Death Wish (30 page)

As I stared into Arys’s inhuman eyes, I was faced with a choice. I could lose my temper and give him the fight he was seeking, or I could find another way around it. I’d had more than enough conflict for one week; that wasn’t what I needed from him right now.

No, what I needed was a brief reprieve from all of it. I kissed him without thought or hesitation. Pouring the raw emotions into it, I devoured him. Arys didn’t miss a beat. Kissing me back hungrily, he slipped his tongue between my lips. He tasted faintly of blood. Shaz’s blood.

I groaned, but it wasn’t because I didn’t like it. Tasting Shaz on Arys sparked a fire low in my core. Sliding my hands into his disheveled hair, I pulled him against me with a ravenous need.

The frenzy driving me caught Arys up in its pull. I needed a release, some kind of rapture to chase the pain into the shadows if just for a moment. Arys was quick to comply with my demand for him to satisfy my need. His hands were on my hips, and his lips found the ticklish spot on my neck.

I tugged at his robe, peeling it off him like I was unwrapping candy. I couldn’t get to what was inside fast enough. Running my hands over the hard expanse of Arys’s chest down to his stomach, I captured his shaft in one hand. Eliciting a moan from him brought a smile to my lips.

Dropping to my knees before him, I took him into my mouth with an eager flick of my tongue. He said my name like it was both a curse and a blessing.

Arys threaded a hand into my hair, grasping my head with a demanding affection. Heat raced to my groin. I took great joy in his response to my careful manipulations. The power and control I had over him was intoxicating. Only when his hand tightened painfully in my hair did I stop.

I backed him up against the couch so he was forced to sit. While he watched, I stripped off my clothes then wasted no time climbing onto his lap. His arms went around me, clutching me tightly to him. He buried his face in my neck as I slid down his hard length. A sigh of relief escaped me.

I set the pace atop him. I hungered for control, something I didn’t feel I’d had a lot of lately. This man was mine, and I was going to take from him what I needed. That kind of control was dizzying, erotic.

“Think you can shut me up, huh?” Arys murmured, his mouth hot against my skin.

“It’s working so far, isn’t it?” I silenced him with a bruising kiss. Arys was a smooth talker who could talk his way out of or into anything. He was used to being in charge. But, not this time.

A growl rumbled low in his throat, and I laughed in delight. I could feel the wolf creeping around inside him, unable to break free. It wasn’t real, merely an echo of my own wolf. Still, it was as dangerous as any caged beast.

He gripped my hips in an attempt to guide my rhythm. I shoved his hands away, pinning them at his sides. With a shake of my head, I smiled wickedly. Having him inside me didn’t free me from the emotional turmoil I carried, but it did lift me up on a wave of euphoric, glorious ignorance.

The sound of our moans and cries filled the room. I pushed Arys to the limit. He brought me to climax again and again before finding his own release.

The sexual energy surrounding us was potent and spicy. I leaned forward to rest my head on his shoulder while I savored it. He said nothing for a long time. He just held me.

Finally, he whispered, “Let’s just stay in tonight. You should rest. Take some time to think.”

“Sounds like a great idea. I just need to do something first.”

“Does it involve being wolf? Because I can feel your beast inside me in a desperate way.”

“It does.” Reluctantly, I got to my feet and gathered my clothing. I didn’t want our tryst to be over because it meant going back to reality. The wolf wouldn’t wait though. I’d had my moment of bliss, and she demanded hers.

The short trip across town to Kylarai’s was all it took for everything to come crashing back. I just couldn’t shake it. The loss of Kale, my sister’s betrayal, Shaz and Bianca, it all ate at me.

I followed the small town streets to Ky’s. The wolf within sought the forest and the relief it provided from the human world. Such bittersweet freedom.

Leaving my car in the driveway, I ran around the house to the backyard. I pulled my clothes off as I went, dropping my keys near the steps leading up to the patio. If Kylarai saw me streaking through the early dusk like a bat out of hell, she would know something was up.

I leaped into the air, coming down on all fours as wolf. The shift was fast and fluid. It felt, for just a moment, like true liberation. Everything was so much simpler as wolf.

I ran as if I could escape, but there was no escape, only acceptance.

Speeding across the stretch of field separating Kylarai’s backyard from the forest beyond, I was accompanied by the fading sunset. It did not cease in its beauty for my heartbreak. Its color never dimmed. The world would go on regardless of my place within it. For the first time I began to feel like I belonged in the dark.

Weaving in between trees, leaping fallen logs and brush, I pushed my body as hard as possible. My muscles burned and my lungs heaved. I ran blindly, having no destination. I couldn’t flee the truth; it clung to me.

If Arys was my darkness then surely Shaz was my light. He’d kept me grounded, sane, until now. I needed him. If that was selfish then so be it. Long before I had met Arys, I had formed a special connection with Shaz. He meant so much to me. How would we get over this?

Shaz had said we would be ok. After everything went down with Kale and then finding Shaz playing with the vampires at The Wicked Kiss, he had promised me we would get through this. Yet, I felt so betrayed.

I’d made my share of mistakes. I was no one to tell Shaz what he could or could not do. But, I had promised it was over with Kale, and as screwed up as that whole situation was, I had stuck to my word.

I couldn’t help but think the twin flame revelation had something to do with this. Shaz had been remorseful up until he found out what Arys and I really were to one another. It had driven him into the arms of another woman. He had been mine, but a matter of brutal seconds had changed everything. 

Lifting my voice to the wind, I howled. Mournful and eerie, the sound of my pain echoed through the treetops. Again and again, I cried out my misery to the forest.

Miles away in the distance, Shaz echoed my heartbroken cry.

Chapter Nineteen

I watched Shya pour six sugar packets into his tea. Gross. He totally just ruined it. He was oblivious, sipping from it like it was perfection.

His crimson eyes settled on me. “I apologize for the other night. Skipping out on you wasn’t my intention.”

I glanced around the near empty Tim Horton’s coffee shop. Nobody sat within earshot of our conversation. “Did you mean to leave Kale and me for the FPA to drag off?”

“I had no way of knowing what would happen. Kale should have done a better job of covering your tracks after the Irving kill. He isn’t usually so careless.” Shya gave me an appraising glance, one that indicated he blamed me for Kale’s blunder.

“So that’s it? The FPA has him, and you won’t do anything about it?” I had expected this from the demon, but the shrug and smirk accompanying his response surprised me.

“I’m not a babysitter, Alexa. I can’t bail my people out of every screw up they get themselves into.” He tapped another sugar packet against the table before opening it and adding it to his tea. “Besides, Kale hasn’t been the sharpest tool in the shed lately. Falling in love has made a fool of him. Perhaps some time with the FPA will do him some good. Frankly, I’m just happy they didn’t get their hands on you.”

I stared into my coffee cup as I censored myself from spitting out a nasty retort. I understood why Kale meant so little to someone like Shya or Arys. So, why the hell couldn’t they understand why he meant so much to me?

“What will they do to him?” I was afraid of the answer, but my imagination wasn’t helping.

Stirring more sugar into the tea, Shya clinked his spoon against the cup repetitively. I had to fight back the urge to rip the utensil out of his hand. He studied me intently, noting everything from my expression to the way I fidgeted with a napkin, folding and refolding it.

“They’ll start by torturing as much information as they can out of him about anything and anyone. I’d imagine they would start with you and your vampire, as well as me and what I’ve been up to since the FPA saw me last. Then they’ll either kill him or recruit him if he doesn’t manage to escape them. It’s unlikely though not impossible.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, crushing the napkin in my fist. “I can’t just leave him there.”

 “I’d call it even and walk away if I were you. You both took a fall for the other. Sentimental, sure. Romantic, perhaps. Ultimately, pointless. It’s done no good for either of you.” With a shrug and a shake of his dark head, Shya frowned. “Your attention should be on Lilah right now. She’s not the type to give up. And, I can assure you, her attention is very much on you.”

I drank down some of the hot coffee, needing the caffeine fix but finding it hard to enjoy. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means she’s more desperate than ever to break the curse. She’s lying low, staying out of touch. But, she’s not staying idle. I can promise you that. We must bind her, Alexa.”

“How?”

“I can do the binding, but I’ll need you to strip her power first. Your power over vampires makes you the one person with the best chance of success.”

That was suspicious. “Why can’t you do it?”

“She’s my queen.” Shya stiffened, appearing uncomfortable. “A binding is disrespectful but it won’t harm her. I can’t do that. You weaken her enough, and I can effectively bind her. It will render her powerless, but it will only be temporary. It should buy us some time.”

“Time for what?”

“To figure out what she needs to break the curse and make sure she never pulls it off.”

I pushed a hand through my long hair and stared out the window at the traffic. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want anything to do with Lilah or her curse. Now I had no choice because of the trouble she was bringing my way. Besides, I couldn’t turn my back and let her break the curse if I had the ability to stop her. Willow said my name meant ‘protector of mankind’. If Lilah returned to her dark goddess throne, all of mankind would suffer for it. It couldn’t happen, not if I could stop her.

“Fuck,” I repeated. “I miss the days of hunting down idiot vampires. I don’t have the stress capacity for this shit.”

“With great power comes–”

“Yeah, yeah,” I cut him off, holding a hand up to stop his clichéd comment. “I know.”

Shya drained his teacup. In a motion almost dainty, he ran a finger along the rim. “The night of the full moon. That’s when we do it.”

“That’s in three days. It’s also a risky time for me. You know, the whole werewolf thing.” I waited for his response, but he only stared blankly at me so I continued. “The wolf will be really strong. I’ve never denied it on a full moon night.” I purposely left out the fact that I couldn’t tap my power when in wolf form. That would be revealing a weakness to a demon; I wasn’t going to blunder into such a mistake.

“You can though, correct? The change isn’t dependent on the moon.”

“No. I can shift at will. The moon, it encourages the change. It calls to the wolf. I can resist it, but for how long I’m not sure.”

I’d seldom been in such a predicament when it came to the wolf or the full moon. I’d been doing this for enough years to be where I both wanted and needed to be when the moon was full, in the forest where I belonged.

“Then I guess we’ll have to find out.” Rising to leave, Shya added, “All magicks are at their strongest during the full moon. We need to do it that night. Be at my place before midnight. I’ll get Lilah there.”

I stood too, abandoning the last of my coffee. “Then there’s no reason why I can’t go after the FPA for Kale tonight.”

“I’d advise against it.”

I fell into step beside him. “I can’t leave Kale there. He wouldn’t leave me.”

The demon threw his head back and laughed, a sound so chilly in its intensity that it made my skin crawl. “And, here I recall you being so insistent the two of you are not lovers.”

“We’re not.” I shrugged it off. No point trying to explain it to him.

Shya held the door open for me, waiting for me to pass through. It was a polite gesture, but it also put a demon at my back. When we reached the parking lot, he stopped me with a light touch on my shoulder. Again, my skin crawled. Damn demons.

“I want to send Falon with you if you go. Don’t argue. I know he’s difficult, but the FPA has nothing in their arsenal that can harm him. He can protect you.”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully, searching his snake-like eyes for the real reason. “Or, he can spy on me for you. Make sure I’m not striking any deals with the FPA that you should know about.”

“That too.” The dazzling smile he flashed at me wasn’t without its charm. He seemed to be eternally pleased with himself.

“I think I’ll pass.” I headed for my car before he could stop me. “I’ll see you in three days.”

I was prepared for Arys’s adamant refusal upon returning to the house. So, when he met my announcement with a shrug, I was more than a little stunned. We stood in the kitchen. He watched me closely as I cleaned up after making a sandwich.