by Amity Cross
If I went dark on my own, I knew I wouldn’t get through it without giving up the last of my soul. I would be a real monster when all was said and done. Inhuman.
Turning, I held her to me, searching her blue eyes. I needed her with me. We had to go. Because without her? I’d still be sitting in the darkness, letting the monster devour what was left of my soul.
Mercy Reid was my missing piece. She filled the void where my heart should be.
Cupping her face in my hands, she stared up at me with glassy eyes.
Lowering my lips to hers, I murmured, “Let’s go.”
Chapter 32
Mercy
I stood in the parking garage underneath X’s apartment and watched as he screwed in new number plates on his car. I glanced at the empty spot where his motorcycle used to be, frowning at the knowledge that he was going to leave it behind.
He said it was still parked out the front of The Gambler’s Inn and there was no point in going back for it. I wasn’t sure how attached he was to it, but it was a damn shame.
X threw the screwdriver into the boot of the car, where a choice selection from his closet of horrors was stashed. A pile of weapons including that fancy sniper rifle I’d wondered about. Maybe he’d teach me how to use it after all.
Staring at the car, I bit my lip. It really was a nice piece of machinery. It was this black, vintage muscle car, sexy as all hell and it suited him down to the ground. X had a flair about him that was so anti-biker gang it made me wonder who he was before.
“Are you ready?” X asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I nodded and opened the passenger side door. There was nothing to look back on, nothing but forward from here on out.
I slid into the car as X climbed into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. He backed out of the space, shifted the stick into first and we shot out onto the road and into the early morning light. The sky was starting to lighten, a smudge of orange dusting the handful of clouds that hung amongst the stars. It was going to be a perfect day. Sunny, warm and heavy with the promise of something new.
The car weaved through the centuries old buildings as we crossed the city, flashing past monuments and museums, crossing the river and heading out of the smog and into the countryside. I watched the sunrise with a new sense of hope, a new purpose and a new mission. The sky was flaming orange and red and to my heart, it felt like an omen for what was to come.
Rivers of blood.
I glanced over at X, trying to read his expression in the dawn light, wondering what he was thinking. Wondering if he had the same hope, or if he was just thinking of something that was on a stiff, regimental list of things that he had to do. Maybe, but most of all...I wondered if his heart was still open.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked after a while.
His gaze met mine briefly, before turning back to watch the road. “Yes.”
“That sniper rifle… Will you teach me how to use it?”
His jaw stiffened, but he nodded. “I’ll teach you.”
“Okay.”
He glanced at me again, his eyes flashing with something I couldn’t quite catch. “I’ll teach you whatever you want.”
Whatever I want. The thought sent a shiver through my entire body.
It felt like an age since that first night at The Gambler’s Inn when he’d walked in and called me a bitch. Now, I was a different person again. And before that, the night I stood in Sykes’ house, gun in hand…and even before that when I stood in my family home staring down at the bodies of my parents and brother… Mercy Reid had evolved so much in such a short amount of time. Who would she be tomorrow? Master assassin?
Maybe.
But maybe it would be as simple as being happy. Happy with X. That was a future to look forward to, but first there were some scores to settle.
“Where are we going?” I asked, eager to get the groundwork of our master plan into place.
X glanced at me, before fixing his gaze on the road ahead. “Someplace where they won't find us.”
“Then what?”
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “We figure this thing out.”
I reached over and slid a hand across his thigh, his warmth soothing my cool skin. “And we figure out what they did to you.”
He let his hand drop to cover mine, the small gesture making my entire body shiver. He was already learning and my heart swelled with pride.
“Then,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine, “we come back and kill them all.”
Bad Blood
Royal Blood #2
Part I
Blood Smoke
Sometimes, the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.
Chapter 1
Mercy
The sun rose through the orange sky, burning with all the things that lay before us.
X drove for hours, with me in the passenger seat, without saying a word about where we were going. We left the city behind in its chaos, the streets dripping with the promise of blood and secrets laid bare… We left it all deep in the urban sprawl and ventured out into the countryside.
Our plan was...we had no plan. We would figure that out once we had a place to rest and regroup. Then and only then, would we plan murder. Not only murder, revenge.
It was a long time coming.
X stopped once to fill up the emptying tank of his muscle car, ordering me to stay put while he kept his head low and darted inside to pay with cash. I was already on the run, but this time was different. My identity, which I’d worked so hard to conceal, was common knowledge. Or at least, it was about to be.
X had left Weiss tied up in the middle of the forest only hours ago and still very much alive. I’d never had anything to fear from my ex-boss of twelve hours, but now I had every reason to flee. He knew my real name, he knew what I’d done…Weiss had been X’s handler and was rotten through and through. He’d never been my friend.
He’d never been X’s, either.
X had rebelled and for his trouble, Weiss had dragged him out into the middle of nowhere and planned to put a bullet in his head. X had fought back and left his handler tied up in his place, sans bullet. X said he knew things about his past, things that would tell him where he’d come from before. Leaving Weiss alive was important.
I wasn’t sure what that meant for me, but I trusted X… I had to trust him. It was more than the feelings he stirred up inside my body. He drove me mad in an animalistic sexual way, but it was more…deeper in my heart. Whatever, or whoever Xavier Blood was…there were parts of him that were snaking into my soul and clawing deep. That was something I couldn’t turn away from.
X slid back into the car, slamming the door closed and breaking my train of thought.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at me.
A few hours ago, that question would’ve been left field for a guy like X. Now, it was something that would happen more and more as he came back to himself.
I shifted in the passenger seat of the car, wrapping my fingers around the seatbelt across my chest. ”Do you think he got away?”
“Who?”
“Weiss.”
X narrowed his eyes, gunned the engine and put the car into gear. “Weiss is a coward. There’s a good chance he’s still there.” He snorted and pulled the car out of the service station. “I can’t see him gathering the courage to dislocate his shoulder. There was a reason he was behind a desk.”
“But…” He’d killed those Necromancers that had attempted to take me without a second thought. He’d tried to kill X once he realized he’d switched allegiances...
“He was my handler for eight years, Mercy.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I know the inner workings of that man’s mind.”
I turned my attention back to the road, where we were merging onto the motorway. I wasn’t so sure he really knew Weiss, but I wasn’t about to tell X that. There were a lot of things that weren’t adding up. X had been conditioned t
o forget who he really was, they’d turned him into a killing machine and he’d only just found out that he was going to be taken out back and shot once he’d delivered me to Sykes.
Sykes…the man who’d killed my entire family and the man I’d almost put a bullet in while he slept. Except I choked at the last second and was almost caught. If I hadn’t of been such a coward, where would we be right now?
I sucked in a deep breath, my skin crawling.
“Are you okay?” X asked again.
“I will be.” I smiled up at him, but from the look on his face he didn’t seem convinced.
“We have to work on your ability to lie, Mercy,” he said blandly.
I narrowed my eyes. “How much further?”
“A few miles.” His voice was thin and I couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. It’d been one hell of a week.
Turning my attention to the scenery outside my window, I let my mind wander. I had no idea where X was taking me, only that it was someplace far away. Maybe that should’ve worried me, but I knew without a doubt that my end wouldn’t come by the hands of X. He was the last person in the world who would try to kill me. He’d tried and failed, our mysterious connection saving both of us. Still, he wouldn’t tell me where we were going. I guess I just had to wait and see.
Despite wanting to stay awake so I could track our whereabouts, I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed fitful images of blood and it wasn’t until a wheel of the car sunk in and out of a pothole with a loud crunch, that I woke.
We were driving along a gravel road with trees and rolling hills spread on either side, horizon to horizon.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking for a distinguishing landmark, but not finding any.
“Someplace safe,” X replied.
He pulled the car underneath the long draping branches of a whispering willow and killed the engine. When I didn’t move, he reached over and unclipped my seatbelt.
“End of the line, Mercy,” he murmured, his hand lingering on my hip.
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips against his, a spark of desire tingling across my skin. Instantly, his hand shot up and buried into my hair and his tongue pushed greedily at the seam of my lips. Since I had no impulse control where X was concerned, I opened up to him and he deepened the kiss. No sooner had he tasted me, I pulled back, my entire body aching.
X frowned but didn’t say anything. He just moved away, opened the car door and slid out. Fuck, that man was worrying about losing his mind? I was worried about losing mine as well. Everything was up in the air, everything, and there was no way of telling where shit would land.
Following suit, I got out of the car and rounded the back to where X had popped the boot and was taking out our bags. When I reached for mine, he swatted my hand away.
Instead of complaining, I turned on my heel, curious to see where we’d ended up. Pushing through the low hanging branches and into the twilight, I finally got a good look at the place where X had brought me.
A little cottage stood at the end of the gravel drive, looking exactly like something out of a picture book…or a Jane Austin novel. It was bluestone with a tiled roof, haphazardly put together an age ago and obviously restored since. If I closed my eyes, I was sure I’d be able to see the thatched roof and muddy yard that the house was in its past life a hundred years ago.
That’s the thing I loved about this country. Everything was so…old and full of history…stories. Once, I would’ve considered painting the scene, or at least sketching a study. I wasn’t a master painter, my main course at University had been Art History, but I liked to draw regardless. I wanted a world full of color and beauty...
X emerged from behind the fronds of the willow and stood in silence, watching me take in the little cottage with its ivy clad facade and towering oak trees.
“Does anybody know about this place?” I asked.
“I kept it hidden from them,” he said. Them being Royal Blood, the Motorcycle Club that had forced him into being their contract killer. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if the club was just a front for something a little darker.
I frowned. “I thought—”
X stepped closer, making my entire body hum. “The fact that you could get through whatever conditioning they put me through was proof enough that it could be broken. This is the other half.”
“You never followed them blindly, did you?”
He shook his head. “They expected me to, but I was never really theirs. I understand this now.”
I shivered, more from all the things that were still unsaid between us, than from the cold. X reached out and slid his hand over my waist, the gentle gesture making me squirm. He was a man that didn’t do gentle and the small changes that were beginning to surface in him threatened to make me complacent. I couldn’t let my guard down with him, no matter how much I wanted to. X was still changing. Into what, was anyone’s guess.
“Come inside,” he murmured, tightening his grip. “No one will find us here.”
I let him lead me to the cottage and he unlocked the door. Pushing it inwards, something dropped to the floor and he bent to retrieve it.
I leaned forward to see as he held up a paperclip before shoving it into his pocket. “What is it for?”
“I put it there the last time I was here,” he replied. “If someone had broken in, it would’ve moved and I would know the cottage had been compromised.”
My eyes widened as I stared across the threshold into the house beyond. “What about—”
X grunted. “They have nothing to gain from destroying this place and us inside it.”
He gestured for me to follow him inside, glancing over my shoulder and out across the yard, before closing the door behind him. I noticed the way his gaze scanned the room, even the doorjamb, before allowing me to enter.
“Make yourself comfortable,” X said, flipping on a switch and instantly everything was illuminated in a soft glow. “I’ll bring in the bags.”
I nodded once and he left in a burst of cold outside air.
I stepped further into the cottage and stood in the middle of the living room, surveying every part I could see. There was a sofa and two armchairs, a coffee table and an open fireplace. To one side there was a door that lead to a kitchen and another door that must lead to the bedroom. The little cottage was bare and apart from the essentials, there were no distinguishing marks on the place. Nothing to say that X lived here. I wondered why he kept this place. Had he used this as a safe house? Had he kept it because he anticipated this was the road he’d take?
The door opened, letting in a blast of cold air and X’s boots thudded across the wooden floorboards. I rubbed my arms over my jumper in an effort to warm myself up as he dumped the last bags from the car onto the table and closed out the world behind him.
“Are you cold?” he asked and I turned. He looked different in this place and I couldn’t pinpoint the feeling that the image was stirring up.
I nodded. “A little.”
“The days get warm, but the nights out here have a deep chill.” He stepped into my space and ran his hands up and down my arms.
“Where exactly are we?”
“Devon, near Dartmoor.”
“We’re on the moor?” I asked. I’d always wanted to see that wild part of the landscape with its craggy soil, open plains and wild ponies. The whole wild and untamed thing suited X.
“No, but it’s close. There’s a manor three miles west and a village two miles to the south. There’s nothing but the moor and hunting grounds for the Lord and his Lady between us and civilization.”
“The perfect place to lay low,” I whispered, leaning against his chest.
“You’ve been awake a while,” he said, his hands tightening around my upper arms. “You better get some sleep.”
Not waiting for my answer, he curled his arm around my waist and led me into the bedroom. There was a queen bed in the middle, a wardrobe on one side, a single window and not much else. Another
door led to a small bathroom and I sensed that there was a recurring theme in there, too.
Kicking my boots off, I went to pull the covers back on the bed and hesitated when X began to back out of the room.
“You’re not going to sleep?” I asked.
He shook his head. He looked totally strung out. I was positive he hadn’t slept for at least three days, and a lot of shit had happened in that time. Sex, sex, his fight with Weiss, our cross-country drive into the wild. He wasn’t tired? Bullshit.
“You need to sleep.”
“Mercy.”
I flinched at his sharp tone. A change of scenery and a hit to plan were never going to be things that just flipped the off switch inside him. X was going to be unstable for a long time…possibly for the rest of his life. The thought kind of scared me a little, but I was in this now. There was no going back. Only forward.
I closed the space between us with two long strides. “X, please.”
We were an inch apart and all he had to do was lean down and his mouth would be on mine. I breathed in his scent, all male sweat and spice, and he sucked in a breath of his own.
“Don’t you trust me?” I whispered, my gaze rising to meet his.
He shifted slightly and I sank against him as his forehead pressed against mine.
“It’s not that,” he said.
I fought the urge to reach out and touch him, to press my lips against his. “Then what is it?”
“I don’t trust myself.”
I saw the lie in his eyes and I stepped back, breaking the connection between our bodies.
He didn’t want to be vulnerable around me. The realization felt like a slap in the face and I began to shake.
“You think I’d do something to you?”
“I can’t—” He began to pace back and forth, his anxiety levels rising.
“You need to trust me, X. I trust you.”
