Chapter 2

Ileft Samir to tend to Alice while I walked out into the hallway. I closed the door with a soft click before leaning my forehead against it and closing my eyes. The cold wood of the door was a much-needed reprieve to my heated skin. A total opposite of other times when my body was a frozen popsicle waiting for spring thaw and I resembled a corpse. My internal temperature was really out of wack since I snapped out of my bloodlust. So, I took a deep breath allowing my shoulders to drop, not worried that anyone would see my weakness. The house was as silent as a tomb; so much so, that the rhythm of my heart was echoing too loud in my ears.

I was tired.

Carrying a chip on my shoulder has become second nature, and I didn't notice the weight of it anymore. The guilt and responsibility of those around me, however, was a newly formed burden, which pressed so hard on my shoulders, that it made it difficult to walk most days without doubling over. In the last few days or so I had a lot of time to think and reexamine my actions.

I was pretty sure anyone would agree when I said I acted rashly. A million excuses come to mind that could ease my culpability and justify everything. Be that as it may, I refused to use my rage and thirst for revenge as a crutch for placing everyone I care about in danger. A slip up here and there in the name of a righteous indignation is one thing. But everyone suffering, or God forbid dying, because I couldn't seem to get a grip on myself was a totally different story.

Enough was enough.

I stood there for hours it seemed, pressing my hands to my cheeks to cool them off and rolling my head all over the door while my mind raced not wanting to miss the chance to taunt me with everything, I'd done wrong. Lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice when the energy around me shifted, thickening the air, and making it pregnant with tension. It spoke volumes about my current state and how much I needed to lay down so I could fully recover.

Not that I'd do it.

But it was telling.

"You are not feeling well?" Dominic asked but didn't approach me. It cost him dearly to keep his distance now that we opened Pandora's box by acknowledging the mate bond we so expertly avoided all this time.

"I'll be alright." My lips grazed the now warmed up wood of the door when I answered, keeping my eyes closed still so I don't tempt myself to turn around and rush into his arms.

My whole being was tense, coiled like a rusted spring waiting to snap at the slightest brush of a breeze. There was no way in all hells that he didn't notice the slight tremor of my fisted hands or the coppery scent of my blood pooling in the small crescent cuts my nails left in my palms. Still, I stayed glued to the spot as if that would keep me away from the tsunami of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

"Brooklyn, we can't keep doing this to each other." His voice came from much closer, although I didn't hear him move. Damn cats and their stealth. The hurt from my rejection was evident in the slight rasp of his tone and it took all the energy I had left not to visibly shiver. "You can be angry with me, hate me if that is what you want, but I don't and will not regret my actions. Ever."

My fist was lodged in my throat, closing it effectively up; and I swallowed thickly in hopes it'll go down and I tell Dominic to leave me alone. Instead, my body began to quiver, and much to my embarrassment, my knees gave out.

That was all the signs he needed. He was there in an instant scooping me up before I made contact with the floor. His male scent surrounded me from all sides, wrapping me tightly into a Dominic cocoon. My nose was full of him, my head was swimming from the fast pumping of blood my brain received while my heart jackhammered behind my ribcage with the strength of a tornado.

He was warm. Too warm under my clammy fingers that clung onto any part of him I could reach; like to a lifeline. No matter how hard I wanted to push him away, scream at him that he almost killed Alice, my body had a mind of its own. I was acutely aware of every inch of him where he connected with me. The hard expanse of his muscled body molded to my smaller frame as he curled inward, as if he was trying to absorb me inside of him so that I could never get away. And I let him, curling firmly into his chest, my knees almost touching my chin.

Samir nagged that I couldn't avoid the shifter forever, but this was the very reason why I'd been like a skittish mouse racing through the hallways of the enormous house, hoping I wouldn't run into him around every corner. I knew once he had his hands on me it would be game over.

Heat bloomed in my lower belly, and arching my back in his hold, I pressed my mouth onto his. A surprised sharp intake of breath was the only sign that he never expected the situation to go in that direction, but he recovered quickly, and his warm wet tongue parted my lips with the desperation of a man dying from thirst faced with a glass of ice, cold fresh water.

I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, or even summon a drop of will to push him away. Surrendering to the force pulling us toward each other, I could only exist and feel. Twisting the longer strands of his hair between my fingers, I pulled him closer, chasing his tongue with mine while he explored the cavern of my mouth leaving no space unturned.

My stomach dipped when he dropped my legs and spun me around so fast, I gasped for air before exhaling loudly when my chest was pressed hard to the door. For a split second, I wondered if Samir would open it to mock me for giving in to my baser needs; but then Dominic wrapped my ponytail around his hand and twisted my face around as much as it would allow before shoving his tongue in my mouth again. All thoughts about the ancient Atua fled my mind.

It was impossible to take a full breath the way I was pressed between the door and Dominic's body, his hard cock wedged between my butt cheeks pulsing in sync with his thrusting tongue. With one hand guiding my head with a firm hold on my hair; his other one snaked around my waist and excruciatingly slowly started gliding down my belly.

I gasped in his mouth when his fingers dipped inside the waistband of my pants, popping the buttons one by one open until the tips grazed the soft skin of my belly right above my panties. My ass pressed harder into his erection encouraging him to hurry up and place his hand where I desperately needed it. There was a pulse between my legs painfully throbbing and begging for relief. But suddenly, the shifter was in no rush to save me from my misery. Oh no! Instead of plunging his fingers inside me, he started making tiny, gentle circles on my skin, driving me insane with need. No amount of wiggling or pressing against him could change his mind or even make him hurry it up. I thought I was losing my hold on reality when I heard a sound but the vibration moving from his lips to mine told me I wasn't going crazy.

He chuckled.

In his right mind, he chuckled low and growly in my mouth, not pausing the kiss for a second as if my willingness to answer the call my body and the mate bond demanded was funny to him. The familiar burn of the anger swirled in the center of my chest, and that time I pushed harder at his body crowding me, not to get closer but to get him off of me.

The arm around my waist tightened painfully, a warning from an alpha male that is attempting to solidify his dominance, but the feline shifter picked the wrong female for that. With a firmer shove, he finally got the message and uncoiled from around me but didn't step back, nor did he remove his mouth from mine. Instead of plundering it with his tongue, he peppered my lips with closed mouth kisses each time our noses connected forcing me to blink.

"I'm not your enemy." He murmured between pecks, and I stiffened. He paused kissing me long enough to search my gaze with his for a long moment, but he repeated it again after not too long. "I am not your enemy, Brooklyn."

"Could've fooled me." Hating the way I sounded breathless and throaty, I shoved harder to get him to release me. "Get off of me."

"No." Still and unperturbed he stared unblinkingly at me. "Talk to me."

"I have nothing to say. Now, get off of me." This time I did use my strength instead of the half-assed attempts I'd been giving him. "It's best to keep our distance for now. We need to figure out how to help Alice heal instead of wasting time on nonsense."

"This," watching me with a raised eyebrow from a couple of steps away where I made him stumble back, he flicked a finger between us. "Us, we are the nonsense?"

"She can die at any moment because of this," mockingly, I flicked my own finger between us, imitating him. It caused a vein to jump on one side of his jaw and his eyes to narrow dangerously at me. "Us, as you like to say. I need to go."

My mouth opened to unleash the torrent of hurtful words that were flooding my brain at that moment but the clearing of a throat from further down the hallway put a stop to it. Later down the road, I would look back at this moment and be eternally grateful for the interruption; but as things were, I turned my glare on Rowen. The witch stood unnaturally still in the middle of the hall. You'd think he appeared there out of thin air.

A muted glow danced all over his tattoos, flickering like the tiny flames on dying embers from his forehead across his nose and down his chin only to disappear into the collar of his T-shirt. Green eyes so pale, it was almost impossible to see the color of the irises unless you had supernatural sight saw way too much for my liking. They looked straight, not into my gaze, but into my soul. It was so unnerving, I instinctively took a step toward Dominic, which did not go unnoticed, much to my annoyance.

The witch made me apprehensive, to say the least.

"Can I help you?" I barked at him snidely and felt horrible the next second.

It was not his fault that all my nightmares were associated with witches and those vexatious sigils permanently marking his skin. If anything, he should've given me hope with his presence and willingness to help prove that not all of them were brainwashed puppets with no promise of redemption. That maybe, just maybe, my mother was not a villain waiting to strike from the shadows like a snake hiding in the grass. Alice's smiling face floated tauntingly in my mind's eye a second before it twisted into a horrified expression, and blood gushed between her fingers wrapped around her neck.

"No." Rowen said softly and moved toward me, his robes brushing the floor delicately. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought he was floating. "But I do believe I can help you."

"I don't need your help." Snapping out of the daze the swirling robes put me in, I clenched my jaw. "And don't come anywhere near me." Stabbing a finger in his direction, I called on all the will power I had left not to pounce on him, and rip open his jugular. Something felt off about the situation, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "Rowen, I mean it, I will kill you if you don't stop."

"You need my help, Brooklyn." Ignoring all the warnings and baring my fangs in his face, he kept gliding toward me. Dominic on the other hand, stood there like a lump just mutely watching. "Allow me to bring you peace." The witch reached for my face, but instead of touching me, he pressed the open veins of his wrists to my lips.

Bitter fluid thick as tar filled my mouth, and I gagged, spitting it out as fast as I could while tears filled my eyes and trickled down my face. Just when I thought I had it all spat out, more poured in and Dominic pressed a hand over my lips forcing me to swallow it down. If felt like liquid flames burned their way down to my belly, the pain was so intense I had no other option but to pass out.

Darkness claimed me but not before I saw Dominic's blanched face above mine. That only meant one thing. Something was wrong.

Something was horribly wrong.