“I don’t think I can do it right now, not even in singles,” Switch said, his nose twitching as his eyes shifted to me. He didn’t have to tell me what he was thinking. I knew. Knife was trying to use his people to get Switch back to Dorley and keep him there.
Knife turned to me. I’d been afraid of this. Now what? Did I plead exhaustion, which was true, or flat-out refuse, start a war, and have it out with him?
“She’s already pushed too hard today,” Ryker cut in, his hand landing on my shoulder.
Knife’s gaze landed where Ryker’s fingers had.
“He’s right. I feel pretty drained.” I was way too tired for a war. I wanted to skip right to the end and sleep like the dead for a day or so. I took another step closer to Knife, losing Ryker’s hand for a second time in minutes.
Ryker crossed his arms and glanced at me before he told Knife, “I’ll lend you a chugger for the people who have to get back.”
Knife was still looking at the spot where Ryker had placed his hand. I took another step away from Ryker, finally dislodging Knife’s preoccupation with the spot.
“I don’t think one chugger will be enough, but I could make do if you have some extra fire stones,” Knife said.
Unlike the magic stones we were hunting, fire stones came from the Eternal Volcano and were used to run chuggers. They were more valuable than gold. Knife would be better off asking for Ryker’s left arm.
“I might be able to spare a couple,” Ryker said.
Knife’s eyes swelled, and I could see him counting numbers in his head. “If you could spare three, I could make that work.”
“I’ll have them delivered,” Ryker responded.
Switch was gone before Ryder finished talking. Burn and Sneak followed suit.
As soon as Knife walked off, Ryker’s eyes shifted to me. “I don’t know what deal you and Switch struck, but you can’t keep him forever. He’s going to have to settle his own mess.”
“I’m not trying to keep him,” I said.
“You’re not?” Ryker crossed his arms, and his head went into the don’t bullshit me downward tilt.
“Letting him stay here is not keeping him. No one should keep him. He’s a free man. He should come and go as he pleases.”
“Like a bird, maybe?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
I shrugged. “I guess a bird would be a good analogy.”
Ruck snuck up on me, linking an arm with mine. “Got a second?”
Ryker looked at us for a few seconds too long before he said, “I’ve got to go get some fire stones.”
As soon as Ryker was gone, Ruck said, “Knife’s been looking for Switch for hours. I think he’s catching on. We’ve got to do something. We can’t let Switch go back.”
“You’ve fucked more guys than I’ve met, and this has to be the one?” I asked. “You couldn’t find a slightly more convenient one? You had to pick the guy that has the best fucking magic ever?”
“He really does, doesn’t he? Don’t try to talk me out of it just because it’s going to be tough.”
“I’ll figure it out somehow. Now go find your boyfriend. I need some sleep.”
His scowl was still in place, but it softened as he turned to find his boy. Mine deepened as I headed toward my place. Would the stones still be there?
The second I walked up to my one-room building, I knew the ward was gone. I paused before shoving open my door. If I didn’t check, they’d still hypothetically be under my mattress.
I had to check. Had to know for sure, even if it were for the worst. I shoved a hand under the side where I slept. Please be there.
Nothing. I pulled the mattress off the bed, in case I’d pushed them farther back than I thought. I looked under the frame. Maybe they’d fallen through the wooden slats. I sat, my back against a wooden frame, my mattress on the floor. They were gone.
Ryker walked in the room, and I knew why he’d come.
“They’re gone,” he said, looking at my mattress in the center of the room.
Arms wrapped around myself, I shook my head. “It got through my ward. I don’t think it can take them from me when I’m carrying them, but nothing else stops it.”
He shut the door and then walked farther in, taking a seat on the wood base of the bed, not far from where I was leaning.
“When it came for you the other time, you said it felt like it was trying to get inside you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“If it comes for you again, you need to fight it with whatever you have or can get. I mean anything. Use everything you’ve got, and mine as well. If this thing manages to get into you somehow, access your magic, it might be able to access mine.”
If it accessed both of ours, what kind of beast would it become? It would be unstoppable.
“Does that mean what I think?” I could tell from the set of his eyes, the tense lines of his mouth, that it did.
It could cloak itself in my magic and kill with his. This creature could wipe out thousands of people in a blink of an eye if the setting were right, the people close enough to it, like they were at the Valley.
“I don’t think we should replace your stones.”
He leaned forward, leaning his arms on his knees, his leg brushing my shoulder.
“We need to get one more for you to keep on you at all times.”
“I know.”
I waited until he left before I crept over to my favorite worming spot and knelt. I knew the second I plucked up a worm it wasn’t going to work. I tried anyway. And tried again and again.
Twenty-Two
I leaned against the building, hiding from the moonlight as I stared at Ryker’s place. My thoughts and feelings were wrapped in a ward so tight that Ryker wouldn’t sense me even if he was about to trip over me. I’d been standing here, counting the minutes as I waited for the blonde to leave. She’d been walking in as I’d arrived twenty minutes ago.
Knowing my demon monster had broken through my ward had blown through the last feeling of security I’d had. My heart had spread the contagion to the rest of my body, because somehow my feet had brought me here.
Twenty-five minutes and my internal clock was chiming that it was way past time to leave. She wasn’t coming back out, and I knew what that meant.
We weren’t together. He could be with whomever he wanted and do whatever he wanted. It was his life, his call, even if she did walk like a troll.
What was I doing with my life? Snooping. Spying from the shadows of a bush. Letting a green monster rip me apart. And I had the nerve to call the blonde a troll?
I could keep on watching, spying, and lamenting over everything he did or I could get on with my life. Do what I needed to do. Do being the important part here. I needed to kick myself into a different gear, because I wasn’t leaving here anytime soon, and this current game of does he like me or not wasn’t fun.
I tipped back the flask filled with Burn’s booze and walked away. I should’ve stuck to the alcohol in the first place. I might’ve been passed out in bed by now instead of roaming the streets of the Valley, being miserable.
I needed someone to drown my sorrows with, or bleach them clean with tons of alcohol. Ruck wasn’t on the tower tonight, but I knew where I would find him.
It didn’t take long to get there. When I stepped in the door, quite a few familiar faces greeted me. “Hey, look who’s finally decided to play,” Tommy, one of the tower’s night shift, said.
The night tower guards often played cards in the storage building on their off nights. It was tough to find other things to do when you were used to gearing up for the day when everyone else was settling into bed.
“Figured I’d see what kind of action you had going on,” I said.
I made my way between two different tables of coins and cards to grab an empty seat by Ruck.
“You playing?” he asked.
“Playing and drinking,” I said, placing my flask on the table. “Deal me in.”
It was two games later, and I was a few c
oins lighter, when Knife walked in, always a regular when he was in these parts. I realized that I might be able to solve at least one problem tonight.
I flipped my hair back and leaned an arm over the back of my chair.
“You here to play?” I asked Knife. My words were innocent enough, but the way I licked my bottom lip wasn’t.
Knife’s eyes narrowed, and there was a hiccup in time before he said, “Hadn’t decided yet.”
I twisted slightly, arching my back as I did.
His eyes dropped to where my breasts were pressing against my shirt.
“I think you just did,” I said, flirty smile and all.
Ruck gave me a side-eye. I gave him a kick under the table, hoping he’d keep his thoughts internal for once.
There was the slightest tip of his head, as if to respond, All righty, then.
Knife inched closer and straightened, taking in all I was offering, from my moist lips to the fullness of my hips. I wasn’t a natural flirt, but I’d learned a few things as I watched woman after woman—and a few men—throw themselves at Ryker. It wasn’t exactly heavy lifting.
“What are you up to?” Knife asked, his brows dropping a fraction lower.
I kicked out the chair opposite me. “What’s wrong? Too scared to find out?” The one thing I knew best about Knife was his brimming ego.
The second he grabbed a chair and swung it around to sit opposite me, I knew I had him. He couldn’t sit and then bail, not without looking like a jerk in front of these people, some of which were his. He’d accepted my terms as soon as he took the chair.
Knife sat, and the table’s other occupants either slid back or got up. They didn’t know what was about to go down, but one thing was clear: we wouldn’t be playing for coin.
I took the deck of cards and began to shuffle. “You call the game, I call the stakes.”
He smiled. “Blue-Eyed Boo.”
I didn’t return the smile, but I wanted to. I knew from around Dorley that Blue-Eyed Boo was his game. What he didn’t know was that it was also mine. It was what I’d been hoping for.
“Stakes? Unless you need time to rethink them now?” he asked, as if he had everything under control.
Man, sometimes he made it almost enjoyable to get one over on him.
“We play until one of us goes bust. I win, Switch is mine. You win…” I gave him a smirk and leaned forward, flashing him a little cleavage as I did.
Ruck tensed behind me. He knew I could play well, but Blue-eyed Boo wasn’t skill alone. There was luck. Either way, win or lose, I was ready. The way I saw it, I either won Switch his freedom or I slept with Knife and maybe it would help me move on from Ryker. Ruck thought it would, and I was tired of being in limbo.
“You think I’d give up Switch for one night with you?”
I shuffled the deck of a hundred as I said, “Yes, I do. I’m worth it.”
“I bet you are.” He inched forward, leaning his elbows on the table. “Deal.”
I slid him his first card and the game was on.
* * *
I sensed Ryker before I saw him. He stopped right inside the doorway. The room had been quiet before, as we’d battled out a hard hand with seven kings spread out on the table in between us. Now it seemed as if everyone had decided to hold their breath as well as their words.
I’d thought I was the only one who’d imagined something more between Ryker and me. The way the room was all eyes and ears, seemed it was a mass hypnosis. We’d all been duped. Too bad the blonde he’d spent the last few hours with hadn’t come along for the walk over here to prove it to the rest of them.
Either way, it didn’t matter. It was time to cut the cord on whatever it was we had. Once, we’d been sort of friends, partners of a sort. Now we were two people stuck together. He did his thing, as evidenced by earlier tonight. For the first time, I was doing mine.
“Heard there was some action going on over here tonight,” Ryker said.
“Friendly game of cards,” Knife said.
I mumbled a yes. So why couldn’t I look at Ryker? I had nothing to feel guilty about.
“Very friendly, from the sounds of it. Figured I’d swing by and see what all the talk was about.” Ryker walked to our table, looking at the cards displayed and the damning lack of coins.
Look at him. You have nothing to be ashamed of.
Look. At. Him.
I tilted my head back, and the rage boiling in his eyes helped me find my voice.
“Stopped by your place earlier, but you were very busy. I figured I’d find another way to pass the time.”
His jaw shifted. “This is how you prefer to relax?”
“Yes. This is exactly what I prefer.”
Ryker’s smile was so cold that I thought my soul was going to get frostbite. Instead, I burned in response. How dare he judge me. He walked in here and acted as if there was more between us when every night he threw away any possibility of it.
I broke my gaze from Ryker’s, the accusation tasting too bitter for my liking.
Ryker stayed focused on me, magic bursting around him riling our connection. “I’m glad I stopped by. It’s good to know how someone likes to spend their time.”
“I guess we all have our leanings.”
I could feel Knife’s look cut into me, almost as sharp as his magic probably was. Okay, so he’d realized maybe I’d had some other motivations for my bet. He had no right to act offended. When you were willing to bet with live people, you couldn’t turn around and play Mr. Sensitive.
The second Ryker walked out, it was as if someone else walked in and dumped a bucket of cold water on me. The fire died. I was a pile of ashy, smelly soot. Not even my irritation over being so pathetic could ignite my soggy ass now.
I glanced down at my cards. The only motivation to win was so that I could get the fuck out of there and go sit in a dark room alone. It was the exact opposite of what I should do, which was win and then fuck Knife for the hell of it. I couldn’t wait around for Ryker anymore. That was clear.
It took me ten minutes more to finish Knife off. I laid my cards out, a splendid array of kings, queens, and fools, and Ruck exhaled beside me. At least some good had come from this night.
Knife slumped back, but the disappointment didn’t seem to make it to his eyes. “You got me. Switch is yours.”
He stood without a fight.
Twenty-Three
“I can’t believe you want this in writing, with an official seal, no less. I don’t even know if I have a seal in here.” Knife dug through the trunk in his room. “Isn’t it bad enough you’re taking Switch from me?”
“He’s a person. He deserves to be free, and with an official letter of release. What if you’re too drunk to remember you lost?” Plus, Switch wasn’t going to believe it was a done deal until I handed over something he could hold and point to. If Switch was uptight, it would spill over to Ruck. I’d have the duo haunting my steps until I was back here, doing this very thing.
Knife’s jaw dropped. “Too drunk?”
I ignored the question, waving a hand in front of my face. “Why is it so hot in here?”
“I like it toasty.” He pointed to an iron thing standing in the corner, with a tube extending toward the ceiling.
It looked a lot like the one I’d found in my room when I returned.
“You burn stuff in that thing?” I asked, pulling off my jacket. I’d been using mine for storage. Who knew?
Knife didn’t have a chance to respond before the door slammed open. Ryker strode toward me like a man who’d taken a sucker punch and was about to hit back harder. Now what had I done? He didn’t have any stones left to steal, but that didn’t mean a biscuit didn’t go missing, or an errant sock. Everyone knew you couldn’t keep a pair together for more than a month, but damned if he wouldn’t be demanding his sock back from me.
Knife had stopped digging in his trunk. He stood there, shaking his head. “Even if I had won, I knew this was going to fucking
happen. I don’t know why I bothered.”
I ignored his ramblings. He’d definitely hit the cups too hard, no matter how sober he thought he was. Besides, I needed to keep my attention on Ryker. He looked like he wanted to kill us both, and I was in no mood for accusations.
“Let me guess, you’re missing a sock?” I put my hands to my waist. He better not start a fight tonight or I’d be punching someone.
Ryker stopped in front of me, his chest visibly rising and falling. He bent over, and his shoulder hit my hips. My hands lost their perch on my waist, and instead of a no-nonsense pose, I was waving my arms like a chicken trying to fly.
“What are you doing?” The tone wasn’t good either. I sounded like I was squawking to match the flapping.
He didn’t answer as he spun us both around so that he was facing Knife. “Touch her again and I’ll kill you.”
He’d completely lost his mind.
There was some more spinning, and I used my two wings as leverage against Ryker’s back to look at Knife. Was he freaking out? Was he going to try and help me?
Neither. Knife was sitting down and getting comfortable on his chair.
“You two deserve each other.” Knife toasted me with a bottle of wine before he took a sip. Last I saw of Knife was a sour puss on his face as he muttered, “Just how I wanted my night to end. Wonderful.”
The cold air hit me as Ryker strode out of Knife’s place. People must have heard the door to Knife’s slamming open a few minutes ago. Curtains were drawn back as people peeked out their windows. Me putting up a fight wasn’t going to change much about the scene we were creating with my current mode of transportation. No one preferred this mode of traveling.
I kicked, bit, and mutilated every part I could reach. I could only access a small portion of his back, but boy was that spot going to look bad tomorrow. He wouldn’t be able to take his shirt off for a week.
“You’re insane,” I said.
He didn’t answer as he marched us toward his place.
“I am not going to your place,” I said. “And for the record, I’m getting a little tired of being hauled around here like a slab of meat.”
Blood Binds: Wyrd Blood Book Three Page 13
