Once Upon a Shifter (86 page)

"But you didn't ask me to. You told me to, just like always, Phoenix. When are you going to stop trying to run my life for me and let me do it on my own?"

Closing his eyes, Phoenix inhaled deeply before opening them to look at me. There was so much sadness in his tear-filled eyes that my breath caught in my throat. "Right now," he whispered.

"What?" I said, and my voice cracked. I didn't know what was going on, but he was obviously in agony. What had I said to him? Surely nothing I hadn't said before.

He looked down as he took my hand, placing the vile in my fingers. "I will always love you, Mena."

"I will always love you, too, Phoenix," I said, still confused.

"You need to go with Ace," he said, a little more than a whisper, but I had heard him.

I jerked my hand out of his. "Are you breaking up with me?" I hissed in a low voice, but I had caught the attention of a few people close to us. They looked away quickly as heat filled my cheeks and hot tears stung my eyes.

"I'm not strong enough to do that. I thought about doing something to make you angry with me, enough that you would make this a bit easier, but—"

"You want me to break up with you, because you are too much of a coward to do it yourself?"

"Mena, be reasonable. I'm not good for you. You've seen how strong the bond is. You're only making yourself and Ace miserable trying to keep me in your life. You can be happy again." So that's what he meant about me being happy in the end? That I would be happy with someone else, not him. "Love is only an emotion, Mena. It will pass—"

"It will pass?" I shouted, and flung the vile at him. He caught it. "You're really going to go with that after all we've been through? Am I that easy to forget, Phoenix? I'm just an emotion that will wither away in time, is that right?"

"No," he said. "I could never stop loving you—"

"How could you think I could ever stop loving you?"

Ace appeared beside me, but I backed away when he reached out to touch me.

"Because you should. You have Ace and the bond now. I'm just in the way."

I shook my head, disagreeing with him. The tears were pouring freely now, and I couldn't stop them. He was breaking my heart. "You lied to me. You told me that I would be happy in the end. If I can't have you, I never will be. I love you. I want you—"

"But you need Ace, and I can't compete with that damn bond!"

"I'm not asking you to compete with it or him, Phoenix. I'm just asking you to be there for me, to love me and to never let me go."

"I'm too selfish to let you go, Mena, but I will always love you and I will always be there for you. You need to do what's best for you, because I'm not strong enough to do it." I sobbed as he closed the distance between us and framed my face with his hands. "Close your eyes," he whispered. My face twisted in anguish as I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, sending two streams of tears down my face. He wiped my heated and damp cheeks with his thumbs. "Shhh…" His lips brushed mine tenderly, and then he pulled back. "Tell me goodbye, Mena."

I shook my head.

"It is what's best for you."

I opened my eyes. "Having you in my life is what's best for me. I need Ace, but I want you. That will never change. If the men in my life would stop trying to reign over me and give me time, we could all be happy."

"Ace is a bonded Alpha male, Mena. He's not ever going to be happy about you wanting me."

I turned and gave Ace full eye contact as I said, "He's going to have to get happy about it, because I'm never giving you up."

Phoenix huffed as he looked at Ace. "That's all I got, man."

"I'll make you a deal, Ace. I shouldn't, after what you just tried to make him do, but I will compromise… a little." A sigh of resignation laced my voice. I didn't really want to do this, but couldn't see any way around it.

"Do I have a choice?" Ace said.

I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. "Nope."

He lifted his hands and placed them on his hips. "Let's hear it then."

"I will drink the potion and go with you to Las Vagas—" his eyebrows lifted, "—under two conditions…" then they fell.

"I'm listening," Ace said.

"You need to be there with your pride, and I need to be here with my pack, Phoenix and his clan, but we can't be apart, so each full moon we will move. I'll go with you tonight, but you have to return with me in twenty-eight days. Take the deal or we can see just how long we can be separated before we both collapse for good. I'm not leaving him. I'm not leaving Phoenix… ever. Do you understand me?"

Instead of responding to my question, Ace frowned at Phoenix. "I'm disappointed in your acting skills."

"I never said I could act," Phoenix replied, maybe a bit too cheerily.

Ace huffed, and then growled in frustration. "Fine."

"And Phoenix gets conjugal visits," Phoenix threw in, with a grin and a wink.

Ace snarled. "No. Six months out of the year, Andra is completely mine."

Phoenix shrugged. "Fine, then the other six months when the two of you are here, Mena will be completely mine."

He held up a lone finger. "You can come visit her one day per month, but not on a weekend," Ace shot back. I rolled my eyes at the two parental figures negotiating custody. I figured I had to give them
something
.

Phoenix chuckled. "How about I come when I want and you suck it up, buttercup. You heard the girl; I'm not going anywhere."

Ace's fists clenched, causing his knuckles to pop, and he bit his lip. I knew by his thoughts that he didn't like this plan, at all, but he knew by my thoughts that I really didn't give a damn what he thought, at least not about this. I wasn't going to give up a man I was in love with just because I was bonded to Ace. Nobody could force me to do that, not even Phoenix's weak attempt to end our relationship.

"You need to get packed, Andra," Ace said, and then he walked away, defeated.

Throwing up the walls around my mind, so I couldn't feel Ace's pain or hear his thoughts, I threw my arms around Phoenix's neck and scolded him with my eyes. "Don't you ever break up with me again."

"I promise to never, ever do that again. Broken hearts really suck ass!"

I smiled. "You're mine."

"Until my last breath," he said.

v''''v

Phoenix

He held onto her as Ace's pride members loaded her luggage on the private jet. She trembled in his arms, and he knew her leaving without him was only part of why she was shaking; she had refused to let Ace touch her since the party, and it was nearly dawn now.

Phoenix kissed the top of her head and tried not to think of how hard it would be not to see her every day. "I'll be there next weekend. It's only six days. We've been through worse."

She nodded against his chest. "I miss you already."

"I miss you, too, Mena. Try to be happy. Kick his ass in training or something. He's going to keep trying to think of ways to break us apart if you stay sad, so be happy, for me, for us, for you. Promise me that you will."

"I will."

"Promise.

She nodded. "I promise."

"It's time to go, Andra," Ace said. "The luggage is loaded."

Phoenix pulled away enough to take her face in his hands, and then he kissed her like he was never going to see her again. He vowed to always kiss her like this from this day forward, because he never knew when or if that day would come.

"I love you," he whispered.

Ace took her hand and led her to the plane, but her eyes stayed fixed on Phoenix's until she was in the jet and the door was secured.

The shade on one of the windows lifted, and he smiled when she waved at him. He waved back, but it was getting damn hard to hold the smile in place. As the plane began to move, she just placed her palm against the glass and stared at him. The obstruction in his throat was getting difficult to swallow around.

His phone chimed from his pocket, but he refused to take his eyes off her until he could no longer see her anymore.

After a few minutes, the jet was just a faint spot in the sky.

Drawing in a shaky breath, he pulled the cell from his pocket and looked at the screen. The text was from her. Only three words.

See you soon.

Sneak Peek at Andromeda's Reign

Andromeda's Reign

Chapter 1

Ace

"Do it again," I demanded.

I could feel Andromeda trying to give up emotionally, as well as physically, but I pushed her harder. I knew what her body and mind were capable of, and we were nowhere near her breaking point. She was a lot stronger than she thought she was.

Our connection, as we both liked to refer to the bond, seemed to be growing stronger, rather than weaker like Andromeda had hoped it would. She wanted to find a way to reverse the ritual.

I didn't.

She could feel my every emotion and hear my every thought — unless I blocked the telepathy — but it worked both ways, so she could keep me out of her mind, too. But not her emotions. Never her emotions.

I felt them all. Each and every happy memory she'd had with Phoenix and each and every sad moment she'd had without him. It was literally driving me insane, this damn rollercoaster of feelings. I had never in all my life felt as much as I had in the last week, and I hated it. It pissed me off that she wouldn't stop thinking about him or missing him for even two seconds so she could see what we could have together. The only time she wasn't thinking about him was when we were training. So I planned to train. A lot.

Me… with one girl… forever… I rolled my eyes at the absurdity that my life had become in only the blink of an eye. I blocked her kick, grabbed her shoe and threw her to her back on the workout mat.

I grinned down at pissed-off, pale-green eyes and offered her my hand.

Andromeda huffed as she got to her feet on her own, looking down as she limped away from me.

I shook my head as my hands came up to rest on my hips. "Don't give me that shit. It might work on your wolf cubs or even your boyfriend, but you can't fake it with me, Andra. We're bonded. I know you're not hurt, so don't—"

"I'm tired, Ace—"

"What are you going to do when you're in battle with someone and you get tired? Are you going to limp away? What if I'm not there to kill the fucker for you next time?"

"I never asked for this!" she screamed as she whirled around to glare at me, her beautiful eyes brightened by the tears shimmering in them.

"I didn't, either!" I roared back, and she flinched as our emotions mingled together. I knew she wasn't sad, because her fury washed over me like I had been doused with boiling water. The rush of it almost hurt. This part sucked — the anger, but I knew anger. I could deal with anger. Anger was my friend. It was the sadness and the heartbreak and the sappy-frilly-frilly I couldn't fucking deal with.

With more effort than I really wanted to put forth with the mood I was in, I waded through her rage, then through my madness and forced calm over us both.

After a moment, I held out my hand again. "Come here." I'd be dead and damned before I went to her, not with how she'd been acting since we left Montgomery, Alabama.

She looked down at my hand and set her jaw. I knew she wanted to touch me just as much as I needed her to, but I also knew by her thoughts that she wouldn't without a little more encouragement.

"I know you promised Phoenix that you would try to be happy here with me in Sin City. Do I need to make a call to the High Vampire of Montgomery to let him know you aren't playing fair, Andra? My first attempt at getting him to break things off with you was just that: my
first
attempt. You may hate me before this is all over and done with between you and your bloodsucker, but, in the end, you will still need me and you won't have him. I can live with that. Can you?"

Her lip quivered, and I nearly caved. "Ace—"

"You're mine, Andra. I'm willing to give you some time to let that soak in, but I won't wait forever." I hardened my voice to a steely edge, even though she undoubtedly could tell I was serious. She had bonded with me, dammit, and she was mine, not some vampire a thousand miles away. I had to tamp down the utter rage at Andra’s memories of the bloodsucker in bed with her, his skin sliding against hers, he mouth on Andra’s. Fuck. If she wasn’t going to realize it on her own, I’d have to push the issue.

"I knew you would do this. I knew you would get me here and try to control me—"

"The only thing I'm trying to do is train you, but you won't stop thinking of
him
long enough to concentrate on keeping your love-sick ass alive if this were a real situation!"

"Why do I need to learn how to fight so fast? We've barely stopped since we got here. And why haven't you let me in your mind in two days?"

I huffed. I couldn't tell her about Justice yet. If this made her mad, I could only imagine how enraged she would be when I told her that I had just nailed a huge target on her head with our bonding. The worst part was I knew it before I even did it. I didn't know how to break the news to her without her hating me for it. Hell, I hated me for it. "I'm not ready to talk about it yet."

"Well, I'm not ready to stop missing Phoenix yet," she bit back. "I've only been away from my home for a little more than half a day, Ace. Cut me a little slack."

I guess I was damned and dead, because I took a step forward, reached out and took her hand. The relief was immediate. "I am sorry. I'm trying, Andra, and I will talk to you about him soon. I promise. I'm just trying to figure out how to go about doing that."

She nodded as she wrapped her arms around me, and I looked up to the high ceiling, thanking the good Lord above us that He had given me enough sense to apologize. There was no better feeling in the world than when she was in my arms. It felt like heaven. It was new for me — totally unheard of for me, but I was quickly getting used to it. And that in itself was mystifying.