Stained Minds

by Helen Scott

  I flipped him the bird. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “Mean, was she?” Barclay inquired, his tone amused.

  “Lethal.” I grinned too. “Worth it. But I’m concerned. I knew there was a reason for holding me off, and it wasn’t just because I was a dick upon our initial meeting. I just never imagined it was because her heat was approaching.” I rubbed my chin. “I wonder if it’s her first.”

  “Crazily enough, we’ve never asked her,” Gideon replied drily. “It’s not the first thing you think to ask your Sixth.”

  “You had to know it might happen eventually.”

  Keiran shrugged. “I thought she’d be on birth control or something.”

  I scowled. “What the hell are they teaching you in the Academy?”

  “How to kill pursangs and salsangs?” Barclay rasped. “Not sexual health. We’re not fucking humans.”

  “Well, they should start. There is no contraceptive that works. Not even condoms are one hundred percent effective.” I scowled. “Are you sure they didn’t teach you that in school?”

  “No. I think I’d have remembered,” Raven retorted. “They just said we shouldn’t fuck humans.”

  I snorted. “How kind of them to make that distinction.”

  “Why did they?” Barclay inquired.

  “Because you’ll impregnate them whatever the hell you do.” I reached up to grip the back of my neck. “Tell me you didn’t fuck any humans before Marcella.”

  Raven huffed. “Bitch, please, we have taste.”

  The others nodded in disgust, and I issued a relieved sigh. Humans were cattle to us. It would be like some weirdo fucking a sheep.

  “What’s this game plan we need to discuss?” Gideon prompted.

  “Marcella was enraged when I came upon her upstairs. She destroyed the clothes Rhys purchased on her behalf and was beginning to turn on herself. Her claws were tearing her up, but she didn’t seem to realize it. She looks like a tiger up there—more stripes than whole skin.” I shook my head. “The matter of her ovulating solves some of that, the necessity of sealing the bond another part, but she’s right. Someone is making these decisions on our behalf, and she isn’t alone in not liking it.”

  “Welcome to the club,” Raven snarked. “We’re Stained, Darius. We haven’t had a say in any of our fucking decisions until Marcella. Fuck, even then, that douche Winterdick tried to control who we took as our Sixth.”

  Though I controlled my wince, I empathized with the four before me. “Where’s Cade?” I asked, not changing the subject, just realizing he wasn’t there.

  “Sleeping outside,” Keiran rasped. “I have him in a deep sleep too. These dreams he’s been having… they’re nothing to do with me. I’m going to keep an eye on him, try to keep the Sires away from him if they’re exploiting his current weak state.”

  “What’s the matter with him anyway?” Gideon asked, cracking his tattooed knuckles. “I’ve never seen him control time the way he did today, and he was blinded at one point. His head was weaving around, seeking our voices.”

  “Marcella did something to him that day in the bank,” Barclay replied, helpful as ever.

  “Dumbass, we know that,” Raven groused. “But what?”

  He pursed his lips. “You don’t think it’s Arthur, do you? Morgause controlled me, kept me in my beast form. Why couldn’t Arthur be fucking around with Cade?”

  “For what reason, though?” Gideon asked.

  “What reason are they doing anything?” I spat. “There’s a bigger game plan going on around us, and we’re all just pawns in their chaos.”

  Keiran gritted his teeth. “I can deal with being a pawn, but Marcella? No. She wasn’t built for that shit. She’s a pursang, and she’s a shadow weaver to boot. She’s the fucking queen of any match, not some goddamn foot soldier who’s nothing more than cannon fodder.”

  Because I agreed wholeheartedly, I didn’t say a word, until… “The trouble is, the Sires move in mysterious ways and the only people who know anything about them is the Cavalry, and Rhys just proved that not only do they know what’s going on, but they’re firmly on the side of the Sires.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Except…”

  “Except what?” Barclay prompted.

  I blew out a breath. “They’re not the only ones who might know what’s going on.”

  My admission had the four men before me scowling, but Gideon was the only one who demanded, “Who else might know?”

  Grimly, I bit off, “The Reapers.”

  Chapter Ten

  Raven

  The bond between Darius and Marcella clicking into place was like a bomb going off. We all felt the shock wave from it, even Cade, who was in one of Keir’s restful sleeps. It was as though a great gust of wind had blown through the property and they had been at the epicenter.

  I, for one, had felt recharged, as though all the pain and suffering from the last couple weeks had been cleared away. Sitting in the kitchen, talking with Darius about how Marcella was going into her first heat though? The pain and worry were starting to seep back in.

  “Who the fuck are the Reapers?” Gid asked, urging the Enforcer to continue.

  Darius let his head fall into his hands as though he was exhausted, before raising it again a few moments later. His eyes betrayed how tired he felt, and when I let my powers flow, I could feel the spot where he sat like a vacuum of energy.

  Marcella had almost drained him dry, and I knew, just from my own reading, that it was only because he’d been feeding on her at the same time that she didn’t kill him outright. It wasn’t that she would have intended to, but if a male was found wanting, unable to satisfy or keep up with his female, then death was a very real risk for pursangs.

  Tempted though I was to reveal that I did know something about pursangs and sex, I kept quiet. What we’d learned at Eastbrook was limited to how we could use sex against pursangs so that wasn’t helpful at the moment.

  “The Reapers are the counter to the Cavalry. They are the rest of the Knights of the Round Table, except they chose to side with Merlin, with the Maker.” He paused and let those words sink into the stunned silence for a while. When he took a deep breath, it drew all of our eyes back to him. “They also have their hands in a lot of the underground dealings of our society. In all honesty, they probably know about and have helped with the production of Kronos.

  “If Elizabeth’s little operation had ever made it large enough to draw their attention, she would have been wiped from existence before I could blink. They are no one to mess around with. As much as the Cavalry are the stories that we tell children to make them behave, the Reapers are the true boogeymen; they are the ones whose names most fear to speak, just in case it draws their attention.”

  “They who shall not be named,” Keir joked.

  Darius gave him a blank look, clearly not understanding that reference, before he said, “If we approach them it has to be carefully, and above all, we have to keep Marcella’s skillset a secret from them. They wouldn’t think twice about taking her from us just so they could add to their power base, or if they felt threatened enough, they would just remove her from the equation completely.”

  The thought sent a spike of ice through my heart. I didn’t think the Sires would really let anything happen to Marcella, especially since they seemed to have their own plan for her, but what if they couldn’t stop it?

  My powers trickled out and I checked the bonds with the others. I could feel fear and concern coming from all of them, which made sense. I mentally reached out to Keir and knocked on his bond. He responded with a raised eyebrow.

  Is Marcella okay?

  She sleeps, but I don’t know how long we should keep her like that. The sleep isn’t exactly healing since there’s nothing wrong with her, but hopefully, we can make it last long enough that her heat is over by the time she wakes.

  Did you know about the Reapers?

  Keir mentally shook his head.

 
; I sighed and wondered how much more about this world we didn’t know. Lately, it seemed like we were being blindsided by every other sentence out of someone’s mouth. First, it was Darius, then the Cavalry, now Darius again. It was exhausting.

  I reached out to Barclay, brushing against his bond as an indication I was going to interrupt his thoughts. Have you had any more dreams or visits from Morgause?

  No, thank the Maker.

  Could Cade’s behavior have been caused by Arthur?

  I don’t see why not. I mean, she was able to keep me as a wolf, why not make Cade sleep walk and stuff?

  I mentally hummed my agreement.

  “So should we go and talk to these Reapers?” Gid asked.

  “I wish there was another choice, but I don’t see one, at least not right now. I would prefer to do it while Marcella is sleeping if possible, so there is no chance of her making any rash decisions like she did with Rhys,” Darius said.

  Making this decision and completing it, before we could even talk to Marcella about it seemed shady to me. Part of me wondered if Keir and I should slip into her dreams and have a chat with her like we did to wake her when she claimed us.

  “Do you have someone to talk to? I mean how are we supposed to find these guys if we’ve never even heard of them?” Barclay inquired, proving his dumbassery wasn’t constant.

  “Let me make some phone calls and I’ll see what I can find out,” Darius answered, before getting up from the table. As he walked out, he stopped by the fridge and grabbed another couple bags of blood. It was good to see him actually being careful, and not just being stoic and keeping a stiff upper lip about how much Marcella had drained him.

  As we all dispersed, I reached out to Keir again. I think we should talk to Marcella like we did before, at least let her know what’s going on. It doesn’t seem right that she isn’t able to participate in this.

  What if she is able to seduce us? Keir asked, a frown tugging at his brow.

  Don’t you think we would be able to resist it since it’s not a physical thing?

  Perhaps.

  Fine. Let me put it another way. How do you think she’s going to react when you wake her up, and she finds out about all of this? Do you want to face her ire?

  You make a good point, brother, Keir conceded, and the pair of us hung around with our brothers only as long as it took us to leave and head for our mate.

  We slipped into Marcella’s room around twenty minutes later, and saw the destruction she had rained down upon the clothing.

  Darius hadn’t been exaggerating.

  Her body, though tucked under sheets, was still weeping blood in places where she had accidentally hurt herself.

  To top it all off, the room stank of sex and blood, and I knew that Keir and I were both sporting hard-ons because of it. Her scent was just that intoxicating to us.

  We perched on the edge of the bed and Keir took my hand in his before he placed his other hand on her forehead. The contact made it easier for him to get into her head and take me with him.

  The dreamscape he’d created for her was simple. It was her room, but somehow the light was warmer, not as sharp, and there was a scent in the air that fired my blood. The only thing that was lacking was the woman herself.

  She was no longer between the sheets.

  “Marcella?” Keir called, shooting me a puzzled frown.

  A sleepy Marcella, complete with post-sex hair, padded out from the bathroom in next to nothing, with only a sheer robe covering her. It barely obscured her nipples and made all my blood rush south. She looked like sex and sin and love all wrapped into one drop-dead gorgeous package.

  “Keir? Raven? What are you doing here?”

  “We wanted to talk to you,” I told her, unsure how to start the conversation when my tongue was cleaved to the roof of my mouth. Fuck, I wanted in her. Stat.

  “Okay, what about?” She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, the robe falling away from her legs, revealing the long lines of pale skin that made me drool.

  “I’ve put you in a dream, Chella. One that we are hoping will last long enough to keep you from your heat overwhelming you,” Keir explained, blunt as ever.

  “I’m asleep right now?”

  I nodded, aware that her tone had morphed from sultry to sibilant.

  “And I’m going into my first heat?”

  I nodded again and saw Keir doing the same thing out of the corner of my eye.

  “So what? You’re scared of me, so you’re sedating me?” she questioned, her voice bitter now as anger hit her.

  “From what Darius told us, a female pursang in heat is a dangerous thing, and we just want to keep you safe,” I hedged.

  She snorted and slipped her arms across her chest, folding them with hurried, angry moves. “Right, which is why I’m stuck in a sleep I didn’t even get a choice in. You’re just as bad as the Sires. My life isn’t my own, is it? Everyone else just moves me around to where they want me and expects me to be okay with it.”

  Her words stung. It was the last thing I wanted her to think of us, and yet, by her logic it made sense.

  “Listen, there’s another group like the Cavalry. They’re called the Reapers,” Keir started, before quickly summarizing what we had spoken to Darius about, including how dangerous these guys were.

  When he was done, she snorted and replied, “So you’re just going to leave me here, unconscious with a few members of the Cavalry? Wow. And here I thought you guys actually cared about me.”

  Her words were like sniper bullets, and each one struck me right in the heart. Did she really believe that? How could she? Her life meant more to me than my own!

  “We’re not leaving you alone,” I rasped, my own anger starting to bleed through into my words. “Some of us will go, and some will stay. Keir and I just wanted to tell you what was going on. I hated the idea of decisions being made without your input.”

  “And if I said I wanted you to let me wake up?” Marcella’s arms tightened over her chest, covering her nipples, but drawing attention to the cleavage that was showing as the robe slid open even further, testing my resolve to stay away from her.

  “Is that what you really want, or are you just being difficult?” Keir’s head tilted to the side as though he genuinely couldn’t figure it out.

  “You might have to decide that for me, I don’t know that I’m capable of it,” she snarled.

  “Come on, Chella, we are trying to do what’s best here. Please don’t make us out to be the enemy,” Keir defended with a sigh. He reached over and cupped her chin, holding her steady even when she tried to jerk back, avoiding his touch. “Sweetheart, you need to calm down. We’re not abandoning you. We’re trying to do what’s right. You’ve been acting so strangely recently, and your going into heat explains all that. So just rest, recuperate. Healing Gideon, that drained you. And now the bond and everything else? Let me do this for you.”

  Even I heard the sincerity in his voice, but Marcella, proving how irrational she was, bit off, “You’ve taken me out of the action. You’ve determined that I’m a risk to myself and others without even talking to me about it first. I think it’s pretty understandable that I’m upset.”

  Her words made me wonder who we were talking to.

  The Marcella I’d come to know, one that was being manipulated by the Mother, or one that was in a hormone-daze. I wasn’t entirely sure which option I preferred, to be truthful. They all came with catches that were capable of breaking my fucking heart.

  “Keir made a nice dreamscape for you though, don’t you think? And it’s only for a little while, just a few days, right?” I cajoled, trying to help her see the bright side.

  “Sure, he made me a luxury prison. It’s nicer than bars, I guess.”

  Maker, she was testing me. I dropped to my knees in front of her, my heart in my stomach, needing her to know that we weren’t doing this to be bastards. We were doing it to give her options, to stop the Fates from controlling us even m
ore. “We love you, Marcella, we just want you to be safe. Is that so wrong?”

  She finally uncrossed her arms, but she did so to reach forward, moving her hands to brush against my pecs as she slid off the bed. Marcella pushed me back then moved so she was straddling my lap. “I suppose not, no,” she purred, rocking her hips, dragging her silken heat over my cock.

  Fuccccck.

  “Chella...” Keir’s voice held a note of warning.

  “We can’t do this, Marcella. Besides we’re in a dream. We wouldn’t even be doing anything, not really. It wouldn’t satisfy whatever craving you’re feeling right now,” I warned, as the heat of her core seemed to burn through me where she sat. Her actions making my words a lie. When her hips rolled experimentally, I groaned, unable to suppress my reaction to my Sixth.

  “If it’s just a dream then what does it matter?” she countered, her voice turning husky as she tried to seduce me. I say tried, but it was working.

  All of the reasons why we couldn’t have sex in the dreamscape had fled from my mind, and all I could think about was how she felt on top of me, how soft her skin was, the smooth fullness of her breasts, and the slick heat that was pressed against my cock.

  Keir’s voice was my saving grace as he stated, “It matters because you need to remain calm. We are going to talk to the Reapers, and try and figure out what’s going on. It’s better all around if you just remain here where you’re safe.”

  “And what if something happens to you? I’m not okay with that. I’m your Sixth; I’m supposed to be there to help you fight,” she grated out, twisting back to glower at Keir who was still sitting on the bed. How he managed to look unaffected I’d never know.

  “Sweetness, we aren’t going to fight, we’re going to talk. That’s it,” I said, my hands gripping her hips, trying to keep her from grinding down on my shaft.

  But even as I was worrying about coming in my pants like a zit-faced kid, something jerked on the connection and the next thing I knew, I was laying in bed with Marcella and Keiran.

  Confused, I sat up and looked over at Keiran. “Did you do that?” The concern on his face had tension stirring inside me. “Keir? What is it?”