Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 5

Chocolate eyes float in my vision as if the creature knelt before me. My own eyes projected before me so clearly it was as if I were looking into a mirror. Only, these orbs blazed with the intensity of what I'd been running from for so long, an alpha brought to life by the lycan infusion. My gaze flickers over the rust-colored coat, the tan undertones fluttering in and out of my line of sight. I could never quite focus on the form, a flame dancing among the chill of my ability. 

"Tell him." The voice snarls, a flash of ivory teeth prompts a rib to protrude and I grip my side forcefully. 

"No." He wouldn't understand that I had not meant for it to go this way. I hadn't drugged myself, it was an accident and my own tactics had backfired into an unreasonable state of euphoria. I was too happy to allow reality to squash my moments of bliss. 

"He is our partner. We don't lie to our partner." 

Settling onto my hip, my body feels ready to burst as I shake uncontrollably. The fire overrides the ice, the heat burning away the drug at such a rapid pace that I worried it was taking me with it. Verando's voice echo's in the distance, far away from my mind that slipped on the ice as the flames consumed my consciousness. "Nic?" The concern causes me to frown at myself, pressing my chilled hand to my blazing cheek. It was sick, really, to think that it took a dog inserted into my body to keep me honest. 

The chocolate eyes are replaced with the pale blue of my husband as he touches my hand, concerned by the chill of it. "Are you alright?"

My lips move but not a word comes out, I see the rusty beast in the corner of my eye as it steps out of the darkness and into the light. My own self, my own being, sitting ringside to the show that is my person. "No." The voice that finally leaves my lips isn't my own. It's lower, deeper, his eyes search my face and finally lock with my own gaze. 

"Damn it.." he mutters, his thumb skirting over my cheekbone, "I should have never let you go with Keeta, you're drunk off your ass." I can't even focus on the man worrying for my safety, I watch the rust-colored creature lean into the invisible hand and marvel at the complete adoration displayed there. Trapped in my mind, at the mercy of this creature, I witness the origin of these irrational feelings and can't help but feel jealousy at the devotion behind the intention. 

I loved Verando, this creature worshipped him, just as he did for me. I think back briefly to our time apart. It was Alpha who always kept me coming back when his human side found me intolerable. Alpha loved me long before Verando did. "Help us." The wolf manages, pushing the words from my own lips. 

"What?" Taken aback, he examines me closer, the wolf fights for freedom and it takes everything in me to restrain it. Clutching my body tighter, he pulls me into his lap partially. "Nic, let your wolf speak to me. Maybe we can find out what it needs?" Ever the optimist when it comes to me, he could never imagine that it wanted to tell him the truth when I didn't. He couldn't fathom that I had been given a drug that was causing me to act wildly out of character on a power high. 

I shake my head, burying my face into his chest as I flinch against the crackling of my joints. A thousand degrees, I must be in flames, hot and sticky from the sweat I curl closer to him to will the silence of the creature desperate for contact. "Let me help you." The gentle encouragement coaxes my last bits of control from my body. 

"Drugged." The wolf finally manages, strangled by my fatigued body. Between the drug, the drinking, and the wolf, I was approaching my limit. "The enhancement drug." Another tear slips from the corner of my eye as I wonder when I'll ever be allowed out again. "The wraith slipped it into my drink." I intrude, refusing to take the blame for this. I tighten my fingers on the edges of his shirt.