Nexus

by C. L. Parker

  Dante’s mouth parted when she rocked over him, drawing Tori’s attention to the swollen and bloodied mark to his bottom lip. She wanted to taste the blood that was shed for her, but the angle she was working from felt entirely too heavenly to move from her current position. His pelvic bone hit her in just the right spot, and Tori moaned once again, her teeth threatening to break the skin of her own lip.

  She rolled her hips, riding him faster and with more purpose. Her impending release quickened as she dug the nails of both hands into his pectorals and ground against him. Dante’s eyelids grew heavy as he watched her, his breaths erratic and his heartbeat thumping against the palm of her hand. Seeing his pleasure by her manipulations fueled Tori’s need to possess him.

  “Mine,” she practically growled, an echo of the voice she had heard in the alley.

  She understood the mystery woman’s need now. It was all encompassing, something bigger and more complex than just a sexual attraction. It was the nexus, the missing link, that last piece of the puzzle she needed to subdue the storm and force the Light and Dark to become one.

  Tori’s head fell back as she cried out her release, clamping her mouth shut to mute the sound to a stifled moan. She continued to ride Dante until the heated flood rolling through her limbs began to fade.

  Bringing her head forward, Tori opened her eyes and looked at Dante. She could still feel him impossibly hard inside her, and while part of her wanted to give him his release, another part wanted him to suffer.

  She wouldn’t give him the privilege of achieving his orgasm. It was more than he deserved after what he had done. But Dante knew that. She could read it all over his features.

  Slowly, she lifted her hips. He winced when his cock fell free, but Tori refused to look at him. Now that her Light and Dark side had acquiesced, she could finally find solid footing with her newly acquired power. But not there in that house. The Dark side still beckoned her to lean toward it, and all it would take was one bad move from someone close to topple her over the fine line she was cautiously traversing. Digging her heels in and finding the balance between the internal tug-of-war was the secret, but the Dark side didn’t exactly play fair.

  As she climbed from the bed and busied herself with putting her clothes back in place, she heard Dante’s movement on the bed, doing the same. She almost giggled when she recalled the look on his face that day in the park when he complained about how uncomfortable it was to walk around with an erection, but she caught herself. It seemed like it had been so long ago, and so much had happened since then that she couldn’t allow herself to garner any happiness from the memory. A memory—that’s all it was—a memory rooted in deception.

  God, she had to get out of there. Away from Dante, away from her family, away from the lies.

  Tori took one step, but Dante reached out and took her sore hand before she could go any further. Jolts of electricity shot up her arm when he brushed his lips across her swelling knuckles. “I thought you said you never wanted to run away from me again?”

  It was a low blow for him to remind her of a time of desperation, a time when she trusted him to keep her safe. So was the reminder of their connection with that kiss to her knuckles that was so much more intimate than what they had just done, or rather, what she had just done. Tori wasn’t going to fall for either of them. Not again. But neither could she look Dante in the eye after having just used him like she had, even if he was fully aware of the need behind it. How could he be so giving when she had been so cold?

  Tori kept her back to him. “I lied. Seems that’s the norm with everyone else in this house, so why should I be any different?”

  “Look at me, Angel,” Dante said, tugging on her arm until she was forced to face him. “I know better than to think what just happened here was anything more than yet another need you had to fulfill. I hope you got what you were searching for, but I have to know . . . When you slept in my arms night after night, when you gave your body to me willingly, when you begged me to make love to you for the first time . . . was that a lie, too? Because it definitely didn’t feel that way to me.”

  Tori turned away and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to make the memories and the heartache tied to those memories go away. It was useless. In her moment of weakness, she answered him truthfully. “I was having a hard time telling the difference between what was real and what was just another one of my dreams, Dante. I don’t know what I was thinking . . . that you were real? And if I could just connect with you on some deeper level, maybe it would keep me grounded in reality. But that wasn’t reality, was it? It was just another dream. I was wrong. I know that now.”

  Dante exhaled a long breath and put her hand to his chest so that she could feel the warmth of his skin fueled by the thumping of his heart. “No, you weren’t, Angel. I am real. And this thing between us that you refuse to acknowledge? That’s real, too. I love you.”

  Tori shook her head and ran her free hand through her hair. “I might have believed that before, but not after what you did. Maybe I’m not an expert on love, but I’m pretty sure there has to be some level of trust involved. And I did trust you. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone. You destroyed that, Dante.”

  Tori tugged against his hold, but he held fast.

  “Don’t walk out on me, Angel. Give me another chance. Give us another chance.”

  Tori recalled that day at the fairy mound when Dante made love to her, how desperate she had been to feel his touch, for him to be the first to know her body in that way. Why? Why had it been so important to her for this man to take her virginity?

  It wasn’t until that moment that Tori knew the answer. It clicked like a lightbulb illuminating over her head. It was important because she wanted it to be Dante. It was important because she knew that if it wasn’t Dante, it would be him. It was important because she knew if it was him, she would somehow be doomed and thus all of mankind would suffer.

  Why? Why did she suddenly feel that way about the one person who had always been there for her? Her best friend. The only boyfriend she had ever known. Her savior from the demons. The man that had kept her secret and protected her from herself. And that was exactly what Dante had done as well.

  That realization hit her like a piano falling from a third-floor window. The demons, they lived behind the wall in her mind. They were of her own making, and thus the destruction and havoc they wreaked by her own hand. She had been the one to unleash them on her loved ones. She had been the one who had handed down the order of execution on all those innocent people. Even if it hadn’t actually happened, she must have wanted it to. But why?

  They had all been wrong. Her mother, father, Lucy, Drew, Sinclair, and Dante—they had all been wrong. She wasn’t the Guardian of Mankind. She was the Angel of Death—the dark rider atop a pale horse—and fast on her heels was Hades.

  “I can’t. Things have changed. I’m not the same person I was when I stepped off that plane. It’s best we cut our losses and go our separate ways.”

  “You’re right. Things have changed. We fell in love, and even if I wasn’t the Guardian of the Guardian, I’d still refuse to believe either of us would be better off without the other.”

  Tori shook her head. “You’re wrong. Just let me go, Dante.”

  With that, she pulled her hand from his and walked out. Of course Dante ran after her—she wouldn’t have expected anything less—but she couldn’t allow herself to be duped again. God, she needed to get out of there.

  Tori ran down the steps, nearly slipping a time or two in her hurried pace, but she recovered quickly and kept going. The ruckus from both of their heavy footfalls must have sounded like a herd of elephants because by the time she reached the first floor, the rest of the house was there waiting for them.

  “Tori?” Kerrigan said, blocking her path to the door. Once her mother registered the anger in her eyes, she shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “The hell I’m not,” Tori shot back, moving to step
around her.

  Kerrigan grabbed her arm to stop her. “No, you’re not. This has gone too far, young lady. This is no way for the Guardian of Mankind to behave.”

  Tori looked down at her mother’s hand and then slowly leveled a glaring stare at her. She snatched her arm away, feeling the mixed power of her gift and the dark curse rearing its head. It would be so easy to show her mother exactly what she was capable of now, but she didn’t think she was worth it.

  “No? You don’t think I’m behaving like the Guardian of Mankind should behave?” Tori cocked her head to the side like she was considering that statement. “You know what, Mommy dearest? I don’t think you’re behaving very much like a mother. How do you like that? In fact, you never really have. Oh, you have everyone fooled,” she said, sweeping her arm out wide to include each and every spectator present. “But not me. I know the truth, and the truth is that you blame me for the loss of your Light. And because of that, you’ve always been jealous.”

  Kerrigan blanched, her mouth falling open in shock.

  “Victoria!” Dominic yelled. “You know that’s not true. Apologize to your mother right now!”

  Tori slowly turned her head to look at him over her mother’s shoulder. “Running to her defense again, Daddy? You always have her back, even when you know she’s wrong. Poor Kerrigan lost her gift and all she has to show for it is a screwup of a daughter who she never believed deserved the power she’d been given in the first place.” She looked back at Kerrigan. “You’re just pissed that I have something you don’t, and I bet you’re just begging for me to fail, aren’t you?”

  “Your mother has her Light,” Dominic said so low she almost didn’t hear him. Tori thought she heard Gabe gasp.

  Dominic squeezed Kerrigan’s shoulder in support and she closed her eyes to his touch. “She just recently got it back. We were going to tell you—”

  Tori put her hand up, cutting him off. “Let me guess, you thought it best to keep it from me?”

  No answer. Just guilt-ridden expressions.

  “Figures. Well, now that you have your gift back, Kerrigan, I guess you no longer need me, do you?” Tori looked around at the faces gathered in the entryway, each one registering the disappointment she knew they all felt toward the precious Guardian of Mankind. “Good luck with that. I’m out of here.”

  Tori pushed her way past her mother and toward the door. Kerrigan moved to stop her, but Dominic held her back. “Let her go, Querida. She just needs to blow off some steam.”

  No, not blow off steam. More like find some open space to breathe. That damn house was suffocating. But at least it was good to know no one would be following after her.

  Tori purposely grabbed Dante’s leather jacket on the way out because she knew that was where he kept the keys to his motorcycle. The rain was coming down in sheets outside, just as it had been for days. Only now, thunderous rumbles joined in while bolts of lightning put on a techno show across the sky. The nasty weather was a reflection of her mood, but she couldn’t stop it and neither would she let it deter her flounce to freedom.

  Once she had made it to the driveway, she dug the keys out of the jacket and dropped it to the ground. Hurrying to the bike, she quickly strapped the helmet on, straddled the seat, and cranked the motor until it roared to life.

  “Christ!” she heard Dante’s curse come from behind her, but when she turned, prepared to blast him into the next millennium, he had gone back into the house.

  Probably only having seconds before he returned, Tori quickly maneuvered the motorcycle to the end of the driveway, making sure to look both ways for traffic or any pedestrian that might be ignorant of her dash to freedom.

  “Angel!”

  Tori looked back at the house from over her shoulder. Dante jumped off the stoop and ran toward her. His hair was already drenched by the rain and his shirt clung to his hard body, a picture perfect specimen . . . for some other woman who could afford to give a damn. Revving the engine, she peeled out of the drive just before he got close enough to stop her.

  Admittedly, she was probably a little too angry to be driving the busy streets of London at night, especially in the rain, and maybe she shouldn’t be on a deathtrap without having slept in days, but fear was not something she was going to allow herself to bow down to anymore. Even though the bike swerved a couple of times, she was able to keep it upright and the throttle open as wide as it would go. Speed, miles of open road—whatever it took to put as much distance as she could between herself and everyone in that household. The whole bunch of liars.

  In the side-view mirror, she caught a glimpse of a car that was coming up on her ass way too fast, and she knew it had to be Dante in Drew’s car. Goddamnit! Why couldn’t he leave her be? He was taking the whole Guardian of the Guardian thing way too far. Didn’t he realize that she had all but renounced her title? He should be guarding her mother now.

  She revved the engine again, pushing the bike to its limit. The little needle on the speedometer hit ninety and she smiled to herself, inwardly gloating over the fact that Dante would be outdone by his own precious baby, his Duck. Tori checked the side-view mirror again, her smile replaced with a disgruntled scowl when she saw he was keeping up. She took her hand off the handlebar and flipped him the bird. He honked his horn, laying on it with all his might, to which she only laughed. Like that would make her pull over.

  Looking back up at the road, she froze in fear. Apparently, Dante hadn’t really been honking at her to pull over; he had been trying to warn her about the sharp turn ahead. Tori panicked and jerked the bike to the left, but it was too late.

  The tires lost their grip on the wet asphalt and the bike skidded onto its side, dragging her down with it. It all happened so fast that she didn’t even feel the torturous burn of the road ripping through her clothes to shred her skin as she was tossed around like a rag doll. What she did feel, though, was the hard whack of her head against something unforgiving, and then her wet hair slapping her in the face before her body landed with a sickening thud. A sharp throb of pain shot up from the base of her neck and spread like wildfire over her skull. Then a high-pitched tone rang through her ears, drowning out the sounds around her. Sleep—she just wanted to sleep.

  Fearing her sudden lethargy signaled nothing short of death, Tori summoned her sanctuary, wanting nothing more than to see it one last time, even if it was only for a moment. But it wouldn’t come quick enough. The blazing glare of oncoming headlights was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

  Dominic and Kerrigan may have been content with letting Tori run off to blow off some steam, but Dante most certainly was not. She had been too angry, too emotional, too edgy to be off on her own in a city she barely knew. And as the Guardian of the Guardian it was his duty to . . .

  Bloody hell. Who was he kidding? He hadn’t run after her because he was the Guardian of the Guardian; he had run after her because he loved the woman. Deep down into the essence of his soul, loved her.

  The time and space she had forced between them as his punishment for deceiving her had indeed been so much more than mere punishment. As an addendum to that punishment, she had used his body for her own pleasure without letting him reap pleasure in return. But he knew she had been using him. He could see it in the abnormally darkened color of her eyes that something was going on inside her, something she needed his help to stave and balance. So, he let her, offered himself up for whatever she needed, which he knew was his body in that moment. His touch had always been therapeutic to her, part of his duty as the Guardian of the Guardian. He would always be at her disposal for whatever need she had, no matter how much it hurt him that there was no emotion tied to her actions even though all he wanted to do was make love to her. It was the worst sort of punishment to not be able to touch her the way he wanted—unbearable torture, like losing a limb or a vital organ. It was a miracle it hadn’t killed him in the end.

  Guardian relationships were quite intense in that way. He might h
ave lay there while she took all that she needed from him with her body, but he couldn’t stand idly by and let her run off into the night on her own. Not when he felt the opposing turmoil swirling inside her the whole time he was submerged in her slick heat. That vibration that normally passed between the touch of their skin had been even more noticeable. It was much like the color of her eyes, which had eventually found a happy medium somewhere between pitch black and her usual Guardian brightness to settle on a rich teal.

  Something had certainly changed. Tori’s gift, her sensibility, her perspective of herself—each had evolved, and not necessarily in a good way. He couldn’t let her venture out alone, not when she seemed to be having a really hard time managing the self-ascension that threatened to engulf the person she was deep down inside.

  After her outburst with her parents, Dante had shoved past Dominic and Kerrigan—ignored Sinclair and Drew’s pleading for him to let it be—and gone after his woman. But he had been too late. Tori had mounted his bike, and the only way he would’ve had a chance to catch her was in another vehicle. So he had been forced to go back inside. No sooner had he stepped over the threshold than Drew had thrown him the keys to his car with nothing more than a nod of encouragement.

  None of it had mattered. The roads were too wet, Tori had been driving too fast, and he had been yet another distraction. He had failed to keep her safe.

  The whole world seemed to have come to a halt as he watched the motorcycle tilt over, white and yellow sparks flaring out in spurts as the metal slid against the road. His father’s car had barely come to a stop before he had thrown it into park and bolted out of the door, never once taking his eyes off Tori’s limp body as it had bounced off the ground, slingshotting her into an oncoming car. The sound of the helmet cracking had been like a blast from a shotgun, and then she had fallen lifeless to the ground.