by Trina M. Lee
His ragged groans filled my ears. Hands on my hips, he drove himself into me until his name became a cry on my lips.
Falon had learned to anticipate my reaction when we finished. Before I could shove him away, he stepped back and flopped down on the bed in immodest satisfaction. The room spun for several seconds before righting itself enough for me to hop off the table and keep my footing. Being power drunk resembled overindulgence in narcotics. It left me high, unsteady, and facing more than a little psychosis.
On shaky legs, I made my way to the closet to fetch a hotel robe, which I promptly wrapped around me. Unlike Falon, I wasn’t quite so content to lounge around naked, as if we shared more than what had just occurred.
“You’re not going to try to kick me out?” Falon asked, a silver brow arched.
I plopped down in a chair and turned to face him. “I’m not done with you yet.”
I was just getting started.
“Then get your ass over here and ditch the robe.” Falon patted the bed beside him. When I remained in the chair, he scowled. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to ask me for something?”
“Because I am.” I waited for him to get the eye rolling and grumbling over with. “I want you to find out where Jez’s darkness comes from. Why she didn’t get the choice she should’ve had. Can you do that?”
Falon propped himself up on a pile of pillows and regarded me in haughty derision. “What’s in it for me?”
There were so many ways I could answer that. Because I needed this to be a serious discussion, I chose the high road. No snark. “I’ll owe you one. Something fair. Small. Nothing that risks anyone I love.”
“You do realize what you’re saying. Owing me even a small favor may not work out well for you when the time comes for me to call it in.” Scowl gone, Falon sat a little straighter, eager as a demon over striking a deal.
“I know.” Making deals with fallen types smacked of idiocy. But this was Jez, a girl I loved like a sister. Hell, she was closer to me than my actual sister. Jez thought a binding ritual would sweep it all under the rug. The darkness didn’t work that way.
Falon extended a hand. “Deal. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Reluctantly I rose and approached the bed. “Please don’t mark me.”
Getting rid of Shya’s mark only to replace it with one from Falon would really friggin’ suck. It announced the stupidity of making such deals to the world.
“No worries. I don’t have to.” Mischief shone in his eyes. His meaning wasn’t lost on me. He marked me in unseen ways every time we were together.
I refused to acknowledge his comment. Sticking out my hand, I took his and shook, sealing the deal. Instead of letting go, he jerked me off my feet so I fell onto the bed beside him.
“Now,” he said. “Tell me about Shya.”
I jerked away to sit cross-legged on the empty side of the bed. Again I repeated the events of my night in the stone. And again I left out the revelation about Winter. I couldn’t deny that part of me would have loved to throw it in Falon’s face. However, the part of me where the spark lived, it wouldn’t allow that.
“Aww, shit.” Falon rubbed his forehead, a frown marring his perfect features. “He’s playing with you. It’ll just get worse from here.”
“You think?” I couldn’t possibly inject enough sarcasm into my tone. “Can’t help but think I shouldn’t be suffering alone in there. I didn’t stuff Shya in that stone by myself.”
Regarding me with a thoughtful expression, he nodded. “You’re right. You didn’t. And you shouldn’t have to take the brunt of Shya’s wrath. But he couldn’t curse us all at the same time. Lucky for me.” He snickered, immediately inciting the ire of my inner bitch.
Flustered and unarmed with a comeback, I muttered a scathing, “Fuck you.”
Falon took a moment of joy at my expense. “There’s always a way to break a curse. There has to be. It’s in the rules. So to speak. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I flipped him my middle finger and slapped at his hand when he reached for my thigh. “Shya alluded to a way, but he said I wouldn’t like it, and considering I know fuck-all about curses, it’s safe to say I’ll be spending a lot more time with him in the near future. Even though Arys is so insistent that I can’t go back there again.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Mentioning Arys during such a strained, high-energy discussion all but flung me into his head. Just suddenly there, seeing through his eyes, it made me disoriented.
A dark room with low lighting, a stripper pole, and a woman in his lap. On the edge of Arys’s vision, I saw another woman passed out on a chaise lounge. Or dead? I couldn’t tell. The youthful beauty straddling him seemed oblivious. She gazed into him as if he were the most dreamy thing she’d ever seen. Eyes glassy, lips parted, chest heaving, she’d fallen completely under his spell.
A rivulet of blood slowly made its way down her chest. Arys leaned in to capture it with his tongue. She shuddered and ground her groin against him. She wanted him, and who could blame her?
He knew I was there. Before he could directly acknowledge me, I withdrew from his head. I didn’t need to see how that ended.
“Did I lose you?” Falon asked. “I’ve seen that look before. Used to happen to Lilah all the time. Where is your dark half this evening?”
I stared at him, incredulous. “We’re not sitting here naked talking about him.”
Arys and I, we were a mess, trying to learn how to play the hand fate had dealt us. We should be together right now.
Falon grabbed the tie holding my robe closed and pulled. “We are not naked. I am naked. So let’s fix that, shall we?”
I slapped his hands away, feeling conflicted. “Is it just a coincidence that you ended up with two twin flame women? We’re not exactly common.”
Falon settled back against the pillows and reached for the TV remote on the bedside table, grinning when I smacked it out of his hand. “Is anything a coincidence in our world? Why over analyze it? Just remember, you seduced me.”
“So you keep saying.” My lips twitched in a mocking smile. “I think you protest too much, Falon. It’s suspicious.”
He regarded me with a pensive frown. It gave me the feeling that I wouldn’t like what he was about to say.
“Do you ever wonder if they really love you? Or if they’re just hopelessly addicted to what you are?” Falon asked with something resembling genuine curiosity. “Not Shaz of course. I’m sure his affection is built on illusion and wishful thinking. But the others, the vampires. Smitten with your blood and power, but at what point do they see you? The real you? Or do they ever at all?”
I was stunned. I shouldn’t have been. Now I knew where such nasty remarks came from. Although the way he looked at me, waiting for my reaction, told me he might not realize how horrible that sounded.
“You are such an asshole,” I muttered. Cut deeper than I would ever admit by his words, I knew the motive for such cruelty revealed more about him than it did about me.
Unapologetic as fuck, Falon ran a hand through his disheveled silver hair and scoffed. “I’m a product of my experiences. Not so unlike yourself. Don’t act like this is news to you.”
“Wow.” I shook my head, torn between pity and loathing. “You are tragically broken. Someone did some serious damage to you.”
Her name was on my lips. I wouldn’t say it. Didn’t even want to think about it lest he see in my eyes that I knew the truth.
Pointing a finger at me, Falon hissed, “Don’t you dare say that fucking name.”
Lips clamped together, I never uttered a damn word. Tension filled the stare-off that ensued. Patience might not have been my strong suit, but when it came to Falon, I could hold out as long as he could.
Something like torment slid behind his eyes. I knew. I’d seen that same look in Kale’s eyes.
Falon came up off the pillows so fast I jerked back, going into defense m
ode. He was undeterred. Capturing my face in his hands, he crushed his lips to mine in a forceful kiss.
Now that was more like it. Conversation had never been part of our encounters, nor should it become one now. Kissing him back with the sudden fervor of an insatiable hunger, I rose up on my knees so I could shed the robe.
Hands on Falon’s shoulders, I pushed him back down on the pillows and climbed on top of him. “No more talking.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My skin felt raw by the time I got out of the shower. I had scrubbed like mad in the hottest spray and still felt dirty.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Falon was gone. I’d told him he’d better not be there when I came out. Points to him for playing along.
Leaving the hotel, I passed only one person in the hall at such a late hour. Yet I still felt judged, like he knew what I’d done and agreed with my shame. Oddly enough, the shame and guilt had more to do with what I knew about Winter and less to do with my own poor choices.
Was I taking advantage of Falon? Feeding off his brokenness? Or was he getting as much as he gave?
In my car with the engine running to warm it up, I swallowed hard and called Kale back. Much to my twisted relief, I got the voicemail. What kept him so busy he couldn’t answer? No, it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to know.
“Sorry I missed your call,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m ok. But hey, listen, I need you to keep an eye on Juliet for me, if you don’t mind. Just until I can take care of a few things here. If she gives you shit for checking in on her, tell her to take it up with me.”
I stared at the front of the hotel, not knowing what else to say. Time to hang up.
“Thanks, Kale. For everything. I’ll talk to you later.”
Our phone calls were becoming fewer and farther between. There was always so much I wanted to say but so little I could. Our paths had diverged. And yet we would always be inextricably entwined.
I didn’t drive home when I left the city. Instead the small-town streets of Stony Plain led me straight to Arys’s cute little bungalow. He was home already, having finished his shady activity before I’d finished mine. Seeing as he often turned up at my place these days, it was almost like he knew I’d come here.
Before I could reconsider and flee home like a huge baby, I got out of the car and headed for the front door. I let myself in, finding it dark and quiet inside. Crossing through the kitchen to the living room and the hallway beyond, I found Arys in bed reading a book.
The bedside lamp bathed the room in an inviting warmth. With a pile of fluffy pillows under his head and a thick fleece blanket covering everything below his waist, Arys himself looked quite inviting.
He glanced up at me standing in the doorway and set his book aside. Patting the bed beside him, he gave me a lazy grin that had me dropping my bag and stripping down. Clad in only my t-shirt and underwear, I climbed into bed with him and snuggled in close.
“This is what I need,” I murmured, my face on his warm chest. “Just to be here with you. Like this.”
“Rough night?” Arys rested his cheek on the top of my head and stroked a hand up and down my arm.
I didn’t want to think about it. With my arm across his middle, I hugged him tight. “I hate that it has to be this way. There’s got to be more to us than this insatiable hunger for bad things.”
“There is,” he assured me. “You know there is. We stopped Shya from potentially unleashing hell on the city. We stepped in for Allie when nobody else could. And we’re going to take down the FPA.”
When he put it like that, I could see how there might be some good to us after all. Perhaps it was a matter of perspective and I needed to change mine.
I nodded and picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “Yes. We will. I know that. I just want to stop giving in so easily to temptation. It feels like failure.”
“You have no idea how strong you really are, do you? You have so much more control than you give yourself credit for. There are lines you won’t cross, people you would never harm. Stop defining yourself by a moral code constructed by an immoral society. Start seeing yourself as you are.”
I tipped my head back so I could meet his gaze.
He raised a dark brow, daring me to argue. Then he kissed the tip of my nose. A simple gesture loaded with genuine affection.
There was the answer to Falon’s question. Whether or not Arys loved me for me or for the power. He saw me, even parts of me I could not. I didn’t doubt for a moment that what he felt was real.
“I love you like crazy. You know that?” I kissed him, soft, sensual, but driven by love and not lust.
“I do,” he whispered against my lips.
The sound of the front door opening grabbed our attention. Right away I recognized the steady but soft tread of Shaz. The pine and wolf scent of him followed. We looked toward the hallway expectantly.
“Hey,” he said, appearing in the doorway. “Got room for one more?”
Arys hummed lightly with tangible contentment. “Always.”
We made room in the large bed for Shaz to slip in on my other side. After stripping down to his boxers, he climbed in and pressed his lively heat to me, sandwiching me between them.
I settled in so that Arys spooned me, putting Shaz and me face to face. Right away the unrest within me settled down, calmed by his touch.
“Is everything ok at Doghead?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess.” A frown wrinkled Shaz’s brow. “I mean, no, not really, but yeah, all things considered. Hanna’s still hitting the bottle, but having Owen back seems to have renewed her hope.”
Poor Hanna. I’d be a wreck in her position. I didn’t envy her.
“Hope is good,” I said. “Dayne’s got to still be in there somewhere. We’ll find him.”
Shaz nodded and settled deeper into his pillow. “That’s what I told her. I hope to God it’s the truth.”
His hair was disheveled, as if he’d been running his hands through it a lot, as he often did when stressed. The deep frown lines in his forehead confirmed that. Not only did Shaz have Arys and me to deal with, he had the stress of a new pack as well. It would be safe to say that Shaz might be the strongest person I knew.
Arys’s arm stretched beneath me, his hand resting on the edge of Shaz’s pillow. I watched as he ever so softly slid his fingers into Shaz’s platinum hair. Because the two of them were constantly surprising me, Shaz didn’t stiffen or pull away. If anything, he relaxed further, let out a breath in a long sigh and closed his eyes.
What we found in each other went beyond words and definition. It was a comfort that ran deep, to the soul. Whatever craziness had gone down between the three of us over the last year, it had brought us to this place where we could just enjoy being together.
Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Almost a week after my visit with Shya, I finally felt like me. I’d obtained strength and sustenance from my lovers, but a deep-buried part of me had been damaged. Traumatized. Fearful. Only now did I feel the fire in my spirit again.
After lying around my house feeling sorry for myself while bingeing on way too much Netflix and not nearly enough Shaz and Arys, Jez had demanded I come out with her. My retreats away from the world were always short lived. I simply didn’t have the luxury of disappearing for long.
“So it’s really over this time,” Jez said. “We had fun, but I think that’s where it ends.” She stared across the expanse of The Wicked Kiss, watching Wendi take drink orders.
My eye roll went unnoticed. We’d been there a while now, and Jez had been making moon-eyes across the room the whole time.
“Sure it does.” I nudged her with an elbow to get her attention. “Until it doesn’t. If you like her, I mean really like her, then see where it goes. Who cares about past hookups? It’s over.”
She and I sat across from Arys and Shaz in my favorite booth. So far it seemed like a low-key night. Right away that set me on guard
.
Jez made a face. “It’s so damn hard to find someone I not only connect with but also don’t have to keep secrets from. Wendi may be human but she’s part of this world. She knows about everything. Ugh. Why did she have to play victim for Kale?”
Both brows raised, Shaz took a sip of beer and shook his head. “Ouch.”
Arys chuckled. “Well, she’s getting a hell of an upgrade with you.”
“Hey now, be nice,” Jez admonished, although she looked particularly tickled.
The third fight of the night broke out near the bar. Pushing and shoving caused drink trays to be overturned as waitresses sought to bring orders to patrons. Shouts added to the loud music. Two human men slugged it out over a lady vampire. She stood off to the side with arms crossed, amused by their childish antics. I let them each get in a punch or two before snapping my fingers and flinging them apart.
“Pity they can’t just learn to share,” Arys remarked, earning a groan from the rest of us.
I watched as Justin took each guy aside and lectured them. A few fistfights were minor in the grand scheme of things. In some nightclubs that would have been the worst of the action. Not in my nightclub.
Because it was my nightclub and because we’d anticipated such a response, it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when an FPA swat team stormed the building.
But it did.
Everything moved in slow motion.
Agents in riot gear flooded through the front door. A commotion in the back hall announced their presence in the rear as well. Moving like a well-oiled machine, they fanned out in small teams, quickly covering the entire building.
The next thing I knew Jez was clutching my arm, shouting at me to do something.
On my feet, I shoved out of the booth and was immediately caught in the swell of chaos. The swat team had come prepared. Beyond protective vests and helmets, they also had metallic collars locked around their necks. They were prepared for vampires. Since I knew Agent Winston had run low on agents, these people were most likely brought in from another city. She hadn’t wasted any time in planning her next move. Seeing as I’d been absent the last few nights, she’d clearly been waiting and watching for me.
