Betrayal (The Forever Series) (26 page)

Chapter 16

I wake up with a start and sit up. The washcloth drops into my lap in a soggy heap. My heart is beating like a hummingbird’s wings and I put my hand over it to slow it down. Xanthe looks up from her sewing and says, “Everything okay, dear?”

Err, no. No, everything isn’t okay. “Have I been here, alone the whole time?” I ask.

She peers at me curiously. “Why yes of course,” she says. “Did you think you had gone somewhere?”

I shake my head. That dream felt so real. Talk about a feverish delusion. Christ. I flop back to the bed and keep my eyes very firmly open. No way am I risking going back to sleep. Nobody has any business seducing me in my dreams. Although it was a very hot dream, and not in the temperature sense. I push it from my mind and think about other things. Mostly Lincoln. I am going to have to go to him the second I get back from here. There is a tension there that isn’t just about our Pack getting aggravated that I have been nowhere in sight for the last three months. My lucid period doesn’t last very long and the fever sets in again, this time accompanied by spasms. Really? My eyes go blurry and I have to close them again. I fall in and out of a daze and when I open my eyes again, I see a blurry vision standing over me. I can hear a muted chanting and I flail out blindly to grab whoever it is that is hovering over me. I must look like a right lunatic waving my hands in the air, but I was sure there was someone in here with me.

“Xerxei,” Xanthe says to me, grabbing my hands. “Whatever it was, it was just a dream.”

“No,” I insist. “There was someone standing over me. Was it you?”

“No, Xerxei,” she says. “There was no one else in here and I was sitting in the chair in the corner.”

I must have been hallucinating. She sounds completely confident and I believe her. I feel like I am losing my mind. She shushes me and pushes me back down and replaces my cool washcloth.

The fever finally breaks again and Xanthe tells me that it is over. Thank god for that. I feel a chill now on my sweaty skin and shiver. I pull the covers up over me and say thank you to Xanthe for staying with me and ask her how often I should expect this.

“My pleasure, my dear,” she says. “About once a year. You will be able to leave shortly. There is just one person you need to see first,” she says and waves as she exits. I expect her to let my mother in on her way out, but instead it is Finn.

“Hi,” I say a bit warily, hoping there are no residual effects floating around the room that will make him jump on me.

“Hi,” he says. He is back to friendly, nice Finn, so whatever his issue was before seems to have been resolved. “I need to take you in before you can leave. This is a stressful time for
ValamAtrux
.”

“Okay,” I nod and sit up. He helps me off the bed and his eyes laser over my body, quite apparent through the sheer robe. I turn quickly, as that will lead to nowhere good and carefully pull it over my head. This is the first time I have been completely naked around him and I feel very odd, like I want to hide my nudity. I usually have no qualms in this area, but suddenly I feel very shy. I hear him disrobe and then feel his overwhelming presence behind me. He places his hands on my back and V.A. flutters under his touch, happy to have his attention. I suddenly realize this is also the first time we have been alone during this process. I take advantage of this and turn around to watch him. It is truly a beautiful experience to see him with
Her. Not to mention he has a body that I would love to crawl all over and lick every inch of. I admire him openly and he sees it in my eyes when he opens his and is ready to replace my Dragon. It lights a fire in his eyes, an actual fire, and he parts his lips. I turn back around slowly and he carefully replaces V.A., keeping his hands on the small of my back even after she has flapped off. I gasp as he pulls me against him and I can feel his enormous erection pressing into my back. He is unbelievably well endowed and my mouth starts to water. I think there are in fact some residual pheromones flying around and a lot of them are hitting me. He tilts my head and brushes his lips down the side of my neck. My nipples tighten and I feel myself getting wet. His palms are lightly moving down my body, over my nipples and my stomach, getting closer and closer to my hot sex. He slides a finger down between my lower lips, rubbing it over my clit and my head falls back against his shoulder.

A scuffling outside and the door being thrown open interrupts us and we jump apart. Finn stands in front of me as I hastily pull the robe back over my head. It’s not exactly covering up my very aroused state, my nipples are like pebbles against the sheer material, but it will have to do as CK bellows at me in a voice of the gods. I am going to have to face him so I step around Finn who is still standing there as naked as the day he was born, with his erection still proudly showing.

“There are no words, Aefre!” CK yells at me. “No explanations, because this is exactly how it looks.”

“We didn’t do anything,” I say calmly. “He was taking care of V.A., that’s all.”

“Taking care of you, you mean,” he snarls, eyes fixed firmly on my breasts. At this point it gets worse as Cole walks into the room, having been let in by Aida, who I am not all that surprised to see, is mooning over him like a teenager with a crush. She glares at CK, who clearly went around her and she is not amused by that. Finn exacerbates the situation by leisurely getting dressed and then bending down to kiss me.

“See you soon, my Queen,” he whispers and leaves before CK can step forward to throttle him.

“Don’t blow this out of proportion,” I say to him before he can speak. “V.A. needed him, but nothing happened between us.” I say the lie directly to his face, as even a slight avoidance of his furious gaze will prove to him I am lying. I am completely certain that if we hadn’t been interrupted, it would have ended up with me bent over and Finn’s cock deep inside me. Christ, I had wanted it, badly.

“We will go home and discuss this further,” CK says and holds his hand out for me.

I shake my head and he is about to yell at me some more, when I step forward and hold my hand out to him. I also take Cole’s and say, “There is something more important that I want to show you.”

He looks at me quizzically as I Astral us off, back to the country manor in England.

“You have your Powers back!” he exclaims with a big smile, the Finn situation suddenly forgotten. He kisses me and I smile happily at him.

“You mean Finn gave you your Powers back,” Cole says coldly, arms crossed defensively.

Aw shit. Thought I might have got away with that.

“He helped,” I say. “My own healing abilities did most of the work,” I add loftily and he looks somewhat abashed.

CK has moved behind me and is brushing my hair away from my neck and says, “If I don’t do this now, it is going to kill me.” He bites down hard and I gasp. He suckles quickly and I tremble with desire. Cole gets in on it as he can’t resist, and bites down on my other side. I am sandwiched between the two and this is going to go somewhere very pleasant if I don’t stop it. I have other issues to deal with at the moment. I wiggle and they both let me go, sex on their minds, but I shake my head. “Sorry, I want to, really I do. But there is something I have to take care of immediately.”

I close my eyes as they growl at me, but ignoring them I call for Lincoln. He is in Wolf form and I can see him prowling the woods. His head goes up and he cocks his ears and leaps forward, cutting through the woods at super speed. He is tearing across the garden and is in human form when he bursts into the library with his pants undone and pulling a t-shirt over his head. “You’re back,” he says and crushes me to him. “And healed,” he adds.

“Yep, good as new,” I say with a smile. “Let me get showered and we will go and deal, okay?”

“Yes,” he says and it looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

“Tell me everything,” I say and take his hand. I look back to Cole and CK who aren’t happy and I try to placate them by saying, “I will be back soon. I cannot ignore this for another minute. Please understand.”

They both nod reluctantly, but probably so they don’t look like jealous fools in front of Lincoln. Neither of them
are stupid and it is quite clear that I have to go. With a big smile and relief in my heart, I Astral myself and Lincoln upstairs and outside Cade’s room. I knock and without waiting for an answer I push the door open. He looks pretty bad, still not healed, so I quickly go to him. He cracks his puffy eyes open and groans when he sees me.

“Go away,” he says gruffly.

“No,” I say. “God, what is your problem? You agreed to just me and now are you reneging?” I am getting mad with him, stubborn fool.

“Wasn’t talking to you,” he says.

I look over my shoulder at Lincoln who is leaning casually in the doorway with a smile on his face. I shoo him out and he goes, but leaves the door open, still not altogether trusting.

“Let’s get this over with,” Cade says and hastily draws his eyes back up to mine from where they had been lingering much lower down. Crap, I had forgotten I am practically naked. I sit so as to cover up as much as I can and he drops his fangs, hiding them behind my wrist. He makes a slight purring noise as he drinks from me, his eyes fixed firmly on me. He lets me go and says, “You’ve healed fully. I can taste the difference.” He looks slightly perturbed by that admission so I just nod and pat his hand, lingering for a bit longer than he is comfortable with. He pulls his hand out of mine and turns over, dismissing me. I sigh, but vow to come back here while he is sleeping and sit with him. I turn and leave, closing the door behind me, and lead Lincoln to my bathroom. I am all sticky and in need of a thorough cleansing. I whip the robe over my head and step under the jets. Ah, bliss. I enjoy it for a second and then say, “Spill, Anderson.”

He chuckles at me and he shifts from foot to foot, edgy. He clearly wants to get in the shower with me, but I am sure on some level he knows to stay out. This shower is huge, but so is he. It would be way too crowded for my liking. I hurry it up as he tells me of the problem. It seems I have let his side down with my coma and a revolt is about to take place. Well, the sooner we get this show on the road the better. I get out and turn in a circle, dried and dressed. Fantastic.

Lincoln takes in my attire, starting with my Louboutins, of course, up my bare legs to my very mini skirt--well, CK did say to wear skirts--to my halter top that shows off not only my Faerie markings, but also my Dragon.

“No,” he says eventually. “You look gorgeous, but you need to look badass.”

I can do badass, so I spin in a circle and he nods approvingly at my black leather pants, tight vest top, and biker boots. Sadly I have to ruin the look by adding a coat.
It’s bloody freezing.

“Let’s go,” I say, taking his hand and Astralling us to Lincoln’s house in L.A that currently houses his Pack. Err,
our
Pack.

They sense his presence as soon as our feet hit the ground in the foyer and they all come out and surround us, looking pretty hostile.

“So you’re back,” Chrissie, the instigator of my potential overthrowing snarls at me.
She’s a gutsy lass, I’ll give her that. Not only am I her Alpha, but her Queen. She must be pretty well pissed off to be doing this.

I have to wonder why Lincoln never told them about my coma. Surely it would help explain my absence?

“They would see it as a weakness and the same would have happened, only sooner,” Lincoln says in my head and I get it.

“Yes,” I say shortly. I don’t have to explain myself to her. Not that I have an explanation to give anyway.

“You have some nerve,” she says, stepping forward with her arms crossed. The others let her and I see her as the strongest of the Pack. “It’s bad enough that you live halfway across the world, but you disrespect our Alpha by deserting him and us. You don’t deserve him,” she sneers at me. “You don’t deserve to call yourself our Alpha.”

Interesting, how she said I don’t deserve
him
. She just showed her hand, and now she can see mine. Lincoln wanted me in fighting gear, because I am going to have to fight for my place here. That is why he left it until I was better. I have to prove to them that I am the strongest. I don’t give her, or anyone else for that matter, a chance to say anything as I step forward and accept her challenge. She drops her arms and I hold mine out and she goes flying across the room without me even having to touch her. She lands in a heap and the rest of the Pack sidles back out of my angry reach. I sense Lincoln’s approval as he too stands to the side and lets me get on with it. I march over to her and pick her up in one hand, the other one striking her. It would be unfair to beat her arse into the ground using only magick. She rallies quickly and lashes out, but I am quicker and duck and grab her wrist, twisting it behind her back and forcing her to her knees.

“Do you concede?” I growl at her, as I hear her bone snap. I could keep going at this, but I have roughed her up a bit with only a couple of shots. She grunts but says nothing, so I pull her head back and say again, “Do you concede? You won’t beat me, you know that, they know that and Lincoln knows that. I am his Alpha, he chose me. We can fight over it some more, but you will never win.” I let her go with a rough shove and she falls forward on her unbroken arm. She stands stiffly and looks to her second, Cindy, for support. Cindy, the clever girl, drops her eyes and steps back.