Mara #2
The chains, the spheres, the storm, gone in the space of that one snap.
The clouds peel back off the sky and the warm evening floods into the hole where the storm used to be, and Tiana stands alone in the middle of the ring with her chest heaving and her brown eyes back in her head and not a thing left around her wrists.
The whole cul-de-sac has gone dead quiet.
“Holy shit,” Kade breathes beside me. Her blue eyes are huge.
Aaron rolls his shoulders. “Got that one from Uncle Amir.”
Nobody answers him. The fear-scent hangs over House of Zorah so thick I could chew it, every wolf and witch in the ring staring at this man like they’ve never laid eyes on him before.
I don’t know him right now either. And Mother Fate help me, that does something to me I’m not ready to look at.
Aaron holds out his palm, and light gathers over it, and a picture builds itself in the air for all of us to see.
It’s Eric. Somewhere I don’t recognize, gray and shaking, being half-dragged through a hole punched in the world by the one man I’ve only seen once.
Henry. The portal’s edges go dark and oily, and Eric stumbles toward them barely on his feet.
But Henry doesn’t follow him through. He stops in the mouth of his own portal and turns his head, slow, scanning the dark like he can feel eyes on the back of his neck.
His gaze lands somewhere I can’t see, and Aaron answers it.
“Yeah, asshole. I’m watching.” His voice is ice. “As long as Eric is anywhere near you, I’ll always know exactly where you are.”
The picture caves in on itself, scatters into sparks, and goes out.
Tiana crosses to her brother fast, then pulls up a little short of him, hands staying where he can see them. And all at once I understand: she’s figured out the same thing the rest of us just did, standing in this ring. She will not be crossing this man again.
“You can find him.” All the fight she just lost to him is back in her voice, aimed somewhere else now. “So we don’t wait, Aaron. We move tonight, before Eric drifts off from Henry’s side and you lose him again.”
“No.” Aaron says it so soft, almost to himself.
He turns from his sister and walks toward me, the storm gone out of his face. What’s left underneath is aimed straight at me—and my lion finally remembers that I threw myself into a wall of lightning, and that my mate stood and watched me do it.
His shield drops away from in front of me.
I break into a run.
I know that look. Claws out, tail streaming, I race for the gap between the cabins. My lion drives into my legs and the world blurs. A portal tears open in the grass right where my foot comes down, and I drop straight through.
I hit the floor of our cabin on the community lands—hands and knees on the soft rug, tail lashing the air. Home. Miles from the cul-de-sac I was just standing in. The portal hangs open above me, and Aaron drops in, calm as anything, and looks back at his family on the other side.
“Ma. I think you had a point.” He says it almost gentle. “I’ll think this through the rest of the day. We meet tomorrow and make our plans.”
Through the portal I hear Kade. “I’ve gotta get back to the Market.” She teleports away, leaving a black cloud of smoke where she stood.
Then Angie’s face fills the far side of the portal, and she’s stalking toward it with one finger already up. “Oh, hell no. I know exactly what you’re up to, Aaron Blackwood. You keep your ass out of that Witching Glen, you hear me—“
“Bye, Ma.”
Aaron snaps the portal shut.
The room drops silent. It’s just the two of us now.
I push up off the floor and round on him, a hiss curling up out of me. “You are not locking me away.”
“No.” He’s already moving toward me, slow and easy. “Not yet.”
I bolt for the door and yank the handle. It doesn’t budge. The whole frame flares faint blue-gold under my hand, his magic holding it shut against me. He’s locked me in. I round on him with a hiss, my tail snapping, my whiskers flat to my face.
He isn’t even hurrying. That’s the worst part of it. He just watches me from the middle of the room with his hands loose at his sides.
I run for the stairs.
I’m up them fast, and when I look back over the railing he’s still at the bottom, one hand resting on the banister, his head tipped up at me. His voice comes after me low and even.
“I told your ass to stop putting yourself in danger. Did you listen? No.” He hasn’t moved an inch. “So let me show you that I mean what I say.”
My tail stands straight up off my back. I hiss at him one more time, full and furious, and I throw myself around the landing and into our bedroom—
And slam chest-first into a wall of him.
He’s already here. Standing in the middle of our room like he’s been waiting on me the whole time, like he didn’t just call up the stairs at me a moment ago.
My heart nearly falls out of my chest. My claws spring out on a pure jolt of fright, my whole body recoiling from the impossibility of him appearing in front of me out of empty air.
And then his mouth is on mine, and whatever I was about to hiss at him dies against his lips.
He kisses me deep and slow, one hand driving into the hair at the back of my head and the other splaying warm across the small of my back to haul me flush against him.
My claws are out. They curl against his chest and go no further.
My lion, who was raging seconds ago, goes molten under his hands.
He licks into my mouth slow and certain, taking his time now, like he hadn’t just cornered me in our own bedroom, like we have all night.
My knees buckle. He feels them go and presses in harder, swallowing the broken little sound I make against his mouth, his beard rough on my chin, his fist closing in my hair to tip my head exactly where he wants it.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs into my mouth, and kisses me deeper.
I’m shaking, and none of it is fear. His scent is everywhere now, coffee and sandalwood and the burnt-bright tang of all that power still on his skin.
My tail comes up and winds around his thigh.
He smiles against my lips when he feels it.
My lion has surrendered to him completely, and so, Mother Fate help me, have I.
He bends, gets an arm under my knees, and lifts me off my feet without breaking the kiss.
I let him, my arms coming up around his neck.
He carries me across the room like I weigh nothing and lays me down in the middle of our bed.
Then he’s on me, his weight settling over me, his mouth never leaving mine.
“Now,” he says against my skin. “Let me make my point.”