But now?
Every second I don’t tell him is another lie wedged between us.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“You’re safe,” he whispers. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”
I bite my lip, stifling a cruel laugh.
I haven’t been safe since I met him.
“No. I mean here. With you.”
Aaron ignores me, traces his fingers across my cheek.
Don’t touch me, I want to scream.
And: please hold me. Don’t ever let go.
This horrible, shattering collision of emotion. How much I need and want my bloodmate battling how much I hate him and want to be rid of him.
I lick my chapped lips. Taste blood.
But it’s not him I hate. Not truly.
I hate what I did.
I gather my strength and ask, “Where are we?”
Aaron settles beside me. “In a tent. In the forest on the side of the road. Luxury accommodation, dirtbag biker style.”
I can’t help but smile.
I try and sit up again. Fail. “You said we need to move,” I say, trying to sound determined. “We can’t stay—”
“Quiet now, Lil. Please be quiet.”
Something in his voice. Nervousness? Fear?
“Why?”
A heavy pause. “Because I think we’re being hunted.”
I hear the anger burning in his voice. He’s not used to being prey. And something about his fear softens me, just a little.
“Stricken?” I ask.
“No. Something else. Do you remember the vultures we saw over the fields on our way to Tate’s mountain hangout?”
“Yeah.”
“Them.”
Birds. Up, up up—
I cut the thought short and ask about the professor.
“Alive. No doctor. But we got him the medicine he needs. You also.”
“How?”
“Trish told us about Mia’s New World Order jerkoffs. Sent Blue and the rest of my finest out roaming for them. My boys hit the jackpot.”
The New World Order? I loose a long breath. It feels like decades ago.
“They all—”
Aaron tenses. “Fuckers didn’t part with the spoils willingly.”
They’re all dead.
I expect to feel something about that. But there’s nothing.
It’s like I’ve been hollowed out—
I reach up, touch my bandaged forehead and am rewarded with a sharp stab of pain. “I’m still not healed.”
“No. You’re healing real slow. Like a Skin.” Aaron pauses, then says, “She with you?”
“Not since Tornarsuk attacked me.”
“She took off. Lost her Risen pack. She’s stronger with them.”
“Help me sit up.”
“Lil, it’s not—”
“Help me sit up.”
Aaron slips his arm out from under me, then cradles my shoulder and raises me into a sit. I peer through the dim green-grey light, trying to get my bearings. The tent walls are billowing in a fierce wind. Aaron’s sitting beside me, cross-legged, wearing his black Levis, a black wifebeater and the Pureblood cut, looking at me with concern wrinkling his brow. I take in his gorgeous tats and ripped muscles.
Something’s different about him.
I stare at the outlaw for a long while, trying to discover what’s changed and just soaking up his features, trying to memorize every detail of the man I marked as my bloodmate. The stern jaw. The fierce, arctic-blue eyes and full lips and dark, wavy hair.
The fucking bastard.
Even now…after everything…I still want him.
He’s about to say something. I reach out and put two fingers to his lips, gently. Aaron’s eyes widen. I run my fingers across his jaw, down his neck, over the swollen bite-mark I left on his upper shoulder.
Aaron winces.
“Still tender?” I ask.
He nods.
“Good.”
Then I see it. “The collar,” I stammer. “It’s—”
“Gone.”
“How?”
Aaron gives me a sardonic smile. “Because of you. When you tried…”
His voice trails off. He looks away.
When I tried to murder him.
“I’m sorry, Lil. I truly am.”
I lower my gaze. “You can stop saying that.”
“Because you forgive me?”
“No. Because you’re wasting your breath. I’ll never forgive you, Aaron of the Mountain River. Not ever. And I’ll never forgive myself…for this…”
I lean over and kiss him. Once. Soft. On the lips.
He feels exquisite.
That feeling of being drawn to him, of being unable to resist even if we’re shit together…it’s even stronger now. There’s something ancient and blood-deep in how badly I want him.
I force myself to pull away. Mad willpower.
Aaron draws a shaking breath. His face crumples with hurt and confusion.
He thinks I’m fucking with him. Maybe I am.
But it’s not intentional. It’s just—
“What is this, Lil? What do you want? Because I fucking want this. More than anything. I thought…I’d never see you again. And I went into my wolf, deep into him, hoping to go wild. Feral. Hoping to forget. But even then, in my animal, I still remembered. Something was drawing me out of him. I needed to talk to you, try and…not right the wrong. I know I’ll never do that. But just tell you…that if I could do it all over again…I’d try and live the kind of life that would make…us…possible. You know?”
“What kind of life is that?”
“A good life,” Aaron says, scowling at himself. “A just life. Less centered on myself. Less about what I need. Less…asshole-ish.”
“You’re not an asshole,” I say.
“You don’t know me very well.”
“I know you well enough.”
I reach out and hold his hand. He’s so warm.
Shitballs.
Keep it together, Lil, I think. Send him out. Boot him right the fuck out of the tent. Or else just tell him. Tell him what you’ve done! But he’s so wonderfully warm, and I’m still shivering with cold, and so I hold the dirtbag outlaw’s hand and say, “Self-centered? Yeah. Arrogant? For sure. Moody? Definitely. But you’re not an asshole.”
“Why not?”
“Because real assholes don’t worry about being assholes. It’s like the defining feature of being an asshole. Not giving a shit about how anyone else feels. You, Mr. One-Eight-Seven, you care about other people. You care a whole lot.”
“I do care. But I do shitty shit sometimes.”
“We all do.”
Aaron looks unconvinced.
“Look at your crew,” I say, still stroking my bloodmate’s bare shoulders. “Are they morons?”
“What?”
“Are they morons?”
“No. Well…not all of them.”
“Right. So you think that entire biker MC would follow you to the death if they thought you didn’t give a fuck about them?”
“No.”
“Of course they wouldn’t.”
I wriggle a bit closer. Just a bit. Close enough to reach out and lift his wifebeater over his head. I want to touch his muscled, heavily-inked shoulders. His arms. I want to kiss—
But when I get my bloodmate half undressed something besides his ripped muscles catch my eye. I reach out and grab a turquoise amulet framed in silver hanging around his neck. Underneath, around his solar plexus, there’s a fresh scar. The skin mottled pink and tight and smooth.
The scar my animal burned into him. Another mark…and I can’t help but wonder, is this what Aaron and me are? A series of marks we’ll scar into each other, day after day and year after year, a history of hurt written in flesh?
“What’s this?” I say, pulling Aaron and the amulet closer.
It looks old. The silver tarnished grey.
Aaron doesn
’t answer.
“Where’d you get it?”
“From a woman.”
I scratch my fingernail into the turquoise. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
“Was she?”
“I guess so. Sometimes?”
“You trying to piss me off?”
Aaron laughs quietly. “Didn’t think it’d bug you.” He points to the scar on his chest. “After all the drama. Thought I was a free agent.”
“Is that want you want to be? A free agent?”
“No.”
I grind my teeth together. Count to ten. The fucker. I tell myself to let it go. It’s better this way. Easier. But instead I blurt out: “It does bug me. Who was she?”
Aaron grins. “Forget it, Lil. She’s been dead for a thousand years.”
“You saying she was lousy in the sack?”
“No. Better than I—”
I smack him. Straight across the cheek. Hard.
It’s like hitting a concrete wall.
“Ouch!” we both say in unison.
I cradle my stinging hand and say, “Oh, bullshit. That didn’t hurt you at all.” I give him a pretend pout. “Feels like you broke my hand.”
“Like you broke your hand.” Aaron’s eyes sparkle in the strange glowing light inside the tent.
Fuck, did I ever miss him.
“Nothing happened, Lil,” he says with a serious look on his face. “She was a Skinwalker. A cursed Pureblood. I…I guess I was kind to her. Freed her from her curse. She returned the favor by giving me these.”
Aaron nods behind me.
I turn and am staring face to face with three grinning black wolves.
“Holy shitballs!” I scream as I basically leap into Aaron’s arms.
Aaron breaks into loud, rumbling laughter. The wolves yawn and lick their chops and settle onto their bellies only an arm’s length away.
“You fucking asshole,” I yell, smacking at him again.
“Oh man,” Aaron says, “Okay, that was mean. But…” he takes along breath, then resumes laughing. “It was totally worth it.”
I can’t take my eyes off the wolves. They look like real animals, only midnight black, and when I stare directly at them I realize I can see through them. “That’s quite the gift,” I say.
“It was quite the curse.”
The wolves stand, stretch, yawn, then stroll through the tent wall and vanish.
Aaron holds perfectly still while I set the amulet against his chest and run my fingers over the fresh burn scar. I feel him staring at me. Waiting. Watchful. Like he’s afraid of doing or saying something to fuck this up—
A warm flush traces through my midsection. His goddamned gorgeous build. Tight and powerful. Making me want him—
All right, I decide. So I’m not going to send him out. Fine. We’ll have this time together. Maybe only this single night. I won’t have to tell him what I did. I’ll handle it on my own, like I planned before I heard him howling from the road and ran for him like a lovesick schoolgirl.
Only tonight.
We’ll leave it at that.
It doesn’t have to mean so much.
We can just let it be…whatever it is.
The wind gusts so hard the tent fabric flattens down around us, and then the sky opens up and it’s pouring, rain slamming against the tent with a loud pattering noise, and then there’s a brilliant flash of crimson lightning that makes the tent glow red like a photography darkroom, followed a second or two later by a cracking boom of thunder so loud it reverberates through my chest.
The air hums electric.
“One hell of a storm,” I say.
“I’ve always loved them. The scent in the air after a storm clears—”
“I’m afraid,” I say in my best mocking frightened schoolgirl voice.
Aaron laughs. The sound lifts my heart, and seeing his grin and his eyes light up and how good we can make one another feel—
Fuck it. Just this night. I swear.
“Then come on over here, little lady” Aaron says, pretending to be the big protector to my distressed damsel. “Nothing to be afraid of—”
“Except the wolf.”
“Nah. He’s all bark.”
“I like a little bite and scratch.”
“You feel good, Lil,” Aaron says. “You feel damned good.”
I settle into my bloodmate’s warmth. He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. His scent fills my nose. That wild, warm pine-needle scent that makes my heart race. And there’s something else. Way down deep. At first I think it’s just me being super horny and wanting him—and that’s a part of it, for sure. But there’s also…an energy. A power. Like a pulsing heat flowing from him to me. And for the first time since my packmates abandoned me I feel…strong. The cold’s being pushed away by the heat flowing between us—
My breath catches in my throat.
My animal’s stalking me.
Drawing near.
“Lil?” Aaron asks. “What is it?”
I burrow deeper into his arms. Maybe I imagined it. I’m still beat-up and exhausted. I can’t think straight. My mind’s a fractured mess—
Then I feel her again. Rippling beneath my skin.
Howling. Demanding freedom.
“She’s here,” I say, real quiet. “She’s weak. But she’s with me.”
I reach up and unwind the bandage from my head.
The wound Tornarsuk gave me has healed.
Aaron hugs me close and says nothing.
But I know what he’s thinking: he’s thinking it’s time to move. Thinking there’s a war to fight. A twisted, fallen alpha to murder.
My brother. Vuk.
Not yet, I tell myself. Not quite yet.
“Your animal called to her,” I whisper. “He…I think he fucking commanded her.”
Aaron shakes his head. “Not a Risen. Not the All Encompassing. I’ve seen her, remember? No way.”
But I know I’m right. It’s in how she feels. Usually she’s screaming and raging against me, struggling to break free. But this time she feels…hesitant. Reluctant. Almost subdued.
“It’s true,” I say, lifting Aaron’s fingers to my lips and kissing him. “She’s listening to you. Something’s changed.”
Aaron’s breathing quickens. I’m holding his arms, and I feel his skin bulge and ripple and his arms thicken.
His wolf is running close too.
“Aaron?” I ask as another flash of red lightning illuminates the tent and thunder comes crashing down. “Are you…in control without the collar? Of him?”
“Mostly,” Aaron says, his voice a rough growl.
I can’t help but laugh. “Mostly? That’s not super comforting—”
Aaron tenses. His arms, still wrapped around me, lengthen and his hands grow wide and flat and long, needle-sharp claws spring from his fingers and his breath is hot on my cheek and then his fangs press against my shoulder, up my neck, under my ear, all the soft, sensitive places and I know one nip and the wolf could open me up, bleed me out—
“You’re more than you were,” I say, my voice a husky whisper.
“I’m a lot more,” Aaron growls.
I guess I should ask why but I’m throbbing for him and I grab his shifting hands and press them hard into the heat between my legs and feel his claws rake sharp into my tenderness and I bite my lip against the pain. Aaron tickles his claws over my cunt, just hard enough to let me know he’s in control, both of me and the animal prowling in him, and then he draws his claws out to my inner thighs and presses harder and scratches into my soft skin. I press my head against his shoulder and expose my soft neck and dare him to bite me, fucking bite me I whisper, I want you to break skin—
My wolf bloodmate kisses down on my neck, making me squirm with pleasure, then he bites me at the same moment he presses his clawed hands into my cunt and a white burst of exquisite pain explodes in my eyes and there’s a world of sadness between us, a world of loss and he
artbreak, but none of it matters now because Aaron’s fangs sink into my neck and he looses a low, guttural growl when he tastes my blood I feel his cock spring hard in his jeans and then my animal’s breaking free, smashing through and I hear her calling to him, her apex predator bloodmate, her wildborn alpha.
My bones snap and shift and Aaron’s fighting with his jeans and I’m snarling and spitting, tearing off my clothes and he throws me on the floor of the tent and leaps on me, his wolf half out, his jaws distended and his fangs red with blood and I tell him to fuck me, bite me, make me bleed and hurt and my voice changes from human to winged she-wolf and I hear myself spit and growl and I know she’s taunting him as well, teasing the brute, the predator, because—
Aaron wraps his huge, powerful hands around my neck.
Squeezes.
My eyes fling open. I scratch at him, drop my fucking claws, rake gouges in his shoulders and watch them heal up almost instantly and he’s strong, this power, my windpipe’s crushed closed and I can’t breath, there’s a fire building in my lungs that matches the fire between my legs—
Aaron’s kneeling over me, every muscle in his torso rippling and bulging, making it look like the tattoos of myth and legend on his skin have come alive, and he leans down beside my ear and growls, “You know what I am. You fucking scent me.”
I shake my head from side to side, trying to struggle against him but he has me pinned, and there’s a part of me that loves feeling weak and helpless beneath him, loves feeling my bloodmate lord his strength over me, loves feeling my lungs flame and burn as he clamps still harder on my throat and the darkness is gathering behind my eyes, a joyful pain-free darkness where the only thing that matters is this maddening desire—
“Tell me,” Aaron says, his wolf leaping even further to the surface. “Say my wildborn name!”
Aaron releases my throat.
My animal’s with me. I feel her strength. Her desire aching like the hunger that builds in the long weeks after a feed, and I glare up at this man, this wolf, and I drop my claws and slash out at him, not wanting to make it easy, wanting to show he’s going to have to work—
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 28