by Apollo Blake
Without feeling shame flush through me at the traitorous thought of his lips on mine, body heat enveloping me just like his arms, at the thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d fallen in more than just lust with him? I was not supposed to like people. I was not supposed to be crushing on this guy.
That made things dangerous.
What if I’d really let myself go with Hunter? Not run from the fact that he made me feel stupid, fluttery, couple-type things with his idiot smile?
What if it had turned into more?
Here’s what would happen if I fell in love with someone, with anyone:
He would become my world, I would let him in, he would see how fucked I was, and then he would leave. I would crack down the center.
It had happened to my mother, it could damn well happen to me.
Still the same little boy, desperate for a scrap of affection wherever he can get it.
It was bad enough that Riley had somehow gotten as close to me as she had. Enough that I cared what she thought, enough that there were things I couldn’t tell her about myself because I feared they might scare her away, and if I lost her, if my best friend decided she was better off without me around, what would I do then? I would break a little bit more than I already had. She had power over me. So had Melissa. Two was bad enough.
I didn’t want to admit that I’d nearly been stupid enough to let another person have the same thing. “That guy, who helped us at the club—”
“Fireball guy?”
“Hunter,” I said, even though his name felt like an admission of my failure. “But yeah, him. We went back to his hotel room and ended up hooking up, and then. . .well, some crazy shit started to happen, and for a while I got sucked into it. But it’s over now, and we had a huge fight. Oh, and I need to move in with you.”
This, out of everything, got the response out of her. She slapped her hands onto the tabletop. “Sky! You moved out?”
“Yeah,” I said. I buried my face in my hands, sighing. “More like I stormed out. Human tornado. I left all the shit I took in his hotel room, too. I don’t even care, though, he can throw it out if he wants. I’m not going back there.”
“Jesus, that bad? You’re not afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of myself,” I argued. “Afraid that I might throw him out a window if I ever see him again. And I’m too pretty for jail.” I added as an afterthought, “I’m also afraid of spiders. Leftover trauma from Charlotte’s Web.”
“You like him.” It wasn’t a question.
“I. . .ugh.”
If I wasn’t afraid of anything, I would be telling her how much pain I was in right now. It wasn’t all even mine, either; I could feel Hunter aching through the bond, angry and sullen. Probably wishing I hadn’t left. I kind of wished I hadn’t, either. Because I’m fucking dumb. But that? Telling my best friend how scared I was? Or even admitting it out loud? That would just set me up for even more pain down the road: Riley would get tired of my shit and pull away, or we’d go to different colleges and drift apart, or she would fuck me over, or one of the other million things that could—and would—go wrong.
Life would take its course and I would be set adrift again, because that’s what life was. It hurt.
Sometimes I hate you for being my friend, I thought, just not as much as I hate myself for letting you.
“You really like him, don’t you?”
I stopped, glass halfway to my lips, so close I could taste the foam, smell the yeast. Yes. “No—” Lie to yourself long enough and it will start to become the truth. “No, I hate him. He drives me crazy, and he’s clingy and stubborn and—besides, I was awful to him.” I shook him out of my head. “Why do you say that?”
Riley laughed. She fell back in her seat, shaking her head at me like I was the worst joke she’d ever heard, a bad pun that she couldn’t help but smile at even though it wasn’t funny.
I frowned at her. “Nice to see I’m so hilarious to you.”
“You really haven’t got a clue how bad a liar you are, do you?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
No lie had registered. I may not just hate him, but I did hate him in some ways. It was wrapped up in the other stuff, blurry and out of focus, tied up with lust and affection and sympathy and regret—but it was there.
“Sky,” she said in a voice like a doctor would use to let someone know they had a disease, “you don’t worry about how awful you are to someone you hate.” She slid forward in her seat, resting her elbows on the table to lean closer, dark gaze boring into mine. “You’re a coward, bestie.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I said wryly.
She continued, undeterred. “You build walls to keep people out—you even do it with me. You don’t think people realize? You don’t think at least some of them haven’t got you figured out? That I haven’t got you figured out by now? You push people away and refuse to let them in, and look where it gets you, Sky—you’re sitting in a bar trying to convince the both of us that you don’t like this guy when you look like you’re ready to cry—”
“I do not cry.” I said indignantly, but she wasn’t done.
“—or run out of here and find him. You’re probably already in shambles because of your mom, and you know how worried I’ve been the last couple days, not just over you but all this magik bullshit that Penn still won’t tell me anything substantial about. You keep lying to everyone, to the people around you, to yourself, without even realizing it. Your gift doesn’t catch them all. There are ways to lie without speaking out loud.
“You keep trying to convince yourself that you don’t feel anything, that you don’t need to let anyone in. That’s not protecting yourself, though, Sky.” She shook her head at me, sadly. “It’s just being a coward. And I’m sick of not saying anything about it. I’m sick of you acting like you get to decide to just not allow anyone to care about you. That’s not a decision you get to make for people.”
I felt myself shrinking into my seat, the bottom melting out of everything. I was the product of bad choices, born and bred in a world of harsh truths and cold, empty spaces.
I felt betrayed.
We both knew all of this, but we weren’t supposed to talk about it. For as long as I could remember, Riley would hedge at these things, try to push me in the right direction. But to come out and say it? To try and force me to deal with my bullshit?
What was she? My fucking guidance counselor?
Of course, she was right. She was always right about everything. I was going to pretend she wasn’t, because that’s who I was.
“My mom let someone in,” I said sullenly, “look at what happened to her when he left.”
“Left?” Riley tilted her head. “Sky, your dad was a one night stand.”
Hell.
“Yeah, that’s what I tell people. Look, it’s not even about him anymore. Or my mom. I thought you wanted answers. Let me tell you about magik.” I shoved my glass away before she could reply. “I’m not in the mood to drink anymore.”
“Good,” said a new voice, “because it’s time for a change of scenery.”
Vampire.
My mind went into overdrive as I turned to the slender girl suddenly standing next to our table.
Destiny was dressed to kill, in a tight cocktail dress covered in black sequins. She wore a pair of leather leggings and black pumps, but I had no delusions about her ability to be lethal. Heels stopped being a problem when you were an immortal creature of the night, and all.
I gripped the edge of the table so hard my knuckles went white. Riley and Destiny in the same place.
Not a good thing.
Meeting my gaze, the Vampire smiled victoriously. There was no hope for me, in that smile. God, I shouldn’t have fucking come here. I’d unwittingly led them to Riley.
“Holy shit. . .” My best friend whispered. “Are those fangs?”
“Sure are. Just had ‘em whitened. Thanks for noticing.” Destiny faced me. “Time
for a field trip, witch boy.”
“More like bitch boy,” said Axel, stepping into view behind her.
Intimidation pulsed through me, and I tried to ignore it. These two were volatile, chemicals waiting to mix and explode. I didn’t want to fight them while I was alone, not unless I had to. And if that happened, I didn’t want Riley anywhere near it. But I had a good idea where they planned on taking me, and exactly zero desire to go there.
If I did, I probably wouldn’t be coming back.
I held up my hands, willing them not to shake. “Look, whatever you want with Hunter, whatever you think I can do for you, you’re wrong. We’re not involved. And I have no idea how to help you find him.”
Lies, lies, and more lies.
I would die lying if that’s what it took. No part of me was going to lower myself further by selling Hunter out. I’d hurt him enough. Did I owe him a thing? Maybe not romantically, no. But I sure as hell owed him for the fact that I was alive right now, and I was no turncoat. The breath in my lungs was owed to him. I would repay the debt if it came to that.
There wasn’t much I’d clung onto in the past few days, but my dignity was sure as hell not going to be the next part of me to go.
“Yeah, right.” Axel snorted. “I can still see the bond on you, sense his signature, not yours, clinging to your skin. I can practically taste all the power leaking through it.”
“The bond?” I felt my back go ramrod straight. “He’s breaking it. It will be gone by the time you get me to Crayton.”
Unless. . .but surely Hunter wouldn’t just let the bond settle. He’d gotten that sword—there was no way the queen would have denied him what she owed, could there be? I couldn’t believe he would choose to leave it intact. Not with the way we’d left things.
No—I refused to accept it. If the bond was still forming, still settling between us like a beast settling down to die, something was wrong. Maybe it just takes a while to fade, I tried to convince myself.
“He’s breaking it,” I repeated. “If it isn’t gone, it will be soon enough.”
“Too bad that soon enough isn’t, you know, soon enough, isn’t it then?” the Vampire looked a bit bored, honestly. Ready to be done with this.
What a coincidence; me too.
“I’m not coming with you, and for your own safety, I’d suggest you stand the fuck back. I’m not letting Crayton drain Hunter. Do you have any idea what a madman like him would do with that sheer strength?”
As I spoke the words, they fell into place.
Crayton was ill—Hunter had called him paranoid, but to attack Althea, his own mother or mother-in-law, who Hunter has said was his mentor, to try and attack his own son, spend two years hunting him down like an animal—that was more than paranoid. Something had come detached in this man, some vital, human part of him. I knew how strong fear could be, how primal and all-consuming.
With that fear running through his veins and his son’s power hardening the flesh that housed it—god, what would someone so afraid do with power so awful?
Things I was glad I couldn’t easily imagine.
Nothing good, for sure.
“I hate to say it—mostly since it sounds so damn cliche—but if you want to do this the hard way, we can.” Destiny sneered at me.
That’s it, then. I tried. I looked at Riley, and after a minute she tore her gaze away from the dynamic duo over there to meet my stare. I pushed as much importance as I could muster into my words. “Riley, I need you to leave.”
“What? Sky, who are these freaks? Are they like that guy—like you?” Penn hadn’t explained nearly enough to her. “I’m not leaving you alone here.”
“Freaks? Says the one with purple hair?”
“Says the one who looks like a walking disco ball?” Riley shot back, and Destiny actually growled. It was a sound I’d expect a black panther to make, not this tiny, stylishly dressed girl in front of me. Apparently Riley felt the same way, because she recoiled against the back of the booth.
Never had I seen her shy away from a conflict. She wasn’t violent, just generally nonplussed by a challenge.
I clenched my fists and forced fear out of my mind, out of my voice. “Ri, I can handle this. Just get out of here and let me deal with them. I promise I’ll explain everything later.”
Her eyes flashed in my direction.
Except for my dad, I added, as an afterthought. That was something I wasn’t sure she could get out of me with water torture. I didn’t even know if the guy was still alive out there or not, if he was mortal or Charmer. But I couldn’t let her walk around this ignorant about the Charmer world anymore. She was fascinated, and a fascinated Riley was a determined Riley. And being determined to find this world, it would only get her in trouble, when she found it in all the wrong ways and places.
“I’m not going anywhere without you, obviously.” I didn’t deserve her. Riley looked to the others. “You can either get the hell out of my dive and stay away from my friend, or I call the cops. Your choice, fuckwads.”
Fuckwads. She was so Saint John sometimes.
“The cops can’t help us Riley. I’ll handle this.”
“You won’t handle anything,” Kelly said from behind Axel. She was holding a cherry red baseball bat. “This is my place, and if anyone takes care of these two, it will be me.”
I was shocked that she could even see the two of them, and it registered that Riley hadn’t had any trouble, either. If they weren’t using wards, weren’t hiding themselves, it meant they weren’t afraid to make a scene. . . .
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Fat humans annoy me,” said Axel, “I suggest you beat it, bitch.”
A dark smile spread across Kelly’s face, and I knew exactly what she was about to do—if I’m being honest, as much as I wished she wouldn’t, part of me greatly anticipated seeing the exact second Axel realized she wasn’t one to come for. I bit my lip, waiting for the impact.
“Oh,” she told him happily, “I’ll beat it alright. I’ll beat your motherfucking head in.”
And she swung the bat at his head.
SEEK & CLAIM
“We found them.”
Ah, how a single sentence could bring such joy and power rushing into him like light in a dark room. Crayton grinned at the broad Charmer before him.
“Where,” he said. “And how?”
Axel ducked his head, avoiding Crayton’s gaze, and the man smiled. He liked this—this show of deference, of submission. That was all this one was good for. “The wolves, sir. A pack outs—”
“I changed my mind, your voice annoys me.” He turned away, back to the work spread on his desk. God knows it was hard to concentrate on it, things what they were. But when his enemies were gone and the power he needed to get to his real work was his own, well, he would want to have this groundwork finished by then. A foundation laid out, so the real effort could begin in earnest. “Just find them. I don’t want facts, I want results. If you let them slip through your fingers again I may not give you another chance to disappoint me. Send in the Vampire when you have a chance.”
“Destiny, sir? I may—” he swallowed, visibly. “I may need her with me, to apprehend them. She’s sleeping, at the moment, but I can pick her up after I’ve caught a hold of their signatures at the pack house.”
If you can manage even that much, was the unspoken sentence that clanged around Crayton’s mind like a loose piece on the inside of an ancient computer, always lagging two steps behind of command.
He inhaled. He exhaled. He tried not to rub away the headache pounding at his temples.
He’d learned long ago how to hide his weakness.
“Fine. Go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make sure she knows that if she doesn’t collect herself, quickly, I will personally compel her to walk into the sunlight and dance as she burns.”
There wasn’t another word spoken between them as Axel, brutish and clumsy and so ineffici
ent at his very core, compared to Destiny, lumbered from the office. If it weren’t for the Vampire’s intelligence he would have ended her by now, if only to set an example for the others, but the Charmers under his employee respected her more than they did Axel, who was one of their own.
This made her a threat. He did not tolerate those.
Not for long, at least. He smiled to himself as he reached over his work for the glass perched on the edge of his desk. The drinking was a bad idea, but he would allow himself, for now, just enough to take the edge off.
