Salt Kissed Love (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 1)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  From the floor, I have no view of anything but the ceiling, but I can hear her rustling about, making grunting noises. The door clicks and she says, “Got it.”

  Picking the phone back up, Jaid walks the very narrow, dark staircase. “It’s a finished…partially…attic.”

  “Someone did a crap job on that drywall,” I mumble as she scans over the space. “What’s that table thing?”

  “It’s a trunk, the hinge is broken,” she says, flipping the lid off with a thud. “Holy mother of treasure finds…”

  Hearing the excitement in her voice, I yammer, “What is it?”

  “All of Chance Ballister’s journals.”

  “Oh, my god…” I say, stunned as I pace around the trailer.

  A beat later, she reads my mind and quizzes, “You want me to take them?”

  “Can you?”

  “I…um…” she hesitates, assessing the box. “I cannot lift the trunk alone, but I can take the fucking books.”

  “Okay, babe, take them all,” I request, lighting a smoke and wearing the carpet down. “Where are you parked?”

  “I am down the street some. There is no rear entry.”

  I snicker loudly.

  “You know what I mean, perv,” she hisses, “There is no way to get the Challenger in the back.”

  “Okay, stack them downstairs and you can make a run for it.”

  “Alright,” she says in agreement. “You wanna stay on the line while I run these two flights a half a dozen times?”

  “Yes, give me a good view.”

  “Of my ass!”

  “Exactly, Prissy Pants,” I snarl.

  Up and down she goes, carrying armfuls of the journals. Her heavy breathing makes me wish I was there to help her. I hate being on lockdown. Jaid is my eyes and ears on the ground and apparently my thief while I am sequestered away like a monk in prayer. Only my litany involves everything Iris.

  Twenty-seven minutes later, Jaid plops in front of me with a water bottle. “I stole this, too. She can fucking bill me.”

  I hate to ask her for anything else. “Is the trunk lined?”

  “Ya, but it’s frayed up… What the hell? Oh, my fucking god!”

  “What? What?”

  “Tonight, for you viewing pleasure,” she elaborates with a wave of her hand. “We’ve got about five hard drives, about two dozen flash drives, and some actual old school floppies.”

  “You got to be fucking kidding me…” I respond, shocked by Ballister’s hiding tactics. I never liked the man. I like him even less now.

  “What do you wanna do?”

  Chain smoking, I ask, “Can you get them?”

  “Yes,” she says, jingling her keys.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking my D-clip off my keys,” she informs, “And using it to hold all these damn flash drives.”

  “Smart girl!” I complement.

  Her face spreads across the screen as she counters, “Resilient.” Another trip down stairs and she returns quickly. “Anything else, babe?”

  “Ya, I want you to go pull on that piece of drywall right in front of the trunk.”

  “O—kay,” she notes, not understanding. “Dare I ask why?”

  “Because it doesn’t fit, and I was staring at the wall for almost a half-hour trying to figure out what someone stashed.”

  “Hold on,” she says as we lower to the floor. She dips her finger in the residue and shows me. “There is dust on the floor.”

  Now, I am the one confused as I mumble, “What kind of dust?”

  “I mean like someone has been here recently,” she replies, unscrewing the panel and bending it back enough to shine her phone in as we look together. “Oh Jesus…Sal….”

  Rows and stacks of weaponry—a dozen cases or more of rifles, scopes, pistols, knives, even a couple cross-bows. Med kits. Survival kits. Rope. Body bags. Zip ties. It’s a freaking shopping cart full of operative fun.

  “You need to get the fuck out of there,” I warn urgently, “Now!”

  Screwing the panel back on, Jaid slams the trunk shut, grabs her water, and jets down the staircase.

  “Lock that door!” I remind.

  “Someone stashed an entire arsenal up there, Sal,” she huffs—not panicking—but not too far off. “Someone is preparing for the damn apocalypse.”

  Keeping my cool, I bark off, “Get your shit, get in the car, and do not stop until you get to Houston.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she replies, “I am on it.”

  “And J?”

  “Ya?” she asks with a broad smile. How she can manage to be happy right now is beyond me.

  “Call me from the road.”

  “You got it, babe. Love you!” she clicks the end button before I can respond.

  Working with Jaid over the past six years, I have learned why Kaci insisted on putting us together. She conducts her work just like me. Her fearless approach and ability to look at the big picture makes us a match made to deliver evil to their hell.

  I pray we do not escort Iris there.

  I love you, too—you crazy girl.

  The voice of my beloved!

  behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

  My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

  My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

  The flowers appear on the earth;

  the time of the singing of birds is come,

  and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

  The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

  Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  Song of Solomon 2:8-13

  FOUR WEEKS LATER

  JUNE 2015

  V: Sugarlove

  The Lasting Hope

  I run under the rocks

  The rivers and the hills

  I am the earth you seek

  To ground your fears

  She is the air

  So, winsome and free

  She is the water

  So, fluid that never leaves

  Counterbalance that you seek

  With the fire in your mast

  You find one willful ass

  And I guarantee you will last.

  K.M. Hope

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rie–Fucking–Ford will be the death of me.

  ON THE NIGHT BEFORE the grand nuptials, the sky erupts in a triumphant battle. Lighting zigzags across the sky, carelessly invoking her power over all—the Grand Master.

  Riding across the rain-soaked ground, the all-terrain vehicle threatens to submerge and get stuck as they slide across the pasture.

  Coming to a hasty stop, he energetically says, “I have to show you something special.”

  “Should I be afraid?”

  “No,” he says as they make their way into the holding space of the Cardinal-S dungeon.

  Removing their rain jackets and shoes, they step into the pitch-black dungeon. His hands on her shoulders suggest sitting in the chair, but she pauses for a moment sensing that if she doesn’t obey, he will force the issue.

  After quickly cuffing her hands with zip ties behind the back of the chair, he takes a strip of duct tape and covers her mouth securely. Her eyes dart up to his, panicked and inconsolable.

  “Consider this my gift,” Jack hastens, clicking on the dim lights. Her eyes open wide with a genuine, paralyzing terror at the sight of the young woman tethered to the table.

  Her white dress tattered and stained as she rests against a wooden plank on an A-frame for viewing. Her enchanting blue eyes blink amongst the perfectly portrayed day of the dead makeup as her hair rests on either side of her head in mammoth ponytails. Her eyebrow lifts and a smirk comes across her pretty little
stitched lips.

  In the corner, a woman stands in a black robe. On either side, the nine men line up in their suits with their heads lowered. Stepping out of the storage area, Terry imparts the western role with his large cowboy hat, jeans, chaps, and vest.

  “Welcome to my bachelor party,” Terry boasts. “You may wonder why you here—strapped and gagged to a chair—Mierne. The Little Lady here volunteered for our services with one rule—your participation in viewing. Louise,” he says to the woman in the corner, “Let’s get this party started.”

  Approaching Mierne slow, Terry rips the tape off as she screams, “Why me?”

  “Because you scheduled my initiation, you cunt,” Iris states clearly with an apathetic gaze. “And I know what a dirty, fucking whore you actually are.”

  “Iris…” Mierne cries hysterically. “I do not want to see this.”

  “You mean like you didn’t really want to be a part of my initiation either. Show up, pretend to be some sort of Dom with your riding crop, and run for the hills,” Iris accuses spitefully, “Shut her up, T.”

  “Sure, thing.”

  Rising up off the plank, Iris approaches in the ripped, muddied white gown she wore the night of Red & Green. “The sex kitten therapist has sex issues.”

  Mierne rocks in the chair as tears stream down her cheeks. Her eyes free flow as her mascara tears line her cheeks.

  “Let’s do this, boys,” Iris says, twirling back to the plank. “Who is first?”

  Strutting back over amongst the men, Terry asks, “Anything off limits?”

  “Two things—my Dom and my ass.”

  “Fair enough,” Terry cajoles, bumping arms with Jack. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  With an intense hate-filled stare, Iris whispers, “I am his precious.”

  A knock on the apartment door wakes Jaid up at four AM. She sleepily yells, “Hold on!”

  Flushed with worry, Dale barges inside and urges, “Have you talked to the Kid?”

  Jaid yawns as she goes to start a pot of coffee. “Would it matter?”

  “Yeah, you need to call him,” Dale suggests nervously. He fidgets as a look of guilt in his eyes spikes through her veins.

  “Why?” she asks, grinding the coffee beans.

  “Because I just came from Terry’s bachelor party,” he confesses, barely audible.

  “Congratulations!” she snaps, pissed by his early morning visit. “I hope you had a good time.”

  “I don’t think you understand.” Sitting down at the kitchen table, Dale hesitantly mutters, “…Iris was the party.”

  Waking up fast, Jaid slides in front of him and lowers, holding his knees. “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “I mean…a bunch of us…” he alleges, maintaining a vacant stare. “Oh god, fucking Raniero—he’s gonna blow.”

  Solemnly, Jaid persuades his calm, “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know,” he admits, feeling responsible. “Nico put her in his car and said he’d have her back by morning.”

  “O—kay,” Jaid breathes.

  “No, it isn’t okay,” he argues with a broken voice. “Just because a girl is so fucked up that she consents to doing whatever, doesn’t mean we should take her up on it… We hold all of the responsibility.”

  “No shit, welcome to Master’s class 101,” Jaid snarls, “Apparently, you flunked.”

  “He’s going to fucking kill me.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  Dale’s eyes blink remorsefully up to Jaid’s. “I’ll take your look of convicted felon as an affirmative. And yes, he may kill you.”

  “No, I don’t think you understand…it was like every man’s fucking wet dream.”

  “I don’t think you’ve watched the video,” Jaid huffs, opening her computer and hitting the play button on the video. “I don’t think you understand what all this girl let happen at her initiation. She is fucked up and twisted. So, if she is crying now—I fucking don’t care.”

  “He’s gonna blow…”

  “Probably,” Jaid says, pouring a cup of coffee. “Sal has every right, but not because you fucked his slut. Everyone has done that. But because you betrayed his trust. If you—his bodyguard—were there and watched this go down—you are fucking guilty as charged, Sir.”

  For reasons Serene can never understand, her morning sickness grips her stomach between midnight and six AM nightly. Rushing to the bathroom, she notices a party of cars, surrounding her dungeon.

  After puking the contents of last night’s dinner up, she dresses quickly and hops onto a four-wheeler in the rain. She flies angrily towards the dungeon as mud pelts her legs. She doesn’t care as the half dozen cars line up outside—none of them belonging to her or the owner of the farmhouse.

  Slamming open the dungeon door, she sees the remnants of the event—whips wrapped around one another like snakes, riding crops jetting out like spikes from the ground, and the pile of used condom wrappers.

  “Get the fuck out of my dungeon! Now!” she scolds, vehemently protecting what is hers, or at least Sal’s. “What the hell happened, Jack?”

  “Terry wanted to have his bachelor party,” he excuses, hanging his head low as he diminishes in the shadow of his former Mistress.

  Waving her hand about, she looks at the wreck that her dungeon is—a frat party gone wild. “And you think—this—is acceptable?”

  “Who were the girls?”

  With an arrogant defiance, he says, “Does it really mat…”

  “Answer me now!” she interrupts, furious.

  “I wanted to give Mierne a proposal to remember,” he contends.

  “Are you fucking out of your mind?” she blows up, out of control. Swooping closer to him, Serene slaps Jack across the cheek hard. “She cannot deal with this!”

  Putting about the room, Jack brushes off Serene’s rampage. “She seemed fine when she left.”

  “Of course, she did!” Serene yells, breathing heavily and turning to leave. Passing by the A-frame, she recognizes the white dress and bends down to pick it up. “Was Iris here?”

  “Of course,” he boasts with a smirk.

  “You motherfucker! I raised you up to be a better Dom than this! Get the fuck off my property now!” she hisses as her fury explodes. “Now!”

  With a callous gaze, he sneers, “Just so you know—Nico was here, too.”

  Spinning fast towards Jack, she roars, “And you were no doubt the lead Dom in this disgusting display of filth. Let me tell you something, Sir Jack,” she mocks with her attitude blazing red hot. “I overlooked your dirty deeds that went on at Iris’ initiation, but I will not be sweeping this mess under the rug. I will be filing formal charges against everyone who was here tonight, including you. I am done protecting you and your sick blend of perversion. I warned you years ago to reel it in. I told you to stop pushing the boundary out just to accommodate your sadism. You are going to end up killing someone. You are done, Kerris.”

  Jack snickers as he pushes past her, “Fuck off, Serene.”

  Hearing his car start, Serene catches a glimpse of something shiny in the mess of blood soaked rags, semen covered condoms, and grotesquely misused medical equipment. She grabs a latex glove out of the drawer and pillages through to mess only to retrieve the soiled crucifix. She clutches the necklace to her chest as the heartache seeps into her soul.

  Lowering her head, she closes her eyes tight, holding back the inevitable tears. Serene doesn’t have to ask who it belongs to, she already knows.

  Her Golden Boy.

  After their breakfast, Kate and Devereux spend the next hour in the shower with his lips pressed to hers as his hands own every inch of her body. He lathers her skin, noticing her tiny wrists bear a slight mark from pulling against the restraints. Their nights have become increasingly more passionate, testing her limits as they explore the edge.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I am fine,” she says, rather shocked. “Something about what you do to me…n
o one ever has. What are all these scratches all over you back?”

  His hands retreat with an abrupt halt as he washes his chest and segues the conversation. “Even Sal?”

  “We—Mr. Kone—are going to outlast my prior relationship by a thousand miles!” Her words urge genuine and true. “Besides there was no truth in it. I was nothing more than a placeholder.”

  “I can only hope. And maybe one day in the near future, maybe you’ll do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Kone.”

  Her mouth gapes open and eyes widen with inquisition as he makes quick work of detouring her curiousness about his scratches. She doesn’t need to know about last night.

  It is the first time he has ever even mentioned how far he wants this to go. “Mr. Kone, you can’t be serious,” she says, utterly stunned. “Are you?”

  “Absolutely!” Dev assures with a confident smile. “Besides, I am working at the engineering firm in Houston now. There is no reason for me to believe I cannot provide you with everything you deserve. After all, you are my Queen, Kate.”

  “I never knew I was looking for a King,” she replies nervously, blinking at his enlightenment of their relationship. “But Mrs. Katharine Kone?”

  “Would you prefer Capri-Kone?” he banters with a smirk and a twist of his body back to the shower. His wet, well-defined arms shimmer under the rain of water as he declares, “You can be a modern hyphenated woman; you won’t offend me in the least.” He winks.

  Standing dumbfounded, Kate spits back, “What about the twenty years between us?”

  “Excuse. Excuse,” he says, spinning her around. “Have a big wedding with me.”

  “Dev…” Kate isn’t sure what to say. She has never been married or seriously proposed to. “You bring me a proper and we will talk.”

  “A proper…” he smiles, brushing his teeth. He rinses his mouth out and moves closer, pinning her to the wall between his arms. “You mean a proper…proposal?”

  Blushing, she replies, “Yes.”