Lux [4] Origin

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “Me neither,” I replied, grabbing up as much sugar as I could find. I added a THEY R AMONG US tote bag, one of those crappy pay-as-you-go phones, and a few other things that caught my attention. Before I headed back to the counter, I wheeled around and grabbed the stupid alien doll.

  As I checked out, I kept an eye on the parking lot. Nothing had moved, but I was itching to get back to Kat.

  “There’s an icebox outside if you need it.” He handed over the bag. “And if you need another night, just come on by.”

  “Thank you.” I turned, spying a clock above the counter. It was a little after eleven. Sure felt a hell of a lot later than that. And it was damn strange that the town was so dead this early in the night.

  Back outside, I pulled the key out of my pocket and waited until I was around the corner before I slipped back into the Daemon she was familiar with.

  Kat was waiting where I’d left her, leaning against the wall, which put her back in the shadows. Smart girl. She turned, smoothing her hands through her hair. “How’d it go?”

  “Great.” I reached inside the bag. “Got you something.”

  She tilted her head to the side as I stopped in front of her. “A portable bath?”

  “Better.” I pulled out the alien doll. “Made me think of you.”

  A short, hoarse laugh bubbled out of her as she took the doll, and my chest did a funny spasm. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard her laugh or anything that remotely sounded like one. “It looks just like you,” she said. “I’m going to name it DB.”

  “Perfect choice.” I dropped my arm over her shoulders. “Come on, we’re on the right side for our room. Your shower awaits.”

  She held DB close to her chest, sighing. “I cannot wait.”

  The room wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Recently cleaned, and the smells of Lysol and fresh linen were decidedly welcomed scents. Bed was a double, sheets turned down. A bureau across from the bed featured a TV that looked like it would have reception problems any time of the day. A small desk butted up to it.

  I sat the goodies on the table and checked out the bathroom. There were towels, soaps, and the essentials, which was good because my dumb ass forgot about that. I returned to the room, finding Kat standing there, still clutching DB. It was ridiculous and weird and a thousand other things how cute I thought she looked, covered in dirt, sweat, and blood.

  “You okay with me taking the first shower?” she asked. “Because I was joking. I wouldn’t shank you.”

  I laughed outright. “Yeah, get in the shower before I throw your dirty behind in there.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me and then placed DB on the bed so the alien doll looked like it was about to watch some bad TV. She then sat the gun on the nightstand. “I’ll be quick.”

  “Take your time.”

  She hesitated a moment, looking like she wanted to say something, and then changed her mind. With one last long look at me, she turned and disappeared into the bathroom. The hiss of the shower was so immediate it brought a smile to my face.

  Heading to the bag, I dug out the disposable phone and opened the package. It was already preloaded with a hundred minutes. I wanted to call my sister and brother, but doing so this soon was too much of a risk. I set it aside and moved to the window. It faced the road and parking lot, which was perfect.

  Peering out from behind the thick burgundy curtains, I wondered how long it would take for Archer to find us or if he even would. Might make me a cold-hearted bastard, but the outcome of Archer didn’t matter to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate what he’d done for us and what he’d risked, but there wasn’t enough room in me to worry about others. We were out. And we were never going back. I’d take out an army, burn down an entire city, and throw the world into chaos if I had to in order to keep Kat out of that place.

  Chapter 20

  KATY

  The near-scalding, steady stream of water had washed away the grime and whatever else was stuck to my skin. I turned a few times and finally stopped, pressing shaky hands to my face. I’d already used the tiny bottle of shampoo—twice—and I needed to get out of there, but being in the stall with rust stains near the drain and uneven pressure was so different from the bathrooms in the compound that I didn’t want to leave. It was like being in a bubble, safe from reality.

  Water coursed over my body, cascading off the jagged scars along my back, pooling around my feet. Lowering my hands, I looked down. The water wasn’t draining fast, causing it to gather in the bottom of the tub. The water had a pink tint to it.

  I swallowed hard and turned off the faucets. Stepping out of the tub and into the steam-filled bathroom, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me, securing it at the top. I did my best to get the excess water out of my hair, going about it methodically. Wrap. Squeeze. Wrap. Squeeze. When that was done, I realized I had no other reason to hide in the bathroom.

  And that was what I was doing. Hiding. I didn’t know why, except it felt like my insides were bruised and frayed, too exposed. We were out—we were free for now. That alone was reason to celebrate, but we were far from in the clear. There was the unknown fate of Archer, where we would go from here, and an entire life I’d left behind in Petersburg—my mom, my school, my books…

  I needed to leave the bathroom before Daemon thought I passed out or something.

  Clutching the top of the towel, I went into the room. Daemon was at the window, his back straight like a sentry. He turned at the waist, his gaze moving from the top of my head to my feet. The light was on beside the bed, and it was dim, but when he looked at me like that, it felt like a spotlight had been turned on me. My toes curled into the carpet.

  “Feel better?” he asked, not moving from the window.

  I nodded. “Much better. There may be some hot water left.”

  One side of his lips curved up. “Know what date it is?” I shook my head, and he gestured at the desk. “There’s one of the day calendars on it, the kind where you tear off the pages each day. If it’s up to date, it’s August eighteenth.”

  “My God,” I whispered, deeply unsettled. “I’ve been gone…we’ve been gone for practically four months.”

  He said nothing.

  “I knew it had been awhile, but time was so strange there. I just didn’t think it was that long. Four months…”

  “Feels like forever ago, huh?”

  “Yes, it does.” I inched closer to the bed. “Four months. Mom probably thinks I’m dead.”

  He turned back to the window, his shoulders tensed. Several moments passed before he spoke. “I got you some clean clothes. They’re in the bag. I think you’ll appreciate the shirt.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s no biggie, Kitten.”

  I bit down on my lip. “Daemon…?” He turned to me, his eyes unnaturally bright. Two beautiful green eyes. “Thank you for everything. I wouldn’t be out of there if it—”

  He was suddenly in front of me, clasping my cheeks. I sucked in a startled breath as he lowered his forehead to mine. “You do not need to thank me for any of this. You would’ve never been in this situation if it weren’t for me. And you don’t need to thank me for something I wanted and needed to do.”

  “This wasn’t your fault,” I told him, meaning it. “You know that, right?”

  He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’m going to clean up. There’s food in the bag, too, if you’re hungry. If not, you should try to get some rest.”

  “Daemon—”

  “I know, Kitten. I know.” He dropped his hands and gave me that cocky smile of his. “If anyone shows up while I’m in the shower, even Archer, you don’t let him in, okay?”

  “I doubt a door would stop him.”

  “That’s what the gun is for. I don’t think he’s going to screw us, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  He had a good point, but as I watched him grab a pair of sweats and then disappear into the fogged-over bathroom, I loathed the idea of
picking up that gun again. I would if I had to. I just hoped I’d never have to again, which was silly because, more than likely, the violence of my recent everyday life was nowhere near over.

  Picking up the bag, I brought it over to the bed. I sat down and started rummaging through it as the water kicked on in the bathroom. I looked up, my gaze falling to the closed door. A warm flush crept over my cheeks. Daemon was in the shower. Completely naked. I was in a towel. We were alone, for the first time in four months, in a shady motel room.

  My stomach dipped.

  The flush heated up, and I groaned in exasperation.

  What was I doing even thinking about that kind of stuff right now? Over the course of the last couple of months, I’d heard Daemon in the shower a million times over. This wasn’t a romantic getaway at the Ritz, unless running for your lives counted as foreplay.

  Shaking my head, I refocused on the bag. Inside I found a wide selection of sugary goodness, which caused me to blink back tears because I knew he’d bought that for me. God, he was considerate when I didn’t even know he was trying, when it mattered.

  I pulled out the bottles of soda and got up, placing them with the chips and sugar on the desk. The tote bag brought a smile to my face. The shirt made the smile stretch in a way that felt unfamiliar, like it would crack my skin.

  I glanced at the alien doll. “DB…”

  Going back to the bed, I found flip-flops in the bag. Perfect. I never wanted to see those bloody shoes again. I reached the bottom of the bag, and my fingers brushed over a square box. I pulled out the last item.

  Heat swept my face, and my eyes popped out. “Oh…oh, wow.”

  The water shut off, and a second later Daemon came out with the sweats hanging low on his hips, and his skin was dewy, glistening. My eyes were fixated on his stomach and the drops of water running over the dips, disappearing under the band of the sweats. I was still only in a towel.

  And I was holding a box of condoms in my hand.

  My face was red as a ladybug.

  One dark eyebrow went up.

  My gaze fell to the box and then went back to him. “Confident, aren’t you?”

  “I’d like to call it being prepared for any occasion.” He sauntered over to the bed in a way only Daemon could without looking like a complete douche. “Although, I am disappointed they don’t have little alien faces on them like everything else.”

  I choked on my next breath. “What kind of motel sells condoms?”

  “My favorite kind of motel?” He took the box from my boneless fingers. “You’ve spent this entire time looking at this instead of eating something, haven’t you?”

  A laugh burst from me—a real, normal laugh.

  Daemon’s eyes widened, and the hue flared. The box fell from his fingers, landing with a soft thud against the carpet. “Do that again,” he said, his voice gruff.

  The sound sent a shiver down my spine. “Do what?”

  “Laugh.” He bent over me, the tips of his fingers grazing my cheeks. “I want to hear you laugh again.”

  I wanted to laugh again for him, but all the humor had dried up under the raw intensity of his stare. Emotion swelled inside me like a balloon tethered by a fine string. I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. Muscles tensed throughout my body. My belly felt like a nest of butterflies was about to take flight. I raised a hand, placing it on his cheek. The slight stubble tickled my palm and caused my heart to jump. I slid my hand over the curve of his jaw and then down the cords of his neck to his shoulder. He jerked under my touch, and his chest rose sharply.

  “Kat.” He breathed my name; he took it into himself, said it like it was some kind of prayer.

  I couldn’t look away, and for a moment I was frozen, then I stretched up, placing my mouth against his. The slight touch sent a shock through my system. I moved my lips, familiarizing myself with the feel of him. Strange, but it was like we were kissing for the first time. My pulse was pounding, and my thoughts were in a heady, dizzy swirl.

  He slipped a hand through my hair, his fingers curling along the back of my skull. The kiss deepened until his taste was everywhere, and there was nothing but us—only us. The rest of the world fell away. None of our problems vanished, but they were put on hold as my mouth opened for him. We kissed like we were famished for each other, and we were. Those kisses intoxicated me, and his fingers moved over my jaw and down my throat, delicately tracing a path. But my hands were greedy and rushed as they slipped over his chest, and I followed the lines of his hard stomach. The way my touch affected him was marveling to me. He made a throaty sound, and I melted.

  He eased me back, positioning his body over mine and supporting his weight on one arm, but only our mouths touched in the sweetest torture. We’d been intimate before, twice, but right now it felt like the first time. Excited nervousness hummed through me while my blood heated up.

  Daemon lifted his head. Between the narrowed slits of his eyes, his pupils were like polished diamonds following the movement of his hand. My insides tightened as his fingers moved dangerously close to the edge of the towel. Each slow pass along the fabric had my pulse pounding. My gaze traced over his broad cheekbones and then got hung up on the perfection of his lips.

  His hand stilled around the knot I had made in the towel, his eyes flicking up to mine. “We don’t have to,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I really didn’t buy the condoms thinking that we’d do this tonight.”

  I slipped into a grin. “So…you weren’t overly confident?”

  “I’m always overly confident.” He swooped down, kissing me softly. “But I don’t know if this is too much right now. I don’t want—”

  I silenced him by slipping my hands to the band of his pants, hooking my fingers under it. “You’re perfect. I want this—with you. It’s not too much.”

  A breath shuddered through him. “God, I was hoping you’d say that. Does that make me a terrible person?”

  A little laugh came out. “No. It just makes you a dude.”

  “Oh? Is that it?” He captured my mouth again, then pulled back with a slight nip. “Just makes me a dude?”

  “Yes.” I gasped. My back arched as he moved his hand down my front and then back up to the knot. “Okay. You’re more than just a dude.”

  He chuckled deep in his throat. “Thought so.”

  His breath was warm against my swollen lips, scorching hot as it trailed down my neck. He pressed a kiss to where my pulse pounded in my throat. I closed my eyes, happily swept away in the rush of sensations. I needed this—we needed this. A moment of normalcy, of just him and me, together like we were supposed to be.

  He kissed me as his fingers worked the knot loose, distracting me as he parted the towel. Goose bumps followed the cool air rushing over my body. He murmured something in that lyrical language of his, a language I wished I could understand because his words sounded beautiful.

  As he lifted up, his gaze chased away the tiny bumps, searing me from the inside out. The edges of his body blurred into a faint whitish light. “You’re beautiful.”

  I thought about my back.

  “Every part,” he said, as if he read my mind.

  Maybe he had, because when I tugged him closer by the band of his pants, he obliged, fitting his body to mine. Bare chest to bare chest. I tangled my hands in his hair as I wrapped a leg around his hips.

  He took a sharp breath. “You drive me insane.”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” I rasped out, tilting my hips up against his.

  The muscles in his arms bulged as he made a sound deep in his throat. The set to his jaw was hard, the lines of his mouth tense as he slipped a hand between us. Those clever fingers went from soothing to breath-stealing in a second, and I felt the coiling deep—

  A bright yellow light suddenly flooded the room, shattering the moment.

  Daemon was off me so quickly, he stirred the hair around my temples as he shot toward the window and peeled back a sm
all section of the curtain. I scrambled up, smacking the mattress until I found the towel, covering myself as I darted off the bed, grabbing the pistol.

  Terror climbed up my throat. Had they found us already? I twisted to where he stood, as I still clutched the towel around me. My hand shook so badly the pistol rattled.

  Daemon let out a long breath. “It’s just headlights—some ass with his high beams on pulling out of the parking lot.” Letting the curtain fall back into place, he turned. “That’s all.”

  My hand tightened around the gun. “Headlights?”

  His gaze dropped to what I held. “Yeah, that’s all, Annie Oakley.”

  The gun felt glued to my hand. My heart was still pumping fast with residual terror, and that horror was slow to drain from my veins. It hit me then, in startling clarity, that this was what our lives had been reduced to. Flying into defense and panic mode every time headlights came through a window or someone knocked on our door or a stranger approached us.

  This was it.

  My first reaction to headlights would be to grab a gun, to get ready to shoot—to shoot to kill if necessary.

  “Kat…?”

  I shook my head. A fire crawled through my stomach, up my throat. Tears burned my eyes. So many thoughts raced through my mind. Pressure clamped down on my chest, tightening around my lungs with icy fingers. A shudder rolled down my spine. Four months of tears I didn’t let fall built inside me.

  Daemon was in front of me in an instant, gently and carefully peeling my fingers away from the gun. He placed it on the bedside table. “Hey,” he said, cupping my cheeks with both his hands. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything is okay. No one is here but us. We’re okay.”

  I knew that, but it was more than headlights in the night. It was everything—an accumulation of four months of no control over any aspect of my life or my body. Everything piled up on me—the tangy fear that never eased, the dread I had woken up with every day, the exams, and the stress tests. The pain of the scalpel and the horror of watching the mutated humans die. It all cut through me. The harrowing escape where I shot people—real, live people who had families and lives of their own—and I knew I’d killed at least one of them. His blood had been splattered all across my face.