Chapter Ten
Xander
“Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.”
- William Penn
“What do you mean she isn’t here?” My voice was deliberately soft as I confronted Papa and my brothers. Yes, I’d left more than three days ago, but they knew that I would be back. Why would they let my mate leave their protective custody?
The last three days had done nothing to aid me in regaining control over my emotions. Instead, I was even more fucked up about my mate than I had been before.
“Alexandra was insistent on going back to work,” Papa said reasonably.
“And you let her?” He thought that he could do reasonable, but then so could I. Yeah, cold reason. “Alexandra would insist on going back to work because she has no idea of the evil she’s up against. She thinks that because she can alter minds that she can get herself out of any situation. But we know differently,” I told him softly. “You know differently. Adam and his fanatics are too strong. They could kill her in an instant. She wouldn’t have time to attempt her mind games.”
“What did you want us to do?” Luka twisted his lips in wry amusement.
I frowned, not sure if I was reading their emotions correctly. “Was there something I said that was amusing?”
“I find it amusing that you think that any of us has the ability to make your mate do anything,” Luka said, completely unbothered that I found his humor inappropriate.
“Not even close,” Drako added, his lips also twitching as though fighting not to smile.
“And if it was Luna they were after?” I asked in a cold voice. “Or Danika?” I felt as though I had walked into a script that I didn’t understand.
“I know how to protect my mate,” Luka said drolly.
Drako swallowed uncomfortably. “It’s not like that, Xander. We tried to reason with her, but she did something to our minds. The next thing we knew, she was back in Michigan at her hospital working. We did the only thing we could do and sent Owen with a few of his wolves to protect her. Papa did insist that she stay at one of our properties. It’s more secure than her apartment or house.”
“Even Owen with his entire wolfpack wouldn’t be able to protect her, and you know it,” I said softly, but I was sure that they didn’t miss the bite in my voice. “I ask again, if this was Luna or Danika, what would my brothers have done?”
“You left your mate, Xander.” Papa didn’t try to hide his disappointment in me. “You left her when she was most vulnerable,” he continued. “Did you know that when she expends that much psychic power, as she did to revive me, that she is as weak as a baby? She is weak and helpless for hours. And you left her at the mercy of a room full of powered immortals.”
“I left her with my family, who I expected to protect her.” My voice got more clipped and icier with each word.
“And we protected her as far as she would allow us to,” Luka drawled. “Your mate has more power than a normal human mate. We all felt it. I’m sure you would have, too, if you would get your head out of your ass.”
“I fail to understand what my mental state has to do with my mate being at the mercy of Adam and his evil friends. Hell, there were four of us, Papa, Zora, Drako, and me on that lawn days ago, and we had to retreat. I don’t care how strong you think my mate is. She would not survive an attack from them. Until she healed your soul, she had never been able to breach your mind. Are you so sure she can breach Adam’s, the Sorceress’ or any of his powerful friends?”
An uncomfortable silence fell among us for the first time in our lives. And for a group of men who spoke to each other as frequently as we did, verbally and telepathically, this silence was not just uncomfortable, it was unchartered. My brothers and I had always been close, which made this experience even harder to navigate.
When Adam and his friends attacked Luka’s residence to get at Luna, we came together to defeat them. When Danika was kidnapped and held by an entire wolfpack and horde of vampires, we came together then too. Protecting the mates was what we did. The mates and the children. The fact that they didn’t protect my mate stung, piercing my cold fa?ade so unexpectedly that I had no words left.
“I check on her every few hours.” Papa’s voice finally broke the thickening silence. “Drako and Tristan check in with her periodically. However, as Luka said, Alexandra is not the easy target you’re thinking she is.”
“She shouldn’t be a damn target at all.” Why were they refusing to see the differing attitudes they had toward Alexandra compared to Luna and Danika? “You know what, thanks for your support.” I let the sarcasm leak into every word.
“That’s not what this is!” Luka blasted. “We wanted you to own up to the responsibilities for your mate. Alexandra is family. Of course, we protected her.”
“Protected her? In what universe is what you’ve done called protection?” My voice was cold as Arctic ice. “You weren’t there for me, so why would I expect you to be there for my mate!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Drako demanded.
“When did we let you down, mishka?” Papa asked in shock.
They were all shocked. Shocked and confused by my outburst.
I ignored them all and left. As always, Boggs was there to get me to Alexandra immediately.
“Stalking me again I see,” Alexandra whispered.
I didn’t immediately react to the unexpected question in the inky dark of the night. I sat in an armchair that was wedged in a corner of the spacious bedroom. I had an unobstructed view of the king-sized bed where Alexandra, I thought, had been sleeping peacefully. Hell, after a double shift at the hospital, that should have been a safe assumption.
I had only been in her room for mere seconds and was soon fighting the clogging, persistent urge to mate. It was even more potent than before. I was granite hard and throbbing with need in my tailored trousers as her feminine scent filled my senses.
After our erotic shared dreams, every night since I left her, my desire for her had been escalating. Now with her so close within my reach, my control was virtually nonexistent.
“Are you going to pretend that you didn’t hear me? Or continue this creepy behavior?”
My lips twitched in reluctant amusement. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t aware that she was sassy, confident, and fearless. However, I was surprised that she was able to sense my presence because I was fairly certain that it was impossible to see me. Her windows were covered with black-out drapes, and there was no light, artificial or otherwise, in the room. Her human eyes should not be able to see me.
“As I’m not stalking you, there is no need to answer or discontinue.” My voice came across deep and raspy, primal lust making it almost impossible for me to think straight. The sound of her sultry voice only made me harder.
Alexandra sat up in her bed. She stared directly at me.
I had to fight to not react to that direct stare. There was no way she could see me, right? Damn, I wasn’t so certain anymore. The gold in her eyes glowed with excitement.
Her sheets were rumpled untidily around her ankles, a testament to her restless sleep. She wore a white cotton tank top that hugged her unfettered breasts and flat stomach and matching shorts that barely covered her curvy ass. Her breasts were perfectly proportioned and round, high on her chest, with their dark areolas topped with plump taut nipples clearly visible through the thin cotton. God, she was so stunningly beautiful that my stomach flipped, and my cock throbbed with the need to claim her.
“What are you doing then if it’s not stalking me?” she asked impatiently.
“Protecting you,” I rasped out. How the fuck did this happen? Why did I get this close? I didn’t want to feel like this or have this conversation with her. Pure lust pulsed through me like a drumbeat, insistent and steady.
Alexandra crept to the edge of her bed, getting closer to me. “Protecting me? Protecting me from what or from whom?”
Did she have no sense of self-preservation? I am a six-foot-six lethal predator, power and strength self-evident in every line of my frame. She had no way of knowing whether I was trustworthy or not, because, clearly, I was not harmless. I had gained access to her bedroom after circumventing the security of her walled perimeter, passing her security team on the grounds of the house, and breeching her electronic alarm system. Yes, I saved her once, but no one had good intentions when visiting late at night.
She should be terrified or at least uncomfortable with having a man uninvited and unrelated to her in her bedroom. Instead, she was sitting up in her bed, trying to have a normal QA conversation in the dead of night.
“Given your response to my unannounced presence, it’s clear that you need a protector.” I couldn’t help the disgruntled rumbly quality of my voice.
“How did you want me to respond?” She sounded confused.
“What about that attack a few days ago didn’t you understand?”
“You’re referring to the attack on Alexi?”
“The attack was against you first, in order to get to Papa and the rest of us.” I didn’t raise my voice, but there was enough bite in my tone to get her attention.
She frowned.
“While it might be admirable that you want to heal people and honor your commitments, all of that would be useless if you’re dead. You know that you can no longer stay here.”
“Says who?” Alexandra asked.
I gritted my teeth. “Papa has assured me that he has explained our situation to you. Hell, Luka and Drako explained it as well, and I’m sure Luna and Danika had their say.”
“Like I said, from all I witnessed, the threat was on Alexi and then you and your family, not me.”
“You are my mate,” I reminded her.
“Says who?”
Again, that infuriating question. “Papa—”
“Are you a little boy or a grown man?” she asked in annoyance. “I will not be the mate of a boy who leaves his responsibilities to his father or his brothers. Grow a pair, Xander! Because from what I see, you ran away from me. You are not prepared to stay and own any responsibility to me or your family.”
I sucked in a breath. No one had ever spoken to me in such a manner. No human at least. My size alone was a significant deterrent. I owed no one, not even her, an explanation for my behavior. I clenched my teeth together hard. “You are my mate.” I said it again in case she missed it the first time. “Not claimed obviously, but that makes no difference to our enemies. So, you will reside at Alexi’s estate until we kill those bastards.” She needed to know now that I would not accept anything except complete obedience.
“That’s interesting,” she said coolly.
I didn’t bother asking what she found interesting, knowing from her smug tone she would eventually tell me.
“You actually think that you have the right, and the balls, to tell me what to do.”
“Not at all,” I drawled after a long pregnant pause. “I thought that you would eventually start showing some of that intelligence Alexi claims you have. Between you coming back here and you refusing to grasp the danger you’re in, I’m not seeing it.”
“Kiss my—”
“Tsk tsk. That’s not very ladylike.” I surprised myself with the swift smile that suddenly twisted my lips. I was enjoying this exchange. Well fuck!
She narrowed her eyes. “Being a lady looks boring as fuck,” she muttered.
I chuckled. Yeah, chuckled. It felt so damn good, I did it again.
She sobered and asked quietly, “Why are you here?” She looked genuinely puzzled. “You have been stalking me for weeks, and you’ve never come this close.”
“You know, I had this misguided need to talk some sense into you,” I said conversationally. “I had no idea what an impossible task I was setting for myself.”
“I have been back for days, no witch or warlock, vampire or demon in sight,” she stated calmly.
I stood.
She scrabbled back and fell on her ass, showing the appropriate reaction to my presence for the first time since I entered her bedroom.
I had to fight the sudden urge to chuckle again. But then my gaze settled on her seductively curvy figure sprawled on her rumpled sheets. And then I didn’t feel anything but need. Raw, primal need. Hers. Mine. Hers again. The combined white-hot desire churning between us ricocheted through me, making me unsteady on my feet.
She was remembering our encounters the same as I was, and I was helpless to control the kaleidoscope of revolving erotic images from those dream-state encounters.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered. She covered her breasts, trying to hide their turgid tips.
I ached, bone-deep and potent. I was trembling with the effort to stop myself from reaching for her, and my gaze was helplessly drawn to hers. I wasn’t even shocked that her fevered eyes were glued on me unwaveringly and filled with the same hopeless need searing through me.
She whimpered.
I leaned toward her, my face mere inches from hers.
Her breathing was as fractured as mine. Our gazes remained locked. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed outside of us.
She licked her lips.
Alexandra
I tried. I really did.
After dreaming the same dream every night, and then waking the next morning exhausted but sated, I was still fighting this reality.
When Xander left me with his family, I should have been able to forget or at least dismiss him as he had dismissed me. But the physical reality of Xander had been too much on my senses. I had no control over my desires or my thoughts. So, it came as no surprise that I’d dreamed about him every night since.
The dreams had been on repeat. It started the first night he left.
His woodsy, clean scent and his warm masculinity remained with me constantly and played havoc with my senses. With the image of his imposing, virile frame clear and prominent in my mind, I slid my fingers slowly, sensually through my wet folds and closed the fingers of my other hand around the hard tip of my breast, pinching and twisting the beaded tip while switching languidly from one breast to the other.
My soft cries of pleasure only served to spur me on. My clit was taut and quivering as my essence wept from my center, making my fingers slide deliciously over my soft flesh.
Writhing on my cool bed sheets, I moved my fingers faster through my folds and plucked at my nipples harder. I was always so damn close, but my release remained elusive. And then I’d will Xander’s face to the forefront of my mind, and suddenly, it was as if his massive frame filled the space over me.
His presence seemed so real. His beautiful gaze held me captive. His scent was crisper in the air, and I’d feel his strong fingers gripping my thighs, the rough skin of his fingers digging into my flesh. Forceful and dominant, he pushed my thighs farther apart and slid between my legs until my thighs rested on his broad shoulders.
Everything about this should have alerted me and pushed me out of my lusty haze, but when his hard, broad tongue stroked along my slit, I was lost to everything but the pleasure of that wickedly skillful tongue. An earthquake, a tsunami, or even a damn tornado would not have registered at that moment.
He curled his tongue around my clit, licking and sliding over the taut, sensitive flesh. And then he closed his lips and sucked.
My loud moans echoed around us as I gripped the silky strands of his hair and held him close. “Xander,” I whimpered.
He ignored my cries, and instead, he relentlessly tasted me, using his lips, his tongue, and even his teeth to torment me. He slid his fingers over my dewy skin, my hips, my quivering stomach, and then closed his large palm over my breast with soft and hard plucks at the aroused peaks. The dual pinpoint edge of pleasure and pain had blistering sensations rocking through me.
He tunneled his hard tongue into my soaked opening.
“Oh my God!” My voice was raspy and hoarse with need.
His tongue was a wand of magic, and within seconds, I was splintering into stardust.
Xander’s groan and his whispered, “fuck it” brought me swiftly back to reality. Back to my bedroom with a real life Xander looming over me.
The gleam in his heated gaze told me that he was finally accepting the inevitability of what fate had decreed for us.
I was beyond any fight. I simply needed an end to this gnawing need.
Our lips were a hair’s breadth away when he abruptly stepped back from me. The serious expression he now wore told me that someone was speaking to him telepathically.
“We have company!” Xander said urgently. “Get dressed,” he ordered.
Before I could question him or move an inch, a loud boom sounded as an entire wall of my bedroom was suddenly blown away. Large chunks of cement hurled throughout the room and barely missed hitting us by inches.
What the… I didn’t get to finish that thought, as I sensed the immortals even before I saw them.
In the open space the explosion created, illuminated by the muted lights on the balcony of the bedroom, were Adam, with a contingent of at least ten other vampires and his red-hair sorceress, smiling back at us.
“Sophia, look what we have here?” Adam’s smirked
So, that’s the redhead’s name. Good to know,
They seemed more than pleased with their find.
I sat in the middle of the bed staring at the contingent, stunned and finding it hard to grasp how swiftly my world had shifted yet again.
Before I could utter a sound, Xander swooped down, hooked an arm around my waist, lifted me, and placed me behind him.
Owen, Boggs, and the other three wolves who had been guarding me came barreling into the room.
Again, we were outnumbered, but from Xander’s stance before me, he didn’t give two shits about that. He was determined to protect me.
Adam charged at Xander with a roar of cruel intent, and his guards attacked the wolves.
The red-haired chick stood back, but she looked dangerous as fuck. Her powers must have been impressive if she was standing out in the open like that.
Adam’s kinetic force slammed into Xander’s chest, but Xander used his sword to block most of it and slam it back at Adam.
Damn! Impressive.
Pretty soon, it seemed as if most of the attacks, most of the deadly fire and power orbs were aimed at Xander. He shielded me completely with his massive body and sword. However, even if he was hit by an orb, it didn’t seem to matter what damage it inflicted because he quickly transferred it to Adam or one of Adam’s vampires with a simple whisper from his lips.
I couldn’t help being impressed by Xander. I also never wanted him more.
Soon the room was filled with collective grunts of pain and hisses of frustration from Adam and his vampires.
Undeterred, Adam kept throwing power orbs and kinetic forces at Xander. Xander swung his sword with lightning speed, blocking and slamming everything that Adam threw back at him. He didn’t even look back at me but seemed able to sense where I was at all times. And I seemed to be able to perfectly shadow his movements, knowing that I didn’t dare distract him while he fought to protect us.
In less than a minute, more than half of Adam’s men were dead. Dusted and vaporized.
It was clear that those dreams I had of Xander on battlefields fighting in dangerous war zones over the years had made him a skillful fighter. He fought with a deadly efficiency that was both brutal and incredibly accurate. Just then, Xander spun in the air and delivered a roundhouse kick to Adam’s chest, simultaneously bringing his sword down on his right shoulder.
Adam bellowed in pain as Xander’s sword cleanly severed his arm from his body.
His red-hair companion screamed in outrage, and then she mumbled a spell that lifted Xander in the air, slammed him into the wall behind us, and knocked both of us hard to the ground.
One of Adam’s vampires grabbed my arm.
Ah, hell no! I was already pissed at the sorceress and wanted to beat the shit out of her for attacking Xander. So, I punched the idiot who touched me in his throat and the fucker’s head snapped back at an awkward angle as his neck caved in. I had hit him with a little bit more rage than I intended.
Damn!
Everyone stopped and stared. Even Adam, now being cuddled by his sorceress, who was even then reattaching his arm, stopped his screaming to stare at me in stunned silence.
Yeah, even as she looked at me, I felt my anger spike. That bitch was going to regret touching Xander. He might feel some sort of way about hitting a woman, but I didn’t have such qualms.
“You will regret that!” I growled and felt my eyes bleeding to black as I stepped toward the sorceress. Fuck! I fought to regain control, but I was losing it fast.
Xander hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me against his hard frame. “Owen, get us the fuck out of here,” he roared.
In seconds, we were in the wind.