Anarchy (Hades Book 2)

by Tate James

  Lucas frowned, his eyelids heavy. "I don't remember. I would have assumed my mom, but now you're making me wonder if Uncle Jack had something to do with it."

  I locked eyes with Zed across the fire and sensed he was on the same thought path I was. "Maybe we could reach out to the Guild?"

  He grimaced. "We need to tell them about the gun haul anyway. No way am I game to steal Guild property."

  "Agreed," I murmured. "Remind me tomorrow."

  He nodded, pulling his phone from his pocket and probably setting himself a reminder.

  Lucas gave a long yawn, sliding down the lounge further until his head rested on the low back and his legs sprawled out in front of him. "I guess I'm not such an unsullied marshmallow after all, huh?" He cracked one eye at me, a smile sitting on his lips.

  I grinned back at him. "You're full of surprises, Lucas Wildeboer, that's for fucking sure."

  37

  For a while, Cass, Zed, and I just chatted idly about the Guild, cars, guns... our preferred methods of torturing someone for information. All our shared interests. Lucas's hand had found my ankle at some point, and he'd fallen asleep with his fingers wrapped around my leg, as if touching me made him feel safe enough to rest.

  "Jesus," Zed muttered, eyeing Lucas. "He's making my neck hurt just looking at him. That can't be comfortable."

  I peered over at Lucas, smiling at how peaceful and relaxed his face was. But Zed was right, the angle of his neck and back was going to leave him aching in the morning if we left him like that.

  "I should wake him up," I murmured, my own voice thick with Scotch and weed.

  Zed groaned and stood up with a slight wobble. He leaned over Lucas and shook his shoulder to try and wake him up. No response.

  Cass gave a low chuckle. "Good luck. That kid sleeps like the fucking dead."

  He'd know. A surge of arousal rippled through me on remembering how he'd stolen me straight out of Lucas's bed the other night.

  Zed gave a heavy sigh and grabbed Lucas by the arms. "Help me carry his heavy ass inside," he told Cass.

  "Nah," Cass replied, finishing the last drag on another joint. "You got this."

  Zed glared but hauled Lucas's dead weight over his shoulder in a fireman carry. "Good point," he grunted. "Wouldn't want you to break a hip, old man."

  I laughed out loud at that dig, then clapped a hand over my mouth to try and stifle the sound. Then I laughed harder at the fact that I'd laughed in the first place.

  Zed just smirked his victory and carried Lucas inside, leaving Cass and I alone by the fire.

  "You little shit," Cass growled when I continued to laugh. His fingers wound around my braid, and he tugged my head back to look up at him. Whatever else he was going to say he discarded in favor of kissing the crap out of me instead.

  He devoured me with his lips, his tongue, his touch, and I squirmed in his arms, aching for more. He released me just long enough to haul me into his lap, my legs straddling him, and his hard length crushed against my throbbing pussy. Suddenly I was regretting my choice of pants over a skirt in tonight's outfit because, holy shit, I wanted Cass's hands on me more than I wanted air.

  But a sobering thought flashed through my mind, and I groaned, pulling back from his lips. "We can't," I muttered with heartfelt regret. "I promised Zed..." Ugh, I was really questioning my sanity for agreeing to that fucking stupid request of his. But I had, and I couldn't just break my word. Could I?

  Cass arched his scarred brow. "Zed made you promise not to fuck me?"

  I winced. "Or Lucas. Not here, anyway." I indicated the fact that we were in Zed's home, and yeah, that did mean I had to pay him some respect.

  Cass stared into my eyes for a long moment, his palms splayed across my ass and holding me tight against him. "Or what?" he murmured, a glint of evil touching his dark gaze.

  I frowned, stoned enough that I wasn't following his train of thought. "Huh?"

  "Zed... I know how he operates. I bet he gave you an ultimatum. What'd he threaten to do if you do fuck one of us in his house?"

  My eyes widened, and I licked my suddenly dry lips. "He said he'd have to join in."

  Cass tipped his head back as an easy laugh rolled through him. "Predictable bastard." He shifted his grip on my ass and ground his erection against my core, watching with heated eyes when I moaned. "So let him."

  I blinked a couple of times in confusion. "What?"

  Cass's lips found my neck, sucking at my flesh and making me shiver and arch into him. "Let him," he murmured against my skin. "Or if you want to turn the tables, you can let him watch but not touch."

  A small gasp passed my lips at that suggestion, and I was willing to bet my leather pants would need to be dry-cleaned before they could be worn again; I was that wet.

  Cass lifted me with strong hands and lay me down on the lounge where Lucas had just been sleeping. "Either way, I'm gonna make you come for me, Red."

  I groaned, stretching my arms over my head and lifting my hips as he peeled my pants down. I'd taken my boots off earlier while we were chatting and drinking, so it was only a matter of seconds before he hitched my legs over his shoulder and slammed his face into my pussy.

  "Oh fuck," I hissed, my whole body quaking as his tongue found my clit and his beard scraped the soft skin of my thigh.

  "Seriously, Dare?" Zed barked, storming out of the house toward us with a conflicted expression on his face.

  I moaned at what Cass was doing between my legs, then threw Zed a smug smile. "Dead serious, Zayden. You know weed makes me horny."

  He glowered. "Breathing seems to make you horny these days."

  I gave a throaty laugh, then gasped as Cass pushed his fingers inside me and his tongue lashed my clit. Zed's eyes widened as he watched, seemingly frozen in place as I squirmed and bucked on Cass's face.

  "Dare..." he groaned. "I told you—"

  "You told me not to ride dick in your house," I cut him off, my breath short as Cass worked me into a frenzy. "And I'm not."

  Zed glared, appearing outraged at how literally I was taking his threat. But he should know how to word his deals more carefully.

  "Semantics," he growled, moving around the fire toward us.

  I gave another laugh, followed by a lust-filled moan, but held my hand up at him. "Touch me without consent and I'll castrate you, Zed. Sit the fuck down and watch."

  He stared at me like he couldn't decide if I was serious or not. Cass gave my inner thigh a bite, pulling my attention down to him and the wicked grin on his face. I understood perfectly what he was thinking, too—that I loved it when he took liberties without explicit consent. Zed didn't know that, though. And I wanted to punish him for trying to manipulate me.

  Zed's eyes narrowed like he’d decided I wasn't kidding, and he gave a slow shake of his head. "You're playing with fire, Dare."

  I licked my lips. "Am I?"

  He gave a short laugh, swiping his hand over his short hair, then retreated back to his original seat opposite us. "Go on then, Saint. Show me how it's done."

  Cass leaned up to look over at Zed and spread my legs further apart. His fingers thrust in and out of my soaking cunt, lazy and unhurried as he shifted us to give my best friend a prime view.

  "You've had your fair share of watchers in the past, De Rosa," he commented, dragging my own arousal down my perineum to tease my ass. "How does it feel being on the other side?"

  Zed didn't answer, just flipped Cass off and hitched his ankle up on his knee. There was no hiding how hard he was, but he made no move to get his dick out. Apparently he was taking literally that I’d told him to watch.

  Cass chuckled, pushing his pinky finger into my tight hole and making my breath catch in a sharp gasp. His index and middle fingers slid back into my pussy, and he fucked me like that for a couple of moments while Zed stared. Then Cass's mouth returned to my clit, blocking Zed’s view, and my best friend’s eyes locked with mine across the fire.

  I held that eye contact as Cass f
ucked me with his hand, two fingers in my pussy and one in my ass, and tortured me with his skillful tongue all over my clit. Every time I wanted to turn my face or close my eyes, I forced my gaze to remain locked on Zed's face. This was punishing me just as much as him, but damn, if I wasn't getting off on it.

  When I finally came, I couldn't stop my lids from fluttering closed as my spine arched and my toes curled. Zed muttered a curse under his breath and swiped his hand over his face in frustration, then stood up abruptly.

  "I need a fucking shower," he announced, his voice rough with arousal and anger. "The rules still stand, Dare." His gaze was hard, practically begging me to test him over that threat, and I just gave him a lazy, blissed-out smile in return.

  He shot a glare at Cass, who was casually kissing my inner thigh, then stomped his horny ass back inside the house.

  "You know he's gone to jerk off," Cass commented when he was gone.

  I snickered an intoxicated laugh. "I'd be offended if he wasn't."

  Forcing my limbs to obey me, I sat up, then slid to my knees in front of Cass. "He told me not to ride dick," I murmured, unbuckling his belt and palming his hot, hard dick. "Never said anything about choking on it."

  A sly grin pulled at Cass's lips as his hand went to the back of my head, his fingers weaving into my braid. "That's my girl."

  Eagerly, I took him into my mouth, running my tongue around his crown and tasting the saltiness of his arousal before taking him deeper into my throat. Cass grunted, lifting his hips to meet me as his hand forced my head lower, pushing his dick deeper still until I could barely breathe, then releasing me momentarily before repeating.

  He fucked my face with rough, demanding thrusts that left me wet and shaking all over again. By the time he came, hot cum filling my mouth and dripping down my throat, I was seriously considering calling Zed's bluff.

  Cass must have known it too. He gave a soft laugh and pulled me to my feet as he stood up. "Come on, Angel. I'll give you a hand in the shower."

  I grinned as he scooped me up in his arms to carry me inside, but couldn't help noticing the light on in Zed's bedroom overlooking the courtyard. Or the silhouette of someone standing at the window.

  38

  Nightmares of Chase woke me far too early the next morning. Despite all we'd done the night before to push those memories aside, to dilute their power, the second I’d fallen asleep those dark thoughts, the soul-aching terror of memories, had come back with a vengeance.

  Cass seemed to sleep deeper with the help of a solid high, and instead of waking him with my thrashing and screams, I dressed and went to the gym. Sleep wasn't an option for me, apparently, so I may as well beat the ever-loving crap out of a sandbag while picturing my psychopathic, abusive ex.

  It almost seemed laughable that even with his scarred face and eye patch he was still as handsome as ever. But then, loads of serial killers were attractive people. It helped them lure their victims so much easier, and Chase was a master of that.

  When I'd hit the bag so many times my arms were shaking and weak, I tossed my gloves aside and went for a shower. I still had no clue how to deal with him. I couldn't just shoot him and feed his body to my shark in the Club 22 aquarium, not if he was in communication with the FBI and had already cast suspicion my way. His death, or even disappearance, would just add to their mounting case against me.

  I was no closer to a solution when I went in search of coffee and found Zed sitting at the dining table with his laptop open in front of him.

  "Morning," I muttered, not totally sure how we were going to handle everything that had happened last night. Being high as fuck had definitely contributed to my lack of inhibitions, but I regretted nothing.

  Zed reached out as I passed him, grabbed my wrist, and tugged me off balance, causing me to land in his lap with a sharp exhale.

  "Zed—" I started to say, but I clamped my lips shut when he tapped his ear, showing me the Bluetooth headset.

  "Yes, absolutely," he said to whoever he was speaking to. "I understand."

  I raised a brow. He nodded to his phone on the table beside his laptop, and I peered at the screen to see who was on the call. The number was a random one, but the call location was Edinburgh, Scotland, also known as the birthplace of the Guild.

  "We've had the property sealed for the time being," Zed continued, his hands resting on my hips as he shifted me in his lap, getting comfortable like we were high school sweethearts or some shit. "But the property owner wants to move back in. We'd prefer if you collected your property as soon as possible."

  I tried not to think about the heat of his hands on my body or the way my ass was pressed to his crotch, and so I tapped his laptop screen to see what he'd been looking at. A dozen browser tabs were open, and I flipped through them one by one while Zed finished his call to the mercenary guild.

  When the call ended, he placed his earpiece on the table beside his phone. "You're awake early," he commented, reaching past me to grab his mouse and click into one of the tabs I hadn't gotten to yet.

  "Couldn't sleep," I replied, shocking myself at how hollow and haunted my voice was.

  Zed just gave a hum of understanding, and his hands returned to my waist, sliding around to my stomach in a loose hold. "Read that," he told me.

  I double-clicked to zoom the scanned document on his screen and ran my eyes over the details. A huge portion of the file had been redacted, but there were two clues that hadn't been concealed: the patient's name—because it was a medical record—and the doctor's name below the signature line.

  Turning slightly, I gave Zed a curious look, but he just took the mouse from me and clicked into another window, one where he'd already pulled up that doctor’s photograph and bio.

  As I read through the description of the doctor, Zed brushed a light kiss over my shoulder that made me shiver.

  "Lucas has a sibling," I said out loud when I finished reading the doctor’s bio. The medical record had been for his mother, and the treating physician was a specialist in IVF. Sure, the details of her treatment had been redacted, but if it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck...

  "That was my conclusion, too," he agreed. "Roughly ten years older than him, if Lucas is turning nineteen next week."

  "Next week?" I repeated, swiveling my head to look at him. "Lucas's birthday is next week?"

  Zed grinned. "You didn't know that?" He clicked his tongue. "Worst girlfriend ever. His birthday is next Saturday."

  I cringed. That really did seem like something I should know. I needed to think of something special to do for him.

  "Okay, back to this," I redirected, indicating to the laptop. "Maybe we're jumping to conclusions. Just because Sandra visited an IVF clinic doesn't mean it was successful. Maybe it took her that long to get pregnant with Lucas?"

  Zed winced. "I doubt it was anything so innocent. She would have only been sixteen when that redacted file was written."

  I clicked back to the medical file to double-check Sandra's date of birth and grimaced. "Jesus Christ," I muttered. "That poor girl." Because not even a single part of me thought she was visiting an IVF doctor at age sixteen—with heavy redaction on her file—of her own free will. That had nefarious intent written all over it.

  "What poor girl?" Lucas asked, coming into the room looking all sleepy and sexy and totally clueless.

  I stiffened in Zed's lap, and my second caught my eye before I turned to look over at Lucas.

  "Uh, no one we know," I lied, "just reading the news." I closed the lid of Zed's laptop, making him cringe, then stood up out of his lap.

  "How'd you sleep, Gumdrop?" Zed asked, also standing and brushing a hand over my hip as he moved past me toward the kitchen. Apparently he'd decided to wage war by casual physical contact, and it was goddamn working for him.

  Lucas yawned, ruffling his fingers through his hair, then draped his arms around me in a warm hug. "Like the dead," he replied, his voice still thick. "How'd I get into bed, though?"


  Zed rolled his eyes but didn't reply as he headed for the coffee machine. Lucas pulled back to give me a curious look, and I grinned. "Zed carried you upstairs and tucked you in."

  Lucas's brows hitched, and he released me to turn toward Zed. "Aw, big brother, you do love me after all!" The teasing in his voice was thick, and I vaguely feared for his life when he wrapped Zed in a bear hug.

  Zed just grunted, though, and shoved Lucas off him. "You're lucky you're so skinny; you barely weigh more than Dare when she's passed-out drunk." He nodded to Lucas's insanely ripped torso—because apparently T-shirts weren't needed around the house. "Better start working on some muscle, Gumdrop, or we'll have to call you marshmallow."

  It was a joke, obviously. Even after the surgery and his recovery time, Lucas was still cut like a fitness model. He was so far from becoming a marshmallow it was laughable.

  "Mm-hmm," Lucas replied to Zed with a smug grin. "Green is such a good color on you, big bro."

  I snorted a laugh when Zed frowned and peered down at his gray T-shirt. It took a second, but he figured it out and glared at Lucas like he was thinking about punching him.

  "Are you going to see your mom today?" I asked, redirecting the conversation. As cute as it was that they were comfortable enough to joke, I really didn't need another dick-measuring competition so soon. The tension from last night was already so thick between Zed and I, even if neither of us had mentioned it.

  Lucas nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to. If that's okay?"

  We’d all been taking turns driving him to see her because I didn't want him alone. Ever. Not after Chase had already nearly killed him and especially not now. Chase said he wanted me back... which meant Lucas and Cass would be targets. Not to mention Zed... shit. Zed needed to be more careful than ever. The swipe Chase had taken at him, calling him my lapdog, told me he wasn't interested in making amends with his childhood best friend.

  "I'll take you," Zed offered, meeting my gaze. "Hades has business to take care of with Dallas. Besides, I'm curious to meet the woman who produced such an interesting child." He said it with a smile, but it was the sort of smile a crocodile might offer before dragging its victim into the water to drown.