Blackthorn [3] Blood Torn (18 page)

It was just sex. Good sex. Incredible, satisfying sex. And she needed to take it for what it was. She just needed to savour the moment – some lust-filled, power-driven act on both their parts.

But something told her it was more for him too. Something that made it all too dangerously intense.

His thrusts were deep, hard and unrelenting as he consumed into her with an impatience that matched her own. And as his pace increased, it almost felt like he was punishing her.

Or punishing himself.

She lost sight too quickly of which. Either way, she didn’t care. Rough, unremitting, incessant though he was, she lost sight of the discomfort amidst her own arousal. Even as he held her wrists tighter, used his free hand to hold down her hip as he dug his nails deep into her flesh, prevented her from moving even a fraction of an inch, she only wanted more.

His final thrusts were powerful. And with his eyes unflinching on hers, he came.

It had never offset a climax of her own before, but the very fact he came so hard, so fast, so powerful as he growled under his breath, had triggered her whole body to jolt with the onset of yet another climax. A climax that lasted and lasted as he purposefully prolonged the agony, the ecstasy, by staying deep inside her.

And as he spilled, as his gaze remained embedded deeply with hers, she had never felt so exposed. She had never felt like anyone had ever understood her.

Until then.

Chapter Twelve

J
ask eased off the mattress and pulled up his sweatpants and shorts.

Sophia was finding it harder to get to her feet, so he caught her upper arm to help her up before she had time to protest. She stumbled a little but managed to get off the mattress without losing her balance.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Course,’ she said, shrugging him off emotionally and physically.

But he knew she was anything but okay from the way she could barely make eye contact before exiting the cell and crossing to the door.

He knew he’d hurt her, but at the time he hadn’t cared. He could have broken her in two for all it mattered when his climax consumed him.

Because he knew, as he thrust deep into her, that he’d let himself down.

It was the first time he’d looked a female in the eyes during the act since Ellen. All the others he’d kept turned away, or had buried in their neck or stared at the ceiling or the wall – anywhere but at them. Anything to stop that final engagement in what he was doing. Anything to ease the guilt and sense of betrayal he would always feel whenever he shared an act so dangerously binding.

He reached to his throat to clutch the small pendant between his thumb and forefinger.

He’d meant to withdraw. At the crucial moment, he’d meant to withdraw. He always withdrew, letting the toxicity inside him spill to the floor.

Now discomfort clenched his chest when he realised how weak he had been. Not just that, but how easily he’d managed to push aside thoughts of his dead mate for the first time.

He hadn’t thought of Ellen at all in the latter moments. Hadn’t seen her face and imagined being with her. All he could see was Phia. As she’d lay beneath him he’d thought only of exciting her, thrilling her, exploring her, of bringing her to climax to reveal the real her – for reasons he now knew were more terrifyingly personal than his mission.

She hadn’t just lost
her
self in the moment; he’d unforgivably lost
him
self. Intentionally or not, in less than an hour, whatever was going on between them had turned into something else. Something that now knotted the back of his throat and made swallowing hard.

She’d got him right where she wanted him. If he’d been a vampire, he
would
have been dead.

He raked his hand back through his hair as she silently disappeared out into the corridor.

He tongued the inside of his lip again where she had bitten him.

Bitten him in more ways than one.

But her response hadn’t been calculated. She was just as much in shock.

He thought about catching up with her but he realised he had nothing to say. Or more likely too much to say without a clue where to start.

He had to cut it dead there and then. However she was feeling was not his concern. His only concern was getting her where he needed her and doing what he wanted.

But as he headed out into the corridor to find she had gone, she left only a dark void behind. It was a feeling he’d promised he’d never let himself relive.

And he had no right reliving it through her.

He rested his hands on his hips and hesitated for a moment before taking the steps up into the second corridor. Something in him hoped she’d be there waiting. Even another spat, her glaring indignation and defensiveness, would be better than the silence that had consumed the space between them before she’d left.

But she wasn’t there.

He marched past the storage rooms, back up the steps into the lobby. But instead of heading outside, he turned right into the holding room.

He kicked a chair across the room, kicked another before slamming his clenched hands down onto the table, his head lowered. The knot at the pit of his stomach was a heavy weight, rooting him to the spot.

He’d gone too far. And now the guilt coagulating in his veins made his heart ache.

He’d been irresponsible, selfish, self-sating. He’d broken every self-inflicted rule.

And he hadn’t punished her for making him feel the way he did – he’d punished himself.

He spun around and punched the wall, grazed his knuckles, grasped the back of his head with tightly interlinked fingers as he paced the room.

He turned back around to see Corbin stood silently in the doorway. His friend’s lowered brow, the concern in his eyes, negated the need for him to say he understood.

‘I just passed her out on the quadrant,’ Corbin remarked.

Jask’s scent on her would still have been potent.

‘Then you’ve seen she’s still in one piece,’ Jask replied, with a hint of defensiveness he knew betrayed too much.

Corbin stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. He leaned back against it and folded his arms. ‘Did it serve a purpose?’

‘Only to confirm what her tears had told us: she’s an inexperienced serryn.’

‘But is she experienced enough for what we need?’

‘I don’t know.’ He leaned against the wall opposite Corbin, his head resting back against it, his injured knuckles throbbing at the small of his back.

‘So you’ve learned nothing new?’

Jask held his friend’s gaze, as difficult as it was, amidst the silent enclosure of the room. ‘You don’t need to spell it out to me, Corbin.’

‘I’m not, Jask. Seems to me by the smell of blood in this room that you’re spelling it out to yourself.’

‘Are you questioning my judgement?’

‘You bet I am. That’s what friends do, right? That’s what your beta’s responsibility is to do. And I take my responsibilities very seriously.’

‘And I don’t?’

‘You know that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that looking at you, you know you’ve overstepped the mark. And if you know that, then that means you have. What happened?’

Jask snapped his gaze away.

Corbin pulled from the door to take a couple of steps closer. ‘Jask?’ Separated by silence, he took another step closer. ‘Talk to me.’

But shame prevented him. Shame in admitting to his friend, to his beta, that he’d almost lost control. That he’d thought only of his selfish needs in those moments. That he’d abandoned his pack again, shunted them aside to indulge himself with the last female he should have even been considering breaking his vow with.

‘You’ve held it together for so long, Jask,’ Corbin said. ‘She sparks something inside of you. I get that. I’ve seen it. But the Jask we need has learned to walk away. If you need satiation, there are plenty in this compound who will willingly do that – who would see it as an honour, a privilege. You don’t need her, you don’t need–’

‘I didn’t need her; I wanted her,’ he said, looking back at Corbin.

Corbin’s eyes flared. ‘You
thought
you wanted her. And now it’s out of your system, right?’ He exhaled tersely when met again with Jask’s silence. ‘Of course it isn’t – because we both know you too well, don’t we?’

‘I wanted her like I haven’t wanted anyone in a long time.’

‘Since Ellen.’

The mention of her name, especially slipping from his best friend’s lips who had loved and respected her as much as Jask had – even if in a very different way. The sense of betrayal only escalated, forcing Jask away from the wall again, away from the truth.

‘There may be similarities – even I can see that. The way she stands up to you. Her passion. Her stubbornness. But she’s no Ellen, Jask,’ Corbin said quietly. ‘She will never even come close.’

‘And what good has searching for another Ellen done me?’ Jask said, spinning to face him, anger, resentment and tears knotting his throat from the truth seeping out of his trusted friend’s lips to utter what he already knew.

Corbin frowned. ‘Jask…’

‘So I can have any female I want out there. So what? Have I not had my fill already? Does it sate the emptiness? No. Maybe for the few moments my instincts take over, when each time I think I’ll come out of it cured of her, but all is does is carve another piece out of me. Because I feel nothing at the end of it, Corbin. With them or with any other female out there. And then comes Phia – and I feel anger and frustration and irritation and desire – and all of those, as detrimental as they are, are intoxicating against the nothingness I have lived with for decades. This pack might need me, Corbin, they might need me the sensible, resolute, level-minded leader, but I’m still
me
inside. And, with her, I had a short time of remembering what that was like.’

Jask pulled out a chair and sat at the table, his head in his hands for a moment.

He heard Corbin pull out the chair adjacent to his, but he said nothing.

‘I looked her in the eyes, Corbin. When I was inside her, I looked her in the eyes.’ He glanced across at his friend. ‘I stayed looking in her eyes even as I came. And I did it because it felt right and it felt natural. And I felt connected again. For those moments, I didn’t feel lonely anymore. And now I feel sick to my stomach because I know I have to rip that feeling away again or risk letting this pack down again. So just let me have my short time of self-indulgence before I do what I have to do. Because I will, Corbin. I
will
come good for this pack. So don’t you dare look at me like you doubt it.’

‘You’re this pack’s alpha,’ Corbin said. ‘You’re alpha by proof and by choice. I never doubt you. Even those months when you were abseiling down into the darkness on threadbare rope, I still had a grip on it because I knew you’d come back. We all did. Because that darkness was never going to be stronger than you. It was never going to consume you completely. And the fact you came out of it only proves more why you deserve to lead this pack. Why every single lycan in this compound, despite seeing you at your worst, at your lowest, would never even have considered electing me over you. And that’s the difference between us – that’s why you deserve this position. Do you remember what I told you when you were at your lowest – that night I had no choice but to lock you in that cell until you calmed down – drunk, bruised, blood on your hands? I meant it. I would
never
have come back from what you did if I’d lost Solstice. It would have finished me. But you’re still here because you’re stronger than me. Than all of us. And you will come good for this pack. I know it. Then this will all be over.’

Jask held Corbin’s gaze – the loyalty, the belief gazing back at him through steadfast grey eyes convincing him he meant every word. ‘I’m upping the ante,’ he said. ‘Tonight.’

Corbin nodded. He reached out to rest his hand on Jask’s shoulder and squeezed.

* * *

Sophia wrapped her arms around herself and made her way across the quadrant to the main building.

The grass was damp and cold beneath her feet, the breeze chilling the perspiration that still coated her skin, her body trembling as she fought to block out what had happened.

The distant low thuds of the clubs, now revived in Blackthorn’s hub with the pending darkness, brought her back to reality. One of those clubs belonged to the Dehain brothers. The very brothers who should have been dead now had The Alliance’s plan not gone wrong. The club where her little sister could still be.

Damn Marid for pulling her off task that night of going to confront Caleb for herself. Damn him for selling her on. Damn them all that she’d ended up in the compound with Jask. Tempting, obstinate, delicious, pain-in-the-arse-perfect Jask Tao who had now proven himself to be as proficient in bed as he was with everything else.

Her scowl deepened.

Never would she let anyone that close, she’d promised herself.

What had happened between them didn’t matter
, she kept repeating over and over in her head. But the ache low in her gut, the stab in her heart, told her she’d failed the only time detachment had ever really mattered.

She ran her fingers back through her hair as she added yet
another
thing to her list of reasons to hate herself.

The very first had been Tom. She’d known exactly what she was doing but she’d still had all the fragility of a sixteen-year-old taking a step too far. She’d fallen hard, fast and deep for him as they’d shared three weeks of summer together. She’d thought she was in love, but had been in those early stages when the lines were so easily blurred. A love he’d reciprocated by boasting she’d been nothing more than a training ground.

She’d hidden away, curled in on herself, until she’d walked past him one day in the canteen and overheard him claim it was time he had a go at her little sister, Alisha. He’d almost suffocated as she’d slammed him face-first into his spaghetti bolognaise; especially as it had taken three of his mates to eventually pull her off him.

Ricky had been next. It had ended with the word “mistake” being used. He’d added that she was too complicated. What he’d meant was too much like hard work for what he wanted in return. And she was too proud to allow herself to be anyone’s inconvenience.

The other two relationships started as a drunken disaster and ended as a drunken disaster.

Then there was Daniel. After a night of barely escaping with their lives, survival instincts had kicked in. It had been a one-off that had soon become an un-discussed habit.

And recollections of Daniel reminded her exactly why she was there.

She had
no
excuse for taking her eye off the ball. For letting it cross her mind that killing Jask wasn’t going to be as easy as she first thought – especially as one of those reasons was unforgiveable.

Worse was knowing that he wouldn’t have looked twice at her if it wasn’t for those pheromones, or whatever it was that seeped out of serryns making them irresistible. It was those chemicals and not her that had eventually incited him. Clearly they were potent enough to attract even lycans, whatever legends stated to the contrary, or there’s no way Jask would have looked twice at her. And once he realised that, he’d despise her even more than he already did.

She took the main steps up into the lobby. Her persistent trembling, she was sure, wasn’t just down to the adrenaline rush.

She stepped up to the buffet table, poured herself a glass of water, grabbed a peach, an apple and a handful of raspberries, and headed to the back of the room to take a seat.