Chapter Thirty - Eight

WOLF

Lowering her into the water, she slowly finds her feet, unwrapping her arms from around my neck. She looks up at me, and a shudder instantly spikes through my veins.

I carried Sasha in my arms the entire way back to the mine shaft, jumped on my bike, and brought her here, refusing to let her out of my sight; my beast was incapable of letting her go right now. Mason managed to find Sasha a button-up white shirt to slip on and gave us a change of clothes for later. I would have lost it if Sasha stayed completely naked back there, especially with Atlas eye fucking her. I just can’t calm my beast around that guy; he’s constantly got me on edge, especially when he looks at Sasha like he’s already claimed her. He looks at me like I’m just some fucking piece of dirt in his way. Fuck him if he thinks he’ll get anywhere near Sasha; after all this, I’m never leaving her side again.

Sasha is still caked in the blood of the rogues. I’m still trying to piece together exactly what went down back there, but I didn’t want to have that conversation with Captain Duche right up our asses. It seems wherever I turn, he’s right there watching us; whatever had him all weird before did a sudden one-eighty-degree turn the moment I said I was taking Sasha over to the hot springs to wash off.

He immediately insisted he come with us, like a fucking third wheel. Did he really think I would allow that, seriously? The guy clearly has a death wish. Witch or not, I don’t give a shit; he’s overstepping a massive boundary, which is going to get him killed.

As she takes a step away from me, I can sense how tense she is; the moment she looks down at her arms and the blood smeared across them, her breath suddenly hitched in her throat. I can tell that she’s crying; I don’t even need to see her face to be able to read her body language. I know this girl inside and out.

Every part of me is aching to close the gap, wrap my arms around her, pull her back against my chest, and hold her tightly. But I stopped myself, deciding to give her space. Unless you’ve ever been covered in someone else’s blood, you will never know how fucking raw and putrid that feels; the metallic smell sticks to you in a way that in-beds itself in your mind for far longer than the blood stays on your skin. Removing dry blood is way more difficult than removing it when it’s still fresh; it’s thick and sticky and a bitch to wash off.

I watch as she begins scrubbing her hands and arms, splashing water up at her face. A sudden circle of red begins to flow around her; it’s difficult to stand back, to allow her to do this when all I want to do is help her, erase every monster that created this nightmare.

The moment she lowers herself into the water, her body submerges and goes under. I’m still trying to calm my beast. He’s determined like never before; he never wants to let her go, never again. She stays under the water longer than I feel comfortable with, and I can’t help the slight bite of panic that tugs at my heart. But then, no sooner than my concerns begin to gnaw at me, she suddenly breaks through the water as she comes to stand up straight. Wiping the water from her face, I’m suddenly staring at her like a prowling predator as I move closer; she’s a goddess; there’s no other way to describe her.

I watch her tentatively as she stands in the water, her head tilted back, not a trace of what she went through anywhere on her body. The moment her head dips down, her eyes suddenly meet mine; seizing the moment, I crush my lips to hers as I instantly swallow her soft moans... Yeah, baby, your mine.

Her body reacts to mine like it’s finally home, instantly wrapping her legs around my waist; she begins running her hands wildly through my hair, allowing my lips to completely devour hers as she melts into my mouth.

It feels so fucking good to have her in my arms again, a deep, satisfying growl rumbling through my chest as I crush her body against mine, my hands roaming, squeezing her ass with one as the other makes light work of tearing the shirt from her body.

The warmth of the water cascading down all around our bodies, followed by the icy nip in the morning air, suddenly makes me lightheaded with the desire to have all of her; I need to claim her body, to feel my cock fill her up. The way her hips suddenly begin rocking back and forth over my cock as it rubs up against her ass instantly has my beast showing up in the irises of my eyes.

“Fuck, baby, I need you so bad,” I grumble as my tongue licks all the way down to her collarbone,

“Hmm,” The moan escaping her lips as her head falls back, pushing her perfect tits right up to me, has me groaning in response. My lips suddenly dive down over one of her perky nipples, and, fuck; my hand begins squeezing and kneading against one of her perfect mounds as my tongue licks circles around her hard bud, sucking and tasting her as she continues rocking back and forth. She knows what she’s doing right now and is driving me crazy; I guess two can play that game, princess...

My other hand dips down as the pad of my thumb finds her clit; an instant short panting gasp gets hitched in her throat, and I can’t help the smirk of satisfaction that that one action has on her; bingo, your weak spot is my PowerPoint, princess.

She suddenly dips her head down, her eyes colliding with mine, and fuck, me. The blue swirls dancing across the green and red have my breath hitching my throat, an instant shudder running from my spine to my shaft. And the moment she leans her hand back and grips my cock firmly in her grasp, my eyes nearly bug out of my head; running the pad of her thumb over my lower lip, a sensual grin creeps up at the corners of her mouth, satisfaction swirling in her eyes as her wolf crawls to the surface.

“I guess I’ve found my own PowerPoint to toy with,” It’s then that it hits me: mind link. Has my mind been open to her this whole entire time? But before I can give it any more thought, she suddenly lines the slit of her entrance up to the head of my cock. She instantly slides down, filling herself to the hilt as her pussy folds around my cock like a vice grip, so tight, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I groan as my vision begins to tunnel, my toes wanting to curl in satisfaction with her being impaled on my cock. The moment she begins lifting herself up, I instantly grab her hips and slam her back down hard. A sudden gasp has her mouth falling open as her wide eyes pierce mine; her wolf, her magic, it’s all swirling around her eyes like a hurricane.

“Fuck me, Wolf. Please...” She pleads in a moan, and there’s no need to ask me twice, even if her pleading moans drive me fucking crazy, I know if I don’t focus on her right now, I’ll definitely shoot my load way before she reaches her release, and that’s not fucking happening.

My thumb starts rubbing little circles around her clit as I keep hammering into her, the water moving wildly around us as we stay inside our own little bubble.

I instantly know when she’s close the moment, she screams out my name, finding her release. Her walls close around my cock like an iron grip, and I skyrocket over the edge as my warm sperm fills her up.

Completely saturated, my forehead collapses against her chest. Sasha folds her arms around my neck as she places gentle kisses along the top of my head; we’re both breathing heavily as we come down from our mind-blowing high.

As our breathing slowly calms, I suddenly feel her tighten her grip around me as I lower her like she doesn’t want me to let her go. Burying her face against the hollow of my neck, she suddenly whispers,

“Please just hold me a little while longer...” And I tighten my grip around her, ensuring she can feel every part of me in this moment. Sniffing back tears, she sighs...

“I did it, I- I killed those rogues,” My jaw immediately clenches in disbelief, my brows furrowing as I try to wrap my head around what she just said. But how can I... to be told that she died and then came back to life, just the fact that we’re both still here? How did we survive that stone being smashed? All I have are questions and answers I don’t even understand.

I decide to shove the chaos swirling around my own head right back, for now. She just told me that she killed twenty-two rogues, give or take because honestly, they looked more like they had been dragged through a meat grinder in most parts. So let’s deal with the fact that she says she killed twenty-two rogues... okay, that sounds normal, right? She must take my silence as apprehension to answer; it’s not. I’m listening to her and, simultaneously, allowing my head the breathing space to process what she just said.

Pulling back a bit, I’m suddenly looking deep into her eyes, tears shimmering behind them as she stares back at me; she seems... scared.

“Hey,” I breathe as I push my forehead to hers, “You did what you had to; it was either them or you.” Her bottom lip quivers as she nods against my forehead,

“I’ve never killed anyone before and...” I’m instantly shushing her as I rub my thumb across her bottom lip,

“Don’t focus on the fact that you killed those rogues; you didn’t have a choice... They wouldn’t have cared about killing you. I know you’ve lived a sheltered life when it comes to this sort of thing, but, baby, killing is something that just sometimes comes with being who we are; we’re not always given a choice to walk away.”

Nodding, she lets out a slow breath and, slower still, unhooks her legs from around my waist as I lower her into the water to stand. I can see this conversation is far from over; she’s scared. I can see it in her eyes and need to know why.

~

Riding up to the back gate leading into Erebus, Sasha slowly gets off the back of the bike before walking over to an electrical pad against the gate. Sliding her thumb over the finger pad, it instantly beeps as the gate opens. Edith told us to meet them back here and that they would handle all the issues back at the mine shaft; honestly, I wasn’t going to fight her on it; neither Sasha nor I wanted to go back there. The only thing I took was my bike and a change of clothes for either of us before we left for the hot springs. I didn’t even go into my room to retrieve my stuff; Damien said he would bring my belongings back once they were done.

I push the bike through the back gate before kicking out the stand; once secure, I slowly turn to face Sasha. She’s hesitant to be back here; it’s written in her eyes. She’s doing her best to shove all the emotions back, but eventually, she’s going to need to face them, and I’ll be right here to help her cope.

Walking up towards the pack house, everything looks so... normal. They’ve definitely upped the security; if I thought it was Fort Knox before, it’s way worse now.

Before we even have a chance to get to the back door of the pack house, none other than Atlas walks out. His eyes trained on us, narrowing them as he marched towards us. My beast immediately perks up his ears; he’s had enough of this guy.

The moment he gets to us, he comes to an abrupt stop. Looking from Sasha to me and then back at Sasha, his eyes suddenly lowered to the ground.

“Can we talk?” And for a moment, I don’t know if he’s talking to Sasha or me, but the moment his eyes move up to look at me, I know it’s me he’s after. Fine, I don’t mind getting this over and done with now. The faster he understands his place, the sooner we can all move on with our lives.

Looking down at Sasha, I pull her to me and push my lips to her forehead.

“You going to be alright to go inside by yourself?” Looking up at me, she nods. She’s trying to be strong, and I should be going in there with her, so Atlas better make this quick.

The moment she disappears through the doors, I look over at him with a scowl.

“Make it quick,” I grumble.

For a few seconds, he just stares at me, his jaw tight; there’s something behind his eyes that has me thinking that he wants to seriously out it right here and now, but then he suddenly pulls something from his back pocket and holds it out to me. I look down at it, eyeing the dagger suspiciously before looking back at him.

“What’s this?”

“A witch’s dagger, more specifically Lisbon’s.” My eyes lower to look at it again as I grit my teeth, and it’s then that he shoves it in my hand; the cold blade against my skin feels like it’s slicing through my soul. The moment the memory comes flooding back of what this dagger was used for when Mason... fuck, swallowing a hard lump, I try and force that memory right back; I don’t want to go there right now.

“So why the fuck are you giving it to me?” Cocking a brow, he smirks,

“Because it was nailed to your bedroom door back at that mine shaft, along with this note.” Pulling a piece of paper from his back pocket, he suddenly holds it up to me, blowing a deep breath. I slowly take the scrunched-up piece of paper from him, straightening it out; my eyes slowly scan the words...

‘You think this is over; it’s far from over, boy. Watch your back because this nightmare has only just begun.’

Looking back up at him, my face is taut as I grumble, “Caius.” Nodding, Atlas scoffs,

“What did you do to piss off this rogue so much?” Narrowing my eyes, I suddenly grind out, “I was born.”

An unspoken silence stretches out between us when I suddenly shove the dagger back in his hands, tightening my grip around the piece of paper in my other hand. I’m about to walk off towards the door when he suddenly pipes up,

“You know, she’s got enough to have to deal with now that her abilities have started to manifest themselves properly. It isn’t fair to add more to her plate when she’s hardly coping with what she has.”

Smirking, I nod as a sarcastic grin creeps up at the corners of my mouth; looking him in the eyes, I sigh,

“The only one adding more to her plate right now is you; the sooner you fuck off to wherever it is you came from, the better.”

“She’s half a witch and not just any witch. She’s the princess, and you are just a wolf, Wolf.” As he drawls out my name in a taunting way, my jaw suddenly ticks; my beast is right there in my eyes as I take a step towards him, looking him straight in the eyes; the swirls of red are suddenly dancing across the specs of gold like an inferno.

“You were probably brought up with a silver spoon up your ass, told you were special and that you could have anything you wanted. But here’s the thing: She’s my mate, fated by the moon and sealed by a mark. It doesn’t matter how much you want her, how badly you crave her to be yours... She will never be yours.” With those words hanging in the air, I can see the blue electric specs of anger swirling across his eyes.

Turning back towards the door, I head in without even giving him a second glance. In no more accurate words, as he used on me, he is not my problem.

SASHA

I feel a heavy weight almost suffocating me; Wolf told me not to focus on the rogues I killed, that I didn’t have a choice. But I’ve never killed anyone before, and the constant reminder of how good it felt makes me feel sick.

The moment I walk into my room, the memory of what happened the night I was talking suddenly comes rushing back. I thought I would be fine and just be able to push it all to the furthest part of my mind, only to deal with it once I was ready. But everywhere I look is a reminder that I’m the reason my father and brother are dead, why so many of our pack members lost their lives. Caius and his rogues came for me that night, and no one had to die, and yet, they paid the ultimate price for what I am.

And now, I have to live with that.