Chapter 9

Draven's POV

The scream had actually come to me as a ripped fabric in the link before the actual sound made it to my ears.

I was already in motion when the second one came the sort of ragged-sweet, high, broken sound that had even my wolf’s gut still clenching months after he'd heard it at its source. Tibet met me at the door of Maya’s room, jaw tight in the shadows, but I waved him off, the issue already beyond anyone else’s capabilities.

I pushed the door open.

Maya lay sprawled on the wide, kingsize bed sheets, them tangled in a cocoon around her small legs, but her eyes-wild and unfocused-were wide in her face as terror. Tears traced paths of raw flesh down her cheeks and her breaths were short, panicked rasps she wasn’t fully awake and probably never was, in the first few moments, anyway.

Three steps brought me to the foot of the mattress where I sat carefully, not touching her yet because the fear would not loosen its grip for a physical touch, at least not at this stage. Instead, I used the low, steady tone I’d employed in the ritual circle a few weeks back, the night I pulled her out. “Maya. Look at me.”

Slowly her head turned. Recognition dawned in her wide blue eyes and the stiff line of her shoulders snapped. A ragged sob finally burst through the tight bud of her throat.

I opened my arms and she threw herself into them without even a second thought, her face burrowing into my chest, small hands clenching in the coarse fabric of my shirt. One arm came around her back, the other slipped behind her head, pulling her into my side, shielding her against me. “It’s over,” I whispered, the words brushing against her hair.

“You’re here now, safe.

She can’t get you.”

It was a lie. We both knew she was still out there, somewhere, watching, waiting. But Maya needed this lie right now, not the truth.

Her breaths became deeper and steadier. The tremble in her small frame eased with each one. I let my hold slacken so she could pull away if she so chose, but keep it firm enough to be a sure anchor, not just an offer of support.

This softness was the only indulgence I permitted myself, and it was only because Maya demanded it.

Life, for me, was anything but soft everything was required to be tempered, strengthened, hardened against the elements.

She had only been six when her mother attempted to hack out her power via her blood. I had arrived too late to interrupt the initial stages of the ritual, though not too late to halt the conclusion. I still saw that night when I let my mind drift - the circle of ash and bone the shining, cruelly effective knife in my mother’s hand as she stood over six-year-old Maya who watched with me, only me, as her life bled out.

I had killed everyone in that clearing bar Melissa.

She, however, slipped away through the trees like smoke, blood slick on her hands and a silent promise of future suffering in her eyes.

I was inadequate that night. I was inadequate on all the other nights Maya woke with screaming night terrors.

“I saw the knife again,” she whispered against my chest, her voice tight. “She smiled at me.”

My jaw clamped tight and hard. “She’s not going to smile at you anymore. I promise.”

Maya said nothing, merely burrowing tighter into me, as if the sheer closeness could somehow fuse our two selves into one. I rested my chin on her dark head, my eyes locked to the opposite wall, refusing to budge, refusing to inhale the thick scent of fear. We’d stayed like that until I felt the last vestiges of panic recede from her body, only then pulling back, laying her flat against the pillows with a sheet pulled to her chin.

“Can you… stay?” she whispered, voice small and hopeful.

“Until you fall asleep.”

I remained at the side of the bed with a hand resting on the mattress where hers had been. She’d watched me for a while, her eyes slowly growing heavier with each blink, until her breathing had deepened and regulated into the soft, steady rhythm of slumber. Only after another ten minutes had passed, just to ensure she truly was asleep, did I pull myself away and stand.

That’s when I saw her.

Selene stood in the doorway outside, in the dim light, her bare feet barely visible, her dark hair spilling around her shoulders, barely concealed by the thin material of her nightgown. Selene… Our eyes met over the space of three heartbeats. “You heard,” wasn’t spoken, but her gaze screamed the question at me. Then it flickered to Maya, and beyond Maya, to me to something soft hidden deep within me that perhaps she hadn’t witnessed until now. Something other than the brittle, brittle edge of terror and desperation she'd seen in the hallway previously.

 I should have sent her back to her room. I should have reminded her that this didn’t concern her. I should have said any number of ‘shoulds’ and then turned and walked away, closing the door and shutting her out. Instead, I just stood there, holding her gaze, then I turned, pulled the door to between us. I didn’t immediately step away, listened until I heard the quiet patter of her bare feet retreating down the hall towards the guest suite, before I let myself release a slow, deep breath.

 Her scent remained - even through the closing door - faint, soft, pure. Human. Unmistakably mine. And her name clawed at the inside of my chest, the same hot, possessive growl echoing back with my wolves-Claim her. Mark her. Take what the Moon Goddess offered and don’t throw it back in her face.

I balled my hands in my fists until they ached. She was twenty-one years old and all fragile, precious, wonderful, terrible, human life. An entire package of complications I absolutely did not have room for Maya depended on me to keep her safe, pack would see any sign of vulnerability, my brothers were missing… to add an innocent human to that list of liabilities felt nothing short of suicidal.

 But Max? It didn’t understand liability. I turned and strode away from Maya’s bedroom door, suppressing the growl rumbling in my throat. The bond between us pulled like a hungry anchor in my chest, a constant, insistent pressure beneath my ribs. I had resisted it in that dark club, I had resisted it when I’d woken that morning in the guest room beside her bed and goddamnit I’d resist it again today. And every other day there was.

 But the scent still clung to me as I walked away, light, sweet, and her name howled from my wolves with each step leading me home to my own chambers the damn wolf just wouldn’t shut up about it.