Aaron
Sam is examining Mara and my mind won’t stay in this room. My magic did things tonight that I can’t explain. My power just moved, like it already knew what needed to happen, and the fucked up part is it felt right. Like my magic has been waiting to do exactly that.
I don’t know what that makes me. I’m not sure I want to.
I’m leaned against the wall in the corner of the exam room next to the visitor’s chair. Claude showed up a few minutes ago to look at Tiana in the next room, and based on Sam’s continuous smirking, my sister has had some choice words about me. I don’t blame her.
My eyes haven’t left Mara since we walked in. She’s on the edge of the examination bed in Torin’s shirt with warlock blood still drying on her skin and her tail swaying behind her in agitation. Sam applies a bandage to the gash on her arm and she hisses at him. He smiles at her, unbothered.
“It’s okay, little lioness,” he tells her. “I’m just giving you some ointment for the wound.”
“It’s unnecessary.” Her ears flatten. “I’m already healing.”
“Stop, baby.” I push off the wall. “Let him take care of you.”
The thought does exactly what I should have known it would do. I shift where I stand, adjusting myself. I notice Mara and Sam both staring at me. Sam’s nostrils flare. Mara’s ears shoot up.
Shit. Shifters.
I need to get it together. I’m in a medical facility and I’m standing here getting hard.
“She’ll be fine, Mr. Blackwood,” Sam says, and the smirk on his face tells me he caught every goddamn bit of that.
Mara purses her lips and looks away. Her tail goes flat against the examination bed.
Sam grabs his chart and starts writing. After a moment he looks up at me and those fiery red eyes drop to my neck. I lift my hand and brush my fingers over my claim mark.
“You’ve completed the claiming process,” he realizes, and his brow furrows.
Mara looks up and nods. Doesn’t say a word.
Sam lets his chart fall to his side. He leans toward Mara and she hisses at him, sharp and defensive, like she already knows what he’s doing. He sniffs a few times. His brow furrows deeper.
Mara hisses again. Her tail lifts behind her and her whole posture goes stiff.
“It might be too soon,” Sam says carefully, “but have you noticed a change in your scent?”
I clear my throat and try to hold it together. I can’t smell what they smell. But I know damn well what a change in her scent means.
Mara looks over at me. Her face crumples and she starts to whimper. Her tail is moving behind her in restless arcs and she shakes her head fast, her amber eyes locked on mine.
“No,” she says. “I haven’t noticed a change in my scent.”
“But you knew you were in the mating phase.” Sam’s voice is careful but firm. “Why risk your body when you’re preparing for pregnancy?”
Mara goes quiet. The silence fills the room and my magic sparks at my fingertips. I shake my hand and the sparks die but the anger doesn’t. I hate this. There are parts of Mara I don’t understand and it pisses me off.
“Mara.” It comes out harder than I mean it to. “Baby, answer the question.”
She looks between Sam and me. Hisses. Then she looks right at me. Her ears go alert, her tail snaps in irritation, and her face is set in something fierce and unapologetic.
“I will die for you,” she says.
Smoke curls from Sam’s ears and nose. I’m already moving from the corner.
Mara bolts. She spins on the bed and scrambles for the window.
Her claws scratch at the wall and she’s hissing between words, “No, he will lock me away again,” and she’s trying to climb the goddamn wall but I grab the back of Torin’s shirt and yank her down.
She hits the bed and sits, the panties Claude and Sam managed to find for her the only thing covering her besides the shirt.
Her tail falls flat against the mattress.
“That’s not good, Mara,” Sam says quietly.
“I see the obvious goal here was to piss me off,” I tell her, and my magic is pressing against my skin. “And you’ve succeeded.” I point a finger at her. “Do me a favor and knock this shit off for a bit.”
Her mouth opens like she means to argue, then snaps shut.
I start to sit next to her on the bed but a voice from the hallway stops me.
“HE DID WHAT?”
There’s a light knock on the door. Sam pulls off his lab coat and drapes it across Mara’s lap. The door opens and Jacob starts to step in but my mother pushes past him, her eyes blazing.
She looks at Mara, her eyes sweeping the blood and the bandage, then swings to me and everything goes hard.
“I know you didn’t attack your sister,” she snarls.
I hold my hands up. “Ma, I can explain.”
She storms across the room and grips the back of my neck. She bends me into a headlock and pops the back of my head until my ears ring.
“How you like that?” Another pop. “Who the fuck do you think you are putting your hands on a woman?”
“Ah—Ma—damn, Ma!”
She smacks the back of my head again. “You got me fucked up, Aaron.”
“Ma, I’m sorry, Ma.”
Jacob walks over and puts his hand on her shoulder. “Angie. Enough, baby.”
She releases me and shrugs Jacob’s hand off. I straighten up and grip the back of my head, groaning.
Tiana steps through the doorway. Grinning. Smug and satisfied and enjoying every bit of this.
I glare at her but what am I going to do? I attacked my sister. I lost control. I deserve worse.
My face softens when I look at her. “I’m sorry, Tiana. I lost control.”
She holds up her hand. Fully healed. “Damn right you did.” She crosses her arms. “I’m not one to throw hands, especially at you. You’re my brother.” Her eyes narrow. “Now tell us exactly what the hell is going on with you.”
“He saw something last night.” Mara cuts in before I can open my mouth. “It was a nightmare.”
She looks at me. I frown because it wasn’t a nightmare. But I’m not exactly in a position to argue right now.
I look at Tiana. “I’m truly sorry, sister.”
She huffs and looks away.
My mother pops the back of my head again.
“Ah—damn, Ma, okay.”
Jacob pulls her closer this time, wrapping an arm around her waist. She lets him, but she stays locked on me.
“Every time I see you I’m gonna pop you,” she growls. “How dare you. You know better, Aaron.”
Sam clears his throat. “It sounds like it’s been a stressful evening for everyone. Were you able to get whatever was going on at the Witching Glen under control?”
My mother and Tiana go quiet at the same time. Nobody says a damn word. Sam doesn’t need to know the rest.
I walk over to Mara and pull the lab coat off her lap. She squeals when I pick her up and her arms lock around my neck, her legs around my waist, her tail swaying behind her.
“It’s handled,” I tell Sam. “But it’s a matter for King Amir.”
Sam nods. “Just know that you have Ash Clan if you need us.”
I grin at that.
My mother puts a hand to her forehead and glares at me. “I want to see you at the Conjuring Hall tomorrow. Understand?”
“Yes, Ma.”
I conjure a portal. The portal splits beside us and I can see our cabin in the community lands through it. The dark living room, the moonlight through the windows.
“Wait, why—“ Mara starts.
I step through. The portal closes behind us and Mara wiggles until I set her down. Her feet hit the floor and she turns on me.
“Why didn’t you stay so you could get looked at?”
“I’m fine, Mara.”
She grips my face and turns it side to side. The bruises from Eric’s boot are still tender and I wince when her fingers press too hard. She catches it.
“You do not look okay,” she tells me.
I grab her wrist and pull her hand away.
“What happened?” she asks.
Her amber eyes lock on mine and I can’t keep lying to this lioness. Not after tonight.
“I opened the Witching Glen.”
Her breath stops. Her lips part and she just stares at me.
“You wanted the truth.” My voice comes out rough. “Well, everyone was right. I’m the fucking idiot.”
I turn away and walk to the sofa. I drop onto it and put my face in my hands because I’m done. I opened the Glen. I let Eric out. I put every person on this island in danger because I thought I could outsmart a vision, and all I did was walk straight into it.
Her hands brush over my thighs. I pull my hands from my face and Mara is on her knees between my legs. Her tail reaches up and brushes my cheek.
I grip her hips and pull her up from the floor and into my lap. “Don’t kneel to me, baby.”
She settles against me and her weight is the only thing keeping me from coming apart. Her tail curls around my arm.
“All of this from a nightmare?” she asks quietly.
I look at her and shake my head. “It wasn’t a nightmare, Mara.”
I sigh because I don’t want to say it. “I time traveled.”
She gasps. I put my hands on her hips to steady her.
“I don’t know how I did it.” I hold one hand between us and my magic sparks from my fingers, blue-gold light flickering. “My power doesn’t come with instructions. I have no idea what I’m even capable of.”
My hand drops and she’s looking at me with those amber eyes, warm and alive. My power saved her. I owe it that, even if what’s growing inside me is something I should probably be afraid of.
“I saw you die,” I tell her.
Her hand flies to her chest. I nod.
“That sword those warlocks conjured.” My voice is steady even though nothing in me is. “In a different future, they slam it into your chest.”
“Oh no.” Her voice breaks. “I walked right into it.”
I pull her close. She moves her hand from her chest and I press my face between her breasts and hold her so tight my arms ache. I can feel her heartbeat against my face and I close my eyes and just let it drown out the image of her dying that won’t stop playing in my head.
“I thought helping my father out of the Glen would save you,” I say into her skin. “That it would stop that future from coming to pass.”
“This is why you went feral,” she whispers.
I look up at her and hold tighter. “I love you, Mara.” It comes out broken. I don’t care. “Watching you die felt like a slow death. I couldn’t handle it.”
She puts her hands on my chest and pushes me back. Her face is serious. “And Tiana.”
I groan. “She was there. She watched you die. Same expression she had tonight at the tree line.” I swallow. “I lost control.”
Mara sighs. “Aaron, she tried to stop me. I wouldn’t listen. I was determined to help you.”
“Don’t—“
She starts to argue but I can’t hear it. “I cannot handle losing you, Mara. And I won’t.”
She goes quiet. Her tail goes limp against her leg.
I press my hand gently against her belly. “I don’t expect you to understand, Mara.”
She puts her hand over mine. Her fingers are warm. “I do, Aaron. I’m willing to risk my life—“
I kiss her. Press my mouth to hers before she can finish that sentence because I will lose my mind if she says it out loud.
She groans against my lips but I feel her smile, and she lets me have this.
The bruises on my face sting with every press of her mouth but I don’t care.
All that matters is her in my lap, alive, breathing, warm.
I wish she understood that losing her would wreck me in ways that have nothing to do with magic.
She breaks the kiss. I move my lips to her neck and press them against her skin.
“I’ll fix this,” I tell her. “All of it.”
She pushes me back and shakes her head.
“Eric got away because of me,” I say. “I just put Wintermoon in danger.”
Her face falls.
“We are not going to make it in our mate bond if we don’t start communicating better,” she tells me.
I drop my head. She’s right. I sealed her in our suite and put her to sleep with my magic. I kept the truth from her because I thought I could handle it alone, and all I did was make everything worse.
Her tail lifts from my lap. The tassel slides to my chin and lifts until our eyes meet. She gives me a smile, soft and certain, and my chest gives out. She’s been right this whole time.
I nod. “Okay.”
Her smile widens. I let mine drop because she needs to hear the rest.
“What I’m about to do is dangerous,” I tell her.
“Then we will face it together.” She holds my gaze. “You will not live without me?”
I smile because it isn’t a question. She already knows. I nod.
She cups my face with both hands and leans in until her forehead is against mine.
“I will not live without you,” she says. “I need you to understand that, Aaron.”
Those words hit me harder than anything else tonight. Nobody has ever said anything to me that meant more.
“I love you, Mara.”
“I love you more.”
I kiss her. It starts soft, her mouth curving against mine, and then I grip her thighs and stand. She wraps her arms around my neck and I carry her toward the stairs, kissing her the whole way. Her tail curls around my waist.
I’m probably going to die to save Wintermoon. But spending forever with my mate, I know it will be worth it.