Page 4 of My Dark Obsession

‘Amaya-Everlasting-Eternal’

Rí

A Circle Mate.

I had a Circle Mate.

Sat before me was the smallest, most beautiful, most confusing person I had ever come across.

I didn’t do well with people. I wasn’t a talker. I liked to be alone. I didn’t need the locals to tell me I was grumpy; I already knew that.

My dragon and I barely communicated anymore; in fact, he slept and left me to deal with the misfit locals. I knew the day was coming where he would disappear completely.

But that afternoon whilst loading up the bar I felt it, the huge surge of power that rippled through me and my beast. So I ran as fast as I could and followed the pull towards the Village.

The urgency in my veins had my dragon demanding I run faster.

He even suggested shifting, but that’s when I found her, Amaya.

Covered in filth and dried blood and looking as though she was ready to take me in a fight.

Me, a 6 ft 3 dragon shifter. It was laughable and I would have laughed if she hadn’t tried to run from me multiple times.

The beast within me had reared his head and demanded out. He wanted out, he wanted our Mate and he wanted her bad. It took everything within me to hold him down, to promise his chance but we had to go slow, to be careful with our Wee Mate.

Typical that when he finally wanted to shift and communicate with me again, I knew we had to take it easy so as to not scare the small female before us.

And so she sat in front of me with that small crease between her brows, nibbling at her pale plump lips and making me ache in ways I didn’t think possible anymore.

Her long black hair still had bits of leaves from the forest and her pale skin was covered in soot and dirt and yet she always glowed in the radiant beauty she was.

It had taken every ounce of strength within me to not run my hands through her hair, to feel the black strands glide across my fingers, settling her mouth-watering fragrance on my skin.

My mother would have provided me with the biggest slap to the back of the head had I given in and touched her whilst she lay laid in bed, recovering from her fall.

This woman before me, no matter how much her eyes screamed ‘touch me and die’, was now the most important thing in my long life. I had to tread carefully.

“Supernatural.” It wasn’t a question; I stayed silent and allowed her to gather her thoughts. Her voice was husky, sensual and I wanted her to talk more. I wanted her to talk for hours and I would listen. Fuck me I would always listen.

“This Wisteria, there are multiple…shifters?”

I nodded and answered “Aye, all kinds, but all supernatural also. No’ just shifters.”

How she got to Wisteria was a huge puzzle, after seeing her eyes when Cece knocked, the way they completely shifted colour. Fuck me I had worked out what she was instantly. How she came to be, well that was another puzzle entirely.

Clearing her throat she nodded whilst wiping her pale hands on her torn pants.

I wanted to ask, no, demand, how she got so bloody and filthy, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to go down well. My Mate was a feisty one. I could tell that much already.

“I need to leave; I need to get back to the human world. Like now.” She stood up bringing us to eye level.

Her scent of dark fruits swam around me and had my dragon clawing at my insides.

I gritted my teeth and forced him back further.

Where I knew I needed to take this carefully, that our mate was obviously a runner, he wanted to chuck her back in our nest and mate her.

He wanted her subtle breathing to fill our quarters and calm our souls; he wanted her exhausted and sated.

She wanted to leave. What was so important in the human realm she would want to leave?

“Why?” I grumbled clenching my fists at my side so as to not grab her and rub my own scent on her. The shifters down at the bar would know she was mine. Everyone would. I fought the urge to bare my teeth to show her how sharp they were, perfect to puncture her soft pale skin.

“None of your damn business,” she snapped, rubbing at her lower back. The mark was calling to her, asking her to acknowledge it. The longer she ignored it, the more it would call.

We were all born with marks from the Fates Above, two rope like vines that connected into a colourless circle.

And when we touched the bare skin of our fated, those marks burst to life, their colour now full and vibrant and connected at the top.

Circle Mates. Before the war, most Fated had more than one connected to them, Circle Brothers or Sisters they were called.

One Fated was the link, the one to connect them all as one.

However after the war, the Fates Above disappeared and those who were lucky enough to find their Circle Mates only found the one.

I didn’t think finding my Circle Mate was ever going to be a possibility. My dragon had just about given up on life all together after the war, and me, well I distanced myself from everyone and dragged myself through life hoping and praying that one day, one day my Mate would greet me.

Once I had touched her pale skin my Mating Circle had spread down my spine before settling on my lower back. The world around me had stopped moving, my mind had silenced and everything around me had ceased to exist. She did it for me. Forever more, mine.

So there was no Fates damned way she was leaving me.

Standing to my full height, I relished in the way her lips parted slightly at my size .

My dragon stretched within, proud of our height.

“Ye’ won’t be going anywhere without me.”

Her brow arched high, and she bared her perfectly straight teeth at me. “Want to bet big man!”

Fuck me she was perfect.

She itched at her lower back before snapping and pulling at her top “What the hell is wrong with my back!”

“Ye’re Circle Mark.”

“My Circle…what is that on my back?” She screeched, her eyes flashed purple as the hair on my body stood on end.

Okay so maybe I didn’t do such a good job of explaining things.

Actually, had I even explained anything?

“Wee—” She gave me a heated look whilst scratching at our mating mark “-Amaya, ye’re in Wisteria, the realm for the Supernatural.

The human realm was shut off a long time ago, eighteen years ago in fact.

There shouldn’t have been a way for ye’ to get here, and there definitely isn’t going to be one for ye’ to get back.

We,” Pointing between us I carried on “are Circle Mates, once our skin touched the Fates Above blessed us. I am a shifter, ye’…

well I’m still working things out but ye’ are not human.

” I spoke slowly, to make sure she understood each word.

I bared my teeth in what I thought to be a charming smile. I was wrong. Boy was I wrong.

Her entire expression shut down. No emotion was visible on her face, her shoulders slumped, and her eyes seemed empty. Void .

“What do you mean I can’t get back?” She said flatly. “I won’t be staying here. I have people waiting for me. Urgently.”

“Who?” If she said a man, or men I would find my own way to the human realm and snap their necks. But first, I would let my dragon have his fun with them.

She swallowed, and resumed itching her back, this time more insistently. She gouged at it as she began to pant. Her eyes that seemed empty seconds ago were now panicked.

“I need to get back, I need to..” Growling, she clawed at her back.

Grabbing her hands within my own, I held them still, her cold pale skin against my warm tanned. Such a contrast, such a difference. Yet it was utterly right.

“Breathe, Mo Chridhe. Slowly, in and out.” She was panicking. And she had every right to be. I had been a terrible Mate so far. I had skimmed around her questions and given barely-there answers. Her mark was calling for her Mate and I stood there and watched her suffer.

“In and out, slowly.” I instructed her, pleased with her slowing breath. My touch was soothing the mark, easing its relentless call. I eased her down to the armchair, reached over and blew a small flame into the fireplace.

Looking back at her, her eyes were wide and staring at the now growing flames.

Shit.

I kept forgetting how if she didn’t even know about shifters and where she was, then she definitely wasn’t going to be used to magic.

“The mark is calling for its Mate. It will be insistent on ye’ being close to me. ”

She looked tiny, sitting in my armchair with a frown upon her pale face. The glow of the growing fire reflected in her changing eyes, her thick dark lashes casting shadows on her high cheekbones.

“If I’m your ‘Mate’ as you say then how come you aren’t bothered by it? Also whilst we are on the subject…mate?”

“As I said, the Fates Above blessed us, we were marked as children. Our touch ignited the mark. Everyone has a Fated, including humans; they just have a smaller life span and no magic so it’s harder to find”

Sitting in the chair next to her, I filled us both with a glass of my famous whisky waiting on the table beside me, then changed my mind and left the glasses on the side table. If she really was from the human realm then my drink would make her pass out for days on end.

“Right, like I said I need to get back to the human realm. I don’t know how I got here. One minute I was in my basement practically dead, the next I’m here.”

Practically dead…practically dead? I would burn the flesh from whomever thought they could touch my Mate.

“Is tha’ why ye’ were covered in blood?” I bit out, holding onto my anger for when I found whoever did that.

She looked down at her dirty top. “Oh, yeah that’s another thing. How am I healed? I had a punctured lung and a good couple of broken bones then I wake up here and heal as if nothing happened?”

Breathe.

Focus .

‘BURN THE WORLD TO THE GROUND’ my dragon roared his outrage for our Mate. Sweat beaded at my temple from holding him back.