Page 22 of Ethereal Shifters

“You’re mine,” he demands, gripping the back of my neck, kissing me deeply, his tongue swirling round my mouth. This is the sound of us clapping together, us and the storm around, as we finally become one. The feeling of us being as one is addictive, and I know I could have him inside me a million times and it would never be enough. He picks me up, turns me around against the chimney, and pounds into me. The chimney snaps and cracks under the pressure, but he doesn’t stop, and I don’t care. My nails spread out into black Nexus claws as my pleasure crests, and I drag them down his back to mark him too. He ismine. He growls, kissing me deeply again, his tongue marking and thrusting in and out of me as much as his cock is.

Then I crash into the best orgasm of my life. He joins me, roaring to the sky as he comes, and we both breathlessly stare at each other before he sweetly kisses me. I smile at him. “I didn’t expect my first time to be on a roof, but that was perfect.”

He kisses the tip of my nose and laughs low, which I feel all the way through me because he’s still buried inside me. I’m still a little sore from the wall as he picks me up and sits us down on the roof floor, his cock still very much inside me and hard. “Isn’t this meant to go down?”

“Around you, it never goes down,” he mutters and grins. “Now we get to use that very useful fact.”

He picks me up and moves me, putting me on my knees, my ass in the air, and he kneels behind me before slamming back inside me. I moan from the pleasure I feel from that. For the next hours, so many hours, he shows me every position on this roof. He makes me come so many times, and the world is nothing but a blurry mess. I’m completely addicted to him because he’s mine, my mate, and this is what having happiness is actually like.

Chapter

Eleven

“You look like I’m about to die, but I literally don’t die forever; I just come back,” I tell Rhodes, who is staring at my face like he needs to memorise it, and at the same time, he looks like he wants to grab me and run out of the arena. I’d run with him if I thought it would be that easy. “You know I’ve thought about running away from Starlight City from the second I said the words. I thought, hey, can’t I run away like I did before and just keep hiding? I have money, places to go, and a million odd escape plans my parents taught me. I know my Nexus would be angry, but I could do it…and then I didn’t. I didn’t because the truth is, I like being here with my mates because this is the first time I felt…felt like I have a home. A home where I’m not a monster, not a burden but wanted. Actually wanted.” I blow out a long breath. Being vulnerable is more difficult than I ever knew. “And I’m going to fight for us. For my home.”

Rhodes curls his hand around my waist, tipping my chin up. “I will always be your home, Gwen. Always, but fuck I want to run with you from this. You think I like seeing you die, even knowing you will come back? I can’t see and feel you die again;it cuts me apart.” He pulls me to his side and leans down. “I thought if I found something, some kind of way to help you by studying the libraries, I might be useful, but I found nothing to tell me what will happen today.”

“I never expected you to find anything.” I sadly smile at him. I hate seeing him like this, feeling helpless. “You have to let me do this.”

“I know, but at the same time, your last choice was to reject us and run.” He kisses me softly. “Would you change it? Rejecting us and running away?”

His question takes me by surprise. “Yes. Maybe, I don’t know. I think I did the best I could at fifteen, and I was so scared of hurting you. Do you still hate me for it?”

He looks right into my eyes, but he might as well punch me straight through the heart and take it for his own. “No, and for the record, as much as it hurt me, I wouldn’t ask you to change a damn thing that leads us to this. I would want you to make every single mistake, every single death and every bad thing you think you have done, because it means we are here together.”

“Rhodes.” I sigh, touching his chest. “I am sorry I hurt you, but I have no intention of leaving any of you. The fact I’m here should tell you that I’m fighting for us. I’m about to face the Gods’ trials for a chance at a life here with you. We can be normal, well, as normal as it gets for us.”

“If it ends with me and you, that’s more than normal.” He kisses me softly and my entire body bursts to life under his touch. “Are you ready? Do you need anything?”

“Me? No, I’m totally cool and not at all nervous to walk out into that amphitheatre with everyone screaming and shouting at me and face the trial that most people have died doing. No. But I know I have to do this.” I look down at my clothes. I chose skin-tight jeans, easy to move around in, and a simple top. Casual, but I’m not wearing my ranger clothes in here despite my matesarguing it would be smart. I’m facing this as me, not as a ranger. It doesn’t matter what I wear when it’s likely magic is going to be more important. At least I’m comfortable and feel like me.

“Come here, you’re shaking.” He leads me out one of the side doors, onto a small balcony that shows off a Starlight City encased in the dark, the city sparkling, the moon hanging above us. He gets something out of his inner jacket, an old iPod. I haven’t seen those in years.

“Retro. I like it.” I’m surprised when it turns on.

“It was my mother’s,” he softly explains. “She always kept the best music on it, and I just charge it. It makes me feel better.” He gives me one of the earbuds, and he puts the other in his ear, pulling me close to him as the song starts playing. “When they died, I listened to this for days and days. Then I put it away and I couldn’t bring myself to listen to her music until the other day, when it fell out of my chest of draws. I think my mother wanted me to play it with you.” I close my eyes, listening to the entire song his mother wrote and sang, with Rhodes close to me. The songs are about love and sacrifice, about longing and fear, too. About wanting someone you can’t have and being burnt.

“What happened to your parents? I know they died, but how?” I softly question. These songs make me want to know more.

He clears his throat and looks away from me. “My father died when I was a kid, but my mother was drained by Vian in the centre of Liverpool. She took us there for a weekend away, and even with guards, even when she was strong and powerful, she was still drained like an animal and dropped on the concrete like nothing afterwards. Hollis and I found her when we came out of a cafe. She just stepped outside to find a table for us while we queued.”

My heart drops in my chest. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to see your mother die and be powerless to help her.”

I nearly jump when the door opens and Beta Francis steps out. I don’t know him very well, but he is younger than the other betas, a head full of bushy grey hair and matching eyebrows. “It’s time, Miss Autumn.” Rhodes steps forward with me as I hand him the earbud back, but Beta Francis holds up his hand. “You are to stand alone and walk with me. You must stay, Mr Asura.”

Rhodes breathes in deep. They only let him come in here to wait earlier too, and I was certain Finnegan or Aleksander might have lost it if I chose either of them to come with me. Rhodes understands I don’t need more hassle than is necessary, and he will let me go in there. I don’t think the others could. “I’ll be in the crowds with the others, okay? We’re all there. We will step in if the Gods even try to take you from us.”

“Overprotective.” I kiss his cheek.

“Trouble,” he replies, right before letting me go. Beta Francis is silent as we go through the large brick room and to the stairs that lead outside. Before I take the first step, he reaches for my arm and stops me. “I’d like to talk to you about your father sometime. Alone. Come to my apartment, it’s on Fifty-First Street, penthouse, and make sure no one sees you come in.”

“Why?” I lean back and move my arm away. “So you can kill me privately? Did your race-betraying alpha come up with this shit plan?”

“There are things you don’t know.” He whispers so quietly that I can barely hear him. “The alpha is nothing compared to what is coming. Do you still have the box from your mother?”

What is coming? Why does he sound like Severi? “Yes. How do you even know about that?”

“It’s complicated, but I’ll try to find a moment for us to be alone. I can talk to you about it all because I was tasked with giving you information on the box and other”—he stops and looks around before back to me—“things that your father toldme and your mother told me about the box. Make sure it’s safe and make sure you don’t give it to anyone you can’t trust.”

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