Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (16 page)

There, in the
open plan house, he came in from the kitchen and handed the woman a
glass of red, as though Shelly never existed. And then he sat with
the red headed woman on her sofa. It was a date – Shell had denied
this fact, but she now decided she had been kidding herself because
it was painfully obvious. At first it was too hurtful to let
herself believe. She wanted to stop it. She knew even the slightest
hint of her would be enough to stop it. For him to see her for a
second would stop it. Put an end to a world without her.

But there they
were happily involved in their own world. She was a ghost,
invisible, gone from their existence, and it burnt like ash in her
mouth as she felt a lump rise in her throat. Her emotions had
reached boiling point. Suddenly, she felt a large hand on her
shoulder – one of her kind. Violently she shrugged Sky off and
tossed herself as she walked sideways towards the back laundry door
of the house -
her
house. Her maneuver hadn’t lost him
though; his body jostled with hers as she fought like a child
throwing a tantrum, until his hands tightened on her, and she came
to land with her back upon the brick wall.

She dared to
stop and look up at him with her hurt eyes, as two large fat tears
toppled from them, one cascading down her cheek. Her hands limply
fought him, helplessly, until he pressed her more forcefully
against the rough brick exterior. He placed his body up against her
so she could not flee from his firm grasp as she struggled. She
couldn’t break into the life, into the house and announce herself
back into Jason Bealy’s life.

She struggled
to believe that she was dead to him. Her chin turned up as she
flailed more weakly until, almost unexpectedly, her soft lips found
Sky’s and she felt him cease to move. The shock of her action
stunned him in that moment. But before he knew it, he had
unthinkingly pressed back, cautiously and then numbly, until his
hands found her thick cotton T-shirt. His fists forced her away a
little, pushing her firmly to the wall as he pulled his lips from
hers. She didn’t move as his fingers clamped on her shirt about her
shoulders and with his head down and to the side. He suddenly
propelled himself from the moment, walking over to the lawn fast.
With his back turned, he made an inaudible, “Arrhh!” of
frustration, his hands locked behind his head.

She couldn’t be
sure but she thought her ears heard him whisper, “Lila,” as he bent
forward. In the blink of an eye and twist of his torso, he was a
four-legged beast and he ran rapidly away from her and disappeared
into the trees.

Shell felt the
loneliness again as the rough brick pressed into her back. She took
a moment, blinking away the fat tears toppling from her sad eyes.
Breathing through her mouth, as the cool air dried her tongue, she
paused to reconstruct the last few strange moments which had
tumbled into one another. She had never felt so much tumultuous
pain, frustration, grief and anger in one wave. Whatever Sky had
done, she now suddenly felt more in control of her emotions, spaced
out - but she had come to her senses and it had felt better than a
slap in the face. She swallowed and then, as she heard laughter
from inside the house, she took off swiftly. Not after Sky, but
back through the trees.

She was numb
now - hurt still, but not in as much horrible pain. She knew she
would have to accept her husband was now probably having sex with
another woman, in
her
home and on her bed, on her 300 thread
count sheets gifted for their wedding.
On her sheets
. She
loathed the thought as her wolf feet padded the earth, and it hurt
so much to think of him enjoying her, feeling her the way his hands
had once promised only to touch her...sipping her red wine. It
still burnt, but somehow she would have to let it go. But it
ached.

What did they
all expect her to do? Just handle it? Be over it, like that? Shell
didn’t feel the way most of the others in the pack did. She had
loved her life. She was good at her job, it had been picture
perfect. How could she ever succumb to a disorderly life with
wolves - when she had never known of or wanted it? They stopped her
at every turn that she made to try to reconcile it. No scrap of her
beautiful life was left, and now this incident was the final nail
in the coffin. She imagined herself buried in her wedding dress,
with a bottle of imported Italian Rose from the local wine
club.

Paws chose her
for the reason that her life was so idyllic. He enjoyed the pain it
caused her to have to now be like him – cruelly, it was funny to
him. To take the pretty teacher away from her new husband and her
new brick house, lined with fresh wedding portraits. She had asked
him, “Why did you do this to me?”

Dieter had
chuckled with no ounce of empathy in his snake-like eyes for what
he had done. He haunted her with his heartless taunting.

She spotted a
rabbit and took off after it on two legs, starved for the meat he
denied her, and relishing its warm delicious taste, as warm blood
ran from her mouth. Her primal side emerged and she phased.

Lila risked
meeting Sky, a task undertaken in the darkest night to please
herself, and not the Gods. She couldn’t help it, no matter the
risk. A sea of cicadas sang deafeningly around her as she waited in
the trees, hoping it wouldn’t turn into a blood bath; that he could
get away without too much trouble and that the pack hadn’t figured
out the code on the tag. Tisane had said the Black Cicadas came
only every seventeen years, and their presence remained only for a
few days. She credited Persephone with their occurrence and told
Lila they would help to shield them. The cicada represents
immortality and rebirth; she told her it was a good omen.

Lila prayed he
had found the code. She touched the acorn in her pocket and
recalled Tisane’s spell as the insects sang deafeningly all around
her. ‘Water be healing and salt be pure, keep me safe and protected
sure, whilst I keep this sacred charm, guard me and mine from any
harm, flame that burns and brings me light, keep me safe both day
and night, Persephone make thy enemies flee, and it harm none so
mote it be.’

She had made
Lila pray to the Goddess Artemis while she stood in the middle of a
pentagram with Lila and lit candles to the four elements. Tisane
held her finger up to the sky and canted the spell in the
circle.

When she heard
him below the rattling leaves, breathing heavily, Lila descended
the tree anxiously.

They met under
the crested moonlight, as something unbearably powerful and tragic
lay between them. He embraced her but it was stiff, different
somehow, like her body no longer fit with his. She was tense and
shaking a little. Her girlish embarrassment had faded and her hair
was darker, short and smooth over the shape of her head.

He touched her
face and suddenly his grip pressed her cheek. “Who did this?” He
could smell the cuts on her skin and see the pain in her belladonna
eyes in the moonlight, and he hated that.

“No one, it was
an accident.” The cut had healed but it had left a pink scar
indented into the side of her eye. He was the only thing that could
hurt her.

“How?” his
voice urged her soothingly.

She reached up
to touch his hand with her own, cold fingers. For the moment she
allowed herself to want him. He made everything bearable and made
her life sacrifice unbearable all at once.

“Uh, I’ll tell
you some time.” She tried to laugh as her eyes filled with
moisture. A half-smile touched her lips and her heart beat like
drum.

His hand
touched the tag on her chest, the piece of him she had held to all
this time. She let herself inhale his warm scent.

He slid his
broad thumb across her face and pulled her close in a warm embrace,
as the disbelief of the moment consumed her and the tag pressed
against his firm chest.

Neither of them
spoke even when they pulled apart and looked into each other’s
faces. She tried to place his face with her memory, which had grown
distant. Now it was as though looking at a stranger whose body
encased the one she loved - the being that she had fought so
fiercely for. She pulled him close again. Now here he was, as hurt
and scarred as she, though most of the pain was on the inside
hardening them both. Lila didn’t want to be as tense as she was,
she tried not to be on guard but every muscle was hard. She
couldn’t flop into him as she once had and a little part of her was
angry, distrustful of him in a way she had not been in the
beginning.

Had words been
spoken, they would have broken any love they felt between them,
like an axe to a string. She felt the heat between them; it was
still there but it was coated in fear, a veneer of suspicion. Those
bad feelings threaded over them to suffocate the compassion she
willed herself to have for him, her wolf, and her man. The soul she
loved shrouded her now, but he had hurt her, abandoned her.

Sky knew the
ball was in his court and he felt the strength and weakness in her
body as she both resisted and clung to him like water.

“I am sorry
Lila,” he managed. She was conflicted, and he knew if he were cruel
to himself he would tell her the hurt was real, that they weren’t
meant to be and that even he knew it. And he tried, but it pained
him. When she looked down, he lifted her chin. “It's selfish, but I
have to have you.” His eyes began to glisten and he didn’t care if
he made sense.

He didn’t want
any of it to matter. He needed her and he knew it was so selfish
because it put everyone and everything and mostly her in jeopardy;
to love her and show it was to damn her. He gripped her arms; he
kissed her and tasted her lips for the first time in so long. He
stopped to look into her eyes.

“Please…” she
croaked in a whisper. She wanted to believe him, to trust every
word but terrifyingly knew that it would never be enough to satisfy
her. She could never feel the same innocence towards him when she
looked at the ugliness - the facts. She had been turned inside out
over it, changed by it.

Sky felt her
body weaken as she let down her guard in defeat, and they embraced
again. This time their bodies rested together, his crested about
her small frame, enveloping her. There was a sense of desperation
as she yielded to him and he inhaled her scent. His arms knocked
the arrow bundles on her back; he ignored them and grappled for the
feel of her skin beneath the rigid weapons.

His breathing
was unsteady, as it so often was around her.

He winced as he
pulled her to him, tighter, thinking of how he was so self-centered
and bad.

She could have
killed him and then herself. He wanted to tell her how tortured he
was. She wanted to hear it, all or none of the excuses as she
spared them for the moment. She steadied herself for his excuses,
for the weak excuses, for why he had discarded her without
care.

“I’m so crazy,”
he whispered, desperately wanting to tell her to stay away and at
the same time doing everything he could to keep her there, to pull
her in the opposite direction. He had to tell her the truth.

She felt such
anger and sadness, love and hate in one moment she almost felt like
jelly and she visibly trembled from the stress of it, the ecstasy
and the pain.

“I had to, I
had no choice. This isn’t right.” He resisted the tears which
welled as he held her tight, running his arms over her body. When
she didn’t speak, he decided she must either not want to hear - but
it had to be said - or perhaps she was waiting for it. The reason
he had abandoned her.

He pulled away
then, but held Lila at arm’s length and got down on his knees in
the damp before her. “Please understand I didn’t want to Lila, but
they would have killed you. Or me quite possibly, if I had escaped
- defended you.”

She had an urge
to end it, to kill him and then swiftly herself, but it swelled and
subsided as quickly as a wave. She couldn’t bear to do it without
touching him first, and hearing him say the words that could make
it possible for her to trust him again. But every damn word he
spoke only drove the stake of hurt deeper into her flesh until it
burnt. Perversely she urged him to push it further, to unleash all
the pain, as much of it as he could in one strike. She ran her
fingers through his nut brown hair wanting all of him, more now
than ever.

She looked at
him and kept the same expression so he continued. “If you want me
dead, do it, I swear. Do it, I’d rather it be you than them…” His
eyes glistened as her hand moved to touch his jaw and cheek. Her
finger trailed over his mouth and his lips, which begged for her
touch, and ran like warm electricity over them. He pulled her close
by the waist and she yielded to him, bent softly with the pull,
accepting it. He pushed his soft lips into her bare stomach, which
was exposed by the movement; her hands rubbed and ran through his
golden brown hair as desperately as he tugged at her. He turned his
head to the side and rested his bristled cheek upon her belly, as
her hand smoothed his hair against his neck.

“How are we
going to do this Lila?” A thin tear ran down his cheek.

“Bite me,” came
her hard words, barely a whisper. The simple sounds flew in the
face of her existence, as her body resisted the way her lips moved
to say them.

“No,” he hissed
helplessly.

“I’ll be
compromised then,” she pleaded.

“No.”

There was a
silence.

She used a
different tactic. “I’ll die before you, you know.”

“I know.” And
he knew it every day. “I’ll die when you do.”

“Why? You’re
healthy.” She sniffed; Lila knew he could live a thousand
years.