by Lan Chan
Noah followed my line of sight. “Comfort,” he said. It was all he needed to say. That simple word rang in my ears as the kids and I lit the bonfire and ate outside in the clearing again. We had only started on the bruschetta appetizers when Charles’s voice dropped low.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” he said. Over his shoulder, I saw a hesitant group of about four or five people moving towards us. They didn’t come close enough that they would disturb us, but laid their own picnic rug and sat down in the grass. A little fire started in the grass between them. Not long after, I scented burned sugar in the air. They were toasting marshmallows.
About ten minutes after that, Kate turned up with Edward and a little girl with hair so black it looked like she was trailing the night behind her as she walked. “I’m babysitting while his parents have date night,” Kate said, her eyes blinking too quickly. I sensed that was code for Cheyenne and Mark needing to have a quiet conversation about the current situation. “Can we stay here for a bit?”
“Of course.”
“This is Lizzie,” Edward told me. Lizzie gave me a toothless grin.
“My daddy is up there,” she said, pointing towards the conference rooms.
“I see.”
“Jeremiah and Amy,” Kate informed me, while the kids stuck their fingers into the food and laughed as they destroyed it.
“Ah. I didn’t know they were a couple.”
Kate shrugged. “You can hardly call it that. They’re always at each other’s throats. Both equally dominant, so they can never settle on who’s in charge. It drives me nuts.”
Said the dominant lynx shifter.
By the time we were finished eating, four other groups had joined us. They spoke in hushed tones, as though what they were doing was condemned. Like they thought happiness was a red flag that would draw the malachim to us.
Charles saw the grimace on my face. “They’re not used to this,” he said.
“They shouldn’t be. This is insane. It’s almost like they’re afraid to be around each other anymore.”
“Maybe they are.” He picked at the grass in front of him. “Who knows how much time we’ve got left together?”
I was still thinking about what he said after Cassie and Luther went home and Charles had turned in for the night. Stealing out of the mansion, I sucked in a breath and went hunting for Max.
Even if the mating link didn’t tell me where he was, the law of elimination made him easy enough to find. As alpha, he couldn’t afford to be on patrol. Durin hardly did it anymore, but I knew Max would go out of his mind if he sat behind a desk all day giving orders. At his core, he preferred violence over diplomacy. Action over words. When he wasn’t out watching the borders, he would either be in his office, in a meeting with the pack circle, or in the gym.
The latter was where I found him. The gymnasium was an out-of-place structure constructed by the mages. It sat smack bang at the start of a torturous obstacle course that wound around the many sectors of the Reserve and was designed to test the endurance of the shifter guards.
Through the window, I spotted him lying back on a bench, stripped down to just his sweatpants. Despite the urgency of my message, I stood frozen outside the door just watching him do reps, his muscles straining as he pushed the bar up and down repeatedly. My mouth went completely dry as a fantasy I’d always had came to life before my very eyes.
The layer of sweat that clung to the coarse, dark hairs on his chest said that he’d been doing this for some time. Still contained behind the barrier of blood, the mating link sat up in interest. It pressed itself to the barrier and nudged. As it did so, I was hit with a sudden ravenous need to run. It was so unlike me, so unlikely, that I somehow knew these were Max’s emotions.
With each rep, I felt the walls closing in around him. The need to hunt was a fire brimming so close to the surface that I was amazed his skin didn’t light up. Invisible enemies snapped at him from the darkness, and he couldn’t do anything to stop them. The rage was almost claustrophobic. He pushed the bar harder and faster, letting out a husky groan that made something tighten in my core.
Unable to torture myself any longer, I was about to open the door when somebody’s tight grip landed on my shoulder. Nails dug into my flesh. Rough hands spun me around. My back was pressed to the wall. I looked up into yellow eyes so filled with hatred I forgot to scream.
21
Max
The moment Sophie’s scent became blanketed with apprehension, the lion snapped to the forefront of my mind. Securing the weights back onto the peg, I moved towards the door and stopped when I caught the hint of Anastasia’s musk. The lion became hunting still. I lowered myself into a crouch and waited. The instinct to barge in and save her was overwhelming. My beast sensed her distress and it immediately wanted to snap into violence. All day, all night, since we’d first gotten word of the attack on Seraphina, I’d been fighting with myself not to give in to the urge to draw blood. Watching Astrid go down, her wings contorted out of shape, had eaten me alive.
She’d withdrawn into herself since Kai disappeared. It was worse than the quiet rage she displayed after Kai and Chanelle’s bonding had been announced. “I’m going to wring her neck,” Astrid had said with cold practicality. The lion had been both amused and concerned. Amused because it was furious too and concerned because it knew she would do it. Right and wrong were subjective in Astrid’s mind. They always had been. Right was the way she felt. Her hatred of Chanelle trumped everything else.
Knowing that no matter how much noise I made, the Nephilim wouldn’t let me near her, had infuriated the lion. A three-hour run in the savannah had only just blunted my killing instinct. All of it fell to pieces as soon as Sophie had come close enough for me to scent her.
Mental shackles drew around the lion that fought with razor-sharp claws to be let free to take her. Agitated beyond reason, I knew for certain there was something wrong with both of us. There was no doubt that I wanted her. But this frustrated, angry need that stripped away my control until I hung by the thinnest shred of sanity wasn’t normal.
Not without the mating link. But there was no sign of the link to be had. The only explanation then was that I was slowly bleeding into vicious obsession. It was why I couldn’t allow myself to sleep in the same house as her. Leaving her with Charles had been the best option. But every night I found myself creeping home, getting closer and closer until I had to fight to stay away.
It was unhealthy at best, and given time, it would become fatal. I had two choices: drown myself in her, something I couldn’t do without Sophie meeting me halfway, or cutting myself off from her completely. Something I couldn’t for the life of me even contemplate. The alternative, the more probable outcome, was going rogue.
The lion snapped fangs at me, drawing me back from the brink, because the sound of voices outside was rising.
It hardly took any concentration to hear their voices clearly. Anastasia wasn’t doing anything to quiet her words, and Sophie’s heartbeat was too erratic to hide her emotions. Gold crept across my sight.
“Stacey’s leash is too long,” Noah had warned me. “She’s not thinking objectively. If she strikes, I’m going to have to hit back.” It had been said matter-of-factly just this afternoon. The lion had stalked him in my mind, its ears pulled back, lips quivering as it tried to determine whether this sudden change of heart had anything to do with a precise interest in Sophie. That’s how far gone I was. I’d set Noah to guard Sophie for a reason.
Noah had zero romantic interest in women. He had even less interest in Sophie, who represented a dark smudge in his childhood. And yet he’d stood there to attention, his posture uncompromising, as he’d announced that he would hurt Anastasia to protect Sophie if need be.
“Beat it,” I heard Anastasia say from outside. “You’ve got no right to be here.”
“I need to speak to Max.” Sophie’s voice quivered. Not from fear but something else that had the lion rising to attention. S
he hardly ever lost her temper. Not truly. It was a trait she’d had imprinted on her in the compound before she’d even learned to walk.
“Are you as stupid as you look?” Anastasia said. “We don’t need you sniffing around complicating things.”
Noah was right. Anastasia needed to be reined in.
I could almost hear Sophie swallowing back the retort. “Can I leave him a message?” Clever girl. As inner circle, Anastasia was obligated to be a conduit between the alpha and the civilians. If she wasn’t going to let Sophie in, then she had to pass on the message.
Anastasia’s laugh was serrated. “Why would I do that? Do you imagine you’re pack or something? Just because you’ve fooled the children and the submissives into thinking you’re not a threat doesn’t–”
“Which is it?” Sophie said, her voice taking on an edge of steel that had my hairs rising. “Either I’m a threat or a weakling. Pick one.”
Something snapped. I crept closer, the world becoming bathed in red.
But Anastasia wasn’t stupid, either. Her dominant nature demanded that she push, but at the end of the day, she didn’t have a leg to stand on. We’d been together too long for it to count as a genuine claim. And as much as it goaded me, Sophie hadn’t provoked Anastasia in any way.
“You’re a poison,” Anastasia said. “One that needs to be carved out before it destroys our way of life.” The threat was there, hidden beneath a thin veneer of arrogance. Its sharpness was like a blade that cut me to the quick.
When had this happened? Anastasia could be caustic when she felt cornered, but the girl I knew wasn’t vindictive like this. The lion’s lips pulled back. It opened up a thread that lived inside my heart. A fluctuating thread of yellow-gold that was stretched to the point of snapping but currently led nowhere. The pack link.
Last time I’d seen him, Dad was a shadow of himself. Thin and wheezing, he struggled to breathe, let alone speak. The change had almost broken me. It made Charles tear up the obstacle course for twelve hours straight until he was so tired he couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. It was one of the reasons why Dani wasn’t at home anymore. Just like that fear lived in me, winding tighter with every breath, I knew it was doing the same to Anastasia. Her mother was clan alpha of the leopards. Only one thing could strip away all reason and control like this: fear.
Knowing its name didn’t change anything. If Anastasia touched Sophie, I would end it tonight.
“I understand why you don’t like me,” Sophie said. Both sides of me wanted to shake her. “All I want to do is speak to Max.”
“Why? So you can dangle yourself in front of him while playing hard to get?”
Thanks Stacey, I thought. But I can look after myself. Fury buried its hook in my chest. We were going to have a conversation soon, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“I’m not–”
“Save it. I can’t stand girls like you. Pretending to be all nice and polite, when all you do is destroy everything you touch. If Alessia hadn’t–”
I made it to the door at the sound of gagging. My hand closed over the doorknob, about to tear it open, when I realised the vocal chords making that sound were shifter. The scent of heated blood filled the air, along with the bitter stench of brimstone and...death.
“I don’t care what you say about me,” Sophie said, her voice burning. “But if you ever, ever even think her name again, I’ll show you what can happen when I’m not nice anymore.”
That unbridled anger in her voice made me bristle with unwanted emotions. Jealousy mixed with pride and furious need. She didn’t allow much to push her to reacting, but Lex was an open wound that made her snarl with the best of the shifters.
Knowing that Anastasia wouldn’t back down from a challenge like that, I opened the door to find Sophie with her palm pressed against Anastasia’s chest. She let go as soon as she saw me, the light in her eyes dimming as she looked down at the ground. Not before her gaze swept over me in a hungry caress that made me want to throw out control and just grab her.
“Leave,” I said. There was no mistaking which one of them I meant.
“How can you –” Anastasia started.
I pinned her with a look that said either she disappeared, or I would skin her alive. Holding my gaze for a fraction of a second to satisfy herself that she had bucked at the challenge, Anastasia made herself scarce.
Ignoring the fact that I’d just caught her in a territorial dispute, Sophie walked lightly into the room. While she sat down on an uncomfortable bucket chair, I shrugged my T-shirt back on like it was some kind of armour that would protect me from doing anything stupid.
“She’s not always like that,” I found myself saying as I threw my leg over the bench-press seat.
“I’m sure she isn’t.” The arched tone was the only thing that gave away her feelings. That and the way her skin flushed with the slightest hint of rose. Fae lighting was harsh at the moment. The grid was being sapped by all the energy the Fae were directing to keeping their wards on constantly. This afternoon while we’d been locked down for meetings, it had cast a sickly shade over the faces of the circle members.
It did nothing to hide the glow of blushing pink that always warmed Sophie’s ochre skin. Like she was lit from inside by a fire no evil could touch. Even if the world wanted to convince her that darkness was all she could ever live by.
“I didn’t come here to make things difficult,” she said, giving life to the accusation that I knew she would take to heart. Biting back the urge to inform her she made things difficult just by being her, I nodded.
She scratched her arm absently. There was fatigue in her dark eyes. It made me want to lash out suddenly and roar at her to never push herself past the brink the way Noah had described this afternoon.
“She was crying in the bathroom again,” Noah had said. I wanted to punch him just for being close to her at that fragile moment.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. The lion stood perfectly still, its mating instinct temporarily blunted by an overwhelming protectiveness. She was hiding things. Had been doing so since well before Lex went away. If I startled her now, she would clam up and we’d be at the beginning again.
Gently, I waited, holding the reins on both lion and man. “I had a nightmare last night,” she said. “In it, I saw Kai and Astrid. I saw what happened in Seraphina while it was happening.”
My target shifted. In a tug-of-war between mate and pack, my mate would always win. But we weren’t mated, and what she was saying smacked of ill-doing.
“Tell me everything.”
When she was done, I couldn’t think straight for a second. The words, when they came, were honed in fire. “So, something has been stalking you this whole time and you haven’t said a word about it?”
“The malachim warp minds all the time,” she said. “All I know is that I could be compromised.”
“If you’re compromised then so is the Reserve!”
Her brows pulled together. “I’m not the one in danger,” she said with no certainty whatsoever. “I’m just the one viewing it from the outside.”
“The way Lucifer used to torment Lex in her sleep?”
When she frowned outright, I knew it was only dawning on her for the first time. After a second contemplation, she shook her head. The movement cause her mop of dark hair to pillow about her shoulders. “This isn’t Lucifer. I’m not sure how, but I know it’s not him. I just can’t work out what it is. At least not while my movements are restricted. If I could just do a summoning–”
“Don’t start.”
Her lips flatlined. “Why not?”
“While you were on the run,” I couldn’t even say it without the hint of a growl building in my throat, “did you try summoning?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you learn?”
She scratched at her knee in a distracted way while she tried to come up with a lie that would get her what she wanted. Lex did it without a second thought.
She’d once looked me in the eye and lied her tiny ass off. Even though I knew she was lying, I couldn’t for the life of me actually sniff out the lie on her. It had been one of the most messed-up things I had ever experienced in a human. And one thing I hoped would help save her now.
Sophie was a practiced liar. It didn’t come naturally to her. When Lex lied, she meant it. If she got caught, she would go down with the lie rather than admit she’d been wrong. When Sophie lied, it hurt her in a way that made her shrink in on herself. She was almost apologising before she even opened her mouth.
“Not much,” she finally said. Truth.
“So what makes you think anything has changed?”
“I was hoping you might participate with me. If Kai could sense you, he might appear.”
I closed my eyes for a second. In my head, the lion lowered itself into a hunting crouch. The roar began as a small sound that built and tripped over itself as it rolled and gained momentum. My chest vibrated silently as thunder erupted in my ears. I heard metal groaning under my hands.
When I opened my eyes, Sophie was leaning forward. Her hand gripping her knee like she was going to reach out but thought better of it.
“What you’re asking means he’s dead,” I said. It came out a harsh bark.
“Not necessarily.”
The metal crumpled beneath my hands. It groaned as I stood, picked up the entire seat, and began breaking it apart. “He was hit by the full blast of her Angelical at the soul gate. If you’re searching for him via summoning, it means you think he’s dead. Is that what you think, Sophie?” My left eye was twitching. Kai was not dead. End of discussion.
“I don’t know.”
She looked away and shuddered from the high-pitched sound of the metal bending in my hands. Setting it down, I lowered myself to the ground. “A summoning inside the Reserve will bring the malachim down on us. It’s not happening.”