Unnatural Conduct

Chapter 8

I reached the wall of air I'd created and found a very angry-looking Xavier, back in his human form, glaring at me through the wall of air. The look on his face told me that I was in big trouble; the kind that I wasn't really in the mood to deal with right now.

I sighed and muttered a string of barely-intelligible words, and the wall of air broke, its energy once again normal and free from my influence.

Almost immediately after I did this, I was pinned to the ground by a large body, fingers digging painfully into my wrists and they held me against the ground in a vice grip. I felt every inch of him pressed up against me, separated only by the tunics we both wore... I guess it was true that humans could shift into wolves with their clothes on, and they'd disappear in their wolf form, and then show up again in their human form.

I glared up at my mate to find him returning my glare all the same, fury and anger evident on his features. The air crackled with tension as our gazes held, neither one of us daring to back down from the other.

He took a deep breath, and I finally closed my eyes, waiting to hear the shit-storm he was undoubtedly about to unleash upon me. But it never happened.

Before I knew what was happening, the tension in the air snapped, and his lips crushed against mine, kissing me with such a deep and unrelenting passion and yearning that set my blood on fire. My eyes snapped open, and I marveled at how his usually black eyes were now sparkling with flecks of silver and gold, as if he was having trouble restraining his wolf.

----

After composing ourselves and finally pulling away from one another, we made our way back to the hotel room. We didn't say much; I think both of us were caught up in our own thoughts. I knew I had to confront him about what the wraith-like Fae had said, but I really didn't want to... I just didn't want to ruin our relationship with what he might reveal. I wasn't ready to learn just yet.

However, life doesn't wait up. Any day now, the Queen's soldiers could come rushing into the village, burning down buildings until they found me. I'd been so caught up in the peaceful lifestyle of the last week that I'd somehow forgotten about my pursuers, about what could happen to the innocent residents of this village if I stayed around for too long.

But before I left, I needed to understand Xavier better... I couldn't leave myself in the dark much longer.

Even though it seemed I knew more about the problem than him at times, well... I knew there was a fairly large amount of information that he was hiding from me, and I was determined to figure out what it was.

So, as we sat in the hotel room that afternoon, I did just that.

"Xavier?" I asked, rousing him from whatever he'd been thinking about.

He immediately turned his attention to me without a moment's hesitation. "Yeah?" he asked, giving me a grim smile, like he knew what I was about to ask.

"I need you to tell me about... everything. I deserve to know, and I've told you enough about myself, but you... you're still a mystery, and I won't stand for it any longer." I came off a bit sharp, but I didn't care. At least I wasn't torturing information out of him like I had with the Tenebris.

He was still for a moment, but then finally nodded. "Yes, you do deserve to know; I haven't the right to keep it from you any more. Although, I'm not sure you'll want to hear it..."

I just waved his comment aside, nodding my head. "I want to hear it; I want to know everything."

He sent me a pained expression, and said so quietly that I almost thought he hadn't spoken, "You have to promise... promise not to leave me... after I tell you."