Chapter 53 – Marc
It was late by the time they made it back to the plane.
Wayla had successfully avoided and refused all the invitations to stay the night and she had managed to be polite while absolutely shutting Hatty down.
Marc had stamped down the urge to laugh more than once during the evening.
Watching the harpy fawning all over Wayla when she kept politely brushing her advances off was a masterclass in social manners.
He was ready to compliment her the moment they sat down, but Wayla closed her eyes and suddenly she looked exhausted. Like between one breath and another, she dropped the mask of perfection.
Her power leaked all over the cabin for a second before she tamped down on it so hard that Marc could see the headache forming behind her eyes.
“Wayla?” he asked hesitantly. She blinked a couple of times before her eyes focused on him.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?” Her tone was still polite, but now he could hear the tiredness in it.
“What’s wrong, sparkle?” The nickname slipped free and Wayla flinched.
“It’s nothing,” she said and then sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
Marc frowned. Something was wrong, and he needed to fix it. “Talk to me, sparkle. What’s going on?”
“Really, it’s—” Wayla cut herself off. “I hope you don’t hate me for this,” she murmured after a while.
“Hate you? I’d never hate you. Tell me what’s going on, Wayla. Did something happen?”
Wayla just nodded tiredly.
“What can I do?”
“Not hate me,” she repeated.
“Wayla, baby, you are not making any sense.”
“Tanner is a great kid,” she said, confusing him even more.
“He is,” he agreed.
“Smart. Too smart,” she murmured.
“He always excelled at school,” Marc said, still not understanding where she was going with this.
“I hired him.”
“What?”
“I hired him,” Wayla repeated, and she wilted in her chair. “I shouldn’t have, but I did.”
“Hired him to do what, Wayla?” Marc asked, trying to stay calm.
“I can’t say.”
“The fuck you can’t. That’s my little brother,” Marc wanted to shout, but he managed to keep his tone sort of even. “He’s barely an adult—” He cut himself off. That was it. Tanner was an adult now. He was able to make his own decisions. He was smart.
When Wayla opened her mouth, he held up a hand to stall her and closed his eyes.
He needed to think before he said something stupid and ruined everything again.
Tanner was young, but he had always been a quick thinker.
He rarely got into trouble. Hell, his little brother had bailed him out of trouble a couple of times.
So, why wasn’t he trusting him to make the right call now?
He opened his eyes and looked at Wayla, who waited silently. She was a… a stormbringer heir apparent. Part of the highest nobility and powerful as fuck. He was halfway in love with her. Did he trust her? Yes. Would she ever make a call that would hurt Tanner?
Fuck no.
The answer was crystal clear. Tanner might get hurt, but Wayla wouldn’t put him in harm’s way on purpose. Whatever she had hired him to do was inherently dangerous because she was who she was. She might have hired him to be her accountant for all he knew, and even that position held some danger.
So, he would need to get Tanner into training. If his little brother was going to work for one of the most powerful ladies of the realms, he needed to know how to fight. That was it. He trusted his judgment, and he trusted her. His little brother just needed to learn how to throw a proper punch.
“I don’t need to know,” he said evenly.
Wayla blinked owlishly. “What?”
“I don’t need to know what you hired him to do. I’ll get him into combat training first thing tomorrow morning, but I trust him. He’s smart enough to know what he’s doing.”
“But—”
“And I trust you, Wayla. I’ve been part of the Powerhouses long enough to know what kind of danger your position brings, hence the training for Tanner, but I trust you to make the right call.
If you think he’s your best option to do whatever you hired him to do… ” He took a deep breath. “I trust you.”
He wasn’t sure what he expected, but Wayla’s eyes filling with tears and her uncontrollable sobbing wasn’t it.
He unbuckled his seat belt and moved to kneel in front of her.
Slowly, he reached over and took her hands in his.
Her skin was cold and clammy, and Marc rubbed her knuckles with his thumbs.
“Baby, please. Don’t cry.” He unbuckled her and lifted her into his arms, so they ended up sprawled on the floor.
She just cried harder, clinging to him. Thunder rumbled outside.
The plane shook. Marc glanced outside when a barrage of lightning bolts lit up the night sky. He could hear the pilots cursing.
“It came out of nowhere!”
“No, we can’t go around it!”
He crushed Wayla harder against his chest. “Sparkle, you need to breathe.” His own heart was pounding hard, but hell if he was going to make this worse by panicking. “Do you hear me, baby? Breathe.”
Her whole body shuddered and her breathing caught in another sob.
The pilots were calling for them to buckle up, but he wasn’t moving.
His girlfriend—and if they got out of this alive, that was what she was going to be—needed him to talk her down from the edge.
Either he would succeed, or her storm would bring them down and kill them all.
As motives went, that was pretty sufficient.
“Wayla,” he called her name firmly and shook her gently. “Baby. I need you to snap out of this.”
More tears spilled down her cheeks, but Marc felt her fingers dig into his arms hard enough to bruise.
“I’m here, baby. I’ve got you. It’s all right. Just breathe with me, okay?”
Wayla blinked furiously. Tears kept coming, but she seemed to hear him. Her breathing was ragged, but she tried to inhale with him.
“That’s it. That’s my good girl. Keep going. I’ve got you.”
This time, she held her breath for a fraction of a second before another sob rocked her body.
Marc leaned in to kiss her cheek and lifted her a bit higher.
The dress she wore to the party was low cut and Jarred’s claiming mark shone like the lightning was fizzling under it.
By some instinct he couldn’t explain, Marc closed his mouth over that mark and bit.
The pain that exploded in his head for a second almost took him out before his shields kicked in.
He could still feel the lightning coursing over his body and he could barely breathe, but it no longer fried his brain.
Wayla arched in his arms and the plane shook so hard that Marc banged against the chairs. He refused to let go.
Safe. Mine. I’m not letting you go. Come back to me, baby. Breathe.
Thoughts rattled in his head in an endless loop, and he poured his whole focus on them. Wayla fell limp in his arms. Between one heartbeat and the next, the pain and pressure against his shields vanished. The flight evened out. Still, his jaw was locked in place, unable to let go.
Safe. Breathe.
The thunder still rumbled, but it didn’t sound so furious anymore.
The lightning didn’t hit as close. Marc flexed his jaw slightly, adding and releasing pressure on his bite in time with his breathing.
Wayla’s ragged breaths pierced his heart, but she was breathing.
The thunder waned until only heavy rain rattled against the windows.
That’s it, baby. I’ve got you.
“Ma-Marc?”
He didn’t dare to release the bite, so he cupped her cheek and wiped away the tears with one hand. I’m here. Just keep breathing, baby.
“I…” She gasped for air but didn’t struggle against his hold. Slowly, her breathing deepened. The shouting in the cockpit had quieted down and now the sky outside was clearing. He still didn’t want to release the bite.
Wayla cleared her throat several times and took her time breathing in deeply before she spoke. “I almost crashed the plane, didn’t I?”
She almost had, but he wasn’t going to bring it up, Marc thought, clutching her a bit tighter.
“You know I can hear you, right?”
“What?” He missed the feeling of her throat in his mouth as soon as he let go and felt a weird emptiness in his mind.
Wayla frowned. “What was that?”
“What?” he repeated.
“That feeling.” She lifted her hands and rubbed at her temples.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Now, are you steady enough to sit up if I hold you?”
“I’m fine.”
“And I’m the Emperor of Sugarlands,” Marc shot back, unreasonably irritated. When Wayla started to roll her eyes at him, he lurched forward and bit her mark again.
This time, instead of pain, he was flooded with lust so potent he almost came in his pants. Again, it took only a second for his shields to kick in and for the feeling to subside, but the implications almost fried his brain nonetheless.
Wayla gasped. “Marc.”
He licked the mark, and her voice turned into a throaty moan. This shouldn’t be possible.
“What’s not possible?” Wayla shimmied in his hold and caused his cock to swell even more.
I’m not coming in my pants, for fuck’s sake!
“I don’t mind as long as you get me off too,” Wayla moaned. The lust kept battering his shield, more insistent than the pain.
Slowly, Marc forced himself to release her neck and sit up straighter. I want to eat you out until you pass out, baby.
Wayla kept breathing in deep, eyes dilated and a bit glassy.
Marc still wanted to bite the fuck out of her, a feeling that he didn’t recognize, but this time, he wanted to leave his own mark. It took all of his willpower to only kiss Jarred’s claiming mark gently.
Mage bonding without a spell shouldn’t be possible, baby. Yet here we are.
What? “What!” The shriek came out of her, both in her mind and mouth. Marc couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Mages bond with a very long and very elaborate spell, baby. I guess my magic took my declaration as such.”
“What declaration?” Wayla pushed herself into a sitting position, but she didn’t struggle away from him.
“That if we made it out of this plane alive, you’d be my girlfriend. Mine.”
Wayla’s eyes widened. She blinked, and then stared at him, mouth slightly parted. “What?”
“I meant it, baby. I can pretend to give you some time, but I won’t lie and say I don’t have every intention of wearing you down if need be.”
A thought made him stop, and he idly stroked over Wayla’s arms. It was true that mage bonding required an intricate spell, but that was to set all the expectations up clearly. To focus intent and channel the magic right.
His intent and need were crystal clear. To cherish the creature lying in his arms till the day he died. Then there was the part that the bonding did not happen if both parties didn’t agree. The spell just didn’t take if either had any doubts.
“G-girlfriend,” Wayla choked out, looking a bit dazed.
The widest grin he had ever held spread over Marc’s face. “Yeah, baby. Girlfriend. But you gave me something better, more precious. Bonded.”
When he looked down at her throat, a small, satisfied growl burst free. There, next to Jarred’s claiming bite mark, was an intricate purple lace pattern that started from the bite and rose all the way up to her ear. The color was visible but faint enough that it didn’t draw the eye.
Marc couldn’t help but lean down and kiss the pattern. Wayla shivered in his arms and craned her neck to give him more access.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
It seemed that his bonded was having a moment. Marc chuckled. I’m sure I can arrange that, bonded. They were still at least a couple of hours from home, and the bedroom on the plane was a pretty good place to start.
You can hear my fucking thoughts!?
Only when I’m touching the mark. Marc leaned back. “At least for now. With time, the connection should strengthen and allow more flexibility, even some distance.”
“Bonded?” Wayla gaped at him. “Like Claimed or mate, but mage stuff?”
Marc nodded. The look in Wayla’s eyes was wild, almost panicked. Immediately, Marc felt the need to soothe her. He gathered her closer. “Shh, baby. It’s all right. I’ve got you. You are safe.”
“But I’m not!” She shook her head. “And now you aren’t either. Can you take it back? If you don’t want it anymore, can you take it back? Can you break the bond?” Wayla’s panicked questions crushed his heart.
“Wayla… The bond wouldn’t take if both of us hadn’t wanted it. The magic doesn’t lie—”
“I’m not talking about that,” she shrieked. “If you change your mind, can you break it?”
Marc frowned, hurt radiating all over him, but he forced himself to reply. “Yes. It will be fucking hard, but it’s possible.”
She let out a long sigh and slumped against his chest like she had lost all her strength. “Good,” she mumbled. Just when Marc was ready to say something he would probably regret, she continued. “Siren bonds are unbreakable.”
The time slowed down. Marc’s shields formed around them without a thought, cutting them off from the rest of the world. Wayla buried her face against his neck and breathed in deep. Her forehead touched the mark forming into his neck and the connection snapped in place easily.
I don’t want to hurt him.
She nuzzled him some more, and the link faded when she rested her head against his shoulder. Carefully, very carefully, Marc pulled her back against his neck.
Siren bonds? he asked. He had half a mind to charge into the cockpit and kill the pilots just on the off chance that they had overheard her soft words.
Wayla remained pliant and quiet in his arms.
“Baby?” He nudged her gently.
“Safe,” she murmured.
“What?” he asked, but the clarification followed in their bond at the same time. His bonded was seconds away from falling asleep because she was emotionally exhausted. And because she felt safe.
Bonded. Safe.
The thoughts were almost slurred but rang true. They made his heart swell and wiped the echoes of pain and hurt away.
“Yes, baby. You are always safe with me. I swear it.”
Bonded sex… later.
She was asleep before Marc’s laughter tapered out.