“She is sooo cute!” the little boy declares. Turning towards Katrina, he adopts Bambi eyes and clasps both of his hands together in the universal begging position. “Please. Please. Please. Can we keep him?”
“Akor, what is this?” Katrina’s eyes rest wholly on my own, and for reasons I don’t wish to name, I find that unnerving. Maybe it’s because she sees me clearer than anyone else ever has in my life. Maybe because she peels back layers and layers of skin, revealing the gushy blood and guts underneath. Maybe because she’s Katrina and I’m so desperately in love with her, I might just burn this world down. There’s that.
“It’s for you, my beloved!” I all but shove the kitten into her limp arms. Immediately, she struggles to gain control of the squirming kitten, but I watch as the ire and annoyance bleed from her eyes, turning them significantly softer. She begins to scratch the cat behind her ears, and the kitten arches her neck to lick Katrina’s cheek.
“I…I don’t…” She sighs heavily, shoulders sagging, before asking, “What’s her name?”
“No name! Actually, I should probably name the others as well.” I tap a finger to my chin in contemplation. “I’m thinking the tabby should be Kat with a K. The gray one should be Katty. The golden retriever should be Trina. The dalmatian should be Katri. The—”
“How many animals did you get?” she asks, alarmed.
I hold my hands up placatingly. “Only thirteen. But I’m giving this sweetie to you.” I lean forward to rub at the cat’s head, intentionally allowing my thumb to graze her breast. When her breath hitches, I bite down on my lip to contain my triumphant smile. “She reminds me of you, you know.”
“Oh, really?” Katrina raises a brow as we both continue to pet the cat.
“Stubborn, beautiful, sweet, cuddly…she’s you in cat form.”
“When did we ever cuddle before?” she asks before shaking her head quickly. “You know what? Don’t answer that. But, Akor, I can’t accept…”
“I’m not asking for anything in return,” I say in a rare moment of seriousness. I duck my head to drill her with my eyes. “I just wanted to do something nice for you.”
“Why?” she bites out, tears welling in her eyes. I run the pad of my thumb to catch first one tear and then another.
“Because I care about you,” I confess, “more than words can say.”
“I-I don’t know if I can come back. I mean, I don’t know if I can be what you guys want me to be.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper, caressing my skin and causing goosebumps to ripple on my arms.
Be what you guys want me to be?
What the fuck is she going on about?
Doesn’t she realize that she’s everything to me? To us?
Before I can comment, she shakes her from side to side, as if attempting to rattle her brain, and says, “And I don’t want you guys to get hurt. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I’m the cause. So, I can’t come back. I just can’t.”
“I know.” I grab a loose strand of her vibrant pink hair and curl it around my finger. The kitten immediately swats at it with a ferocious meow, her golden eyes alight with mischief. “But I’ll never stop trying.”
“Akor…”
“The fight has only just begun, Katrina, and this is one battle I’m determined to win no matter the price.” I lick the shell of her ear before stepping away, shoving my hands into my jeans and allowing my eyes to roam the length of her thin body. “Whatcha gonna name her?” I ask abruptly, and she seems startled from the topic change.
“Bitty!” Adam calls. “No, wait! Boppity! How about Boo?”
“We had Cinderella on when you came in,” she whispers conspiratorially.
“No, wait! I have an idea,” Adam continues on with a wide grin, one that splits his face cleanly in two. “Kator.”
“Kator?” Katrina quirks an eyebrow as he nods his head eagerly.
“It’s Katrina and Akor combined! Kator!”
“Kator,” I muse, trying to quell my growing smile. “I like it.”
Katrina gives the kitten another scratch, a delicate blush staining her cheeks, before she nods in agreement. “Kator it is.”
Katrina and Akor.
Kator.
I like it.
We’ll be like Brangelina…but without the breakup.
Because once I make her mine, I’m never letting her sexy ass go again.
Van
Katrina’s ignoring me. Women never ignore me—it’s unheard of, unnatural. It’s infuriating.
I sit at my desk, my chin on my hand, dark red stubble poking at my palm because I haven’t shaved since Katrina walked out on us. What’s the point?
I show up at this ridiculously useless human job every day, only so that I can see her. But she has refused my summons.
Who refuses a summons? If we did that, we’d be flayed alive, literally.
I scratch at my starched shirt, annoyed that I have to dress up in order to play guidance counselor to these rich kids. I want to tell them all to go away. But they keep showing up because of my stupid fucking lust power.
Girl after girl comes into my office each day, and I hardly have a minute to think. I’ve taken to ignoring them, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I’m not even looking at the sobbing teenage girl in front of me right now—Janie, I think her name is. Whatever her problem, it’s nothing compared to mine.
Instead, I’m doodling Katrina’s name in a notebook and bemoaning the whole damn universe.
I’ve lost the one person who can eclipse lust with something better, something so much more powerful and meaningful—love. Katrina is the only woman who’s ever made my heart jump up and take notice.
If she thinks I’m giving that up just because being around her might get me beheaded, she’s got another think coming.
And yes, it’s think. Humans fucked that saying up over the years because they can’t fucking pronounce words that end in ‘k.’
I just need to win Katrina back.
I know Akor’s got this whole plan with a fucking menagerie of animals. Jason was wiggling around my room last night trying to tell me about it.
I need a plan like that. Some grand gesture.
Like in the movies.
I look up from my notebook at the sobbing girl in front of me. She’s semi-attractive. She must have had at least a boyfriend or two.
“Quick, what’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for you?” I ask her, interrupting whatever lame story she was telling.
She stops short, her big blue eyes sloppy with tears. “Um, I dunno.”
Fucking useless. I stand up and yank open the door to my office. I look out at Clara, an older lady with a bob cut that’s dyed to perfection and two arm braces. “Most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for you?” I ask her.
“My ex-husband wrote me a poem once.”
“Poem. Yes. Thanks.” I shut the door of my office and turn back to my desk. I need to write a poem.
It’s a second before I realize Janie’s still there. I wave dismissively at her. “Time’s up. Unless you’re any good at love poems.”
She wipes her eyes and gives me a furious scowl—as if I haven’t seen a million of those in my lifetime, many far more potent than hers—and then stomps out of my office, slamming the door behind her.
Finally.
Peace.
I lock my door and get started on my poem.
Three hours later, I wade through an entire notebook’s worth of balled up poetry and unlock my door.
“Clara?” I say wearily. “I need a different idea.”
My best poem?
Your eyes are as sharp as claws
The fire in you burns hot, and I want to smother you with kisses
Yeah you don’t need to hear more; you get the idea.
It sucked.
I cannot give Katrina something that sucks.
I stare expectantly at Clara, and she blinks at me. “Um, what about writing her a song? T
hat’s music instead of words.”
“Really, Clara?”
“Well, I mean, that junior boy, Johnny, he’s gotten pretty good at guitar in only a few months. And the girls just crowd around him now, so yeah, I think it’s pretty romantic.”
Johnny. Johnny. I search my memory bank and recall a gawky looking guy, with black hair and thick glasses, who likes to hang out on senior hill though he’s not one.
Hell’s kind of guy, this Johnny, I think to myself as I head for the hill.
Clara’s right on the money. Johnny’s got three chicks fawning over him as they eat peanut butter sandwiches that their mommies probably made for them. He’s taken off his prep school tie like some kind of rebel and is strumming his guitar as he sits in the grass at the base of the hill.
“Go away,” I shoo the girls off, waving my hand until they scatter like annoying little pigeons, and then I take a seat next to Johnny.
He frowns at me.
“I need you to teach me how to play guitar.”
“What?” he scoffs. “No.”
I narrow my eyes. “Pick a girl.”
He raises his brows. “What?”
“Any girl in this school. Pick one, and I’ll get her to flash her boobs at you.”
His jaw drops. “That’s, like, illegal.”
I raise a brow. “Only if you tell. Would you tell?”
“Boob shot? Any girl? My pick?”
“Yup.”
He points at Janie, the annoying crier from my office, who’s walking across the quad wearing her backpack, her arms crossed so that her generous rack is very apparent. Classy. “Hers,” he says.
Typical teenage boy. Breasts aren’t about size, and bigger isn’t always better.
But I whistle and signal for Janie to come over. She does, though she has a bit of a glare marring her face as she makes her way over. “Did you need something?” she asks. “Another poem, maybe?”
There’s a snottiness to her tone that displeases me, so when I hit her with a wave of lust, I go a bit hard.
“Unbutton your shirt and pull down your bra so he can see your boobs.” I jerk my head towards Johnny.
Janie’s eyes grow hooded, and her breathing gets heavy, making her breasts heave.
I look away, because, frankly, I’m not interested. But then I see Principal McNamera striding towards us.
Shit.
I stand up and yank all my lust power away from Janie. But her shirt’s already unbuttoned, so I simply frown at her. “Another uniform violation, Janie?” I feign disapproval. “That’s detention again.”
Stupid principal coming over and ruining my guitar lesson. How am I supposed to learn how to romance Katrina now? Ugh. I curse him and all those centuries spent in orgies instead of preparing the skills I’d need to properly woo my beautiful mate.
I turn to McNamera with a fake smile, watching as the skinny bald man mops the top of his bald head with a handkerchief.
“Van, so glad I caught up with you,” he huffs. “We need another chaperone for the Nightmare Before Christmas dance. I wondered if you might—”
“Sure.” The words are out before he finishes. “Happy to help.”
McNamera smiles at me, a weird creepy smile. I can smell his boner from here as he looks at me. “So nice to have a member of the faculty ready to lend a helping hand.”
No, you’re gonna have to handle yourself, buddy, I think. Not giving you my hand. That’s reserved for Katrina.
Once McNamera leaves, I wander off campus before the bell rings for the day, thinking. Dances are the be-all, end-all of high school romance.
And I’ll be there.
I just need to convince Katrina to go with me.
A ditching teenager peels out of the parking lot of Lakeside Prep, music blasting from the speakers of his souped up Mazda.
And suddenly, I have an idea.
When Katrina walks up to her hotel door an hour later, wearing that too-short school skirt that showcases those gorgeous legs of hers, I turn on the boombox and hold it over my head.
It blasts Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” A couple people down the hall open their doors and peer out to look at me, but I don’t care. Let them look.
It’s called romance, people. Watch and learn.
She stops short and looks at me.
I give her my prepared speech. “Katrina Colt, in the tradition of guys who have zero artistic talent, I’m stealing someone else’s words and music to say it for me. I will always love you.”
She turns the cutest shade of red before shaking her head and pulling out her room key. “Turn that off,” she whispers when a man down the hall complains about the noise.
I shut him up with a bolt of lust that makes his dick pitch a tent higher than the one at the circus.
Katrina pushes the off switch to the music and stands next to me. “Van…”
“Go to the dance with me, Kat,” I beg.
Her eyes look at me with such tenderness that my heart swells, and I can feel it. This is the big moment. The beginning of our forever.
“You guys are so persistent. And in a way, I love that. But…” She shakes her head and pushes past me, scanning her key card as she opens the door.
I run down the hall before I can hear her say no. I don’t want to hear it. That “but” said everything. My gesture wasn’t enough.
I need something more.
The next day I skip work, ignoring my phone as it buzzes in my pocket. I have far too many things to do.
Most specifically, crafts.
I first zip to the hobby store and load up on glue and glittery looking things that it seems girls would like. And paper. Lots of thick paper with paint. But for some reason, the craft place doesn’t have noodles. And I know from Katrina’s fridge at home, that noodle art is a big deal for kids.
So I stop by a grocery store and grab a cart full of noodles because I never realized how many types of noodles there are, and I realized I know absolutely nothing about noodle crafts and the best noodles for art projects. I bought bow-ties and swirly noodles, tubular noodles of all sizes, the kind of noodles that look like sheets of paper with squiggly edges. Everything. I basically cleared out the pasta section.
Then I head to the one destination I know for sure will make Katrina’s heart explode with pure, unadulterated love. She won’t be able to say no.
An hour later, my nose is scrunched after inhaling far too much urine-scented air. Screams wrap around my ears. And I wonder why Hell hasn’t yet installed a preschool area. It seems like something that would torture a lot of souls. Adam, individually? Love him to death. A whole room of wild monkeys who tug on my hair and wipe their sticky hands on my face? Different story.
“Stop sticking noodles up your nose,” I tell Bennett—Adam’s classmate—a little four-year-old who has proven himself a rambunctious shit who sucks at art. I sigh as I adjust in the tiny plastic chair I’m perched on and fix his project. I’m seriously doing the world’s deepest squat on the world’s smallest chair; I don’t even understand how seats this small are possible. I turn to Adam in frustration. “I can’t believe you have to put up with this every day.” I gesture at Bennett, who’s skipping off with two spiral noodles hanging out of his nose.
Adam just puts down his paintbrush and wipes a snotty nose with a hand that’s painted blue. “Put up what?” he asks.
“Never mind,” I sigh. I’m glad I ditched the entire day, because that’s how long my super special craft project takes. I’m also lucky this daycare woman whose name I can’t remember loves Katrina, or she might have run me off.
(Okay, fine. I lusted her a little. But I didn’t do anything about it except smile a little extra so she’d let some strange man inside to play with the children.)
When four-thirty rolls around, the time I know that Katrina comes to pick up Adam, I’m ready, with a smug smile on my face.
Her pink curls tumble around her shoulders in the most gorgeous windswept way
when she walks in, and for a second, I forget to breathe.
But then, I wave my arms frantically as the little kids surround me, Adam front and center next to me.
Every single adorably chubby-faced four-year-old holds up a painted macaroni heart and says, “Katrina, will you go to the dance with Van?” (It only took three hours of practice to get half of them to say it correctly; the other half were too busy eating the raw noodles.)
Katrina’s eyes well up, and she glares at me. But there’s a smile marring her attempt at an angry face. “You don’t play fair,” she accuses.
“Ah, but in the words of the great Pat Benetar, ‘Love is a Battlefield,’ and I fight to win.” I give her a wink, feigning a confidence that I don’t feel.
“Please say yes,” I whisper, trying to hide the crack in my voice.
Her head tilts, and her entire demeanor softens. “Okay. Yes.”
Kastros
This can’t happen. The guys are so fucking blinded by Katrina’s beauty and by the depth of her heart that they aren’t thinking straight.
But this is wrong.
We are beings of chaos, and what does chaos do? It destroys.
We can’t destroy Katrina. She’s too precious.
She nearly was destroyed before… A sick feeling churns in my stomach when I think about her accident and how close the world came to losing her.
Katrina did the right thing walking away. But I hear them all, pacing their rooms at night, languishing over her, devising plans, and buying goddamned puppies who steal and hide my shoes.
This isn’t some game. We aren’t simple men who can love Katrina and treat her right. We’re creations of Hell. We were born there; the chaos of that place pumps through our veins. Demons shouldn’t have Centers. Centers are a loophole God created in an attempt to quash us, a way to quell us.
We don’t follow God’s rules. But Centers can be human. God has turned many demon murders into his puppets by threatening their Center, which is why so many Centers are now killed the second they’re discovered—they’re too much of a liability.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 148
