by K. V. Rose
It takes me several minutes to be able to speak. My throat is dry, fear still deep in my gut. But finally, as we’re enclosed again in the darkness of the trees, I find my voice.
“Stop,” I say, digging my heels in.
Lucifer keeps trying to drag me along. I yank hard against him, and although I don’t break free, he stops walking and spins around.
“What?” he snarls.
“I told you I don’t want to—”
Before I can get the words out, he shoves me against a tree, both hands on my chest. “I didn’t ask what you wanted, Lilith. I let you go. You had your chance out of this. It’s too fucking late now.”
Anger and fear mingle in my blood. “What the fuck is your problem?” His eyes narrow and I shake my head. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to play these games. I don’t know who you and your fucking cult friends think they are but—”
His hands go to my throat, and he squeezes, hard. I can barely breathe, but I keep my eyes on his blue ones.
Fuck’s sake, I wish he wasn’t so goddamn beautiful. It would make it a little easier to hate the feel of his hands on me now.
And I’ve felt this before. Hands on my throat. I should be more scared. But instead I feel something else. Something that makes my face heat with shame.
Desire.
“You’re my problem. You became my problem when you walked away. When you found your way into Jeremiah’s arms.” His hands move from my throat to my waist and he presses against me. I have to focus on not pressing back, even though I can feel his cock throb between us. I bite my lip, holding back a groan.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“You should feel lucky,” he whispers in my ear. “Lucky that I found you. Because I might hurt you. But Jeremiah...” he trails off. “He would kill you.”
Lucky.
I want to say something snarky. I want to hit this guy. But that word rings in my ear, and for some sick, twisted reason…I do feel it. Lucky.
Chapter Eight
Present
I’m drowning in cold water. I can’t breathe. Can’t scream. My body is shivering, my words frozen on my lips. I’m drenched, every inch of my skin covered in icy water. I try to find air. Gasp for it.
For one of the first times in my life, I want to live.
“Up, Sid. Now.”
My eyes flash open, hands coming up to defend myself.
Jeremiah.
I scramble upright, press myself against my headboard, pull my sheets up to my chin. And only then do I notice the cup in his hand, and the cold water dripping from my face, from my hair, down onto my black tank top.
Rage courses through me.
I fling the covers off and lunge for my brother.
“You fucking threw water on me?!” It’s part-question, part-war cry.
We stumble, together, against the glass door to my balcony. The sun is barely up, Alexandria still bathed in pink and yellow, the city stretching out below, people on their morning commutes on what is shaping up to be a sunny Monday morning.
And my own brother has thrown ice cold water on me to wake me up.
I know he’s letting me shove him against the glass now. He can stop us both at any time. But a small smile plays on his lips, even as his white shirt is bunched in my fist.
“Are you done?” he asks, infuriatingly calm.
I let go of his shirt, smooth it down.
Then I slap him across the face, making his head spin. Not from my strength, but rather his surprise.
He opens his mouth, cracks his jaw, dark brows raised. When he turns back to face me, he throws his head back and laughs. And then he puts his hand around my throat, squeezing, just as Kristof had.
Just as Lucifer had.
I don’t bother fighting back. He won’t kill me now. He hadn’t gotten up so goddamn early and barged into my room for me to die so soon.
I hold his pale green gaze, hear him breathing in and out, steady. Calm. As if his good side is trying to tell his bad side to let go of his little sister’s throat. But Jeremiah doesn’t have a good side. He has a bad one. And a worse one.
He just squeezes harder.
My nails find his cheeks.
I pinch him, hard.
He shoves me away, and I catch myself on my bed, then immediately straighten, ready to go at him again if he wants to keep playing this game. He rubs a hand along his jaw, and I see with satisfaction nail marks edged into his tan skin.
“You’re a shit, did you know that?” he asks, cracking his jaw again.
I sit on the bed, my hair still dripping wet. I wrap one of the black fuzzy blankets from my bed around my shoulders.
“Why the fuck did you think tossing cold ass water on me was a good idea?” I counter.
He sighs, crosses his arms, and leans against the balcony door, his head tipped back, eyes on the ceiling. He stands like that when he has something he doesn’t want to say. Which is almost never. Jeremiah isn’t afraid of any word in the English language. Or any language, for that matter. He’s fluent in German, and that shit I do not understand. We live in North Carolina for God’s sake.
“Spit it out,” I growl, ready to get into a warm bath, my throat aching from Jeremiah’s and Kristof’s hands.
I want to enjoy this Monday.
Observe bodies and get tormented at the park on a Sunday. Relax on a Monday. And the countdown to Halloween is on. Which means the relaxing I’ll be able to do is minimal. Jeremiah will be sure of that.
“I have a job for you,” he finally says. There’s something strange in the way he says it, almost as if he’s apologizing. I’ve never known Jeremiah to apologize to anyone for anything.
I swallow. Hard. And wait. He’s making me nervous. He’s never had a job for me.
He keeps staring at the ceiling, keeps leaning against the glass door.
The fan still spins overhead, and I’m grateful for the noise. This high up, on the tallest hill in Alexandria, we can’t hear the city below. Most days, I wish I could. Especially right now. The fan isn’t enough.
But still, I wait. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say. Jeremiah never wakes me up. He usually sends Nicolas, or sometimes, when he wants to be a real pain in the ass, he’ll send Brooklin. But today, he’d come in himself. With water. The cup had been knocked to the ground in our fight.
I look at it now, bright blue and plastic. Like a kid’s cup. It doesn’t belong in this dark room.
“A kill.”
My mouth falls open as I look back at him.
“I know,” he snaps, even though I haven’t said a word.
I arch a brow. It isn’t his usual snappy tone. It’s less dangerous. More on edge. More…worried.
“You’re joking?” I give a nervous laugh, bring my knees into my chest and curl into a ball under the black fuzzy blanket. Something is up. He’s never offered to let me do anything for the Order, and definitely not this.
I don’t think I want to do this.
I’m going to say no.
He’s going to make me anyhow.
He still doesn’t look at me. “No,” he answers evenly. He finally tips his chin down, his pale green eyes on my pale grey ones. “But I don’t think you’re going to be able to pull the trigger.”
I pull my knees in tighter and roll my eyes, blowing my bangs out of my face.
“I don’t want it.” My voice doesn’t shake, but under the blankets, my hands tremble. “I don’t want this job. I don’t want to do that. I don’t care who it is.”
He takes a step toward me and I tense. I don’t want him to see me shaking. I don’t want him to see me squirm.
He stops halfway to me, the rising sun at his back, making him look like some kind of strange angel with a halo. But my brother doesn’t wear a halo.
“Lucifer is back.”
I still. I want to tell him I don’t think he ever left. He was just biding his time.
“And the rest of them,” he answers
my unspoken question. “They’ve been here,” he admits. “But they kept their distance. Not now.”
Now I’m shaking in earnest.
Jeremiah steps to the edge of the bed, his knees against the mattress. He looks down at me.
“You know, I watched the two of you for a long, long time. I couldn’t tell if you wanted him or not. I didn’t know if it was the Death Oath, or…worse.”
A shiver goes down my spine. I know this story, even if I can’t remember it. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to talk about it. To think about it. I don’t want it to exist.
“I’m not doing it,” I say.
He laughs. “Don’t play dumb, Sid. It’s not a good look.” He sighs, slides his hands in his pockets, and then he sits down beside me, his shoulder bumping mine. I try not to recoil. Try, and fail. “You know you have to.”
Even as he says those words, he stares at the floor. Then we fall silent.
When he finally speaks again, he still doesn’t look at me.
“Turns out, he’s even more sinful than the devil himself. And unfortunately for him, and you, he owes me something.”
I snap my head up. “Why me? It was one night. I had more than one with many men before he came along.”
Jeremiah meets my gaze, his expression unreadable. “Don’t bullshit me, Sid. I know you’ve been pinning over him since I dragged you out of the asylum. And now you two will have come full circle. It’s almost Halloween, Lilith,” he whispers. As if I didn’t know.
I feel a blush color my cheeks, but I hold his gaze. “You don’t know shit.”
He takes one hand out of his pocket so fast I think he might slap me this time. I flinch, but instead, he brushes my bangs from my face, lets his hand linger on my jaw. “I know how Lucifer is. I knew him for years, Sid.” He speaks so softly, it’s almost as if he cares. But I know better. He wants the shame to burn through me a little more. “I know you called for him in the cell, when I first brought you here. I’m sorry I let him take you from me. But I won’t let him do that again.” His finger brushes my lip, goes down my chin, over the curve of my throat. Then comes to rest above my heart.
“I should have never let him have you. But I didn’t know, Sid.” He moves his hand, clasping both of his in his lap. “I didn’t know you were mine, then.”
“I know you hate being here,” he continues, and for the first time I can recall between us, I feel empathy from him. Because I do hate being here. I hate that I can’t leave, not without him or his men following. I hate that I don’t have much money to myself, even though I live in opulence. I hate that I don’t have a driver’s license. Or a passport. Or even my own car. Because Jeremiah doesn’t want Lucifer or the other Unsaints to come after me, for what he did. For taking me from the asylum. Even though they had left me there.
“If you do this, if you kill him…” He sighs. I wait, holding my breath. “Things will change. This can be your only job, if you want it to be. I won’t drag you to the sites anymore. You can live your life, Sid. I’ll buy you a car. I’ll give you a proper salary. Anything you want, if you do this.”
I want to punch him. “What part of you thinks I believe anything you’re saying right now, Jeremiah? I don’t trust you. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve never trusted you. And I know you feel the same for me. What would change, with Lucifer’s death? And why the fuck do you think I can kill an Unsaint?”
He doesn’t look at me. “He’s the only one you’ve ever wanted, isn’t he? Because he left you.” He laughs, scrubs a hand over his face. “What is it with women and the men that leave them?” He stands to his feet, his back to me.
“What did Lucifer do?” I ask. That, at least, I need to know. I never asked, not about any of the other bodies Jeremiah piled up. Not before. But this is different. What my brother doesn’t know is that I would have said yes, no matter what. No matter the car. Or the freedom. Or the money. He can shove those things up his ass for all I care. I just want the vengeance.
Slowly, Jeremiah turns.
“He’s looking for you,” he says carefully. “They all are.” But he doesn’t smile, like he usually does when he wants to taunt me. “He burned down Brooklin’s house.”
I’m not at all surprised. This is Lucifer. This is the Unsaints. This is Cain and Atlas and Ezra and Mayhem. This is the blood brothers from hell.
I didn’t even know Brooklin still had a house. I thought once my brother took in a girl, he took everything else from her. Or maybe he just did that with me.
“So what?” I ask. “You don’t give a shit.”
He shakes his head, as if annoyed. “I don’t,” he says, but I don’t think it’s really true. Brooklin has been here a lot longer than most of Jeremiah’s women. He cares for her. He might not love her, because I’m not sure the fucker knows how to love anyone. But he cares. “But it means he’s trying to get to me. To you.” His eyes flick to mine. “And I want to get to him first. To them.”
I look down at the fuzzy blanket, brows furrowed together. As if I’m contemplating. As if I’m not going to kill Lucifer no matter what Jeremiah says.
But it must unnerve him, because he says, “What I said earlier, Sid, I swear to you. I promise you, you’ll have all of it and more. Just do this for me. Because whatever you think of me, I don’t want him to take you. I saw how he left you. And I want him to pay for it. I want to forgive myself for that night. I want to get rid of the fucking Unsaints, and it starts with him.”
“Is this about money?” I mutter. Because there’s no way this is just about me. He hates them for what they did, especially Lucifer. But they were close before. Closer than brothers, if the stories are to be believed.
Jeremiah scoffs. “I have more money than I’ll ever be able to spend in my life, even if I wiped my ass with it every day. I have more money than the Unsaints and the Society of 6 combined.”
I wrinkle my nose but say nothing. I’m pretty sure that last part isn’t true. The Unsaints and their parents own this town. Even if the spawn had decided to lie low after what happened last year, with me getting away, they still hold sway. It’s a miracle they haven’t burned this hotel down.
“But whether you hate my guts and whether one day you might stab a knife in my back—or my front—I care about you, Sid.”
I don’t believe that for a second. Maybe he’s trying to make himself believe it. But what Jeremiah cares about is blood and money.
What I care about is revenge. And I know, too, that Jeremiah’s word is good. He’s a dick, he can con anyone out of anything. But when he gives someone his word like he just did, he usually means it.
“Okay,” I nearly whisper. For the first time in a long time, I feel alive again. I lift my head, no longer feeling the wet strands of my hair. I disentangle myself from the blanket and stand to my feet. I hold out my hand to Jeremiah.
He looks down at it, and he seems genuinely surprised.
“Okay,” I say again. “I’ll kill Lucifer.” Or die trying, is what I don’t say.
He takes my hand in his, brings my knuckles to his mouth and presses a kiss against them. Then he pulls me in for a hug.
For a moment, I’m stunned.
I can’t recall a time we’ve ever hugged one another.
Slowly, I put my arms around his broad back, savoring his warmth.
“Thank you, Sid,” he whispers against my head. “All this time you’ve hated me…I just wanted you to be mine.”
And then he pulls away.
Chapter Nine
Halloween, One Year Ago
“Where are we going?”
Lucifer is still guiding me through the woods, and this time, he has an arm wrapped possessively around my shoulders. He hasn’t spoken to me since he shoved me up against the tree, and I’ve been reluctant to speak.
But now, I want to know.
Because my plan is fading from sight. Adrenaline is coursing through me and although I think I should be terrified, although I thi
nk I need to escape, I don’t want to. I want to see where this ride takes me. I almost don’t ever want to get off.
“You’ll see,” Lucifer says. His same answer to every question I’ve asked tonight.
“I want to know now,” I counter.
He stops walking, turning to me, eyes narrowed. “We’re going to be late to Lover’s Death. You’re going to miss the Death Oath. And that is something you cannot miss, unless you want to die.”
I laugh nervously. “Well, funny you mention it…”
He takes my chin in his hand, tips my head up so my gaze is on his. “I know what you planned to do,” he says, his voice low and angry. His eyes trail down my body, to the gun. His hands follow, and he takes it out of the holster.
I reach for it, but his hand slides down my chin, over my neck. He shakes his head. “Don’t,” he warns me.
He throws the gun. I hear it land, softly, some distance away.
“What the fuck?” I hiss at him, trying to track his aim in the dark. But it’s no use. It could be fucking anywhere.
“You’re not going to die tonight, Lilith, at least not by your own hand. I want you stop asking questions. I want you to shut the fuck up, okay?”
My hand comes up, and I slap him.
I slap him so hard, I swear to God the sound of my palm on his face echoes in the forest. I see a smear of his skeleton paint, but otherwise, he didn’t even move. My hand probably hurts more than his face, which pisses me off even more.
He smiles at me. It’s cold. Malicious.
And then he knocks me to the ground, shoving me and falling with me.
His body is pressed against me, one hand is on my chest. “Violence is never the answer, Lilith,” he whispers into my ear, pressing further into me. His mouth brushes against my neck, and then he sinks his teeth into me.
I open my mouth to scream at him, but he clamps a hand over my lips. My neck is burning, and I swear he drew blood.
His lips find their way to my own, and he moves his fingers. I taste it as I open my mouth for him.
Iron.
