Fragile Bonds

by Adelaide Walsh

  He stretched out on the bed next to me, propping himself up on an elbow.

  "Why are you working so hard on this?" His question held a resignation that tore at my heartstrings.

  "This is a life we're talking about here. What should I do? Just let the guy die?"

  "But why do you care so much? He's a Bear. He's not one of your people. You didn't even know he existed yesterday morning."

  The question confused me. What did it matter that Carro was a Bear? What did it matter that I didn't know him before all this, would probably never get the chance to know him? Didn't he have as much of a right to live as anyone else? The simple fact that I did know about him at all seemed like enough of a reason for me. I shook my head, physically rejecting the notion of simply ‘not caring’. How could anyone just not care in a situation like this?

  "What does 'Bear' or 'Human' have to do with it? We share a city. We share a country. We're here, on this earth, together, so, even though I’ve never met the guy, he's my brother. And I couldn't live with myself if I simply let my brothers die."

  He was quiet for a moment before reaching out his free hand and playing his fingers through the hair curling at my temple that had escaped the braid. I probably looked like a mess by this point.

  "When you talk...when you look at us, it doesn't feel like you actually see us."

  "Are you saying I'm seeing an ideal? Not the real thing? I've heard that before."

  "No," he dropped his hand, splayed it on the crisp whiteness of the duvet below us, "not an ideal. It's almost like you don't see any difference between us and yourself."

  "Because there is no difference. We all want the same things...just to live and find some little sliver of contentment in all this mess." I made a little swirling gesture with my hand indicating the whole room, the whole world. "Why should I think of you any differently just because you look for that contentment wearing fur?"

  A subdued laugh rumbled through his body. I could feel it through the bed.

  "I’m not sure I agree with you, reinita.” He sighed. “But no, I think it goes deeper than that. It feels like you're fighting to protect a piece of yourself."

  And didn't that just hit the nail right on the head? Maybe I was selfish, but my country, my people, my forest – all of it was a part of me. And I would fight to protect that beautiful, messy, chaotic part until the day I took my last breath on this earth. My people deserved it. I deserved it.

  "Maybe that's exactly why I'm fighting so hard for Carro."

  His lips tipped up into a sad, sweet smile. "Carro would have liked you. And as his alpha, I'm glad you will be a part of his memory. I'm glad you will help his pack carry his memory after he's gone."

  I flinched at the painful finality in those words and sent up a little prayer, asking for forgiveness. Forgive me, Carro, I tried. I really fucking tried.

  "Don't say that yet. There's still time."

  Joaquín dropped to his back, pinching at the bridge of his nose. If he felt this deeply for one, just one, of his men...what it must be to be an alpha? How much pain would he carry at the end of it all? How much pain did he already carry?

  "There's not enough time left. I have every unit I can spare searching for him, but we've got nothing. And it's been decided that we will not approach Dariel directly. The risk is just too fucking high."

  I rolled over onto my side, leaving my body just a hair's breadth from his own, no longer giving a fuck about the indecent nature of lying in a bed with an alpha who'd threatened to kill me just hours before. The first time I’d met him I felt something. The notion had come up last night when I had climbed into my Jeep to race back to Bogotá, but I hadn't had the time or the willingness to address it then. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of reaching for that thought now, but I learned a long, long time ago that lying to yourself never did anything but rot away your soul. There was some kind of pull between Joaquín and I. Right from the very first moment I could sense a connection. A fragile thread spanned the distance between us and just connected.

  I laid a hesitant hand on the hard heat of his chest.

  "I can feel how deep this cuts you."

  He didn't respond to that, not verbally at least. Joaquín just curled his thick, calloused fingers around the blade of my hand and slid that hand up, skimming the rigid curve of his pectorals, over the mass of his shoulder, leaving me draped over him in an utterly wanton intimacy. I wanted to touch him, the fullness of that mouth and sheen of his coffee and cream skin too much a temptation to resist. I bit my lip in an effort to restrain myself, but Joaquín had no interest in restraint, and in that moment, I could feel his sense of loss for his pack mate so acutely, I couldn't hope to deny him anything.

  In a heartbeat he'd tugged me down, his mouth claiming my own in a searing brand. He felt so solid beneath me. After the last forty-eight hours where the world beneath my feet was suddenly in flux, the stability I had come to expect in each and every day suddenly thrown into tumult, the solid flame of this man felt like a rock in a storm. Like the only constant I could hope to reach in a swirling tempest of change and uncertainty. My fingers tangled in the ebony silk of his hair and I lost myself in the kiss. Joaquín planted a foot in the bed and shoved me to my back, obviously at home with taking the lead in the bedroom. He would never be a man who would submit to a lover, that I knew from the very first touch. The kiss this time started slower, fleeting little brushes of his lips up the length my neck, across my jaw, and then his tongue was licking across the seam of my lips coaxing my mouth open for him. His tongue stroked across mine, building a fire inside me that made my skin feel too tight over my body. When my fingers found the hem of his simple white cotton shirt, a thrill burned through me like a bolt of electricity at the possibility of skin to skin contact with this viciously attractive man. It was more than that beautiful, solidly-built body that drew me to him. It was more than those perfectly sculpted cheekbones that whispered of a people who walked in more temperate forests.

  He felt deeper than I'd ever expected him to. He felt a sense of responsibility for his people that called to my rebel heart. He was a power in his own right, but he had so much damn respect for people he served. And that respect, it lit something inside of me.

  The moment my knuckles brushed over the defined planes of his abdomen, he swept my hands away from his luscious skin and pinned them, holding my wrists together over my head, the fingers of his right hand curling possessively over my breast through the fabric of my t-shirt. I squirmed and twisted, needing to touch him again, needing the contact to help me swallow the painful, burning specter of failure on the horizon. I tried to get closer but he held me down with his big, muscular body, and plucked at the shadow of my nipple through my top. The sensation caused sparks to explode across my vision, a rush of wet heat to pool between my thighs. He swallowed the needy sound I made, sucking and biting at my lower lip. From one instant to the next, my shirt was shoved up, bunching around my shoulders, and the Bear alpha hooked a finger in the cup of my bra and tugged, exposing a swollen breast topped with a dark, pouting nipple. I arched my back, pressing into his touch, needing more from him and silently cursing the jeans we both still wore. He released my hands and licked over the aching peak of the overly sensitized mound of my breast before sucking the bud into his mouth and rolling it over his tongue. My hands slid up his back, shoving the fabric of his shirt away to shape and pet the firm ridges and angles I found there. He licked and kissed and nipped at the skin of my abdomen, finding the top of my jeans and tracing the line with the blunt tip of a single finger.

  "You smell divine, reinita. A man could get drunk on the scent of you." The far too intimate comment should have made me feel self-conscious, embarrassed, something, but it only served to stoke the fire growing in my belly. The smile that lit his face, as I looked down at him, made the muscles of my womb quiver in anticipation. "I think these need to come off, Adriana."

  My name on his lips was an invocation. I threw my hea
d back into the bed as he undid the button on my jeans, slid down the zipper and tugged them off me. This time, when he crawled up the length of my body to claim a kiss, he shoved a knee between my thighs, pressing hard against my most private flesh. I shuddered at the contact and ripped my shirt over my head. The material had become a cage. A single, clawed finger sliced through the center of my bra, the material falling away in a mist of lace. When I was left lying beneath him wearing nothing but the lacy black material of my panties, he sat back on his knees, still fully clothed, hands splayed on my hips, and admired his handiwork.

  "You, reinita, are magnificent."

  A blush crept across my cheeks, and his mouth twisted into a wicked grin as he watched it redden the tops of my breasts. I tore my gaze away from the piercing gold of his and twisted at the waist, reaching above and behind me to paw at the drawer of my nightstand. My fingers scrabbled at the contents until I found what I was looking for and squirmed to reposition myself under Joaquín’s weight. He snatched the small foil packet from my grasp and leaned forward, cupping the mound of my breast in his opposite hand and bit down, hard, on the upper slope, then licking over the small hurt. Satisfied with his mark, he leaned back again, tearing his shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor beside the bed. I ground myself against the steel of his thigh, my hands roaming over his chiseled stomach, dipping below the waistband of his jeans, exploring the silk of his skin under the elastic of his briefs, only to let it snap back against his flesh and circle my thumb around the harness of him through the rough fabric of his jeans. My need for him was at a fever pitch. Every tiny movement reverberating through my body like a high voltage current. He stroked one finger over the feminine core of me, and even through the barrier of my panties the impact of that touch drove me close to an edge. I flicked open the button on his jeans.

  "Come inside, Joa," I moaned. Needing the heat of his skin. Needing more.

  His eyes rolled back in ecstasy as I freed him from his jeans. He tore open the foil and fisted himself in one hand. He pumped the thick length of his cock once, twice, and then positioned the condom against the tip. I reached out a hand, brazen and unapologetic in my need, and wrapped long fingers around his iron width. I rolled the protection down his shaft, luxuriating in the masculine beauty of him. Sliding his hands along the curve of my thighs, he spread me open, rocked his engorged cock against my clit, the roughness of the lace between us leaving me feeling raw. He grabbed my left ankle, shoving it high, dropping my calf over his shoulder. I felt utterly exposed, entirely ensnared by this alpha. My hands fisted in the bed sheets at my sides and the Bear looming over me in the most exquisite of sensual conquests, tugged the gusset of my panties aside and landed a sharp slap on pleasure swollen folds. The sensation detonated a wave of blinding pleasure pain. The climax tore through me in a violent rage, arching my back, stealing my breath, and then leaving me boneless in his hands. Joaquín turned his head, nipping at the inside of my calf.

  “Keep those hands exactly where they are,” he snarled, and then thrust two fingers inside me, ripping a shriek of bliss from my mouth. He cupped my bottom, lifting me off the bed with one hand, and spread the two fingers inside me, stretching me, stripping away everything in my mind, my whole self centered on that single point of connection between us, and I moaned and shifted against him, trying to increase the friction. His hold on me prevented me from finding any leverage though and he slid his fingers out of my body, only to press inside again, my body coating him in a renewed tide of need. This time, when he pulled away, leaving me empty and keening with need, he skimmed his fingers over the backs of my thighs, gripped my knees tightly he pushed them out to the sides. I could feel his heavy length nudging at my entrance. My breath caught in my throat, my world lost in a haze of sensation, as he drove into me in a single, bruising thrust. Once seated to the hilt, he paused, allowing me to adjust to the fullness that stretched me to a point that flirted with pain. After a breath, he pulled out, still holding my knees, and rocked back in, impaling me on himself. He fell forward, peppering my face in little, sweet kisses so tender it made my heart break. I wrapped my legs around his waist and he held me to him with a possession that would have made me fear for my freedom had I not been clutching at him with an equally fierce need.

  “Hands on my shoulders, reinita.”

  I obeyed, and he moved, and I met him stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss, our bodies lost in a moment of need, of pleasure that spirited us both away from the dark realities of a day stained with heartache.

  Joaquín buried his face in my neck, biting down in a piercing claim on the tendon in my throat as he came in a molten release.

  Chapter 9

  When I finally found my breath, I lay there, against the expanse of his chest, struggling to grasp at the fragments of my consciousness in the aftermath of our coupling. Joaquín was wild, and my face seemed to be stuck in a manic grin, when it hit me. I was suddenly drowning. The room around me, bright with a wash of sunlight, sunk into a blackness that eclipsed my vision and sent me hurtling through a vibrating freefall of inky blackness. I shook with the power of the vision, my body convulsing. I'd had a knowing all my life, I'd even had fragments of visions before, but never anything as powerful, as sensory, as all-encompassing as this. Images flashed before my eyes in a dizzying succession, almost too quickly to comprehend. I felt everything, and nothing all at once, and when the vision continued, I began to panic.

  It felts like long minutes in the confines of the vision. Minutes that were creeping toward hours. In reality, however, the entire ordeal must have only taken seconds. I emerged from the vision, sweat beading along my spine, body prickling with tremors, my jaws clenched so hard it hurt, with Joaquín shaking me.

  "Adriana, what the fuck was that? Can you hear me? Fuck! I'm calling a fucking ambulance." I could hear his panic. He turned, must have been reaching for his phone, but I could finally speak again.

  "No, no ambulance. I'm ok." My voice was shaky and I took a deep breath, letting the final impact of what I saw bleed away, return my body to me.

  "You sure as fuck didn't look fine!" He took my chin in his hand, tilted my face side to side.

  "I swear, Joaquín. I'm ok. Put the phone away." He looked skeptical, as if he were considering the idea that I might not be fully in my right mind. "I mean it. It was...I'm ok, it was a vision. I had a vision." I fisted my head in my hair and tried to center myself. But it hit me then that we didn't have time for this.

  "What the hell are you talking about? I think you just had a seizure, Adriana, you need a fucking hospital."

  I sat bolt upright. I had to go. I wouldn't make it if I didn't fucking go. Panic and a manic energy filtered through my veins and I jumped off the bed making a beeline for my closet.

  "No, Joaquín! I had a fucking vision! We need to go! Get dressed! I saw him, Joa! I saw him!" I screeched over my shoulder and pulled on a pair of panties and ripped a shirt and pants off hangers.

  Joaquín was obviously not getting this. He just sat there on the bed watching me like I'd lost my mind.

  "Where are you going? What the hell is happening, Adriana! I'm calling a fucking medic."

  I stopped and turned to him, my face a mask of severity. "Joaquín. I think I'm a seer. I've always had this," I searched for the words, "knowing. But this was different. This was a vision. I swear to God, it was a vision. And I saw Carro. I know where he is. We need to go, now."

  He sat there for another beat, confusion marring those perfect features. When I turned back to my closet to pull on sneakers, I fully expected him to try and stop me from leaving. I wouldn't have blamed him. I would have fought him until he let me leave, but I wouldn't have blamed him for not believing me. Hell, I wasn't entirely sure myself that I wasn't just going completely off my rocker.

  He stood up, dragging his jeans over his hips, and, as he did up the button, he murmured, "fuck me," to the floor, as if he couldn't believe he was actually going to entertain the idea of a se
er.

  I probably would have been offended at the fact that he clearly didn't believe had we been blessed with any more time, but I'd just watched a Snake solider stand on the shores of the Embalse San Rafael and pump the copper-haired body of Carro Russo full of bullets from an M27 IAR. I felt it, right along with him, as the life leaked out of his body in an explosion of matter that should never see the light of day. I experience the cold, clawing hand of the muddy Amazonian waters sucking his body into the depths. I could still feel the grotesque sensation of the cement block, duct taped to his/my chest as it shot me down into the depths of the lake. But there was still time. I could still get to him before his body was consigned to the mud. And so, I ran.

  Joaquín trailed behind me, not telling me to stop, not asking questions, just following my lead on this impossible sprint. I only paused to nab my phone off the counter top where I'd left it earlier before I darted out the front door and threw open the driver's side door of my Jeep and peeled out of the parking space almost before the Bear alpha had completely shut his door.

  We raced through the midday streets, running red lights and throwing caution to the wind. I have to get there in time. Just under thirty-five minutes later I slammed the Jeep to a shuddering stop two blocks away from where I knew they were going to kill Carro. I jumped out of the car and ran before Joaquín had time to try and stop me – and I knew he would try and stop me. My heart was pounding a wild tattoo in my chest by the time I made it to the fence that blocked off a small cabin with waterfront access from the main road. I knew I had to be careful. If I was seen, if the Snakes had even an inkling that someone else was here, they would shoot first and not bother to ask questions of my corpse. Joaquín caught up with me and I saw a fire of fury burning in his eyes.

  "What the hell are you doing? What do you think you're going to find out here?" He grabbed me by the wrist in an effort to try and stop me from clambering over the tall picket fence. "Get back in the car, we're going to a fucking hospital."