My eyes are open, fixed on his, anger burning a hole in my brain. I’m still staring when he’s flung away from me, off me, hitting the floor with such force that the entire boat seems to shake.
It takes my mind a second to adjust, to take in that the beast is on the floor, the sword has gone flying, and there’s another person in the room.
Even then I don’t believe it.
Not till the other man hauls him up and rams his head against the floor. And again, a second time, with such force that his head goes straight through the floor.
Something about the new arrival’s build is familiar – his height, the way he moves his shoulders. It pings a flash of recognition in my brain. But I’m too gone, too drawn into the nightmare that’s still playing out in my head.
Then he’s hauling the beast up and throwing him against the wall. The force of the falling body breaks through into the cabin next door.
The man picks up the sword. He holds it up, and a shiver of something red-violet squeals up the blade, ripples up his arm, binding his torso for just a second before it whooshes up and over his crown in a spurt of sparks. He jumps, covering the distance between him and brute in just one leap.
A part of me registers that no one can jump like that. Not a normal human. It’s as if the sword is leading him, infusing him with a strength that’s more than ordinary. And even as I’m thinking this he brings down his sword on the fallen shifter.
Silence
Around me. In me.
The brute is dead.
I can feel it.
And I am still here, alive.
He turns to me then, this man holding up the blade, blood still dripping from it, and he’s running to me. He stands over me and I see him go pale.
The rational part of me, the one that’s been looking down on the scene as it’s been played out all along, recognizes him but I refuse to believe it.
It can’t be.
His arm moves and I flinch.
With a single swipe he cuts through the ropes holding my arms and then my legs, and suddenly I am free.
The blade clatters to the floor, and shrugging off his shirt, he leans towards me and I shrink back. A cry escapes my lips. He cringes but doesn’t hold back from pressing the shirt down on the wound on my chest. The pain bites through the churning in my head, and I cry out again, pinching my eyes shut.
‘Shhh!" he whispers. "You are safe now. No one is going to hurt you, I promise."
I refuse to believe him.
And yet a part of me finally accepts what he is saying, for my muscles go slack and the adrenaline that has kept me going so far fades away, leaving me limp. With that, pain erupts all at once. Agony washes over me and this time when darkness beckons I don’t resist.
Voices grate over my skin. Pain grips my chest, lodging there like a coiled fist. I try to move and a spurt of grief pushes against my ribs, threatening to break through the bones. My arms and legs are heavy, so heavy they feel like they’re made of stone. I try to open my eyes and I can’t.
The breath catches in my throat.
I begin to struggle in earnest then and a cry escapes my lips. A voice shushes me, "You are safe now, Aria, safe, do you hear me?" The voice goes on, this time closer to my ears. "He’s dead. He can’t hurt you again, baby, never again." His voice ends with a gasp as if he’s unable to bring himself to speak any more. Then my hand is gripped. And I know it’s him. But I don’t have the strength to squeeze back.
I let out a breath, forcing myself to relax. Immediately the scenes pour over me, through me, threatening to engulf me.
The beast slapping me.
Ripping off my clothes.
Tying me up.
Ramming into me…no, he hadn’t raped me. He hadn’t. My breath hitches, I can still feel that heavy weight of his body holding me down, that puerile smell of his skin as he loomed over me, that scraping of his tongue like barbed wire over my skin, and then the sharp, white-hot pain of the sword slicing into me.
Tears run down my eyes and now I don’t want to open them. Don’t want to come back to a world that’s so cruel.
The darkness is cold, soothing, comforting – a blanket I want to pull over my eyes.
A world that’s harsh. Animalistic. Selfish.
The cold tugs at me, seductive. I’ll be safe there. No one can harm me there.
Everyone only lives for themselves. And I don’t want to live, not for myself.
I’m coming. Wait for me. I sink into the depths, letting the shadows swirl around me, over my head. I let myself swim towards that golden light at the end of the tunnel.
I don’t want to live, not even for him.
My heart slams into my chest.
Jai. He’s dead. I saw him die. A fresh wave of panic hits me and I pause. Undecided. But it’s too late. In that moment of hesitation, when I turn back to the light, it’s gone. The darkness folds in on itself, traveling towards me at break neck speed, it sweeps me along, up, up, further up.
Up through depths I don’t remember traveling
Up towards the light. A hotter, harsher light. Nothing like the cool soothing light I’d gone towards earlier.
I turn, look back, but I already know it’s too late. The light is so strong it burns my skin, but I have no choice, I must keep going.
Up, I am propelled up and I break through the surface, the white so bright it hurts my eyes and I put up my arm to shield against it.
A voice, hoarse yet soft and familiar, flows over me. "Stay with me, baby. I’m here now and I’ll never let anyone hurt you again."
"Jai," I breathe out.
My hand is gripped, squeezed, and this time I hold on tight.
Chapter Forty-Six
He lifts me up gently, so gently it brings tears to my eyes. I’m not aware that I’m clutching his vest, my nails digging into his skin. I want to feel him, smell him, bury myself in him. He feels safe, familiar.
I’ll never be safe again.
I shiver, my teeth chattering so hard the sound knocks around in my head. His arms tighten around me and he gathers me close, continuing to walk. My hands grab his shirt, my fingers brushing the sheath with the sword that he’s carrying on his back.
The sword with which Jai had killed the brute.
Jai.
He’s alive.
He survived.
I press myself to him, wanting to touch as much of him as I can. But it’s not enough.
I want to get closer.
Close enough for his scent to fill my nose. Close enough to fill my pores, to drive away the rancid feel of those hands running over me. Of the shiver of violence that has crawled under my skin. That is nesting there, and growing, darker, louder, drowning out my inner voice till I can’t hear myself anymore. And underneath it all, a flicker of anger. How could he do this to me?
I had been helpless.
Hadn’t been able to defend myself.
Is that all I am now – a refugee?
Someone the shifters can get hold of and mate and use to propagate their own species?
My nails dig into his skin, drawing blood, but Jai doesn’t flinch. My fingers brush the hastily tied bandage around his chest and I go still.
"How, how did you survive?" I speak for the first time since he’s found me.
He nods towards the man ahead of us who Jai is following to a jeep parked ahead. "Gilbert," he says. "He found me, revived me. The boat was still waiting for us."
His words come out in short bites. Like bullets of pain.
I wince as they grate over my skin. Feeling me shudder, his arms tighten around me. As if he wants to draw me right inside him.
"And he…?" I can’t bring myself to say it. Just thinking about the brute sends a shiver down my spine and I huddle closer. But I have to know. I have to hear it from him.
"He’s dead," Jai says, and something inside me loosens.
A wave of weakness sweeps over me. I’m not going to faint, not now. I let the feel of his skin an
chor me, ground me. Swallowing down the sickness closing in on my throat, I focus on the bandage my fingers had brushed against earlier.
"You’re hurt," I say, my voice uneven.
His arms tighten further, pressing on my skin so hard it hurts.
But I don’t wince.
If it pains it means I’m still alive. It means I’m here with Jai and no longer in that nightmare.
"I’m fine," he says, his voice low. "But what they did to you; that I will never forgive. I’m going to hunt them down and—’
‘They’ll kill you," I say, my voice flat. "They’re too strong for you, Jai."
‘They underestimated me," he says. "They came after what was mine. Not once but twice. I can’t let them go. Not now." Barely are the words out of his mouth when a shot rings out ahead of us.
Gilbert drops to the ground and Jai follows, pushing me down, covering me with his body.
"So this is her?" A female voice.
Above me, Jai freezes. I peer from under him and swear aloud. A group ahead of us. Leading from the front is the slim shifter, the one who’d been with the brute.
Flanking him are two large shifter males. Tall, so tall that they tower over the leaner, almost-human looking one who’s as tall as Jai.
He’s holding a gun, one of those large automatic weapons.
Next to him is the female who’d spoken earlier.
She has to be hybrid and yet she looks so very human.
Slim, just a little taller than me, and young, in her early twenties. Dark curly hair falls in a lustrous cloud below her shoulders. She has a delicate, heart-shaped face, below which she wears a black jumpsuit. The material clings to her curves. She’s wearing boots that are almost thigh-high. A gun is slung over her back and her hands are placed over her waist.
She tilts her head, her golden eyes looking first at me, then at Jai. There’s something familiar about her, about how she looks at us, but I can’t place her.
In front of us, Gilbert moves, and one of the bigger shifters is on him in a flash, prodding him down with his gun. He stays down.
"Let him up," she says, surprising us.
Her voice is calm, clear. She speaks with an accent which is unlike anything I’ve heard. It has something of the melodious accent of a Bombayite, but mixed with the guttural tone of a shifter. It’s strange on the ears, as if it belongs to neither side.
As if she’s both human and wolf.
The leaner shifter darts a look at her. "You’re not going soft on us are you now, Maya?" he asks.
She darts a look at him, and whatever the other shifter sees in them satisfies him, for he nods.
Turning to the shifter still holding Jai down, she snaps, a thread of anger still evident in her voice, "Let the human up."
At which the shifter backs off, his gun still aimed at us. He walks back and falls in line with the rest, then stands behind her.
Protecting her.
They cluster around her as if she’s fragile, as if she’s too important for them to lose at any cost.
Jai gets to his feet, then helps me up before wrapping me to his side, and a little behind, protecting me with his body. I don’t protest. Sliding my arms around him, I grip his waist.
"I’m sorry for what he did. Gabriel broke the code of the pack, and attacked you. He didn’t deserve to live," the female says.
"He’s dead," Jai snaps.
She nods, a quick, abrupt motion with her head. "I’d have done it myself if you hadn’t."
She holds out her hand and Jai’s body tenses. Below my hands his muscles go rock-hard.
She wants his sword.
His sword?
Jai hesitates and she says, "I have as much right to it as you."
He doesn’t move but under my arm his muscles tense. Tension coils his body, lending it a steely strength. He feels like he wants to be anywhere else but here. And yet his attention is completely focused on the female in front of us. There’s silence as they lock eyes, a battle of wills in which I know neither will give.
They are too similar.
Like each other.
Like siblings fighting over a toy that was given to one in favor of the other.
Is this his sister?
Even as the thought strikes me, I know it’s true. Then everything goes out of my mind as Jai releases the sword from the scabbard and hands it over to her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I wake up to a hard male chest against my back.
They’d brought us to a small house at the edge of the refugee camp and left us there. Jai had helped me to the small outdoor bath, pouring buckets full of water over me, holding me up till the tears stopped flowing. Till the tepid water had washed away some of the dirt. Whatever was visible on the outside, at least.
He’d cleaned my wounds and bandaged the cut on my chest. And helped me into the clothes left for us, with so much gentleness that I’d found myself crying all over again.
I couldn’t look at him, though, couldn’t tell him what I was feeling just then.
And he hadn’t asked, hadn’t pushed. He'd just taken care of me. And when he’d coaxed me to lie down on the thin mattress in a corner of the room, I’d insisted he stay. Gripping his arms, holding onto him, I had fallen asleep.
Now I come awake to the sound of my own screams still echoing in my ears. I’m wrapped in his arms. The heat from his chest flows over my skin, holds me captive. I can’t move. I want to stay here and savor the feeling that creeps over me. Warmth. The kind I want to sink into, courses through my veins. I want to let it crack the ice that lurks in the shadows. Some of the mistrust I’ve carried inside since the soldiers killed my father begins to melt.
The walls that I’d built against the world have been torn down by the brute. And I’m surprised by how fragile I feel.
You’d think surviving on my own all these years would have prepared me for the worst. That my fighting skills honed by training with the rebels would have helped. But when it mattered most, I’d been unable to defend myself.
Seeing that intent in his eyes, his need to tear me up, to hurt me in the worst possible way, had shaken me. It had messed with my head and left me frozen, incapable of fighting back.
And now the aftershocks run through me.
Perhaps if Jai was not here I wouldn’t have gone to pieces.
But his very presence is a contrast. A reminder that there’s still goodness and strength, and things which are still pure in this world. And that sends a shudder of awareness down my back.
As if sensing my turmoil, Jai’s arm tightens around me. My head tucks into the space below his chin. His breath brushes my hair, shivering over my scalp and a tremor runs down my back.
He pulls me even closer, closer than I’d have ever thought possible, and tears prick the back of my eyelids.
I still don’t open my eyes.
Just let his caring wash over me.
Love.
Comfort
Lust.
I hadn’t thought I’d feel lust again, not so soon after what had happened with the shifter. But feeling Jai’s skin on mine, his arousal strong, pushing against my back, I know I want it. I want him around me, in me. I want Jai’s essence to wipe away the bitter aftertaste of what the shifter had tried to do to me.
I arch back, trying to feel more of him. More of his pulse beating below my chest. More of his heart that I know is loyal to his mother; that does not agree with everything his father does but will often obey out of respect.
That will do anything for the city of which he’s the Guardian.
That will take care of his team as if they were his own.
That will take care of me.
That is shattering me even more, even as he is aware of the terror racing through my mind.
The shifter had hurt me, torn through my emotions, but he hadn’t gotten to me. Hadn’t managed to get to that part of me that I hold inside, deep inside, in a place I’d forgotten even existed.
A sp
ace I’d been saving up, for him, the man next to me. Even before I’d met him, I’d felt him. Known he was there. Known it was him the moment I’d seen him.
I want to turn to him, and press my lips to him, but I don’t.
Not this time.
This time I just wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Go still. Let my body just fall into myself till my eyes look inside me, become one with the person I used to be.
That young, happy girl who’d skipped and played on the heath. Who’d run up the slope of the small hill, the wind in her hair, towards the line of trees at the far end. Racing, racing, for a horizon so close, yet one I knew I couldn’t reach.
Tears are running down my cheeks in earnest.
And yet I don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t make any sound.
But he knows. For Jai slides around, till he’s facing me. His face is in front of mine, his breath warm on my cheek. His hand is around my waist, the other below his head. And I heave a sigh of relief, not knowing I’d been waiting for this. For him to come to me.
His eyes sear over my face, my lips, my eyes, which are still shut. They hesitate there before continuing below to my shoulders, exposed above the torn sheet, and lower to where the cloth clings to my body.
He moves the sheet down so the cool night air from the open window hits my skin, causing goosebumps. Another shiver runs down my back. The sound of the rain hitting the roof patters over us. Then there is only me and him. And the now.
He leans in close and brushes his lips over mine.
Once.
So soft. Sweet.
Almost not there.
As if he wants to wipe away everything I’d felt and heard and sensed in the last few years. In the last few hours.
As if he wants to replace it all with him.
Then he turns me on my back and covers my body with his. I groan aloud. His weight settles over me, flows over me, molds to me. So real, so true that a fresh bout of tears pricks the back of my eyelids.
This time I open my eyes and let them flow. Let them wash away the last vestiges of what that brute had done to me. I’d fought back though, hadn’t I? I’d have killed myself rather than let him have me.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 143