Chapter 6
SIX
Z
I woke to movement.
At first, I thought someone was trying to sneak into our tent. I automatically reached for the knife under my pillow, the copper handle feeling like an extension of my body, and waited with bated breath. Tension lined my spine as I slowly, quietly, pushed myself into a sitting position…
I caught sight of light-brown hair just as Jax ducked out of the tent flap, the night swallowing him whole.
Confusion replaced my unease.
Where was he going?
Making sure not to wake my other mates, I slipped out of the too-tiny bed—having to wiggle my way out from underneath Lupe’s muscular arm—and stealthily moved towards the entrance of the tent. Casting one glance over my shoulder, and ensuring my men were still asleep, I stepped outside.
The difference between the camp at night versus during the day was surreal. Before, it had been full of activity, full of light. Humans mingled with nightmares—the few who were here, at the very least—and laughter rang through the clearing like wind chimes. Now it was eerily silent. In the distance, someone snored, the noise reminiscent of a chainsaw, and an owl hooted. Crickets sang in the surrounding forest.
I searched the darkness—blanketed by a haze of white from the full moon, softening the sharp edges—and finally spotted my mate standing at the shore of Lake Meade. Wind blew his brown hair back and caused his shirt to ripple around his body.
My heart tugged me towards him before my brain could even catch up. When I was only a few feet behind him, he spoke, his voice a raspy husk.
“The voices… They’re quiet.” He tilted his face up so he stared at the starry sky. “I’m not used to it.”
Not daring to speak, I breached the remaining distance between us and placed my hand on the small of his back. His muscles bunched under my touch before he forced himself to relax.
For a long moment, we stood there in silence, both of us staring up at the dark sky riven here and there with twinkling stars and a full, luminescent moon. I’d never been the type of person to stare up at the sky and marvel at the beauty of the universe. And yet…
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“It is, isn’t it?” He canted his head to the side. “It’s strange to see the sky without blood dripping from the stars or monsters crawling over the moon.”
I whipped my head in his direction. “Did that happen…often?”
I knew he had suffered from hallucinations, but that ? I couldn’t even imagine. My heart ached for him, for all he’d endured.
Jax offered me a soft smile and captured the hand I’d placed on his back. He held it between both of his. Sparks zipped through my veins, and hunger stirred to life in my chest. Bathed in moonlight the way he was, his red eyes gleaming like gemstones and his brown hair blowing in the breeze, he looked beautiful. Ethereal.
Mine.
“I wish I would’ve found you sooner,” I whispered, finding it difficult to speak around the lump in my throat. “I wish I would’ve found all of you sooner.”
How much would’ve been different if I had?
Dair wouldn’t have been subjected to years after years of abuse at the hands of his abusive father and brothers.
Jax wouldn’t have lost his mind to bloodlust.
Bash wouldn’t have become jaded and cynical.
Killian wouldn’t have been afraid to love.
Lupe would’ve embraced the softness inside of him instead of conforming to his father’s wishes.
Devlin wouldn’t have spent years alone—in love with a girl who hated him.
Ryland wouldn’t have felt the need to constantly hide in the shadows.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Maybe I was giving myself too much power. After all, at the end of the day, I didn’t save them. They saved themselves.
“I truly believe everything happens for a reason, Z. You came into our lives when you were ready for us and we were ready for you. Anything sooner and…” He slowly shook his head.
I understood what he was trying to say. Back then, when I first met him and the others, I hated nightmares and all they represented. I killed them without remorse or regret—all because of my need for vengeance. Nightmares killed my parents, after all, and I thought they murdered my ex-lover. It was only fair for me to exact my revenge.
How stupid I had been.
How young and na?ve.
“Sometimes I wonder how things would’ve been if Devlin had stayed with you—had kept you a secret.” A wry smirk tugged up the corner of Jax’s lips, revealing a hint of fang.
“I would’ve found you all eventually,” I said—and of that, I was certain.
I may have fallen in love with Devlin first, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t have been the only man I loved. All eight of our souls were meant to find one another. We were tied together—connected by a bond that transcended time itself.
“I think about our past lives a lot.” Jax focused on the stars once more. “A part of me wants to remember.”
“I don’t,” I answered honestly, a shudder rippling through me.
Seeing what happened through Aaliyah’s eyes was horrible enough as it was. I didn’t want to relive any of it.
And I sure as hell didn’t want my mates to relive it.
“Do you believe it? What Aaliyah told you? What she showed you?” Jax’s jaw tightened nearly imperceptibly.
I could practically feel the anger radiating off of him. For the first time, he didn’t aim his fury at Aaliyah, but at my father and the angels who killed me and imprisoned them.
“I don’t want to think about that,” I said, trying to scrub away the horrific images that barraged me from all directions.
It didn’t work.
Carefully, Jax guided my head to his shoulder and wrapped an arm around my waist. He planted a tender kiss to my temple.
“Are you hungry?” I whispered after a few moments of tranquil silence.
This far away from the camp and forest, all I could hear was the roaring of waves cresting the shoreline. It was peaceful here. I felt as if we were in our own little bubble, separated from the dissonant chaos of the rest of the world and the war that was soon to come.
“Z.” Jax buried his head in my hair. “You don’t have to?—”
“I know I don’t have to, dork.” I pushed him away and flashed him a tentative smile. “But I want to.”
His eyes flared, the red resembling polished garnet.
“Z…”
Licking my suddenly dry lips, I tilted my head to the side, baring my neck.
Hunger flared in Jax’s gaze—and not just hunger for my blood.
It was probably horrible timing. We’d just discussed one of the most traumatic moments in my history, yet lust still percolated low in my belly. Heat traversed my veins like lava.
What happened to me… That was a different life, not my current one. It was horrible, yes, and I hated watching it through Aaliyah’s eyes, but it felt as if it had happened to someone else entirely. I was Z now, not Gabrielle or Gabriella, and I wanted Jax with an intensity that took my breath away.
“Are you sure?” he rasped, his lashes lowering.
“Come here.”
Jax sprang forward with his vampire speed and tenderly—so fucking tenderly—tilted my head where he wanted it. His breath fanned across my sensitive skin, and the responding goose bumps pebbled on both of my arms. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
His lips brushed my throat directly over my rapidly beating pulse.
Once. Twice. Three times.
“Jax.” It was half a growl, half a plea.
I forked my fingers through his light-brown hair.
There was the slightest stinging sensation, and then…
Jax bit down.
My body spasmed as lust shot through me, almost painful in its intensity. My eyes rolled into the back of my head.
Fucking hell.
Jax wrapped his arms around me as he drank from me deeply, his lips suctioned to my skin. To the outside observer, it would look as if he were kissing my neck. It certainly felt as good as his kisses.
One of his hands crept up my shirt, ghosting over my rib cage, and then inched towards the underside of my breast. I wasn’t wearing a bra—having not been giving one in the pile of clothes left for me—so there was nothing stopping his searching fingers from coming in contact with bare flesh.
He pushed himself farther against me, and I could feel how hard he was, how ready. His cock rubbed against my hip as he palmed my breast. His fingers tightened around my pebbled nipple, and he tweaked it, causing a flash of pain that only served to amplify my lust.
I was a kinky bitch, after all.
“Z…” he whispered against my neck.
I had no idea when he’d stopped biting me.
His tongue lapped at the wound on my skin, eliciting a fresh round of goose bumps, and then he lifted his head. Blood stained the skin around his mouth, and god help me, the sight only made me wetter.
“I don’t want to have sex on the beach,” I told him as I reached for his shirt.
He allowed me to pull it over his head without complaint. Fuck, I could stare at his naked chest for hours. Days. He wasn’t as muscular as some of my other mates, but his stomach was a series of tight ridges that begged to be licked, sucked, and kissed. A faint trail of hair, slightly darker than the strands on his head, started at his navel and disappeared below the waistband of his pants.
“Sand would get everywhere—and I mean everywhere . I’ll be picking grains out of my ass crack for days to come.”
“Real sexy,” he murmured.
His tongue snaked out to lick at the blood around his lips. My pulse spiked. Lust stirred low in my belly.
“I don’t want sex on the beach,” I repeated, throwing my own shirt off and tossing it beside his on the ground. His eyes turned hooded with unfettered desire as he zeroed in on my bare chest. “But…”
“But?”
I pushed at his chest until he fell backwards on the discarded shirts. I immediately straddled his lean waist with a shit-eating grin.
“There’s a first time for everything.” I tugged at his face and forced his lips to mine.
I could still taste my blood, and that should’ve disgusted me, but it…didn’t. Drinking blood was a part of who Jax was, and I loved him. Every inch of him. Every facet that made him who he was.
“So you’re okay with sand getting in my ass crack, then?” Jax asked, and I swore he almost sounded like Bash for a second.
It was strange to see more of Jax’s personality shining through now that demons didn’t constantly plague him.
“Thank you for your sacrifice,” I told him, arching my neck so he could plant kisses across the skin there.
He paused when he reached the bite mark he’d left behind before continuing farther down. His lips closed around one of my nipples, and he pulled it into his mouth. His tongue circled the beaded nub, and I moaned low in my throat.
It occurred to me that anyone could see us now. We were only a few feet away from a camp full of humans, after all.
Yet I didn’t care.
I wanted the world to know that Jax was mine and I was his.
Sure, I might have to murder anyone who stared at him for too long, but…
Coherent thoughts fled when Jax released my nipple and rolled us so I lay on my back staring up at him. The shirts did very little to protect me from the sand below, but I didn’t care. A few grains in unmentionable places were worth whatever he planned to do to me next.
Jax kissed down my stomach and stopped when he reached the waistband of my borrowed pants. Slowly, with painstaking gentleness, he pulled them down, his eyes heating when he realized?—
“No underwear?”
“Wasn’t given any,” I replied breathlessly.
He chuckled and tossed the pants somewhere behind him. Hopefully not the lake. That would lead to a very awkward conversation when I had to ask for a new pair come morning.
“I want to thank you,” he murmured, kissing the inside of my thigh.
My hips jolted upwards.
“Thank me?”
He planted another kiss, this one closer to where I so desperately wanted him to be.
Needed him to be.
“Yes. Thank you.” He kissed me yet again—so close, yet too damn far. “Thank you for saving me.”
His lips found my pussy.
“Thank you for loving me.”
Another chaste kiss.
“Thank you for never giving up on me.”
And then he was devouring me. His tongue prodded my entrance, joined quickly by his fingers. As he ate me out, I forgot all about the humans and the war and the kings and my evil sister and even the damn sand. Nothing existed outside of him and the way he made me feel, like I was beautiful and wonderful and not at all broken.
Like I was deserving of love.
When he finally came up for air, I tugged his lips to mine and kissed him. I tasted myself on him, and it was intoxicating.
“I love you, Jax,” I whispered, rolling him over so he lay on his back.
I tugged at his pants until his cock sprang free, already dripping with precum. I grabbed his throbbing length and ran my thumb over the tip.
“Fuck, Z.” His hands landed on my waist.
I helped him remove his pants the rest of the way, and then I straddled him, lining his cock up with my entrance. Slowly, never taking my eyes off him, I sank down, loving the feel of him inside me. Filling me up. Making me whole. Replacing all of the darkness in my life with bursts of light.
A moan worked its way through me. “God, Jax. You feel so good.”
“Move for me, baby. Let me see you.”
I bounced on Jax’s cock as moonlight danced across his face like writhing, silver snakes. Pleasure hooded his eyes, and his lips parted slightly, revealing his fangs. He captured one of my breasts and squeezed it.
“You’re so damn beautiful, Z. I love you so much.” With his free hand, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged my face down to his.
Every brush of his lips against mine was a reminder of all we had to fight for, all we had to live for.
Love for him unfurled inside of me, but it was tinged with desperation. Any second now, this could be taken away from me.
He could be taken away.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I wouldn’t .
And as we fell apart together on the beach in the moonlight, I knew I would do whatever it took to hold on to my mates—hold on to these moments that only intensified my love for them.
No one—not the kings, not Aaliyah, not even the humans—would get in the way of that.
I’d like to see them try.