Breaking the Storm (28 page)

Jackal
froze. “Oh shit!”

I
’d had enough. If they weren't going to stop this, then I had to. Pushing them aside, I stepped forward slowly. Knox snarled at Luke, who was rolling on the floor bloody and screeching in pain. I clapped my hands loudly. Knox’s eyes locked on me. My chest tightened when a wave of heat rushed through my body. I lurched forward from the force of my knees almost buckling. “Drop it, Knox.”

Knox
tilted his head before dropping the mangled arm. Luke tried to snatch it. Big mistake. Knox lunged, biting down hard on his other arm, ripping into it.

“Baby
, please transform back. I want to go home. Our home,” I said tiredly. I began to figure out what was going on, and I knew Knox was not pleased with Luke or me. The black wolf stood there, massive, dominant, and focusing on Luke, who was backing away.

“I'm
not afraid of you, wolf-shifter. She’s mine,” Luke croaked like a lunatic.

I reacted first by creeping forward. Knox sniffed the air loudly, picking up my scent, but his glare was totally focused on Luke. This wasn’t working. My clothes were saturated with Luke’s blood, masking my scent.

I
had to get Knox to transform, but he was consumed with making Luke his next meal. “Guys, will you stop staring at me and give me the damn T-shirt.” Knox’s shirt was slapped into my hand. Pulling it over my head, I let it glide over my body before stepping forward again. I knew he couldn’t understand me in the state he was in, but he could smell the mixture of my scent combined with his.

He
lunged again, sinking his canines into Luke's calf. Luke was going to die. I sighed heavily. Soar, Jackal, and Rip were laughing hysterically. Mental note to self, payback is a bitch, and those three were on my sugar-honey-iced-tea—in other words… shit list.

Knox’s
nostrils flared, scenting my scent mixed with his. He growled loudly, lunging forward and grabbing Luke with his jaws around his throat. My mind snapped, somehow connecting to Knox’s mind. The room spun as his emotions battered my mind. My heart raced with the knowledge that my Fae powers picked a real fucked-up time to surface. It surged forward, wrapping around me like a viper. The power suddenly pulsed, sucking all of the energy and emotions out of the room like a vacuum. My body clenched as everyone’s emotions flooded my mind.

My
throat constricted with searing pain as Luke yelped loudly. I was scared out of my mind when I felt the sensation of wolf's teeth sinking into my throat. Tears of pain streamed down my cheeks. I let out a blood-curdling scream in tandem with Luke's horrific howls of pain.

Knox
's head whipped around to face me with his jaws still around Luke's throat. Releasing Luke, he let loose a low growl and then a whine. I sighed with relief when the pain abruptly stopped. Luke started rocking back and forth, chanting loudly in some sort of daze while the wolf snapped violently at him. The whole damn scene was just bizarre.

Knox
gave Luke a disgruntled stare before trotting over to me. He proceeded to circle me slowly. I froze, waiting until he moved around to my side, nudging my knee with his nose until I crouched down beside him.

I
slowly sat back on my heels, cooing softly. Knox nudged me playfully before sitting by my side, allowing me to run my fingers through his soft fur. “You’re even gorgeous as a wolf,” I said softly, relieved as he slowly transformed back to human form, instantly leaning back onto his heels tiredly.

I
ran my hands across the slick, taut muscles of his back. “Are you okay?”

His
breathing was hard when he leveled me with a hard stare.

I
asked in a hushed voice, “Who exactly are you?”

He
tilted his head in a wolf-like way. “Son of Ronan. Brother to Ryker Alfero. And Beta of the Alfero pack.” He scowled. “And when we get home, we'll have a serious fucking discussion about following instructions.” He pulled me up with him, clutching my body against him.

Pulling
back, I widened my stance, giving him a hard stare of my own. “Yes, we will. Wolf-shifter, you have some serious explaining to do.” I jabbed him in the chest. “You sneaky asswipe. You put a GPS tracker on my cell?”

“Well
, this
asswipe
just saved you from getting killed by that psycho warlock.”

As
stupid as this faceoff was, neither one of us was willing to stand down. It was like we were getting off on fighting like it was foreplay.

“I
was doing fine, Knox.” He arched a brow. “Okay, yes, I had some issues subduing him. But I was working on it.”

“What
even possessed you to come over here alone?” he asked with a sharp tone I didn't like.

“
I needed to know what he had to do with the Credence Curse.”

“That
bullshit? If you were just straight up with me, I would’ve told you that curse is a bullshit urban legend.”

“Bullshit
urban legend?” My eyes widened. “Before I found out about whacko over there and his demented family, every human that a Credence loved ended up six feet under.” He scoffed. “That is a fucking fact, Knox.” My anxiety was rising as my chest tightened.

He
crossed his arms, looking down at me with an air of disbelief. “So you left me years ago because of some urban legend instead of sticking around and fighting it out to the bitter end. Yep, sounds logical to me.”

“You
don't know what the hell you're talking about, Knox. Do you think it was easy walking away from you? Because it wasn't. But that's what we do… We walk away to protect those we love.”

“
Uh-huh. After you fuck them over… literally. You smile prettily, give men the
it’s not you, it’s me
speech and then move on to the next unsuspecting man. That seems like a pretty fucked-up way for the Credence family to live.”

My
eyes opened with shock. He figured us out. But there was way more to the Credence story… and he was oversimplifying it. “I love how you conveniently just glossed over the fact that we were trying to protect humans from dying needlessly.”

“I'm
giving you the truth with no fucking chaser, Storm. I always have and always will. Swallow it, digest it, and let's move the hell on.”

“We
protected humans. Like I was just trying to protect you.”

He
grabbed my chin, pulling it up so that our eyes were locked. “Let's get one thing straight. I'm your mate. I protect you, not the other way around.” His eyes narrowed. “You Credence women weren't protecting anyone but yourselves. You all used that
curse
as an excuse to keep every man at arm’s length.”

“You
don't know what you're talking about. I came here to stop Luke from killing you. I was done running.”

“Thanks
, baby, but I can take care of the both of us.” He grabbed my face softly. “I'm your mate. Next time, let me do the protecting, okay?”

A
sense of relief came over me. It was exhausting to always be the protector. I needed someone who wanted to protect me. A wish I would never admit to him. At least not yet. “Whatever, Knox,” I responded softly.

“Hey
, guys,” Rip snapped.

“Not
now!” We both shouted in unison.

“Okay,
but in case you're remotely interested, the crazy warlock just disappeared into thin air,” he replied coolly.

* * *

I was exhausted, angry, and hungry all at the same time. Not to mention the tension in the elevator ride was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“So,
are we going to talk about the wolf-shifter thing now?” I asked with a raised brow.

He
shrugged. “There's really not much to tell.”

“Oh,
I beg to differ, Knox. I just found out that the man I'm sleeping with is a wolf-shifter. I think that counts as a big deal.”

“From
what I've been told… the woman I thought was my mother stole me from the Alfero pack out of spite,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion.

“What
do you mean spite?”

“She
was a she-wolf who wanted my father, but he rebuffed her and mate-claimed my mother, making her Alpha bitch of the pack. So she did everything in the book to thwart my mother's powers throughout the years. And her bitterness got worse when my mother gave birth to Ryker and then to me.”

My
eyes widened. “Oh my gawd.”

“I
guess the craziness ate away at her. She challenged my mother to a fight to the death for the position of Alpha bitch. They fought. She won, killing my mother. But my father still refused to mate-claim her. That's reportedly when she went completely crazy and kidnapped me.”

I
thought my family was crazy. His was worse. “Holy shit! So she pretended to be your mother until the day she died?”

“Yes
.” His jaw tightened. “And she made me pay for being the offspring of a man who rebuffed her. Every fucking day of my life, she made me feel like shit. Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. She even drilled into my head that my father abandoned her because of me. I hated that woman. Then I started hating myself. For years I was wild, reckless, and even got into some serious trouble with a gang of shifters. That's when I met Liam and Kaydee. We had something in common… We were Others—unloved and abandoned.”

“Wait,
they’re wolf-shifters?”

“No
. Hybrid Djinn.”

“It
makes sense now, the reason she's so possessive of you.”

“Not
my doing.”

I
rolled my eyes. “Really? You fucked her… repeatedly. It was a fuck-spank-repeat situation.”

He
actually laughed in that panty-wetting, assume-the-fuck-position way. Damn his sexy ass. “Say what you want. I was clear with her from the beginning that it was just sex. And when you came along, the sex stopped.”

“
Uh-huh.” My brows furrowed. “And that scene with her between your knees yanking on your zipper? She was giving you a demo on how a zipper works?”

“All
orchestrated by her and Liam.” His jaw tightened.

“Uh
-huh… And he's still around because?”

“Because
believe it or not, he had a more fucked-up mother than I did. Yes, he's fucked up in the head, I get that, but you don't understand what it's like to not be accepted by your own kind. I have a brother who loves me and a pack that embraced me as their own. It's a family he’ll never have.”

I
just stared at him with my heart fucking melting. Just when I thought I knew everything about him, he unpeeled a whole new layer.

He
grabbed my face between his hands. “If there's anything you need to understand about me, it’s that I don't turn my back on people I care about. We're all broken. Some a little and some a fucking lot. But trust me on this, baby. If Liam fucks with you again, I will not only cut him loose, I'll get rid of him permanently.”

Oh
shit, I didn't even have to ask what he meant. The feral look in his eyes said it all.

He
sniffed the air, his eyes turning gold. “Let’s take a shower. I need to get the stench of that dirty warlock's blood off us.”

I
was too tired to argue, allowing him to walk me through the living room and into the bedroom suite. Tiredly, I started taking off my pants when he knocked my hands away, unfastening them for me. Once he undressed me, he quickly undressed himself, hustling us into the shower.

“Come
here,” he said, reaching for the shampoo, pouring some into his hand, and shampooing my hair. It was heaven to feel his fingers on my scalp, massaging it.

“I’m
sorry, okay? I thought I was doing the right thing.” My words broke off painfully. Knox didn’t respond. I was going to make a joke when I looked up and saw his clenched jaw and furrowed brows. I reached up, cupping his jaw. “What do you want from me, Knox?”

In
one swift movement, he wrapped his arms around me, yanking me against him, high against his chest and down onto his manhood. Gasping with pleasure, he braced me against the wall of the shower, burying his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. He looked up at me with emotions swirling around in the depth of his sea-green eyes. “Everything,” he said gruffly.

That
one word broke the damn of emotions. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, clenching as I tried to adjust to his wide manhood filling me completely. Leaning in, I ran my tongue along his jaw, running my hand over his wet hair. I blinked back the tears, knowing it was time to utter the words that had been said by my ancestors for centuries—ancestors who dared to love.

“I
, Stormy Credence, descendant of the Credence Fae-witch bloodline, give you all that I am freely.” I swallowed hard. “My heart. My love. My body is yours to cherish now and forever.” I held my breath, waiting for him to reject me because of my bloodline, but he didn't even blink. In fact, his lips curled up into the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.