I tried to identify each of his rings. One had an intricate tree carved into a circle as if it could serve as a seal. Another had a ragged mask that looked like something out of a nightmare. And on his pinky was a dark stone that looked like a black hole just waiting to swallow anyone it came into contact with.

  “Keep all your fingers away from her,” Puck snarled.

  Rhys only beamed at him. “This is good. It’s fun seeing your pack coming together in defense of a mate. I wasn’t sure it would happen.”

  Something about Rhys’s words set me on edge. Perhaps the way they were spoken or the familiarity. Something about it didn’t sit right. And I clearly wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

  Kingston bristled. “Why is he talking like he knows us?”

  Ender sighed and squeezed the back of his neck. “Rhys has…some gifts.”

  “Excuse me,” Rhys interjected. “Please don’t talk about me like I’m some sort of party trick.”

  Even though the vampire spoke jokingly, I felt the undercurrent in the words, the weight of being different. And I understood it. I got the fear of people seeing you as a freak on a deep level. It tugged at me.

  “Then tell us what they are,” Hera pushed, wariness in her pale-green eyes.

  Rhys sighed, reworking his hair into a knot atop his head. The mane was thick and tangled, dark brown with caramel-colored highlights woven throughout. The strands looked as if they’d been kissed by the sun, the same way his tan skin did.

  None of it fit what I thought of when someone said vampire. There was no porcelain skin or blood-red lips. Rhys looked more like he was about to hike up a mountain than hide out from the sun. And he looked very much alive.

  His ringed fingers drummed on his jeans-clad thigh. “A smidge of prophecy here and there, but also visions of the present.”

  It suddenly made sense how Ender was getting information about Red River without having an inside source. Wonder slid through me as I stared at Rhys. “You can focus your gifts on a specific target, can’t you?”

  I could do the same with my empath gifts, but it was difficult, and I definitely couldn’t do it if I wasn’t in the same room as my target.

  Rhys shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “You never had any contact with Red River, did you?” I pressed.

  His nose wrinkled. “Consort with those animals? No insult intended. Never.”

  I turned to Ender. “Why the hell wouldn’t you just tell me that? It would’ve put my mind at ease.”

  Rhys crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Yeah, End. Why didn’t you just tell her that?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Ender growled low.

  Rhys just laughed. “This is going to be so much fun. I’m so glad I get a front-row seat.”

  “You think you’re staying?” King challenged.

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be here for the long haul,” Rhys said easily.

  Locke scowled at him. “Because your psychic powers told you so?”

  Rhys glanced Locke’s way. “You’re usually the nice one. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”

  “I don’t like people I don’t know sneaking onto our territory and putting our mate at risk,” Locke snarled.

  “Aaaaaah. I threatened your security genius. I get it. Sorry about that. But when I can see in my mind how you put the system in, it’s fairly easy to beat it. Have you considered adding motion detectors with size-specific alerts so human-sized creatures trigger it but nothing else?”

  Locke’s jaw went slack. “That’s—you—I⁠—”

  Rhys’s grin was back. “Good idea, right? I’d go with the Excalibur system. They’re less buggy than some of the other options. I’d be happy to help you install it. It’s no problem at all. I like security.”

  “You should see his place. It’s like walking a booby-trapped, landmine obstacle course,” Brix muttered.

  I glanced at him. “You know him, too?”

  Brix shrugged. “He got us out of a sticky situation once.”

  “You mean I saved your life. You’re welcome, by the way,” Rhys huffed.

  “Because I saved your life at least three times,” Ender shot back.

  “Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe,” Rhys singsonged.

  Hera took another step forward, her eyes narrowing on the vampire. “If you are trying to screw us over⁠—”

  “I’m not,” he clipped. “I’m here to help.”

  “If you’re lying, I’ll turn you into a frog. I can do it,” Hera shot back.

  Rhys’s lips twitched. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “You aren’t my type.”

  Rhys straightened his spine, suddenly looking far more affronted at that than at anything else our group had hurled at him. “Because I’m a vampire? Come on. I’ve got that wounded, bad-boy thing going for me. I’m everyone’s type.”

  “Not unless you get rid of your dick,” she bit out.

  His jaw went slack, surprise lighting his amber eyes. “Oh, well. I guess that’s okay. As long as you know that if you were into dicks, you’d be powerless against my charms.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, bloodsucker,” Hera grumbled as she turned to walk out of the entryway.

  “You’d be head over heels in love with me,” Rhys called after her.

  She just flipped him off.

  “She would be,” Rhys muttered.

  Ender clapped a hand on his shoulder, turning him toward the back doors. “Come on, you and I need to have a talk.”

  “Can Wren come?” Rhys asked hopefully.

  “No,” Ender snapped.

  “Always such a buzzkill.”

  18

  ENDER

  I kicked my feet out and took a swig from the whiskey bottle before handing it to Rhys. His nose wrinkled as he took it. “You couldn’t be bothered with glasses?”

  I sent him a droll look. “I hauled these two chairs out here so your delicate ass wouldn’t have to sit on the ground. Isn’t that enough?”

  Rhys let out a huff. “So undignified.” But he swallowed down a shot of whiskey. “At least you had the decency to bring the good stuff.”

  “What’s the point in drinking anything else?” I stared out at the forest as the creek bubbled in front of us.

  “This is your stewing spot. I recognize it.”

  I sent a glare in Rhys’s direction. “Spying on me?”

  “Can’t help it,” he muttered. “I’ve gotten partial to you staying alive.”

  “I do a pretty damn good job of that, so you can relax.”

  “Not lately,” Rhys argued. “There have been a few too many close calls, and you’ve been asking me for too many favors.”

  My hackles rose at that. “If you don’t want to help, then don’t.”

  “That’s not it, and you know it.”

  I huffed out a breath. “It’s been coming from all sides lately. You fight off one attack, and another surfaces. Feels like there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  Rhys was quiet for a long moment, the only sounds those of the creek and the animals darting through the forest. “You’re more on edge than I’ve ever seen you. You’re usually ice cold, but you nearly bit my head off in there.”

  I knew he was right. Letting my temper or Rhys’s goading get the best of me wasn’t like me. I prized myself on my ability to blank every hint of expression from my face, never giving away what I cared about or who.

  “You love her,” Rhys said quietly.

  I grabbed the bottle from him and took a healthy swig. The familiar burn lit down my throat, but I needed more. I wanted something that burned me from the inside out, something that would rival the emotional toll currently ravaging my system.

  “I can’t,” I rasped.

  “Ender…”

  “I fucked up.”

  “We all do,” Rhys assured me.

  I shook my head and took another swig of the whiskey. “You don’t get it. I was so damn cruel to her. And it wasn’t just you I went to when I was looking into her. There were others. I’m why Bastian found her. Why she was tortured not once but twice. I called her a liar and a traitor. I accused her of working with that monster.”

  Rhys went quiet again, and I didn’t blame him. It was a shitstorm of epic proportions. “You tell her you fucked up?”

  “Yes, but⁠—”

  “You learn from it?”

  My back teeth ground together. “It’s complicated.”

  “You keep shutting her out, and all she wants is for you to let her in,” Rhys surmised.

  “Stop using your hocus pocus on me,” I bit out.

  “I’m not. I just know you, End. And I know you don’t want to let anyone close enough to hurt you. The only one who gets in your head is Brix, and that’s only because of what you went through together.”

  I knew he was right, but I didn’t have the first clue how to change it. I was who I was. The need to protect myself was practically in my DNA at this point.

  Rhys grabbed the bottle and took another swig. “You want to soul-bond with someone, you have to let them in. You have to take that leap, knowing they will likely hurt you, but it’ll also be worth it.”

  A burn lit along my sternum, but I shoved the sensation down. “And you’re so good at that? I’m not the only one who’s running.”

  Rhys’s eyes flashed a brighter shade of gold. “Don’t start. This isn’t about me.”

  My molars clenched even harder because I knew he was right. I knew I had to figure out my bullshit. “I don’t know if I can,” I finally admitted.

  “You’re going to have to figure out a way. If you don’t, you’ll lose everything.”

  I stiffened, panic lighting through me. “You know something.”

  Rhys turned his gaze to the forest. “I’m here to make sure you all take the steps you need to take.”

  My panic grew because Rhys had called and steered me away from a certain course of action more than once, saving my life. So, if he was here telling me I needed to do certain things…I had to listen.

  Rhys clapped his hands on his thighs before standing. “She’s here. It’d be best if you two talked.”

  I saw no sign of Wren, scented nothing in the air, but a handful of seconds later, she appeared in the distance. As she approached, she studied the two of us carefully, her gaze finally holding on Rhys. “You don’t need to leave on my account.”

  Rhys’s mouth pulled into a charming smile, and he reached for her hand, bowing to brush his lips across the back of it.

  A growl tore from my throat on instinct, and there was nothing I could do to hold it back. The idea of Rhys’s mouth on Wren… His lips touching her. The urge to strike out and send him flying was almost more than I could take.

  Rhys chuckled low in his throat, his eyes gleaming with amusement. He released Wren’s hand and turned back to her. “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time together. We start your training tomorrow.”

  Then, he was gone. And I was left alone with the one woman I’d done everything to avoid.

  19

  WREN

  I stared after the mercurial vampire, so many questions on the tip of my tongue. But, like usual, I had no answers. I looked back at Ender, who sat staring out at the forest. “What does he mean, training?”

  Ender lifted a bottle to his lips and tipped it back. “With Rhys, you never know. But it’s best to do exactly what he tells you.”

  Annoyance that flared to anger around the edges spread through me. It was always cryptic half-truths with Ender, and I was sick of it. “You trust him that blindly?”

  His gaze flicked to me and held there for a moment, feeling like flames ghosting across my skin. “I do. He’s saved my life more than once,” Ender ground out.

  Interest flared to life. I wanted to know more, wanted to know everything. Needed to find out what Rhys had saved Ender from and what his life had looked like before he became a part of the Arcane pack. I tried easing into it, hoping I could tease information out of him over time if I did.

  “How did you two meet?” I asked. When Ender didn’t answer, I pressed a little more. “Vampires and wolf shifters aren’t exactly known for being friends.”

  Ender’s silence remained. He tipped the bottle to his lips again and kept staring at the forest.

  Annoyance bled completely into anger, and I ripped the bottle from Ender’s grasp. “Is it always going to be like this? Secrets and lies? Never sharing a damn thing because you think the worst of me?”

  Ender’s amber gaze slowly moved to me, locking on my face like a heat-seeking missile, and it didn’t move away. Shadows swirled in his golden eyes, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. “I don’t think the worst of you.”

  A scoff broke free from my throat.

  Ender’s eyes flashed pure gold, only making the shadows stand out more. “I think you’re the most amazing creature I’ve ever met. You didn’t let cruelty turn you dark. You got strong without stepping on the weak. And you leave goddamned miracles in your wake wherever you go.”

  Shock rocketed through me as I stared down at the man who’d been the cruelest. The one who’d doubted everything about me. The one who’d broken my heart. Who it turned out maybe didn’t believe any of those lies anymore.

  “Oh,” I whispered. It was the only sound I could make. Barely even a word at all.

  “Yeah,” Ender muttered, grabbing the bottle and taking another swig.

  “That was, um, nice of you.” It was so juvenile and ridiculous to say, but I needed him to know I appreciated the words he’d spoken aloud. Because I knew it had cost him on some level.

  Ender released some sort of derisive sound.

  “What?” I asked, bristling.

  “I’m not nice, Kitten.”

  “What you just said was,” I challenged.

  Ender looked up at me from his chair, his eyes growing colder. “I kill people, and I’m paid to do it.”

  “Bad people.”

  He shrugged, his gaze moving back to the forest as if it held all the necessary answers. “They’re still marks on my soul. You should stay far away from me like you were doing before.”

  My annoyance was back, but something else pulled at me. My empathic gifts, I realized. Because they sensed the pain beneath Ender’s words, the agony he covered with cruel barbs and by keeping his distance. So, I did the opposite. I moved closer.

  “What if I don’t want to stay far away?”

  That amber gaze flicked up to me. At first glance, it appeared uncaring, as if Ender didn’t give one damn if I jumped into the nearest river and got washed away. But I saw beneath it. Letting down my emotional shields for a single second, I felt it all.

  A battle raged in him. Emotions warred for supremacy. Need and fear. Pain and pleasure. Love and hate.

  “You should want to stay far away. Because when my resolve breaks, I’ll fuck you so hard I’ll imprint myself on your bones. You’ll never be free of me. And you’ll want to be. Because I’m destined for your nightmares, not your daydreams.”

  My heart hammered against my rib cage as my pulse thrummed in my neck. But I still stepped closer. And then closer still. Until I was standing between Ender’s legs.

  “What are you doing?” he rasped.

  “Have you ever considered that maybe I want that? Want you? And whatever comes with it, dreams and nightmares? Because it’s you, and you’re meant for me.”

  My fingers hooked in the hem of my workout tank as my heart rate sped up. I sucked in a breath, searching for a moment of bravery, and then pulled the tank over my head and let it flutter to the forest floor.

  20

  WREN

  My gaze stayed fixed on Ender’s eyes as my heart raced, and my nipples pebbled in the cool afternoon air. I watched as those amber depths shifted and changed. Gold sparked in them as his pupils dilated.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ender’s fingers tighten around the bottle of whiskey and the arm of the chair. I felt the battle brewing within him as fur rippled over his forearms. “Walk. Away,” he growled.

  I jutted out my chin. “No.”

  I was done with these games. We needed something to break the cycle we were in. Moments of understanding followed quickly by a panicked retreat. We’d never move forward if stepping out was always followed by stepping back. And this was the only thing I could think of to break through.

  Reckless? Yes. Dangerous? Quite possibly.

  But I didn’t give a damn. Because the way Ender was holding himself back from me was killing me slowly.

  “Wren,” he rasped. “My restraint is fraying.”

  “Good.” I kicked off one shoe and then the other.

  “Wren,” Ender ground out in warning.

  My fingers hooked in the band of my leggings, ignoring the tone in his voice. I slowly slid the spandex down my legs and kicked it off to the side. As I straightened, my confidence swelled. Because the rest of the guys had given me that. And more, I’d given it to myself.

  My scarred skin was evidence of my strength and all I’d survived. My toned muscles were proof of all the work I’d put into building my strength so I’d be ready to fight. And I knew my eyes shone with need—a desire I was no longer hiding.

  Ender could deal with it, or he could run.

  “Kitten,” he growled.

  I didn’t move.

  He leaned forward in his chair, his hands hovering over my legs but not making contact. And then he scented the air as if memorizing the smell. “I don’t deserve to touch this skin.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I want you to either way.”

  A low, rumbling sound emanated from Ender’s chest, and his fingertips skated over my thighs. He closed his eyes and groaned. “Like warm silk, marked with your battle victories. I feel how strong you are. How fierce.”

  I shivered but didn’t move.

  Ender’s fingers tracked higher. “Every line is a story your body tells.” He opened his eyes and looked up into mine. “A story I’d give anything to know, and even more to ease.”

 

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