by J. N. Baker
I could hear her panting from where she still sat on the bed. “Oh well,” she finally said. “As I told you before, it’s too late now. Now you belong to the king. You should be grateful. A lot of other—far better—women have tried to win his affection but instead he wants only you. Time for you to move on.”
Over my dead fucking body, I wanted to tell her but instead said, “Maybe you should move on too.”
Lindsay slid off the bed. “Maybe I will,” she mused. “Maybe I’ll give Josh a whirl since you can no longer have him.”
I felt the porcelain crack beneath my fingers as I squeezed the edge of the tub. Yep, I was definitely going to kill Lindsay.
“Go for it,” I forced myself to say as I stood from the tub and grabbed a towel. “Cody said something about himself having all the experience and Josh having the bigger dick. Guess that’s because Cody sleeps with anything with two legs and a pair of tits. Probably less chance of disease with Josh.”
“Bitch,” she hissed before storming out of the room. Ryuu was right. I was great at making friends.
The next morning, I woke to a tiny vibration on my feet. I shifted at the familiar sound of a small purr.
“Cody?” I asked, rubbing a hand over my face. Realization that Cody was hundreds of miles away chased away any remaining grogginess.
I sat up, shocked to find a tiny white kitten curled in a tight ball at the foot of the bed, little pink nose twitching in its sleep.
“Scarlett?”
At the sound of her name, the fluff ball yawned and stretched out and I had to resist the urge to say, “Oh, big stretch.” Little blue eyes met mine and the kitten let out a small meow that damn near melted my blackened heart.
“Are you supposed to have your animal out right now?” I asked, remembering how Lindsay had phrased it when the little girl had sprouted whiskers at the dinner table.
The kitten meowed in response and I covered my smile with my hand. I didn’t want to encourage her. The more time she spent shifted, the longer it would take her to reach adulthood.
“You need to shift back,” I told her softly. “If you shift back, we can go read together in the library. Would you like that?”
In response, her tiny bones began to crack and I had to turn away. It was bad enough watching an adult body break to change shape. A child was way worse.
“Zoo!” she squealed once the small child I’d come to know appeared in my mess of blankets.
“Good morning to you too, little bear.” She flashed me her toothy grin as I bundled her up in a small blanket. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
She pursed her lips, eyes downcast. That was the world’s cutest no.
I sighed. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s make sure the others know you’re okay and then we can read a book. But only if you promise no more shifting when you aren’t supposed to.”
She huffed and then nodded once. Yep, this one was definitely going to break hearts when she got older.
Standing from the bed, I scooped her up, blankets and all, and carried her out of my room.
“There you are,” Lindsay called when I walked into the main room. “You can’t sneak off like that, Scarlett. It isn’t safe. People were worried about you.”
Scarlett’s soft blond hair tickled my skin as she burrowed into my neck to hide from the older shift.
“She’s right,” I said, hating having to agree with Lindsay. I smoothed my hand down Scarlett’s back. “No more running off. And no more shifting without permission,” I added more quietly.
“I’ll take her,” Lindsay said, reaching out. I noticed she didn’t bother to make eye contact with me. Not surprising after our conversation the night before.
I held tight to Scarlett. “It’s fine,” I told her, feeling suddenly protective of the small child. “I’ll get her some clothes and then we’ll go hang out in the library for a bit. I told her I’d read her a story.”
Lindsay looked at the little girl clinging to me for a minute and then nodded before turning and walking away without another word.
“Book!” Scarlett squealed and I laughed.
“Clothes first, young lady. No streaking around the castle like an animal. There’s enough of those around here.”
“The end,” I said, closing the fifth straight book in a row. Each time one ended, she begged for more. I found it was hard to resist that Precious Moments face.
Not surprisingly, Scarlett squirmed on my lap. “More! More!”
“No, little bear,” I told her, patting her soft hair. “That’s all for today. But I can read to you again tomorrow if you’d like.”
She bobbed her head up and down until even I was starting to get dizzy.
I laughed. “Okay, run along and find Lindsay.”
“Lin-Lin!” she squealed, scurrying off my lap and toddling out of the library.
“You are good with her,” a deep voice said from behind me. I was on my feet and turned around in a split second.
Baldric was leaning against the doorframe of the war room, muscular arms crossed over his chest as he watched me.
“She’s a sweet girl,” I said, setting down the most recent book we’d read about animals kissing good-night. It was clearly Scarlett’s favorite of the ones we’d read, seeing as she’d had me read it three times.
“Sera was also good with children,” he went on to say, pushing off the door and heading toward me. “It broke her heart that she could not have children of her own. The curse of what we are, I suppose. It did not stop her from loving on any child she encountered, though.”
I sat down in the plush chair once more, my back to him. “Can you tell me about her?”
Baldric was quiet for a moment as he came to stand in front of me. “That depends, are you going to accuse me of killing her again?” He quirked a brow at me.
I pursed my lips and looked down—anywhere but at those intense black eyes. “No,” I finally said.
“Very well…” Baldric started, taking a seat across from me, lounging back like a king on a throne. “What would you like to know?”
“Everything. What was she like?”
There was so much mystery around the woman I looked exactly like, the one who came long before me. The one William told me Baldric had killed.
“Sera was perfection come to life,” Baldric said, his voice softening until it sounded more like a prayer. “She was heaven on Earth…my entire world. She was kind when she needed to be, and strong where it mattered. She loved fiercely and had such an innate desire to protect the weak. In a thousand years, I have never met anyone as beautiful as she was. Not even you. She radiated light. One look at her and you knew—you truly knew—God was real. She was His masterpiece.
“I burned for her. She was my reason for living. My world began and ended with her. That woman completed me and I loved her so. And despite what William may have told you, she loved me just the same. But it is true that she also loved Edward. It tormented her, feeling pulled toward both of us. At one point, she even suggested a harem. And, while I was not entirely sure I could handle such a thing, I told her I was willing to try. For the love I had for her, I could attempt it if that was what made her happy.
“But Edward refused. He could not bear the thought of sharing her with another man. He forced her to choose between us.”
“And she chose him?” I asked, still reeling over the idea of a harem. I could only imagine the shit show I would have had on my hands if I’d suggested Alec and Josh share me.
Baldric’s normally black eyes flashed violet again and this time I was positive I saw it. “On the contrary,” he said. “Sera chose me. She knew what she’d felt for me was far more powerful than anything she’d ever felt toward Edward. She may have cared for him, but she did not love him as she loved me.”
I felt the air leave my lungs. That was how I’d felt about Josh. Sure, I cared about Alec once. I even thought I loved him. Maybe I had loved him. But it was nothing compared to the intense pull I fel
t toward Josh. Josh made me feel alive. He was part of me.
“Sera told Edward her decision shortly before the Great War,” Baldric continued. “He lost his mind. He could not accept her choice. He hated that she wanted me and not him. He tried to control her; he wanted to keep her from me. He thought he could change her mind, but there was no changing the fact that she and I were soul mates. And then during the Great War, I watched him run a dagger through her heart so that neither of us could have her. He might as well have put the dagger through my heart.”
My own blackened heart ached remembering how I’d felt when I’d thought Josh was gone. The absolute despair like my world had ended even if it continued to turn for everyone else. What if Alec had been successful in killing him…
I blinked away the nonexistent tears I felt building behind my eyes, hating the sympathy I felt for the monster sitting in front of me. William had been so adamant that Baldric was the one who’d killed Seraphina. But there was so much sincerity in Baldric’s voice, so much pain in his normally emotionless eyes as he spoke about Sera. Either Baldric was the world’s best actor, or he really truly loved her. I had a sickening feeling it was the latter.
Sickening because if William had lied about who’d killed Sera, what else had he lied to me about regarding Baldric?
“My world—my life—ended when she took her last breath,” Baldric whispered, his violet eyes going distant. “Edward took away my sun that day.”
“So, you took away ours?”
His eyes darkened as they found mine. “I have been in darkness for centuries. I hardly noticed the change. But no, I did not take away your sun. You give me too much credit.”
Baldric stood gracefully as Josh and Olive entered the library. “Are we ready for the meeting?” Olive asked with a bow.
“Yes,” Baldric said, heading back toward the war room. “Gather the others.”
“Of course,” she replied, bowing out of the room.
Baldric tossed me one more look. “Training is canceled today. Do whatever you would like.” He slipped into the war room, shutting the heavy wooden door behind him.
Josh’s eyes met mine and a pang shot through my chest, my whole body aching to run to him. Josh turned and headed in the direction of the war room, and I struggled to remain on my feet. Baldric may not have realized it, but he had taken away my sun. He took Josh from me. Maybe not in the same sense he’d claimed Edward had taken Sera, but he was keeping him from me all the same.
And I wanted my damn sun back.
With no training, a pissed-off Lindsay, and all the higher-ups in a meeting with the king, I found there wasn’t much to do to pass the time. I spent the rest of the day reading in my chambers. Anything to avoid thinking about my conversation with Baldric about Sera. Someone who was supposed to be so bad, he shouldn’t have been able to love so deeply. Right?
When it was time for dinner, I couldn’t get myself to go. I wasn’t ready to face Baldric again. Not so soon. It was Josh’s shift, Philip, who came to my door asking if I’d be joining the rest of them for some “grub.” I told him I wasn’t hungry and he left, saying something about more for him. It wasn’t long after the shift had come to my room that sleep took me away from my troubled thoughts.
I wasn’t sure what woke me from my slumber first, the breeze from the now-open window or the presence of another person in my room.
As I moved to jump on my intruder, they shoved me back onto the bed with a force only possessed by one of the Chosen. I blinked up at Josh, standing over my bed in the dead of night as he’d done in the vision I’d had earlier in the week. The thought sent my blackened heart racing. Whether because of the dagger he’d put in my chest or the way his icy eyes burned me in all the right ways, I wasn’t sure.
Before I could speak, Josh crawled his big body onto the bed beside me, tugging me to his solid chest and wrapping his arms around me until I was enveloped in him. We hadn’t spooned like this since he’d slipped into my hospital bed nearly seven years ago. I relaxed against him.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, his lips brushing against my ear sending goose bumps dancing across my skin as heat pooled between my legs. “You looked like something was wrong earlier in the library. When you didn’t show up for dinner, I was worried.”
I nestled into his warm embrace, trying to get impossibly closer. I started to nod and then stopped, because if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay at all.
“He loved her,” I whispered into the darkness, still not believing it myself.
“Who?”
“Baldric,” I told him. “He actually loved her. William had told me Baldric was the one who’d killed Seraphina, but Baldric said it was Edward who took her life. I don’t want to believe him, but I do. You can’t fake that sort of love. He truly loved that woman. He loved her like I love you…”
“He did,” Josh said softly, kissing the back of my head, his hold on me tightening.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I breathed, shifting in his arms so I faced him. “I can’t lose you, Josh.”
He ran a hand down my back, smoothing my hair. “You won’t lose me, not anymore.”
But if Ryuu and the rest of the Chosen who came before us were any indication, tomorrow clearly wasn’t promised. Forever wasn’t a guarantee, not even for us. And I needed Josh and forever to go together. After all the shit I’d had thrown at me in my life, I wanted this one thing to go my way. I wanted my happily ever after. Or as happily as it could be being two monsters in love at the end of the world. I deserved that much, didn’t I?
“You don’t know that,” I said. “I lost you once. I can’t handle that pain again. The only thing that got me through it was my visions of you.”
As the words slipped past my lips, my jaw clamped shut. I’d never told Josh about my visions. How did you tell someone you saw them killing you in the future? Especially someone you loved…
Josh stiffened. “What visions?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling in my ear, vibrating all the way down to my suddenly curling toes. When I didn’t respond, he rolled me over so he was on top of me, one large hand pinning my wrists above my head. “You’ve mentioned a vision before. What. Visions?”
“Forget about it,” I said, voice breathy. “You should go. We can’t risk being caught. Someone will hear us.”
“These walls aren’t that thin. And Baldric is in a meeting with Olive on the other side of the castle.”
“But his people aren’t,” I countered. “And damn near all of them have super hearing. If someone hears us—”
“They won’t,” he said, his voice carrying a note of finality. “Now tell me.”
“Josh…”
His intense eyes, glowing bright in the darkness, bored into me and my stomach did a little flip. “You know, I could always just make you tell me.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to drop it when his lips crashed into mine, devouring the moan as it left my lips. His lips traveled from my mouth to my ear. “What visions?” he asked again, his breath hot on my flesh, fanning the fires within me. I squirmed against him, my hips moving of their own volition.
When I didn’t answer, he started moving along my jaw and down my neck, biting and kissing as he went. When he reached the nook of my neck, I heard the distinct sound of his fangs extending. With his body pressed into mine, I knew for a fact that wasn’t the only part of him lengthening.
The tips of his fangs danced over my jugular before moving lower and lower still, until he was trailing wet kisses over the tops of my breasts. With one of his hands still holding mine captive and the other pressed into the mattress beside me, my camisole began lifting itself higher and higher. The silk material brushing over my skin was like a caress of its own. Just as it reached the underside of my breasts, it stopped and I whimpered.
“Tell me,” he said into my goose-pimply flesh.
“What?” I breathed. What had we been talking about again? I couldn’t think about a
nything except his hot mouth less than an inch from my glass-cuttingly-sharp nipple.
The hand holding my wrists hostage suddenly released me, reappearing on the curve of my waist. It slipped higher, skimming over my ribcage until it came to a stop right where the camisole had, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast.
He was killing me, and he didn’t even need that bloody dagger.
“Touch me,” I pleaded.
I thought I felt him smirk against the top of my breast. “I should deny you until you tell me what I want to know,” he whispered, his voice husky with want, driving me wild. “But then, I’ve never been very good at denying you.”
His mouth returned to mine as his hand slid higher, pushing my shirt out of his way. His hand ran up the side of my breast, over the top and back around, making tantalizing circles before molding to my sensitive flesh. I arched into his touch as he rolled his palm over my erect nipple, biting my lip to keep from crying out.
“If you hadn’t denied me all those years ago, this would have been tender and soft. But now I find my hunger for you is too great and all I want to do is take what’s mine.”
“Yes…”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was saying yes to. Taking me, making me his—hell, sinking those fangs into me—all of it. Fucking yes.
He pinched my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, catching the cry as it left my lips. “Be quiet,” he ordered, the command sending a bolt of lightning straight to my core.
And then Josh replaced his hand with his mouth and I was positive I’d snuck my monstrous ass right through those pearly gates.
His talented tongue lapped and swirled until the room was spinning, and then he moved to the other breast, continuing his ministrations.
“My angel.”
Before I could remind him I was no angel, he nipped at the underside of my breast, his fangs dragging along my skin until I was almost begging him to bite me. I dug my fingers into his shirt, tearing it from his back.
Josh growled in response as he sat up, yanking off the remaining fabric. My mouth watered as the flames from the fireplaces reflected across his chiseled body. He reached down, ripping away my camisole with one quick pull. His eyes feasted on me, drinking me in like his very life depended on it.
