Chapter 32

I’d changed and watched part of the trials. Normally that sort of exhibition would have been a blast for me to see. I was so far from normal right now. I was restless, antsy and completely unfocused, none of which were familiar to me. I didn’t know what was going on but decided a good run might clear it right out of my system.

I ran at an easy pace, watching my step on the trail. This wasn’t level pavement I was on.

I still couldn’t believe I’d managed to get out of the yard without being stopped, although with the commotion of trials going on, no one was watching me.

I looked around, nothing but field and fresh air. This was nothing like jogging at home.

Home. That was here now. I couldn’t go back. I definitely couldn’t do much of anything until that Hubert jerk and his crew were found. That was just something I couldn’t walk away from. Now with Eunice acting strangely, that just added more reasons to stay. She said she didn’t know how she got in the cells, which was really pushing it as far as all of us were concerned—but on the off chance that she really didn’t remember, it added to the element of intrigue and I had to find out the answers. Not that they’d change how I felt about her.

I slowed for a few steps. Then there was Michael. I wasn’t sure I could walk away from him either. Mates or not, I’d never felt the kind of pull to a man in the way I did him. The fact he was stuck in his own personal hell with ghosts from the past and unable to find his way out just made me think he needed me to stay. Even if he didn’t know it.

Then there was Rena and her baby. I wasn’t going to let either of them down.

My phone ringing brought me out of my head. I pulled it from my pocket and jogged on the spot while I answered it. It was a group call. “Do we have someone to beat down?”

“Ha. I wish.” Daxx answered. “I was calling—”

“Where are you?” Michael demanded.

“Yeah that.” Daxx mumbled.

“I went for a run. I’ve been feeling really confined the last few days.” Not to mention was stuck in my head more than out of it.

“You left your guard here.” Troy said in an unemotional way.

“Yeah, didn’t think Woods had to run with me.” I stopped and paced to keep the adrenalin pumping.

“Where are you?” Michael asked again, even louder than the first time.

I looked around. “In the middle of a field with a path going through it.” There were no landmarks. “I went out the gate and turned right.”

“May want to head back now, Autumn.” Paisley said in a hushed tone.

I turned around. “Oh?” I started walking back in the direction I’d come, maybe they had a new lead. I hadn’t gone ten feet before I heard it. The sound of hooves hitting the ground. I wasn’t a psychic or anything, but I knew who it would be. Hachi and the man that wanted nothing to do with me, but couldn’t leave me alone, rode into view. “I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up the phone and continued to stand here and watch him ride toward me like a demon was chasing him.

Michael was off the horse before it completely stopped and stomped the remaining few feet until he was right up in my face. “What part of for your own safety is confusing you?”

He was standing so close I could feel his breath on my face as he barked at me. I lifted my arms. “I’m in the middle of a huge open field. If anyone were here, I’d see them and port out.”

“And if they’re cloaked and you couldn’t see them?” His voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.

I held up my arm with the device on my wrist in front of his face. “I’d use this.”

“And if they drug you again?” He hissed out a breath. “All of those scenarios have happened. No one goes anywhere without guards.”

I looked behind him, looking for his guard. “Your guard fall behind?” I watched the nerve in his jaw twitch. “I just needed to move, standing around was driving me crazy.” He didn’t move or say a word, so I kept going. “The past few days I’m restless, unfocused,” I lifted my arms and dropped them for emphasis, “my brain is all over the place. I thought once I decided I was staying here it would get better, but it’s not.” His blue eyes were locked on mine. “I’m losing my mind Michael, and I don’t know why.” I waved my hand at the field, “so I thought a good run might burn some of that off and help me settle down.”

Michael took a deep breath, and straightened. “It’s not your—frustration.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Oh? And you know this how? Are you in my head?”

“No, well, not entirely. I can’t get in your head.”

I glared at him. “What are you talking about?”

He held up his left arm. “It’s this.”

I looked at his tattoo, then lifted my own arm and looked at it. “The tattoo is making me crazy?”

“Yes—no.”

I huffed out a breath. “Well, thanks for clearing that up.” I gave him my best ‘are we done’ look.

He scowled at me in return.

I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss him or hit him, my head was that messed up.

“It’s the mate’s bond.” He blurted out.

I lifted my arm again, “a tattoo is making me lose my mind?”

“No. The bond—” Michael looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. His blue eyes came back to me. “Because we are marked and bound, but spend no time together—it knows.”

Both eyebrows raised as I looked up at him. Then what he was trying, and failing, to explain sunk in. “Well, that’s a bit of a problem isn’t it?”

He just looked at me, showing no signs that he was intending to reply.

Shaking my head, I turned and pace a few feet away, the spun back around. I lifted my arm one more time. “I’ve examined this a lot and I’m pretty sure it’s not something that can be undone.”

“It can’t.”

I nodded. “Right, so what then? We hang out together and make it happy?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course not, so that brings us right back to the now what?” I glared at him, hoping he had answers because my level of annoyance was rising.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. This is your thing, your-your culture. I just got here, so I don’t have the answers.” He didn’t move a muscle. “I can’t change what happened to you several hundred years before I existed, but I can’t function with my head like this.” I was close to growling now. “I stayed to fight. To help you, your family,” I waved my hand in the air, “your realm and all those women…”

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

I gave him a blank look.

“Fight.” A look of defeat appeared on his face. “You shouldn’t have been dragged into this.” Pain and regret were clear in his eyes. “It was my family’s failing that led to this…”

I chuffed at that. “I’m pretty sure this started long before you or your brothers were in charge.” I put my hand on my hips. “The planning and backup plans and many contingency plans that Eunice and her brother have… this started, I can’t believe I’m saying this, many centuries ago.” I flipped my hand in the air, “you guys are just stuck cleaning up your ancestor’s failings.”

Michael watched me for a moment. “I should have put you in a safe house. You shouldn’t have been injured as many times as you have.”

My head was starting to spin when he changed directions again so suddenly. “I wouldn’t have stayed in a safe house, not when I was needed to help end this.”

He looked angry again. “You’ve suffered too much in your life, no home, then living off garbage is a result of our failings. I can’t watch you get hurt again. I’ve almost lost you several times and I can’t do it again.” His voice cracked with emotion.

“I’m sorry, but this is who I am. I don’t know anything but fighting and after years of doing it to live, I am sure as hell not stopping when I can do it so others can live freely, without fear.” I shook my head, “I can’t walk away until every single person involved with these sick lunatics are stopped, Michael. I just can’t. You, the warrior that you are, without your unfailing sense of justice should understand that more than anyone.”

Michael closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking with his eyes closed. His emotions were, as always, blocked off.

He opened his eyes suddenly. “You’re staying in Alterealm for good?”

I nodded. “I have family here.” I’d never imagined I would be able to say that.

“You were serious, about Rena’s child? You want to raise it?”

“Yeah. You have a problem with children?”

Michael shook his head. “I adore children.” He said softly.

“Well-good.” I was running out of steam. Completely unable to feel angry now that his tone and demeanor had changed. “We have to figure this out, iceman, I can’t fight when my head is a baggage carousel. I’m miserable when I can’t fight.”

He was doing his statue impression again.

I walked right over to him and if I wasn’t as short as I was, would have been all up in his face. “What are we going to do?”

The look in his eyes made my heart accelerate. With lightning speed, he grasped the back of my head and pulled me closer. “This.” He whispered just as his mouth crushed mine.

I didn’t object at all, I’d craved this, even when I didn’t want to. Either he picked me up or I’d climbed him, I wasn’t sure, but I was wrapped around him and he held me tight.

When he tore his mouth from mine, neither of us could breathe. His eyes were red and they were caressing my face. Just seeing his eyes like that again had me shaking. I titled my head to the side in an obvious invitation, Michael didn’t hesitate, biting into my neck faster than a heartbeat. I moaned and held a fistful of his hair so he couldn’t move away.

Licking over his bite, he nipped at my jaw with his fangs. “What room in the palace?”

It took a moment to focus on his words instead of the desire tearing me apart. “I haven’t picked one.”

He growled in the back of his throat. Turning his head, he looked at his horse. “Hachi. Home.” The horse took off back toward the yard. Turning, he lightly bit my bottom lip. “My room it is.” His mouth assaulted mine at the same moment my stomach tensed. He’d ported us to his bedroom. Kissing me hard again, he set me on the floor and pulled his shirt over his head.

My heart paused as I took in his form, appreciating every indent and bulge of his finely tuned muscles. Snapping out of it, I pushed on the back of my runners to get them off my feet. My jacket hit the floor, then I pulled the tank top off quickly and tossed it aside. “You’re not going to vanish again right after, are you?” I was trying to decide if that was a deal-breaker, but couldn’t think through the moment.

Michael undid his jeans and then pulled a knife out of the back of them. My heart skipped.

He grasped the back of my head and held it as his scored his chest. “I want to feel everything you do, and share with you all I feel.”

The thick rasp in his voice sent shivers over my skin. I leaned in and licked the trail of blood off his skin, then closed my mouth around the wound and sucked, not so gently. As the cut healed closed, he titled my head and bit into my neck again. My knees went weak when he sucked on it, before sealing it. Out of breath, dizzy with lust, I clung to him and looked up at him. “Doesn’t the bond do that?”

He made a noise in the back of his throat. “I want no doubts between us.” I heard the material tearing and looked down to see he’d cut through my sports bra. Before I could get out of it, he dropped the knife and picked me up by the waist. I hugged his head as his mouth moved across my skin, his unshaven jaw branding me as he did.

Wrapping my legs around his waist, I locked them, not wanting this closeness to end. He carried us to the bed and lowered both of us down. I couldn’t stop my hands from moving over any part of him I could touch. I knew I’d been hungry for him; I hadn’t realized I was starving for this man.

He got to his knees and grasped the waist of my legging and started to peel them off. As they cleared my feet, I was on my knees on the bed shoving his jeans over his hips. I wasn’t shy, and I definitely wasn’t going to waste time waiting for him to do everything.

Michael made fast work of his boots and getting his jeans off the rest of the way. With a look that almost consumed me in flames, he pushed me back on the bed and crawled up. Sliding me so I was laying under him, he rested his weight on his arm and grasped my left hand and held it over my head. Changing hands, he held it with his left and leaned down to kiss me slowly.

I almost bit him. I didn’t want slow.

“Our bond should have been more pleasant then it was.” He spoke softly, close to my ear.

I tugged his head, so he’d bring his mouth back to mine. “I’m alive, that’s all that matters.”

He growled in the back of his throat, and finally kissed me again. This kiss wasn’t gentle or slow.

How could I ever have questioned if I should walk away? I was completely swamped with need and lust, I thought I was going to ignite into flames. He shifted and aligned our bodies and the moment we were joined I was flooded with his feelings too. I could feel his need for me, joy and his hunger for me, both for essence and to be close to me. When he bit into me again my whole body exploded without warning. It was the most erotic and sensual thing I’d ever felt.

Michael didn’t slow his movements, just kept taking me higher as I clung to him and tried to stay with him. He released my neck and then began kissing me again. I didn’t care if I couldn’t breathe, I just needed this man in ways I could never have imagined.

He growled and lifted his head, his body stiffening as he finally joined me while I floated around like I was having some sort of outer body experience.

Both of us were covered in sweat, gasping, trying to catch our breath, but couldn’t stop touching each other at the same time. I tucked my face against his shoulder and closed my eyes, thinking I could stay like this forever.

Michael shifted his weight, but didn’t move off me. “Don’t fall asleep on me.” He hot breath was against my ear. “I’m not done with you yet.” He chuckled. “Figure if I keep you exhausted you can’t fight and put yourself at risk.”

I grinned and opened my eyes. “I’m up for that challenge.”

~

“What is that awful noise?” Michael growled against the back of my neck.

I lifted my head, pausing, then remembered we’d fallen off the bed. “It’s my phone.” I looked around. “My jacket is behind you.”

He shifted and then flung my jacket in front of me, curling up against my back again.

Sitting up, I found the pocket and pulled out the phone. I hit the answer button. “We’re here.” I smiled at Michael, he did not look impressed.

He leaned on his elbow, so I held the phone between us.

“Who initiated this call?” Arius didn’t sound happy.

“I did.” Crissy answered.

“Criss, where are you?” Daxx’s voice was groggy with sleep.

“I’m on my roof.”

“You have a roof?” Alona asked.

“Yes, on my side.” She said in a quiet way.

“Does Victor…”

“He does,” Victor cut off Rafael’s question. “What’s going on, heart?”

“I’m using those little binocular things you got me, Vic—”

“Focus.” Michael lay back down and gave me a heated look.

“Oh. You guys need to get here. Now.” She paused. “Not on my roof, on the ground.”

“What’s wrong?” Victor’s tone wasn’t gentle now.

Michael sat up, watching the phone with an icy stare.

“There’s—I counted eight, but I don’t know if I can see them all—”

“Criss.” Daxx interrupted, “eight what?”

“Devices.” She made a strange noise, “well, not devices, but people wearing devices.” She inhaled quickly. “There are girls down there. I think they’re going to take the girls. You need to hurry.”