by Elise Jae
He hesitates.
“I’m not going anywhere, I just feel silly having you carry me around like I’m a baby.”
“You’re definitely not that.
My feet touch the ground, and I slip my hand in his, prolonging the contact for myself as much as for him.
Standing against him, I search his face, hoping what I’m about to ask won’t be strong… somehow.
No risk, no reward….
“Will you kiss me?”
His pupils dilate and his fingers tighten… just a little bit.
He’s too tall. I shouldn’t have asked him to put me down. But he doesn’t bend down. Fingers still laced in mine, he tugs me back, pulling me onto the couch with him. And I’m completely at his mercy.
He doesn’t just kiss me.
He devours me.
Like he needs to consume me, to bind me to him in this kiss.
And damn if I don’t want to be bound.
It’s like his heat leaches into me, Like he’s pouring himself into me as he pulls me into him.
When we finally break apart, it’s with a gasp.
His eyes are closed. Something like pain in the lines on his forehead as he drops it to mine.
“Thank you.” It answered the question that had been bouncing around in the back of my mind.
I want all of them.
I just have to figure out if I can have them.
Four
SHOCK
The medical scans still can’t tell me what she was dosed with to knock her out for her journey here, but I’m willing to believe that’s what has her so tired. And for the time being, we’re all content to stay home and keep her warm as she sleeps it off. Even Arc has cut back to the bare minimum for his patrols.
Something tells me he’d ignore them entirely if he was a different person.
She’s perfection.
If I was as superstitious as Risk, I’d say she’d been made for us. That the Saints created her with us in mind and brought her to us… but that’s childish fancy.
Christina looks up, catches me watching.
I’ve got her on my lap, bundled up, while the others finish getting ready. They’re putting on mental armor as well as clothes.
None of us enjoy the Brotherhood meetings. And this one…. It’s likely to be worse than normal once her sisters find out she’s here. It’s why I’m so glad she’s decided to stay home.
Wrapped in three blankets and snuggled into the unicorn PJs Arc picked out for her, she looks better than she did two days ago, but I have a feeling her sisters would accuse us of mistreatment if they saw her.
And I’m selfish. I want to keep her here, as if she belongs to us… as if the world could be fooled into believing as much.
Her mouth quirks in a smile. “See something you like?”
“Yes.”
She chuckles. “That is one thing I like about you guys. You never prevaricate.”
I don’t know what that word means. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad?”
“You’re very straight forward. To the point. I don’t feel like you guys ever try to paint a prettier picture than reality.”
“When you spend years of your lives being lied to… it’s hard to do it to someone else.”
A faint line forms on her forehead. “Who lied to you?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that her sisters would have kept the secret of our Maker from her. Just thinking about it washes my skin in electricity.
“We mentioned the part about being experiments before.”
She nods.
“The Maker pulled kids from orphanages for those experiments.”
Her jaw twitches, and I don’t like the way anger looks on her face.
“He kept us in cages.” I don’t look at her when I say it. “Large cages, but cages nonetheless.”
“That sounds like a monster, not a man.”
“He probably was.”
“What did he want from you.”
“To change us. To make us better.”
“To torture you?”
“Violent progress requires violent change.” I parroted the words I’d heard a millions times. “At least, that’s the line he sold us.”
“Asshole.”
“But he’s dead now, and we’ve moved on.” I can’t stop myself from looking at Arc. Across the room, “As much as we can.”
Christina follows my gaze and then turns back to me, an unspoken question in her eyes.
“The Maker was worse to some of us than he was to others.”
She doesn’t ask me to elaborate. Doesn’t look back at Arc. But her jaw is tight and her eyes narrow out at the ice beyond the window.
“I hope he died painfully.”
“He was trapped in his fortress. It burned to the ground with him in it.”
“Good.”
I can’t stop myself from smiling at the bloodthirsty tone in her voice. “We felt much the same way.”
There are days I wish I could have strangled the life from him myself for what he did to Arc.
Arc who has finally started to come back out of the darkness he’d started to sink into.
She looks back down the length of the living room to where Risk has just emerged from the depths of the compound, worrying her lip between her teeth. “You love them both, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Arc curses from the other side of the room, glaring at the clock. “We need to leave soon.”
Chris stiffens in my arms. “How far is it?”
“It’s at Drift and Kimba’s compound. It will probably take two hours. We can take you, if you’ve changed your mind.” I try not to let my opinions color my words.
“But you don’t have to.” Risk has paused at the entrance to the hallway. “Your sisters will be there. And they will fight to take you back with one of them instead of letting you return.”
“No. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to fight with them.” She seems to shrink in on herself. “Jessica can be a tyrant when she thinks she’s doing something in someone’s best interest, and I’m still too tired to put up with it.”
The others breathe a little easier at that pronouncement, and slip into the back to finish changing.
“Do you need to go get ready?”
I shake my head. “All I need is my coat by the door.”
“Okay.” She looks at the hallway, then back at me before shifting. “Shock?”
“Yes?”
“Do you guys want me to stay? Or are you just being polite. I don’t want to… force myself on you.”
“We want you here.”
I like the way her lips twitch in a smile.
“We’ll keep you as long as you’ll let us.”
That slipped out. It’s possessive and probably not what she wanted to hear and….
She places a hand to my chest and swings one of her legs over me.
“I’m going to kiss you now.” She’s up on her knees, high enough that she’s not actually sitting on me as she straddles me.
“I’d like that.”
“You should know I’ve kissed Arc too.”
“I’d have liked that too.”
Her eyes widen, just a little… it’s all those tiny movements Risk makes that allow me to catch it.
But it’s not distress, it’s… intrigue.
Her gaze drops to my lips, her brows pinching, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want the three of you.”
Her lips purse, like it’s a confession.
One I’m not ready to return yet.
Arms on my shoulders, she kisses me.
I want so badly to take.
To claim.
To bind her to me and somehow, to bind her to the rest of us in doing so. But that’s not how this works.
Of course, I can’t not kiss her.
That would be like refusing to breathe.
But I hold myself back. Lock myself in place so that I don’t take more than I can handle.
Because it would be so easy to forget what’s at stake with her.
She tastes like the sweetest poison, and I want more.
When she leans into me, I almost give in. Being this close to her….
I take hold of her hips, to keep her from sinking down.
The proof of how much I want her, isn’t something she needs to feel. What I want, and what we all need, aren’t the same thing. And I have to make sure she is headed toward the latter.
“If you want to stay, you’re going to have to choose one of us.”
“What if I feel greedy?”
“It doesn’t work that way. You’ll have to choose.” My eyes drop to her lips. I kiss her one more time. “And it needs to be Arc.”
I know that. Feel it more strongly than Risk has ever asserted one of his feelings.
She blinks at me as I set her away, confusion crumpling her brow.
I manage to maneuver her off of me, adjusting as I stand so that my cockstand isn’t as noticeable.
When I turn back she’s watching me. Her face is clear of confusion, she’s just… studying me. As if she’s trying to understand all of the things I haven’t said.
Tucking the blankets more tightly around her waist, I kiss her forehead. “We’ll be back.”
And then, I walk away because I have to.
It would be so easy to try to stay.
Risk is stretching, working at the knots in his shoulders, as if we’re about to go into battle, not into a group of people we should trust with our lives.
It’s never easy walking into these meetings. And not just because they set Arc on edge and he tends to lash out verbally… his brother his easiest target.
Risk has never been comfortable with them either. The clairvoyance we often joke about is more observation than super-sian skill, and we already see too much. It’s easy for them to overload him.
“I’m not feeling that brave right now. And I have work to do… if I want to keep my mother from descending to raze this planet from the galaxy. I’ll need to make it look like I’m still there.”
I don’t know what that entails, and I can’t ask. We don’t have time.
We’re already going to be late.
RISK
We’ve been in this car, on this road, headed to this exact scenario so many times, it shouldn’t have my skin crawling.
Arc is sprawled out in the back seat. He’s already put on the mask he wears for these meetings. The asshole who doesn’t give a damn.
If only that was true.
“We’re going to have to talk about her.”
“I know.” Arc says it from behind me with a weary resignation. “I’ve already decided I should be the one who takes the heat. I’m the one who brought her back and told you not to tell Drift….”
He doesn’t say the rest of what he’s thinking, but I know. Everyone hates me already, why change the pattern.
Because that’s what he thinks. And sometimes, he might be right… though he has no one but himself to blame for it.
Shock shakes his head. “We’ll all take the blame for this. You’ll remember that neither of us argued. We both want her as much as you do.”
I sense more than see Arc tense. I don’t think he took Shock’s words as reassurance. Because he’s probably been thinking what we’ve all been thinking.
We all want her… but technically, only one of us can have her.
When we pull into the garage at Drift’s compound, we’re one of the last sets in. And we don’t have a baby to blame it on.
But babies aren’t on my mind just yet. Aside from convincing her to actually stay, we still have to figure out who kidnapped her, why, and how we’re going to deal with them.
Because I highly doubt that the person behind her kidnapping died in that crash.
I step out and my breath bursts into particulates in the cold air. I barely feel it. The others joke that we run hot… but they don’t know what that means… don’t know that we walk into their houses and start to boil.
By now, we’ve gotten used to the discomfort, but today…. Today, I’m worried that the heat will leach into our tempers and one of us will say something we can’t take back.
The thought has me turning to Arc, but somehow, I think it’s Shock I have to worry about.
I saw him with her on the couch. Rigid and wanting, but holding her back. Like me, he’s desperate to fix whatever is wrong with Arc. And we both know she might be able to help.
When we step inside, a premonition hits me, as sickly warm as the geothermal heating.
Something’s not right. I don’t know what we’re heading into, but something is very wrong. And I have a feeling no one else in the room knows it.
My only solace is that Chris is safe at home.
ARC
It’s not hard to stay away from Jessica. There’s no chance I’d accidentally get too close. But Laurel….
I actively avoid her.
Because when the rest of this gets sorted out… It’s my head those two are going to want.
And given my past behavior… I probably deserve it.
But I can’t give her back to them… not until she tells me I have to.
I don’t stand still until Kimba’s called us to order. And then, when I sit, I make sure I’m on the opposite side of the overly large couch from both sisters who—habitually—sit together.
Shock sits beside me and I look at the chasm between us.
I’ve been out roaming on my own for so long, I’d forgotten that this isn’t normal. But I can’t exactly say something, or drag him across the couch to me. I don’t want to hear about that.
Drift starts off exactly where I expect him to: the crash.
He and Hazard—who apparently made the long ride from the other side of the rim to help him check out the debris—don’t have much to report. The secondary explosion charred the remains of the ship until they were almost indistinguishable.
There aren’t any ships reported missing, no one knows why it was there….
“What about the survivor, would they know?” Richter asks. So the rumor mill is alive and well.
I shoot an irritated glance at Drift, but he doesn’t meet my glare.
“There was a survivor?” Cindy asks, handing her baby over to Core. “Why wasn’t I told, he might have needed medical help.”
I speak before one of the others can try to shoulder the blame. “You weren’t told, because she didn’t.”
“An agency ship?” Strike is half out of his seat. He put in for his bondmate mere weeks ago, and he’s been jumpy ever since.
“No,” Trench shakes his head. “If an Agency ship went down, we’d have heard about it.”
“But it was a woman?”
“Yes,” I say, hoping to avoid the inevitable, but Shock shoots me a look—an apology—that says I have no choice. “Christina isn’t hurt, and she has asked that we not bring anyone else in on her treatment.
“Christina?” Jessica asks, worry covering her face, her hand gripping Trench’s tightly—the same concern is mirrored on his.
“Yes.” I say, drawing everyone’s attention.
I look from Jess to Laurel and back again, making sure I’m the one who takes the brunt of what’s to come.
“The woman in the escape pod that jettisoned just before the ship crashed was your younger sister.”
“What?” Jessica’s eyes narrow, and Trench’s hands move. He’s keeping her down. “You’re holding her hostage.”
“We gave her the option to come tonight and—wisely, I might add—she elected to stay home.”
Eyes narrowed, Jessica looks like she wants to spit. “Home?”
I don’t correct myself the way she would want me to. I just meet her gaze and wait for her to say something that actually requires a response.
Laurel is sitting back, silently. In her condition, sitting back is all she can do. But she’s watching me. She hasn’t looked at Shock or Risk since I spoke.
“How long have you known?”
“She told us the same day we found her.” Risk says, he’s tense, and I know he wants to move between us. As if Laurel might try to hurt me.
“But you knew immediately.” The recrimination in her scowl is a dark thing. “Didn’t you?”
I dip my head in a nod and glance to where my brother and Jessica sit. “You have a picture of the three of you on your fridge.”
“And it never occurred to you that she would be safer or more comfortable or… anything, with us than she would be in your ice box?”
“You don’t need to yell at him, Jess.” Shock said as he stands and moves closer beside me. “She has been given every option. I think this conversation is honestly the reason she decided to stay where she was. Risk and I haven’t sugar coated the issues between you three.”
I’m quick to add. “And she knows I’m at fault for most of it.”
That makes Jess pull back, twists her face in confusion. It’s probably the first time I’ve admitted fault in her presence. But she recovers quickly.
“I want to see her.”
“And as soon as she’s ready to see you, she will.” Risk sits placing himself between Shock and I, and effectively siding with me against Jess and Trench. “You may not be willing to put aside your grudges in order to make sure she’s safe, but I know you trust me enough to know that nothing is going to happen to Chris when she’s in our care.”
Trench is glaring at me. “Except she might freeze to death.”
Risk places his hand against my chest and I lock all of my muscles. I hadn’t realized I’d almost stood. I look at him and unclench my fists.
Voice lowered, Shock meets my eyes. “Don’t let your issues with Trench be what hurts her.”
I don’t answer that warning. Instead, I stand, turning, and go to stare out at the caldera for the rest of the meeting.
Because Shock’s right. The simmering animosity I’ve only just begun to deal with could boil over… and it could burn more than just me.
Shock goes on to explain the measures we’ve taken. The plans we’ve set in place with her approval and guidance.
I listen as they crunch numbers. Wait as they go through the reports from the council holding the group that wants to carpet bomb the caldera at bay.
