Chapter Nine

Cari

"Ouch, take it easy, Cari Bear," Luci teases as I throw a punch that she is unprepared for.

"Oh, shit. I did not mean to connect. I am sorry, babes!"

"Do not be sorry," Gareth tells me as he comes to check on his wife. "You will not be apologizing during a battle."

"Well, we're not battling, we're training. It is different."

Before I can say another word, a gray blur shoots through the air, and I am slammed back on the ground. I grunt as the wind is knocked out of me. Glaring up at my sister Bessi in her wolf form, I smack at her snout playfully.

"Jesus, Bessi. You could have given me a warning."

"No warnings will be given during a fight," she says without words. I sigh and nod because she is right.

"You're right. Everyone is right. I need to be prepared for anything," I respond to her not needing the words now.

It's been two weeks of training every spare moment. Not just with my sisters and their monster boyfriends, but with each other. I can speak to both of them without words now. It took a few days before they were talking back, a tool that could come in handy if we were ever in a fight.

I can touch them or one of the guys and feel what they're feeling, see their memories, or get a glimpse of something still to come. I know Luci will be having a baby girl. And I know in three months, Bessi will be pregnant with pups, two of them.

If I try to use those powers for myself, I see nothing. It has frustrated me as I have strengthened the tool with my sisters or even Mayhem, yet I cannot see my own future. Mayhem says it is because my future is still being decided. He is wrong.

Mayhem is my future. He is that dark figure in all of my work, the thing watching over me at every turn. Being with him, having babies someday, that is my future. Nothing and no one, Azazel the Demon included, will take that from me.

"Calm down, my love," Mayhem purrs after he pulls me to my feet, drawing me into the safety of his arms. "Let your mind slow down. Focus on just this task, just these moments. Do not fret over the future."

"I am not fretting," I tell him sharply. "Because I know what it will be. Even if I cannot see it, I can feel it."

The truth is, I might say that he might have promised me that, but what if we're both wrong? What if Azazel comes back and takes Mayhem back to Hades? What if he kills me to keep us apart? Can he kill a Demon? Can I kill Azazel if I have to?

"Enough for today," he declares to the others, never taking his eyes off me. "Cari needs to refocus. Her thoughts stay troubled. It will cloud her choices during a fight if a fight does come."

"Agreed. We'll start again tomorrow. Come, wife, let me take you home where I can spoil you, my little warrior."

Luci flushes as he eats her up with a hungry gaze, and with a shimmer of the air, they're gone. He does that sometimes. Apparating, he calls it. With just a wave of his hand, he sends himself somewhere else. Luci says it feels sort of like being on a roller coaster in the dark.

"Can I learn to do that? Or is it for witches and mystics?"

"Apparating? Most magical creatures can figure it out. Shifters cannot," he says with a grin at Edon and Bessi, who circle us in their huge wolf forms. "They're too tied to the earth, I believe. You know I can do something similar. It is how I watched you that first night."

Flushing as I recall he watched me get myself off, I shake my head. Sometimes I forget he's a few centuries older than I am, speaking in a cadence before my time. Strange that it is the age gap that bothers me, instead of his being a Demon.

"On that note, we'll be heading out. Back at it tomorrow," Bessi tells me, rubbing her snout against my head before she follows Edon into the darkness.

It is a cool night with a cobalt sky full of stars overhead. A full moon lights up the darkness of the clearing we've been coming to for training. I sit down on the cool grass, sighing as Mayhem lies behind me, letting me curl back against his big, warm frame.

"This suits you," he whispers against my shoulder as his tail smacks the grass softly. "Coming into being a Nymph. It shows your confidence. It seems to come to you naturally."

Nodding my head, I snuggle against him, tracing a pattern of scars on his chest. "Once you told me what I was, once I started to understand it, it made sense. All the pieces of me, the parts that never fit anywhere else, they fell into place. I feel...well, I feel more complete now than I ever thought I could. Because of you."

"You found those pieces yourself, my love. I was just here to bear witness to it."

Gazing up at him, I shake my head. Again, he is wrong. I would never have embraced this part of myself if not for him. I might have always believed in magic, but before him, I never would have believed I held my own magic.

"It was because of you I found who I truly am. Take the credit you deserve, Mayhem," I demand, pushing at his chest so he will lie down. I climb over his big body, heat starting to build between my thighs.

"I deserve no credit for the beautiful creature you have become, my love. You would be this woman without me."

"No, I would not," I argue, lowering close, rubbing against his hard chest, letting out a little whimper when my nipples bead up against the thin cotton of my top. "I would have left these parts of me hidden away. It is because of you I let them out, that I set them free. You might have come here for yourself, but you came when I needed you most."

"It was you who called to me. You who brought us together," he hums, his huge hands gripping my hips to settle me over his hardness as it pulses between my thighs.

He's taken to wearing kilts if we're not at the cottage. I think the first time my sisters watched him saunter outside without a stitch of clothing was enough for both of us. I reach down, shoving the soft material out of my way. His big hands pull at my shorts, and I gasp as his hardness rubs my pussy.

"We belong together, Mayhem," I whisper as my hand starts to stroke his thick cock. "Whatever brought us together knew that. My mate," I hum against his lips, smiling as he growls at me, his claws sinking into my hips.

"Be kind to me, love, let me inside of you," he pleads.

"I love it when you call me your love," I admit, teasing us both by rubbing his thick, wide cock against my swollen clit. I moan as he moves me back and forth, teasing me right back.

"It is fitting, yes? My love, my life, the center of my universe...oh, yes," he hisses as I rock forward, pushing him inside of me in one slow move.

"Oh. Oh, I love how you fill me, baby," I moan, rocking slowly. "You're so big, I feel so full with you inside me."

"You fit me so well. So tight. I love it. Just as I love watching you take me. Your body is made for mine alone."

"Yes, yes," I pant, starting to move, rubbing against his chest, my mouth finding his. "Oh, Mayhem, please!"

Hi huge body moves, and he pins me beneath him, pressing my body into the dirt. His tail comes between us, ripping at my top. I moan as the flat of his tail licks at my nipples just the way his forked tongue does.

Mayhem starts to thrust as the skies open up with a warm rain. It soaks our skin and fills our lungs with the fresh scent of the earth and the skies. I cradle his face as he rocks into me slowly, his eyes black as they gaze down at me.

"Mayhem, yes.... yes, I love you. I love you. So much. Love you so much, baby. Don't stop. Don't stop, I need to come, I need to feel you come inside me, please..."

"Ah, fuck, you feel as close to heaven as I will ever be. I love you, Cari. Love you my sweet, beautiful little flame."

Fingers of white lightening crawl across the skies as he thrusts into me again and again. In the light of the moon, he is so beautiful I could cry. Even with his horns, his tail, his gray, scarred skin, he is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Yes, yes, I love you. I love you. I'm coming!"

"That's it, my love. That's it. Show me you belong to me," he purrs as his tongue flicks over the marks he left at my skin. The marks that bind me to him forever.

"Yes, I do. I belong to you. No monster, no man, will ever change that. I love you, Mayhem. Forever."

Mayhem comes with a powerful roar that echoes through the woods. Clutching me to him, he sinks his teeth into my shoulder, marking me once again. As if he can bond me to him a second time. If he could, I would allow it. I meant what I said because it is the truth—I am his, forever.

Sometime later, he is cradling me to his chest as he heads home. The rain still falls, and I am cold until he gets us inside the cottage. By the fireplace, he strips us both of our wet clothes, wrapping my favorite big, fuzzy blanket around us. Sitting in my favorite overstuffed chair, he holds me after he starts a roaring fire with a snap of his fingers.

"That will be handy come winter," I teases as I snuggle against him, warming slowly thanks to the fire.

"I have lots of other tricks that will come in handy."

Laughing, I nod as I hide my face in his neck, my body aching from the training and the round of love making. He talks softly, telling me about all the things he can do. Besides walking through walls, doubling my tub in size with a wave of his hand, he can make a fire start, he can inflict pain on another without even touching them, and he can take on any appearance he wants.

Cuddle in the warmth of his arms, in the safety of our cottage, I never see it coming. They warned me to be alert, to keep an eye out for an attack coming from anywhere. I never expect it to come to the safe space I share with Mayhem.

Azazel comes right out of the flickering flames, snatching me from Mayhem's arms with ease. I am burning in the flames as he steps back, pinning me to him as he laughs at Mayhem's desperate cries. He reaches out for me, but he can't reach me.

"You will come home. Or I she becomes my new pet."

"Mayhem! No! I love you!"

Blackness finds me but I hope it is not the end for me, for us.