Marked in Flames, page 9
I reached out to Jade and tried to wrap my hands around her neck, before I realized what I was doing and pulled back.
But she didn’t stop hovering.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered.
Was she whispering or yelling? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell.
It felt like everything was happening all at once and I couldn’t keep up.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked.
“You’re going to be fine,” Cruz said as calmly as he could, but I didn’t believe him.
“Liar,” I snarled, as the beast within me pushed again, wanting more.
It wanted everything, and I had nothing to give it.
It wanted me to kill my friends, to go back to that den and kill everyone in sight. Something was controlling me, and it wasn’t me.
I was the Enforcer.
My eyes widened as the ramifications hit home.
“The bombs. You have to kill me, kill me!” I screamed at Jade.
Cruz bucked behind me, as if I had hit him.
Gavin cursed and Sawyer just looked sad.
But Jade cupped my face and shook her head.
“I can help. I can help!”
“Kill me. Please. If I’m a hybrid,” I gasped, blood spewing from my mouth as I said it. “If I’m a hybrid, it could hurt the bonds. I’m the Enforcer. I protect the Pack. Help me protect the Pack.”
My hands were claws now, but they were not my own.
I had never seen them before.
I was changing, and I couldn’t stop this.
I needed to stop this.
“You can’t. You can’t.”
“I’m never going to kill you. That will not happen. But I can help you, Steele. I can help you but you have to do the one thing you know I would never ask you to do.”
“What?” I snarled, as everyone else stared at her.
She looked around and then cursed.
“Go. Leave us. I need privacy for this.”
“Fuck no, Jade.”
She looked at her friend then, at Sawyer, who stared wide-eyed at her.
“You know what I need to do. Just tell the others. We need—I need space. Please.”
I was shaking beneath her hold, but I didn’t move.
I had enough control for this. I needed enough control for this.
And for some reason, they believed her.
They believed she could control me.
It was that, or let me die.
Because we didn’t have another option.
They moved to give us space and keep the area secure, or fight other vampires, or whatever else needed doing. Jade had pushed my hair back from my face as I gritted my teeth and tried to breathe.
“You have to do the one thing I said I would never ask,” she repeated.
“What?” I snarled.
“Mark me. Bond with me. My power can stop this, can help you find control. I promise you.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked, trying to sit up.
She didn’t stop me, instead she sat next to me, pushing my hair back from my face as I tried to maintain control.
I was human, for now, I could feel it.
We were tucked behind trees, somehow hidden, but still too far in the fucking open.
“I’m bonded to the Pack, Jade. I’m going to kill everybody if I go back.”
“I’ll help you with control. I promise. I’ll never let you hurt your friends and family. I’ll never let you hurt my friends and family. So let me do this. Let me protect you.” There were tears streaming down her face.
I had never seen Jade cry before. She was always so strong, so sarcastic; this was something new.
It almost felt like a trick I didn’t understand.
“I need the mating bond with you, and then I can calm the beast. I promise.”
For some reason, that made me laugh, and I had to fight for control again.
“Did you just make a sex joke?” I asked.
“Just do it,” she said. “Mark me and make me yours. I’ll save you.”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
She pressed her lips to mine, hard and fast, and it was as if my wolf reached out, begging.
It knew its mate, it knew what needed to happen.
“I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t. I promise. But if you don’t control your beast right now, and I’m not talking about your wolf, you will die. But I can stop it. I promise you.”
My wolf howled and I gave in.
I pounced.
Knowing I had probably just killed us both.
Chapter
Eleven
Jade
My back hit the hard ground with a resounding thwack, and yet his hands on my hips, on my shoulders, took the brunt of it somehow. Even in this craze, the three parts of him fighting for dominance and control in a haze of fire and torment, he was still protecting me.
Because that was Steele.
The Enforcer who refused to let anyone in, to let anyone see who he was, yet threw himself bodily to protect everyone in his care.
That was what had attracted me to him the moment I saw him, when he had come to find Cruz and Dara all those months ago. The moment we’d looked into each other’s eyes and known.
Oh yes, I had known in that instant he could be mine. I wasn’t a shifter. It wasn’t as if I could sense a potential bond that didn’t yet exist that the moon goddess had chosen him for me.
No, there was something else inside me, a fiery ember that screeched for its other half.
I didn’t get that future. I hadn’t gotten it when I was rejected the first time. And I wasn’t going to allow myself to go through that again. And yet, in that instant when he held me and crushed his mouth to mine, I knew there was no other choice.
To save him, I would give him part of myself.
Because I was the firebird. I was magic and fire and earth and danger. I held within me a beast of my own. A monster that no one who knew of it spoke of. I could control the fire of demons. I was born that way, and I would die that way. I held no drops of demon blood within me. I wasn’t a hybrid, I wasn’t of hell. But my power was the counter to hell, though not everyone could see that. Not everyone would believe that.
So I kept it hidden. Because to control it was to let go of part of myself. And I had always vehemently refused to be that.
When I nearly died all those years ago, almost taking Sawyer with me, we had grown close because of it. I taught Sawyer to protect himself with spells, using his own innate human magic—his soul—to protect himself.
He wanted to protect me, to protect our people, but it hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t had enough within him because he wasn’t meant to protect everyone, which was why he became an Aspen.
So many choices, so many chances, all culminating in this moment—Steele’s mouth on mine, and my inevitable surrender.
He pulled back, looking at me with wide eyes. I could see the human, this was Steele. But when he blinked it was the wolf, gold and menacing and scared. His wolf was so scared.
And then it went gray, the hybrid, the monster the demon wanted to unleash upon the world and send to start an apocalypse.
This was the beginning, but wouldn’t be our ending.
I gripped his face, keeping him steady.
“It’s okay. You won’t hurt me,” I lied.
Because Steele would never physically hurt me. Even in the state where three beings warred, where the battle for dominance possibly meant true death, he wouldn’t hurt me.
But giving in to that, trusting somebody with the other half of my soul, would bare me to the endless hurt that came with loving someone else.
Because I had loved someone else before, and they had broken me. And nearly everyone else in my life that I tried to protect, nearly everyone else I tried to love, died.
But I couldn’t let Steele die. He deserved so much more than the agony embracing him, or the death coming for him.
So I would use the power I hid, the power I suppressed, to protect him.
“Just complete the mating. You have to complete the mating.”
“Can’t.” A growl. “Hurt you.”
He struggled through each word, the veins in his neck throbbing.
He was already shirtless, his pants in tatters, so I tugged on my own shirt, wiggling out from it as he hovered over me, his claws digging into the ground.
The others would be able to hear us. They were shifters with keen hearing. They would know exactly what was going on. But I didn’t care. This wasn’t a show, this was sacrifice and survival.
And this was a man I craved. I was going to let that be enough for now. I would deal with the consequences when it wasn’t literally life-or-death.
If that moment ever came.
“Jade. I’ll hurt you. You should go.”
“I already told you you’re not going to hurt me. Let me help you. Let me do this. Let me save us.”
“This is forever,” he growled, his fangs sliding out of his gums.
I nodded tightly, and then there were no more words.
He crushed his mouth to mine again, and I let him, and I just let myself be in the moment.
The magic within me burned, wings pressing under my skin, waiting.
His eyes were closed, he couldn’t see them anyway once they peeked around my back, but he would soon. There would be no hiding who I was, what I could do.
But that was why we were doing this. So I could use who I was to protect him.
His claws dug into the side of my pants, pulling them down, and I was grateful that he didn’t tear them to shreds. I didn’t have any spares anywhere close. His lips never left mine, his hands running up and down my body. I tugged off his pants and gripped him tightly, leading him to me.
“Fast. I’m ready,” I whispered.
“No, you’re not,” he growled, and then with the presence of mind no hybrid would have, but was all Steele, he kissed his way down my body, taking extra time on my breasts, biting and sucking until they were hard little points, before he knelt between my legs and licked me.
I arched off the ground as his tongue delved between my folds, sucking on my clit. He bit down gently, his fangs scraping against my sensitive skin, and I groaned at the danger.
He could mark me there, for no one to see but us, but he wouldn’t. No, he would wait until he was buried balls deep inside me.
And when he speared two fingers inside me, I came, clamping around him, my body rocking along the hard ground.
I tugged on his hair, but he lapped at me some more before he licked his way back up my body and kissed me again.
I reached between us and guided him towards my entrance.
“Finish the bond. You have to.”
I saw it in his eyes then, the precipice that he stood upon. He would lose control if we weren’t careful, and so we would do this for each other. What we had to do.
And with one last look, he plunged deep inside me.
I groaned at the hard intrusion of his entrance.
He was long and thick and stretched me. I leaned into him, meeting him thrust for thrust as he pounded deep inside me. He was beautiful, sexy, and would break me if I wasn’t careful.
But then again, I could break him just as easily.
He pulled one of my legs up, knee up to my shoulder, and pounded hard, jackknifing into me. This was all wolf. His claws dug into my flesh, but not breaking skin. He was still careful enough for that, and I knew if I wasn’t careful, I might fall for my mate.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, but this wasn’t a choice either of us were truly making. It was a choice thrust upon us and we were leaning into it.
So there would be no emotions, there would just be salvation. Endurance.
His fangs slid out of his gums again as he lowered my leg. I wrapped my legs around his waist and tilted my neck to the side.
“Mark me. Complete the bond.”
He met my gaze again, and his eyes went from their normal green, to gold, to gray. Three souls trapped in one, three warriors fighting for dominance.
The hybrid could be tamed, I knew it in the depths of my soul. This was why I had been created, why I had fought so hard against the magic within me.
I would save the man, protect the wolf, and tame the beast.
Somehow.
He plunged and I came apart, my body arching into him. He lowered his head, his mouth to my shoulder, and bit.
I screamed at the pain, just a sharp pulse of red-hot agony as he bit into my neck. He marked me as his, blood flowing from the wound, but he didn’t tear, he didn’t rend. He marked me with such delicateness, I knew that whoever was in control then didn’t want to harm.
The bond snapped into place and he came inside me, two halves of the mating bond tethered together.
But this wasn’t a normal mating bond. This was a choice, one we were making, but one of different magics blending together.
The wolf and human of him clamped onto the bond, and I could sense his soul willing the rest of him to lean in and to never let go. The witch and human part of me leaned forward and gripped tightly as well, holding on for dear life. The goddess would want this, the goddess needed this. And so did I.
We both shook, connected together in body and soul and hope. When his eyes met mine, I saw the fear there.
But we were mated, I could sense his heartbeat along the bond.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Steady but fearful an powerful.
He was my mate, and there was no breaking this, no going back.
Another bond slid into place, wrapping itself around me, but I ignored it.
I knew what that was, and I would have to deal with it. We would all have to deal with consequences later.
I just looked up at him and brushed his hair from his face. We laid there, locked together, holding one another. Sweat slick, out of breath, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck just happened.
“Steady, Steele. Steady,” I whispered.
He looked at me then and his eyes went gray. A dark gray that scared me more than words could ever utter.
He pulled out of me and threw himself a good ten feet away.
I scrambled up, sore, naked, my hands outstretched.
“You’re fine, you’re safe.”
He shook his head, and I let myself breathe for the first time today.
“I will protect the bond. We will protect it.”
I let out a breath and let my wings unfurl.
They were of fire, mesmerizing in their beauty. That was what my mother had said before she perished in front of me.
Steele knelt in front of me, naked, his body rippling as it threatened to shift into a hybrid or wolf, or maybe a monstrous combination of both, if we didn’t find a way for him to control it.
But my firebird was strong enough for that.
My wings fluttered, fire and flame and ash. He was mesmerized, watching as I beat my wings once, twice. The magic engulfed the bond, I could sense it running along the thread that connected us before slamming into him.
Steele’s gaze went gray again and he knelt on all fours, ready to rush at me.
But I beat my wings again, pushing as much strength as I could towards him.
Again and again he fought, but I was stronger in this.
Because I had to be.
Because Steele needed me to be.
He had saved me once, he continued to save me every day.
I would do this for him.
I stepped forward, one foot at a time, my wings beating, when he shifted.
I sucked in a shocked gasp as he shifted to a hybrid form. His body steel-gray, heavily muscled, part wolf, part human—a monstrous combination of both.
He threw his head back and howled, calling the others back to the clearing, eyes transfixed.
“What the hell?” Cruz asked, and I held out my hands.
“Let me finish.”
I didn’t know if they were more shocked at seeing both of us naked, the fact that I had fiery wings, or that Steele was now a hybrid.
It didn’t matter. Because I had to fix this.
I beat my wings again and he howled, body shaking, as he moved towards me, claws outstretched.
The demon wanted him to kill me. The demon controlling him wanted Steele to do the unthinkable.
But I was stronger. Steele was stronger.
And Malphas would rue the day he dared to ever fucking hurt us.
Steele crept towards me until his eyes went gold and he howled again, this time shifting from the monstrous form back into wolf. Bones broke, blood splattered, and I let tears finally fall as I watched the pain in his eyes as he shifted back to wolf, and then human again, then back to hybrid, then wolf. The others came forward, the look of agony on their faces mirroring mine in horror, until Steele finally crawled forward, human, covered in blood and who knew what else, and reached out to me with his hand.
“Jade,” he gasped, and I went to my knees and held him. He crushed me in his arms and I held him close. The others began to talk but I shushed them, waving them away. They wouldn’t go far, and I heard the truck come closer, knowing that we would be safely taken away, safely taken back to the Healers in the Pack. I just held him.
“You are safe. You’re strong. My fire can save you.”
Steele looked up at me with agonized eyes, and through cracked lips, whispered, “Did I hurt you?”
My heart broke again, because this wasn’t how a mating was supposed to start. This wasn’t how you were supposed to fall for the one who was supposed to be yours forever.
I shook my head. “No. You didn’t.”
And it wasn’t a lie. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
“You’re stuck with me,” he whispered, and it was like a blow to my chest. I nodded tightly against him.
“Same here,” I said, putting as much sarcasm into my voice as possible. From the way Sawyer and Cruz looked at me, I knew they heard the falseness of my tone, knew what I was trying to do.
But it didn’t matter.
Because I had no idea what we were going to do, and from the way Steele sagged in my hold, he didn’t either.
We were well and truly mated. With no takebacks.
And Steele, the Enforcer of the Aspen Pack, was now a hybrid.
