by Trina M. Lee
I took an extra moment to get my bearings as the afterglow set in to carry me along on a warm cloud of false bliss. Leaning back against the brick building, I said, “Ok, we’re done here. You can leave.”
Stretching languorously, like he didn’t have a care in the world, Falon laughed. “I don’t think so. You’re in no shape to be left without someone capable of handling your brand of crazy.”
“I’m fine, Falon.” I just need to kill something. Then this night would be complete.
“Like hell you are. I’m your shadow until sunrise. Deal with it.” Feathers rustled as Falon stretched his wings wide before slowly settling them back into place tucked against him.
The motion was so simple and yet, astoundingly beautiful. It seemed so out of place on someone with such a shit attitude. The angel was a walking paradox.
My initial reaction was always to snark back, attempting to one up him. Before I could, a cool breeze of undead power whipped through me, and my head snapped in the direction of The Wicked Kiss.
My dark flame.
I shoved away from the wall and strode back toward my nightclub. Arys had come for Willow, I assumed. He sure as hell hadn’t come for me. That cut deep. My pace quickened. I had a few things I’d like to say to him.
As promised, Falon matched my pace like the world’s most annoying shadow. “What’s got you in such a tizzy?”
“Arys is at The Wicked Kiss.” No further explanation necessary.
“What does that mean?” Falon inquired with mild curiosity, making no effort to stop me.
“He left me alone tonight. Earlier.” I paused to mourn the loss of my fake afterglow bliss. “He never came.”
The back of The Wicked Kiss became visible in the distance. I moved faster.
Falon didn’t miss a beat, keeping pace with ease. “So this is some twin flame tug-of-war shit. Isn’t the goal to avoid destroying one another? I can’t see how raging over there to confront him is going to achieve that.”
I didn’t see how either. Unfortunately, logic didn’t stand a chance in the face of the twin-flame battle of light and dark.
There was no method to our madness. That would’ve been too easy. Arys and I, we didn’t get to do anything the easy way.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Briggs’s damn door was open again when I stormed down the hall to my office. When he saw me coming he pressed as close to the threshold as the ward would let him. “What’s going on, O’Brien? Seems to be a lot of activity in your office.”
“None of your business. And stop opening the door. I’m not ready to deal with you.” I reached into the room to grab the door.
Briggs stuck a foot in the way to keep it from closing. “At least send someone in here. Or get me a TV. I’m bored. And hungry. Can you call Juliet? Ask her to come see me. We need to talk.”
Impatient and focused on the incubus vibes seeping from my office, I tossed my phone at Briggs. “Here. Knock yourself out.” With a hand on his chest, I shoved him out of the way and slammed his door.
My fallen angel shadowing my every move, I threw open the office door, not at all surprised to find Arys in there with Shaz and Willow. Jenner occupied the couch, listening quietly as Shaz and Arys discussed the caged hybrid.
They all looked up at our arrival. I ushered Falon in and closed the door, sealing the six of us in a room not nearly big enough to contain this many powerhouse personalities.
Arys took in my tearstained face and dusty boots. Expression void of whatever he felt, his gaze flicked to Falon, then back to me. Everyone watched us. They all knew how close they stood to a bomb that could go off at any moment.
“You never came.” Three simple words. Loaded with the question I’d never let myself ask. How could you abandon me?
Midnight eyes held me captive. I fell into him, as I always did. Could he see the fresh wounds on my soul? Did he give a damn? Or was I out of line for wanting him to?
A reflection of my pain flickered through his eyes a moment before he blinked and glanced away. “No. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
My face burned under the weight of so many gazes upon us. Even Willow stood facing us, ears flicking attentively. Like it or not, every person in this room was in some way bound either to Arys, to me, or to the both of us. Not to mention Briggs next door. So what did it matter if they bore witness to our breakdown? So many eyes were always on Arys and me, nothing between us stayed secret for long.
“Why?” I struggled to keep my voice from wavering. “Why couldn’t you come?”
Because he hated Kale. Because he hated me for loving him.
To my dismay, Arys glanced at Shaz before responding. They spoke without words, as they so often did. “It wasn’t my place to be there, Alexa. It wouldn’t have been right.”
My battered heart sank. I nodded, blowing a strand of hair off my lip. “I needed you.”
I walked a fine line between being hurt and angry. Standing there looking at Arys, watching the void grow bigger between us, it gutted me. Like part of me was gradually being cut away, slice by slice, with a dull blade.
“No, you didn’t. You needed Shaz, and he was there.” Arys stood stiff, holding my gaze while that muscle in his jaw twitched. The one that meant he was holding tight to an emotion about to blow beyond his control.
Sensing the rising tension, Jenner leaned forward on the couch. “Kale asked us not to come. Well, he asked me to keep Arys away. He didn’t want anything to ruin his final moment. Alexa, I swear, his words.”
Feeling sucker punched in my already crumbling heart, I backed up against the closed door. Gripping the handle, I told myself to stay on my feet. No sinking into despair. No showing them that I was dying inside.
I’d killed one man I loved, and now I had to watch as Arys and I were ripped apart by outside forces we could not control. This love shit, it ain’t for pussies.
“You could have come,” I insisted, injecting a little ice into my tone. “You could’ve waited for me somewhere. I mean, come on, Arys. You could have at least been here when Shaz first brought me back.”
“I’m here now,” he fired back, fire in his rage to counter my ice.
“You abandoned me.” My sudden and unexpected shout filled the room. The resulting power surge had Shaz shifting onto the balls of his feet. Jenner sat rigid on the edge of the couch, watching Arys and me with intrigue.
Hands clenched into fists, Arys chewed the silver ring in his lip. Brow furrowed, he hummed with a melancholy anguish. “I couldn’t stand to watch your heart break for him.”
It felt like he’d splashed cold water in my face. On some level I recognized that we were both being selfish. Perhaps it was selfish of me to expect him to be there for me on the night I killed the man he most hated. But it was equally selfish that the only reason he’d failed to show was because Kale’s death made him feel bad.
Where the hell did Arys get off feeling bad? He’d never have changed this outcome if he could.
“Well, you got what you wanted then. You never had to watch me kill someone I love to save myself. You left me when I needed you most. Because of petty, male-rivalry bullshit.” My temper flared and the lights flickered.
“Fuck no, not because of that.” Arys surged forward and slammed a hand against the door on either side of my head. Fangs bared, he snarled, “The one thing that sets me apart from Sinclair and Shaz, even Falon, is that you chose them. You didn’t choose me. I was forced on you by the powers that fucking be. And in some ways, by me.”
Across the room Jenner stood. Shaz had edged closer but gave us space. They were ready to pull us apart. Because they’d both had to in the past. They knew how hot and fast Arys and I burned.
Falon sat in my office chair, leaning back like he didn’t have a care in the world. With mild interest he watched us. He too had stopped us from killing each other. In fact, there wasn’t a person in this room that hadn’t.
“That’s not true,” I argued. “You didn’t force this.�
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“Didn’t I?” Arys drew on my energy, sensing the angelic haze that clouded me, tasting it. “I sought you out. I could have left you alone. But I chose to find you.”
All I wanted was to sink into Arys and feel whole. Feel anything but torn apart. I shook my head. “You had to find me. Or I would’ve found you. We would have found each other, Arys. What sets you apart is that we’re the same, you and me. One being, torn in two, constantly trying to find our way back to each other.”
“Well, now that’s just fucking poetic,” Falon snickered. “Also, not wrong. That’s precisely what twin flames are.”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Shaz staring intently at Arys.
Kylarai once teased Shaz about Arys and I being his soulmate, since we shared one soul. Shaz had been doing a lot of introspective analysis on that. Couldn’t blame him. Nothing about this was simple.
Ignoring our audience, Arys leaned in to brush his lips over the vein in my neck. The small act was both affectionate and predatory. Knowing him to be especially unpredictable, I pushed against the lure of his thrall. Suddenly I was thankful for our audience.
“It hurts me when you hurt,” he murmured against my skin. “I felt your heart break and my heart broke too. It kills me that I can’t take the pain from you. I couldn’t even break the goddamn curse.”
Arys pulled away, scrubbing a hand over his face and up through his hair. He’d promised me that he wouldn’t let me get dragged back into the stone with Shya. It wasn’t Arys’s fault that he couldn’t keep that promise. The curse had been carefully crafted by a powerful demon.
But Kale had found a way to break it, and Arys couldn’t stand that.
From sorrow to seething, I shoved away from the door to confront Arys head on. “You’re the one still here.” A crash of colliding emotions shook me. I refused to let him turn from me. “You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, Arys. You got what you wanted. The curse is broken and Kale is dead.”
He pushed me back, hard enough to make me stumble. “Back off, Alexa.” He meant that as a warning to keep things from crossing the danger line.
Fired up as I was, I came right back at him. “You are the dark to my light, the reigning king to my queen. Nothing can ever change that, and nobody can threaten it. Certainly not a dead man. Don’t make his death about you.”
Such a twisted web was our bond. There had to be something we could do. Some way to make sure we didn’t end up like the others. If I could keep my mouth shut and my temper contained, that would probably help.
Arys’s eyes widened, and I felt how close he was to throttling me. Dripping venom, he snarled, “I’ll make a note to not let it happen again, your highness.”
His fury stoked mine. With each exchange, each glare, we played off one another. Getting more riled up. Ready to lash out and cut deep. Manipulated by a deadly force we didn’t know how to conquer.
Because I just couldn’t keep my big trap shut, I hissed, “That’s more fucking like it.”
Boom. The room shook with tremors as Arys’s fragile grip on control snapped. With fangs bared he lunged for me.
I threw up both hands, flinging power in his face. Jenner and Shaz both snapped into motion. They went for Arys. He let them, proving to have some semblance of self-control. Jenner grabbed Arys’s arm, dragging him away, while Shaz put himself between us.
From his place at my desk Falon laughed. The bastard angel spun on the chair, cackling like the asshole he was. “You two are so fucked if you can’t keep your shit together. Your problem is that you’re always on guard with each other. You’re so used to being ready to throw down at a moment’s notice that you’ve never learned to be vulnerable with each other. Share your weakness, feed your strength.”
Falon’s unsolicited but somehow sensical observation made me look a little harder at him. He glowered in response to my searching gaze.
I knew he wasn’t wrong. How did he see what Arys and I could not?
And it all made sense. Arys so vehemently despised only Kale because I’d gone to Kale to be weak. To come undone in the worst of ways.
Arys jerked away from Jenner, holding up a hand to show he was cool. But his gaze fell to my throat.
“I don’t want to do this with you,” I said, spent and at the end of my rope. Rubbing a hand over my blood-streaked face, I sat heavily on the coffee table. “Not tonight.”
Unable to look at me right then without wanting to kill me, Arys sighed. It was a heavy sound of exasperation wrenched from the soul. I knew. I felt it too.
“Let me make this easy on you then.” Without a backward glance Arys strode from the room. The door slammed behind him.
We couldn’t go on like this. I’d made a promise not to give up. Every night it got harder to keep that promise.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Go with him,” I said to Shaz. “Please. Keep him out of trouble.”
Shaz glanced at the door Arys had just slammed. “Are you sure?”
I’d needed Shaz to be there to catch me when I fell tonight. With Kale’s dust on my hands, my white wolf had held me together.
But my other half had suffered too. And I’d just faulted him for that because he didn’t know how to deal with it. God, I sucked as a person sometimes. If I’d needed Shaz, then surely Arys did as well.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Catch him before he gets a chance to lose you.” I accepted Shaz’s soft but chaste kiss, relieved when he disappeared through the door. Then Jenner rocked forward on a heel like he’d follow. “Not you,” I barked. “You’re not going with them. I want Arys to stay out of trouble, and if you are anything Jenner, it’s trouble.”
He tried to look irritated at my assessment but mostly just looked pleased. “Hey, I come from a city of sin. It’s just how we roll there.”
“Sure. Blame it on your city. Whatever. Make yourself useful and find something Willow can wear when he shifts back.” What remained of Willow’s clothing lay torn to tatters on the floor.
Jenner held my gaze, his icy blues gleaming with a spark of mischief. “As you wish, your highness.”
“Thank you, Jenner.”
His mockery so hot on the heels of Arys’s stung. I refused to show it. What I did do was slip Jenner a hit of vampire heroin, a power pulse loaded with raw succubus heat. Enough to drive his craving for me from manageable to downright painful.
Shoulders taut, the vampire worked especially hard to keep any reaction from showing. I suspected Falon’s presence might have had something to do with that.
I smiled at his discomfort. It made my face ache.
I waited for him to leave before going to the washroom to clean away the blood tears and make a meager attempt at regaining my composure. Of all the nights it had been hard as hell to look myself in the eye, this had to be the worst. My eyes were blue and solid wolf. Haunted. I stared into the face of a woman who’d seen terrible things and done even worse.
Unable to meet my hollow stare any longer, I held my hands up. Turning them over, I marveled at how clean they were. No sign of ash or dust remained. No sign of Kale.
That sensation of needing to hyperventilate suddenly gripped me, and I clutched the countertop for balance. Could I wake up now? No, of course not. I was wide awake.
Falon reminded me that reality was a pain in the ass by calling, “Hey, wolf, what are you doing in there? That’s your face, ok, sweetheart? You can’t scrub off the ugly.”
I sighed, annoyed when a tiny smile tugged at my lips. Why did I put up with that jackass? The faint ache between my legs answered that question. Right. That’s why.
“Hey, asshole,” I called back. “Feel free to take off and ruin the rest of someone else’s night. You stopped being useful after the orgasm.”
Quiet teased from beyond the washroom for a moment. Then a chuckle. “You can always come sit on my dick. I don’t mind. Here to help. I’m sure Willow won’t care. It’s almost like he’s not even here.”
A snarl preceded
the snapping of jaws.
I cringed. Willow didn’t need to see the inner workings of my relationship with Falon.
Briggs shouted my name, drawing me out of the washroom with a grumble. I yanked the office door open to find him pressed against his threshold. Again.
“Good Lord, man, what the hell do you want now?” I held a psi ball rolling in my palm, ready to toss in his face.
His brows shot up and he scowled, waving my phone about. “Fine. Then I guess you’re not interested in taking this call from St. Claire.”
I scrambled to tear the phone from his grasp. “Jez?”
Silence on the other end. I checked the screen to ensure the call was connected. After a few seconds she spoke. “I just want you to know that I’m alright. Something happened tonight. My demon side made an appearance.”
“Where are you?” I demanded, panic making me shrill. “Are you ok?”
“I’m safe. I’m alone, and I need to stay that way until I get a grip on things. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Jez’s husky voice broke.
Worry consumed me. “What’s going on, Jezzy? You can tell me.”
“I know and I will. I just need to process things first. It’s been a rough night. Are you ok?” Her genuine concern brought the threat of more tears. I’d been so afraid she’d hate me.
“No, not really. But I will be.” I had to be. Giving up was not an option. “And so will you.”
Jez hesitated before saying, “Right. I’ll be in touch soon. Love you.”
She hung up promptly, leaving me to stare at the phone screen in dismay. What was going on with her?
Ignoring Briggs when he tried to speak to me, I marched back into the office and pinned Falon with a take no shit stare. “How bad could it possibly be? Whatever’s happening to Jez right now, how bad is it? Should I be looking for her?”
With a foot planted on the floor, Falon twisted the office chair from side to side. “Not if she doesn’t want to be found. It’s hard to say, but I doubt it’s as awful as you’re picturing. You do tend to be quite dramatic. It’s a little vexing.”
