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I want to taste her pleasure, and I want her fangs in my skin as she drinks me down. I want to feel my power flowing through her. I want her to touch me with need, not disgust and obsession like the other one who took without consent. That woman stole everything from me, including my future and my life.
For the first time ever, I almost want to thank her for leading me here, to my purpose and Althea.
A ghost flutters by, and when he realises I can see him, he starts to yell and scream about his problems, making me sigh.
I’m used to it, but sometimes it’s overwhelming, especially when it draws all the others in the room towards me. I nod and listen, all the while searching for my target. I tracked him for a week or two before Althea arrived. The man has killed more than half a dozen of his own kind. He has control and power, yet he still kills. One of his victims told me he likes the taste of death in their blood.
I want him to be judged next, but just as I’m homing in on his power in the crowded room, I feel a familiar brush of power, and then I see her.
My breath freezes, and everything in me locks down.
I am a statue, screaming inside my mind as memories take over.
Agony, pain, and humiliation leave me broken, and I fall to my knees, weak and unprotected. I am certain she will notice me, notice her mistress’s broken toy, and take me back to her.
I should have known better, however, because my fear calls to my brothers, and they fill my head.
I’m the closest, Osis tells the others who are crowding my mind.I will get him.
Stay strong, brother, Conall says, sending his shadows down the bond to cover me so she cannot see me. Even the ghosts sense my panic, and they turn to protect me.
Reve steers my mind away from the memories, and scalding heat replaces the cold, warming me. Lycus’s venom fills my blood in case I’m attacked, and Nathair projects an image, one that forces me to the present.
I see Althea with her head thrown back and blood flowing down her neck from puncture wounds. Her lips are parted on a scream, and her breasts are pushed up and marked. My cock hardens, and my fangs ache to feed.
Something I have never felt fills me so strongly, I almost fall, but then arms wrap around me, pulling me into a chest.
It’s Osis, and then we are gone, his powers transporting us home. The usual sickness of his method of travel doesn’t breach my heightened emotions. Conall’s shadows pull back, exposing me, and I find Osis crouched before me. Nathair hurries into the room with fang marks in his neck. His lips are swollen, his pants are undone, and behind him is Althea.
Crying out, I spin away from her, not wanting her to see me like this.
Nathair must sense it because he tries to block her from getting to me as I grip at the floor, fighting back the memories. One flash of her, and I’m back to that weak, chained dog who was half-starved and covered in so many scars, you couldn’t see unblemished skin anymore.
I am an animal who is unworthy of the queen in our midst. Darkness closes in on me until, suddenly, a hand jerks my head up. It’s soft and warm, and it pushes back the darkness, telling it that it can’t have me.
I’m hers.
I suck in a breath.
She’s crouched before me, and her power cradles me to her when I would have scattered. “Shh, you are okay,” she promises softly, her hands sliding across me before pulling me into her arms.
Without thought, I wrap my arms around her and bury my face and my shame into her stomach as she holds me. My brothers gather around us, offering their support and protection while I break.
“Shh, Azul, we have you. You are safe.” I don’t know what she knows or senses, but she keeps repeating it. “You’re safe. We have you. No one else ever can. You are ours. We are here, and you’re safe.”
I relax, trusting her, trusting them, to protect me while I am raw and exposed.
She continues to hold me on the cold stone floor, talking softly so her sweet voice keeps me grounded to the present. Althea’s hands trace every inch of me, reclaiming my body until I feel myself start to drift.
I am not quite asleep nor totally awake, so when Nathair’s voice comes, I almost startle.
“He saw someone from his past, someone who hurt him greatly,” he says, no doubt responding to Althea’s mental question.
I should stop him, but honestly, it’s easier for him to tell her so I don’t have to. Maybe that’s a form of cowardice, but I don’t care. She deserves to know, but I cannot bring myself to say the words.
“Who?” Althea’s voice is like a whip, and her power rises until I whimper, but she immediately softens. “Where?”
“You cannot kill them.” Nathair chuckles fondly. “Not yet anyway. We are bound to our creed, and we have tried to find ways around it to go after those who hurt him.”
