8. Ellis

8

ELLIS

T he moment Xander’s presence invaded my mind, panic hit me hard—sharp and suffocating. I never thought I’d feel this again. Not after Lucius. Not after everything.

But here I was, being pulled under his control once more.

Xander’s grip was as cold and relentless as Lucius’s ever was. I tried to push him out, but I couldn’t. Even in spirit form, Lucius was strong.

Stronger than me.

Rachel .

My gaze flicked toward her, and our eyes locked. The fear I saw there twisted deep inside me. I’d told her to run, but she didn’t listen. She needed to. I needed her to get as far away from me as possible. There was no telling what Xander and Lucius’s spirit might make me do to her.

You are his weakness , Xander’s words echoed through my skull.

“Get out of here. Go!” I shouted. This time my voice cracked, and I hoped she understood it was because I was barely hanging on to my humanity, barely hanging on to who I was and able to fight against what was happening in my head.

“Look at her, standing there… willing to die for you,” Xander said, a smugness to his tone I loathed. “And look at you, already about to crumble. Isn’t it pathetic? How easily you bend to my will.”

I wanted to end him where he stood.

As though he knew what I was thinking, his grip on my mind tightened and even more pain blasted through me. Through it, I noticed when Rachel moved to stand in front of me.

Rachel was trying to shield me.

She stood in front of me—small and fragile—facing down a fucking monster. This wasn’t how this situation was supposed to go, though. I was supposed to protect her and keep her safe. Not the other way around. My bobcat snarled. He was as desperate as I was to stop this madness.

Xander’s smirk deepened as though he was amused by her protective stance.

“Nice try,” he sneered at her, mocking her gesture.

In the next instant, pure anguish blistered through me. I couldn’t fight against the shift he was forcing any more. A groan escaped me and I buckled over.

Rachel glanced back at me. Our eyes locked again, but this time I couldn’t tell her to run. I couldn’t speak. The force of the shift was too strong.

Giving way to my bobcat had always felt natural, fluid, blissful even, but now? Now it was like my body was being torn apart piece by piece and every nerve had been set on fire. My bobcat roared, pushing against my skin. He didn’t want to do this. Not like this, and not with Rachel here. Even so, his claws unsheathed and his fur sprouted across my skin.

The pain wasn’t the worst part of this situation, though. My bobcat and I both knew as much. It was fear. The fear that neither of us could stop what was happening and that as a result we’d hurt Rachel because we already knew that’s what Xander—Lucius—wanted.

When Rachel’s voice pierced through the agonizing fog clouding my head, her desperate plea cut right to my core.

“Please, just stop this. You’re hurting him!” she cried, her voice raw with emotion.

Xander laughed. It was a cold, cruel sound that made my blood run cold because it sounded exactly like Lucius’s laugh.

Exactly.

And then my bobcat fully took over. My vision sharpened and everything around me became tinged with the primal focus of a predator. I was no longer Ellis—the man. I was my bobcat—a beast—and one under Xander’s command.

My bobcat snarled; his attention focused on Rachel. His claws dug into the earth, and I felt every fiber of him wanting to lunge toward her. Even so, there was still a flicker of consciousness inside him, screaming for control and just as desperate as I was not to hurt her. She stood in front of my bobcat, frozen in fear.

“Ellis, don’t,” she whispered, her voice trembling in a way that tore at the edges of my heart.

I never wanted her to fear me—never. Xander had done this, and once I was free from his grip again, I’d make him pay. Dearly.

“End her,” Xander ordered, his words hitting me like a whip cracking through my bobcat’s skull.

He responded instantly, the primal urge to obey surging through his mind, overpowering everything else. I tried to rein him in, to fight him and Xander’s control—he tried too, I felt him—but his body was no longer his own. The instinct to harm her, to see Xander’s twisted order through, clawed at my bobcat. He snarled, ready to strike, and I knew there were only seconds before both of us lost this battle entirely and did something we’d never come back from.

“End her now,” Xander pressed harder.

“Don’t make him do this,” Rachel insisted, her eyes still locked on my bobcat even though she was speaking to Xander.

“You think your pleas matter?” He laughed. “Soon, you’ll be nothing but a memory.”

Something shifted in Rachel’s eyes. She no longer looked scared. Instead, she looked determined—fierce, even.

“I won’t let you force him to hurt me!” she shouted. “Get away from him—get away from here!” Her hand lifted in a sharp, almost dismissive gesture—and that’s when Xander went soaring backward.

His body sailed through the air, crashing into nearby trees. My bobcat blinked, disoriented, as Xander’s hold on his mind slipped enough for us to gain control again. Shifter magic pulsed through the air as Xander released his raven. The bird called wildly as its wings flapped in a panicked frenzy, and then he was gone—disappearing through the trees.

My bobcat stepped aside, allowing me to shift back. I struggled to catch my breath, while my body trembled from the whole ordeal. Fighting against Xander’s mind control for so long had taken it out of me.

“What was that?” I asked, my voice hoarse as I grabbed my pants off the ground and pulled them on.

Rachel’s eyes were wide and filled with disbelief when she faced me. “I think it was my gift,” she muttered. “I don’t know how that happened. All I could think about was him leaving—him getting away from us. And then…that happened.”

Maribel’s cryptic words from yesterday filled my head. She’d said something about how Rachel had to be here with me, how it was important that she came along today. Suddenly, I wondered if the old woman knew this would happen—that Rachel’s power would surface from this moment.

Before I could think any more on it, Rachel rushed over to me.

“Are you okay? You were in so much pain,” she said, her voice laced with concern.

“I’m fine.” I forced a smile. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah,” she said, moving closer to me.

The air between us charged, and when her hand brushed against my arm, the same spark of electricity I’d felt earlier flared to life again and my bobcat stirred.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she pressed, her gaze scanning me.

The pull between us was suddenly magnetic and hard to resist. I leaned in, giving into it, my gaze zeroing in on her lips.

“You saved me,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

She lifted her chin, her plump lips parting. I erased the slight amount of space between us and noticed when her breathing hitched. When she didn’t pull away or rush to place distance between us, I brushed my lips against hers in a featherlight kiss. She responded, moving her lips beneath mine tentatively at first, and then with more passion. I cupped her face and skimmed my tongue along her bottom lip, searching for entrance. She parted her lips, allowing me to taste her. Everything about her invaded my senses. My bobcat went wild as all that we felt for her suddenly made sense.

It was her; Rachel was our mate.

The instant the realization hit me, she pulled back. Her gaze dropped to the ground. I swore I saw a flicker of regret cross her face. It felt like a swift punch to the gut. Until I realized where her train of thought could have possibly gone—to the husband she’d lost. That was when it made sense.

I’d pushed her too far, too fast.

She wasn’t ready for a kiss. She wasn’t ready to move on yet. I needed to be okay with that. In fact, I was.

I’d wait forever for this woman if I needed to.

“I need to go home,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Of course. We should probably get out of here, anyway.”

I grabbed my shirt off the ground and glanced around, hoping Xander’s raven had left a feather behind but it looked as though we weren’t that lucky.

Of course we weren’t.