by J. Kearston
She tugs me closer for a quick kiss before admitting, “I feel like shit for dragging you guys into my mess and mooching off of you. And the only time I’ve done that before was so I could rob people or for my mother, so it’s nice to associate it with something good for once.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
She waves me off. “I’ve still got you beat. We can all be broken together; a little collection of misfit toys.”
Atlas interjects, sounding mildly offended. “Hey, what’s wrong with me?”
He makes a valid point. Of all of us, he’s the most normal. He may have a depressing past, but nothing like what the rest of us went through. The worst thing he has going for him is selling himself like a slave to Lucien, but it’s not like he forked over his literal soul.
Cambria tilts her head up to look at him condescendingly. “You’re a jobless bum, my good sir. But don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”
He snorts. “And hopelessly head over heels for a girl whose heart belongs to two other men.”
She closes her eyes, hiding from his words, but forces herself not to shut down. It’s messy and complicated, but this only works if we all put in a little effort when and where we can.
“Well, we all know I’m as greedy as I am high maintenance. Loving the three of you isn’t as hard as you make it sound; especially compared to all of the impossible things we have to deal with.” She keeps her eyes closed as she rests back against his chest, tense and refusing to look at us, but still.
She said it.
Atlas’ thumb strokes over her hip possessively, a small smile lighting up his face that she can’t see. He doesn’t push for more, taking what she has to offer and being as amazed as I am that she has so much to give after all that’s been taken from her.
“You’re right,” he states flippantly. “I’m scarred for life because of it. I should stay.”
She relaxes at his deflection, holding her free hand up and examining the mark like it’s a diamond ring she finds lacking. “I mean, I guess I can keep you around for a while.”
He chuckles and gently smacks her ass to get us moving again, walking out of the alley and back towards the house. I keep her hand captured in mine, letting her be my tether to sanity and falling more in love with her with each passing moment spent in her company.
The atmosphere has shifted dramatically in just the last half hour and it’s something that I’ll need to remember the next time I’m having a moment. With a fae guardian in our lives, we need to be prepared for emotional whiplash, a hell of a lot of chaos, and loving so deeply it leaves you raw and aching.
Cambria’s phone goes off, breaking up the debate she and Atlas are in over who lost the bet since we ducked out before seeing the score. “Hey, Luce, what’s wrong?”
Her frown matches the rest of ours. Lucien isn’t typically one to just call without a reason, especially while he’s at work.
“Where are you?” he barks, loud enough I’m able to hear easily.
My muted anger latches onto his tone like a beacon, anything to give it a sense of direction rather than eating me up inside. It doesn’t consume me like before, now that it’s been replaced by something stronger. I’m able to just be angry without being in a PTSD rage episode.
Where the fuck does he get off talking to her that way? He knows damn well by now to treat her better than that. He loves her, and she deserves a fuck ton better than brush offs or snapping.
She glances at the nearest intersection and he just utters a sharp command to ‘stay there’ and hangs up. Atlas’ jaw is clenched as tightly as mine, so I know it isn’t just me being irrational. We’re indebted to him, but that doesn’t give him a free pass. He can treat the two of us that way, not that he usually does, but her? Fuck no. She has the ability to love all of us, and we’re in a unique position to cultivate that, but it doesn’t equate into her having to by any means. Luce needs some sense knocked into him before he takes her for granted and she ends up dumping his ass.
A few minutes later, all the while I’m stewing in silence while Cambria and Atlas start mulling over potential theories, Lucien’s car flies around the corner and comes to a screeching halt. He climbs out, striding right for us and wraps a hand around her wrist, tugging her closer. Atlas’ shouts die on his lips as Lucien’s other hand palms the back of her head, capturing her in a bruising kiss, right in the middle of the sidewalk in broad daylight.
She’s stiff for a moment before melting into him and the shock of it is enough to curb my hostile tangent before it can gain traction. There may not be many people around, but it isn’t deserted. Up until this point, all of his affection, and thusly his weakness, has been kept private so that no one would get the wrong idea of the stoic man or exploit the ones he cares about.
When he pulls back, his eyes are wild, looking like a feral animal. He radiates aggression, like he’s barely holding himself in check and one small step will send him into a frenzy of violence that would put mine to shame. He still hasn’t released her wrist, but her free hand reaches up to cup his jaw, her thumb stroking over his cheek rhythmically.
“What happened?” she reiterates, soft yet firm.
His gaze darts away from her long enough to check over the rest of us before promptly returning to her face. He acts like if he were to look away for more than a brief second, she’d simply disappear.
“The house,” he grates out, his voice rough. “It’s as good as gone.”
“What are you talking about,” Atlas demands, an edge of anger to his voice from being on the outside looking in with little to no information.
Lucien pulls Cambria against him, wrapping an arm around her to plaster her there. I catch her eye, just as stunned as I am, but pleased. And hell, I’m happy to be wrong time and time again if it means Lucien is finally waking up and getting his priorities straight.
“There was an explosion. They’re claiming a gas line, but I don’t buy it, not with everything we’re mixed up in. Belinda showed me the clip on the live news report, and the car was still in the driveway. I,” he trails off, his grip on Cambria so tight I’m sure she’ll have bruises on her hip.
“And you thought we were still inside.”
He jerks his head in a terse nod. This is the most freaked out I think I have ever seen the man. I was with him as he dealt with the loss of his brother, by his side as he committed his first murder, yet never before has he been this twitchy and agitated. He honestly thought we died and left him alone.
Holy shit, this is him scared.
“At least we didn’t have our phones on silent this time,” Atlas jokes, trying to ease some of the tension surrounding us like an oppressive blanket. “Because if we didn’t answer when Luce called, he would have lost his shit.”
For once, he doesn’t deny it or smack the back of his head. He just closes his eyes and kisses the top of Cambria’s head like she’s the most precious thing in his world, shaky with relief.
“How bad is it?” Atlas continues. “Think anything will be salvageable?”
Lucien sighs heavily. “Not much, I’m afraid.”
“The safe is fireproof at least,” I toss out in a halfhearted attempt to find a silver lining.
Cambria frees herself from Lucien’s crushing embrace, but he doesn’t let her go far. Instead, she twists around enough for him to tuck her against his side, leaning against the car. She huffs in mild annoyance, but by how little she fights, it’s clear she’s enjoying his possessive change in demeanor.
“Put me out of my misery, please. What’s in the safe?” she pleads.
It’s clear the moment something pivotal changes within Lucien. There’s a brief flash as he wrestles with himself, like he’s struggling to take down the last of the walls that keep him separate and safe. But ultimately he succeeds, Cambria able to breach the barriers surrounding him and dragging the two of us past the wreckage with her.
“A couple of mementos from my childhood along w
ith evidence against several people involved in less than legal deals to make sure they can’t move against me.” He meets Atlas’ hard stare. “If they think it’s been destroyed, they might become a problem.”
Atlas nods, wordlessly forming a plan between the two of them. Because that’s what he signed on for when he asked Lucien to bail him out; to become his hired hand in all of things he wanted kept off the books.
We climb into the car, Atlas in the back with Cambria this time while I ride up front with Lucien. “Think it was Victor that bombed the house?”
Luce growls, white knuckling the steering wheel. “That’s a pretty ballsy fucking move, but the way he didn’t even care that he was arrested? I knew he had something up his sleeve, but I never would have imagined something like this. Destroying my reputation and business is one thing, but a hit? And a sloppy one at that.”
Cambria chimes in, cementing my theory before I can even open my mouth. “If it was him, he wasn’t trying to kill you, Luce, he was trying to see if he could make you suffer. Dorian’s shop needed to be shut down and then Atlas got fired? It’s like someone was making sure the three of us would be together with nowhere we needed to go. Since only your car missing, it would be assumed the rest of us were inside.”
Atlas is just as incensed as Lucien. “He knew we were the only ones close to you. What better way to hurt you than take away the only people you actually give a damn about?”
Suddenly, Cambria let’s a pained gasp slip through her lips as she jerks against her seatbelt. Atlas hisses next, reaching for her, but gritting his teeth.
Shit, shit, shit. The bet.
Lucien starts barking demands for someone to explain what’s happening while I ignore him, focusing on the two suffering in the backseat.
“I forfeit,” Cambria spits out through clenched teeth. “I lose.” The pain ebbs away and she sighs in relief, sinking back in her seat.
“Fuck, that stings,” Atlas agrees, leaning over to kiss the top of her head.
“Would someone kindly fill me in on what I missed?” Lucien grits out, incensed.
In light of everything happening, we haven’t filled him in on that huge fucking revelation we had this morning and I wonder how he’ll handle it. “We’re absorbing magic through our tethers and when those two made a deal, it bound Atlas to it this time. And apparently failure to complete a verbal contract results in shock collars.”
Lucien says nothing at first, but from my vantage point I can see his eyes flicking between the road and the mark on his hand, as if he’s waiting for it to do something remarkable to confirm the theory.
His tongue darts out to wet his lips before he starts musing aloud. “Does that mean we’ll end up developing abilities as well? And become dependent on crossing back over to reconnect with the world like you do, I wonder?”
Cambria snorts. “Yeah, because I’ve done this before.” Then softer, as if she’s honestly worried about his reaction, “Sorry for infecting you.”
Lucien pulls over abruptly, whipping his head around to pin her with a hard glare. “You are not some type of plague on our lives, so stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She sits a little straighter under his scrutiny, bolstered by his confidence like that can pass through the bond as much as anything else. “You’re not upset then?”
He scoffs. “Of course I’m upset. Someone tried to kill my family. I’ve lost enough people I’ve loved in my life, I can’t go through that again,” he growls.
She inches closer to him, drawn to the possessive declaration. “So you admit it?” she confirms and he narrows his eyes at her.
Cautiously, he risks asking, “Admit what?”
“That you love Atlas. I knew it.” Her grin lights up her face, but Lucien shocks the hell out of all us when he replies, “Of course I do; I wouldn’t have kept him around this long just for decoration. It’s the four of us against the world now, Cambria, and I’m not going to be ashamed about that.”
She bites her lip. “But you always wanted to keep things between us in private.”
He reaches over to gently coax her lip free of her teeth with his thumb. “Not because I was embarrassed by you, love, but because I didn’t want anything like this to happen. As soon as someone realized how important the three of you are to me, they went so far as to set the house on fire. It could have been Victor or any number of other people I’ve pissed off with some dealing or another. I didn’t want to drag another mess into our lives by being careless.”
She sighs, but it sounds more content than defeated. “Alright then. First thing’s first, we need to find somewhere else to stay.”
“We’re making an awful lot of assumptions right now,” I point out. “We aren’t sure who exactly is behind this or how far their connections go. We’ll want to err on the side of caution instead of just getting a hotel for the night or renting something in any of our names.”
“I’ve got a couple of friends that still owe me favors,” Atlas reluctantly suggests, transparent in his distaste for calling them in. “We can crash at one of their places for a few days while we plan our next move.” Lucien’s hands tighten on the steering wheel as we slow to a crawl, the desolate remains of the house coming into view.
Atlas whistles low. “I’m going to call this my side of the bet taken care of.”
Cambria rolls her eyes. “Loser has to do it. Not that it needs to be done right this second since we didn’t add a timeframe. You better start paying closer attention to your wording before you end up as a demon’s concubine.”
“Are demons real?”
She gives me a flirtatious smile. “A week ago I would have sworn not, but apparently my memory isn’t what it used to be. We never did find what was hiding in the woods near my mother’s kingdom, after all.”
Between my episode earlier, the shit going on fae side, and now someone tried to kill not just Cambria, but Atlas and I? Honestly, I should be freaking out. It just feels so surreal that it’s hard to accept as my new reality, that my life has become something that would get me committed if I tried to tell anyone. Why the fae are obsessed with keeping their existence a secret is beyond me. No sane human would believe it, and they have abilities humans could only dream of.
“We’ll need to come back to empty the safe as soon as it’s cleared and there aren’t so many people around. Let’s swing by my office so I can grab a few things and we’ll take it one step at a time,” Lucien decides, not wanting to look at the fiery remains any longer. “We’ll leave the car. I don’t trust someone not to attach a tracker or a bomb to it at this rate.”
Amazing how the world can be bigger than I ever dreamed, yet it chooses to throw everything at the four of us.
Chapter 7
Cambria
“Fuck, Atty, how do I get in on some of that?” Jeremy asks, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
Atlas comes back from the kitchen with a few beers tucked under his arm and a glass of cheap wine for me. I would pretend to be offended, but who are we kidding here? Most beers taste like shit and I love the fruity stuff. I want to actually enjoy what I’m drinking.
I waste no time downing half the glass as I sit sideways on Dorian’s lap. Atlas picks my legs up to slide into his spot on the couch and rests them back on his thighs, his friend eyeing everything curiously.
“Atty?” I tease, and Atlas flicks my leg before popping the top off of his drink.
“Don’t start,” he warns and I pantomime zipping my lips.
“Okay, Atty, whatever you say.”
He narrows his eyes, but Jeremy dramatically clears his throat to recapture our attention. The man looks military; not just from the buzzed hair, but from his defined muscles and the way he carries himself. Though with the amount of weapons I passed on my way to the bathroom and back, I have to lean towards the black market skill set or extreme paranoia. Only time will tell, but either isn’t a bad thing right now.
Lucien reclines
back in his chair, looking far too refined for this cluttered, tiny house. “You don’t ‘get in’ on anything. That’s not how this works.”
Because you guessed it, Jeremy didn’t bat an eye at someone trying to kill Atlas, but can’t get past the fact that we’re in an unconventional relationship. The conversation keeps circling back to that, and I doubt we’ll get anywhere until we assuage his curiosity.
I take another swig of my wine, still confused as to why humans insist on making such a big deal out of every little thing. To them, life is set in a solid, unyielding path that corresponds to their expectations, that any deviation from it makes them lose their minds.
“It’s really not that complicated, Jer.” He turns and raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to elaborate. “Everybody likes me because I’m amazing, obviously, and I get lady boners for them right back. But you know, the emotional kind. Sex is great and all, but just like any relationship it takes work. More than anything, it’s making sure everyone’s on the same page, agrees to the same parameters, and if there’s a problem we figure out a compromise that everyone can live with.”
“So, it’s a democracy led by your vagina?” he asks, still missing the mark, and I snort out an unfeminine laugh.
“No, because my vote doesn’t get any more sway than theirs. It’s just like any other relationship, just with muddier waters to navigate. What happens between say, Atlas and Dorian, is just as important as what happens between him and me.”
He looks like he’s starting to understand, but it isn’t quite clicking yet. Dorian’s thumb strokes back and forth over my thigh as he takes a different approach, better at words than any of us.
