“You’re driving me crazy,” he whispered. “I want to throw a coat around you so no assholes can look at you and at the same time strip this dress off of you and worship your gorgeous body.” He pulled away before I could respond, and Elliot filled the space Alijah had made.
“You’re beautiful, as always,” he said with a smile.
“You too,” I said, grabbing the black silk tie and giving it a playful yank. He chuckled and kissed my temple.
Venni led me to my chair, and we settled down. As soon as we got comfortable, our server was there, ready to take our drink orders. Once he disappeared, I smiled and leaned forward, noting how they fought to keep their eyes from going down to my breasts. Alijah failed, but he was unrepentant about it. Elliot did too, and his cheeks heated as he forced himself to look back at my face.
Oh yeah, tonight was going to be fun. I was going to remind them exactly what it was they were missing. We’d been busy lately, but it seemed things were at least beginning to balance out now and everyone had some breathing room. It was time to put this, whatever this was, into gear. I wanted them, and I knew they wanted me.
I was done with their games.
I went easy on them the first half of dinner, keeping the conversation easy, talking about some of the projects I had put on hold. Once we were halfway through our meals, me picking at pulled pork, I began. I wanted someone tonight, and I was going to do my best to get it.
Dwight gave me some reprieve, but I’d had weeks of buildup. I needed someone in me, fast and hard. I had Venni to my right and Rhett to my left. This was going to be fun.
As I laughed about the time I’d created a rain cloud that followed me around all day, I placed my hand on Rhett’s knee. He stiffened underneath my touch, and instead of removing my hand, like I expected, he weaved his fingers through mine. I stiffened, not anticipating that move. I thought he’d either ignore me or move my hand, not hold it. I glanced at him, noting the slight curl of his lips as he listened to Elliot talk about something.
I couldn’t hear what Elliot was saying. All my focus was Rhett and his touch, something so simple, and yet already my body was responding. When I went to pull my hand away, his grip tightened and he refused to release me. He effectively captured my hand and held it immobile unless I wanted to draw attention to myself.
When I glanced at Alijah, he was smirking as he stared at me. I glowered at him. He knew what was up, and he found it hilarious. Jerk.
“So,” I said, trying to get my mind off the fact that Rhett was holding my hand. That was it. A simple gesture, but for me, the simple touches were still new. They had all been touching me intimately recently, and every graze of their fingers was new to me. I was slowly getting used to it. There was reassurance in having someone do that, a gentle reminder that they were there, and they weren’t going anywhere.
“So?” Elliot asked.
I cleared my throat, getting back on track. “Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I said.
Elliot straightened in his seat. “I’m sure you already know everything,” he challenged.
My teeth clacked together as I realized what he meant. My files. They all didn’t know about them.
“It’s impossible to know everything,” I said, glancing at the others. Their heads turned back and forth as they listened to us.
“It must irk you, right?” he asked.
“What is your problem?” I snapped. Rhett’s hand tightened around mine as a reminder.
He raised his hands. “None. I just think they should know.” His expression softened. “They won’t mind.”
“Mind what?” Alijah asked.
Elliot and I stayed in our staring match.
“Laila,” Alijah growled, and I flinched. I finally broke away from Elliot’s eyes and focused on Alijah. “What is he talking about? What are you hiding from us?” His voice was low and rumbling. Not a good sign. He didn’t like being out of the loop even less than I did.
“They really won’t mind,” Elliot said.
“You don’t know that,” I snapped. Their privacies were broken, and I was the one to do it. How could they not mind? Some of the information in there was never meant for the public.
No one needed to know the dirty details about Rhett’s family being murdered by the vampire who’d turned him, and about how he tore that vampire apart.
Or the time Venni lost control and his wolf nearly killed someone.
Or how Alijah didn’t have a permanent address. I had a theory that he spent far more time as a shifter than he let on. When he wasn’t around us, I pictured him as a tiger, stalking through the woods. It would explain why he’d been so comfortable going into them.
I didn’t want them knowing I knew those things about them without them sharing it with me.
“Tell us,” Alijah said.
I met each pair of eyes before focusing on Elliot.
“I have the Biomystic files about each of you.”
Silence wrapped around me as no one responded, and I waited for their judgment.
“Why do you have those?” Venni asked, voice void of his thoughts. I couldn’t even begin to hint at what he was feeling or thinking. He’d always been one of the best at hiding them.
I licked my lips and managed to extract my hand from Rhett’s. My throat wanted to seize, but now that they knew, I wanted them to understand. The little girl in me was expecting them to turn their backs on me. No one liked being vulnerable, and those files made them vulnerable.
“Laila,” Rhett said, softly. “How’d you get them?”
I closed my eyes briefly, trying to bring up the emotions they’d been building up inside of me for the last week.
“It’s a compulsion,” I finally admitted and opened my eyes, needing to face the consequences. I knew from the beginning I wasn’t supposed to have them. I was breaking everyone’s trust in me. “I need to know who the people I surround myself are. I need to know the kind of people they are. I have the file for every employee in the company. I also have it for everyone in my apartment building, and also on all my foster parents.”
“What the fuck?” Alijah asked, and I flinched.
I switched my focus down onto my plate.
“I need to know. When I fight it, when I let someone around who I don’t know, who I don’t have a file on, I get nightmares. I don’t sleep. Not until I get it. Not until I know they don’t have citations against them, or they aren’t abusers. I just need to know.”
“Where are they?” Alijah asked, his voice turning into a growl. “How did you get them?”
“They aren’t physical files,” I said. “They aren’t electronic either.”
“What does that mean?” Venni asked.
“I created a pocket of space, and it holds the information for me. When I want it, it gives it to me.” I tapped my head. “When I don’t want it, it puts it away.”
Elliot frowned. “Like a cloud server?”
“A what?” I asked.
“Henzie is good at explaining that stuff, but the best I can come up with is that a cloud server acts like a pocket like you said and holds onto whatever a person uploads into it. When the person needs it, they put in their personal credentials and get access to that information. They can be accessed remotely.”
I nodded. “Yeah, like that but with magic.”
“So you know everything about us?” Venni asked.
“Only what BMS has on you.”
Rhett snorted. “We have everything on a person.”
“Not everything. I’ve come across some holes.” I glanced at Elliot. I didn’t know he was in foster homes for a couple of years until he told me. There were a couple other things, like Alijah used to work for the enforcers. That one really surprised me because that was information Dwight would want to know. I was beginning to think what he did for the enforcers wasn’t something they put on the payroll, but under the table.
Elliot said, “It kind of takes the mystery out of dating, doesn�
�t it,” he joked, smiling.
Alijah scowled hard at me. “Get rid of it.” His body was stiff and he looked like he was holding back.
He was angry. I stared at an angry Alijah with it geared toward me.
Elliot gave him a wary look. “It’s not that bad.”
“The information Lombardi has on us is expected to stay with him. This is a massive breach of privacy, and I don’t like the idea of someone else having that information.”
“So you’re saying you don’t trust Laila to keep it to herself?” Rhett asked. His expression and tone were neutral.
They bickered, growing angrier, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I never considered how they’d feel if I took the files, and I wanted to regret it. A small part of me did, but the rest of me demanded that I have them.
“Stop,” Elliot snapped and everyone went quiet. Elliot turned to me. “Can you expand more on why you feel this compulsion to take them?”
I flinched at the redness in Alijah’s eyes his tiger rose to the surface. I pressed my lips together hard before forcing myself to talk. This was deeply personal, but it was only fair. I knew some of their intimate information too. Before I could speak, I had to force back down the bile that had risen.
“My last foster family, before I left to go to college, were the most two-faced couple I ever had to deal with. They were the picture of a perfect family, charitable in everything. I thought they were okay for a while too, not the best couple, but definitely better than most places. But behind closed doors, not so much. One night, I met two shadowsmiths they had hired for a job. After that, I needed to know about the people I was living with. When I uncovered what they did, I became physically ill.”
“What did they do?” Alijah asked, still holding onto his anger.
“Everything. Assassinations. Theft. Blackmail. They got to where they were in society by stomping on everyone. I turned everything I collected over to the enforcers and took off. They were arrested soon afterward. But since then, the idea of not knowing became a phobia. It started off with simple checks, just to make sure nothing major jumped out. My second semester of classes, there was a boy who, on paper, was great. He snapped, took a girl, raped and killed her. After that, I began to dig deeper.”
I stared at Alijah, begging him to understand because I really thought it was something I’d never be able to stop doing.
“I wish I can say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I have it on everyone and it’s all up here.” I defended, taping my temple. “There are no hard copies, and I never share with anyone. It’s a personal fulfillment so that I feel safer in my environment.”
Alijah’s jaw clenched, and he jumped to his feet, the chair scraping along the floor. His shoulders were stiff, arms tight at his side, hands fisted. The air grew thick with tension as Rhett and Venni stilled. I could practically taste the violence rolling off everyone. Alijah closed his eyes and rolled his head, his neck cracking. “I don’t agree with what you’re doing.” He moved to leave.
I jumped to my feet, my heart stuttering in my chest. “Alijah—”
“Don’t,” he snarled, eyes snapping open. Wildness danced as orange flames in a sea of red when his eyes met mine. “Not right now. I need space. What you’re doing, it isn’t right, and I can’t just roll over and accept it. We’ll talk about this later. I need to go for a run.” He stormed out of the room, leaving me staring after him with wide eyes and an aching heart.
“He left,” I said dumbly, my brain still trying to catch up.
“He’ll be fine. He just needs space,” Venni said.
Not wanting to think about how angry Alijah was, I licked my dry lips and asked, “What about you guys? Are you mad?”
Rhett shook his head. “The only way to keep information safe is to never have a record of it. I do the same thing for Biomystic that you do for yourself, so I don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Venni sighed and for a moment, I thought he was going to leave to. Numbness crawled through me as I prepared for it. Instead, he said, “Just don’t hide stuff like that from us. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t see a problem either. I want you to know about me. And if having that information makes you feel better, I’m not going to get all twisted about it.”
My eyes burned as I forced the tears to stay. I didn’t need to bawl in the middle of a dinner date.
“Thank you,” I said. Then tension fled from my body and my shoulders slumped. “Thank you,” I whispered.
The rest of the night went by quickly, and I stopped trying to play games with them. I enjoyed their company, and by the looks of it, they enjoyed mine. To pull me out of my anxiety over Alijah, it took Elliot teasing Venni about the time he was in his wolf form and ended up playing fetch for an hour with a little girl. After that, dinner was nice as I learned more about Venni, Elliot, and Rhett.
When it was time to go, it was Venni who escorted me back to BMS. We got to my temporary home, and I turned to him, not wanting to end the night.
“Want to come in?” I asked, hopeful, and wanting company so I wouldn’t think about Alijah. If I was left alone tonight, I was going to talk myself into a panic attack. Or maybe something even crazier, like searching for Alijah.
He hesitated before nodding, and I smiled as I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Venni followed behind, locking the door and chaining it while I turned on a lamp, giving the room a soft glow.
“You never know,” he mumbled as he walked over to the couch and sat. I joined him, leaning back and propping my feet on the coffee table, releasing a content sigh. Venni shifted until his shoulder brushed up against mine.
I turned my head and stared at his profile, taking note of how his nose curved, the squareness of his jaw, the smoothness of his dark skin.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, voice soft.
“I keep thinking this isn’t real, that there’s no way I’m dating six of you guys.” I leaned my head against the back of the couch.
“Why not?” Venni asked.
“I just don’t get it. One day, after months of talking to you guys, you all come out and say you like me. I feel like I’ve been bulldozed and probably in a coma at a hospital, and my mind decided to give me the best dream. I just don’t get it. What about me do you like? I’m stubborn. I’ve been told I’m too cocky. The only thing I care about are my projects. I work. I don’t do anything else. Once in a while I go out and dance and maybe go to some guy’s hotel for a fuck, but dating? I don’t do that.”
“You don’t do it because you haven’t allowed yourself to do it. You’re a lot more considerate than you give yourself credit for. I know this because I pay attention. Sure, you like to chase people around and corner them, forcing them to be part of your experiment of the week, but you never reach that stage until you tested it out on yourself. What is it about you that I like?”
Venni wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him. I shifted until I leaned against him, my feet dangling off the side of the couch. I still needed to take my heels off and get out of the dress, but in that moment, I didn’t care. I just wanted him to hold me.
Venni finally answered my question, saying, “After the first week, you had created a name for yourself at Biomystic. People knew to run the other way if you were looking for volunteers and you always managed to capture someone.” He chuckled. “Our introduction wasn’t any different.” I smiled, remembering how Davies had said he knew a shifter friend who would be perfect. It had been Venni. The poor guy got locked up in my device. “I caught you one day. You were outside playing hot potato with a gun that wasn’t working how you expected it to. That was when I realized you tested everything out on yourself first before branching out. My wolf did not like that thought at all. You play a dangerous game, Laila, and I just want to be there to make sure you’re okay each day.”
“Wow,” I said.
He chuckled. “When I met you, I never had a chance. I was a goner.”
We kept talking well into
the night, and at one point, when I blinked, my eyes didn’t open back up, even when Venni was kind enough to remove my heels for me. I briefly cursed myself because I never got what I wanted. I fell right into their trap.
Rhett got to hold my hand, and Venni got to talk with me late into the night. They were doing such a good job, making me feel like a teenager dating for the first time.
Chapter Thirteen
“Now what are you doing?” Ami asked.
“Ignoring you,” I mumbled as I whisked the congealed mixture together. “Why are you here anyway?”
“I’m trying to get my best friend to come play with me. It’s Sunday, you’re not supposed to be here.” She reached over to pick up a glass container full of a thick blue liquid. I slapped her hand away before going back to whisking.
“I just want to get this done. I think this is it, the missing piece.”
“Oh yeah, and what is it supposed to do?” Ami asked, going for the glass container again. I glared at her, and her hand paused. When I didn’t look away, she sighed and tucked her hand away, underneath the lab tabletop.
“It’s going to coat the inside of the canister, act as a conduit, protecting the canister from what gets absorbed. It has something a little extra in it too.” I jerked my head to a small vial filled with a glowing green powder. “Aeflower. It grows off of magic itself. Well, it works best with energy, but it’ll do the same with magic. Eats it right up. This’ll keep it from overflowing. I won’t have to ground the magic, the canister won’t ever get full, and people won’t have access to it.”
“Something like that really exists?”
I smiled. “Barely. There’s only one garden. That precious flower isn’t natural. There’s a pixie who likes science almost as much as I do, and he created this. He just made a fortune off of me.” I grumbled a little to myself. My bank account would survive, but it was still smarting over the purchase. No person should have so much power to dictate price over a product and yet Shetz unabashedly held the market in his greedy tiny fingers.
Magical Seclusion Page 16
