Page 21 of Rising Darkness

“You were fucking made for me,” he grunted, hammering into me as I rocked beneath him. Tye lost himself to the rut, fucking me harder than I’d ever experienced. My cries echoed off the stone, a carnal song.

“Yes. Moan for me, love. Show me how good I make you feel.” One of his hands traveled down my stomach and between my legs to rub my clit. Those little circles, those harsh, demanding caresses, were all I needed.

I screamed my release, arching off the bed and crushing the sheets in my hands in an effort to stay anchored to earth while he made me fly through the stars.

“Jesus,” he swore as he followed me over the edge. Holding me against the mattress at his mercy, his hands tightened around my wrists. His cock swelled impossibly bigger, sending me into a riot of aftershocks as he spilled himself inside of me with rough, merciless jerks.

This lost, this distracted, darkness slipped from me unheeded.

Tye’s magick crawled down his tattooed arms in inky veins. His fingers turned onyx, and he released it. It shot into my chest, and I inhaled sharply as it circled around the core of darkness in the center, blanketing it in a layer of his power. Tye’s green eyes bled to white at the same time his magick shifted in color, and something inside of me changed. The weight on my lungs eased as the darkness receded. The tempest calmed to a thunderstorm, which then slowed to a drizzle, and I melted into the mattress as his power slowly receded.

“What was that?” I asked in disbelief. I felt a million times better. And not just because of the amazing sex.

“Amazing, huh?” Tye smirked, easily picking the thoughts from my head. Collapsing next to me, he propped himself up and traced patterns along the smooth skin of my stomach, playing his way up to the undersides of my breasts. I shivered from the light touch.

“The magick, Tye. Explain the magick.” I shook my head.

“I’m a neutralizer. I can contain that darkness inside of you and change it to light until both sides of you are mostly balanced. Getting you fully anchored to the mortal realm will help lessen the veil’s effect on you, but some people struggle with balance more than others, regardless,” he said, and I immediately thought of his dad. I wondered if he did the same for Elan, and if so, how much worse his father would descend into madness without his son to balance the evil in him.

“I could never balance him,” Tye admitted, lying back on the mattress and slinging an arm over his forehead, staring at the mottled gray stone above. “Only take the edge off. But you’re not wrong. I fear we haven’t seen the worst of him.”

“If what you said about the grimoire is true and it’s not lost to us, then we still have hope. As soon as the sun sets, we need to go home.”

Tye cut a look at me. “It’s your home. Not mine. Not yet.”

“It's yours as much as it’s mine. The guys will adjust. They’ll have to,” I said with more confidence than I felt, but I hid it from Tye. I wanted to get back to the rest of my men as soon as possible. I missed Dason, Jolon, Syler, Chayton, Axel, and Kota with a fierceness I hadn’t known existed until I’d found my mates. They were a part of me. But so was Tye. Explaining everything that had happened, especially the part where Tye and I had mated, wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

“Come here.” Tye motioned for me, settling me into his side. My body molded against him perfectly, and I sucked in his warmth, both of our internal temperatures raised from the fun we’d shared. “Don’t worry about the guys and me. I’ll handle it, okay? Get some sleep. We only have a few hours before the sun sets and I have to return you.”

I didn’t like the way he said it, as if he had doubts we’d ever get to be like this again. I nestled closer and closed my eyes, slipping into an exhausted yet troubled sleep.

I don’t know how long we dozed for, but when I jerked awake, a mottled bruise of yellow, red, and orange light painted the walls.

The deep growl that resonated off the stone both elated and frightened me as a familiar voice snarled into the void.

“What the fuck are you doing with our mate?”

Chapter Nine

Jolon

Afew hours earlier…

Too many hours had passed since Lorn’s kidnapping, and I was done playing by the rules. The six of us had tried making our presence known in New Orleans to draw the attention of the only warlock any of us trusted enough to confide in and ask for help.

But Darbonne hadn't shown his face, and the only location Axel could track him to had been unoccupied.

I was done waiting. The sun was high in the sky by the time I rounded everyone to regroup.

We're wasting time, I growled down the mental link I'd initiated with everyone except Dason. He was still a rogue, which made communicating difficult, but now wasn't the time to force the issue of pack hierarchy or fight over alpha status. That’s how we’d ended up in this mess to begin with. We’d failed our mate, and it’d made me realize something vital; I'd give it all up to get Lorn back in one fucking piece.

I couldn't stand not knowing where she was or if she was okay. If she was hurting, or worse, dead.

Don't go there, Sy growled into my head.She's going to be okay. And we're going to find her.

I didn't share his optimism. We didn't know what the fucker who took her wanted, or where he was keeping her. When I got my hands on him, I was going to strangle him slowly and watch the life drain from his eyes as he stared into my face. I wanted to be the last thing he saw before he descended into the Shadow Realm to pay for his crimes. To know that the pain of his death was only the beginning of his eternal torment.

Nobody took my mate and got away with it.

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