Claiming His Fire (6 page)

That hair, that skin, those damned green eyes all danced in my mind. But it was Scarlett’s smile that had me groaning and pumping faster. The smile she gave someone else. The smile that had never been for me. The smile that made my heart almost put itself back together.

I came with a grunt, equal parts relieved, frustrated, and thoroughly pissed. The girl had already refused me; why couldn’t I get her out of my mind? Why couldn’t my soul let her go and head off to mourn the loss of our mate in peace?

Why couldn’t I curl up and die in the forest the way my father had when my mother eventually rejected him?

Ten hours, one huge plate of ribs, and endless stories of what had been going on at the denhouse while I’d been out of town later, I was back at work with Phoenix finishing the toe kick along the baseboard we’d already installed. The whole first floor looked as if it belonged in a different house with the dark, hand-sawn flooring. More natural and warm. I liked it, and it fit the couple who lived there. A shifter and a witch in the middle of suburbia. That thought made me smirk.

As we moved to measure the last wall that needed trim, my heart nearly exploded in my chest.
Scarlett.
I felt her long before I heard her car, indicating our bond was growing stronger, not weakening, as I would have expected. She’d refused me; her not accepting the mating should have shattered my heart, not secured it to hers.

As she turned onto the gravel driveway, my stomach dropped and my hands shook, anxious dread making me sweat. My inner wolf surged forward, past all my nervousness, ready and willing to make an appearance. My tiger stalked, calm and ready to claim his mate. That burn, that fire she started within me when we met, roared to life. From a soft smolder to a raging inferno in a matter of seconds. And I’d thought my heart had already been incinerated. Silly me.

My ears picked up every motion, every swish and crinkle. The slide of her clothes against the leather seats, the slight crunch of her feet on the gravel, and the staccato beat of her heart as she stepped onto the porch. I waited, completely focused on the door even as my eyes looked over the ticks of the tape measure, my heartbeat matching hers. She waited as well, breathing hard, taking more seconds than normal before she walked inside without knocking. Before her scent and the need to be near her nearly knocked me off my feet.

“What’s up, Scar?” Phoenix asked.

I didn’t look up, didn’t bother trying to see her. If she didn’t want me, I’d make sure she didn’t have to deal with me. I’d leave her alone to give her the chance to completely sever the bond between us, no matter how much it hurt. Once I finished installing this fucking moulding and got the hell away from this house, that is.

“Just came to drop some things off for Zuri.” Her voice floated across the room, slicing through me, making me have to fight to hold back a whimper. “She around?”

“Kitchen.” Phoenix turned on the saw, effectively covering all traces of Scarlett with the whine of the blade and the scent of sawdust.

“By the Goddess,” Scarlett said with a rough laugh. “If she’s barefoot, pregnant,
and
in the kitchen, I’m done.”

Phoenix snorted. “You go and say that to her, Sparky. I’m pretty sure she’ll hailstorm your ass.”

As they laughed and chatted, I knocked in a few more finishing nails before going back over them with the nail set to make sure the head sat below the surface of the wood. One more section, a little wood filler, and I could escape the hell that was being in the same space as the mate who didn’t want me. Ten minutes, tops.

“You guys want a beer?” Zuri asked as she walked into the room. I looked up but kept my eyes on Phoenix’s mate, ignoring the need to search out my own. Hardly even noticing the pretty turquoise sweater she wore or the way her multicolored hair tumbled in soft waves over her shoulders like liquid fire.

“Not me,” I said, my voice a little hoarse. “But thank you for offering.”

“We’re almost done here, babe,” Phoenix said. He held the next piece against the wall so I could nail it in place. Once secured, he moved behind me to set the nails so I could fill in the holes they left behind. Good man…eight minutes and counting.

“You going out with that same guy tonight?” Zuri asked. Time screeched to a halt, and my blood ran cold. Fuck and shit and all things wrong, no. Not now. I was barely holding on to my control. I didn’t need to hear—

“Uh…yeah. He’s coming to pick me up in a bit.”

Some kind of nail and coffin analogy flitted through my memory, but I was too far gone to grasp it. My mate didn’t want me; she wanted another. A man she allowed to breach those high walls of hers. To woo her. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, fighting back the need to snarl. The tiger inside of me inched forward, still wary but ready to roar his displeasure as well. He wasn’t the type to share. Hell, neither was I.

“Well, I appreciate you exchanging the sheets for me,” Zuri said, oblivious to the war raging within me. “I haven’t felt much like driving lately.”

I shook off my rage and pounded in the last nail, fighting the whole time to control the beasts within. My hands shook as I worked the filler into the holes, my body battling my mind. I wanted to look at Scarlett, wanted to talk to her, see her, touch her. To scale those fucking walls and get close to her. Wanted to make her
see
me not just as Phoenix’s friend, but as a potential suitor or mate.

Instead, I focused on the nail and the hammer, smacking them down, banging louder and harder than was needed. She didn’t want me. If she hadn’t made that clear before, her going on a date with someone else was enough to set that burn deep. She’d chosen someone else over me, probably the Ken doll from the bar. Someone who appeared to be the exact opposite of me, with his pressed pants and collared shirts, his perfectly-in-place blond hair and his all-American look. I was a jeans and T-shirt guy, a helmet-head or windblown kind of man, one with inky black hair like my mother’s people and a slight tilt to my eyes that gave away the ancestors who came to America on a boat too many generations before me. If what she wanted was the guy from the bar, I had absolutely no shot. My chance was over before it had ever begun.

I just wished my animal sides would get that through their heads.

“Anytime. You know I’ll help you however I can,” Scarlett said, making my heart clench at the sound of her voice. Sweet… The kind of woman who took care of those she loved. I liked that about her, saw it as a positive trait. One I wouldn’t see directed my way…ever.

The girls went silent as we worked, but I could feel Scarlett’s interest. She flooded me with a sense of being watched, a little heat where there should be none.

“Shit, it’s getting late,” she said suddenly, as if she’d only just realized the time. “I should probably get back. Don’t want Doug waiting on the porch.”

Her words slowed as she ended her sentence, her voice growing almost uncertain. Not that I was paying her all of my attention. Filling nail holes was far more vital to my sanity than figuring out why the girl may not be thrilled about going on her date. With another man. A man named Doug who wore pleated khakis to a bar and probably used more hair spray than Scarlett and her sisters combined.

Distracted from the job at hand, I slipped, spreading wood filler across the paint above the trim. Damn it.

“Be careful, Scar,” Phoenix said, his eyes trained on the piece of wood in front of him. “Make sure Amber knows where you are and when to expect you home.”

I caught myself just before I nodded in agreement. She may not have wanted to be mine, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t care about her safety. I appreciated Phoenix looking out for my… For her.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, brother dear. Constant vigilance and all that.”

I kept my eyes on the tinted filler, totally ignoring the feel of her gaze on my back. Because I did feel it. A burning tickle, a pressure of sorts, searing me as I fought not to return it. She needed to leave. She needed to turn away and just go. She’d made her choice, and I could live with it if I didn’t have to be around her. But instead she stared at me, waiting me out it seemed, watching me for some kind of reaction. One that I refused to give her.

“Are you leaving or did you suddenly take an interest in woodworking?” Zuri asked with a laugh. I closed my eyes as the pressure from Scarlett’s gaze slipped away, loving and hating the sense of release.

“Sorry. Yeah, just…stuck in my head.”

The softness of Scarlett’s tone spoke to me, forced me to turn. To seek out her eyes. To surrender. She was looking back at me, staring, her expression not at all what I’d expected. She actually looked to be in some kind of emotional pain. Sad, almost. Perhaps feeling the same pull to me as I did to her.

“I should—” she paused, shook her head a little “—I need to go.” Her eyes flicked away and back, meeting mine for a moment that seemed to last a lifetime. God, the tug to bond with her was more brutal when her eyes were locked with mine. The need to be next to her so intense, I had to grip my ankle with one hand to keep from jumping up and stalking in her direction. She needed to go, all right. She needed to stay away from me if she didn’t want my attention. And I needed to go back to Chicago where I wouldn’t see her anymore and could lick my wounds.

The thought of leaving, of running away like a coward, didn’t sit well with me, but I was beginning to see it as my only option. For whatever reason, my soul refused to take the hint that she had no interest in me. Instead of fading or breaking, the draw to her only increased with every moment. I needed to escape. To get away before I acted on the need demanding I pull her into my arms and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her. She didn’t want me, and I had to respect that.

Yet, as she walked out the door, she turned around to take a final look. Her eyes met mine again, bright and wide and filled with something almost like a longing. Which couldn’t be… She’d refused me. She’d told me no. That should have been the end of it. Nowhere in the histories I’d read of both sides of my shifter heritage did it mention second chances for refused mates. It didn’t happen. If the mate refused you, you walked away and either suffered through decades of emotional torment or you died. End of story.

So why was Scarlett looking at me as if she didn’t want to walk away?

And why were my inner beasts still screaming out
mine
?

Damn that Shadow and his ridiculously handsome face. The man was going to drive me to drink. All week, I’d had to replay visions of him in my head. The curve of his back as he turned away, the muscles bulging in his arm as he hammered on that piece of wood, the way his fingers pinched the nails from between his lips. But the worst, the absolute showstopper of my little Shadow-movie from Zuri’s house, was the look he gave me when I was leaving. The way he seemed to look all the way inside of me practically set my soul on fire with those gray eyes of his.

That look had wrecked me.

But that was it…one look, and he went right back to work. Did he not feel the same turmoil I did when we were in the same room? Did he not notice the connection that seemed to grow stronger with every day? I rocked and searched for solid ground, adrift on a sea of the unknown, and he pounded in nails as if all this fated soul bond crap was nothing. As if I was nothing.

Well, screw that.

If he was going to make it a habit to be in my world, I’d make it a habit to be in his. Starting with his Feral Breed denhouse. The wolf shifters were hosting some charity ride to Chicago to celebrate the birthday of their leader. Beast had asked me to help with the plans a month or so ago, but I hadn’t wanted to deal with being at the denhouse because Amber had been hounding me about one of the dogs being my red thread.

And damn, I hated it when she was so very right.

Still, today wasn’t about Amber, it was about Shadow. The man whose eyes practically sent me straight to ashes on the wind, especially when they passed right over me. Shadow, who barged into my life without my asking. He came onto my turf and upset my world, so I’d do the same to him. I’d infiltrate his private space and make sure he knew who the hell I was. No sense hiding from the shifters or the den any longer… My fear had been realized.

I followed Amber to the Feral Breed denhouse with my head high, my heels clacking, and my skirt a little too short for a casual afternoon of working out event details. Immature, maybe, but I wanted to make a damned point. I could catch a man’s eye…maybe not my own red thread’s, but someone in this denhouse would notice me. I’d make sure of it. Not to mention, Shadow looked like some kind of bad-boy-gone-good rock star in his dark T-shirts and the faded-to-perfection jeans that hugged his ass in a way that should have been illegal. I needed to up the ante on this game.

As soon as I walked in the door, every head turned my way. Daunting, and yet exactly what I wanted. Cocking my hip, refusing not to see this plan through even as all those not-quite-human eyes stared, I smiled and waved.

“Hello, boys.”

There was a grumble of greeting from the various men in black leather. Not quite a resounding welcome, but something better than going wolf and taking a chunk out of my leg. Or pissing on it. Didn’t dogs do that? Something about territory… Whatever. No bite, no piss, I was happy.

Amber rolled her eyes and dragged me across the room, always the responsible one. I let her, not really wanting to be out here anyway. Still, I grinned and shrugged as we passed the bar, smiling at the men sitting and watching some kind of car race on the big screens. I might need their attention later if Shadow showed up.

“C’mon, Hester Prynne. Rebel’s office is down here.” Amber yanked me along a hallway, almost knocking me off my feet.

I pulled my arm from her hold. “You could ease up a bit.”

“And you could act like an adult now and again.”

I smirked. “Oh, I’m an adult all right. You can take my word on that one.”

“Could have fooled me,” she said, her voice soft but tight. I followed her to the back of the club, past men of all ages and sizes, making sure to put a little extra swing in my hips. Even before I looked, I knew the moment Shadow walked into the bar behind me. I sensed him, felt him in the tug of the thread around my heart. I nearly trembled at the pull, almost faltered in my stride at the weight of his eyes on my back. But I stayed strong, walking tall and working every curve I had.