Page 6 of Awakened Gifts

I cringe and lock the door on my link to her mind. I can’t keep listening to shit like that.

“I’ve never heard of a first encounter being this strong in a draw,” I add, still keeping distance from her mind. “Something else has to be going on. Some counters meet and don’t realize they’re connected for several months or longer. Your father loved Symphony without knowing she was his counter. The draw is usually much more subtle. This is strangling me.”

“That explains your shaking, but it doesn’t mean anything other than the connection is strong,” she says while turning back to face me. “After a near death encounter, draws have been known to be stronger upon meeting. You were dead. Aria brought you back from the dead. It makes sense that this draw is almost suffocating. Not to mention, you’re a full blood hybrid. We don’t really know the rules on your kind. Two of you... well, that’s an even bigger anomaly.”

I glare at her as she stares blankly at me. “It sounds like you want her to be my fucking counter, considering how hard you’re pushing this.”

Her blank stare turns into a furious glower. “No, I’m not. I’d love nothing more than for Aria and you to be counters. But you’re not. You know you’re not, yet neither of you want to stop fighting the inevitable. I’m giving you the facts, because that’s what I do—facts. You just want me to tell you something to make you feel better, but I’m not the kind of person who distorts the evidence and twists it into a useless lie. You want someone to do that, go find them and ask them for their advice. I have work to do.”

She whips back around, returning her attention to the microscope as though it carries more importance than this... fucked up thing I’m going through, and I debate throttling her and forcing her to tell me what I want to hear. It’d be pointless. She’s right. She’s not able to see beyond the evidence.

Even if Simone is right about some of it, that doesn’t mean she’s right about everything. I can fight this, because I’ll be damned if I lose the woman I love because of fate.

Chapter 3

Aria

Jase has been gone forever, and I’m tired of waiting. He can sneak away for at least a little while.

I smile as a scandalous plan is conjured inside my twisted mind. But before I can set my plan into action, the door to the suite swings open, and Jase comes into view. His face is too serious, and it worries me, but the second his eyes meet mine, my heart falters.

I’ve never seen him look so determined, intense, and almost desperate. His long, purposeful strides confuse me more, and then he blurs to me, catching me by surprise as his lips crush mine almost violently.

When he tugs me, I jump up to wrap my legs around him, and my grip on him competes to be tighter than his grip on me. I hear the distinct sound of fabric ripping, but I’m not sure whose clothes it is. Nor do I care.

“I love you,” he says against my lips, making it sound almost like a prayer, and my fingers go to his hair as he drops me to the bed.

“I love you,” I mumble through the kiss, my head rushing as my body arches compliantly.

He owns me, and I love the way every part of me belongs to him.

He groans when he most likely reads my mind, and his rough kiss becomes almost painful, but so damn good. I spread my legs, inviting him to get closer, and he pulls me to him as my jeans are tossed away.

It’s almost happening too fast, like he can’t get me naked soon enough, and I grin in anticipation. This is so much better than the plan I had in mind.

“What did you have in mind?” he asks, smiling against my lips as my body becomes bare beneath him.

He leans up to tug his shirt over his head, and I bite down on my lip as I greedily rake my eyes over his chiseled body that seems to have been designed specifically for my pleasure. I’ll never grow tired of that sight.

“I hope not,” he says with a smug grin as he comes back down to me. “Considering it’s yours for eternity.”

My heart races as that thrill excites me, and I kick at his jeans and boxers until they clap the floor, putting him bare between my legs.

“Now, what did you have planned?” he prompts, biting down on my bottom lip before taking it into his mouth.

My thought process ceases to exist, and with his lips on mine in a hungry, devouring kiss, I see no reason to speak. Instead, I give him a visual with my mind for what I wanted to do to him, and he growls in response as he thrusts hard inside me. I cry out in pleasure from the brutal entry, and his tongue explores my mouth with expert familiarity.

He breaks the kiss, and his lips travel down to my shoulder as he pushes into me, his thrusts growing harder each time. He hasn’t been this crazy with my body since we almost lost each other.

An unexpected, sharp, searing pain strikes my shoulder, but just as quickly, the pain dissipates and turns to erotic euphoria as Jase takes my blood into his mouth. My loud moans can’t be silenced as the fire spreads through my veins, consuming me in a maddening rush.

A series of unintelligible sounds fall through my lips as Jase sucks the blood from my veins, making the resulting high almost tangible. His violent thrusts become all the more ravenous. As we fight for dominance, savagely ravaging each other, we roll off the bed and crack the floor beneath us when we land against the hardwood, but we never break contact. I manage to wrestle away the top position, and I sit up as he grabs my hips and thrusts into me from underneath.

It’s almost hard to hold my balance every time he slams into me with enough force to kill a human. I finally drop to push my lips to his chest, and his breathing falters just as I break the surface of his skin, lapping up the sweet sex-and-candy flavored blood that I can’t get enough of.

The burn of the erotic poison is welcome, and I push my hips down to meet his thrusts, hungry for as much as I can get. His hands wrap around my throat as I near the edge, and his name starts tearing through my lips loud enough to break through the soundproof barrier.

Our hybrid heats collide, turning our torrid breaths into steam, and the surfaces in the room begin to fog over. I fall to drop my hands on the floor on either side of his head, and the hardwood flooring singes beneath my touch.

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