by Mason Sabre
His breath caught in the back of his throat when headlights lit up the street. He knew without looking it was her. He could feel her. She was so deeply connected to him that a cord ran from his soul to hers. Someday, if he wished hard enough, he could pull on that and bring her to him.
A car he didn’t recognise pulled up outside her house, behind his, and he quickly pulled his jacket off and draped it across his hand. There was a man in the driver’s seat—Karl. He recognised him from Tom and Shelley’s house and couldn’t help the expression of disdain that etched itself across his features. He didn’t belong … not with Gemma.
Gemma met Cade’s gaze, but she stayed in the car. Even from where he stood, he could see the pure emotions in Gemma’s deep green eyes. Cade didn't move when Gemma broke the connection between them and turned to Karl. His perfect wolf hearing meant that he could hear every word they said as if he was sitting right between them. He wished he was.
“Thank you for this evening,” she said to Karl. There was an edge to Gemma’s voice, a crack. She was holding her breath and readying herself to deal with him.
Karl shot a glance over Gemma’s shoulder and Cade threw back a not too friendly glare. “Do you need me to stay?”
Cade ground his jaw at Karl’s question. Even the accusation that he could handle him was enough to make Cade laugh. He’d be dead before he got his claws out. Cade wasn’t a vicious man. He prided himself in that, but it was only a fool who would think he wasn’t capable. He was the son of the alpha. A title that no weak shifter could hold.
She paused for a moment and then threw a glance over her shoulder at Cade. “No.” She’d know he could hear. Know he was listening. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She leaned over and placed a kiss against Karl’s cheek … his skin. Fury burnt in Cade’s veins, but he did everything he could to stay standing by Gemma’s door and not go over there and rip Karl from his seat. He was nothing … nothing at all.
Gemma climbed out of Karl’s car, and she didn’t look back. Her gaze landed on Cade … that gaze. Eyes so filled with a hunger she couldn’t deny what she felt—what they both felt. “What are you doing here?” She walked over to him, her stride confident and unyielding. She was trying to show strength, but Cade could feel it inside him … see it almost in his head. She was lying, even to herself.
“I need to—” Cade was about to say he needed to see her, but he realised that Karl was still sitting in his car … waiting. “Tell him to leave,” Cade said, not caring how demanding he sounded.
She tossed a glance over her shoulder back at Karl and then gave a wave. “He’s making sure I’m okay.”
“I'm here …”
“Exactly.” She sent out that one word meant to crush him, meant to pinch at the edges of his heart. Maybe it did, but he’d never hurt her. She unlocked and opened the front door to her house, but before she went in she turned and waved to Karl again, a smile across her face.
He started the engine and this time he pulled away, slowly. Cade watched him … he watched him with the same hunting gaze he’d give to prey, ready to hunt them down and tear them apart. Gemma was his, and Karl needed to understand that. He would.
Cade followed Gemma into her house. She was mad. The temper rolled off her in a cloth of red silk that covered the surrounding air. She didn’t put the light on, but Cade closed and locked the door behind them, closing her in.
She spun on him the moment the locked latched into place, her eyes bright green, burning with fury. “Cade. You can't just—” her words cut off, catching in her throat as her eyes went to the blood that had seeped into his shirt from his hidden hand. Her expression darkened, her eyes flicking up to his. She snatched the jacket away, gasping when she saw the blood had soaked through the towel. “What the hell have you done?”
He wrenched his hand away from her. It was bloodied and bruised and throbbed like a bastard, but he didn’t care. Nothing hurt more than the agony searing his chest and tearing through his heart. Nothing ever would. “It’s fine.”
Hurt flashed across her eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s fine. What have you done?”
Grimacing, he shut her down in his head. His mind balanced between a wolf seeking the heat of Natalie and the need to be with Gemma—his home–his mate. It confused him. The animal was dominant, vicious, protective and very very male, but at the same time, it was simple, hurt and broken. A ball of natural instincts it would fight to its death if it needed to.
“I said, it’s fine.”
She let out a sigh and shook her head. “Whatever.” Then pushed past him and ran up the stairs.
He followed her. She had gone to her bedroom and was pulling out the box she had for cuts and bruises. Cade stayed at the doorway. If he walked into the room he and Gemma had spent so many nights … so many times lying together in each other’s arms, their bodies aching pleasurably from their intimacy.
“Let me look at your hand,” she said, coming to him and standing toe to toe. She’d brought with her stuff to clean his wound and a dressing. He didn’t need it. Didn’t want it. The pain in his hand was like an anchor to his mind. Saving him … saving her from the irrational actions that were ready to come out.
Standing there, though, she was so dangerously close. So much within his need he could grasp her. Cracks spread through his resolve, and he sucked in a calming breath, but it had the opposite effect. She was there … Gemma … deep in his senses, but she smelt of something more. Something worse. Before he could think what he was doing, Cade grabbed her and backed her against the wall. He pressed a knee between her thighs, forcing them open. “He’s touched you?”
Wide green eyes met his, and his vision flashed red at just the thought of it, a veil of blood across his gaze–Karl’s blood. He clenched his injured hand sending lashes of agony through his bones.
“I can smell him on you.” He inhaled loudly as if to demonstrate. “He’s everywhere.”
Gemma placed a hand against Cade’s chest. She could move him away if she needed to, but she put that distance there. She pushed him back, and he moved. He could feel his own heartbeat under her palm and it beat rapidly. “I can smell Natalie on you, too,” she said, then she looked up at him, the green of her eyes liquifying with her emotions. “I can smell her on you so much….” Her voice broke into a whisper at the end.
“She lives in my house.”
Gemma gave a slow shake of her head. “No. I know—” She broke off this time and tore her gaze from him. Keeping her mouth open, her bottom lip gave a slight tremble and her skin flushed. She closed her eyes, giving a long blink. “Please let me go.” She didn’t mean physically.
He stepped back and walked across the room to give her space. Sweeping a hand across his face, he pressed his lips together and turned to face her again.
“What did you do to your hand?” she asked before he could speak, this time her voice held the edge of her tiger—demanding.
His knuckles were black and swollen. Blood had clotted in the wounds. He’d burst two of them when he’d clenched his fist again and fresh blood ran down his hand in streaks of red. Two of his knuckles were pressed in more than they should be. They were broken, but they would heal. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
Gemma nodded and then let her head hang down. She was silent.
“Do you not trust me? Is that it?”
She angled her head enough, so she could peer out from under her hair. “Trust you?”
He nodded and moved closer again. “To protect you. Do you not think I can?”
Gemma frowned, sliding her hands behind her back and pressing them palm down against the wall. “Of course, I trust you. Do you think this is about trust?”
“I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why you won't fight … why you give in and let fear drive us apart.”
“Because …”
“Because what?” He stood right in front of her again, waiting for an answer. “Why Gemma? Tell me the reason you push me away.”
<
br /> “Because I love you,” she said. He’d thought hearing those words would be like a relief to his brain, but he felt them as if she had slapped him.
He let out a shaky breath. His body was tired and his mind exhausted. The words he wanted to say were there in his mouth, coating his tongue like fear. Gemma was the only thing that made him feel afraid … afraid that he truly would never touch her again. “I can't live my life knowing someone else is touching you.”
She gave a weak nod and then brought her hands to cover her face as she slid herself down the wall until she was crouching. “It’s too hard.”
Cade went to her, the protective need of him and his wolf needing to comfort his mate in her distress. But it was his own, too. Rich and bitter, it twisted his heart in ways he could never put into words. She didn’t push him away when he crouched with her and then ran his hand along the side of her face the way he always did. “We can find a way. I can find a way. I don’t care what it is I have to do. I’ll do it.”
Gripping his wrist, she turned her face in his hand, wiping tears across his palm. She looked at him, though, and he could see the reflection of his own desperate expression in their depths.
“No one would ever hurt you. No one.”
“It isn’t me I’m afraid for. Don’t you understand? I would rather you marry Natalie than see you die. I would rather she has you….”
He came closer to her, pushing dangerously close.
“I can't live in a world where you don’t exist,” she said.
“You can live in a world where someone else touches me?”
Nearly a whole minute passed as she contemplated his question. “I can,” she barely whispered. “If it means you live, then I can.”
“I can't.” It was that simple. “I try. I try to be with Natalie and make myself do what I need to, but you're there, always there.” He jabbed a finger at his temple, ignoring the searing pain in his hand. “All I ever see is you. Every part of me is made for you. Just you.” He slid his injured hand to her cheek, cupping her face.
“I failed you. I failed you and Connor and Stephen. I failed you all. I can't …”
Leaning in, he pressed his forehead to hers and just breathed. “You didn’t. I promise you, you didn’t.” He kept his face close to hers but moved so he could look right into her eyes. “I only ever feel what I feel inside when I am with you. That can’t be failure. With you, everything make sense. You make everything right.”
She peered back at him through damp lashes. “What if you die, too?”
“I won’t.”
For a single taut second Cade was afraid she would pull away again. He’d placed himself vulnerable. Laid himself out in front of her and only she could reach in and tear out his heart with her words, but she drew him in closer, pulling him to her.
“Fight for us, Gem. Fight for us, and together, we can do anything.”
Her answer was a kiss pressed against his mouth and a gasp he wasn’t sure which one of them did. He didn’t care, though. He opened his mouth … opened hers and pulled her to him. He didn’t need anything else.
Chapter 11
Henry
Henry walked through the tunnel and into the filth filled stench of the underground. He clomped through mud and water, and whatever else was floating in there. He kept to the side where the water was shallower and not about to seep into his boots or stain his pants. The faint flicker of fake orange light in the distance was dull tonight. Not like it was when he usually visited.
At the end of the tunnel was a door, big, old, rotten at the bottom. It wouldn’t keep anyone out who wanted in—not if they really wanted in, but it was there mostly as a warning for the Others hiding behind it. If anyone broke through, they’d all have time to scamper. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to gather their things, not that they had much, but they could get to safety.
“Joel,” Henry said in greeting when he reached the door, giving the flea covered beggar a curt nod.
Joel, younger than Henry had been when he was turned, although he looked much older, gave Henry a toothless grin. He attempted to sit upright and utter something to Henry, but his words were heavy, slurred, not helped by the lisp he had from when his tongue had been cut in two. Served him right. Henry tried to feel pity for him. Tried to feel some kind of understanding. After all, Joel was cast out now. Cast out from both worlds and made to lie in the underground bowels of both Society and strays. Not even the scraps of the world bothered with him.
According to Magda, a woman Henry conversed with once he entered the underground area, Joel was a shifter. He’d had all his claws and teeth pulled. Punishment. Magda didn’t say what Joel was being punished for and Henry didn’t ask. What business was it of his? He was a shifter. That was crime enough for Henry.
He knocked on the door, rattling the old wooden thing in its wall brackets. One day it would fall away and land on someone. Maybe that was the point. “I have a meeting with Miss M,” Henry said to the stooped over woman that opened the door. She was a witch, old, used up now. Her magic gone. She stepped back, pulling the door open so that Henry could enter. Sounds and smells blasted out with a whoosh. Decay, rot, and the tantalising scents of meat being burned over flames. Sometimes the smell reminded Henry what it had been like to eat. The earth, damp and cold, made him think of long ago days. Days that none of these people here would ever be a part of. He loved the damp scent, though. It reminded him so much of home … his old home. Not the version of it now. That was something else, something empty. It was filled with things, old things, things that needed to be gone, yet it didn’t matter. It could be filled to the ceiling with riches and it would never be what he wanted.
Where Henry walked, it was dark. To one side of him water pooled at the bottom of a stone support. Moss grew up from it, reaching for an escape into the unknowing world above. A thunderous noise echoed through the place, rattling it enough that small chips of earth tumbled down. This was the archway, the underground support for the railway lines above them. It was old and unused under there. At least, the Humans and the privileged Others believed that. It brought a smile to Henry’s face every time he thought about it and the deceit happening right beneath them.
Each archway had a false wall built, and a door added. The tunnel running between them had been made into a street. It was paved with stone flags and decorated with hanging lights. Every door had a sign; some were hand written or stolen from those above. Magda’s was the brightest doorway in the place, and perhaps the richest, but then she was turning tricks with the age-old trade of flesh.
“Henry…” she cooed when she saw him, rocking back in her high-backed leather chair. She picked up the oblong thing on her desk and clicked it, waving it at the box on her desk. Television, Henry had learnt. A strange contraption, and he could not understand why a person would spend so long staring at it. “Business or pleasure this evening?”
Henry closed the door behind him and stepped inside. His nose twitched, picking up the scents of sex and cheap perfume. “A lady has no business in a man’s affairs,” he said.
She pursed her lips at him and angled her head and then chuckled to herself. “Oh, you’re no fun. What will it be this evening?”
He glanced out of the window, watching the underground world move around. Strays, all of them. He had seen one Council member here. This was the place people came, but never spoke of. The place they all knew existed but never acknowledged. Perhaps if they ignored it enough, they could pretend it did not exist. The world had gone soft. Maybe it was better he had been confined to a tomb all those years, or perhaps he would have been inflicted with whatever caused the world to go bonkers. “My usual. As always.”
Magda pulled out a small box. It was filled with cards. Magda didn’t keep digital records, but Henry liked that. All these people around him all the time using those odd things they called telephones to talk to people, yet they never actually talked, just pressed their thumbs onto them. “You’re in luck. Elizabeth
is free.”
A nod. “I will not be needing very long tonight. I have another pressing engagement after this.”
Magda shrugged. “Five minutes or an hour. I don’t care. It’s the same rate.”
Henry pulled his wallet from his pocket and pulled out two twenty-pound notes and handed them to Magda. “Of course.”
Magda took the notes from him, but like always, she held them over a light and examined the picture of the Queen in reign. It bemused him why people did this, but not enough he thought to question it. “She’s in back.” Magda put the money in her small locked tin she kept in her top drawer. “You know the way.”
Henry said nothing as he left Magda’s office and headed through the door at the back. Her office was under the archway, but rooms had been dug into the earth. Secret rooms where the strays had burrowed further into the earth and dirt. Elizabeth’s room was the third one along on the left-hand side. Henry knocked and waited.
The scents of food and sex were stronger down here. Thicker maybe. Sounds of laughing, pleasure and pain echoed around the small hallway. Sins of the flesh. It was one thing from Henry’s time that had not gone outdated.
“Come in,” the woman inside called to him. Her voice was older, deeper. The kind of voice Henry had first expected to hear from that of an old maid. Maybe if she had lived when he had, she would have been just that. She smiled when he entered. A kind of strange, crooked smile, but it was warm, kind and held more sadness than Henry cared to ask about. “Henry,” she said. The relief on her face was clear. She wore little else about her body. She was sitting on a chair positioned at the end of the bed, ready to greet the next client who entered. She let her hands down, exposing the creamy flesh of her voluptuous breasts, but Henry had no interest. She wasn’t Mary, but she was Human.
Magda used two Humans. Elizabeth, and another named Trish. He had visited only once with Trish and that was enough. Magda knew, always Elizabeth. He had made it very clear.
