Page 71 of Ignited

“Oh, Boomer.” Karisma shimmered and Changed, her arms wrapping around his waist. “I’m so sorry.”

He pushed her away, not able to handle her pity, not wanting to look in her eyes. “Bro came home on unexpected leave. He’d wanted to surprise me.” Boomer’s voice was bitter. “He was the one who got the surprise.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Your dad tried to kill you.”

He just shook his head. She didn’t get it. “The cops thought Bro did it—there’d been a couple things happen when he was in high school. I wanted to confess, but he wouldn’t let me. Said I’d go to jail, and my wolf would never survive. Or we’d get outed, and end up in a lab somewhere.

“We were going to run, and then that Special Ops commander made a deal with him, like I told you, to get the case dropped. Bro said he’d only do it if I was taken care of, and they agreed.

“He lasted a year. Until I was eighteen. They—they made him do terrible things. Him and others like him—ones they had a hold over. He wouldn’t even tell me what. But he was different. Lost. Broken. Like a piece of his soul was gone.”

She rested her head against his leg, and he touched her hair briefly. “I guess you know what that’s like.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, touching his arm gently, as if she wanted to soak up some of the pain, take it away like she had when they were in bed together. But this was too deep in him, and it couldn’t be fixed or made right.

He stood up, pushing her roughly away, and turned his back on her. “Bro did that for me. It wrecked him, and I can’t ever make up for it. I keep trying, you know? Like if I save enough other people, maybe someday I can figure out a way to save him. But I don’t think I can. I can feel him getting worse, drifting away. And then you came, and it was like I had this second chance with you, and if I didn’t fuck that up, maybe there’d be a second chance for him too. And me.”

But he knew there wasn’t. He’d been lying to himself all this time. He’d thought telling someone would make it better, but the darkness was still closing in on him. Choking him, blocking out the light.

“Thanatos is crazy. Bonding with me would only drag you down in the darkness with me, chaining you there. How is that a better place to be?”

He heard the snap of bones behind him, and smelled the tiger. She made a keening sound, a frantic whimper, like she could tell what was happening to him. Suffocating on his own sins, until he could barely breathe.

She reared up behind him, her paws on his back, and licked his bare shoulder. Her tongue was like sandpaper, and she was purring in his ear.

And then her jaws opened, and her teeth bore down.

Right at the big muscle where his neck met his shoulder. Pain exploded through him, and he felt the blood spurt from the wound, into her mouth. Her weight brought him to his knees, face contorted in pain, and for a moment he thought he was going to die.

And then that tiny spark of light in his chest, the one she always brought with her, went supernova. Light and heat exploded inside him, brighter and more beautiful than the biggest explosion he’d ever made.

The darkness that had been choking him went with it, blown into tiny shards. Electricity crackled around him—he could feel his hair standing on end.

Boomer opened his eyes. Karisma still had her jaws buried in his shoulder, and blue light was crackling around them, lighting up the cave. She let go and raised her head, but the light got brighter, brighter, until it was almost blinding.

The wound on his shoulder stopped bleeding, closed, and healed up in a matter of seconds. The blood on his shoulder and her muzzle dissolved. A huge feeling of peace came over him.

Karisma shimmered and Changed to human. She sat back, her butt landing on the cave floor with a thump, and raised her hand.

Blue light dripped from her fingers.

“Holy shit,” she said, looking at him. “What did I do?”

“You claimed me,” he said, turning around. And then, at the look on her face, he added, “I hope you did it on purpose.”

“I—I don’t know,” she said, still looking at the blue light in wonder. “You were hurting so bad—and we couldn’t stand it, my tiger and me. We just knew we had to fix it.” She looked at him uncertainly. “Did we?”

Chapter 30

Karisma watched as Boomer smiled at her, that rare, gorgeous smile that lit up his whole face. “I think you might have, Kittycat.”

And then his face fell. “But you shouldn’t have.” He reached out, touching her cheek gently. “It’s permanent, and now you’re stuck with me.”

She walked her fingers up his chest and cupped his face. “And that’s bad because…”

He put his hand over hers, stilling it. “I can’t be a good mate. Didn’t you hear me, before? I suck at taking care of people.”

“Excuse me? As the person you’ve been taking care of day and night for two weeks, I beg to differ.”