by Faulks, Kim
Smooth warmth against my core, pressing, sliding as his cock pushed in, just a little before he stopped. In and out…in and out. Shadow groaned as I clenched my fist tighter. My other hand sliding along Tex’s thigh, finding him hard and ready.
And as the inside of the barn lightened under the glare of a thunderous crack, Sixth pushed all the way inside.
Pain flared, a sting that made me stiffen until his voice filled my mind. It’s okay…this is my first time too. I love you, Oleander…I’ve always loved you…let us love you now. You belong to us…and we belong to you.
Warmth rushed, stealing away the pain, and in an instant, waves teased against my shore. Shadow moved, closer, warm breath tickling my breast.
Tex kissed me, and lowered his hand to grasp mine. Together we slid up and down…up and down…together we were one.
Sixth between my legs.
Shadow at my nipple.
Tex in my mouth.
Until I couldn’t breathe…until I couldn’t think. Tex’s tongue delved deeper, plunging as Sixth gripped my hips and thrust, slamming into me over and over again.
I was lost in the rhythm.
Lost in them.
Tex stole my cry as the wall inside me broke. I shuddered as the wave hit me again and again. Shadow growled, jerking against me and Tex followed, moaning into my mouth as he released.
Sixth slowed, moving deeper and then stilled with a guttural cry, his cock twitching inside me—filling me…
Tex’s lips slid from mine and he dropped his head beside me. The harsh rasp of his breath filled my ears as my hand fell from his body.
Their scent filled me.
Their sounds, my own.
I knew then that I’d never be lost, not ever again.
Not while they were alive.
Chapter Nineteen
Oleander
Chirping birds woke me. They sang and called, urging me to crack open my eyes, but I didn’t, I held them closed, for just a little while…
Warmth surrounded me, pressed against my spine, a band across my middle, and over my thighs. I turned my head, keeping my eyes closed and breathed in the smell of rain and hay. Perfection surrounded me, settling heavy between my thighs…a tingle raced through my core, reminding me of what we’d done.
My lips trembled, the corners curled as I cracked open my eyes just a little and stared at Tex. His eyes were closed, lips softly pressed together, his arm was around my waist, fingers outstretched as though he couldn’t get enough.
A soft snore at my back as Shadow shifted, moving closer even though he was pressed against me as hard as he physically could be.
I licked my lips, lifted my head just a little to find Sixth asleep around my feet, one arm thrown over my legs. No one was getting to me…not while they were around…and after last night they’d made it quite clear they wanted to be around.
The storm had raged for hours, and we’d made good use of the light. My smile widened as the tingling between my thighs settled into an ache. I needed a bathroom…now. I winced, glancing at the blue sky through the open door and tried to plan my escape.
The hand around my waist first. I reached for his arm, careful…so damn careful. My fingers curled around his wrist and then lifted. He never moved as I carried his hand over and laid it carefully on the hay beside him.
Shadow would move closer, but I could be up and back before he even knew—that left Sixth. The ache speared, my bladder now a snarling monster, threatening to explode.
I lifted my head once more, scanning the arm draped across my legs and then to him. He was wide awake, eyes focussed, watching my every move. He licked his lips and murmured in a soft, sleepy growl. “Going somewhere?”
My heart jackhammered. Just one look from him was all it took. I forced a smile and glanced to the open door. “I need to pee.”
He closed his eyes once more. Perfect lips curling higher on one side with a smirk before he opened them again. Strands of hay stuck to the sides of his face as he shoved from the ground and rose.
In the light of day I saw him, and for a second I forgot everything. His stomach rippled as he stretched. Muscles flexed as he leaned down, his soft cock smacking the inside of his thigh. He reached out his hand to me…waiting.
I wanted nothing more than this, all my life I searched, all my life I wanted just to belong, and here with them—I did.
I grasped his hand and shoved from the mound of hay. Shadow mumbled and shifted as I left him behind.
“You okay, Purple…after last night?” Sixth reached up and brushed hay from my hair, and then met my gaze.
“Yes, very much so.”
He knelt and grasped my clothes from the ground, helping me into my bra and then shirt. He passed me the panties, and held my hand, steadying me as I stepped into them.
“I doubt the horse would mind if you used the stall next to his.” He motioned toward the side of the barn, where the open stall door waited.
An ache speared through my bladder, leaving no room for embarrassment. I grabbed my jeans from him with a wince and then raced for the open door. A mound of hay was piled up on one side of the stall, so I made for the other, yanking my panties low and squatted.
There was a sting, and then a dull ache before a steady stream of relief. I fixed my panties and pulled on my jeans as a deep murmur echoed, joined by another and another, until I stepped out of the stall.
Tex shoved against the ground and rose, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring…he was perfect, they were all perfect. Hard muscles, soft lips, bodies that sent waves of heat between my thighs. But they were more than that…I lifted my gaze to his eyes, and then turned to Shadow as he brushed off stray strands of hay and then turned to me.
Something in my chest fluttered helplessly. I tried to trace the feeling, shifting my gaze to Tex, and then to Sixth and that feeling of falling swept me away.
“You ready for this?” Sixth held out his hand to me as I crossed the barn.
Tex moved forward, naked and gorgeous. His hands went around my waist as he leaned down and kissed me gently before pulling away.
Shadow was next, pulling his pants high and buttoning them before he grabbed me by the waist and swept my feet from the floor. “How are you this morning, beautiful?”
My smile stretched wide. A bark of laughter tore free as I grabbed his shoulders and then answered. “I’m good, yeah, better than good.”
He knew it. They all knew it.
There was this feeling. This consuming feeling that swallowed me whole.
I saw it in every gaze, that same sparkle when they looked at me. I wanted to say it was a remnant of the storm, but in my heart I knew it was something more...something deeper. Something real.
A world filled my mind for a second, a tiny bubble, filled with the most precious word. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want it to burst and fall away. So I held Shadow tight while he dragged me closer.
And while I kissed him I cupped that little bubble inside me, and sank into the feeling.
Sixth and Tex moved to the car. Doors were opened and then closed before Shadow broke away, and lowered me until my feet touched the ground. “Are you ready for this?”
I turned toward Sixth as he glanced at the paper in his hand and a map spread across the trunk of the car. The address of a second cousin was all we had to go on. But it was a start.
It was more than the nightmares we’d had—I lifted my hand—it was more than the numbers tattooed on our wrists. It was real, and tangible. “I am ready. I want answers…we deserve them. And even if this is a dud, it’s something, right? It’s something that’s as real as we are.”
Sixth folded the map as Tex stepped back into the open doorway of the barn and gave Shadow a nod. The energy changed as Shadow lifted our hands, still clasped together, and bent to kiss my fingers. “As real as this.”
The car started as he let me go. Together we made for the open doors. Sixth was behind the wheel and Tex climbed into th
e passenger’s seat. My stomach gave a snarl as I followed.
We were almost there…almost free. I could feel it growing, circling me like a wolf and as I slid into the backseat of the car and the doors closed around us, I was taken back to that lonely, little girl on the edge of the highway.
The one who cried for a father that never came.
The one who learned to not just survive, but to never give into the beast.
Even when her world fell apart.
The car rolled out of the barn. Sixth swung the wheel and nosed the car toward the road, and then the freeway.
In the daylight everything looked so different. So fresh and new. The trees looked greener, the sky so clear and blue. Gravel pinged against the belly of the car before we hit asphalt once more.
The engine growled, speedometer climbed as we travelled back the way we’d come last night. My stomach snarled again. I pressed a fist into my middle. I was hungry…more than hungry… was starved.
I grabbed the pack and shoved my hand inside, pulling out one of the breakfast bars. This was as perfect as I’d ever felt, no withdrawal, no beast. Not even a whisper of that other inside me.
Up ahead workmen crowded the side of the road. Yellow lights flashed on top of a detour sign that pointed down a graveled road. Sixth swung the wheel, spearing us off the main road once more.
I tore open the bar and glanced through the window to where the earth opened up. Asphalt had split until dirt and the rocks were all that was left. The guys stared, and it was Tex who voiced the words I was sure we were all thinking. “Nothing about that storm and that crack in the ground was normal last night.”
Shadow flinched as the car nosed down the dirt track and left it all behind. Pulse…the word stayed with me as well as Harvey’s warning as I took a bite.
The fucking second I typed in the dude’s name I was being traced. They went through my server in a goddamn second, shit I have locked down tight. Whatever this is, is bad, real bad. I think you need to lay low for a while.
But there was no laying low…not until we found what we needed to find. They wouldn’t stop coming for us. Not Pryor…not whoever this Gready was…
Tick…tick…tick…
I closed my eyes as the sound surfaced, haunting me…urging me to do…something. The car shuddered and jolted. I chewed, and then stopped as nausea took hunger’s place.
The car speared north east and then turned north west, taking us back to the road we’d detoured from.
Turn around, the words welled in the back in my throat.
I wanted to go back to that barn, back to that perfect moment when I’d cracked open my eyes. Because this reality was so…so cold.
I tried to swallow the shudder and stared out of the window. Warmth skirted my skin, just a brush against my knuckles before Shadow’s fingers slipped between mine.
We drove until the trees turned into mountains and then we were out the other side. We stopped at a truck stop, grabbed as much food as we could, showered, refueled and then kept going.
The sun rose high in the sky and then dipped. Tex took the wheel, while Sixth stared at the new map he’d bought, until he said the words that made me jerk my head toward the front. “Turn here.”
I scanned the road, and the street in the background, and then glanced at Sixth. “Are we here?”
He met my gaze, perfect eyes blazing with fear and excitement and answered, “We’re here.”
The car bottomed hard against the graveled road. Tex handled the wheel with care, easing along a road that’d been built for one. Still we drove for what felt like hours, creeping high to a small rise before we drove back down again.
Tick…tick…tick…
The sound throbbed inside my chest, low and painful. I tried to breath and divided my gaze from the window to the windshield, searching…desperately searching.
“We’ve missed it,” Tex murmured as we came to the end of the road. He pulled the car to a stop. “We’ve somehow missed it.”
But there was something calling me…something undeniable.
Something desperate.
I fumbled with my seatbelt, and then yanked the handle on the door.
“Hey!” Shadow called behind me as I stepped out of the car.
Tall grass crowded the edge of the road, and went as far as I could see. But it wasn’t the tall, lush rye in my dream, this was spindled and primal. Thorns snagged the denim of my jeans as I stepped from the end of the road. Car doors opened behind me, and the engine of the car died.
“Oleander,” Sixth called. “What is it?”
Tick…tick…tick…
I couldn’t hear over the sound, couldn’t think through the ache. My fingers trembled as I turned my head, catching the faint white house in the distance.
I knew…I knew it was them.
My feet moved on their own, boots carved through the weeds and grass until the faint crunch of gravel came under my boots. “You can follow me,” I called, unable to tell if they heard me.
The echo of footsteps pounding before Sixth caught up in no time at all. He gripped the rifle in one hand and his pack with the other. “Gotta be careful, Purple. We don’t know what’s in there.”
But I did.
I knew it, like I knew that beast inside.
Tick…tick…tick…
My destiny waited inside there.
And there was no going back.
Long strides met mine, and the crunch of tires on gravel came behind us. We walked while the sun beat down. I lifted my head to the warmth and felt the perfect rays on my skin.
My entire life I’d been cold. Cold on the inside…cold in my soul.
But here with them…striding toward the end of my road, I’d never felt so warm, so right.
Memories drifted to the surface.
Sounds so loud, booming inside my head. Splashed across the screen. A man screaming. Blood…so much blood. The words…this is your destiny! You belong to us.
I knew that now.
And as we walked toward the small open barn, and the tall white country farm house the squeal of the front door springs filled my ears.
A woman stepped out, young…my age, and lifted a shotgun towards us. The bright rays of the sun blinded me, blaring her face. But the barrel of the weapon hovered on Sixth for a second before it turned to me—and that’s where it stayed.
“You can stop right there,” she called out.
Sixth raised his hands, the rifle pointed to the sky. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just came for information. We’re looking for a Doctor Chris Bishop, we’re hoping you can tell us if he’s still alive.”
“No,” she answered in a heartbeat. “He’s dead, been gone a long time now. There’s nothin else I can tell you, now kindly get off my land.”
The engine of the car throbbed behind me as Sixth dropped his hands. But there were no words she could give me…no lies she could spin. I took a step toward her, hands turned, the black marking on my wrist for all to see as I moved toward the steps of the verandah.
“Oleander,” Sixth called.
But I wasn’t listening…fate was all I heard.
The barrel of the shotgun trained on my chest as the sun slipped behind the eaves of the house. I saw her then, shoulder length blonde hair, bright blue eyes.
Fragments rushed to the surface…Doctor Chris Bishop…the image of his desk…a woman and a child.
She looked at the numbers on my wrist and the barrel of the shotgun dipped. Blue eyes met mine and then widened as she whispered. “It’s you…”
Stupid girl with her stupid Mom and her stupid life.
Those words echoed…once in the diner when I was nine…and then before that, when I grabbed the photo frame from his desk.
“Five seven six three,” she whispered, breathless and stunned.
“Emily-Sue, what’s going on?” a woman called from inside the house.
I glanced at the white peeling paint, and the wire mesh on the door as the silho
uette of a woman filled the frame.
Emily-Sue glanced behind her as the door opened and an older woman stepped out. “It’s them Momma, it’s finally them.”
The older woman glanced to me, and then the others as the engine of the car died and they climbed out. Floorboards creaked. I didn’t need to turn my head to know Sixth was there…always at my back.
“We’re not here to cause any problems,” Sixth said carefully. “We’re just here for answers, that’s all.”
The older woman opened the door wider, grey hair shining as it moved. “If you’re here, then you already know.”
“Not anywhere near enough,” I answered. “But we deserve it all, don’t we?”
She stilled, held my gaze for a second before she glanced at Emily-Sue. The younger woman nodded, and then lowered the gun. “Yes, yes you do. Come on inside. Momma will make us some sweet tea and we’ll tell you what we can.”
Something resonated inside me…something that wasn’t quite real…not yet, the words whispered as Emily-Sue turned and opened the screen door. Sixth moved closer, touching my arm before he stepped inside. Tex and Shadow followed, climbing the stairs and then disappearing through the door.
But I waited, staring at her.
“I saw you, you know,” she murmured and then lifted her gaze to me. “When I was a kid I used to look at your pictures on my father’s desk. I used to dream you were my best friend, and any minute your Mom would call my Mom asking if you could come and play. Stupid huh?”
But there was nothing stupid in her haunted gaze.
An ache plunged deep, choking the words in my throat.
In another life I could’ve been normal.
I could’ve been happy.
I could’ve been her friend.
“Not stupid at all.” Raw words slipped free as I reached for her hand. “I think you and I would’ve been trouble from the start.”
There was a smile, stretching the corner of her lips, and that dark cloud in her eyes parted. “I think I would’ve liked that…very much.”
