Inarus’ hands on my shoulders tightened. My stomach lurched, and the world around me blurred as Inarus ported me out of the Compound.”
I gasped when the port was complete. I saw Inarus for the briefest of moments before he shoved me away from him, and I felt my body free fall before plunging into ice-cold water.
I hadn’t had time to brace myself for the impact of the frigid water that filled my lungs. Ice seeped into my bones. I closed my eyes and ignored the burn in my lungs to instead focus on the raw power churning inside of me.
My fire responded the instant I called it to me. I called the telekinetic power lurking inside of me and felt it respond as well, though slower, as if it were hesitant to obey.
I urged it forward to blend with the fire that was my own.
I pushed the power through my body, directing it to my hands and feet, pushing with as much force as I could muster.
The water bubbled around me, the temperature rising to a near boil but my body still felt ice cold except for the fire burning my lungs.
My body began to drift to the surface as the force of power beneath me propelled me up. My head broke the surface briefly, and I sucked in a desperate breath of air.
I saw Inarus standing on the dock for only a second before water surged around me, a geyser of boiling water and steam shooting forty feet into the sky before crashing down on top of me.
Instinctively I covered my head with my arms and took a breath just before the force of the crash took me under.
The water calmed after several long seconds, and I swam back up to the surface. My limbs were heavy and my chest ached as I pushed myself toward the dock.
My head dipped beneath the surface, and I choked on a mouthful of water. My arms struggled to keep me aloft as fatigue dragged me down.
Inarus crouched at the edge of the dock and reached down to pull me out of the water. I hesitated for a moment before taking his hand.
He hefted me over the edge of the dock, and I collapsed in a heap beside him.
I lay on the wooden planks and stared up at the sky as I sucked in breath after breath. Inarus didn’t utter a word for several minutes. He just stayed crouched beside me and waited. When nearly ten minutes had passed, he helped me into a sitting position, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
God this was so messed up. My teeth chattered from the cold, but I didn’t dare call my fire to warm me.
“What the hell happened when you were taken? What did Viola do to you?” he asked.
I hadn't had time to explain yet. Not to him, not to anyone. It'd been less than twenty-four hours since I'd been abducted by Noah Thorne, the South Atlantic Alpha, and since he'd handed me off to my mother, the leader of the Human Alliance Corporation, who’d tried to use me as a guinea pig.
"My mother ordered Aiden to yank my fire out of me completely," I said.
Aiden had been a strong telekinetic working for the H.A.C. and a confirmed member of PsyShade. I hadn't known that a telekinetic could get a grasp on the non-physical, but I'd had a first-hand demonstration, and it'd hurt like hell.
Inarus sucked in a breath, his face the image of unmasked horror. I’m sure I’d had a similar expression when my mother told me what she’d planned to do.
“That would’ve killed you!” he said. “She can be cruel, and she has a twisted view on morality. But I never thought she’d try and kill her own daughter.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea who the real Viola was. For years I’d thought she was dead. I’d grieved the loss of her, only to learn she’d simply abandoned me and my Papa. Worst of all, she had allowed the H.A.C. to murder him in her efforts to get to me. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill her own daughter if it served her goals. But killing me hadn’t been her goal this time around.
“She told me she was making me pure. If she could get the pyrokinesis out of me, I’d be a regular human, no longer an abomination. That’s why Irina was there. To keep both Aiden and me alive during the process.”
He nodded in understanding. Vampire blood could heal, not that they ever willingly shared that information. Vampires were the most secretive race. They were also the most selfish. No vampire would offer their blood freely to anyone outside of their own sect.
My mother had hooked both Aiden and me up with a steady blood transfusion of vampiric blood, fresh from an unwilling source.
Had I died with Irina’s blood in my system, there would have been a chance that she could bring me back. Not to life, but to undead life I supposed. But my mother would never have brought me back. She’d rather see me dead than alive as a vampire.
I shuddered at the thought.
Shadows covered Inarus’ face as he sat beside me.
“Clearly, it didn’t work.”
I sighed. It had though, just in reverse. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head atop them. “I don’t think either of them realized how hard I would fight to hold on. My fire, it’s a part of me. I could feel Aiden’s power inside of me as he ripped my fire from my body.” I cringed at the remembered pain, the panic that had swelled in my chest when I felt the first tug. “I don’t know how, but when Aiden started pulling, I saw it, like tendrils of magic reaching between us.” I closed my eyes and looked away.
“I grabbed the tendrils, and I pulled with everything I had.”
“You absorbed his telekinetic abilities?” Inarus asked.
“I killed him.” That had been the result at least. I didn’t feel bad about it. Aiden had deserved to die just like Irina had, but Aiden had also been Inarus’ friend once, before Inarus left the H.A.C. and Aiden started trying to kill him for turning his back on their organization.
I didn’t want to look up into Inarus’ face and see what he was feeling right now. I didn’t want him to hate me for what I’d done.
The seconds ticked by, and I worried my lower lip, praying he’d one day forgive me.
“You didn’t kill him,” he said.
I jerked my head up and looked at him.
What was he talking about? Of course I did. I’d seen Aiden sag when the last of his telekinetic powers left his body. His eyes had been lifeless. I didn’t think anyone could survive that.
"I ripped Aiden's heart out of his chest," Inarus admitted. "You may have taken his telekinetic abilities, and that might have been enough to kill him.” He paused, and I watched emotions play over his face. Sadness, regret, anger and then resignation. “But I killed him. Don’t put that blame at your feet. You have enough on your plate.”
I looked away, and we sat on the dock in silence. There was so little that I remembered about Declan and Inarus rescuing me.
There’d been screams and crashes of medical equipment, but I’d been so focused on hanging onto my fire that I’d blocked out almost everything else.
It was like one minute I was locked in the most important mental battle of my life, and the next I was waking up safe and sound in my bedroom in the Compound.
I watched as the sky changed to shades of pink and gold and contemplated what I’d gotten myself into.
“What am I going to do now?” I hadn’t meant to voice the question aloud, but now that I had, I realized how screwed I was.
He didn’t answer for several minutes, and I started to think he wasn’t going to. He finally said, “You’re going to gain control. Just like with your pyrokinesis, you can control this too.”
I snorted. The only reason I was even sitting here was because I had purged myself, but that wouldn’t last long. As soon as I got some food into me and got a decent night’s sleep …
“I can barely contain my fire as it is. This—this is something else entirely. It’s foreign. I can feel the energy beneath my skin. It’s like it’s looking for a way out.
Inarus pulled me to my feet with gentle hands. “You don’t have a choice. Think of what’s going to happen if you don’t figure it out?”
2
Aria
Declan was pacing the confines of my bedroom when
Inarus ported us back to the Compound—the fortress that housed the Pacific Northwest Pack, or at least, most of them.
I was thankful he'd ported me to my room within the Compound, instead of the basement we'd left, but I wasn't thrilled with what, or rather who, was waiting for me.
Declan’s eyes were wild and his muscles bunched with his movements. The tension was evident in every line of his body. I tried to care about his plight. I really did. It couldn’t be easy being rejected by your mate, and then having your mate abducted by your rival and handed off to her psychotic mother. But I never asked to be his mate, and I had enough shit on my plate. His overprotective urges weren’t something I cared all that much about at the moment.
I staggered when Inarus stepped away from me. A port always left my insides feeling like Jell-O. Declan rushed forward before Inarus could help steady me, and I found myself wrapped in Declan’s warm embrace.
A small part of me sighed in relief. His touch was gentle, yet firm as he pulled me flush against him. For a brief moment, everything felt right. And then I remembered how he’d betrayed me. How he’d rallied the Pack men to court me and planned to manipulate me into a relationship for the sole purpose of using my abilities as a weapon. But then I'd almost died, so he'd forced me into a mate bond and claimed me himself. All to keep from losing his precious weapon.
Dying or not, I'd never consented to be his, and I wasn't falling for this little act that he cared about me. We weren't a couple. Whatever he was feeling were likely shifter urges. Not love, not real concern for me as a person. No, it was just Declan responding to his tiger’s need to rescue and protect.
I heard my bedroom door open and close and cursed Inarus for leaving me alone with Declan. Jerk.
I was cold. My clothes and hair were soaked, and I felt dead on my feet. Declan wrapped his arms around me again but pulled back just enough to look at me. My body swayed.
“I’m too tired to fight with you,” I said.
“Good. Because I’m taking care of you whether you like it or not.” I wanted to give him a snippy response, but my brain was too fuzzy to come up with anything.
Inarus had spent the last hour going over some of the basics of telekinetic control with me after I’d purged. I wasn’t sure how I was even still standing.
I hadn’t realized how different telekinetic abilities were from my own. All psykers had some form of psychokinetic power. During today's lesson, I realized they were in no way related to one another.
I wasn’t prepared for the mental exhaustion I was feeling. Inarus had me focus on breathing and precision techniques, something he’d spent his entire life mastering. He made it took so easy.
I’d dropped rocks into the lake one after the other and somehow, the weight of the stone affected the weight in my mind as I moved it.
I was mentally drained and chilled to the bone in my soaking wet clothes, my cotton shirt clinging to me like a second skin.
“I’m cold,” I said. Good one Aria, that really let him know that you were still pissed. I was disgusted with myself. So what if I had just taken the polar bear plunge in a lake that left me feeling frozen. I was a pyrokinetic. I could warm myself up. I didn’t need him.
The thought of calling my fire terrified me though. What if something else decided to come with it?
Declan led me to the attached bathroom. I was too tired to fight him on it. My feet were like blocks of cement weighing me down, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. It felt like tiny anchors were attached to each one of my eyelashes.
He sat me on the toilet seat as he adjusted the hot and cold water handles for the shower before pulling me back to my feet and gently removing my soaked shirt and pants with so much tenderness that irrational tears welled up in my eyes. His gaze caught mine, and I looked away. He didn’t comment but took a moment to swipe a tear that had fallen onto my cheek with his thumb.
When Declan was done, I was left standing in a sports bra and underwear, feeling more vulnerable than I could ever remember feeling in my entire life.
He pulled his own shirt over his head and quickly discarded his belt and jeans, leaving himself in a pair of black boxer briefs. I tried not to appreciate the ridges of his abdomen or the light dusting of blonde hair that arrowed down from his navel to disappear beneath the waistband of his briefs.
He pulled me toward him and carefully helped me into the shower. The warm spray hit me, and I hissed before my body adjusted to the heated temperature. I leaned back against the hard planes of Declan’s chest, my head tucked just beneath his chin, and tried to focus on breathing. The hot spray beat my sensitive skin like a thousand tiny needles, but for a moment, I allowed myself to sink into his embrace.
I lost track of time, and the next thing I knew, Declan was massaging shampoo into my hair, the scent of citrus wafting through the enclosed shower.
He helped me rinse my hair, and when I turned to face him, I saw heat in his gaze. I gulped and stood still as he carefully lathered my arms and then my stomach with citrus scented soaps. I couldn’t remember ever mentioning that I loved the smell of citrus, but how else would he know to have them in my bathroom?
Eventually, the water grew cold. Declan turned the shower off and helped me out. He wrapped me in a large fluffy towel and wrapped another towel low around his own waist.
I stumbled on my way to my bed, and Declan was right there to catch me.
“I don’t forgive you,” I told him and instantly regretted the words.
Pain flashed across his face before he was able to mask it, but I’d already seen it. Guilt tore viciously at my chest. “I don’t need you to forgive me.” His voice was cold and hollow. “Right now, I need you to shut up and get in bed.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Get out. I can take care of myself.” I jerked away from him and nearly fell on my butt. Again, he was there to catch me.
“Stop being so stubborn. You need my help, so suck it up and let me help you.” I scowled at him, but sat on the edge of the bed as instructed and watched as he rummaged through the dresser for dry clothes.
I quickly turned my head away when he stripped off his towel and wet briefs, but that hadn’t prevented the glimpse of firm buttocks and muscled thighs I’d gotten. Or the heat that crept up my neck.
When I turned back towards him, he was wearing a pair of grey sweats that hung low on his hips and had a large white shirt in his hand.
“You keep clothes here? I thought this was my room.”
"You're my mate," he said as if that answered everything.
"You have your own room," I grumbled. He didn't respond. Instead, he pulled me to my feet and used my towel to dry me off with gentle, but efficient strokes.
I stood there like a statue, unsure of what to do with myself. But when he reached for the waistband of my underwear I snapped to attention.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said.
Declan had the nerve to look taken aback. “I’m helping you get dressed.”
I jerked the T-shirt away from him. “I can get myself dressed.”
He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at me. “Fine. Get dressed.”
My cheeks heated. Did he expect me to strip right here with him staring? Fat chance.
“Get out.”
“I’m not leaving you alone in your condition.” The expression on his face was smug. The bastard was enjoying this.
"Turn around then," I growled.
Declan took his time turning himself slowly until his back faced me. “I don’t see what you’re so worried about. It’s not like I haven’t seen you all but naked before.”
I stripped as quickly as I could without falling and threw the white shirt on over my head. It came down to my knees and covered me well enough, though I’d need to find a pair of underwear eventually. Why hadn’t he bothered to grab those? I eyed the dresser across the room with disdain. I didn’t think I could make it that far on my own.
I wadded
up my wet undergarments and threw them at Declan’s back. He turned to look over his shoulder, one blonde eyebrow raised.
“I don’t care if you’ve seen me nearly naked or not. You’re not going to see me entirely naked. Not now, not ever,” I told him.
He eyed me up and down, a sly grin slowly spreading across his features. “If I remember right, you didn’t have any problem shedding your clothes with me before.”
I glared at him and tried to ignore the memories that flooded my mind.
Declan’s hands on me. His palm cupping my breast. We’d come so close to sleeping with one another. I could still taste his kiss on my tongue.
I shivered. “That was before I found out what a bastard you were. I suppose I didn’t have much of an issue when I thought there might be a chance of this,” I indicated the space between us, “actually working out. I didn’t ask to be tied to you, but hell, I was willing to maybe give it a try before I found out that you’d used me. That all you wanted was to turn me into your precious little weapon.”
“Aria, you’re being unreasonable." He took a step forward and reached out for me. I sidestepped away, then put a hand on my forehead when the room began spinning.
“Unreasonable?” I ground it, “You asked men within the Pack to court me. You wanted to tie me to the Pack so you could use me.” I was practically yelling at him now. Maybe I wasn’t too tired to fight with him after all. This confrontation had been a long time coming.
“That was before …” he trailed off.
“Right,” I scoffed. “Before you bit me and tied me to you. Before you decided this little mate bond between us somehow made me your soul mate. Now you care about me as a person, is that it? But before I was just a tool for you to use and somehow I should be okay with it? I should be flattered that Declan Valkenaar, Alpha to the Pacific Northwest Pack, has picked me to be his mate? Is that what you’re telling me?”
I blinked hard as tears threatened to spill. Dammit, why did he have such an effect on me? I rubbed the ache in my chest and turned away from him.
Branded by Fire: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Series (Blood & Magic Book 4) Page 2