A relieved breath escaped me. He accepted my stuttered sentence so easily. “I didn’t call on the creature though,” I admitted.
“I’m not sure that’s how you work anyway, Eve. You’re very instinctual. I think, to some degree, you control them as much as they control you.”
Huh.
Well, that wasn’t something to fret about, was it?
Because I didn’t want to think about seven creatures, each with distinct mindsets of their own, controlling me, I asked, “Is it good at all to be back home?”
Cutting me a look that said he knew I was prevaricating, he released a breath that told me he’d let me. For the moment. From the corner of my eye, I could feel him scanning me as though trying to discern whether or not this was the end of the argument for now. But to my mind, this wasn’t an argument.
If he hadn’t spoken to me that way, hadn’t repeatedly treated me badly, we wouldn’t be needing to have this conversation period.
“No. This isn’t home.”
His simple words struck a chord. “Where is your home?”
He fell silent at that, but his gaze was back on the city that was the capital of his home country. “A few weeks ago, I’d have said Caelum. But now…”
“Now what?” I pressed, my tone husky since I had a feeling I knew what he was about to say.
“It’s where my Pack is.”
Good answer.
I didn’t even feel like he was playing me because the words were torn from him, ripped from his vocal cords as though they were poisoning him to utter them aloud.
He didn’t want to need us.
Didn’t want to think of us as family, and yet, deep down, he knew that was what we were.
I could take that, and I’d accept it as a win.
Nuzzling into his side, I murmured, “I feel the same.”
“I’m glad. Everyone should know this feeling,” he rasped, and I heard the pain in his voice. A pain that was years old and forged in a time when his souls had come out to party and had destroyed his life in the process.
Being majnūn meant having a lot to answer for.
In some people’s eyes, they might view it as a gift, but it wasn’t. Even now, after I had come to appreciate the abilities we possessed, I could find no joy in being able to do what we did.
It came with too high a price; one I wasn’t willing to pay.
“Are you still mad at me for Choosing you?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Why not? You were angry before.”
“I sometimes think I was born angry,” Dre admitted, twisting so he could look at me. “I think I should have been a Hell Hound. Reed is too chilled half the time, and I feel like I make up for his rage.”
I had to snicker at that because I knew what he meant, and he wasn’t wrong. When the beast had him twisted around his finger, Reed seemed enraged to his core. But when the beast let him loose? He was relatively calm. Something he exacerbated by yoga, which meant I got to see his tight tush high in the air as he twisted his body into a pretzel.
I needed a bowl of popcorn when it came down for those twenty minutes of mindfulness, as Reed called his yoga practice.
“Do you hate me?” My voice was small now, because I wanted the truth, and I still wasn’t sure if I had the answer.
“No. I don’t think I ever truly did,” he disclosed, and when I snorted, the left side of his upper lip quirked up. “No. I mean it. I didn’t like you, and I still think you’re trouble, but you’re… Eve, I don’t think I could hate you.”
My throat felt thick and I nodded, then curled my hand through his and cuddled into him as we stared into the mayhem we’d helped create.
“Any news from Bartlett?” I asked, the emotion in my voice coming from his answer, but I knew him enough to know that this was a good time to change the subject.
“Yes.”
I tensed. “Good or bad?”
“Turkey.”
“Turkey?” I scowled at him. “What is this? Let’s visit everyone’s home country?”
He snorted. “Seems like it.”
“What’s there?”
“Samuel is looking into the clue. It’s more unusual than the others.”
“Why?
“Three wishes this time.”
That made me shiver. “So, this one is more powerful?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” He tilted his head to the side, gently knocking it against mine. “Ever just want to go to sleep and wake up when everything’s over?”
Because he seemed like the kind of guy who never backed down in a fight, his statement had my lips curving. “Sometimes, yeah,” I admitted. “The clue’s that bad, huh?”
“Not really. I don’t understand half of it.” He closed his eyes. “I had a migraine, so I stopped focusing when Bartlett was halfway through his monologue on what the markings mean.”
I’d have been blind not to spot them on my body when I’d showered. “One for each of my mates and then the tree’s back in business,” I stated softly, closing my own eyes. “They’re what woke me up.”
“Huh?”
“When I was in the SUV, and you guys were… Well, the marks were tingling almost.” I shuddered. “It was like pins and needles there. I didn’t realize until I showered though.”
“Built-in alarm system,” he mused. “Could come in handy.”
A huff escaped me. “It could if you guys intend on getting into some more danger?”
“Danger’s coming for us, cariño, not the other way around.”
I hated that he was right, but couldn’t argue.
The thought of whatever it was we were heading into, Turkey our ultimate destination, made me curl up into a ball deep inside.
I wanted to hide from the future and all it represented but couldn’t.
This was my destiny, after all.
But before I faced that, Dre and I had unfinished business.
“Want the truth?”
He tensed. “Of course.”
“I really don’t feel like sex.”
I knew whatever he’d expected me to say, it hadn’t been that because he started snickering. “Good to know, querida.”
I shrugged. “But I want to Claim you.”
“Such a quandary,” he stated in a singsong voice that had me shoving his arm as I pulled back. I was laughing, though, and relaxing. Something I’d never thought I’d do at the same time with only him in the vicinity.
The truth was, we both had a long road to walk together. But I did with all my men. We’d only known each other a handful of months, and we had a lifetime together if we survived whatever the third Original could throw at us. But that was something only time could afford us, and I had to admit that it was starting to feel like it was beginning to run out.
Even though I wanted to curl into him, maybe drink some tea and watch the world go by in all its madness, I didn’t. Because deep inside me, in my blood and bones, whatever it was that made me Eve, be it the Jannah or the creatures under its control, were making demands.
Demands that overwrote the human.
“Dre?”
He hummed. “Yeah?”
“Kiss me?”
He tilted his head to the side. “Thought you weren’t in the mood?”
My lips curved. “I like that you won’t take any shit. You know that?”
“Thought you were cursing me out over it a moment ago.”
“Only when it hurts my feelings. This isn’t hurting my feelings.”
He curved an arm around my waist and hauled me into him. Our bodies brushed as he stared down at me. I’d never appreciated his height more than I did at that moment, and it was only then, curved into his embrace, that I realized he was bigger than before.
“You’ve changed,” I murmured, staring up at him, the city lights and the hotel’s floodlights illuminating the entranceway four floors below us, the only things marring the night sky.
“I have?”
“Your bear has made you bigger.
Bulkier.”
“All the better for hauling you around,” he teased, and I mock-gasped in response.
“Was that a joke?” I whispered in faux horror.
He snickered, dipped down, and did the damnedest thing.
Nipped the tip of my nose with his teeth.
Whatever I’d anticipated, it wasn’t that, and somehow, for whatever stupid reason, it made me melt. I sank into him like a pile of goo, loving the playfulness that had just sprung to life between us. Loving it because it heralded so much promise.
He was so serious, so grumpy all the time, mean with it too, and it hurt. It hurt so bad. But this? This gave me hope, and hope was both a beautiful and a dangerous thing.
Before I could second guess myself, I tipped my head back as I surged onto tiptoe. The move had our mouths brushing, and I took advantage, nipping his bottom lip so I could swipe along it with my tongue. He grunted, opening up for me, and letting me slip inside so I could thrust mine against his.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected.
Him to take over the kiss?
Him to dominate me?
But he didn’t.
He let me explore. Let me taste him, let me fire myself up, and it worked. I couldn’t believe how much it worked, because, God, it did. The fire burned inside me, so damn hot and heavy that I wasn’t sure where it came from or where it would go. From nothing to outright need, I plunged my tongue against his, thrusting into his mouth as I wanted him to thrust into my body. My breasts heaved as breath soughed from my lungs, urgency overwhelming me until I didn’t know where I ended and he began.
Hooking my leg onto his hip, I arched my pelvis against him, well aware that the knot of my robe split open and that my bare leg rubbed up against his thigh. There was crisp hair there that had me shivering in response, and the movement enabled me to feel his hardness right against my softness.
Exactly where I needed him.
How long he let me do that, I wasn’t even sure. I didn’t know why, but I was so lost and confused as I wandered into the labyrinth that was Dre, that I didn’t realize he had me exactly where he wanted me.
My hands clung to his chest, my nails digging into his pecs, before I tore away from his mouth and rasped, “Kiss me back.”
There was danger in his eyes, his bear was present, and before I knew it, I was slammed into the side wall of the narrow terrace, but oh God, it felt so good. His hands came to my ass, and I felt the robe parting as he hauled me up and I spread my legs, cupping his hips with nothing except for his briefs in between us.
A grunt escaped us both as my slickness hit him through the thick fabric, and when he nipped at my bottom lip, hard enough to sting, he ground out, “You’re mine, Eve.”
The words sent quick-fire through me, sending soaring flames into my system until I burned up so fast that it was a wonder I wasn’t a pile of ash that joined the millions of other piles of ash the world over.
“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me you’re mine.”
I stared into his dark eyes, punch drunk from surprise at the need he’d inspired in me, all by letting me seduce myself. He was a sly one, this mate of mine, and I knew that was exactly what I needed.
Dre would never bore me.
Never.
Because he was too sneaky.
“I’m yours,” I whispered, my own eyes gleaming as I spoke the words. But though they were a declaration, they weren’t a surrender.
Before he could find too much joy in them, I slipped my hands through his hair, grabbed a tight hold of two large chunks, and forced him back down, not stopping until we were kissing once more.
We devoured each other’s mouths as he rocked his hips into me. Only my robe saved me from scraping my back against the wall, but it would have been worth it. So worth it. The power of his kiss was enough to make me thank the Lord when he finally pulled away from me, his hips arching back so he could reach between us, drag out his cock from his briefs, then press it against my slick folds.
As he powered into me, my head rattled against the wall, and though it hurt, it was nothing compared to the exquisite agony storming through me as he hit home.
This, he was perfectly correct, was home.
When we were together.
When I was with all my Pack.
This was home.
And home involved him taking me to the stars as he screwed me silly amid the chaos of a disaster-strewn city that was of our forging.
The heat between us was off the charts, and the mark that belonged to him tingled and tickled until I pressed it to him, let the beast meet the bear. When I did, he growled, his mouth sinking to my throat and his teeth gripping me there as he began to pound into me. Each thrust took me higher, made me soar, let me fly as he found his release in my body.
With the splash of his semen deep inside, I felt the connection forge tighter between us, and then, my eyes widened as something happened.
He grew bigger.
Harder.
And he began to pulse.
Not his hips, but his cock.
It throbbed inside me, made me feel like I was too small, and he was too big, like I was… “What’s happening?” I choked out, my head tipping from side to side as my body dealt with the repercussions of this moment.
He nipped my throat, his voice a low growl as he whispered, “Knotting.”
“Knotting?”
He rocked his hips but instead of his cock sliding in and out of my tight, wet heat, there was no movement. No budging. He was lodged in me. And just before I could even begin to panic, before I could worry if we were stuck like this forever, I felt his heartbeat.
Inside me.
“Sweet Jesus,” I choked out again, my eyes flaring wide as his pulse felt like an intense vibration deep inside me. Within fifteen seconds, I came. I hadn’t expected to, not really. My body had enjoyed the journey, but getting to the peak? After the day I’d had?
Not likely.
Or so I’d thought.
And with each pulsation, it seemed to go on and on until I was crying, until my body was one tense bucket of need and want and desire. “What’s happening?” I cried out as I felt the power of my release surge through me again.
“You’re my mate,” he rumbled.
Like that answered anything.
I wiggled on his cock, hoping that was it. That we were done, but he was stuck fast.
“H-How long?” I whimpered as the vibrations powered up again, like some kind of machine! Was this torture? Was it heaven… or hell?
“A few hours?”
My eyes felt like crossing right there, right then.
Before I could even squeak out a complaint, he hauled me away from the wall and into his arms. With each step he took as he walked us off the terrace and into the bedroom, I sagged into him, growing limper and laxer as my body went into a true meltdown.
But as he lay back on the bed, me atop him like a whimpering, mewling, orgasming blanket, he hushed me and clung to me. Soothing me even as he was the source of my torment.
God, I should have known this was how it would be with him.
Everything was a surprise, everything a fight.
And even though this was a delicious torment, I wouldn’t have it any other way, because he Claimed me as much as I Claimed him, and finally, finally, my Pack was complete.
A tight circle that no one, and nothing, could ever render asunder.
❖
Stefan
“We need to call Nicholas.” Samuel’s insistence was getting to be boring.
“I hate to agree on a subject this concerning, but I believe he is correct," Ava added.
Even Bartlett looked at his wife askance at that.
Seated in their office back in Greenwich, Bartlett and Avalina were tucked up beside one another on the sofa, looking as comfortable as if they were sitting down for a session of Netflix and chill, and not a Skype discussion on what the hell we were all going to do next.
We, o
n the other hand, were on a video conference call, still in Mexico City, and were stuck here unless we did as Samuel was insisting—contacted Caelum
“Calling in Nicholas—”
Avalina held up a hand, forestalling her husband. “He has resources we must call upon. You heard Samuel. There are no flights out of the city for another three weeks. Minimum. Only God knows what Erlik could do in that time.”
My own heart began to pound at the thought of the third Original consolidating his forces and using them against us in what was, essentially, the final battle.
As I thought about the final clue that was etched into the tattoo on Eve’s belly, I kept my focus twisted between my brothers and the screen Samuel had hooked up for us to discuss this stuff with the only people who truly knew what the fuck was going on.
The Originals themselves.
Adam and Eve.
Seven wishes will slay Tamag’s gatekeeper,
with Erlik hiding amid Derinkuyu’s labyrinthine walls.
The Original Sin Eater guards that which doesn’t belong to him.
With caution approach, a wish worn on safety.
When lost, be found, a wish worn on discovery.
Let the last slay the beast before his leader surfaces.
The clue had been whizzing around my head all night, but there were no real answers to be found. How could there be?
Until we got there, to the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu, there were no means of us even beginning to understand what the next step was.
The three wishes evidently had a purpose, but the other information in the longer clue? We were all hypothesizing and getting nowhere.
“Nicholas can use Caelum’s resources to get them out of Mexico and into Europe,” Avalina said softly. “We must trust him to have faith in us. This one last time.”
“I agree,” Samuel stated, like his opinion mattered.
The thought had my lips twitching, and when I saw my mate’s do the same, I grinned at her. She smirked back and winked, and I was relieved to see that she was relatively calm considering the clusterfuck we were currently dealing with at the moment.
“If he tries to detain you, then all is lost,” Bartlett argued.
“If he doesn’t help us, then God only knows what will happen. For the moment, Erlik is where the clue states he is—”
Nine Lives: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part THREE Page 24