Wild Hyacinthe (Crimson Romance)

by Nola Sarina

  “Your gun’s not here.”

  I stiffened. Oh, shit, that’s right, it’s on the rocks of Lake Superior where the incubus made me drop it. Gypsy flipped through some papers on the desk and her hands stopped on the note I wrote for her, folded up beside the one I wrote for Aria.

  She glared at me as she picked up hers and opened it. She scanned down the page, her eyes alternating between moments of anguish and anger. When she finished, she held it up and tilted her head, disbelief in her eyes. She stared at me for a long moment.

  “Really, Asher? I’m not worth any more to you than a fucking note?” I hadn’t heard the softness of hurt in her voice since our parents died, and it cut at my heart.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, looking away. What could I say? The coward within me was busted.

  Gypsy stomped around the desk and snapped her fingers at Jim. He strode to her side and pulled open his jacket. My sister grabbed the pistol from the holster hidden at his hip, cocked the hammer back and dug the barrel into my freshly bruised temple. “Fuck you!” she screamed with the same rage as the last time I tried to off myself. “If you even think about killing yourself again, I’ll castrate you and save you the trouble. Do you understand that? I’ll chop your dick off before I let you blow your brains out. Nobody has any right to kill you but me. Nobody!”

  I grimaced as she pressed the barrel harder against my throbbing head to make her point.

  “Clear?”

  “Clear, Gypsy, fuck! Settle down.”

  The gun clicked and my twin handed it back to Jim. She tossed me Aria’s note. I caught it, and she huffed at me, still furious. “You should get rid of this, if you hope to repair things with her. It won’t help.”

  I nodded, ashamed of my actions.

  “Come on,” she ordered, a hint of sympathy cooling her angry tone. I tugged on my pants, grabbed a button-down shirt from the back of the door and followed, nodding at Jim and John as we passed them.

  • • •

  My sister shuffled me into the car so quickly I didn’t have time to process what I saw. Gypsy driving a four-door? Normally, the security staff drove separately from us after clean up, but this time they slid into the front seat of her four-door Lamborghini while we clamored into the backseat.

  She yanked my arm down and pinned it with her knee, hovering over my face as the engine ripped to life, startling me. She smashed a cloth that stung against my forehead and I saw the faint glint of a needle out of the corner of my eye.

  “Fuck off, Gypsy, not right now!” I wriggled free of her, knocking my sister to the other seat beside me as the car took a harsh curve.

  “Hold still, you behemoth.” She pinned my arm again and dabbed me with liquid—peroxide, I determined by the fluttering fizz of it on my wound.

  “Ouch!” I cried, shoving her without much force. Gypsy cocked an eyebrow and held me tighter, positioning her needle again.

  “Says the big, bad, incubus murderer,” she taunted me.

  “Gypsy, fuck off! We have to find Aria. I don’t have time for fucking stitches.”

  “And we have a half hour until we reach her, based on the GPS locator in your Sissy, and you’re bleeding all over the leather upholstery of your new Urus.”

  I stopped fighting and winced as her needle threaded through my skin. “You track my Sissy?”

  “I track all the vehicles that might be stolen from Chain property by a criminal or an exploded incubus soul dominating your body,” she said. “I track your cell phone, all of your computers, your security fob for the cabin and your wallet.”

  “You track my fucking wallet?”

  “Stop talking. Hold still.”

  I bit my lip and suppressed a growl as she stitched me again.

  “Wait a second, what did you call this car?”

  Gypsy’s eyes twinkled in the faint glow of moonlight. “It’s your new Urus.”

  “It’s an SUV.”

  “It’s Lamborghini’s limited SUV, yes.”

  “Why did you buy me another car?”

  Gypsy shrugged as she stabbed me for a third and final time. “You didn’t like your birthday present. Consider this a replacement.”

  I was a good patient as my sister cleaned the wound on my face once more and strapped butterfly tape over the stitches.

  “You didn’t have to, Gyp,” I sighed. “I’m sorry I’m an ungrateful brat.”

  “You’re not an ungrateful brat. You’re an arrogant, temperamental incubus and I’m a cold-hearted bitch. It’s who we are.”

  “Why an SUV?”

  She rolled her eyes with nonchalance. “Well, with all the shopping you do these days, I figured you could use the extra space.”

  “Shopping?” I frowned. “I only shopped for Aria. Wait . . . did you think Aria might survive me after all?”

  “Not precisely. You expressed you wanted to try to avoid her death. I wanted to express my support of that, since my behavior has been less than supportive.”

  I was stunned at such thoughtfulness and sentimentality from her. “Thanks, Gyp. Really.”

  She cracked half a grin. “That, and I did some research. It appears Dorian Nikolaos may, indeed, be Aria’s father. Hazel Hyacinthe lived in Greece for the six years preceding Aria’s birth and moved back to the United States while she was pregnant. So I started researching Dorian Nikolaos’ family and came up with something surprising.”

  Gypsy tapped on her phone for a moment and then turned the screen to me, showing me a girl with black hair, longer than her shoulders, and ice blue, lacy eyes.

  “This is Charlotte Nikolaos,” she informed me, “Dorian Nikolaos’ daughter. She’s twenty now but was about fifteen when this picture was taken. Familiar?”

  My eyes were wide and curious as I took in the sight of Charlotte Nikolaos. “She looks like Aria. And she has the eyes.”

  “The eyes are similar, yes. It’s what made me consider the mutual parentage of the two girls . . . ” she began, but I cut her off.

  “No, she has the eyes. Succubus eyes. Aria’s lacing in her eyes turned black when we finished.”

  Gypsy frowned and studied me, then darkened her phone. “I think it’s time for you to fill me in on what happened, Asher.”

  I gave her the rundown, omitting some unnecessary details of intimacy. I told her how close I came to allowing the incubus to own me forever and the fire behind the whites of my eyes that Aria could see. I told her how the fuel between us felt mutual, intense and beyond orgasmic. Gypsy listened and processed the story without interrupting.

  “She’s parked south of Duluth, Ms. Chain,” John said from the front seat.

  “Park us behind her,” my sister ordered as the night blew by.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Two in the morning,” she replied.

  “You were late?” I couldn’t imagine Gypsy being late.

  “No, you idiot, of course we were on time. But your car was gone and you were unconscious and bleeding. We secured the location before attempting to wake you, and the grounds are large so it took a while.”

  I felt anxiety creeping into my chest and crossed my arms over myself, rocking. “Are we there, yet?” I snapped.

  “Close,” Jim replied.

  “Fuck, drive faster!”

  “She’s stationary, Asher, calm down,” Gypsy warned me.

  I twitched and vibrated. I couldn’t comprehend the sudden panic in my core. Was she okay? Would she accept me when I found her? Was she panicking like I was?

  My mind reeled. I let out something anguished and rocked myself. “Gypsy, what have I done?”

  “Aria’s awakening has to do with her genetics, not with you,” my sister tried to reassure me, perplexed by my sudden panic.

  I was perplexed, too. Anxiety wrenched my lungs. Impossible!

  My mind let a calmer thought creep into the panic. No, very possible. I’d dealt with this emotional struggle years ago. Why was it suddenly fresh? Perhaps the panic I felt was
not mine but Aria’s, by some bizarre connection of our souls, mingled together during our charge.

  “Faster, dammit!” I roared.

  “Calm down, Ash.”

  “I can’t calm down!” I nearly shrieked. “I need to get to her now.”

  “Shit,” Gypsy muttered. “Don’t lose it on me now, Asher; we’ll find her.”

  I saw the spoiler of my Sissy car a block away from the front window of the Urus and bent the handle inside my door, slammed my shoulder against it and, breaking the lock, launched myself out onto the street. I tumbled to the pavement and heard Gypsy scream at me as the Urus swerved, but I righted myself onto my feet and sprinted ahead, unable to sit still any longer. Aria was near.

  But she wasn’t at the car, so I cast about for a moment. I settled on the nearby alley and took off at a dead run.

  I skidded to a halt at the entrance when I saw Aria slumped on the ground next to a dumpster, her knees drawn up to her chest and her face streaked with tears. She stared out of the corner of her eye at a mass beside her on the ground: the body of a man in his forties, his pants undone and his dead dick hanging out, streaked with Aria’s blood.

  I crouched and held my hands out to Aria as though she were a feral cat, a terrified predator on the verge of fight or flight.

  “Let me help you,” I breathed as she shook, unable to tear her eyes away from her first kill.

  I crept lower on my hands and knees until I was crouched in front of her, her hair messed and her eyes wide, laced with beautiful black webs. I heard Gypsy and the security staff screech up behind us and exit the Urus, which they parked right behind the Sissy.

  I reached forward to take Aria’s fingers, but she flinched at my touch and pulled away, tucking her hands beneath her armpits and rocking. She couldn’t look away from the dead man on the street.

  Instead of trying to touch her again, I rolled up my sleeve and revealed the rows of dots on my forearm. “Forty-three,” I whispered, terrified that she might run again.

  Aria’s eyes finally focused on me, on my arm. She blinked, her breath still rapid and terrified, the panic I felt personified in her beautiful, frightened form.

  “Forty-three,” I said again, finding more confidence in my voice. “My first was when I was sixteen. I had no idea what lurked inside of me until I did it the first time. And once it was done, I couldn’t stop, Aria. I awakened the incubus, as we have awakened the succubus within you.”

  She was still for a long moment as Gypsy and her henchmen approached. Then, she withdrew her hand from beneath her arm and reached a shaking finger forward, tracing the first line of my tattooed sins.

  “I charged the incubus without question for a long time. I tried to hold him off as long as I could, to reduce the amount of killing necessary. I never wanted to kill . . . and I never wanted to kill you.”

  I scooted forward more and folded my legs on the ground, taking her hand and bringing it to my chest, holding her between my own fingers. Aria was in my grasp, in my reach. She wasn’t gone. My heart rejoiced at the truth of the moment. She finally met my eyes, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

  “But when you walked into my life,” I said, “I couldn’t resist you. I care enough that I wanted to try. I couldn’t stay away from you because you’re made for me, Aria. You’re my equal. You can keep me whole while I keep you whole, and we can do this together without any more killing. I can feel what you feel. I need you.”

  She swallowed and glanced as if processing her surroundings for the first time. She saw Gypsy and shuddered.

  “I can help you,” I continued. “I had to do this without guidance. But we’ve found each other for a reason. I can show you how to satiate the need to charge, and you don’t have to do this alone. Gypsy helps me as much as she can,” I glanced with a genuine smile at my sister, “and she’ll help you, too. Both of us will. Just come with me. Let me get you cleaned up and I’ll take care of you.”

  “I don’t want you to take care of me,” Aria broke her silence. “I want this nightmare to disappear. I wish I’d never met you, Asher Chain.”

  “Smarten up, lady,” Gypsy snapped, defensive. “Asher didn’t do this to you. You were born this way. Others are, too. I’m just beginning to realize the magnitude and scope of this.”

  “There are others?” Aria asked, her tone disbelieving.

  “Yes. Your biological sister has your eyes.”

  “You found my sister?” Aria gasped. “And neither of you told me?”

  “It was a little difficult to find the right time with you trying to kill my brother and all,” Gypsy scoffed.

  “He tried to kill me first.”

  “Okay, stop!” I put my palms up. “This is not the time to bicker. Aria, we just found out. Gypsy, chill. We’re both alive, and should be thankful for that.”

  My sister took a slow breath. “Alright. But you need to be grateful you were awakened by another of your own kind, Aria. Asher wasn’t so lucky. He got an ordinary, a non-succubus for his first time and pulled his dick out of a corpse. How the hell do you think that feels? She was his girlfriend for a year before it happened.”

  I didn’t like Gypsy’s tone, but she was right. Aria listened to my sister and then looked at me. She lifted her other hand, laying it against my cheek.

  “Shit, Asher,” she breathed. “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

  My heart lurched and I grabbed her hand and crushed her against me. “Aria,” I sighed into her hair. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Just don’t run again. Please, sweetie, let me take you home.”

  She shook her head against my engulfing hold around her. “Okay.”

  I kissed her hair and shuddered with relief. She was here. Alive, and coming home with me. I couldn’t define the joy that spun through me—it was too strong. I rocked her side to side and kissed her over and over again.

  Chapter 23 – Aria

  The Sissy sped through the night along streets that seemed far darker in the aftermath of that thing I did in the alley with a stranger. I shivered as we blew past a parked truck with its driver passed out in the front seat. It could just as easily have been him, rather than the man in the alley. He was just the unfortunate first person who caught my attention when the urge arose.

  I shifted in my seat, gnawing on a fingernail. Asher drove coolly, never breaking the hum of the engine with speech. I glanced at him a few times and then glanced away, and each time I swore he turned to regard me just a heartbeat later. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  I killed a man.

  My stomach rolled and I swallowed hard, pressing the button to open the window. I shook in the chilly wind, and felt muscles stronger than my own in my body. I gained strength from that kill. Physical strength. Drawing deep gasps of cool air through the window, I couldn’t wrap my head around the reality of the night.

  I ran a list in my head to keep it all sorted.

  Fact A: I had sex with Asher Chain. I resisted the urge to giggle like a psycho at that fact. It was the one thing I accomplished tonight that I meant to accomplish.

  Fact B: I had sex with a murderer. A man who killed forty-three women. Were they all women? I made a mental note to ask, and then scratched it out with a vigorous shake of my head, hammering on that seldom-used internal edit button as hard as I could. It wasn’t my business to probe, and I didn’t have any reason to question his sexuality after all this.

  Fact C: I was a murderer, too. Nausea spun through me and I bent at the waist, tucking my head between my knees. I swallowed hard. Hurling in Asher’s Sissy—after stealing it, no less—wasn’t on my to-do list for the night, like everything else that had gone wrong.

  Warmth fell, concerned and secure, to rest on my back. Asher’s hand. He rubbed slowly from the base of my spine to my neck, as I lost my composure and shuddered with tears. How could he still be so compassionate with me, after all I’d done to him?

  Killing so many times must have taken a toll on him after so long, I kn
ew. Then, I ripped into his life, spent his money, upheaved his normal—whatever that meant to a man with this power—and survived him. And his sister had a murder to hide, thanks to me. I’m nothing more than baggage, carrying a shitload of my own baggage.

  “Hang on, Aria, we’ll be there soon,” he said, breaking the lullaby of nighttime driving static with that sincere, deep voice I adored. I had to be strong enough to deal with this. I was naïve to let myself fall so hard for a man way too good for me.

  My heart flipped once in my chest. Yes, I fell for Asher Chain. How fucking stupid could I be? Now I’d lose him, since he didn’t expect to keep me around anyway. He expected me to die, and leave him without all the strings attached. I could only imagine his crushing disappointment at the turn of the night’s events.

  Asher slowed before I expected him to, so I pulled myself as together as I could. I sat up and he withdrew his hand, steering with both. I blinked, surprised. Why back to the cabin?

  Because you left all your crap on his floor and the last thing he needs is an extra housekeeping bill because your undies are hanging from a bedpost. I remembered peeling them off, but I had no idea where I might have tossed them.

  Asher parked and hopped out, pacing around to my door. He opened it for me and held out his hand, and I took it, refusing to meet his gaze. We didn’t walk right away. He stared at me, my hand in his, and I couldn’t bring myself to look back at him. I caused so much trouble out of sheer ignorance of my own sexual dysfunction.

  “Can you talk to me, sweetie?” he asked, his voice breathless.

  I shook my head and pulled my hand away, wrapping my arms around myself. He let out a sigh, and I hid my flinch. Disappointing him, again. He touched my lower back to encourage me on, and I led the way into the cabin.

  Asher tossed his keys on the table in the entryway and kicked off his shoes. I didn’t bother with mine, just took the stairs two at a time to get away from him and the hollow echo of silence between us, all the words we’d said and would never say to each other again.

  The words I wanted to say were stuck in my heart, which pounded as a twinge of panic constricted my breath. I had to leave town. Get out of this place before any consequences came back to haunt Asher and Gypsy because I couldn’t control myself. Because something was flawed within me, and I killed a man. My eyes filled with tears as I crouched beside my overnight bag, shoving things in without caring if they belonged to me or not. I grabbed everything on the floor and stuffed it into the leather, and then slung it over my shoulder as I rose, dashing the tears away with the back of my hand.