Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  Gasping, she jerked upright from the water as he slid into her, wanting and needing to feel her body next to his as he reached the depths of her.

  His hands went to her hips, lifting and descending her in smooth procession. He brought her up and down, teasing her delicate folds at the high point, before plunging deep within her again. Her demands and body pitching did nothing to speed him. Instead, Aiden prolonged the teasing, drawing her deeper and deeper into a frenzy above him.

  When the swearing started, Aiden got serious, wrapping his thumb in from her hip, and manipulating her core expertly. Near bursting, he thrust several blows into her hard, demanding her body release. And with a scream of surrender that echoed across the flat snow, she did. Aiden stayed deep within her, letting her contracting muscles extract the last remnants of control he possessed. Then he joined her with a heaving growl.

  The hot water, coupled with the exhaustion of Aiden’s complete manipulation of her body, immediately turned Skye’s limbs into jelly. She lost all control of muscle, and could do nothing except curl into his body, and hope he would keep her head above water.

  { Chapter 5 }

  It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t happen minutes after she cut Aiden. It didn’t happen hours after. But it was there, and it burnt slowly, expanding, day after day. But it did happen.

  At first, her body knew it was being deprived, but Skye just shrugged off the twinge in her gut, assuming it was residual ecstasy in her blood after slicing Aiden. She shrugged it off for two days, before the ache in her body had expanded enough to understand it wasn’t residual.

  It was her body crying out for more of the same. More of whatever Malefic monstrosity was released in her veins after harming another. After harming a Panthenite.

  Still, she stuffed the need down. She hid it from Aiden. Or at least she hoped she hid it from him. But it kept growing.

  A miniscule, minute by minute invasion of Skye’s body. An invasion that soon controlled her every thought. Even as she went through the motions with Aiden. They ate. They trained. They sat by the fire. They relaxed in the hot spring. But her thoughts would not stray from thinking of the craving. From thinking about how she could have it again. And her thoughts were only getting more desperate. More crazy.

  The only time she didn’t think of it was during sex. Only then, did the thought, the need disappear. At least for those shreds of time.

  Five days passed since she cut Aiden. And Skye’s desperation was getting near impossible to hide from him. Her skin had started to crawl on day three. She knew that was the day she became only capable of one-word answers to Aiden’s questions, his starts of conversation.

  And now, at day five, the shaking of her hands started. It started with a twitching middle finger on her left hand, a tic, and within hours, her entire left hand shook uncontrollably.

  Aiden thought she was hungry, so kept feeding her. But Skye knew no food could sate what her body screamed for.

  So that was it. She wanted—no, she needed—the feeling back, and she couldn’t convince herself to ignore it anymore. It had become unbearable. Desperate. Her thoughts shifted to getting out.

  And, as desperate often leads to stupid, Skye excused herself for a long shower after dinner.

  ~~~

  Aiden didn’t begin to wonder about Skye’s time in the shower until, after cutting and bringing in more wood for the fire, he went to wash the dishes from dinner. The water was ice cold. But he could still hear the water of the shower running. It had been at least two hours since Skye went into the bathroom.

  With a plummeting gut, he checked his gait to stop from running, and went to the door of the bathroom. He knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  He knocked again, harder.

  Still nothing.

  He tried the doorknob. Locked.

  Aiden took a step back and kicked the door open. A freezing blast of air hit him, and he saw instantly where it came from.

  The small window across from him was still open two inches. Aiden moved into the bathroom, hoping against hope he would slide the shower curtain and Skye would be there. She wasn’t.

  He shut off the running water and went across to the frosted glass. He opened the window pane as far as he could. Plenty of room for Skye to crawl out of.

  “Shit.”

  She wouldn’t leave, would she? His mind began to fly at possibilities.

  He stuck his head out the window, looking down at the snow in the light from the bathroom. A mess of deep footprints in the snow, and then tracks leading away in the opposite direction from where he had been splitting wood between the cabins.

  “Shit, Skye, what the hell are you thinking?”

  Anger started to boil.

  He looked up at the dark sky. Cloudless and a half-moon—he wouldn’t need a flashlight.

  Running back through the house, Aiden grabbed his coat while getting his boots back on. Skye’s coat still hung on a hook by the door. When he got to the side of the cabin outside the bathroom, he followed the tracks. Fifteen minutes passed before the tracks ended.

  He looked out, scanning the eerily-glowing landscape of snow reflecting moonlight. The wind had picked up, and it was already the coldest night they had. He could see nothing but a thin layer of blowing snow in every direction, and the tracks had just ended without a trace.

  “Fuck no.” His heart sped.

  He whipped around and ran as fast as the snow allowed back to the cabin.

  Stopping just outside the bathroom window again, he looked harder at the blanket of snow. Tracks to the left. And then he noticed a slight indentation in the layer of snow, five steps away from the original tracks. It was good, but he could still see the brushing of the snow.

  Damn her. She had done it smart. She gave him false tracks, then covered up her real ones.

  He followed the brushed indents, almost losing the trail several times, but about a quarter of a mile away from the cabin, she hadn’t bothered to cover the foot prints anymore. The old horse-hair broom she had used to brush the snow behind her, had been abandoned a short throw away, half stuck out of the snow.

  He looked ahead. Now he had real tracks, but as far as he could see, he saw no movement, save for whipping snow.

  Head down, staring at the foot prints in front of him, Aiden trudged on.

  A freezing hour later, Aiden saw a dark spot move in the snow, twenty feet away from the tracks. He veered to it, and was sickened to see it was Skye’s shirt. Back on the tracks, Aiden quickened his pace, soon stepping over her pants. If she was undressing, it meant she was hypothermic.

  Within moments, he came to the crest of a low hill. Down the side of it, the snow tracks turned into a slide through the snow. He could already see the footprints ended a few feet past the bottom of the slide.

  How long had she been out here in sub-zero temperatures? Three hours? Four?

  Desperate, he squinted, searching the snow drifts below the whipping wind. Then he saw the lump, and ran, skidding down the hill before he could even see if it was her.

  Half-burrowed into the snow at the base of the hill, Skye was in a ball, naked, except for a bra and underwear. She wasn’t moving. Snow had already begun to collect around her body. Another hour and she would have been completely buried.

  Aiden peeled off his jacket, wrapping it around her as he wedged her from the snow bank. She didn’t wake up. He tucked her tightly to the warmth of his own body and set back.

  Halfway to the cabin, she muttered something incomprehensible. But Aiden didn’t slow in his pace to hear her. He needed to get her back to heat, and he needed to quell his anger before he listened to a word she said.

  Aiden made it to the cabin in a half-hour, and deposited her in the old claw-footed tub. He started with tepid water, so as to not scorch her frozen blue skin.

  Every ten minutes, he added more hot water to the tub. It was when he was using a warm washcloth on her ears, thawing them, that she eventually rustled her eyes o
pen.

  Pain, of not only body, but spirit, flooded her eyes when she looked at him. Aiden’s anger instantly dissipated.

  Her words were mumbled, but understandable. “I’m so sorry. I just need it. I need it so bad.”

  Aiden didn’t reply. Her eyes were already closed again.

  It wasn’t until her body started to shake, that Aiden finally allowed himself to slightly relax. The bluish tint to her skin had faded, and normal color appeared to be coming back. The shaking jarred her awake, and Aiden moved his arm from under her cheek, which had been holding her head above water. He got to his knees, stretching his stagnant muscles.

  After adding in more hot water, he moved alongside the tub so he could look at her. The shaking turned to shivering, and his fingers went softly to her face, pushing a tendril of her auburn hair from her forehead.

  “Tell me. Tell me what you were doing, Skye.”

  Her mouth opened and closed several times, chin dipping into the water. He could see she struggled for an answer. Finally, words formed, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I need it, Aiden. And I somehow convinced myself that if I left without you knowing, I could get it.”

  “What were you thinking? Where did you think you were going to go? There’s nothing for miles out there.”

  Her eyes closed from the pain and she shook her head. “Stupid. I know. I'm just so desperate. This crushing, desperate craving. Desperate…Desperate ever since I sliced you. It’s just gotten so bad…I don’t know what to do.”

  “Were you going to go out and hurt someone?”

  “I don’t know.” Her head shook. “I don’t know what I was going to do. I can't even think except for it. I hurt so bad for it. And even now, I want to go again. Go out into that cold again it’s so bad. I need that shit in my veins.”

  Her eyes crept up to his, the pain so harsh she couldn’t even produce tears. “I just need this craving, this pain, to go away, Aiden, and I don’t care how.”

  It was Aiden’s turn to not have any words. What on earth was he going to do with her?

  He stood up, looking down on her, watching her shivers make ripples in the water. “Finish warming up in here. I’m going to leave the door open.”

  He went to the closet in the bathroom and pulled out two towels and a robe, and laid them by the tub. Then he walked out the door.

  ~~~

  Skye got out of the tub, combed her wet hair, and then went into the common area. Aiden was waiting for her at the large oak table. He sat, leaning back in a wooden chair, ankle crossed over his knee. The only thing on the table was a dagger. He stared at the blade.

  Clad only in the fluffy blue robe, Skye stepped cautiously toward him.

  “Aiden?”

  With a sigh, he slowly looked up to her. For a second, he looked unsure. But it was almost immediately replaced with resolve. “I know you’re worried about what I’m thinking, Skye. But my eyes are wide open. I know this isn’t you. Isn’t what you want. Nonetheless, it has a hold on you.”

  He stood up, moving right in front of her, and his hands went to her shoulders. “I see what this is doing to you. And it is tearing me up to watch it. But I can help. You need to let me help.”

  Hope flickered in Skye’s eyes. Hope that she hadn’t felt in days. “Do you know something? How can you help?”

  Aiden’s grip on her shoulders tightened, bracing the both of them.

  “Cut me.”

  “What?” Confused horror replaced Skye’s hope.

  “You need to cut me. I can take it. If what you need is to draw Panthenite blood, I can take it.”

  “No.” She tried to pull from his grip, but he wasn’t letting her go anywhere.

  “You need it, Skye. And I can handle it. Cut me.”

  “Aiden, no. When I said I would do anything—I was wrong. I won’t. Not this. I will learn to bear what this does to me. I will not cut you.”

  “You need to.”

  “I can’t.” She pulled harder, but instead of escaping his grip, he pulled her closer, capturing her body in one arm.

  His lips were on her ear. “You can.”

  Skye felt the hilt of the blade in her palm, and before she could jerk her hand away, Aiden clasped his fingers over hers, holding her hand captive on the dagger’s handle.

  “Please, Aiden, no.” Tears had started streaming. “Don’t make me. Not you. Please. I can’t hurt you.”

  He brought her blade hand down to his thigh. “You can do this, Skye.”

  She started to push at his chest with her free hand, but it did nothing. Aiden had her clamped down, and he wasn’t letting her go.

  Her head bowed, forehead on his chest. Even under Aiden’s titanium grip on her hand, her fingers shook. “I won’t.”

  “You will. My body was made for this, Skye. I was made for this. I am strong enough. You know I am. Look at me, Skye.”

  She looked up him. Begging. The tears hadn’t stopped. “Please. No. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  But his face was set hard. Her pleas had no effect. Aiden was unwavered. Unmoved in his course.

  “You need to just do it, Skye. Let it go. I can handle it. For you. I swear I can.”

  Skye closed her eyes as tightly as she could against the horror.

  And then her arm moved without thought.

  One swipe, and the blade sliced deep into flesh. A gash that ran from outer to inner thigh. And Aiden’s hand was over hers the entire time.

  The reward was immediate. Just as it had been on the training field when she accidently cut him. It felt like a meteor hurled through space and exploded in her.

  The blade clattered to the floor.

  Skye’s eyes opened to find Aiden watching her, his eyes intense. A burning intensity that she recognized immediately, and wasn’t about to deny.

  She pulled herself up, fast, hard, to meet his lips. Her body clawed and curled up onto his wide chest. Wrapping her legs around him, she tried to avoid the cut on his leg, but frankly, didn’t care—the need to have him inside of her had never been fiercer.

  A fierceness that Aiden returned ten-fold.

  The fire in her veins made her hyper-aware of every touch, every whisper, every smell of Aiden. Her robe disappeared in an instant. She tore at his shirt, demanding his skin. Demanding his muscle. Demanding his body encompass her. There was no gentleness in how she clawed down his jeans, giving her full access to every inch of skin she needed.

  Aiden turned them and crushed their bodies onto the table, him on top. He broke into her without caution, slick and huge. And it ripped a chest-splitting scream of pleasure from her. Skye gripped the sides of the table, fingers near breaking as she leveraged herself against Aiden’s blows, driving deeper and deeper into her body, ravaging her soul.

  At the tip of her excruciating peak, she abandoned the table, seizing Aiden’s back with her nails, drawing more blood. Blood that only intensified the savage euphoria barreling under her skin and centering in her core.

  Aiden exploded in her, sending her spiraling out of control, meeting his last throes with abandon of all thought and the laws of physics.

  Complete consumption. Inside and out.

  The initial waves passed, and Aiden groaned as he moved off the table, picking Skye up and carrying her to the couch, where he laid down, positioning her on top. He was still deep inside her, her body contracting rhythmically around him. Skye barely noticed the change in location. Euphoric disengagement, her mind had still not come back into her body. And it wouldn’t for another two hours.

  By then, the blood from the deep gash on Aiden’s leg had dried, crusting all over both his leg and hers.

  Skye got up awkwardly, insisting on cleaning the cut, even though it raised bile into her throat that she had done this to him. But she straightened her spine and looked hard at the wound, facing what she had just let herself do.

  Aiden sat on the couch, letting her silently wash the wound. She dabbed the hardened blood as gently as p
ossible, never looking up at him. She dabbed until there wasn’t a spec of redness on Aiden’s leg. Just the pink line of the original gash that was already healing.

  Satisfied the blood was gone, but exhausted, she laid her forehead on his knee, just below the wound.

  “My god, Aiden, what the hell did we just do?” Her head stayed bowed with her petrified whisper.

  Aiden’s hand went immediately to the back of her head, burying into her hair, trying to comfort. But his voice was grave. “I don’t know.”

  He paused, and Skye could feel his muscles tense under her forehead. “But whatever path we’re going down, we’re doing it together.”

  { Chapter 6 }

  “You are in a fucked up place, man. I’m calling Charlotte.” Triaten turned from Aiden and pulled out his phone.

  “No, don’t bother her. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

  Triaten looked over his shoulder at Aiden with a glare that told him to shut up. A glare that said Aiden just had all thinking-rights revoked.

  Even through the haze in his mind, Aiden knew Triaten was right. After walking into the cabin, it had only taken fifteen minutes for Triaten to realize how deep and dark Aiden and Skye were.

  Aiden had heard the knocking, but could barely lift his head, much less his body, to answer the door. So Triaten had just walked in. Walked in and found him flat on his back in front of the fireplace. Clad only in boxers. A few embers still glowed orange-red from the previous night’s fire.

  “A—what the hell?” Triaten yelled when he stepped in from the snow to see Aiden sprawled. He ran to Aiden, skidding to a kneel next to him. “What happened? Who did this? Where’s Skye?”

  Aiden blinked hard as Triaten loomed over him. How to stop Triaten’s panic? How to tell him this was all his own doing? Aiden pushed air from his lungs. “Skye’s fine. She’s in the loft sleeping.”