Once Upon a Shifter (79 page)

Her claws and teeth sank into his flesh, but the adrenaline pumping through his system blocked any pain he may have felt otherwise. He knocked her off him and they began to circle each other.

As if his soul knew the reason he was here, a heavy pressure settled in the center of his chest, and then began to burn unnaturally.

"Let me in, bitch! This shit's starting to hurt."

She jumped on him, knocking him off balance, but his paws clung to her back and he rolled them across the floor again, stopping with her on the bottom. His jowls parted and his teeth clamped down on her throat, causing her to howl in pain.

Ace vaguely heard screams from the others, but he knew he had to keep his full attention on her; getting distracted could cost him his life, and that wasn't something he was willing to give up for anything or anyone.

She squirmed under him, still trying to fight him off, but he could tell she was growing weaker. His jaw clamped down tighter, and he finally forced his way into her mind. The bonding had started. His soul had found hers. He was in.

Images of Mena's past flashed through his mind so fast that he couldn't tell when one ended and another started, but he saw them all, every memory, all the heartache and happiness the human had endured in her short life, and he knew that she was experiencing the same from him.

The feeling was surreal and unexplainable, but it felt right; he felt her power and his collide and weld together, infusing and tangling until it was one solid unbreakable force. As if two worlds collided, wolf and lion, their auras joined, co-mingled, until they blended together to form one entity.

Ace patiently waited for the wolf's thoughts and memories to come to him, and after they did, he smiled to himself when he discovered her name.

He wasn't prepared for what happened next, though. Nothing could have ever prepared him for it, not even if someone had told him it was going to happen.

Feelings and emotions that he had never known or felt before swept through him. A foreignness coursed through his veins, but it was welcome, exotic almost. The femininity of the emotions leant a softness to their edges, even in their rawness. He hated them and clung to their power over him at the same time. Nothing had ever been worse or better. It was like night and day, fire and ice, wind and water.

It was Ace and Andromeda. Two parts to a whole, something he had no idea he needed, until now. Why had he never realized he needed this?

For the first time in his existence, he finally found someone he was willing to give up his life for. She was his… his Andromeda.

When he felt the claws in his back retract, he began to shift back to his human form. As he opened his eyes, beautiful pale-green ones stared back at him.

"Andromeda," he whispered. "I am yours."

She smiled weakly. His heart melted.

She threw her head back and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Andromeda! My wolf's name is Andromeda!"

"Mena!" the asshole who'd tried to assassinate him earlier shouted, and a growl vibrated out of Ace's throat as his head shot around to glare at the guy. If Peanut thought he still had any chance with Andra, Ace was definitely up for the challenge now.

"Get Rhodes out of here!" Phoenix said.

"No—" Alex started, but Roel got in his face and backed him against a wall as he whispered something so low even Ace couldn't make it out, but he guessed it was good advice, because Peanut stopped resisting, and then stormed out of the room without another word.

"Mena?" Phoenix said in a quiet voice.

"I can't talk to anybody right now, Ace,"
Andra said through his thoughts.
"Please, just get me out of here. Tell them I will talk to them after I have rested. I am so tired."

Ace got to his feet, then picked her up in his arms and walked to the cage door.

Phoenix unlocked the door and opened it for him. He met the vampire's gaze as Andra turned her face into his chest, hiding her eyes from their company. "She said she will talk to everyone after she has rested. We will be in my room."

With that, he walked out of the cage and carried her upstairs.

Chapter 56

Phoenix

There could have been worse things to wake up to than a ninety-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback licking your face, Phoenix thought as he pushed Chaos away with a hand, and then groaned as he sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles.

"How did you get in here?" he asked the dog.

"Oh, he came in with me."

Phoenix's head whipped around to see that Ace had pulled a chair up beside the bed, and he was just, well, he was just sitting there.

"What time is it?"

"Daytime."

Phoenix huffed.

"I can't, for the life of me, think why he likes you so much, Andromeda either, but that's why I'm in here, in case you were wondering. I'm trying to figure out what she sees in you. It may be because you smell like cotton candy. It would explain why Chaos is always licking you; he likes cotton candy."

Phoenix looked down at the dog licking his arm and jerked it away with a growl. "I don't smell like cotton candy," he snapped. "Stop licking me!" he shouted at the dog, but it didn't seem to faze him much. Chaos just stretched his paws out in front of him and laid his head down.

"Yeah, ya do," Ace said.

"How is Mena?"

"Her name is Andromeda, and she's sleeping."

"Mena doesn't have to go by her wolf name."

"She is an Alpha, Phoenix. She kinda does."

Blowing out a breath, he snatched his robe from the foot of the bed with the tips of his fingers and put it on before tossing back the comforter. "Do you have an actual reason for being in here, besides watching me sleep?"

"I don't like being sad," Ace said simply.

Phoenix stared at him for a long moment, waiting for something else, an explanation of why he was sharing this piece of private information with him, maybe. Nothing came. "We're not hugging."

Ace shook his head, but his usual confident grin was missing. Was this guy serious? "I don't want a hug from you. I only have two emotions: happy and pissed off. The bond forces me to feel everything Andromeda is feeling, emotion wise. She cried herself to sleep a little over an hour ago. It was a pretty rough night for both of us," he said as he studied his linked fingers.

"That wouldn't have been a problem if you had let her come to me," Phoenix said through a clenched jaw.

"I wasn't stopping her, though I doubt I could have actually let her walk out of the room, knowing she was going to meet you in your bed."

"Are you saying she didn't want to see me?"

"No, she absolutely did, but leaving me was harder for her."

Phoenix's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."

Ace shook his head. "I don't know how to explain it. We need each other. Just being awake and down here while she is upstairs…" Ace rubbed both hands over his face. "It makes me anxious to be away from her."

"You love her," Phoenix stated.

"No. It's deeper than that. I can read her thoughts and feel her emotions, and she can do the same with me. I have no secrets anymore. She knows them all, and I'm okay with that. I would have never said that before the bonding ritual, about anyone… ever. I don't regret bonding with her. Even questioning that makes me ill to my stomach. But if I'd known how powerful this thing was, I never would have agreed to do it. I thought I would just be able to bond with her, form an alliance and go back home with seventy-eight new pack members added to my roster. Not to mention your clan would be on my side from now on. I honestly didn't see why so many Alphas passed up the opportunity… until I felt it for myself. This thing is strong, Phoenix. It's not like your nexus spell. This is permanent. It's inviolable."

"I was afraid it might be," Phoenix said, and took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm the blood rushing in his veins. This month had been the best and worst of his life, and he felt like he was about to lose everything. He quelled the desperation rising inside him. Gritting his teeth, he asked, "What would you like me to do about Mena being miserable, and making you miserable in the process? I'm sorry, but we're not moving in together and letting her sleep between us. My door swings a lot of ways, but it doesn't swing that way."

"I want you to break up with her," Ace said.

Phoenix clucked his tongue against his teeth a few times. "Yeah, that's not going to happen in this lifetime."

"I'm totally serious. She's holding on to something that can never happen. When she's sad, I'm sad. When I'm pissed off, she feels my rage. It's not that I don't want her to be happy with you—I totally get the whole love thing now, really—but I can't control how I feel when she thinks about being with you. It's torture, torture for us both. I'm a bonded male. She is mine. That won't change. But as long as she thinks there is a future with you, she will be miserable. If you'll just end it, cut all ties, she will get over you in time. Andromeda refuses to think about the future. When she does, you are there, and so am I. She knows my pride is in Las Vegas, but, in her vision, she shuts down before I leave; she won't face the fact that she can't have us both."

"Do you realize what you're asking me to do? I'm over eight centuries old, and I've never been in love, until her."

"Is it like taking a plastic spoon and cutting your heart out with it? 'Cause that's the vibe I was getting from her last night because she couldn't make herself come to you. Holding her was the only thing that helped. We never even spoke a word out loud to each other; we said everything with our minds. Broken hearts suck, by the way. I've only experienced it through her, but that was enough."

Phoenix shook his head. "No. I can't do it."

"You can't or you won't?"

"Both! I love her!" Phoenix thundered.

"Then set her free so she can be happy!" Ace shouted back.

"I don't know how," Phoenix said in a weak voice.

Ace sighed. "You could always be an asshole and make her hate you. That's how I usually get rid of cuddlers." He ran his hands through his hair and stalled for a moment. "There's something else."

"I'm not sure I can handle anything else right now, Ace."

"It's kinda important. It's pretty bad." The seriousness in Ace's voice gave Phoenix pause. It was rare, from what he'd seen of the arrogant playboy, and something made him listen.

Phoenix walked to his chair and sat down, letting his head fall back so he could stare at the ceiling, instead of the guy who had just asked him to step out into the sunlight. And now he wanted to pile on more bad news. "Go on."

"I got a text this morning from my cousin, congratulating me on my bonding with Montgomery's pack leader. He said he'd see us both soon."

"That's a bad thing?" Phoenix responded, without lifting his head to look at him.

"It is when your cousin happens to be Justice Keller."

Phoenix raised his head and stared at him. Roel's words of Justice's promise came back to him, and stirrings of panic made ripples of unease up his spine.

"He hasn't ever challenged me, because he couldn't take over my pride—we aren't lycan—but now that I'm bonded with Andromeda, and she is lycan, he can, since my pride is now hers, too. We've always been competitive, and I'm not afraid of him, but if he wants to hurt me, hurting her is the best way to do that. I need to take her with me to Las Vegas for a while where she can be trained to be an Alpha and learn how to fight."

"No," Phoenix said. "I can protect her—"

"It's not an option. I came down here to ask you to end things with her. Don't make me tell you."

"You can't touch me without hurting her, so your argument is—" He caught a clear vial filled with a pink liquid that Ace tossed him.

"It's the potion to release her from the nexus spell. Make her drink it."

Phoenix stared at it in wonder. "How'd you get this?"

"I have my ways. We have witches in Las Vegas, too. I heard she was linked to you and a handful of others. I wasn't coming unprepared."

"If I don't give it to her, then what?"

"I'll find a way to make her take it myself, then I'll kill you."

Phoenix's lips curled up on one side. "She will refuse if she has any notion that you mean me harm."

"Hope you're a good liar."

Phoenix sighed, defeated. "Let her stay here. You can go back to your old life and pretend none of this happened. If she goes with you, the partying and the women will stop."

"I don't even care about those things anymore. All I can think about is being near her and keeping her safe. If I told her that I am leaving, I'm almost positive she would have a breakdown. There's no doubt in my mind that she would willingly get on that plane and leave with me. I just want her to leave you here when she does."

"I'm not strong enough to let her go," Phoenix whispered.

"Don't be selfish, vampire. Do it for her. She can be happy again."

"How much time do I have with her?"

"My pride and I are leaving after the celebration of her Beta choosing on the full moon. You have four days. Get your closure. Prepare to say your goodbyes. And watch your boundaries; she isn't yours anymore."

Phoenix watched the lion leave, utterly conflicted, squeezing the vial between his fingers. He had a choice to make, but the question was, was he strong enough to make it?

Chapter 57

Mena

The torment I was putting him through made me ache inside. His touch, any kind of physical contact, seemed to calm us both down, immediately.

Part of me was missing when I was with Ace, but when I was away from him it felt like my world would shatter at any moment. Would this vicious power that had us bound ever ease up? Sometimes I felt as though it was crushing me.