by Vivian Wood
He used a fingertip to turn her gaze back to him.
“Please don’t cry, Kira,” Asher said. “It kills me.”
“What am I supposed to do, Asher?” Kira speared him with her gaze, wiping at her tears with her free hand. “How am I supposed to feel?”
“I don’t know how else to tell you this. There is nothing wrong with you, Kira. I’m not repulsed by you, not by your personality or your body or anything else. If anything, I’m obsessed with you,” Asher said, anger bubbling up in his chest. Anger at himself, anger at their situation. “I’ve never even been with anyone else, you know that? I’ve never done any more than what I’ve been doing to you the last few nights.”
Kira’s eyes snapped up to his. He could tell he’d shocked the hell out of her.
“What?” she croaked.
“Yeah,” Asher said with a humorless laugh. “Turns out, once I found my mate, I couldn’t… complete the act with anyone else. I can’t stand for other women to touch me, even if I picture your face the whole time. I can’t even get myself off without fantasizing about you. It’s pathetic.”
Kira’s mouth was hanging open now, and if Asher weren’t so angry he would have laughed.
“You happy now?” he asked. “You’re my mate, for fuck’s sake. Of course I want you. I don’t have a choice, and I don’t fucking want one. I just want you.”
“Then why did you leave me?” Kira asked, her voice breaking. “You left me, Asher. You fucking left me all alone—”
Asher knew he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, couldn’t tell her that they could be together. It would be the most dangerous, selfish thing to say those words.
Instead, he kissed her. Hard, deep, and hungry.
“I can’t give you forever, but I can give you here and now,” he said when he broke the kiss. “Will that be enough?”
“No,” Kira whispered, even as she twined her arms around his neck and brought her lips back to his. Her nails scratched at his scalp and neck, her tongue met his in insistent strokes.
Kira pulled back and shucked her shirt, then stripped off Asher’s boxer briefs.
“Kira, are you sure—”
“Stop talking,” she said, cupping his jaw and kissing the side of his neck.
When Kira pushed him back against the bed and straddled his hips, Asher was fairly certain he was still dreaming. When she grasped his cock and guided him into her core, pressing down inch by slow inch, Asher thought he was dying.
Kira set a slow, grinding pace, destroying him, burning him, taking everything from him.
Setting him free.
Asher grabbed her hips, staring up at her as she threw her blonde mane back, tits bouncing. He moved with her, thrusting up into her tightness, feeling every inch of her glorious, wet heat. Fantasy and reality blended and warped as his body tightened, his tightly held control bleeding away until he and Kira seemed to be one.
Bodies aligned, souls aligned. His bear was unleashed, roaring for completion, desperate to claim her, mark his mate forever. Some small part of Asher managed to hold back, deny the moment.
When Kira detonated, crying out his name as her body clenched his, Asher was lost. For long moments, he wasn’t Asher. She wasn’t Kira. They were nothing, and everything. They were a speck in the cosmos, a brilliant burst of light in a slowly dying universe.
Asher came with a shout, his body evaporating. Kira collapsed on top of him, trying to catch her breath. Asher just held her like that, paralyzed and unwilling to change a thing.
Even when her tears came again, when he felt their warm wetness on his chest, Asher didn’t move. He comforted her in the only way he could, lacking the words to give her peace.
As his eyes drifted shut, a small part of him knew he’d wake in the morning to find her gone.
8
Chapter Eight
“Where are you going?”
Kira stopped, her hand on the front door. Asher had some preternatural sense about her whereabouts, it seemed. She’d waited for him to head out to the gym to spar with Gabriel, watched him change and start to work through a round of sword play.
And yet, here he was, right on her heels. Once, she’d pined for him, wondered where he might be, what he might be doing. Now she couldn’t shake him if she wanted to, even for such a private personal errand.
“I need to go out,” she said, unable to summon the strength to look at him, much less fight with him. Things were so fragile between them since they’d finally had sex a few days before, and Asher seemed unable to let her out of his sight. So be it.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“Fine.” Kira headed out the front door, the keys to the Guardians’ Mercedes SUV in hand. The sun was high and bright, the day windy with the slightest edge of a chill. Fall was overtaking New Orleans at last, banishing the summer heat. It suited Kira, just now.
To her surprise, Asher didn’t comment on her mood. He climbed into the passenger seat with a quiet sort of patience, letting her have her space. Kira turned on the navigation system and programmed in the address she’d looked up earlier.
The car ride was silent, which was perfect. After a fifteen-minute drive, Kira pulled the car into an ancient-looking graveyard with towering wrought-iron gates. All around the unpaved road, crumbling crypts and faceless cherub statues rose to form a seemingly endless wall, escorting them on and on.
Kira checked her phone and headed into the deepest part of the cemetery. The mausoleums receded and gave way to smaller tombstones, then to ill-marked memorial plaques. Kira swallowed, remembering this scene well enough. She hadn’t been here since she was thirteen or fourteen, but this place was etched in her memory.
When she finally pulled the SUV over and climbed out, Kira drew a deep breath. Asher came around the side of the car, his expression brooding. She’d expected surprise from him, perhaps a question as to why they were in a graveyard.
Instead, he held out his hand.
Kira took it, giving her head a shake to ward off tears. She hadn’t even gotten to the plaque yet. Asher surprised her again by leading the way, skirting a large portion of the cement memorial markers and making a beeline for Kira’s destination. She couldn’t bring herself to ask how he knew, her mouth gone dry.
Asher stopped and released her hand, pointing to a marker a few feet away. Kira walked to it in a daze, looking down to find what she’d sought.
Hudson, was all the plaque said. No first names. No ‘In Loving Memory’.
Her parents’ shared grave was just a blip on the radar, unseen and uncared for by the world. Kira sucked in a breath as she looked down at them, feeling the familiar sensation of a thousand unanswered questions rushing to the surface of her mind, filling her heart.
Here lay her mother, the woman who’d up and died, leaving Kira with her father. When Grandma Louise brought Kira here as a child, she’d made a special point to memorialize both Kira’s parents, leading Kira to believe that her father’s remains were here too.
Or lost at sea, a tragic accident on the oil rig.
Now, she wasn’t so sure. Her grandmother had sheltered Kira from a lot, even her own budding magical abilities. Perhaps Kira’s father, grief stricken and burdened with a young child, had simply gone out for a carton of milk and never returned. Kira’s grandmother had always mourned her daughter openly, her grief palpable. Even as a child, Kira hadn’t asked any questions, not wanting to hurt Grandma Louise further.
Kira wished, more than anything now, that she’d asked. A lump formed in her throat as she thought of her grandmother, and she thought that perhaps she should have skipped this particular visit in favor of visiting her grandmother’s grave back in Union City. The woman who’d always been there for her, who cared for her when no one else would or could.
That was the person who deserved her respect.
Kira turned away from the grave, fighting the tears that welled up in her eyes, the wordless sound of anger that built in her throat
. She saw a stone bench back by the path and half-ran toward it, sighing when she collapsed onto the rock seat. Her head dropped, her hands came up to cradle her face.
For the second time in recent memory, Kira cried. Sobs wracked her body until she ached, then subsided to soft weeping. At some point Asher took the seat next to her and put a hand on her back, comforting her, stroking her hair. Kira just let it all pour out until there was nothing left, no single bit of sadness to be expressed.
After a while, she wiped her face and looked up, staring at her parents’ grave. A single question burned in her mind now, and it pertained not to her parents, but to her mate.
“How did you know where they are buried?” she asked, not looking at Asher though they were only inches apart.
Asher cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. He was quiet for a long time, long enough that Kira thought he wouldn’t answer. She looked over at him and was surprised to see a tumult of emotion on his face. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I’m older than you,” he said.
“I know.” Kira gave him an odd look.
“No, I mean… a lot older. Fifty years older than you,” Asher said.
Kira’s brows shot up.
“What? No, you’re only…” She paused, thinking about it, then reformulated her thought. “You aged more slowly than I did.”
“Much more slowly,” he said with a sigh. “I grew up in Union City, when it was a lot more rural. When people started moving into town, they noticed that I wasn’t aging. So I moved.”
“Where?”
“I went to Atlanta, New York, St. Louis. Lots of places. Made a lot of money in the stock market,” he said, staring down at his feet. “I came back every once in a while to check on my family. My sister had a bunch of kids, so I made sure they were provided for. That’s how I met you, on a visit home.”
Kira drew a breath and blew it out.
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” she pointed out.
“I’m getting there,” Asher said. “I knew your grandmother, in passing. She was Kith, so was your mother. They were some of the few people who knew me, knew what I am. I even met your father once, right after your parents got married. Then I left again, traveled Europe for a while. When I came back, I met you. Actually, to be honest, I saw you two years before you saw me. You were too young, and I wanted you too much. So I left, and I waited.”
Kira gaped at him, unable to form words or thoughts. Asher didn’t say anything else, and eventually Kira managed a coherent sentence.
“You… you knew my parents. You knew my grandmother,” she repeated.
“Yep. For what it’s worth, Miss Louise was a hell of a woman. She liked me, too. Approved of our match when she found out about it.”
Kira could feel her eyes bugging out.
“You never told me any of this!” she said, punching him on the arm. “What the hell, Asher! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It didn’t matter what I said. Things were settled between us after I first laid eyes on you, and there was nothing I could do to change it.”
“What does that even mean?” Kira cried, frustration boiling over.
“Your grandmother was wonderful, but she didn’t tell you some things. Really important things, stuff about your parents. She made me promise to stay silent, so I did… But I will tell you, if you really want to know.”
“Of course I fucking want to know! I want to know everything!” Kira said, her voice rising with fury.
“It won’t make you feel better,” Asher said, his voice perfectly emotionless.
“That’s for me to decide, not you and Grandma Louise,” Kira said, baffled. “I’m not a damned kid, Asher. Tell me!”
“Your mother was a white witch. Specialized in fertility, making little potions and charms to help local women get the babies they wanted. She was very popular, never hurt a fly. The sweetest person in the world.” Asher paused and drew a breath. “She was a pure soul, just like you are. And being so pure, she drew a lot of darker souls. She was a homing beacon for trouble, just like you. Your dad wasn’t the best guy. Not even close. But he saw your mom and fell in love with her on sight, and nothing in the world would have stopped him. Your mom was so young and sweet, she didn’t know…”
Asher stopped, and Kira had to prod him with her elbow to get him going again.
“You have your powers because your mother’s white magic balances with your father’s destructive, chaotic magic. Your father’s name is Rezeal, and he’s an archangel of death.”
Asher paused, letting Kira soak that in.
“Is?” she whispered, blown away. “My father’s alive?”
Asher made an uncertain gesture.
“In a manner of speaking. You can’t kill an archangel, no matter how black their souls get. Your mother was killed by a lord of hell, one of the strongest demons alive. The demon was trying to get at your father, and killed your mother in the process.”
“Rezeal… he was never the same after that. Your mother’s death twisted him, turned all the good inside him ugly. You were just about the only person in the world that didn’t fear him, because you knew he loved you.”
Kira felt another tear track down her face, though she hadn’t realized that she was crying again. It was all she did these days, it seemed.
“If he loved me, why did he leave?” She heard the pathetic tone of her voice, the five year old little girl inside her, thirsting for knowledge, wondering what she’d done wrong.
“He turned on you one day,” Asher said slowly, his fists bunching. “Your grandmother told me her side of the story, and it sounds like she drove him away after he hit you in a fit of drunken rage. You were barely old enough to protect yourself.”
“Grandma Louise had enough magic to keep an archangel away?” Kira asked, suspicious. “She could barely power one of her own spells.”
“I think she gave up a lot of her magic to protect you. In the end, though, your father found a way back into Union City. It was right after I saw you for the first time, days later. I followed you around, and I saw your father stalking you. He confronted me, telling me… well, you don’t need to hear that part. It was sick, disgusting. Kira… he was going to hurt you.”
When Asher looked up at her, his eyes gone black as midnight, Kira understood.
He was confessing.
“I’m sorry, Kira. I know he’s your father, but I couldn’t…” Asher made a pained sound. “I couldn’t let him get near you. I went looking for someone who could make him disappear… that’s how I found Mere Marie. That’s why I am indebted to her, for as long as she wants my service.”
“What did you do?” Kira asked, her voice shaking.
“I used to be a real shape shifter,” Asher said with a humorless smile. “I could be anyone, anything. I gave Mere Marie my power in exchange for protecting you, blinding Rezeal to your presence. He could look and look for you forever and never find you, never hurt you.”
“I don’t understand. You can still shift into a bear, can’t you?”
“She left me that one piece, yeah. I think she pitied me, which is something. Mere Marie isn’t often motivated by emotion. Anyway, I did the deal. I thought I was so smart, that I’d defeated Rezeal. Really, I just ruined my own fucking life.”
Kira let the silence hang for a while, thinking it over.
“You didn’t stay away,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“You and I met, when I was in high school. You hung around for a while, then left. If you knew all of this, why did you ever come back?” she asked, confused.
“Your father figured out that we are mates. He realized that if he tracked me, he could find you nearby. I started seeing little signs of his presence a week before I left Union City. I figured out pretty quickly that I was going to have to leave you. Then you looked at me one night, that night in my bed, before the campfire… I didn’t want you to fall in love with me, the way I had with you. It
wasn’t fair to you.”
Kira’s heart leapt into her throat at his words.
“You loved me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Love. Present tense,” Asher said, glancing away with a scowl. “I didn’t want you to know, but I can’t stand you not knowing, either. You do that to me, Kira. Make me… unsteady.”
“Can my father find us at the Manor?” Kira asked slowly, trying to find a silver lining.
“I’m not sure,” Asher admitted, still not meeting her gaze. “He’s just… he’s so fucking powerful Kira, and he wants you so badly. I can’t take the chance. Even a possibility of you being hurt is too much. I couldn’t live with myself.”
Kira was overwhelmed. There was too much to think about, to consider. To her surprise, her overwhelming feeling was sadness for Asher that he’d carried this burden on his own for so long.
He’d hurt her plenty, but it was obvious that Asher had hurt himself even more. All in the name of protecting her, in the only way he knew how.
Asher startled when Kira wrapped her arms around him, giving him a tight hug, dropping a kiss on his shoulder.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said, her voice strangely calm. “I don’t know when or if we’ll have to part again, and that’s the worst feeling. But I have you now, and you have me. Maybe… maybe, just for tonight… Can you take me home, to bed?”
Asher turned and kissed her, and Kira could feel all the hurt and hunger and fear in him as he fed it into the embrace. She understood it perfectly, just as she now understood her mate. There was a violent, unstoppable storm around Asher and Kira, and they were caught in the eye, waiting for the downpour.
There was no use crying, was there? She’d enjoy Asher for every moment she could.
9
Chapter Nine
After a full thirty hours of making up for lost time, mostly by arguing between bouts of breathtaking sex, Kira pouted when Asher actually had to leave for his Guardians patrol. Apparently there was a fourth Guardian, but for unexplained reasons the guy had taken some kind of vacation. Ergo, Asher couldn’t skip patrols for long without putting undue stress on Rhys, Gabriel, and their mates.