And she didn’t belong to just Noir, but Jace as well. She was his in every sense of the word. And if people still didn’t heed his warning, still tried to harm her in any which way, he had no problem disposing of them. In fact, he looked forward to doing just that.
Somehow, the young woman had managed to fall asleep. Remnants of tears still stained her face, and the J was currently crusted with dried blood, but her breathing was even and full. A couple of times, however, she would wince or even whimper in her sleep. He loved the sound of her pain, knowing it was he who had inflicted it on her and nobody else.
He was addicted to the sound.
He was addicted to her.
Noir hated being dependent on someone, and had survived most of his life by simply caring about himself. And then he met her and everything had changed. He was consumed by her. He wasn’t sure just how he had survived the month without her. In fact, the thought of having another woman fulfill his carnal desires hadn’t even crossed his mind. Once he had had the best, anything below his standards just wouldn’t satisfy him. If he couldn’t have Keirah, he wouldn’t have anyone else.
But then, neither would she.
Noir had always been possessive of his things, and that included Keirah. If anyone even looked at her with lust clearly ebbed in the irises of their eyes, Noir didn’t even hesitate when it came to slitting their throat. He liked his things to be new when he received them, and as a result, wanted them to remain pure. Only he could touch them. Only he could violate them.
And boy, did he love to violate her.
Sex had never been a major facet for Noir, but he was a man and he did have needs that could only be fulfilled by the opposite sex. Usually, he indulged in whores he could pay for a couple of hours of torturous fun and then dispose of them quite maliciously when he was finished. Of course, the act of killing the whores when he was through with them had always left him more turned on than when he originally purchased them, but he had managed to stay satisfied by relieving himself with his own hand. He always used condoms when he was with the questionable women, not exactly knowing where they had been before him. He hated just how loose they were, and he took his hatred out on their bodies. It was something he had been used to.
Then he met Keirah, and everything changed.
She was pure, in mind, body, and soul. And because of such innocence, he had made it his mission to corrupt her. And when he had completed his task, he concluded, he would probably kill her. That was what he did when he got bored of his toys. Everything was replaceable.
Except, it turned out, that she wasn’t.
When she had told him she was a virgin, it was like Christmas, if he anticipated such a holiday, had come early. He hadn’t even cared if she had been touched previously because once he had been with her, she would be his wholly and from that point on. But it had turned out nobody had been with her, so she was, in fact, his.
She belonged to him.
He loved the fact that he had her to let his frustrations out on, his pent up anger, his sexual desires. And Keirah would always pretend she didn’t want it to escalate to violent, rough proportions, but he knew better. He always loved to see just how far he could take it with her, and she never disappointed him. She always enjoyed herself too. He liked to pleasure her just as much as he liked to harm her.
And the best thing? His desire for her had yet to falter. Even though he knew her body inside and out, knew what pleased her and what didn’t, he still hungered to be inside of her.
Which was exactly why she was irreplaceable.
He would never find anybody else like her. He craved nothing more than her body, her touch, her voice, her eyes, and even her love.
He would never admit it aloud, but he loved that she loved him, completely and truly. He never had to worry about her messing around on him; her loyalty was undeniable.
Which was probably why he loved her, too.
Noir suddenly growled at the fact. He hated her for it, too.
Merely looking at her caused him to harden, and he had to clench his jaw and his fists in order to control himself. God, he wanted to touch her, to fill her with him, to bask in the warmth only she could offer. How long had it been …? Too long to count. He needed her.
Right now.
But he would have to wait.
He hated waiting.
Without warning, Noir raised his hand and slapped Keirah’s cheek. He wouldn’t admit it, but he made sure it was the one he hadn’t inflicted any damage on.
God, he loved the way the J stained her face, even more so than the scar just above her hipbone. People couldn’t not see the latter when they looked at her face, her beautiful face.
“What the fuck was that for?” she snapped, her voice rather firm for someone who had just woken up.
Noir smiled at this, amusement gleaming in his blue eyes. “Ah-ta-ta,” he drawled, waving his index finger at her as though he was scolding a school child rather than a young woman. “You’re a lady. Watch your, hum … language.” He flipped over so both of his hands rested on both sides of her head. Now he towered over her. He tilted his forehead so it was mere millimeters away from hers, and he captured her brown eyes with his own. “You know,” he said, his dark, velvet voice softening. “I’ve, um, missed you so much …”
Keirah felt her breathing shallow as she tried frantically to look away from his eyes, but found that she was in no position to do so. The best thing she could do was press her lips together in order to contain a whimper of desire from escaping.
“Interesting way of showing it,” she managed to mutter in a sarcastic tone.
Noir laughed at this, his breath suddenly encompassing her face, causing her nerve-endings to erect and a painful pulse to pound against the inside of her.
“Oh, my darling, I have missed your wit,” he told her in a jovial manner. Suddenly, his eyes darkened as he smacked his lips together. “Yanno, I’m going, uh, well I’m going to kill Jarrett for looking at you so hum … unprofessionally.” Keirah swallowed, knowing that he was incredibly serious about such a threat, but she kept her mouth closed. He didn’t seem to notice her worry; either that, or he merely ignored it. “Has anyone eh-xpressed an interest in you, my love?” He clenched his jaw, hating that he had to have some kind answer from her to assure him that she was still untainted, that she was still his. “Has anyone touched what is mine?”
Keirah knew she should say no. It was the truth, and it was the safest answer.
But her inner desire inside prevented her from doing so.
Instead, she murmured, “It’s none of your business.”
Her answer caused Noir to react the exact way she had expected him to. A primal growl erupted in the back of his throat, and he pressed the weight on his knees in order to coil his long fingers around her throat.
Keirah knew just how fucked up it was to be turned on by this sort of thing. But something inside of her enjoyed being dominated by the man above her; it turned her on. For whatever reason, she knew he wouldn’t kill her, but just that element of danger that he might do it caused her to …
Her gaze started to blur and her breathing became close to nonexistent, so she tried to shake her head no.
“Answer the, um … question, doll,” Noir said, narrowing his eyes at her. He loved doing this to her, but hated to see her in pain.
Their relationship was based on conflict.
They both reveled in it.
“No,” she managed to say. “No.”
Suddenly, her airway was clear and Keirah was left sputtering and coughing, trying to catch her breath while Noir grinned.
“Good,” he said, thoroughly relieved. “Good.” He looked back over at her and smiled. “I thought so, dearie. I would never be with, hum … a whore.” He tilted his head dramatically to the side and slithered his tongue across his lips. “Now get dressed. We’re leaving.”
8
Since Reese was positive Andie would be driving her car back to Carey's pl
ace, she let Ollo drive her home so she could say goodbye to her parents. As she rested her forehead against the cool glass, she allowed herself a moment to be frustrated with her friend for leaving the party without saying anything, knowing she was Reese and Miranda's only means of transportation.
Andie shouldn't have done that. Maybe she didn't realize it because she had a lot more stuff going on, but she should have at least said something to Reese and Miranda, telling them that she needed to leave and that she could either take them all home or ask if they could find their own rides. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, allowing herself to feel the cool glass against her skin. She would let it go. Andie was dealing with stuff so Reese would let it go. She took a breath, released it, and let her shoulders slump forward.
What a night.
"You're awfully quiet, darl," Ollo said from beside her in his rumbling foreign brogue. "It's not like you."
"I'm just thinking," she murmured, keeping her eyes closed and her position the same.
"About what?" He sounded genuinely interested, and it made her feel worse that she was about to lie.
"I guess I'm just going to miss my family," she said, her voice still low. She couldn't look at him. Technically, she wasn't lying. She would miss her family, and considering the danger they were in as revealed by her vision, she wouldn't leave them unless she had to. And Ollo was adamant that a trip to Onyx National Park was crucial to her training, to prepare her for the battle in rough terrain, for targets that would actually move instead of remain stagnant.
In truth, she was thinking about Daphne. Why had she come? How did she know Ollo? And, more than anything, why was Ollo lying about her?
It was cheesy, it was crazy, but somehow, Ollo had found a way to crawl under her skin and become her best friend. More than Andie and Carey and Miranda. More than the friends she recently got back in touch with from Beverly Hills. Ollo was the one she trusted more than anyone. And now he was lying to her.
Granted, they had only known each other since Halloween. Maybe a couple of months at best. But he was essential in revealing who she really was, what she had been in the past. And Daphne was obviously a part of that past he wasn't ready to discuss just yet. Since Reese's soul had been reborn into each new lifetime, into a new body every time, her powers hidden from everyone except Henry—Charon, the man who pushed the first domino down in the spirit revelation she had gone through and ferried her soul into waiting bodies—ready to be awakened in case the war between angels and demons began, her memories from her previous lifetimes were not really hers. It wasn't her soul that jumped from one body to the next, but her powers. And somehow, this was the lifetime when she was needed. Thanks to Henry, Ollo had found her and woken her up, woken her powers with a simple kiss on the lips. Instantly, she was out of her coma, and she still remembered that moment when she looked into those rain-blue, mud-brown eyes before he vanished into the night. It was the day of her seventeenth birthday.
But those powers didn't retain all the knowledge she had accumulated over the centuries. It didn't retain what she had gone through during the First War.
“Man is a general term that includes every gender,” Ollo clarified. “What God gave us was a choice. Noir could have chosen to let Keirah die. People would expect him to. Hell, he probably expected him to. But he didn’t. He chose to take her to the hospital where it was likely he would be caught. You chose to believe me, in me. And I chose to awaken you.”
Reese felt her breath leave her. “You?” She wasn’t aware she had spoken until he replied.
“Me.” He wasn’t looking at her now. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the trees that lined that street. “Crazy, hmm?”
“How?”
He pressed his lips together, sighing through his nose. He didn’t want to tell her, she realized, but he would. She knew he would. “The way you’re supposed to awaken a sleeping woman,” he finally said. He pressed his brows up, expecting her to understand, but when she continued to stare at him blankly, he let out a frustrated grunt. “A kiss, darl. I kissed you.”
Reese’s fingers immediately went to her lips, as though she was trying to remember the feel of it. “I thought that was only in fairytales,” she mumbled, letting her hand fall down to her side.
“Even fairytales have truth buried underneath the fiction,” he responded.
She hesitated only a moment before asking, “Does this mean you’re my true love?”
“That’s a myth,” he said, his words precise and drawn out. “We’re connected, darl. Your soul and mine. Do you remember when you asked if Gabe was Apollo?”
She nodded. “You said he wasn’t,” she said.
“He’s not.” A beat. “I am.”
“You?” She looked at him with disbelief.
“Me.” One nod. “We’re bound together through time. I was the only one who could awaken you and your powers.”
“Why did it take so long for you to meet me?”
“I don’t like to say goodbye.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed. “Think about it, darl,” he said. “I’m not good at making friends. After the first time, I promised myself never again. You were the only one I trusted. Whenever you were reborn, I could feel it. In my bones. In the air. I refused to see you. You would never be who I remembered so I avoided meeting you at all cost, and I was doing a pretty damn good job of it, too. So much time passed I started to hope that maybe, just maybe, this war would never happen, that I would never need to see you again. I tried to forget you. I started drinking to help. It didn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t work.” He locked eyes with her. “There’s no forgetting you, darl.” A sad smile. “Then Noir came and then the Black Wing. It was only a matter of time until Henry came and told me it was time. I saw you lying there and you were perfect. You are perfect. And for a minute, I didn’t want to wake you up. I wanted you to sleep. Forever. For this lifetime.”
“Why?” Reese asked. “What could I have possibly done to you?”
“You died.” His voice was low, soft. “Every war needs a catalyst to start the war and a sacrifice to end it. The last time you were needed, why you were created, was for the First War, when Hades went against Law and kidnapped Persephone for himself. You were the catalyst.”
She shuddered. Ollo looked broken when he had told her that. He started drinking. He isolated himself. And he hadn't looked for her even though he was the one who had woken her up. Because he was afraid. He was afraid he would lose her again. He had traveled throughout the centuries, staying an arm's length away but never making an appearance.
Until now.
She couldn't even imagine what he had gone through. But that didn't give him the right to hide someone from his past, from their past. If he just let her in, she knew she'd be understanding. She knew she would keep an open mind about everything. He didn't have to keep her in the dark about this. But he was. For whatever reason, he was doing just that.
When he pulled up to her home, she offered him a tired smile. He was actually wrong in claiming that she had yet to pack: she had two roller suitcases and her soccer shoulder bag, plus a backpack and her most durable purse ready by the front door. All she had to do was change into more comfortable clothing and say goodbye to her family.
Which would be difficult, considering she hadn't told her brother she was leaving on a weekend camping trip with her slightly older boyfriend.
Brody Lespoir was a tad overprotective of his older sister to the point where tension would be monumental whenever she made a decision he didn't think was best for her. They've had fights because she had dated guys he didn't approve of, snuck out of the house to go to parties thrown by people he didn't approve of, and demand to know every single detail of her life without revealing anything about his. He was as stubborn as a mule and more prideful than Mr. Darcy. She loved him more than anything, but when they fought, it was bad. He remembered everything and held grudges. He was impossible.
&nbs
p; But he was her brother.
For the most part, they got along just fine. However, he was the only person in the family that disapproved of Ollo.
"The guy can't buy you the dream house you want," he had said after Thanksgiving. "He doesn't have a college education. Plenty of guys who have those things will treat you well. I just don't understand why you're throwing your life away with some guy who can't even afford to buy a new shirt, who can't make an effort to look presentable at our table to have Thanksgiving lunch with our family."
He was harsh, blunt, and cutting, and it infuriated her to no end. It didn't matter that she and Ollo weren't even technically together. The fact that he was such an asshole when it came to Ollo without even knowing who Ollo was as a person and how happy he made her just by being himself sent her into a torrent of emotions she could only weather after getting away from her brother for long, extended periods of time. Maybe if he knew she could handle a bow and arrow, he would watch what he said around her. Then again, his pride was such a core part of who he was that maybe it didn't matter what she said or did, he was going to feel the way he felt regardless.
Which was sad, because if he kept that mentality, he was going to push everyone away from him until there was no one left and he was all alone.
Initially, Reese didn't even want to tell Brody about her trip. Her mom then pointed out that he would question her whereabouts since she'd be gone for three days. Then, Reese wanted to tell him the truth about everything except Ollo, and use Andie and Miranda in place of Ollo. But her mother insisted that he would eventually find out through another means, and he would blow a gasket because it hadn't come from her. Quite frankly, Reese had a feeling he would blow a gasket no matter what she did, but she kept that thought to herself.
She curled her fingers around the door handle and opened it, prepared to exit the vehicle when Ollo's voice stopped her.
The Dark Paradise Trilogy Box Set Page 37
