Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

Asha

I startle awake, every muscle in my body instantly ready for a fight. Light streams through the blinds near me, and I realize that a big body is wrapped around me. A shrill ring sounds again, and I sit up a little to see Max sitting on the edge of his bed. He pulls the phone off of its charger, but he looks like hell. Like he hasn’t slept at all. His gaze meets mine and then jerks away as he stands.

“Hello,” I hear him say as he steps outside.

A shiver rolls down my body as I lay back down and guilt awakens within me. Today, we’ll be searching for the Blood Mage. Best case scenario is that we never find the body I tore apart, but chances are we will, and I’ll have to lie to Max about my involvement with it all. But what’s strange is that I’m feeling equally guilty about sleeping with Braxon.

And the fact that I haven’t slept this well in a long time.

Trouble is still lying on our feet and legs, but Braxton is fully around me, and his body fits mine so damn well. With him, I feel small, but not vulnerable. Protected but not suffocated. And it’s a strange feeling because I know next to nothing about this man. At least with Max, he’s shown me time and again that he’s willing to stick his neck out for me a little, that he has a good heart, but Braxton is a complete mystery.

“Asha?” His voice is rough with sleep, and I feel my nipples harden in response to the sound.

He shifts a little more, and I feel his hard erection pressing between my thighs from behind. Poking at my core. Hell, he’d be inside of me if we weren’t dressed. But between his thin boxers and my little pair of shorts, I have a very real sense of what it would be like if this big man suddenly decided to start fucking me.

And, for some reason, I’m not exactly minding it.

Actually, I kind of want to rub my ass against him really slowly and see if I can get his king-sized cock to bang me. Hell, it’s been so long since my needs were properly met, and right now I just want to slip down his boxers and my shorts and scratch an itch I didn’t even know was there.

It’s like he reads my mind. His arm tightens around me even further, and he adjusts himself so his tip is perfectly poised. I rub against him, just a little, and he groans into my hair, making me wet. Oh, fuck, he’s breathing hard. I’m breathing hard. Does he want this as badly as I do?

“Asha,” he pants, and his hand moves slowly down my arm.

I close my eyes and drink in the feeling of a hand that’s gentle on my skin. A hand that isn’t trying to hurt me. A thousand moments with the Blood Mages roll through my mind. The bruises that covered my arms from all the needles. All the blood. All the IVs filled with who knows what. I feel myself shaking, and then Braxton’s hand is there again, gently brushing away the memories. Reminding me that my skin has another purpose other than being a pincushion.

“You said you had a personal bubble,” he rasps near my ear, and I fucking want him to kiss my neck. Bite my ear. Moan and groan for me. “I said I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t enter it unless you said so.”

“I’m saying so,” I whisper, so softly I’m not even sure if he hears me.

But then his lips rub gently against my neck. It’s not quite a kiss, almost like an accident, but goosebumps rise on my flesh. I want more. I need more from this man. I want him to take away all my pain. To remind me that things can be good, if only for a short time.

His hand hesitates on my arm beneath the sheet, then travels slowly until he’s touching the bare skin of my stomach. I don’t know what he wants to do next, but I want him to do it. Flashes of the Blood Mages slicing my stomach open and poking around inside while I screamed and thrashed against my bindings rolls through my mind, and then Braxton’s touch brings me back from the edge.

I’m breathing hard, and he whispers, “I’m here. It’s just you and me.” Like he knows exactly where I went.

His hand strokes my stomach for a while, then slowly travels up beneath my thin tank top. He cups my breast lightly as I fight the shudder that rolls through my body anyway. But he just holds my breast, stroking it softly, as if waiting for my reaction, before his fingers close around my nipple.

I gasp and look back at him.

Those pale eyes of his are ringed with yellow, a sign that his desire, his control is more than I ever imagined because he hadn’t given one indication of how on the edge he is. His mouth meets mine and then we’re kissing. And it’s like I’m in heaven. All my pain, all my loneliness… it’s gone. His kiss is mind-numbing. It melts me in all the right places, and I don’t even realize I’ve spread my lips until his tongue sweeps inside my mouth.

When he finally breaks our kiss, his erection is fucking straining behind me as he rubs himself against me. “Thanks for coming into my bed.” His words are a growl, animalistic, and my wolf fucking loves that he’s losing control like this.

“You,” it’s hard to get out the words, “were having a nightmare.”

Trouble climbs off of our feet and jumps off the bed, then sits near the door. As if to remind me that Max is right outside the door, ready to come in at any moment. Ready to walk in and see me touching his brother.

For some reason, I push Braxton’s hand away and shift a little away from him, even though I can’t catch my breath. “Max is right outside.”

“And that bothers you… the thought that my brother might see us like this?”

My head is spinning. “Yeah, it does.”

“Why?” There’s a possessiveness in his voice that surprises me.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” There’s a low growl to his voice still, but it’s not sexual any longer.

“I don’t know.” Now, I feel frustrated. I can barely string a sentence together right now, and he wants to know… what? I don’t have a clue.

“You like him.” His words aren’t an accusation, more like a statement.

“No way.”

He turns my head to look back at him, and his expression is almost angry. “I’m not a fool. I can see the way you two look at each other. I can see the way you two never touch and do everything you can to not get close. If you didn’t care about him, you wouldn’t care about all of those things.”

“Or maybe all those things mean I don’t like him,” I tell him stubbornly.

Finally, he sighs and releases my face. He rolls so he’s no longer pressed against me, and I instantly miss his touch. His warmth.

I turn toward him and almost groan as I see his very large erection beneath the sheets. We were so close. And now all I want to do is lick his damn dick like a popsicle. Ride it like a damn merry-go-round.

And it’s so fucking frustrating.

“You two are oblivious,” he says with a sigh.

“Or you’re reading too much into nothing,” I tell him.

He looks at me and raises a brow, but then he changes the topic. “Thanks for laying with me during my nightmare. Trouble is the only one who seems to be able to help with them, but even he has limits. Sometimes I just have to ride it out.”

“No worries.” I hesitate, then decide the hell with it. “I have nightmares sometimes too.”

“Yeah? About what?”

My guard goes up so fast it almost steals my breath. “The past.”

But he doesn’t push further, just nods. “Mine is the past too. Sometimes I wish my dreams weren’t about real things though. It’d be easier to shake off weird, crappy nightmares than it is to shake off things that really happened.”

Like shooting a child? I tried not to think about what the homeless man had said because I don’t even know if it’s true. But even if it is, I’m the last person who should judge anyone for doing what they have to in order to survive. Especially when Braxton strikes me as someone who would only hurt someone if he had to.

“Agreed,” I say, and again I wish he was still holding me. Who knew a pair of big, strong arms could be so comforting?

“But some things we can’t forget. Some things we shouldn't forget. It’s our cross to bear for what we’ve done.” He doesn’t sound like he’s talking to me, but rather himself, but still, his words feel like blows.

That night comes back to me like it’s come back a thousand times before. Some moments are only broken fragments that live freely in my mind, and others are as clear as day. I see the moment the building crumbled. I see my brother on the other side of the flames holding that bloody heart, and then dark magic explodes all around him and red-eyed creatures emerge from the smoke.

And… and I ran.

I hadn’t thought anything in that moment. That was the thing. I never remember deciding to run away. I just remember being terrified and then the town was suddenly flying by around me. Growls and screams came from behind me, along with the scents of dozens of shifters and other supernaturals. But hearing the sounds and picking up the scents only made me run harder.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I said goodbye to my brother. Goodbye to everyone.

Never did I think about the fact that I was a coward who was running away. A coward who could have fought at my brother’s side. I was just running. Maybe crying. Saying goodbye to him and everyone else in that town.

I hit the woods and just kept running, circling around to the End. But I barely made it onto the path to the End when I saw them. A group of Blood Mages. My mother is on her knees in front of them. One of them said she was too old to be of use, and then they shot her with a bolt of purple light, and her skin melted from her body. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Skin gave way to blood and muscles, and finally her skeleton collapsed onto the ground.

But I was there. Tearing out one of their throats. Scratching. Biting. Clawing at the others until they’d restrained me on the ground.

In the distance I heard my sister scream my name, and then her scream was cut off in a way that told me what her fate had been.

I wish everything was a blur after that, but it wasn’t. Bodies were piled into the center of the town. Even pack members who were still breathing, just unable to fight, and the pile was lit on fire.

The smell. The sounds. They haunt me. Would haunt anyone, I’m sure.

It wasn’t until I was thrown into a cell that I saw who had survived. That, somehow, my brother had lived. It felt like… a relief. But not, too. And then my brother was taken away, and I never saw him again.

But how can something like that be a relief?

And when the Blood Mages revealed that I was the reason they came to our town, that I was the reason for all the death and destruction, even that small piece of relief was stolen from me. Everyone in the cells hated me. But I hated myself too, so that was okay.

“Asha?” A hand runs down my arm and I jerk away from it, coming back to the motel room and the bed with Braxton. My heart’s racing and I feel sweaty as my gaze meets his.

“I lost you for a minute, but sorry about the personal bubble.” He tilts his head, studying me, those pale eyes of his filled with understanding.

“It’s okay. My personal bubble… gets smaller as I get to know people,” I tell him, but my teeth are chattering, so it sounds kind of weird.

He smiles. “Just let me know. I never want to be the person who scares you or makes you feel uncomfortable.” And I believe him.

The door to the room opens and Max walks in with his phone in hand. When his gaze meets mine, I can feel the tension in his body. He glances from me to Braxton, and I inch a little away from his brother. Is Braxton right? Is there really something between Max and me? And how does he feel about me sharing a bed with his brother?

“We have to go. There’s been a murder,” Max says, storming past us and heading for his bag.

I think of the shredded body I left behind and try to keep my face blank. As long as Clinton did as I asked and got the hell out of there, everything will be fine. I just have to not give myself away.

And stop wondering about Max’s feelings.