by RS Black
Turning on his heel, he opened the door.
She was sitting on the bed, holding on to her head. Her wings were closed, as they’d been for months now.
“Bird,” he grunted, wishing he could say so much more, wishing he could speak to her honestly, but everywhere they went they were watched. Everywhere they turned, even in the seeming privacy of this room, they were never truly alone.
Except in the gardens.
There was one place in the gardens—he shouldn’t know of it, but he did—it was the one place in the entire compound where no one and nothing heard them. They couldn’t escape, but they could talk and be honest.
The flesh would be stripped off Orion’s back if Keaton discovered that while he’d been shoving a finger at his chest, Orion had taken that opportunity to slip the General’s personal key out of his pocket.
He’d have to figure out some way to return it before the night’s end, and there was always the possibility of it being reported that they’d left the monitored section of the gardens, but for the next week the Triad was playing host to the top brass in DC. And in two more days the President of the United States would make her appearance.
Downstairs everyone was scrambling to prepare for her arrival. The odds of them going undetected were as good as they’d ever be.
Arabella turned bloodshot eyes toward him. And as tired as she looked, despite the dark circles that framed her eyes, their coloring was still the brilliant amber of before. He swallowed hard.
Not since the first night of her coming had he seen her without bruises. Pale as she looked now, and covered in scars, she was lovelier than any other creation he’d ever known.
“Would you like to walk the gardens?”
She shook her head. “I am weak, shifter. I do not think I could walk it, even should I want to.”
He’d not take no for an answer, not today.
Walking to her, he scooped her slight form into his arms, trembling with desire and fear. Fear for her, she was so slight. She’d lost at least half a stone, maybe even a whole stone, in the past month alone.
The cameras tracked their movements out of her room, down the hall, and to the doors leading to the outside.
The sun was just starting to set, bathing the world in shades of orange, peach, and pink. The first caress of sunlight upon her skin caused a glittering dapple effect, making her almost appear to gleam.
Orion could not help but caress the soft spot of flesh beneath his thumb. She shivered, eyes going to his, and her arms, wrapped loosely around his shoulders, tightened for a moment.
A gentle smile touched the corners of her lips when she inhaled the flower-tinged breeze.
The General was a white daisy aficionado. The air dripped with its sweet scent. White daisies were symbolic of innocence and purity. A flower he’d now forever associate with Arabella.
Orion turned onto the trail, clinging tightly to her as he moved beyond the normal bounds of the garden, heading toward the gated section.
She never asked him why or where he was going, and when they got there and he had to set her down gently so that he could unlock the gates, her trusting eyes held him spellbound.
Moving into the safety of Keaton’s private garden, Orion released a pent-up breath, locked the gate back up, and cradled her as he took a seat upon a bench overlooking a sea of white daisies.
Arabella snuggled into his chest and it was all Orion could do not to kiss her. To take her face between his and give in to the nearly five months of pent-up passions.
“Where are we?” she finally whispered.
His voice was thick when he said, “In a safe place, Bella, where no one can hear us, no one can see us.”
She jerked back, gazing at him with wonder, her mouth hanging slightly open. The rosebud lips so pink and tempting.
He frowned when he noticed the tears.
“Bella?” Panicked, he wiped his palms down her cheeks, catching the tears. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
She’d never cried in front of him. Not once. Not after a beating. Not during a beating. Not even when she’d been confined to the darkness of solitary for a week.
But she cried now.
“Rion.” She clutched at his wrists, but not to take them off her; her nails dug into his flesh, trapping his hands where they were. “You could get in trouble for this.”
“I know what I’m doing, little bird.”
She bit the corner of her lip, her blunt teeth white and perfectly straight. And he’d be a liar if he said he did not envy those teeth at the moment, wishing like hell it was own biting down on her.
“Rion, I can’t do this to you. You have to stop this. You’re making it too hard for me.”
The words made no sense. He narrowed his eyes. “Bella, you are my problem. From the moment I saw you. I can’t...I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. You’re dying.”
His voice cracked when he said the last.
Her lashes fluttered. “Rion, please, please don’t do this. Don’t care for me.”
“It’s too late.” He shook his head, tipping her chin back up when she tried to turn away. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you lie to yourself about this. And I won’t let you die.”
Her tears came harder then. She wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably, but she shivered violently on his lap.
She swallowed hard, her fingers still dug into his wrists. She said one thing, but her actions screamed another. She wanted him as he wanted her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why are you here? You’re nothing like these monsters. You need to leave this place; you do not belong.”
“I do belong.” He glowered, moving her hands. But not to take them off him; he brought them to his lap and caressed the webbing between her fingers as he wished he could do to the rest of her body.
But one hour was not enough. He’d start and he’d lose himself in her. Forget himself in the madness and recklessness of his need. They’d get caught, and all would be lost.
“You don’t understand.”
She cocked her head, blinking huge eyes up at him. Her features were slightly birdlike, the length of her nose, the sharpness of her jaw, but all so heart-achingly lovely that he lost his breath each time he gazed upon her.
“Then make me understand this, because I cannot figure you. You fight for me. You break every rule to see to my safety. You aren’t like the rest of them. You’ve not even turned yet, Rion. Why? You’re keeping yourself weak remaining as you are.”
He cupped her cheek and his heart tripped in his chest when her lashes fluttered and a soft groan spilled from her lips. He was a shifter. She was Hyperion. Their classes never mixed. Never.
But when he was with her, he wanted to forsake everything, who he was, what he was, simply to be with her. It was madness, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
“I do it to be with you. If I turn, they’ll send me out to the field. And then who will watch you, little bird? You can’t die. You can’t give up this way. Given time they’ll release you; they’ll have no choice.”
She laughed, the sound bitter and full of irony. “Oh, Rion, how is it that you can’t see them for who they are? How can you keep on believing that? Does anyone ever escape here? Does anyone ever leave?”
“There was one.”
“Yes.” She nodded, the movement jerky and angry. “By their will. And then they snatched her back and turned her into an even greater monster than before. She died in their service, and that is what the Triad does. They take, and they kill, and there is nothing more than that. Keaton has wanted me for so long and now he has me. Do you really believe he would ever let me go?”
Orion had often wondered at the history that lay between the two of them, Arabella and Keaton; there was a story there.
“And so you lose your will to fight, to live?” he growled, his face ratcheting into a snarl as the beast he fought so hard to suppress slinked to awareness. He had days, maybe even a few wee
ks if he was lucky, but eventually the beast would overtake him. Instinct ruled Orion’s kind. He could deny the wolf for only so much longer, but he couldn’t do it, not until he knew Bella would survive this.
“I have not lost my will.”
“And yet you are dying.”
She cupped his cheek back, and her touch, it burned straight through him. Tossing restraint to the wind, he turned his face, just enough that his lips could taste her flesh, and he kissed her palm.
She stilled, gasping and sucking in a breath.
“Rion, has your wolf...that is to say, do you recognize me as your mate?”
The world stopped beating. The wind stopped breathing. It was like everything took a collective pause, awaiting his answer.
Sitting on his lap with her wings outspread, surrounded by a sea of daisies, with the sun setting behind her, she was an angel and his heart bled.
“Yes.”
“Oh God, Rion. This can’t be happening, you can’t do this...you can’t do this to me.” She tried to squirm off his lap, but he banded his arms around her, his need and rage and impotence at their situation making his voice shiver with the beast.
“Bella, you have to fight, I don’t care what it takes, you have to fight. I won’t lose you.”
“You have lost me,” she wailed pitifully. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand any of this. This goes so far beyond—” She shook her head, a panicked edge filled her words. “You can’t do this. Whatever you’re thinking, you can’t do this. Please. I have to know. I have to know the truth. Please, what”—she paused and took a deep breath—“what are you fighting for, Rion? Why are you here? Tell me the truth.”
Her chest rose and fell as she sucked in deep breaths. The moment was fraught with tension and the palpable scent of her fear. For him?
Could it be possible? Could he trust her? Tell her a secret very few knew, one that could spell the end of his entire pack if the wrong person discovered it?
He clenched his jaw, waging war with himself. Wanting desperately to free himself of this burden, but so used to keeping this private for so long, trained since childhood never to trust others, to tell anyone the truth of who he really was. Who his people really were.
“Bella,” his voice cracked with strain, “I can’t.”
“I have to know. I cannot do what I...” She stuttered, and then shook her head. “I just have to know.”
Instinct was a powerful thing. A tool for greatness, or a weapon in the wrong hands. Wolves held only two things sacred. Their pack. And their mate.
Bella was not mated to him—the ties had not been forged—but the foundation was there.
“I’m fighting for my people,” he admitted softly, afraid to speak much louder than a whisper.
“The shifters? The werewolves?”
“No.” The word hung between them like a fragile spider string suspended between branches. “Not the werewolves. My people. The Ozark pack. Bella, what you know is very dangerous and I can’t—”
“You can trust me. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve told me. But what do you think the Triad can do for you? I don’t understand this. Why are you here?”
“Because they’ve promised our people that so long as we send delegates they will let the rest of us live in peace.”
“But what is so important? What is so special about your people? What?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
She touched his cheek and implored him with her eyes. Big, amber eyes.
He closed his own, betraying his kind as he spilled their truths out to her.
“You know how werewolves are created. How shifters are created. By making deals with devils.”
“Of course. Of course, I know this. Everybody knows this.” She nodded swiftly.
“Yeah, well”—he looked back at her—“my people aren’t like that. My people were born this way.”
“What?”
“We weren’t created by monsters. Somewhere along the line we began to create life. True life. And that is why I’m here. To protect them. To protect this life. We’re the only pack I know of like this.” He shook his head, a part of him terrified because he’d said too much, another part desperate to get it all out.
“Bella, we’re one of a kind. We’re special. And so I fight for them. That’s why I’m here. Because I’m fighting for them. You can’t tell anyone, it’s... You have to promise me. You can’t tell.”
“I won’t tell. Rion, I swear it.”
“So now you understand why. Why I can’t turn. Not unless I know you’re safe. I see the way Keaton looks at you, and I...little bird, you have to get strong again and you have to escape.”
She went absolutely still. A quietness that had nothing to do with peacefulness. Her throat was working hard, she wanted to speak, to share with him her own burdens, but he could read how difficult it was for her.
They were trusting each other when both of them knew they shouldn’t.
“Rion, there’s something you should know.”
He wet his lips, heart racing violently in his chest. “What?”
She began trembling. He could read the terror. Scent her fear.
“I will never hurt you, Bella, you have to believe me.” He gripped her fingers tight.
“I believe you.” She nodded with conviction. “You’ve proven it time and again.”
“Then what’s the matter? What is it? You can tell me.”
“I should not be telling you this, but I...I have to. Rion, I’m...I’m not what you think I am.”
He’d suspected that already. He’d figured her out several weeks ago. He hadn’t known for certain, until today. But he knew.
“I know that, little bird. I know you’re not just a regular serf.”
“You do?” Her voice was a childlike whisper.
He nodded, bringing her fingers to his lips and planting a swift but tender kiss to their pads. “You’re a warrior.”
“What?” She blinked with shock. “How did you figure that out?”
He traced the line of her nearly faded tattoo. “Your mark, the way it fades. How you’re always licking your teeth. You grow weak, not because you’re not eating or from the tortures you’ve endured; you’re too strong for that. You grow weak because you need blood. You need to feed.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “If any of them find this out. If any of them know—”
“I know. The tortures would get worse. In fact, I think Keaton may even suspect it.”
“And yet you would keep my secret. Why?” She shook her head.
He pressed her palm flat to his chest, so that she could feel the heavy beating of his heart.
“I will always keep your secret. But...”
“But?” she prompted when he paused overly long.
He cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her chin.
“But if you don’t feed and get out of here, I fear what they will do to you once they find out. Once it fades and your fangs descend and the warrior comes unleashed. There’s only one way to keep it hidden for now, to keep your secret safe.”
He moved his wrist toward her mouth. Her lips pursed and he could see the way she swallowed, the temptation burning in her eyes.
“You can’t do this. You can’t give me your blood. You don’t understand the connection that would be built between us.”
“I do know.”
She clutched at his hand, her nails digging in so sharply that he’d have a welt later tonight.
“Rion, if you betray them”—she trembled—“and I escape, they’ll eventually figure this out. They’ll know it was you, they will know.”
“I know.”
“Your people.”
It was true. It was the one thing he grieved in all of this. That he’d not be there to see them win their freedom. But the ties of a mate were more powerful than the ties of brotherhood. Even for a mate he barely knew.
“They’ve got Jackson. They’ve got Cole, they can fight
.” He tried to sound convincing, but knew he’d failed when she shook her head.
“No, you know they won’t. This betrayal will change everything and you know that as well as I do. The Triad will never forgive this and any shot of freedom for your people will be gone. I cannot allow that.”
“Arabella,” he said, ready to persuade her otherwise, but she laid a finger against his lips, stalling his words.
“But you are right about one thing, I do need to leave.”
Her words ripped through him. She was his mate. He couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t just let her leave. But he didn’t have a choice in this. Because in order to keep her safe, she had to go. The hopeless irony of their situation did not escape him. Keep her and she died. Release her and he’d lose his chance at a true bond mate forever. The thought was too painful, and they only had a few more minutes to talk freely.
“I have to know. For weeks I’ve been wondering why.”
She cocked her head, a question furrowing her brows.
“Why did you take that mark? Why do you have that rune on your back, why? I don’t think you were just captured; you were sent here, weren’t you?”
“Rion, don’t ask me any more questions, please. Please don’t ask me anything else. You need to take me back to my room right now.”
“No.” He glowered. “No, not until you feed.” He shoved his wrist against her teeth, giving her no choice but taste his skin.
A Hyperion warrior was more akin to a vampiric race than an angelic one. They drew their strength from the essence of life. The mark, it had suppressed her truth for a while, but it was fading fast.
And Orion had learned this, not because it was a well-known secret; he’d learned this by studying her. By watching her day in and day out, watching as her strength flagged and the mark continually faded. No one studied her as he did. No one knew her nuances as he did.
Orion understood Bella like he knew his own soul, because his wolf had claimed her. There was none other in the compound who could claim her in this way. The magical connection between them was already forged, and growing stronger each day.
Her tongue flicked against his flesh and a groan of pure animal need spilled off his tongue.