Azazel’s jaw clenched. “I’m not sure I can fly just yet.”
“Me either,” Mal said.
“I have a group of men stationed east of here,” Conah replied. “I’ll bring them to us. That should give the drug time to work its way out of your bloodstream, and then we’ll have an escort out of here.”
“You can’t go alone,” Mal said. “Mammon’s men are out there. They’re probably looking for us.”
“I’ll go with him,” Keon offered, wiping his bloody hands on his pants. He caught my eye. “I’ll take my brutalness with me.”
Oh, shit. “Keon, I didn’t mean—”
“Yes. Yes, you did.” He shrugged. “But I’m fine with that. It’s who I am. You’d do well to remember that.” He turned and headed for the door. “I’ll deal with the body when I get back.”
The body? He’d killed the man?
He shot me a cold smirk over his shoulder, and then he was gone. He hadn’t needed to kill the man. He’d done it to prove something. To show me he was a killer. To push me away.
Conah was watching me with a focused expression, as if he was trying to decipher the interaction between Keon and me, and then his eyes flared.
“Fee…”
“Don’t. Just go and get your men.” I turned my back on him. I didn’t need his judgment.
He left, and I was alone with my guys.
“Fee?” Azazel said softly. “What the hell is going on?”
Azazel was waiting for an answer, and I didn’t have one to give him. Keon had gotten under my skin, and I hadn’t even realized.
I wasn’t ready to talk about it, because I wasn’t sure there was anything to talk about.
“She kissed him,” Mal supplied on my behalf.
Azazel’s nostrils flared. “Fee…”
“I did it to snap him out of a trance. He was trying to kill me at the time.” I waved a hand in the air. “I’m tired. I don’t want to talk about it again.”
Mal closed the barn door. “Sit down.”
Azazel pulled a crate across the room. “Here.”
They’d gone from being annoyed to nurturing in the span of a second, and I couldn’t help but be relieved.
I parked my butt on the crate. “I just want to go home now. Climb into my bed and sleep.”
“We could wrestle,” Mal suggested to Azazel.
“What?” I looked up at them in confusion. “Why would you do that?”
“Work the drug out of our system.”
The drug, of course…wait… “What about feeding? Would drinking blood help?”
Azazel and Mal stilled, and then both turned to look in my direction.
I’d take that as a yes. “So, um, who wants to go first?”
Azazel and Mal faced each other, fists out. Wait, were they about to—
Yes, they were going to play rock paper scissors. Oh boy.
Azazel won the first round, and Mal won the second, and then they drew on the final one. They went again, and this time Mal won.
Azazel inclined his head and walked out of the barn, leaving us alone. Feeding was an intensely private thing and often sexual in nature, but there was a dead body on the upper level of the barn, so there was no way this was going to get sexual.
But then Mal was crouched between my thighs, his hands on me, brushing my hair back to expose my throat and grasping the back of my head to tilt it to the side. I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes in anticipation of his bite. It came a moment later, pain followed by the flood of endorphins that had me moaning softly. I gripped his shoulders and abandoned myself to the sensations rolling through me. My body heated, and my core tightened, expecting and needing more. I gasped as his hand found my breast through my shirt, thumb gliding and snagging on my hard nipple. He flicked it over and over, drawing on my neck.
“Mal. Fuck.”
He retracted his fangs, laved the wound, and claimed my mouth with the coppery tang of my blood and his sweet tongue. I wanted him inside me so bad it was painful. He broke the kiss, looking down on me with a dazed expression.
“When we get back home…”
I wanted to nod, but my neck refused to cooperate, so I settled for giving him a drunken smile.
“My turn,” Azazel said from behind Mal.
Mal released me, and Azazel took his place. But my soulmate didn’t kneel. Instead, he lifted me into his arms and sat on the crate with me straddling his hips.
He cupped the back of my head. “Fee? Are you all right? Dizzy? Weak?”
“I’m fucking awesome.”
“Mal, what the fuck?”
“I can’t control how she reacts to my endorphins,” Mal said.
Azazel made a sound of displeasure and focused on me. Damn he was pretty. Pretty eyes, pretty mouth, such fucking pretty hair.
Mal let out a choked laugh. “She thinks you’re pretty.”
Wait, had I spoken out loud?
“Leave,” Azazel said to Mal.
I touched his bottom lip. “Kiss me.”
His pupils dilated, and his fingers splayed through my hair. He tilted his chin up and obliged. It was a soft kiss, tentative and testing. He was worried about me. I needed him to not be worried. I wanted him to take me.
I wrapped my arms around his head and deepened the kiss, opened for him. His arousal swelled between us, and I began to rock against it. My body was still buzzing from Mal’s feeding, every synapse on high alert, every sensation heightened. I was slick, wet, and hungry to be filled. I undulated against my soulmate, until I was swollen and throbbing and ready to come.
“Fuck.” He tore his mouth from mine, fisted my hair, and yanked my head to the side. He bit me, hard.
I cried out, clenching my thighs around him as my body exploded in an orgasm. He fed on me as I rode the wave, rocking against him, reveling in his grunts and the vibration of his chest as he took what he needed.
He finally retracted his fangs and closed the wound with a sweep of his tongue, but he didn’t pull away. He held me, hugging me to his huge frame for long blissful seconds as my body recovered from the orgasm.
“Well…” My voice was hoarse. “I was not expecting that to happen.”
He pulled back slightly to look at my face. “A whole day and night,” he said. “When we get back, you’re mine for a whole day and night.”
I wasn’t going to argue with that.
Chapter Seventeen
I rolled onto my back and stared at the familiar ceiling. It took a moment, but then it hit me. I was home. Back in my room at the Dominus quarters. The Beyond was restored, and we had a rough location for Lilith’s whereabouts.
It was time for a rest.
The guys were here. My guys were back. I sat up quickly. I needed to shower and get on with the day. I needed to spend as much time with them as possible before I had to don my Loup hat and get back to Necro.
There was still the super vamp issue to resolve, and Hunter needed to be found. It wasn’t fair to leave it all up to Grayson, but today…Today would be about Azazel and Mal.
The door opened, and Iza bustled in with a pile of fresh towels. She beamed at me and then hurried into the bathroom. I heard the tap come on.
Was that beautiful imp running me a bath? The scent of jasmine filled the air. Yes, yes, she fucking was.
“Iza, I love you.”
“I know,” she called back.
Last night, I’d flopped into my bed, dirty and exhausted. Flying, even without wings, was bloody exhausting. The concentration required to stay airborne was draining. Azazel and Mal had taken it in turns to carry me the latter half of the way back. I’d been too wiped.
I guess allowing them to feed off me hadn’t helped. I must have fallen asleep straight after sending Cora a comm message. Shit. I checked now for a response.
Glad you’re safe. On the case for Magiguard. See you soon?
Cor
I typed a message back.
Meet you at the pack house tomorrow. Tell Gr
ayson I love him.
My body was fully awake now, and my stomach rumbled.
Iza stepped out of the bathroom. “All ready,” she said. “Masters Azazel and Malachi have said to meet them in the kitchen in half an hour for breakfast.”
I threw off the covers. “Bacon. I need bacon.”
She grinned up at me. “And you shall have it.”
She left me to get ready. I climbed out of bed, and my foot hit something. A book. The journal Aunt Lara had given me. It was on the floor. Weird.
I picked it up and set it on the dresser. Time to strip off these icky clothes.
I bathed quickly, pulled on fresh clothes, and hurried to the kitchen. Voices drifted up the corridor to greet me, and my stomach fluttered in anticipation. I loved how the guys made me feel. How the excitement and chemistry never waned.
The smell of bacon was in the air too, along with the delicious aroma of coffee. I stepped through the doorway to find Azazel and Mal seated at the table and Conah by the stove.
He was scrambling eggs with his back to me, dressed casually like Azazel and Mal in joggers and a plain T-shirt. They all three looked like they’d just rolled out of bed. Mal had that sleepy vibe that made me want to crawl onto his lap, and Azazel’s long silver hair was unbound and tousled, making me want to rake my hands through it, tip back his head, and claim his luscious mouth.
That luscious mouth tipped in a smile, and he pulled out a chair for me as I approached.
Conah’s shoulders tensed slightly, telling me that he knew I was in the room, but he didn’t turn around to acknowledge me.
Mal poured me a mug of coffee, adding milk and sugar just the way I liked it.
“A phoenix came with a message,” Azazel said. “Addressed to you.” He handed me the scroll that was lying by his plate. I hadn’t even noticed it. “It’s probably from Uriel.”
I unrolled it.
Seraphina Dawn,
You have my thanks for giving me my freedom. I want you to know that the Beyond is in repair and that the souls you deliver will now find true peace. I have dispatched celestials to Purgatory to release the remnants trapped there. Uriel will return to you shortly. His time in the Underealm has changed him, and he no longer belongs in the Beyond. I trust you will accept him into your family.
A humble Soul.
“It’s not from Uri.” I rolled up the scroll. “It’s from the divine. He wants us to know that the Beyond is being repaired. He’s sending Uri back to us and wants us to accept him into our family. I think what happened to him in Limbo changed him somehow.”
The guys exchanged glances, and then Azazel cleared his throat. “Would you like it if he stayed here with us?”
Why was he asking in that tone of voice? Like he was offering me a candy bar or something. Wait…My cheeks heated. Did they think Uri and I…
“You like him,” Mal said. “We both picked up on it, and we discussed how we’d feel if he…joined our family.”
“He’s a warrior,” Azazel said. “And he’s a good man. An honorable man.”
“So…” Mal said. “Whatever happens…”
I ducked my head, my neck on fire. This was too weird, like my two lovers were setting me up with another guy, and then it hit me how hard this must be for them. I knew they loved me, but this…This selflessness made my heart ache. It made me wonder how I could ever crave more than them.
“It’s all right,” Azazel said. “Love doesn’t diminish when you share it. It grows. All we ask is that you be honest with us.”
Mal snorted. “Geez, Az, did you get that out of a greeting card? Look. Fee, we made a commitment to make you happy, whatever it takes.”
“But I have to make you happy too and—"
“You do that by existing. We’ve lived long enough to know how rare what we have with you is. You’ve brought us together in a way we would never have imagined, and if you decide you want Uri to be a part of our family then so be it.”
I had no idea what to say. I mean, I was pretty sure that Uri only thought of me as a friend.
Conah put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me. “You should eat. Restore your strength.”
He shot Azazel and Mal a pointed look.
I sat back and frowned. “You don’t like Uri?”
Conah pressed his lips together. “Your relationships aren’t my business.”
“Then what?”
Mal sipped his coffee. “He’s pissed we both fed off you.”
“In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea,” Azazel said.
“What gave it away?” Conah said sarcastically. “The fact that she could barely keep her eyes open on the flight back, or the fact she almost dropped out of the sky twice before that?”
It was weird to have him defending me, especially when I didn’t need it. “I’m fine. Azazel and Mal take care of me, and I take care of them. It’s how things work between us.” My words came out sharper than intended in a clear back-off tone.
Conah’s jaw tightened. “Of course. It’s none of my business.”
Mal winced in my direction as if to say, ouch, Fee.
Azazel didn’t even flinch; he simply picked up the coffee pot and refilled his mug.
Conah nodded curtly. “I have messages to send.”
He left the room.
Okay, now I felt bad. Conah was still healing from the loss of his soulmate Kiara. He was trying to be nice, and I’d snapped at him.
“I should go talk to him, right?” I looked from Azazel to Mal.
Azazel set his mug down. “Do you want to?”
The last thing Conah had said to me after Kiara was murdered was that he wanted nothing to do with me. That we would never be friends, only colleagues, but he wasn’t acting like he wanted to be just colleagues…Did he want to be friends?
“I think I need to smooth things over.”
Mal plucked a strip of bacon off my plate. “Fine. Eat first, then speak to Conah. You’ll think better on a full stomach, and then you’re mine for a few hours.”
“I have to check in on my team,” Azazel said, his mouth turning down.
I’d told him about his deputy Dillon’s duplicity on the way back from the Underealm. He knew Cora was looking into the missing humans case. But I knew Azazel, and I knew that Dillon was in for some pain.
“I’ll cook for us this evening,” Azazel said.
“Oh, Az, you don’t have to do that,” Mal simpered.
Azazel shot him a flat look. “You’ll be elsewhere.”
“You know,” Mal said, “you’re taking this General thing a little too seriously.” He said it good-naturedly, and Azazel’s shoulders relaxed.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “We only have a couple of days before we need to head back and begin organizing the troops for a journey into the pit.” He covered my hand with his. “I want to make the most of that time.”
“So do I.” I turned my palm up, so we were holding hands, then held out my other hand to Mal. “Today and tonight is about us.”
Mal held up his mug. “I’ll drink to that.”
I found Conah in the library, a room I hadn’t visited since the first few weeks when Conah had been teaching me about all the different outlier species. We’d shared laughter here. Heated looks. But it felt like another time, like it had happened to another person.
Too much had changed. Too much had happened between us.
Conah looked up from the parchment he was scrawling on as I closed the door behind me.
“Hey.” I walked over to the table but didn’t sit. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
He put his quill down. “No, Fee, I’m sorry. I said some awful things to you when Kiara died.”
“I get it. You were grieving. You needed someone to blame.”
“No, it’s more than that. I was guilty. I was in love with you, and I wanted you, and I wished so many times for a way out of my betrothal with Kiara, and then…She was gone.” He looked away, throat bobbing.
“My wish was granted, but in the most awful manner.”
I stared at him, stunned by his confession.
“I was riddled with guilt and pain,” he continued. “But the cardinal helped me work through it. He helped me to accept that my wanting out hadn’t been what killed Kiara. Mammon did that. He was the only one to blame for her death.” He set down his pen. “I can’t help but wonder, though…if I’d left Kiara…if I’d broken off the engagement…would she still be alive?” He shook his head. “Not to be with you, of course…I know now that would never have happened.” His smile was sad. “You wouldn’t have hurt Kiara like that.”
He was right. I wouldn’t have. “We can’t dwell on the past. On what we could have done. We can only live with what we have done and move forward. Kiara was a wonderful woman, and she was a part of you, but she’s gone, and you need to continue to live. I want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes to help you with that. If that means staying away from you, then so be it.”
He looked up at me, stunned. “No. No, Fee, I don’t want that. I want us to be friends like we could have been. Like we should have been. Can we do that? Can we start again?”
His words were a rock being lifted off my chest. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that a lot.”
His gaze lingered on my face for a moment longer, and then he dropped it to the parchment. “I should get these done.”
Shit. “Of course. Yeah. I’ll see you later?”
“I’m headed back to the Underealm tomorrow,” he said. “But once this is all over. Once Lilith is safe, maybe we can…I don’t know, catch a movie?”
He sounded so awkward saying it that I couldn’t help but chuckle. “How about lunch at Lumiers instead?”
He looked relieved. “Sounds perfect.”
I left him to his work and headed off to look for Mal. I was excited to spend the day with him. I was almost at the stairs when a hand snagged my elbow, and I was yanked into the storage closet Iza used to keep her cleaning supplies. It smelled of floral disinfectant and cinnamon.
Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6) Page 10
