Claws and Effect (9 page)

Ellis Russell was super pissed at me.

Chapter Six

By the time we got back to the cabin, Ellis hadn't spoke a word to me. My stomach ached from being thrown over his shoulder and bouncing there, and I'd been staring at those flexing white buttocks for the last half hour. I mean, they were a great thing to stare at, but I was more worried than turned on. Ellis was so very mad at me.

When we got back to the cabin, he stormed inside and dropped me on the bed. I bounced on my back and immediately started to get up. "Now, Ellis, you knew I had to try--"

My words turned into a squeak of protest as his naked body climbed over mine. His weight pressed me down on the bed, and his eyes were gleaming with that green catlike shine that told me that he was still utterly enraged.

"We can talk about this," I said in a wobbly voice.

"I'm not interested in talking," Ellis growled low in his throat, and then he leaned in and kissed me.

That...wasn't what I expected. Startled, I remained unresponsive beneath him for a moment. His mouth wasn't rough, though. He was fierce, but firm, and his lips moved over mine with a possessive coaxing I found impossible to resist. The more he kissed me, the more I weakened, until my arms wrapped around his neck and I parted my lips, welcoming him into my mouth.

His tongue immediately swept into my mouth and I moaned. There was a wildness to Ellis's kiss that should have frightened me, but aroused me instead. I touched my tongue to his, my own responses tentative to his. He took the lead, his fingers tangling in my hair as our mouths meshed together and he lapped and sucked at my tongue. My nipples grew hard in response and every inch of my body throbbed with need.

God, the man could kiss. "Ellis," I gasped against his lips. "Oh god, Ellis."

"Lily," he breathed into my mouth, and took my lower lip between his teeth and nipped at it. I whimpered at the sensation, squirming under him. His body pressing me down onto the bed had somehow managed to slide between my parted knees, and he pressed his hips against mine, and I felt the urgency of his desire.

"Tell me that you like this," he whispered, his nose brushing against mine and then sliding to trace along my skin, as if he delighted in the mere scent of me alone. "Tell me that you like my touch, Lily."

My fingers flexed and clung to him, needing something to dig into. "I love it," I admitted, blood pounding in my veins. The smell of him was in my nostrils, musky and intense, and I shivered when he brushed his lips over mine in a tease.

"Tell me you want me to keep kissing you," he demanded, mouth moving over mine and hovering just out of reach. The look in his eyes was intense.

"Kiss me," I breathed, trying to drag his head down so he could press his lips against mine.

He groaned at my words and his hips pumped against mine, pushing my legs apart, his cock thrusting against my sweatpants. I gasped and clung to him, astonished at how good that felt. Then, we were kissing again, his mouth devouring my own with deep, slick kisses that promised the same thing that his grinding hips were.

And oh god, I loved it. He'd taken complete control and it was driving me wild.

His mouth pulled away from mine again, and I opened my eyes to see that his were gleaming that wild green. "Tell me that you're mine," he demanded.

The words were like a bucket of cold water thrown over me. I pushed at his shoulder. "What?"

"You're mine, Lily," he said, pressing kisses to my jaw and sliding to my neck. "Say it."

But...I didn't want to belong to anyone. I struggled against his weight, my hands slapping at his bare skin. "I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone!" Panic rose in my voice. Memories returned, of Andre and his metal collar, of endless, terrifying nights in the cold basement, waiting to die.

His mouth nuzzled at my throat, sending another tidal wave of fear through me. That, too, was like Andre. "I want to claim you for my own."

"Stop it, Ellis," I cried, and my voice broke on a sob. "Please, please stop."

He froze over me.

I pushed at him again, and he pulled back. "Lily?"

"I don't belong to you," I said, slamming a weak fist against his shoulder. He didn't even flinch. "I don't belong to anyone but me. This is why I want to be free. Because everyone thinks they can own me."

He rolled off of me, and I caught another glimpse of white buttocks as I sat up, wiping at my eyes. Ellis strode angrily to the other side of the room and grabbed a pair of pants off the floor. They might have been mine, but it didn't matter. He hauled them over his naked body and when he was decent, he turned around to look at me, hands on his hips with barely controlled fury.

"Is that why you ran?" he wanted to know. "Is it me?"

"I ran because I'm a captive," I choked. "How would you like it if someone else decided how you were going to live your life? How long are you going to keep me here?"

"Until it's safe to let you go."

"And how long is that going to take? Six months? A year?" My words were bitter. "So I have a bed and a window now. How is this any different than when the vampire held me?"

"Goddamn it, Lily, it's not like that," Ellis snarled, pacing.

"No? Tell me what it's like, then!"

"He used you as a meal," Ellis said, voice cutting and brutal. The look on his face was utterly severe. "He didn't give two shits about you. About whether you lived or died. And I..." he swallowed hard and stilled. "I love you, Lily. And I want to know how you feel about me."

A long silence fell. Somehow, I wasn't surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but they made me feel...strange. It was what I wanted, right? I wanted Ellis to fall for me...except now it was clear it didn't matter if he loved me or not, because he still wouldn't betray his clan to free me.

"Well?" His face was rigid. "Tell me how you feel about me."

"I don't know," I said in a small voice.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know," I yelled back at him, furious. "Do I like kissing you? Yes. Would I sleep with you? Yes! Do I know if it's because I'm in love with you or because I'm just clinging to you because you're safe? I don't know." I bit out the words, fast and brutal. "Hey, here's cause and effect for you, Ellis. You rescue a girl and you're the only constant in her world and she falls in love. You know what that's called? Stockholm Syndrome. That's cause and effect for you."

"You think the way you feel about me is Stockholm Syndrome?" His eyes were green slits of rage, his fists clenched at his sides.

"I don't know what I think," I told him miserably. "All my choices are constantly taken away from me."

He stared at me for so long that I fidgeted on the bed, uncomfortable. I wiped tears from my eyes and looked away, but he remained utterly still, a block of bitter ice. Twin mews from the box in the corner made both of us look over, and I saw a fuzzy head poke out from the side of the box, and a plaintive mew grew louder. SuperGirl was hungry and wanted to be fed, which meant that Wonder Woman wasn't far behind.

"Feed the kittens. I'll be back in a minute," Ellis said, and stormed out the front of the cabin.

I hesitated and thought about going after him. I hated that he was angry, but I felt helpless, too. How could I possibly know my own mind about anything right now, and how could he expect me to? Shaking my head, I went to the stove to put on hot water, and then scooped up the kittens to snuggle.

By the time I'd finished feeding the kittens and cuddling them, Ellis still wasn't back. I lay in my bed, the kittens tucked against my side, and thought. He had to be out front of the cabin, blowing off steam. After my escape attempt, I knew he wouldn't leave me alone again. He'd just expect me to escape again, and I wasn't trustworthy.

I didn't know why that bothered me so much, but it did.

I stroked the kittens tiny heads and petted tiny ears and scritched teeny little backs as we waited for Ellis to come back inside. It grew dark, and just when I was starting to drowse, the door to the cabin opened. I sat up, spilling the kittens into my lap, and was startled to see that it was Everett, book in hand. I looked behind him, but no one else came in. "Where'd Ellis go?"

"He's taking a break," Everett said. "You want me to fix you some dinner?"

"No, I'm good," I said in a small voice, and tucked the kittens closer to my body. "Is he coming back tonight?" It was dark outside, and Ellis always slept curled up next to me.

"Not tonight," Everett said. He sat at the table and opened his book and began to read. "Let me know if you need anything," he said, not looking up.

"I'm good," I said again, and lay back down, hugging the kittens close. I guessed I'd hurt Ellis more than I'd thought with my declarations of Stockholm Syndrome.

He'd said he was in love with me. He was in love with me and wanted to know how I felt about him. I ran my fingers down Wonder Woman's tiny back and wondered, myself, how I felt about Ellis.

***

Ellis didn't visit me the next week. Every night, I went to bed alone, Everett sitting at the kitchen table and reading a book with a flashlight until the early hours of dawn. When I woke up, it was a different person every day. Sometimes it was Austin. Sometimes it was Jeremiah, or his boyfriend Sam. I was now being visited by all of the Russells except for the one that I wanted to see.

And that made me...sad.

The kittens were growing steadily, their little tummies fat with milk. They were toddling about the cabin now, and no longer needed to have the heating pad in their box. Now, they slept with me on the bed, tucked against my body, their little purring warmths not even close to a replacement for Ellis's big protective body, but it was all I had.

I knew Ellis was staying away because I'd hurt his feelings. He'd confessed love for me and I'd screamed 'Stockholm Syndrome' in his face. So now he was giving me distance, I'm sure, so I could sort out how I felt about him.

And the truth was...I missed him. The others were nice, of course. Everett chatted with me more than before, and talked about his books. Jeremiah and Sam both played cards with me. Austin flirted like a mad fiend and brought a Scrabble board so we could play together, and even Bathsheba showed up once to fuss over me, get me new clothing, switch out my linens, and scrub the cabin down as if the others weren't taking very good care of me.

Sometimes, I felt more like a guest than a prisoner. Everyone I met was nice.

But they weren't Ellis, and I ached to see him again.

One morning, I woke up and to my surprise, both Josh and Marie were slated to be my 'keepers' that day. I hugged Marie for what felt like forever, and she piled onto the bed with me while Josh sat nearby and listened to us chat. With a kitten in each of our laps, we talked the day away.

"So," I asked at one point. "You're...a cougar now?"

She nodded and pointed at her neck. "Changed and claimed by Josh."

I peered at her skin. "I don't see anything there."

A flush brightened her cheeks. "Oh, right. I keep forgetting you're human." She grimaced. "Gosh, that sounded bad, didn't it? Not that being human is bad, mind you. I just can see different things now that I'm a shifter."

"Different things...like what?"

"Well," she tilted her head, thinking. Her hand stroked down Wonder Woman's back, the kitten curled up on her thighs and sleeping. "I can see almost as well in the dark as I can in the light. Smells are sharper. I can tell who's a shifter and who isn't just by how they smell. And I can see mate marks." She gestured at her throat again.

"What's a mate mark?"

"Oh, this'll be good," Josh said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. "I can't wait for Marie-Pierre to explain the birds and the bees."

The blush returned to her cheeks. "Tabarnak," she cussed at him in french, but the look she shot him was affectionate. "Mate marks are when a male shifter claims a female. He leaves a bite on her neck and that tells other shifters that she's off limits and taken. Shifters are kind of ultra-sensitive when it comes to necks."

"Oh." I thought about Ellis. He'd wanted to bite my neck. Had he wanted to claim me for himself? I felt my own cheeks pink at the thought. I'd bitten him on the neck once and that had started our kissing. Had he thought I was trying to claim him? Was that why he got so furious when I pushed him away each time?

"Yeah. It's a shifter thing," Marie said, glancing over at Josh again and the blush on her cheeks grew brighter, even as Josh just grinned.

"Speaking of shifters," I said, pulling SuperGirl's claws from my leggings. "What's Ellis been up to? He's not visiting anymore."

She shrugged. "Said he had a lot of work to catch up on and it was time for everyone else to take a turn. And actually, that was all that he said, which isn't like Ellis." Marie tapped a finger on her chin thoughtfully. "He's the only one that comes close to talking as much as Josh does."

Josh merely snorted.

"He's mad at me," I confessed. "I hurt his feelings."

"How?" Marie seemed genuinely curious, but I shook my head. I didn't want to tell her. It seemed too personal.

We ended up playing with the kittens for a few hours more, and when sunset approached, Marie glanced at her watch. "Everett should be here soon. He probably got carried away with writing."

I nodded and stood up from the bed, stretching my kinked limbs. I liked the company, but the cabin was light on furniture and so when someone was sitting at the table, that meant I had to sit on the bed all day, and my muscles grew stiff. I twisted a little to ease them, and then yawned. "Mind if I head out to the outhouse?"

"Sure, I'll come with," Marie said, getting to her feet.

"You girls," Josh said in a teasing voice. "Always have to go to the bathroom together. What is it with that?" He snagged Marie around the waist as she passed by him and dragged her into his lap.

Marie giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck, squirming when he began to kiss her ear.