IN FULL COLOUR - Dark Fantasy
Chapter 23

Axel

I was alone, eyes closed and standing in the scorching shower like so many times before. Concentrating solely on emptying my mind and thinking of absolutely nothing. I tried desperately to gain control of myself. My raging, violent emotions. To even my breathing and clear all the wicked, pestering thoughts from my body. The pain, jealousy, anger, weakness, everything that caused me harm, I wanted it gone, even if it was just for a moment or two.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was eating me alive, devouring me slowly from the inside.

As I inhaled the thick blanket of steam hanging heavy in the bathroom, an unmissably sharp intake of breath had me flicking my eyes open and spinning around. A deadly combination of instinct and shock had me slamming the intruder forcefully into the nearest wall and pinning him there.

When my lethal movement had been successfully exercised, I found my face mere inches away from HERS’. My right hand was firmly clamped around her slender neck, and the other pressed into the wall next to her right ear. Feet parted in a slight forward lunge, I was leaning into her, holding her down at the mercy of my unstable restless self.

I blinked. Her, not him.

Wide, startled, caramel eyes stared back into mine and I felt the movement in her throat underneath my grip as she swallowed. At once, I removed my hand from her neck and pressed it to the right of her head, caging her in between my muscled arms.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I growled ferally as heat simmered within my veins. I could have killed her.

Gabrielle

I stared back at him, breathless and scanning every inch of his angered face.

Puffs of steam came in bursts from his gaping mouth as he burned his eyes into mine, a snarl rumbling deep inside his chest. Just then, something flickered within his powder-blue orbs, somewhere close, barely beneath the surface.

A faint altering of his irises.

Streaks of gold and yellow glimmered through the blue.

It wasn’t enough to signal his wolf’s dominant presence, but it was enough to notice.

He flinched, blinked a few times and then his eyes grew wide.

I didn’t know what it meant, what emotion he was feeling. On instinct, my gaze shifted to the glow of energy floating around him. It wasn’t pitch-black anymore. Instead, it was blue-black, swirling and mixing with highlights of silver and bright aqua.

Axel’s chest was heaving as he took shallow, exaggerated breaths. The water spraying from the shower hadn’t stopped and drowned out the sound of my quickened heartbeat while wave after wave of fear rippled through me.

I shouldn’t have come here.

He was standing so close; I could see myself reflecting in his eyes. “Breathe,” he said, deep and rasp.

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and watched as vapour blew from my mouth and puffed into the air between us, slowly swirling around his face. Just then, another flicker in those hypnotic blues and I heard him gasp. Eyes wide, he let go of the wall, stepped back and straightened his arms out in front of him, studying it, like he was waiting for something to happen.

“Yes, yes,” I heard him whisper to himself. He sounded incredibly desperate, hopeful.

Nothing happened.

I didn’t dare move. My back stiff and pressed hard against the wall, I stared at him in silence. His dark energy kept changing. Deep purple, swirls of wine-red and navy-blue. Something was changing inside of him, and I had no idea what it was.

“A-are you alright?” I heard myself asking, voice clipped.

Axel snapped back to reality, his face turning back to mine and blackness shot from him yet again. Shit.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He growled baring his teeth. His body had gone rigid combined with thick angry veins protruding down the sides of his neck and arms, “I could have killed you,” he seethed.

I had no words and couldn’t stop myself from only staring back at him, caught in a state of shock. Like a frightened little pup, unsure of my next move, I just stood there. No one had ever unnerved me so. The way he affected, intimidated me was unsettling. The feeling was unfamiliar to me, and it made me doubt everything within myself.

The heat from his body wafted around me and clouds of steam evaporated from his skin, filling me with a musky mixture of his scent. My wolf purred at the wonderful smell, but I did not dare show it on my face. What was he thinking? What was he going to do? The black energy coming off him was enough to tell me to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to come out of this unharmed.

How could I have been so stupid to wander in here? Sure, I had been concerned when I first detected his grieve, harrowing energy filtering through the door, but I should have instructed someone else to go in.

For a second, I contemplated whether I should mind-link my father, but just then, Axel’s eyes flashed another golden streak across his powder-blue irises. His mouth fell open and he staggered a step back.

The blackness around him swirled and changed colour again, a deep blue-black mixed with unfathomable purple. His muscles were tightly spun, and his hands curled into tight fists. I did not dare look away as he stood before me vulnerable and tortured. Utterly exposed.

The look on his face was something I had never seen before, not in anyone. He looked pained. Injured.

“I-” I started to say.

“How!?” He growled, the blackness and anger returning, “how did you do that?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. My throat bobbed and I swallowed painfully.

His angry eyes roamed over me, inspecting every inch of my face. He was looking for something. Something I couldn’t understand.

“The bond?” I asked hesitantly, my voice soft and low.

Axel’s jaw clenched. He ripped a towel from the rail to my left, threw it at me and stepped out of the suffocating bathroom, back into his room.

When he left, I felt myself exhale and slowly slid down the wall onto the floor. I sat there with my back resting against the wet tiled surface, my knees propped up and my clothes soaking through from the shower’s water still spraying steadily to my right. It had gone cold now and splattered stray cold droplets onto my face and hair.

I didn’t know what to do. I needed a moment to compose myself before I faced him again. My limbs were shaking and my breathing haggard. I took a few more deep breaths, exhaling slowly in clouds of thick vapour, trying to calm myself, to calm my beast.

I heard him grumbling and pacing anxiously in the next room, but I wasn’t ready to face him yet and by the sounds that emanated from the doorway, I was sure he wasn’t ready to face me either.