Chapter 11

ARIA

Memories—so many scary, shallowly buried memories surface at a painful rate, and my breath comes out in a rush of fear. What the hell did I do?

Everything plays back in my mind, almost giving me a slow, step-by-step playback. Vivid details etch themselves into my brain, ensuring that they're never forgotten again. And I really wish I couldn't remember.

I'm officially an off-the-scales psycho. One thing is for sure, I can never go savage again. Never ever.

Jase stirs in his sleep, turning his back on the sunlight that is slithering through the small crack of the curtains inside this tiny room. I glare at him, my lips tightening to a thin line, and then I start slapping the hell out of his back, startling him awake, but my assault doesn't stop. I continue slapping wildly, making him jerk in response.

"What the hell?" he croaks, his voice rasp from the earliness of my attack.

He lazily throws an arm up in defense, and my glower doubles in intensity as I cease fire.

Is he smiling?

"That wasn't the morning-wake-up I was expecting. Why am I getting the death stare?" he asks, his mismatched eyes giving me insight to the fact he's torn about whether to seem amused or concerned.

"Have you lost your fucking mind? I could have killed you! I was psychotic!"

Worse than psychotic. I was a raging lunatic on steroids.

He nods slowly, tilting his head to the side once he's finished. "You didn't kill anyone that didn't deserve to die. You were savage, which is completely different from being a raging lunatic."

His delivery is so dry, and I glare at him for being so composed. "I wanted to kill everyone. I still feel that… craziness eating at me, like a sour aftertaste. I wasn't a normal savage. I didn't recognize the difference between friend and foe. For heaven's sake, I threw Kellan into a car."

He tries and fails to suppress a grin, and my eyes narrow on him even more. "Yes, I noticed that. But you didn't kill him. Or anyone else for that matter. He was goading you—tempting fate. He paid the consequences, but you never once tried to kill him. You were just reminding him that you were the dominant force when he tested your patience."

He wasn't testing my patience; he was lost in the counter trance. But I tried killing him for succumbing to nature because I didn't want him anywhere near me.

Smug. The asshole in front of me is being smug right now. Jackass.

"Jackass and asshole? I'm flattered you think so highly of me," he says, nothing left but amusement as his concern flees.

"You shouldn't be smiling," I groan, sinking down in the bed. "I went psycho—worse than savage—and you stupidly stood in front of me. So you need to stop smiling, because I'm incredibly pissed right now."

He doesn't stop smiling. Not even a little. In fact, he seems more pleased with himself with every second that ticks by.

"I am pleased. Wrong or right, smart or stupid… I'm pretty fucking pleased. Yes."

Damn him for making me smile.

"You don't seem to be having any problems reading my mind today."

He gives a shrug, acting as though this doesn't please him as well, but his grin betrays him. He's enjoying this all far too much.

"I've worried for a long time what would happen when or if you went savage. Just like I worried what would happen if Kellan went savage. Now you're in my arms. You woke up beside me—not him. You came willingly with me, and you knocked him away. Even your psychotic half seems to love me. It's almost… I feel like I can breathe right now for the first time in so long."

And now I'm crying and smiling. Jerk.

"If you keep calling me so many sweet names, I might just propose again," he murmurs against my cheek, with his cocky, insuppressible grin only growing.

A laugh slips out of me unbidden, and I slap his arm before moving my head down so that my lips can meet his. I can actually taste his relief as it pours from his mouth to mine.

"We can't do this right now," I mutter against his lips, even as I wrap my legs around his waist to completely contradict that statement.

"We can do anything we want, baby," he says, kissing me down my chin. "Nowhere to be."

I groan because his touch feels so good right now, but we have so, so much to do."

"Prisoner exchange is tonight, the kids are unattended at the other compound, and I've got to go apologize to everyone for going Nuclear Aria."

"Prisoner exchange is being handled differently," he sighs, leaning away from me. "The Unaligned is suddenly back to doing things right, especially now that someone just tried to frame them for my death."

He says those words without any emotion, but my heart almost sputters to a stop. After he reads my mind, his expression softens, and he leans over to press his lips gingerly against mine in a chaste kiss.

"Don't. Don't think about all the what-ifs . It'll just drive you crazy. Believe me, I know." He bends back up, and threads our fingers together before continuing. "We're doing the prisoner exchange is small spurts, as agreed in the first place. Grayson, Angelica, Kellan, and Simone returned to the children late last night, after they were sure you were down. And Nuclear Aria wasn't nuclear. Based on the dilation in your eyes, Simone believes you were barely a phase two. She said it's possible you were still a one. So Nuclear Aria remains to be seen."

I swallow hard, almost choking. Phase two? Barely a phase two? Possibly a phase one? What happens if I go phase three?

"Hopefully we won't have to find out," he says, seriousness taking the place of his light tone. "We do need to go back, but we don't have to leave right away. Most everyone expected you to take days to come down from that. The compound captain was freaking out about you even being here. But you're… you. We can stay for a while, and we can just have a few days of… well, us . I got you back from the grave, then I was ripped away, then you chose me over Kellan. Again. I just think we should stay in and rest."

I cock a skeptical eyebrow at him.

"Rest?" I ask, suspicion oozing from my tone.

His cheeky grin returns, and I roll my eyes. "I thought it'd be crude to name everything I want us to do. But rest is on the itinerary."

His phone rings, just as it always does, but he ignores it. His eyes stay trained on mine, never even offering the flashing screen beside the bed a glance.

"You have to answer that. We can wait. Right now, there's just too much to do."

"There's always too much," he murmurs before returning his lips to mine.

The knock at the door tells me this small room isn't soundproofed, and I squeal a little in surprise.

"I didn't realize it wasn't soundproof either," Jase says, grinning like he has a dirty little secret.

Oh damn. We were so loud last night.

"Yeah," he says to the unseen person, granting them entrance as he rolls over to his back and puts his arms behind his head.

Rex walks in with Mel, and he rolls his eyes as I tuck the sheet up closer to my chin.

"We need to go. The captain here is still a little pissed about Aria's attack on him. And the people are getting antsy. This is a full blood colony, and once upon a time, all savage hybrids went loco on full bloods. They're worried she's fragile and will go savage again soon. And after yesterday's demonstration… I think you get the point."

Rex still goes loco on full bloods when he's savage, so he shouldn't be saying once upon a time as though it was the distant past such a thing happened. Uncle Grayson is just as bad.

But… Wait. What?

"When the hell did I attack the captain?"

Jase's lips twitch as though he's amused, but he quickly banishes the expression. "The captain was interrupting us with his incessant questions and false sense of superiority. You… well—"

I groan in interruption, "He's the guy I attacked without seeing him. I remember that. Shit. Can we sneak out?"

I peek up from my lashes to see Rex eyeing me with caution, but I can feel Jase's smile. He's the only one in this room who's not freaked out. Mel is actually standing a little bit behind Rex, her eyes not meeting mine.

Great, now I've scared the holy hell out of everyone.

"Not me," Jase says close to my ear before sitting up and letting the sheet fall to his waist, revealing his perfect upper half.

When he winks at me, I quickly push aside all thoughts. My blocking skills are sucking today.

"You two get dressed. We'll meet you downstairs," Rex grumbles, snarling as though he's close to puking.

He and Mel disappear out the door, and Jase sighs, "I keep forgetting who the commander is these days. I swear he gets bossier by the minute."

I stifle a grin while getting up, and I nod. "Welcome to my world."

He snickers softly while standing up, not bothering to cover up anything as he makes his way to me. His arms wrap around my bare waist, and he bends to kiss me.

"Let's get married tomorrow."

Those words almost force me to strangle on air because they're so random.

"Tomorrow?" I ask incredulously. "We can't get a wedding ready by tomorrow."

His grin only grows. "Not a big flashy wedding, but we can get a wedding ready by tomorrow. All you need to do is get a dress. I can do everything else. I'm tired of wasting time, because tomorrows seem to be limited these days."

He continues to try to smile, but it's wavering as sincerity pours from his eyes. We keep kissing death too often and barely escaping its hold.

"Then let's get married tomorrow," I say in a breath, barely beating the tears that start falling freely from my eyes.

His smile spreads, and he grabs me up from the floor to spin me around. I giggle like I'm fifteen instead of centuries-old. Slipping free from his grasp, I toss on a pair of shorts and a shirt that someone must have brought by. Though I was apparently sound asleep.

He reluctantly dresses, but as soon as his clothes are on his body, he returns to me, and my girlish laughter bubbles free once more. Jase's face nestles into the side of my hair as he breathes me in, holding me so tight, and I cling to him as well. We're finally getting our moment.

Then…

Wood cracking forces me to jerk my attention over just as two tables explode simultaneously, eliciting a shriek from me, and Jase pulls me behind him protectively just before the bed bursts into thousands of pieces. Small droplets of cotton rain down on what's left of the bed that looks to have lost a war with a grenade, but there was no grenade.

"What the hell?" Jase says, more to himself than me.

The tingling in the tips of my fingers says it all, and my eyes widen just before the walls start cracking.

"It's me. Shit, it's me and I can't turn it off. Jase, we have to get out of here before I tear the place down!"

He tilts his head, confused, and then the door splinters into as many pieces as the tragic bed that has suffered my unintentional wrath. I'm a frigging nonstop disaster on legs.

"Okay, deep breaths," he says, keeping his voice light as he tries to calm me down, swallowing hard when the walls threaten to tremble in my presence.

In a blur, I'm suddenly being hauled away from the room too fast for my eyes to focus. It takes a second to realize Jase has me in his arms and he's running with me.

The ground beneath his feet rumble, and a few gasps escape the mouths of faces I can't see. Since when is he so fast?

It doesn't take us long before we're outside the gates, and my breathing grows panicky as the ground quakes harder, my gift leaking out unbidden and unexpectedly.

"You're still susceptible to going savage right now. I don't know what I was thinking by keeping you here."

We're both idiots for not heeding the warnings, knowing my sanity was still fragile so soon after being savage.

"You have to get away from me," I bite out through clenched teeth, overwhelmed by the intense burning that is slowly starting in the pit of my stomach.

No. No. Please, God. No.

Last time there were too many distractions for my savage to unleash hell on the ones I love. It was a miracle it didn't strike Jase down just like it did Kellan.

"I can't hold it…" My words sizzle out when the burning becomes too intense, and I force myself out of Jase's arms as my body slowly starts to shake.

Shit. This is going to be so bad.