Blood & Wine

32 | Fynley

Jagger nodded towards where Dasher and Iris were staring intensely into each other's eyes. "You wish that was you, don't you?" he asked with a grin.

The scent of sex clung to them strongly enough that Calla, who had come in with a fresh group of teenage witches, had complained about it. She had taken one look at me and shook her head.

Calla knew that Eden was my Mate, but she had said she was "staying out of it." In all the months I had known her, she had never stayed out of anything—and I told her so. Her response to me was, Grow some balls and tell her.

I planned on it.

When the timing was right.

I growled at my Second, baring my teeth. My irritation levels, my anger—they were through the roof, and any wrong word could set me off. I needed to get it together, but the faint scent of Eden was still in my nose, even though she was miles away, renewing the Coven's magic on the full moon with the other witches.

"You still haven't gotten laid yet?" Jagger pushed, his eyes razor sharp, his grin wicked. "No wonder you're so angry all the time. Hand not doing the job anymore, is it?"

I turned my head away from him, body thrumming—but I looked straight at Dasher and Iris. She was standing there with her hands clasping his, and her eyes were closed, but he was studying her with an intensity that made me feel as if I was intruding. He studied every inch of her body like she would disappear if he didn't commit to memory.

I knew every inch of her body.

"Wish you were still fucking Iris?" Jagger pushed.

"No," I snapped.

I didn't. Even now, when desire rolling through every inch of me, I didn't feel like touching Iris. Not only was my cousin's scent too strong, but stepping out on Eden felt... wrong. We weren't together sexually or romantically, but the idea of doing anything with anyone else made me feel as if I had created some grave sin.

"Not even a little taste?"

I knew why he was pushing me—he wanted me to release this tension before the moon reached its highest point, and I was nothing but pure animal. Last month, it hadn't been good for me. I had attacked one of the new werewolves for flirting with me—for doing what was in her soul to do: to please me. She recognized my need and had tried to fulfill it, and I had knocked her into a tree and had to have been pulled off.

Not yours, I had thought.

Not anybody's because Eden didn't really claim me.

"Leave me alone," I said, a growl vibrating in my chest. We still had another hour until the moon was right. We only had one Changling today, and she was a slight, sixteen year old girl who had accidentally killed someone when her car hydroplaned. Eden had worked her magic and got the girl out of a prison sentence, but she couldn't drive anymore. She stayed with Mora because her parents had kicked her out.

I couldn't remember her name, couldn't remember anything but the way Eden had felt in my arms, the rise and fall of her chest. The way she had lulled me to sleep, even in the state I was in. How could she not recognize that we were Mates?

Because it was different for her. Females never felt as strongly as the males. Territorial, maybe. But they never felt the same urge we did to burn down and kill everything in our path to protect them—even if they didn't need protecting.

"Why would I do that?" Jagger said, throwing his arm around me.

I shrugged him off before I bit him. "You're playing with fire."