by Trina M. Lee
My wolf? I replayed Shya’s final words to me. Desperate and devious, he’d lashed out at the part of me that still belonged to the light. But just what exactly had he done?
Looking morose, Willow took his turn examining the triangle. Each point extended into an S-shaped squiggle. It resembled an old scar. Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly hate Shya more, Willow mused, perplexed, “Moon magic. He used the moon to tie a curse to your wolf. I’m not sure what his intent is. We’ll find out during the next full moon. There’s always a loophole with a curse though, a way to break it. Maybe once it’s triggered, we’ll be able to figure that out.”
“You can’t do anything to break it now?” Shaz hovered close, his fist clenched in his platinum hair.
Willow shook his head. He seemed reluctant to meet my eyes. “It doesn’t work that way. Shya created it. The curse has his energy signature. Only he can undo it. However, it can be broken. That’s the rule. Every curse can be broken. It’s a matter of finding out how.”
“Angels can break them too,” Gabriel offered with a shrug. “It’s not often that they do though. Part of the trials of life or some such shit.”
I did a double take, finding his flippant reference to angels curious. He and I really did need to spend some time together. Picking the kid’s brain was a must.
“So we just have to wait and see what it does and hope to figure out how to break it?” Shaz was incredulous. Fatigue lined his eyes.
Willow was indifferent. “Yes.”
“We have to get home,” Arys interrupted, eyeing the horizon. “We can pick this apart when we’re not at risk of being trapped at Shya’s house all day. I need to get the hell away from this place.”
That was something we all agreed on.
The thought of leaving just led me to another issue: Briggs. I stared at him until he felt it and glanced up with a scowl.
Gabriel admitted he’d actually prefer to stay at Shya’s manor, since somebody might as well. It was a great house in a private location on the edge of town. I had just one request: that he keep Briggs here with him until I was able to make some arrangements with Agent Winston. Of course Briggs protested this plan.
“Briggs, if you were in my position would you let me just walk away?” I challenged. “Or would you use me to gain some leverage, maybe strike a deal? Be a good boy, and you’ll be out of here in no time.”
He and I both knew damn well he’d never let me walk if our roles were reversed. If I was giving him back to Winston, I was getting something out of it. I trusted that Gabriel could handle him.
Jez decided she would ensure that Brogan got home safely before heading home herself. Falon disappeared without a word to anyone, not that I expected otherwise. After giving Gabriel a laundry list of instructions and warnings regarding Briggs, Willow pulled me aside on the way to the car.
“Alexa, I owe you an apology,” he said. “The things I said to you were disgusting and unfair. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.” His eyes were hollow, void of their usual spark of easy-going mischief.
Without giving him a chance to deny me, I threw my arms around him in a tight hug. At first he stiffened. When I didn’t let go, he relaxed into it and slung an arm around me.
“You gave up everything to take care of me, Willow,” I spoke soft and low, keeping the exchange private. “Let me take care of you for a while.”
A smile tried to break across his face. Though it made his lips quirk, it didn’t quite light his eyes. “Maybe we can take care of each other.”
“We’ve got to try.” I dangled the amulet between us, grimacing in distaste at the thought of Shya’s incorporeal self stuck inside. “Would this be a bad time to ask for a favor? This thing needs to be hidden away somewhere safe.”
Willow stared at the amulet, his face scrunched into something like disgust. “It’s not safe with me, but I have a friend, an angel, Serene. It will be as safe as it can get with him.”
Surrendering Shya’s prison to anyone was tough. Letting it out of my sight felt like a mistake. However, keeping it felt like a bigger mistake. My manic life offered too many opportunities for something to go wrong. There was no one else I trusted to take it more than Willow.
After he’d gone, Arys, Shaz, and I clambered into my car and headed back into the city, taking the freeway that would lead us home. The drive was quiet. The only noise came from the radio. Arys stared out the passenger window. In the rearview mirror I could see Shaz stretched out in the backseat. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping.
I focused on the road. This close to sunrise we couldn’t afford any mishaps that would slow us down. Shifting to wolf would protect me from its burning rays, but Arys didn’t have that luxury.
We made it to my house incident free. I breathed a sigh of relief and dragged my exhausted self from the car into the house. Shaz and Arys went upstairs, each closing the door to one of the two bathrooms up there. Almost simultaneously both showers turned on.
I had to smile. They’d each learned in their time with me that being gentlemanly and offering me the shower first often meant a long wait and very little hot water. Moving to a house with two full baths had only solved some of that problem.
After tossing my bag on the counter and the Dragon Claw on the table, I checked the messages on my phone. Juliet had called, as had Hanna, the Doghead Alpha female. She wanted my help.
“I told that son of a bitch there would be no war with the vampires.” Her voice shook in the voice mail she’d left. “Dayne has a real hard head. He won’t listen to anyone when he’s convinced himself he knows what’s best. I know you have no reason to want to help the pack anymore, but that man is my everything. After a few conversations with Shaz, I believe you can understand what I’m going through here.”
Ah, fuck me.
Ok, I had kept Briggs so I’d have a pawn to trade because it still meant something to me to have a good relationship with the local pack. And now that Shaz was part of the pack, a war with the wolves would be the worst case scenario for him, and I feared that war had already begun. Still, I had absolutely no personal incentive to help get Dayne out of the FPA lockup.
A quick perusal of the house and yard revealed everything to be as I’d left it. As I climbed the stairs, I expected apprehension to slow my pace. It didn’t. In light of what we’d just been through, all I wanted to do was fall into bed with my guys. I needed to feel them cuddled up on either side of me.
Arys was sprawled across my bed wearing only sweat pants with his phone in hand. “Ah, Jenner,” he chuckled as he typed a message. “Always good for a laugh.”
“You’re texting Jenner?” I paused to admire his bare chest and damp, sexy mess of hair on my way to the closet. “Are things ok?”
“Well, it’s Vegas. Nothing to worry about though.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. My brief time in Las Vegas had not left me with that opinion of the city. I started to close the bathroom door, then stopped. “Tell Jenner I said hi.” Jenner would know that ‘hi’ really meant, ‘Don’t let anything happen to Kale, or I’ll kill you.’
The hot spray of the shower felt amazing. The wounds I’d sustained from the arrows were little more than scratches now. Physically I was in pretty great shape. All the fatigue and raw spots were mental. Long after I scrubbed myself clean, I stood there letting the water beat down on my face and head. At some point I would feel the sting of the emotional blemishes although I’d rather not. The words Willow had spoken under the influence of the panic room had penetrated deep. I wouldn’t think about them now, but soon they would rise to the surface and wage war on my psyche.
As soon as I turned off the water, plunging me into sudden quiet, I heard voices beyond the door.
“Piss off, Arys. I just want to go to sleep.”
“Aren’t you a testy thing? Chill out, Shaz. I said I was sorry.”
“You did, but you aren’t. I know you.”
“Do you now?”
&nb
sp; I didn’t have to see their faces to know which expression they’d each be wearing. Shaz would be glaring, rugged and commanding. Arys was probably shooting Shaz a sexy grin, enjoying his ire.
It was quiet as I tied my hair atop my head. Wearing underwear and a large Alice Cooper t-shirt, I emerged to find Arys sitting up against the headboard on the outside edge of the bed. Shaz was on the inside, almost pressed to the wall. Fatigue dulled his green eyes.
The light of the bedside lamp bathed them both in a warm, inviting glow. They watched me as I slid onto the foot of the bed, crawling up between them. Sleep often eluded me these days, but I could feel it now, calling my name.
“I can’t believe how tired I am.” I collapsed on the bed and dragged the blankets up around me. “This whole never sleeping thing is getting old.”
I reached out a hand to each of them, and within seconds they were curled up next to me. Shaz pressed his face to my neck in a wolfish nuzzle. I flung a leg over his, reveling in his warmth. I groped about beneath the blanket until I found Arys’s hand. The soft vibration of our connection was comforting.
Despite my exhaustion, I took a few moments to lay there and savor the way it felt to be nestled between them. Vampire and wolf were in harmony inside me, equally at peace. A rare occurrence. One to be enjoyed while it lasted.
I listened to Shaz’s breathing as it slowed and evened out. In his sleep he reached to wrap an arm around me. Arys was relaxed beside me. I didn’t think he was asleep but, like me, enjoying the calm.
There was a lot to think about: seeing Raoul inside Shya’s illusion, the curse that bastard demon had left as a parting gift, and everything we’d all experienced in the panic room. In retrospect, Shya’s horror house hadn’t been all that scary. It had been designed to frighten us with the worst parts of ourselves. We had been the scariest things inside that house, every one of us. And that was the point after all, wasn’t it? Shya, in his own demented way, was a genius.
For now those ponderings would have to go in the vault. No bad thoughts. Nothing was going to ruin this moment for me because I needed this. We all needed this.
* * * *
My sleep was far from dreamless. A mash up of nonsensical images ran through my head. I woke feeling confused and ravenous. And a little hungover.
The residual effects of the demon power left me foggy, like a bad taste in my mouth although it was my mind instead. It needed to be cleansed from me like the foreign matter it was.
As my consciousness surfaced from the depths of slumber, I became keenly aware of the most wonderful aroma, a musky mix of man and animal, strong and rich with a hint of pine and shampoo. My eyes snapped open, and I sat straight up.
“Told you,” Arys said from his place beside me. He lay on his side, head propped on one hand.
Shaz leaned against the wall with the blankets drawn up to his waist. He eyed me with intrigue. His shrug was for Arys. “Fine with me.”
Apparently they’d been having a conversation before I woke up. Couldn’t say I was thrilled with the thought of them sitting there watching my prone, sleeping form. I opened my mouth to speak, but it felt dry and fuzzy. Ick.
“Let me be what you need right now, Lex.” Shaz reached for my hand. He still bore the mark on his wrist from Arys, yet here he was offering himself to me. Was this love? Or lunacy?
Yes, that was what I wanted. Gripped with the urge to lunge at him in a fevered rush to spill his blood, I groaned with the strength it took to fight it. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. It was a lie on some level. Hurting him was something I very much wanted to do. The shame that came after was what I could do without.
“You won’t.” He kissed his way over my hand to my wrist. His warm breath tickled my skin, sending a shock wave of delight up my arm. “It’s safe here with the three of us together. This is what you need. It’s what I need.”
I didn’t have to look at Arys to know he was onboard. This had been his idea when he ambushed me with a mini intervention in my living room. Now, finally, the reluctance I’d experienced that night was absent. Being able to sate my hunger with the wolf I loved had seemed like a violation of him, but if it kept me from hunting innocents or losing my mind on a donor at the Kiss, then maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
Shaz wanted this. If he wasn’t afraid, why should I be?
When I did look to Arys for his reaction, I found my hunger mirrored in his eyes. Though his hunger was not for Shaz but for me. The addictive nature of my blood had not only affected Jenner and Kale.
“I won’t let you lose control,” Arys promised. He sat up and kissed my shoulder, a hand on my hip.
Bloodlust clawed at my stomach, twisting it into knots. The combination of their energies, vampire and wolf, tantalized my senses. Now that was a feast.
With a hand on Arys’s face, I kissed him. Unleashing my desires, I claimed his mouth, gasping softly when the rush of his arousal crashed over me. The heat of Shaz’s tongue on my wrist stoked my fire. After trailing a hand over Arys’s bare chest to his navel, I turned to Shaz and made him my focus.
He might be prey, but he was my lover. There was a fine line between victimizing him and bringing him along on this ride with me. And I was going to find it.
I pushed up onto my knees, putting us face to face. Shaz’s back was still against the wall, trapping him. I climbed into his lap and let my thrall fall gently over him. Not too much, just enough to coax a sigh from him and make his pulse quicken. I wanted him to enjoy himself without being completely under my control.
Our lips met, and the full force of all that was Shaz swept me away. He battled for control of the kiss, an Alpha-like aggression balanced out by the emotion behind it. His actions were unhurried. A hand on my cheek and the other on my waist, Shaz kissed me with a passion that knew no bounds.
Behind me Arys pushed strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail off the back of my neck. The touch of his mouth there made the sensitive nerve endings come alive. The sensation of him at my back made me feel confined, trapped between them. I was excited by the promises made by that simple action.
I threw my head back as Shaz kissed his way down my neck. His hands slid up my sides, over my ribs, taking my t-shirt with them. It was soon forgotten, tossed at the end of the bed.
With my back arched, I was able to reach back to sling an arm around Arys’s neck. With fingers playing in his soft hair, I gasped as Shaz lowered his head to my breasts.
“I’ve missed you, Lex,” he murmured against my skin. “I’m going to show you how much.”
“Oh, yes, please,” I sighed, threading my fingers into his hair. Touching them both at the same time gave me a taste of what I hungered for.
Shaz nuzzled me, pressing his face against me. I stroked his tousled head of platinum, needing to take a moment to record this feeling in my memory. The soft touch of his tongue followed as he sucked a taut nipple into his mouth.
Behind me Arys kissed and licked his way along the back of my neck to my shoulder. His hand slid around to my stomach before slipping lower. My underwear didn’t put up much of a fight when he tugged it aside. Arys’s touch was light and delicate, teasing me into wanting more. A growl rumbled in my throat, turning to a groan when he stroked a finger over me.
Beneath me Shaz’s hard on strained. The scent of blood pumping through his veins was paired with the echo of it in my ears.
Hunger for blood and powerful energy screamed through me, demanding that I take what I wanted. Patience was not a concept the hunger understood, unless it was to draw out the torment. As much as I enjoyed a little torment, this was not a quick fix with a stranger. This was an exchange rooted in love.
Letting Shaz love me was not without challenge. The vampire’s inclination to dominate warred with my wolf’s willingness to relax and let things happen, rather than forcing them to happen. Damn, I needed him. Prolonging the best parts made for the greatest rush, yet waiting too long could be dangerous.
I guided his face back to mine for a kiss that cried out with desperate longing. Just the slightest nip of his lip would spill that heady shifter blood. Resisting was torture. Every passing second with their hands on me was torture. The best fucking torture.
When I just couldn’t take it any longer, a tug on Shaz’s shorts rid him of them. I shimmied out of my underwear, and a quick peek beneath the blankets revealed an already naked Arys. Surprise, surprise.
I resumed my position straddling Shaz. I seemed to do a lot of straddling these days. It was a power position I really enjoyed.
With my bottom lip clenched between my teeth, I held Shaz’s gaze and took him inside me, inch by amazing inch. He was rock hard, his body tense, energy running high and hot with arousal. His wolf peered out at me with possessive desire.
There was a sense of fulfillment, of rightness, with him inside me. I started off slow, rising up and then plunging back down, eliciting delicious moans from him with each stroke.
Arys was at my back, tugging my hair from its tie. The blonde mess spilled down my back, and he buried his hands in it. His lips on my ear sent a shiver crawling through me.
I ran my hands over Shaz’s chest, down his finely sculpted abs. Using my fingertips to feel his aura, I drew on the sensual energy that was all man and wolf. Two essences blended into one vibrant, potent force. I took it into me, rolling it around in my mind, cleansing myself of the cobwebs the demon magic left behind.
I needed to taste him.
Each sound he made threatened my control. Every moan and growl took me deeper into the head-spinning rush of the bloodlust. I wanted him. All of him. Now.
Baring fangs, I pushed Shaz’s head to the side and went for his jugular.
Arys’s hand tightened in my hair. He jerked my head back and pressed his lips to my ear. “Not so fast, my love,” he said, his voice low and smooth as velvet.
Power sparked between us. Arys wasn’t gentle when he wrapped me in his allure. It flowed through me to Shaz, completing the circuit. He gripped my hips and thrust up into me, making us both cry out.
