Kat
The bed was empty when I woke. I wasn’t sure where Arik was, how long I’d slept, whether it was day or still night. Only one thing solidified in my mind as the fog of sleep dissipated: last night had changed everything.
A thump of fear accompanied the thought. I’d made my decision in the dingy hallway of my former apartment, for better or worse, and when Arik and I had made love… Well, I didn’t know what that had been; all I knew was that for a single space of time, he’d been the very air in my lungs. I’d known everything about him, every single detail—and those details explained so much, about him, about Maddox and Sun and why Arik was doing what he was doing. What he’d done to get to this point.
It even explained how I could love him. Arik was ruthless in many ways, especially in training. And yet he could also be tender and sexy and beautiful. That compartmentalization had come from hundreds of years of torture at the hands of his enemy. Every moment of his life after he’d left the clan had been a game of chance. Every connection he’d made with another living being had been a risk, both for him and the person he’d cared about. He wasn’t an Archai trainer, but he’d been trained by them—and by Maddox—in the most brutal ways possible. The ways he now used to train me. No, he hadn’t been thrown in the ring with an Anigma enemy—he’d faced them on the street with no one at his back. It was all he knew, and he was trying to give me the benefit of that training to keep me safe.
And to use me.
And that’s where the fear came from. I’d chosen Arik, but seeing his past, living it through him…I knew without a doubt that he’d choose revenge over anything else. I couldn’t even blame him. I just wasn’t sure there was room for me somewhere in his life, before or after he got what he wanted.
Of course, lying here worrying about it was getting me nowhere. I threw back the covers and stood, groaning as I more hobbled than walked into the bathroom. My body hurt, and a glance in the mirror showed bruises everywhere. Maddox packed a mean punch, the bastard. A long soak in the hottest water I could stand helped ease some of the pain, but I still found myself reaching for sweatpants and forgoing a bra beneath the matching sweatshirt. If it was soft and unconstricting, I’d wear it. Anything else…uh-uh.
On socked feet I made my way down the hall. The living area was dark except for a dim light coming from the office. I’d gotten so used to that door being locked firmly against me that it was now a shock to see light spilling from the open doorway. I walked silently, bracing myself for… I wasn’t sure. But something inside me wouldn’t relax as I leaned against the doorjamb and let my gaze come to rest on Arik.
He took my breath away. Probably always would. Seated before the wall of monitors like sentries across his desk, his arms and shoulders bared by the tank that strained across his back, he typed and clicked and shifted from one monitor to the next, seeming oblivious to my observation. I stood silent in the doorway, watching him move, trying to track the elusive memories in my head from last night. Not the ones when we’d been…connected, for lack of a better word, but after. When I’d been tucked in his arms, his wings blanketing me, his heartbeat and the rough sound of his breath the only things I could hear. What had it been about that moment that caught at me now? What…
And then, like a whisper in the dark, I heard again the voice that had entered my mind in that shadowy place between awake and asleep. Deeper, rougher than Arik’s. Harder. Repeating a single word over and over in my head: mate. Just that. My mate.
Did the Archai mate?
Arik’s head went up, and I swore he sniffed the air. He jerked around fast, his glowing eyes searing me with their intensity. My mate.
“What?”
Arik didn’t answer my telepathic question, merely shook his head like he was waking from a dream. The light in his eyes faded until their normal steel-blue color was revealed—beautiful eyes, touched with concern and something else I couldn’t name. They traced my loose clothing before staring into mine. “Sore?” Arik asked.
Why that made me blush, I wasn’t sure. “A bit. And stiff. I’m not used to fighting like that.” Or almost dying, though that seemed to be happening a lot lately. “A bath helped.”
Arik nodded absently as he tugged a chair closer to his. “Come sit.”
I crossed the room. The closer I got, the more his scent and heat drew me, and the more I itched to touch him. Just a bit, just enough to reassure myself that he was still with me. But there was a vibe of something I couldn’t identify in the air, something that warned me away despite my need. Something…
I settled into the seat. “What’s going on?”
Arik grunted, eyes on the screen. After a bit more typing, he said, “I contacted Sun.”
No. “Arik—”
He reached out, his hand landing on mine unerringly despite his focus on the monitor. “I know.” The screen went blank after a final click, and Arik turned to face me. “I know you’re afraid, and what you’re afraid of. I saw it all last night, remember?”
I felt my skin go hot and dropped my eyes. Arik cupped one burning cheek, his thumb stroking over my flushed skin. “He’s not a bad male, Kat. And when he knows what using your power costs you, when he understands what happened after you blew that apartment building to bits, he’ll be careful with you, take the time to build the barriers that will keep you safe. Grim will help.”
That got my head up. “What about—”
“No.” The word held a hint of a growl, of anger. I flushed again. “I’m not going to risk a recurrence of what happened last night. I’m not a bastard.” A pause, and then Arik shook his head. “Okay, I am. But I won’t risk you like that again. I can’t. You can defend yourself, and that’s all. Anything more is too dangerous. Maybe in time…” He left the sentence unfinished. “We’ll find another way to get to Maddox. But to do that, I need Sun on board.”
Relief mingled with confusion. “I thought you wanted Sun and the clan to pay as well. For abandoning you when you needed them. For hunting you.”
Arik’s lips tightened into a hard line. For a long moment all he did was stare. “I did. I do. But I can’t have it both ways, not…” He shook his head again. “I just can’t.”
Nothing else. I waited for some explanation, something further, something maybe more…personal, but it never came. Finally, unable to take the silence any longer, I turned my hand beneath his, twined our fingers together like I feared he would run—a very real fear—and cleared my throat. “Arik…about last night—”
I couldn’t miss the deep breath he sucked in. Rushing ahead, fearful that he’d cut me off, I blurted, “What was that? Not my power, not the apartment… That.”
“That,” he repeated. He knew what I meant; I could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way his fingers tightened on mine before relaxing. “That was…a psychic connection.”
“Don’t we already have that when we use telepathy?”
He nodded, the skin around his eyes going tight. Why did I suddenly feel like I was asking him to explain the birds and the bees?
“A light connection, yes. Most Archai allow a shallow glimpse into their head when they open themselves up to telepathy. But the kind of connection we made last night was deeper, one shared by…lovers.”
Okay, lovers. I got that. “But it didn’t happen the other times we…”
His gaze dropped to our clasped hands. “No.”
He didn’t elaborate. I tried again. “Does it happen all the time? What causes it? Have you—” No, I didn’t want to know if he’d ever felt that before. The things I’d seen last night, intimate things I had no desire to study in detail, didn’t seem to indicate it, but I wasn’t going to pull out the memories and examine them. What I remembered was enough, thanks.
“It…it happens when there’s intense emotion.”
Intense was such an inadequate word for what we’d shared. “I felt everything.” The words came out quiet, with a ribbon of awe I couldn’t quite hide. “It was like I was inside you, and you were inside me. Was it like that for you?”
Arik’s expression softened. He pushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ear before cupping my neck. “Yes. Yes, it was.” In his eyes I saw the shock, the surprise I’d also felt, the tinge of unease at the vulnerability we’d both been plunged into in that moment. Only the complete, pure, undeniable need we’d experienced could have urged two such wary souls to blend together, nothing held back. Neither of us was used to that. The question was, did he want it again, or was this a one-time deal? I’d read what I thought was everything last night, but his feelings for me… Try as I might, I couldn’t pin that down.
“So—”
He stopped my words by leaning forward and taking my mouth. The heat burning in his kiss lit me on fire. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only drown in the blaze that overtook me—that overtook us both, if Arik’s rough grip on me told the truth.
I wanted to know for sure, wanted to see if the connection we’d built last night was still there, but I couldn’t bring myself to try. If I did and Arik rejected me, turned away…I didn’t know if I could bear it.
Long minutes later Arik released me with a final nip to my bottom lip. Nose to nose, he smiled down at me, probably at the dazed look I was certain I wore. These were the moments I lived for, the moments when revenge and the past were stripped away and Arik was right here, with me, in the moment. But before the teasing in his eyes could escape his mouth, the computer beeped. An instant message popped up in one corner of the central monitor.
Arik turned, his hand sliding from mine, leaving me cold. A grunt left him as he opened the message.
I watched as he read. “Important?”
“Sun.”
I held my breath.
“I’ve been casing the Anigma base,” Arik told me. “I’d thought, between your skill and mine, it would be an easy in and out—not to take everything, but…” He frowned. “Anyway, we need more manpower, and Sun has it.”
I understood. He’d had one goal to accomplish, and it wasn’t to destroy the entire Anigma force. That be Sun’s job apparently. “So it’s no longer just Maddox you want?” I pulled my feet onto the seat and rested my chin on my knees.
“Oh, I still want Maddox. I want the chance to actually taste his blood myself.” His gaze ran down my arms, touching on the puncture wounds from Maddox’s claws, the mottled bruises from the shifter’s viselike grip. “He’ll still be mine; that’s part of the deal. Leaving the Anigma forces in the Southeast crippled—that’s a bonus.”
“One attack can’t cripple the Anigma. They’ve been around as long as the Archai, haven’t they?”
“Since before I was born, just before the Great War began. Shifters seeking power existed before, but the Anigma as a force to conquer the Archai jelled around then.” He drew one knee up, mirroring my position, but I didn’t think he noticed. “The Archai assumed at the end of the war that they’d damaged the enemy beyond the ability to regroup. They were wrong. The Anigma simply went underground until they could grow their power base once again. I’ve known all along that the Anigma still existed, but…” He shrugged, and I understood what he wasn’t saying, that the Archai would have needed to believe him about Maddox before they would believe him about the Anigma. They hadn’t. “Now Maddox has figured out how to find and harvest psychs—and if he’s figured it out, you can bet the rest of the Anigma have as well. There’s only one reason to do that: they’re ready for another war. That can’t happen.”
I didn’t understand why Arik cared about that now. He hadn’t wanted to hit the Anigma itself before, only Maddox and the Archai. What had changed that he now wanted to ensure the Archai were safe?
“So with Sun’s help, you’ll have Maddox, and the Anigma won’t be able to benefit from the leftovers if their southeastern forces are crippled.”
“Yes.”
Okay. I waited, but Arik remained silent. “And afterward? What then?”
Something very like regret shimmered in his eyes for the briefest of moments. “Who knows.”
Not we’ll see or we’ll have each other. Just who knows.
Dread coiled in my core. Well, at least I knew where I stood. Might as well face it head-on. “Arik…what happens to me?”
Arik focused on the computer screen, his words quiet but certain. “This was only ever going to be temporary, Kat.”
Uh-huh. I tried to respond, to give him some flippant comeback that proved he hadn’t ripped my heart out with a few simple words, but getting anything out past the ground glass in my throat would be impossible.
Arik stood abruptly. “I need to go feed.”
Another arrow to the heart. He had a ready—and willing—source right in front of him, but no, he’d rather search out a stranger. Or did he have a ready and willing source out there that he cared about? Because he obviously didn’t care about me. Or maybe he was just trying to escape me. After all, he’d fed last night.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to point that out.
Arik was already crossing the room. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said over his shoulder. “Rest. You have to keep your strength up after last night.”
“Right.”
But he was out the door already. I waited, fortunately numb, as the sound of clothes rustling and boots thumping came from the living room; then the door opened and closed. Only then did I force myself back down the hall to my bedroom.
My feet led me into the bathroom, to the sink. My hands turned on the water, though I wasn’t sure why until I leaned over to splash some onto my face. When I straightened, my gaze met my reflection in the mirror.
Mate.
How stupid was that? Arik didn’t want me, and here I’d been thinking he might keep me.
Nope. No one kept me.
Mate.
“Shut up,” I told my reflection.
My mate.
“Shut up,” I yelled, my voice hoarse. But not with pain—he couldn’t hurt me. He didn’t love me, but I’d be fine. I’d manage just like I always had.
So why did it feel like I’d been ripped seam to seam, like pieces of me were scattered so far I’d never put them back together again?
My mate.
“Shut up, Arik.” I choked back a sob. It was Arik’s voice, though Arik had never said it. He’d never mean it.
My mate.
My power surged hot and wild, the physical pain so much easier to handle than the emotion tearing me apart inside. “Shut up!” The mirror cracked and splintered in front of me. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Broken shards of mirror flew across the small room. I watched from somewhere outside my body as tiny red lines coated the bared skin of my hands and forearms. Stinging lines crossed my face. Tings filled the air as the tiny missiles hit tile and glass and porcelain. And still I couldn’t stop. A massive tourniquet clamped down on my head, squeezing my brain until I thought it might pop. Wished it would. Then I wouldn’t have to do this, wouldn’t have to act like everything was fine when I was dying inside.
Glancing down, I noticed without much interest the sparks of power sizzling in the air around my bloody hands, further evidence of my volatility. Was I dangerous right now?
Did I care?
No. Why should I? No one else did.
I stepped back from the mirror, ignoring the slivers beneath my feet until my spine hit the tile wall and I sank to my butt right there in the mess. Curling around my drawn-up knees, I rocked back and forth, the only comfort I could give myself.
This was my future. This was alone, without Arik. This would be my forever.
This was only ever going to be temporary, Kat.
Of course it was. And I really shouldn’t have expected anything different.