.
She doesn’t blink, nor wince. So, she's not afraid when faced with an angry dragon shifter female who could tear her in half with a flick of her fingers. Except…yeah, I am tied up. Small detail.
“You are hurting.” She taps her finger against her chin. “Because he left you without completing the mating bond.”
“I am surrounded by people who state the obvious.” I growl low in my throat. The sound merely comes out as something broken. Right now, I don’t sound fierce. I don’t. I am just another woman who doesn’t know her mind, who wants what she cannot have. Who is tired of being constantly torn apart by her subconscious mind which whispers to her that she’s been a bad mother. She put her needs before that of her children. She did not do enough to help them. No. “I am in pain, and it’s nothing to do with that alpha-hole who left me here in this state.”
“You could have fooled me.”
Her gaze rakes my body, down my chest to my hips as if taking in my nakedness. And I want to hide the marks that I bear, the claiming mark on my neck that twinges, the flesh between my legs that still aches for him. I should rip the cover of the bed and wrap it around myself. Instead, I rise on my knees and prop my arms on my waist. The telekinetic bond rustles through the air as if it were silk.
Her gaze goes to the bond and narrows. “He left you tied up?”
Her features tighten.
Huh? Apparently, female solidarity is not dead. Not completely, judging by how she curls her fingers into fists at her sides. “Why would he do that?”
“Ah, because he didn’t want me to leave?”
“Why do you want to leave your mate?” She levels her gaze on my face.
“Thank you for asking.” I huff out a breath. “All this time, that smirking, dominant, alpha male didn’t care what it was I wanted.”
“Not true.” She smiles. “Chef is as much a full-of-himself alpha as the other Fae Corps, but he’d never leave his mate without seeing to her needs. Unless…”
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