Unbound

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  I needed to be ready.

  “So, how long do you think it’ll take for Persephone to work her magic,” Oz said, breaking the silence between us as we entered the Great Hall, “so to speak?”

  “I think she might have to work far harder than she suspects,” I replied, casting him a wary glance, “and that is not an enviable task.”

  “Fucking Ares is not high on my list of shit I’d want to do, but if it gets us answers and absolves her of whatever guilt she feels about you, then I’ll toss her into his bed as many times as necessary to ensure that end.”

  “You are just pleased it is not I who has to endure such torture.”

  The Dark One went quiet just as we reached the shore of the Acheron. I turned to find his cold eyes staring back at me.

  “The only torture you’ll ever face is by my hands,” he said, voice low and full of something I could not quite place. Something carnal and dark and oddly entrancing. He leaned in closer, and I felt my breath hitch in my throat. “And you’ll beg me for more.”

  I tilted my chin up to him. “We shall see.”

  Without hesitation, I launched into the air and flew across the Acheron, headed down the corridor to the gates with Oz close behind. The rush of wind helped to cool the heat building inside of me at his words. But it was not time for his sexual games. It was time to return home and relay to the others what we had learned.

  Defeating Phobos and saving my mother were our top priorities.

  Oz’s torture could be my reward once we achieved them.

  9

  We arrived home to find Kaine and Raze sitting on the porch, surrounded by Cass and his army of dead warriors. Apparently, my brothers were not inclined to let them inside with none of us at home, and I could not blame them. They knew one as a tyrant and the other as a reluctant ally, at best.

  Cass came to greet us as we walked up the sidewalk.

  “They are fine to enter,” I said by way of greeting. “They will do no harm in our absence.”

  He called the others off, and they soon disappeared to their various posts throughout the perimeter. “I was not certain.”

  “No worries, big guy,” Oz said. “They’re sketchy motherfuckers. I get it.”

  He led the way up the steps to join them, and Cass took his place at my side.

  “Did you learn anything in the Underworld?” he asked quietly.

  I looked up to find Raze and Kaine hovering by the front door, staring.

  “Deimos was not involved in this, but Ares seems to have a role of sorts. We are working to assess what that role is and gain more information on the matter now.”

  “How will you do this?” Cass asked, concern worrying his brow. “Ares will not admit anything he does not wish to.”

  “Persephone is going to fuck the truth out of him,” Oz said from the open doorway. “And Hades agreed to it, for Khara’s sake.”

  Surprise flashed in Cass’ and Raze’s eyes. Kaine, however, simply smiled. “I’ve always liked her…she knows how to achieve an end at any price.”

  “Yes, well, that presupposes that he is enthralled enough by what she has to offer to share his plan,” I pointed out.

  “Ares’ weakness has always been his hubris,” Cass said. “His lack of an audience to gloat to has eaten at him since his role of god was taken away. If he thinks she is an ally, there is a good chance Persephone can get what she seeks.”

  “Let us hope so,” I said, looking up to the top floor of the Victorian.

  “We were unsuccessful at the Hallowed Gates,” Raze said, dragging my attention back to the angels looming on the porch. “I wish I had better news.”

  “Casey and Pierson have not returned,” Cass offered. “Perhaps they will have some luck in Hecate’s archives.”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice distant and detached, even to my own ears. “Perhaps.”

  “We should go check on her,” Oz said, heading into the house. Without reply, the rest of us followed, except for Cass.

  “Should I call Drew back?” he called after me as he stepped back into the yard. “So that you can update him?”

  I shook my head. “Let them do their job. The PC’s duty cannot come to a stop because of my personal matters. This information will keep for now.”

  I continued up the stairs until I reached Oz’s room, where my mother lay asleep but restless. Her mouth moved incessantly, and her brow pinched to a deep vee as her dreams tormented her again. Or perhaps it was death.

  The others moved to let me by, and I sat on the edge of the bed next to her, careful not to add to her already listless state. With a palm on her forehead, I channeled the healing energy into her again, hoping it would improve her status enough for her to have a peaceful rest. Once I was done, I left my hand there and closed my eyes.

  “Show me what causes you this anguish,” I whispered to her, hoping to reach her in the space between consciousness and slumber. “Show me what I can do…”

  Immediately, that same dark space I had shared with her came into focus, and the voices rang through my mind. It was the same conversation I had heard before, though this time, it felt as if my mother were weaker, the other voice drowning her out.

  I pulled away to find Oz, Raze, and Kaine staring down at me.

  “I saw nothing new—nothing that could help,” I said, anger lacing my tone.

  “You should rest,” Kaine said as I rose. He took my place at my mother’s side and tucked the blanket up under her chin. “I will keep watch over her.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Oz said. “We don’t know when Casey and Pierson will show up, and we need to be ready to go in case they return with something helpful.”

  “I’ve got to go back to the Hallowed Gates,” Raze said. “I need to talk to my soldiers. They’re still not over what you did to the rest of our kind—regardless of their betrayal of Celia.” His pointed gaze turned to Oz and me. “I’m not sure I am, either, but I’ll let it be until she has been taken care of. After that…we’ll see where things stand between us.”

  “Fine with me,” Oz replied.

  I did not have the energy for a verbal showdown, so I walked out of the room, headed downstairs. Not surprisingly, Oz soon followed. The basement was dark and inviting and everything I needed in that moment to try to regroup from all that had happened. So much was pending. So much was out of my control. And though there had once been a time that nothing about that would have unsettled me, I could not help but feel uneasy about it all. There was so much more to lose now—so much I was not ready to let go.

  So strange how such a small event in my life could cause such a ripple in its wake.

  Bizarre how the breaking of the covenant would forever change my being.

  Oz closed the door behind him and descended the stairs. His eyes fell on my tiny bed, then me.

  “Looks like we’ll be sharing for the night.” He peeled his shirt over his head, exposing his bare chest. My eyes fell to where the scar on his chest should have been.

  “Feel free to lie down,” I replied. “I am too restless to sleep yet.”

  I turned to the dresser and felt him step up behind me, the warmth from his chest penetrating through my sweater.

  “Restless, you say…?” His hand trailed down my wavy hair and captured a lock. He tugged it lightly as he wound it around his finger. “I know a way to help with that.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  He released my hair, and I turned to find his face shrouded in darkness. His eyes narrowed in focus as they raked over my body. Then they drifted over to the shackles on the wall. He leaned in closer. “There is something I need from you—something I’ve wanted for so long.” Realization dawned, and I pressed against him. “Do you trust me, Khara?”

  “With my life.”

  A wicked grin pulled at his lips. “Would you trust me with something else?”

  As he stared at me, eyes full of heat, I walked over to the wall and drew my fingertip along the circular iro
n manacles. Slowly, I lifted one to my wrist and held it there as I met his gaze. Then I snapped it closed. The low sound of approval that rumbled through his body echoed across my skin, and I reached the other hand toward him.

  “I cannot do it myself.”

  His hand encircled my wrist, and he pinned it to the wall next to my head. “Helpless looks good on you.”

  “But I am never fully helpless,” I replied before I ran my tongue along his jawline to his ear. My teeth grazed his earlobe, then nipped hard enough to draw blood. “It is when I appear weak that I am most dangerous.”

  Oz pressed himself against me, grinding me into the stone wall. “And I’m always dangerous…”

  I smiled up at him as his eyes blazed white. “We shall see.”

  His grip on my wrist tightened, and the length of him pressed against my hip. “I hope you have a safe word because you’re going to need it.”

  “I have never known a word that could keep me safe,” I replied, pushing off the wall against him.

  His expression darkened at the implication of my words. “We can unpack that statement at a more opportune time, new girl. For now,” he said as he dropped his head low enough to drag his nose along my neck, “I think I have the perfect one: your twin’s name.”

  “And how will that keep me safe?” I asked as the ache swelling in my body grew to be nearly intolerable.

  “Because you’d have to really not want to be doing what we’re doing to shout his name out while we’re doing it.”

  “And am I to assume that ‘it’ is sex?” I asked. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “I was beginning to worry that you planned to talk me to death.”

  His hand shot to my hair and grabbed a fistful. “Talking isn’t exactly high on my list of what I want to do right now.”

  I pulled against his hold, just as he wanted. “Then perhaps you should shut your mouth and fuck me before this feeling in my core sets me ablaze.”

  Cold metal slammed around my wrist, and the violent rip of my sweater soon followed. I stood tethered to the basement wall, naked to the waist, staring down the truly dark side of the Dark One as though he posed me no threat. As though he were not something to fear. He was to others, but not me.

  This was the side of Oz that I wanted.

  This was half of who he was.

  I went still as his finger trailed down my chest to the waist of my pants. The wait to be touched was as exhilarating as it was excruciating, and I tried to steady myself—to remain composed as the agony ripped through me. But the sound that escaped my lips the moment his hand met the flesh beneath my pants gave me away.

  “Is that what you want?” he rumbled in my ear as he withdrew his hand. It hovered outside my pants as he awaited my answer.

  “Is this the torture you promised me?” I asked, breath ragged in my throat as I strained against the metal shackles, attempting to get closer to him.

  “It could be…”

  “What answer can I give that will result in your hand back inside my pants?” I asked, my frustration tainting my tone.

  That wicked smile returned. “Say that you need it. That you need me.”

  I leaned as far forward as the restraints would allow and tilted my face to his. “I need this,” I said, brushing my chest against his, “and I need you, though I feel that is somewhat self-evident at this point—”

  He thrust his hand into my pants so quickly that I gasped from the pressure against my tender flesh.

  “Know when to quit, new girl,” he growled.

  The way he moved his fingers inside me, I could not have formed a coherent thought if my life had depended on it. And judging by the way he moved and the intensity of his gaze as he watched me writhe against the shackles tethering me to the wall, he needed this as much as I did. A moment to get lost in the strangeness that was Oz and me. A moment to forget all that pressed down upon us.

  That moment lasted far longer than it should have—until I was panting and spent and barely able to stand. Oz had not fared much better, but he released me at some point and carried my limp, naked body over to the bed. I did not remember him climbing in next to me, but as sleep came to take us, I could feel the sense of security I always had when he lay at my side—the sense of rightness.

  That was where he belonged.

  And I would not give that up.

  10

  That feeling of rightness did not last.

  Instead, something befouled it with fear and terror; that something was Phobos and his unwelcome visit in my mind. I tried in my unconscious state to push him out, but no matter how many times he had haunted my dreams, I could not defend against him there—could not defeat him.

  I hoped it was not an omen of things to come.

  I felt him circling me in the darkness, heard his breathing as he grew closer still, until finally his voice broke through the quiet.

  “Our time is coming so close now, Khara. Can you feel it? Can you feel our connection getting deeper? Feel the tie that binds us tightening around you? Because I can…”

  I searched the darkness for him, but like so many times before, I found nothing; just the soft sound of his voice in my ear and the sense of dread crawling up my spine. For I knew what he said was true. I could feel our connection growing stronger. I had no doubt that the time for him to act was upon me.

  “She’s running out of time, you know—your mother,” he said, pulling me from my spiral.

  “Why would you think that?”

  I could practically hear him frown at the question. “Because she is missing something—something that makes her whole. It is gone, and without it, she cannot survive.”

  “You cannot know this—”

  “I can because I am the one that ordered it done.” Everything went quiet and so very still. “The Light were all too happy to oblige for their own petty reasons that I did not trouble myself to learn.” Fear washed over me in the black abyss of my mind. “Can you heal her, Khara? Can you heal her as you did the Dark One?” The taunting in his voice told me that he already knew. “No…” he drawled, “I did not think so, and that is because what has been broken cannot be fixed. She is, as I said, running out of time—as are you, in a fashion.”

  “You cannot take me, regardless of what you believe.”

  His dark laughter rang out in my mind. “Do you think that is the only option I have? To take you by force?” He grew quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, it felt as though he were right on top of me. “There are many ways for me to leverage you, Khara, and I look forward to every one of them. Don’t make this easy for me—the harder the chase, the sweeter the capture.”

  “And the greater the potential for failure,” I replied. “There will be no victory for you, Phobos.”

  He laughed again, and it trailed along my brain like a finger down my spine. “Of course there will be. You’ve all but ensured it…”

  His voice trailed off into the ether, and my mind grew clear. Without his grip on it, I shot awake, nearly falling off the cot in the process. Had it not been for Oz’s arm draped across my body, I would have. The motion jarred him awake, too, and he searched the room for danger as his hold on me tightened. Once he realized what had happened, he let me go.

  “Let me guess, the fear fucker was poking around in your dreams again?”

  “It will not be long now before he makes his move,” I replied, my body cold without the covers—and without Oz’s body pressed against it. I got up and grabbed a sweater from the floor to cover myself. “He knows what is happening to my mother—why it is happening—because he orchestrated it.”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t bother to tell you how to fix it,” he said dryly.

  “No, he did not. He did what he does best: spew ominous rhetoric to pass the time.”

  “I really can’t wait to kill him,” Oz said as he climbed from the bed to collect his clothes. The time for our games was over. The time for Phobos’ had returned.

  “I fear there mig
ht not be much left of him for you to kill once I figure out how to slay him, but you are welcome to the remains.”

  Dark laughter escaped him as he walked up behind me and pressed his naked body to mine. “Poor bastard doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into, does he?”

  “He will soon learn.”

  The Dark One’s hands grasped my hips as he pulled me closer to him. “He sure as hell will.”

  The basement door flew open with a bang, and Oz grabbed his pants from the floor and pulled them up just as footfalls echoed through the basement. I hoped, for whoever’s sake, that they had something terribly important to tell me.

  “Khara?” Drew called before he came into view. He quickly took in the state of half-undress Oz and I were in and turned away. “It’s your mother. She asked to see you. Both of you.”

  I pulled a pair of leather pants from my drawer and put them on before following him up the stairs as Oz trailed behind, pulling on his shirt.

  “How is she?” I asked. “Any change?”

  “She’s surprisingly lucid at the moment,” he explained as we entered the living room. I rounded the newel post to head upstairs, hope welling in my chest. Perhaps my attempt with Artemis’ soul had done something to help her; perhaps her presence had mended what had been severed. But Drew’s hand on my arm brought me back to reality and stopped me short of the first step. “Khara, I know this seems like a good sign, but—”

  “I know she is not well, Drew.”

  His lips pressed to a sympathetic smile. “I know you do. I think what I’m trying to say is…don’t squander this moment with her. You might not get another…”

  I placed my hand atop his. “I understand. And thank you.”

  He stepped back to let me continue. “She’s in Kierson’s room at the moment. I thought it might be easier for you to share Oz’s room, and Kierson could take the cot in the basement. I’m glad I didn’t send him down when we got back.”

  I forced a smile. “As am I.”