I stiffened at his words, holding him tighter to me. The idea of a world without Naz was an antithesis to me. I needed him just as much as I needed Romanus and Rouen. He was mine, and I refused to let anyone, even himself, take him from me.
“Your monsters can play with mine, because there is no way I'm letting you go.” He ran light fingers up and down my spine, and I shivered at the touch. “You are mine now, Nazir. Your darkness, and your light.”
He kissed me lightly, our lips barely touching. “Yes, my Queen.”
A hand curled around my ankle. “I’m not ready to wake up yet,” Rouen groaned. “Take off your clothes and come lie with us,” he said to Naz, and there was nothing sexual in the offer. He really did just want us to all lie together in a gargoyle pile. He was so damn cute for a giant, head-rending, people eating, demon.
“Not today, Rou. I need to borrow our girl.”
Our girl. The warm glow of pleasure lit me up from the inside out, although I was trying not to show it. Rouen’s lip curled and I mentally slapped my forehead. Emotions. They can read me like a children's book. I knew I was never going to win a poker game with these assholes ever.
Romanus cracked open an eye. I wondered if he was going to protest me leaving with Naz, but he just looked between us and closed his eyes again.
“Keep her safe.” The or else was implied.
Naz nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”
I blinked a couple of times. Given all their bickering, they’d settled into their new dynamic with ease.
Naz ran a hand down my bare spine, and I curved my body towards him. He made a satisfied hum as his hand slid over the slope of my butt. Then he sighed and took a step back.
“I’m going to kick Charlie’s ass for this tomorrow, but we gotta go.”
I nodded, heading for the bedroom as I pulled Naz’s shirt back on. I shimmied into my jeans and boots and was standing back in front of Naz in minutes. I still had bed hair. Was it still called bed hair if I was technically lying on someone’s chest? Naz reached out and fingered the hem of my shirt. His shirt. Whatever. “Looks good on you.”
I threw a look at my gargoyle statues in front of the window. They were both still feigning sleep, and Rouen was letting out small theatrical snores. I’d slept beside him. He didn’t snore. I rolled my eyes at his ridiculousness, but I had to admit that perhaps that bubbly feeling in my chest might be something like love.
I followed Naz into the elevator, and he hit the ground floor button. “Where are we going?” I asked, resting my body against his as the lift sped downwards.
“The hotel bar.” Naz tightened his arms around my waist and kissed the top of my head.
“Like, on a date?” There was a pathetic amount of hope in the question, and I kicked myself instantly. I didn’t need dates. I didn’t have time for dates.
Naz’s chest vibrated against my cheek, his small chuckle disturbing my already wild hair.
“Not today, Babe. Today, we have to go peel a pouty Irishman off a barstool. When we get Stateside again, though, I’ll take you on a hundred dates.” He leaned forward and kissed me softly. I was beginning to associate those soft, yearning kisses with Naz. They were always so gentle, but they set me on fire.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
The doors slid open and we walked through the lobby to the bar. Luckily, it wasn’t overly crowded at mid-afternoon, so spotting Charlie was easy.
He was a mess. He was leaning on his hand, his elbow pressed to the polished wooden bar top. So polished that Charlie’s elbow kept slipping, and his head would drop so fast I was worried he was going to give himself whiplash. The bartender, a pretty girl about my age who was made up just enough that horny businessmen would give her big tips but not think she was a hooker, was giving Charlie a look that was halfway between amused and annoyed, but she relaxed when she spotted Naz stride up. She more than relaxed actually, she preened like a goddamn chicken, her eyes watching Naz hungrily.
I resisted the urge to stake my claim. I was a bigger person than that. I wasn’t threatened by some random bartender that looked like a Victoria Secret model.
I ignored her and sat beside Charlie. I leaned forward until I could catch his eye. He reared back like I’d somehow appeared by magic, a huge drunken grin on his face. “Rella Rua!”
Charlie had always been a jovial drunk, which was great given his family’s love for whiskey and machismo.
“Hey, Charlie Bear. Ready to head home?”
He threw the stink eye over his shoulder at Naz. “I told you I didn’t wanna leave,” he pouted. “The nights just getting started.”
“It’s four in the afternoon,” Naz corrected, resisting the urge to smile.
“Bringing Relly here was a low blow, dude. I thought we were friends.” He downed his whiskey, and I wondered how much he’d been tipping that the bargirl if she was still serving him while he was this messy. I scowled in her direction, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy eyefucking Naz.
A growl rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. But the noise caught the girl’s attention. I tried to choke back the words, but I couldn’t fight the instinct.
“Mine,” I growled out. “Eyes off.” It sounded primal, the threat implied. Apparently, I wasn’t the bigger person. Whatever the girl saw in my expression made her all but run to the other end of the bar.
I looked at Naz and he raised his eyebrows. I just scowled. I hated feeling like I wasn’t in control of my own basic instincts.
I turned back to Charlie, who was looking between us all like he was a spectator at Wimbledon.
“Come on, Charlie. It’s time to go.”
This time, Charlie came without a fuss. He wobbled precariously on his feet but righted himself enough to walk on his own. I still stood close enough to steady him when he banged into tables and people.
He flung an arm over my shoulders, and we walked the short distance back to the elevator.
“If she’d been looking at me like that, would you have sexy growled at her?” Charlie asked, and I willed the lift to descend a bit faster.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “No, you wouldn’t. That was the Queen who growled, not my Rella.”
The shiny gold doors slid open and I walked in, my arms still supporting Charlie.
He continued. “No, you wouldn’t. You don’t love me the way you love them. You love me because I’ve been here forever. It’s not the same.”
I sighed. That was it.
I grabbed Charlie’s chin. “Now you listen to me, Charles Fucking Mulligan. I love you with every fiber of my being, right down to the darkest corner of my fucking soul. One day, the Gargoyle Queen will make you hers, and I’ll have an eternity to show you how much I want you. But know this, even before all this, before the mystical vigilante bullshit, simple, ordinary Estrella Jones loved Charlie Mulligan, and I will until I take my last breath. So pull your fucking head out of your ass already, you big baby.”
I was shouting at him, inches from his face, his eyes staring into mine unblinkingly. He dove for my mouth in a rather haphazard way, kissing me with the abandon of a person who has lost all their inhibitions to malt whiskey. What he lacked in coordination, he made up for in raw passion. He picked me up and pressed me a little too hard into the wall of the elevator, his body grinding between my thighs as I kissed him back. He tasted like whiskey and longing.
He pulled back, sucking in air. “I love you so much, Rella. So much that it fucking hurts and the thought of not spending my life with you makes me feel like my heart is gonna explode.” He made an exploding fist action, complete with sound effects, which caused me to slide down the wall a bit more. “And I don’t even care that you love the other guys, or if you never love me back, or if the idea of watching you touch them, or letting them touch me makes me hard as fuck even though I don’t know why, and I…” he stopped and cocked his head to the side adorably. “Where was I going with this?”
I looked over his sh
oulder and raised my eyebrows in shock at Naz.
“You were telling her how much she means to you, buddy,” Naz said in a completely neutral tone even though his shoulders were shaking with contained laughter.
“Oh, yeah! I love you, Rella and I want to marry you and make love to you and cook you breakfast and have babies with your red hair that won’t ever have to become criminals and we’ll live in a nice house… oh this is our floor.” He stepped through the elevator doors and I shuffled out after him. Naz put his hand on my back as we watched Charlie pinball his way down the hallway to the wrong door. “He’s not gonna remember any of this, is he?” I asked. Naz shook his head, and I sighed. “This one, Charlie Bear,” I shouted down the hall.
He looked at me, then at the offending door, then back at me. “Oh.”
He walked over and banged loudly. Rouen appeared almost immediately. He was still naked. Charlie looked him over, one eye closed to keep everything in focus. “Why do you fuckers have to look so good naked? Doesn’t matter, I’m gonna marry Rella and we’ll be sister-husbands.” He stumbled forward, tripped over the edge of the mat, landed on his face on the ground and just stayed there. “I’m good. I’m just gonna stay here, okay?”
He was asleep in seconds, soft snores echoing around the room.
Rouen was holding his stomach as he wheezed out a laugh. “Holy hell, that was the funniest thing ever. I love that kid.” He leaned down, scooping up the passed out Charlie into his arms, carrying him gently to the couch. He pulled the soft blanket over his lap, tucking him in.
Romanus came up behind me, still naked too. We all looked down at our wayward fifth. “He’s going to be hurting tomorrow.” A small smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Naz cleared his throat. “If you guys could put some clothes on, that’d be great. I don’t want to look at your ancient dicks for the rest of my days.”
Rouen sniffed. “I’ll have you know that my dick is as young and nubile as a twenty-one year old. Ask Rella.”
I raised both hands. “Leave me out of it,” I laughed, walking to the kitchenette to get Charlie a glass of water, and the bottle of aspirin from my purse.
The guys went and pulled some pants on, and Naz ordered dinner from room service. I pulled a beer from the mini fridge and cracked it open. I’d earned a stupidly expensive beer today.
I boosted myself up onto the granite bench top and took a long swallow of the cold brew. Naz came and stood in front of me, nestling his body between my thighs. Rouen walked over, now clad in pants which was a pity, and pulled another beer from the mini fridge. He handed one to Naz, who took it gratefully.
Romanus was the last to appear, fully clothed, and he leaned on the bench. He looked at Naz. “What should we do?”
The simple question hung in the air. It was a white flag, an understanding between the Alpha and his Second.
“I think we should attend this auction. My connection might be able to get us at least an address. If I pay him enough, he might be able to get us an invite. He’s… connected.”
Well, that sounded cagey.
Rouen scoffed. “He’s an arms dealer. Yeah, he's connected.”
I raised both my eyebrows at Naz. His source was an arms dealer? “What kind of merc were you?”
Naz just shook his head, his body tensing between my thighs. “That’s classified.”
“It wasn't for the government like I thought, was it?”
He met my gaze, the silver of eye that marked him as gargoyle swirling. “No”
I ran my eyes over his face, the straight autocratic nose, to the slight scar on his cheek. There was still so much I didn’t know about all of them, these men I’d tied my life to for all eternity. I just had to trust my instincts that it was right. The rest I could learn later. I bit my lip, repeating to myself that I wasn’t a cop anymore. My idea of right and wrong had become one large grey area in the last two weeks. I had no room to judge.
“Money's no object. Pay him what he wants to get us an invite. I’d like to see what is going on from the inside.” I took another long pull from my beer bottle. His body was still rigid, and I reached out to stroke his cheek. “Will you go back? After this is all over?”
He shook his head. “My life has a different purpose now.” He stared unblinkingly into my soul and I forgot how to breathe. I was pretty sure that was as close as I was going to get to a declaration of love from Nazir from a long, long time.
I walked into the kitchen the next morning to find it empty of everyone except a very sad, very hungover Charlie, who was eating bacon and eggs, and looking distinctly green.
He looked at me warily, the jubilant drunken Irishman of last night completely gone.
“Estrella…” he started but trailed off.
I poured myself a coffee and topped his up as well. I sat down across from him.
“It’s fine, Charlie.” I didn't want another awkward conversation, and I had a sneaky suspicion that he didn’t remember his antics from the elevator.
“It’s not okay, Rella. I’m sorry for how I treated you. It was just the circumstances. It won't happen again.” He hung his head, his tone as cool and distant as I’d ever heard it. The gulf had opened back up between us, and I wondered if we were going to be able to bridge it this time.
“Just forget it, okay? We’ll figure it out,” I insisted.
I sipped my coffee, and a heavy silence fell over the table. “Where’s Naz?” I asked to break the tension.
He stuffed some bacon into his mouth, chewing slowly as if it physically pained him. If my heart wasn't hurting so bad, I’d probably grin at his self-inflicted suffering.
“Nazir is making calls to try and get you guys an invite to the auction.”
I knew where Rouen and Romanus were. They were still in my bed. They’d held me, stroking my body to completion so many times last night I felt like an instrument they knew how to play on instinct.
I smiled at the memory, but it faded as I looked at Charlie. I wanted to grab him, tell him that I loved him too and that's why we had to wait, but I knew it was useless. He needed to come to that conclusion himself.
I just hoped our friendship would survive until he did.
Chapter Seventeen
I sat beside Naz in a sparkling black sequinned dress, the rumble of a Maserati vibrating under my ass as it navigated the winding, country road. My sexy mercenary was dressed like he’d stepped out of GQ, diamond cufflinks sparkling on a crisp white shirt. His tailored Armani suit jacket was spread over the barely existent backseat.
Naz’s source had come through with an invitation, and although the loss of twenty grand would make my accountant wince, it was worth it.
Pedro the Arms Dealer hadn’t been what I expected. For one, he was Dutch. I don’t know why he was called Pedro, and I didn’t want to ask. As if that weren’t unusual enough, he looked like one of those bad Walmart pictures. He wore a hideous brown and green striped sweater that went out of fashion in the eighties and weird aviator glasses. He was short, a little soft around the middle, and had a wide friendly smile like a piranha.
But he was very respectful, even as he took my money and handed me an invitation for a midnight auction to buy abducted people.
We’d dressed like we were going to a ball and rented this giant hard-on on wheels like we had more money than morals. Like this was an event filled with paparazzi, rather than people wearing Berettas like accessories.
We pulled up in front of a beautiful estate house, ivy running up the walls like a picture straight out of glossy magazine. The Maserati proved to be the right decision, as the parking lot was like a showroom of the luxury European cars.
We pulled up in front of the valet station and I wrapped the white fox fur stole around my shoulders. Even touching something that used to be alive weirded me out. But I figured if I was playing the part of someone who would buy a person, I probably wasn't a member of PETA.
Naz’s eyes were dead, and he threw the keys t
o the Maserati at the valets. Three huge, and definitely armed, security guards stood in front of the doors. I plastered a bored, entitled look on my face. I knew the look. I’d gone to the best private school my parents could afford, and there were quite a few entitled princesses I’d had to slap down in my time. When Hope wasn’t watching, of course. She couldn’t abide violence.
Naz handed the security gorillas the invitation, his own face incredulous like they should just know who he was. They pulled out a UV light, and I held my breath. I hadn’t known there were extra security features. Pedro better not have fucked us over, otherwise we were as good as dead. We’d see how well half gargoyles stood up to a bullet in the head.
A faint purple word glowed under the UV light. Tenebrae. What the hell did that mean? The smaller of the muscle-bound gorillas waved us in, and I sashayed past him like he was dirt. A woman in a tight black dress and a tiny white apron handed me a glass of champagne. I took it but didn’t make eye contact. My eyes were big and smoky and my lips were blood red, making my pale skin pop. It was as close to a disguise as I could get without being obvious.
Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset Page 49
