Apparently it was her favorite toy as a toddler, and she slept with it throughout her grade school years. Now it reminded her of her mom as well, and the strength the woman had displayed at the end. She held the bison tighter, grateful that Lucie had packed for her, that it was something Rey had allowed her to keep. He had even helped repair it, she recalled. It was the only half-way decent thing she could remember about him in the recent years.
But aside from that, she didn’t miss him at all. No, the heaviness in her heart had nothing to do with Rey, and all to do with the tall man with the auburn hair and hazel eyes who filled her waking thoughts. She pressed two fingers lightly on her lips, with the memory of their last kiss.
He had unlocked so much in her, the discovery that she had the capability to feel…whatever this was that she was feeling, and the intensity of it that was at once exhilarating and frightening. Had she ever felt this with Rey? She had certainly never found herself wanting so badly to feel his lips on hers, his arms around her. To feel his breaths against her hair, hear his heart beating, as she pressed her cheek against his chest.
Even if that were gone forever, if Col never looked at her again, he had given her this gift, the knowledge of this potential for feeling.
Lily kicked off her shoes, and lay down on her bed, still dressed in her chemise and overdress, curling up with Mr. Calabash tucked under her chin, trying to tamp down the tendrils of fear that flickered up. Perhaps it wasn’t such a gift after all. Despite the clear departure from her past life, what if Col was the only person who could make her feel the way he did?
She would soon move on from here, and her heart would be broken either way, it seemed. Screwed either way. She would either be in pain from having to interact with him the way he was today, for however many weeks longer it would take to have her car repaired, or she would be in agony at having to turn her back on someone who had made her senses come alive.
She had asked him to kiss her! Lily had never been so forward before, yet something about him pulled at her, drew her into its orbit and refused to let her go.
She stroked the worn, pilled fabric of Mr. Calabash’s head. “Poor thing,” she said, her fingers catching on the many stitches that laced the stuffed animal’s body, “you’re more patchwork now than anything else, aren’t you?” She snuggled with it, glad that no one could see her with this toy, not certain whether to laugh or cry.
And yet.
She had the disquieting feeling that she was being watched. Her mind had to be playing tricks. It was the disorientation of her room being emptied of Jordy’s belongings, of her routine being unsettled, of her earlier reflection on Rey and her having to move on. Or the fact that this was her first night by herself, where she wasn’t expecting her roommate to come in at any moment.
It had to be.
And then she heard the scratching at the door.
He had thought his wolf form would free him. He was wrong.
His wolf form had betrayed him. It had led him here, after a dash through the woods in the moonlight, his instincts taking over. Col’s wolf was a silent predator in the dark, the leaves cushioning the pads of his large paws as they sped through, uncaring of the branches and twigs that grabbed at his auburn fur.
At last his wolf slowed, the beast at its destination. The earthen ground had given way to asphalt, the stars hidden in the glare of artificial lights that bathed the area, highlighting the lack of trees and wild growth.
This area was quiet, with only sounds of the human residents with their dwellings, living side by side yet cut off from one another. As he was, of late, with his Bredhren.
Why had his wolf brought him here? He forced himself to turn away, and a pulse of energy glimmered around his furred form, before it swept outwards, revealing his muscular, human frame.
He was wearing the clothes he had been in before he left the house, the heather grey tee shirt that clung to his torso as a second skin, the dark blue denim jeans that fit his large form perfectly.
He looked around where he stood, not recognizing why his wolf had stopped in this particular location. Col rubbed the back of his neck. There was no one else around outside, with only parked cars on one side, and a bank of rooms to the other.
It was another sign that he was losing control of his faculties, his wolf now even more unpredictable than his human form, landing him in the most arbitrary of sites, scratching at inexplicable spots. Perhaps that was why the Vixar had sent him out, and now he would have to report that in both wolf and human form, he was becoming increasingly erratic.
As a final mockery, his head jerked up as a scent appeared as if out of the ether.
It grew stronger, and its potency revealed itself.
Col was helpless, ensorcelled, as the fragrance of night-blooming flowers beckoned to him, ensnaring him as it neared. So much so that he was unprepared as the sudden sound of locks turning, hinges squealing for want of grease, the sudden flood of interior light reached him.
She stood in the doorway, her eyes blinking in disbelief.
“Col?”
“You’ve got to check it out for yourself, HTM. The area’s got strong juju, maybe even stronger than here. I don’t know what’s up with the Cad-man, but he’s not himself, you feel me? It’s like he’s being super shady but at the same time, he’s like scraping the bottom of his fuel tank.”
Micah was flipping through the images on his tablet, giving His Terrible Majesty a private slideshow of the area he had just come back from. HTM was enjoying the commentary, as Micah was well aware, he seemed to find most things about Micah, his pet, amusing. Micah played it up, of course. It was one of the reasons he was so popular and successful among the Merciless, even before HTM had awakened.
By making it obvious that Micah was his favorite, the young man’s standing among the Merciless was as high as it could possibly get. Even higher than the one who was still technically the leader of the Merciless, Cadmus.
“What is this?” HTM’s voice was silky, cultured. He was pointing to one of the photos on the tablet.
“Petroglyphs. I don’t know if that image does it justice, but the whole place was teeming with juice. Raw, magickal juice, you feel me? These petroglyphs are proof that there are ancient magicks here. Cadmus wasn’t even aware of it until I pointed it out.”
Micah had to insist on Cadmus hiking over to that site, on one of the properties. The older man had huffed the entire way, equal parts scorn and exhaustion.
But it was worth it. HTM’s eyes gleamed with pleasure. “You are correct, young Micah,” he purred. “These are ancient magicks that I have not encountered before. It would be most beneficial to harness it.”
“It’s probably tied to the site, and—get this.” Micah was filled with energy that was more suitable for a tracksuit, but he was wearing a dark Hugo Boss suit, cut tight with slim fitting trousers, and a black t-shirt. The gold chains and the pendants that HTM had inscribed with magickal symbols hung over it. HTM liked him in well-tailored suits in his presence, which was almost every day. Truth was, Micah was beginning to dig it too.
“The presence of the petroglyphs is probably tied to the fact that the entire area is a vortex. The woods and the Faire nearby are filled with a constant supply of ready sacrifices.”
HTM smacked his lips. He had enjoyed ingesting the life essences that Micah had brought back with him. One that Cadmus had obtained prior to Micah’s arrival, and the other, Micah had personally supervised the extraction, with the help of a promising new recruit.
“The town is small, but still has a decent selection of the Michelin star level eateries and other luxe-type living that you might enjoy.” Micah continued, flipping through the slide show.
“So you would recommend that this area, this…Gardendale to be the site of our relocation?” His Terrible Majesty asked.
“So far, yes.” Micah paused.
“What is the hesitation?”
Micah pursed his lips. “Cadmus claims that he’s
having trouble getting information about properties that we’d be interested in purchasing. The areas of land that seem to hold the most energy.”
“Claims?” HTM had a slight curl in his upper lip, although that may have been the scar. “You question Cadmus’s veracity, then?”
“I’m just sayin’—” Micah took a deep breath for dramatic effect, “—it’s a pretty interesting coincidence that Cadmus has been dragging his heels on getting that information, and claiming that there’s some kind of difficulty adjusting to the influx of energy there—a difficulty I didn’t experience, by the way. Not to mention the very interesting fact that he was not only in that area twenty five years earlier, but the sole survivor of that mission.”
“Ah yes, I do recall him telling me about it.” HTM said, thoughtfully. “He was responsible for wiping out the last bastion of those who would wish me harm.”
Micah rolled his eyes. “Yep, he made sure we all learned about it as well. The last living Diviners, he rooted them out, killed them all, blah blah blah. But he was the only one to come back from doing so, and we only have his word for it. And now he’s acting all shady about being back there. Kinda makes you wonder.”
“Or it makes you sound jealous.” HTM said, his silky voice sharpening the barb in his words. “The death of all those who fought by his side… that was the reason that you were brought into the fold, after all. You would have him to thank for that.”
That was the official history. Cadmus had drilled it into all the recruits, until they almost could recite it back with his exact cadence and intonations. He had gone with a group of the Merciless, leaving behind only a few to guard the sarcophagus storing His Terrible Majesty’s sleeping form, in their hidden location in Upstate New York. In the fierce fighting that ensued when they found their enemies, all but Cadmus had died, leaving him to strike the final blows wiping out the threat to His Terrible Majesty.
When Cadmus returned, he took over the reins of leadership. There was no opposition among the few who had been left behind to safeguard the sarcophagus. His first task was to replenish the ranks quickly. Micah was one of the many young boys abducted that year, to be molded and shaped into the next generation of Merciless. They were taken young, so that they would knew nothing but incessant daily training in dark magicks and other skills required to serve His Terrible Majesty.
It was just Cadmus’s luck that Micah had proved to be exceptional in all areas, and recognized by His Terrible Majesty as such.
“Of course I’m filled with gratz, no lie.” Micah said. HTM knew that in Micah’s twentieth year, a full fifteen years after his abduction, he had been given a test. Using all the skills he had been trained in, he was to search out his birth family, and kill them.
It was relatively easy to track down who and where they were, using a combination of hacking skills and surveillance techniques that would make a private investigator weep with envy. Of course, everything was enhanced with dark magick, which was the point.
Micah had located them at last, and even now, there was a deep wrenching in his gut at the memory, at the shock when he first saw them for himself.
No way he came from that. No. Fucking. Way.
Micah had stalked them for days, filled with a morbid curiosity about whose DNA he shared, and sickened by what he had uncovered.
Ann-Marie and Daniel Schlossmann were not at all what he had envisioned as his birth parents, in looks or demeanor. They were a horrible couple in their forties, living in a cluttered basement apartment on Staten Island, with an even more cluttered van parked in the driveway.
They fought incessantly, the woman’s shrill voice coming out of a short, squat form that favored shapeless t-shirts with slogans like “I’m a delicate fucking flower” or —in tiny type that stretched across her chest —“If you can read this, go fuck yourself.” The man, who was over six feet, at least wore button-down shirts without writing printed on them. His khaki trousers kept sliding down over his large gut, despite the extremely long belt he had threaded through the loops. He resembled the largest Russian nesting doll to her smallest one, and just like the Matryoshka dolls, they were both gourd-shaped.
Micah had been suitably horrified. He was determined that his height and coloring was all that he would inherit, as he observed his mother screaming at his father to watch his blood pressure, and he screaming at her in return to back off, it was her fuckin’ fault that his fuckin’ blood pressure was through the roof.
The woman who had given birth to him would then run into another room to have a meltdown, complete with reddened face, ugly-crying and loud wailing. Which was entertaining at least, until after the first three times he watched, when it became tedious. It was a continuous cycle.
Micah’s killing them would be a mercy. They were already headed to an early death, either from their respective health issues which were obvious — if not from looking at them, then from hearing about in their raised voices— or by each other’s hand. But his hastening their demise would be a gift to everyone around them.
Micah had carefully considered all the ways in which to take their lives, and even whether he wanted them to know it was by their son’s hand. He decided to spare them knowing how completely, and irrevocably, he rejected them. In the end, he collected the materials he needed to cast a spell, one that would accelerate the paths they were on already.
The woman’s final meltdown led to her stomach acids erupting, eating her up from within. The agony lasted for a few hours as her body feasted on itself, and the man’s blood pressure soared to fatal levels so that he was first rendered unconscious and immobile, before finally biting it.
He made sure he collected blood, and other materials from each of them for his dark magicks before their bodies cooled.
It was poetic, and Micah saw the beauty in having been ordered to do this. He had decisively rejected his shameful origins by personally, and quite vividly, eradicating them, and he felt a deepened sense of gratitude to the Merciless for having rescued him from that fate.
It had been his initiation into the leadership track, as the Merciless regained its strength and size, in readiness for His Terrible Majesty’s awakening.
But it was also a critical error for Cadmus. Micah had been too good a student of the Dark Magicks. In killing his birth parents, he gained access to magickal ingredients that he was able to collect and store. Parts of their bodies, after death by his hand. It was material of great potency, and an important part of how Micah continued to ascend through the ranks, ahead of all the others.
It was what allowed him to be sent to for schooling in the outer world, where his skills with computers and the Internet were discovered and honed. Perhaps even more importantly, he learned how to live in and manipulate a world that was fast outpacing Cadmus’ outdated ways.
And basking in HTM’s favor, Micah was more than ready to assume the leadership of the Merciless.
And as he had done with his birth parents, he would eradicate his origins with Cadmus.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She blinked a few more times, but the vision was real. Col stood in her doorway, filling the frame with his presence, the broad chest mere inches away, the muscled arms near enough to touch. His hazel eyes were now looking into her own, and filled with yearning.
“Col?” Lily said his name again, and he jerked as if waking from a trance. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was husky, as she searched his face for clues, answers, anything to make sense of his being here.
He lifted one hand to rub his neck. Lily watched as the movement stretched his tee shirt across his pectorals. “I am compelled to see you, Katie Cooper.”
Without thinking, she quickly reached out, her hand making contact with the hard muscle of his forearm.
She felt him move, as she did, once skin met skin, the contact sending tremors through them both.
“No,” Lily said, her voice barely a whisper. “Stay.”
It was one word, but the force of her de
sire surprised her.
He was here now, and his nearness reawakened the longing that she had for him. There was a watchfulness in his eyes, and her fingers closed gently on his arm, pulling him towards her as she stepped back. “Come inside.”
There was something disarming that this large man — someone whom to her seemed normally filled with self-assuredness — was now moving tentatively. As if he was mistrustful that this was not a dream, apprehensive that she would rescind her invitation at any moment. She marveled at her power over him, yet was herself helpless with the desire that swept through her.
The door closed behind him, and she watched silently as Col looked around and took in the simple furnishings, the relative lack of personal effects, save Mr. Calabash by her pillow where she had left him. The room, which had felt so empty and spacious before, was now barely able to contain his presence, the ceilings seemed lower, the bare walls closer in, the furniture smaller.
But all she cared about was closing the distance between the two of them. Her hand was still on his arm, and she slid her fingers down, feeling the skin, the cords of his muscles, under her tips. So much power there, contained in one man. He turned his eyes towards her, and she searched his face, to try to see what he was thinking.
The air between them lay thick, heavy with promise. He raised his free hand, to her jawline, stroking it gently as she pushed her face towards its heat, its touch. His thumb slid along her lower lip, and she caught the thick pad of its tip with her teeth. His breath hitched, and she tilted her head back, inviting his kiss.
Col’s head descended on hers, and his hands moved to fold her into him. She leaned into his embrace, parting her lips for his kiss, his tongue dancing with hers.
Her body blossomed, as it did for no other. She spread her fingers over the thick muscles of his back, pulling herself into him as she had never wanted any man before.
He had moved his mouth onto her neck, his hands spreading on her waist, moving upwards over the linen of her overdress. She could feel the weight of his hand on the curve of her breast, and she arched herself further against him.
Col: His Destined Mate Page 19
