The heavy-sided SUV rumbles down the road with a low hum, the oversized tires built for off-roading chewed at the pavement in grumbling protest for the manicured conditions. Creating a jarring effect, I try not to flinch at every jolt and jerk the vehicle managed. These weren't built for comfort, the retired war vehicles rattle like the box of tin they resembled. I felt overcharged, I'd come within a hair of losing my life and Tiberius had so simply plucked me out of disaster as if it were a simple task.
Leaning my head against the glass, I could only vaguely recall the details of our escape for it all seemed like a blur to me now. Without Tiberius's siren song, there was little chance of making it through the guards. The fact was, if he had not come along I might have succumbed to the assault of the elemental or worse, the regulator army that had formed from the humans still resisting the joining of sides.
I shut my eyes with a sigh, thankful to be in the back seat with a moment of peace. My body feels on edge as if any moment the car might explode and send us careening into a whole new direction, back into the warfare we so casually fled from. I replay the scene over and over, trying to block out the discomfort of my reality. Shellshocked, overwhelmed by the past few days, I couldn't help but wish I, too, could be affected by the Siren song.
To be numb for a few hours would be a blessing to my spinning head.
A former self might have found humor in this newfound disturbance, to be unseated by something so minor yet it had touched me to my core. I'd been so desperate to get out of that house but once freed into the world, I had succumbed to mortal weaknesses. How much longer could I have survived on my own? My body was still in good health, despite the gunshot, this lycan body needed much less frequent meals, I'd have to starve before it began to lose its condition.
Yet I could not wield it.
I had killed, mauled, and decimated in only a short week. "Do you need a medic?" Tiberius asks, watching me in the rearview mirror. My eyes look abnormally dark as I catch the sunburned expression staring back at me.
My hands tremble, folding my arms, I shut my eyes to avoid the dark ones leering at me. The wolf was displeased with my cowardice, I couldn't face it right now. "No. I just want to go home."
"Lotta wants me to bring you in for questioning-" He hedges, wetting his lips with a chuckle. Tiberius flourished in the torment of others, while I sometimes considered us friends, I could only imagine that he was helping me because he liked the drama that it caused. Besides the fact that my new, lustful body quenched his thirst for immorality. "But I think you know how certain members would feel about being left out of your retrieval."
Much as I was looming in darkness, I was grateful. It was a good thing Tiberius had found me, for anyone else would have known better than to disobey Lotta. "It was Helen, Kestrel, and Echo," I tell him with no remorse. I hoped they all burned. "They kidnapped me, threatened to turn the heroes against Verando if I alerted anyone. When I shifted, I escaped."
I was not foolish enough to believe that Lotta knew anything about my three treasonous captors but then, my story needed to be straight before I came to her with the details. Testing it on Tiberius before Verando seemed like a safer bet. The truth felt painfully false when faced with big names that had been crucial in our rebuild. I wouldn't like to believe it myself I hadn't been the victim.
Pulling his lips into a thin line, Tiberius nods one time, I can hear the strain of the leather as his hand tightens on the steering wheel. "We had suspected when you locked your phone that something was wrong."
I knew he had, from the questions he asked in our short conversation, he knew me better than I knew myself. "Does he hate me?" I whisper, it was the only thing I could focus on in my circling consciousness.
Raising an eyebrow, the Siren tilts his head to observe me in the mirror. "I would imagine not?"
"Then the rest would figure itself out." Curling up tightly against the door, I give myself permission to drift off into the void of sleep.
Warm arms circle around my body, lifting me off the seat and pulling me against the firmness of a broad chest. I feel the familiar pounding heartbeat, inhaling the intoxicating scent of something so familiar that everything in my body relaxed as if it'd been wound too tightly for days. Unhinged, the aches and complaints of my tired joints brought a moan of discomfort as I curled closer into the reassuring mass.
"Is he hurt?"
"I know better than to touch what's yours. He didn't want medical attention. He seems exhausted more than anything else. Randy. It was Echo, Kestrel, and Helen."
"Do you find me foolish? I'm well aware of exactly where he was and whom he had been with." I wrinkle my nose at my warlord's tone.
My hand reaches up to touch his neck, tightening my fingers around the collar of his shirt. "Don't be mad." I plead, for my own sake as much as anyone else's.
Exhaling low in his throat, he hardens his hold on my body. "Find them." The command is dark, low, and angry.
Swaying in his arms as he walks back into the house, I expect the door to slam yet it closes softly as if he were trying to cap his mounting rage. Up the stairs, I pry my eyes open to stare at the soft material of his shirt. Dark in color, soft cotton that felt so refreshing against my skin compared to the stiff clothes I was wearing. I hadn't realized how sensitive and burned my skin was from the two short days on the ship.
"Are you awake?" There's nobody else in the room, I could only imagine he was talking to me. Peering up at him, I see that he's attempting to put me down yet I cling to him as if my very life depended on it. "You have to let me put you down, darling."
"Sit," I command back in response. As he moves, I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, happily nestled in his lap as he slides his arms around me. "I'm not ready for you to put me down yet." Though my clothes suggest otherwise. Surrounded by a scent that so unique, the stale scent of aged clothes spoiled my reunion just the slightest. "Not yet anyway, I will shower, I know I must smell awful-"
His hands slide up to find my face, pulling back to finally observe me. I swallow at the intensity of the piercing light eyes, tracking every inch of my face. I couldn't help but feel shy, knowing what I must look like after being lost for so long. Brushing my cheekbone with his thumb, he stifles the weakest of laughs, as if it were untested and he wasn't sure if it was the appropriate response.
"You've just returned from an active war zone and you're worried that you don't smell nice?" Tilting his head to catch my eyes as I look down, he brushes his nose gently against mine. "I'll take you any way I can have you. I just went through days of not knowing where you were, I don't think I could possibly be displeased."
Swallowing back the discomfort of acceptance, I feel the wetness forming around my eyes. Wiping at them with the back of my hand, I sigh in frustration at myself for once more being reduced to a mess of emotion. "You were supposed to be angry with me." I accuse him weakly, laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
Bewildered at my thought process, he raises an eyebrow and I can only hide my face against his neck in embarrassment. "Don't look at me like that. You didn't want me to go in the first place. I'm waiting for the 'I told you so.'" I retort, I hadn't prepared for this, I hadn't expected him to love me anyway. Of course, I knew that he did, I knew from the bottom of my heart that he worshiped me, but I also knew that his wrath was lethal at its height when I was involved. I expected to be on the receiving end of that.
The silence grows between us and finally, he exhales. His body feels calm under my touch, I remember seeing him on the television and wanting to reassure him then too. Straightening, I check his expression, wanting to assure myself I hadn't just confirmed my fears. In his eyes, I find no anger, only the hint of disappointment and acceptance.
"I suppose I deserve that," he grumbles, running a hand through his hair as he mulls over my words. "Nic, thinking you were possibly injured or had become lost to wolf-" Shaking his head, it's almost as if it's too painful to get out and I reach to slowly trail my fingers through his tangled hair. "Being right or wrong matters very little to me. At the end of it all, I was wrong. Wrong to keep you locked away and wrong to let you go through this alone. It's easy to forget what it's like to be new."
I stretch up to kiss him, capturing his lips with my own and marveling at the feel of his mouth on mine. My body threatens to ignite but not in the way it had before my disappearance. I wasn't sure if it was exhaustion or perhaps an understanding between my wolf and I. The burn in my chest wasn't the unquenchable thirst but more so the declaration of what belonged to me, a piece of myself returned. I kiss him until I'm breathless, panting against his neck as I cling to him for support.
"I've not been myself. Randy, I don't even know who I was these past few months. I'd.. I'd truly almost given up because I missed the magic so much and I felt so lost in this body. When the war ended, when it was just us left-" I hedge as I try and catch my breath, holding him impossibly close, terrified I'd wake up and still be in that trolly dangling from the railway. "I don't want you to think you're ever not going to be enough, it's just taking me some time to remember that again and I'm so sorry-" I feel the hitch in my throat as he tilts my chin up to capture my lips once more.
Melting against him, I savor every inch of this man who'd I missed so much. "Bathe with me?" I ask him, hopefully, before dragging him to the bathroom. Stripping out of the old clothes, I toss them in the trash and flinch at my scalded body and various tan lines. My olive skin rejoices at the sun exposure and I can't help but wonder if I'd ever been even again with the amount of exposure I'd received.
Turning on the water, Verando sits on the edge of the tub and I quickly turn to capture his shirt and pull it over his head. "You're bathing with me," I tell him firmly, unwilling to let him out of my sight.
"Of course. I imagine you'd like your bath warmed?" His sarcastic tone brings a hint of a smirk to my lips as I yank off his belt and fold it between my hands, snapping it at him before tossing it aside to climb into his lap and knock him into the tub. We slide unceremoniously into the porcelain basin, I'm grateful for his reflexes as he keeps us from crashing into the pooling water without much for theatrics though he does appear incredibly unimpressed with his soaked pants.
"Oops." I chuckle against his lips, reaching down to unbuckle his pants as I hover over him.
"You certainly have recovered nicely." He accuses dryly.
Narrowing my eyes at him as I pause, I kiss him once more, more pointedly this time. "I'm not getting 'fresh' as you might say, I just want to see you. You can't tell me something as lustful as an admittance that you're wrong and I'm right and not expect me to want to ravage you." Yanking his pants off, I toss the soaked jeans onto the floor and chuckle at the wrinkle of disgust in his nose from the thought of the wet clothing soaking the tile.
"I missed you. Gods, have I missed you." I knot my fingers in his hair as I tilt his head back to claim his mouth. Not quite sure what I was expecting of our reunion, to fall back into step with each other so seamlessly was not what I'd been imagining. Before I'd left, we'd hardly touched each other, I couldn't manage much as far as control. Yet now, I could almost say I felt as if I were myself again.
My desire for him burned hot in the pit of my stomach yet it didn't consume me, I could savor it, enjoy every inch of him without wanting to devour him. "I missed kissing you," I tell him as I attack his neck, raking my teeth over the skin there.
"I can tell." He manages, voice heavy with restraint. "Darling, I'm marveling at your self-control but perhaps consider my own mortality. I'm only a man."
Straightening, I place my hands on his shoulders, feeling the strength in the muscle under my fingertips as I trace my hands up and down the plains of scars and tanned skin. "You are so much more than a mere man." Bending, I brush my nose against his, hovering my lips as I reach up to drag my fingers through his stubble.
"You're tempting a man who is quite taken by you, I'd like to remind you I've been without you for nearing on a week. I'm merely considering your safety." He retorts, resting one of his hands on my hips as I straddle his. Toying with his lower lip with my teeth, I nearly kiss him only to pause. Bringing my hand up, I cover his lips playfully as I dive for his neck and revel in the sound of his exhale as I kiss the junction of his jaw.
"You and I have never handled trauma as sane people do. All I want right now is to enjoy you in a way I haven't been able to in six months, I want to savor this because no matter how hard it was to be out there on my own, it was all worth it to have this back." I sink my teeth into his neck, grinding my hips down against him. I felt like myself, while I had no ability to utilize my wolf, a piece of me had returned at some point on this journey.
Carefully, he eases into me and I release his mouth to grip the edge of the tub. "I want you to do something for me." I manage, starting to move as I get used to the sensation.
"Can't it wait?" He murmurs, dragging me back to him as he invades my mouth with his tongue. I moan against his lips, cursing at the effect he had on my thought process. "If you're negotiating I'm not doing my job." Verando guides my hips more firmly against him, making my body shiver with the intensity.
I shake my head, fighting for clarity. "It's a favor, not a promise." I manage, panting as he reclines to watch me. The water sloshes around us, steaming the bathroom and sending heat to my cheeks.
"Mmm.. you do look particularly ravishing at the moment." He exhales, admiring me as his hand moves up to stroke my chest.
I can hardly take it as I collapse against him, surrendering to his mercy as I moan against his neck. My hands clutch whatever part of him I can grasp, between feeling overwhelmed and never wanting it to end, the words creep onto my tongue. "I need my warlord to make those spoiled, entitled bastards suffer."
Verando hesitates and I carefully ease myself up to catch his eyes, matching his pace to bring him back to me. "Don't stop now, I'm so close." I plead, kissing him once more. When I'm positive I have his cooperation, I move to the corner of his mouth. "I don't want you to kill them." I attempt to reassure him, shivering as he moans against my ear and I know he's close as well.
"I want you to show them what happens when they touch what belongs to you. I want you to put the fear of a god into them. I want them to never threaten to hurt my family again." There was only one man who could strike that much fear into a being, only one person whose reputation lasted centuries, and fear still clouded the vision of those who remembered him. There was a singular being who conquered an entire nation and would have proceeded to bring the world to its knees had they not plucked him from history.
He was my warlord and he belonged to me. I needed him to do that for us, to assure me that the three would never tread against us again. "Ask me tomorrow." He murmurs, kissing my neck, raking his teeth over my collar bone. I shake my head, swallowing hard as I fight back the impending completion.
"Ask me tomorrow." He repeats, burying himself in me as I quicken. "I want to hear you."
Obediently I respond, crying out against his neck as I finish. My body shakes as he follows behind me, I quiver helplessly in his lap as I collapse against him. "I love you." I manage.
"Me or my reputation?" He teases lightly, trailing his fingers over my back.
"Both." Peeking with one eye as the water begins to pour over the rim of the tub, I can only chuckle as he scrambles to cut off the water. "And maybe a bit of this side of you, too."