It’s a silence that’s only broken by the sound of a scuffle outside. I hear knuckles meet flesh. A male voice swears. Xander swears back at him.
When the door opens, Xander isn’t alone.
He pushes a male body into the room before him and closes the door behind. The man is shoeless and shirtless…and gorgeous, but that’s neither here nor there. His abs are bruised and dirty, which makes my sudden—totally inappropriate—urge to lick chocolate off of them even more, well, inappropriate.
There’s a bag over the man’s head, which Xander grabs to straighten him with.
But there’s not a bag over his head for long.
“Miss Bright, should you fail to sign your papers, there will be consequences.” I open my mouth and Dr. Belmont holds a hand up to stop me. “Not for you. For him.”
She nods at Xander and he whips the bag off of the man’s head in a single, fluid motion, then lets it flutter uselessly to the floor.
Dr. Belmont’s smile returns when she sees the look on my face as I stare up at the face of my best friend in the entire world—the only person who, up until a few days ago, ever gave a single shit that I was alive.
“Hey, Rory,” he rasps, panting as he stares down at me and tries to force a smile that his split lip won’t allow.
“Hey,” I say back, my hands shaking as I rise. “H-hey, Drew.”
5
Rory
“Why don’t we give you two a moment alone?” Dr. Belmont suggests as I rush forward and Drew nearly collapses into my arms.
His body is heavy, hot and coated in a thin sheen of sweat. I’m so glad to see him, I hug him harder than I ought to. When I do, he makes a soft grunt of pain.
“Gently, Rory,” he grunts, and I wince apologetically as I ease up on the hug just a little bit.
When I pull away, I get a better look at his face. It’s worse up close—still handsome and scruffy as ever, but beneath his soft golden-blond stubble are the signs of bruises. Some are a dull greenish purple—already healing. Some are fresh, still waiting to fully bloom.
A scabbed over gash slashes through one eyebrow. It looks like the work of the butt of a rifle, or maybe a well-aimed fist. His split lip looks tender and sore—which doesn’t stop me from taking his jaw in my hands and kissing it.
“So you missed me,” he teases, moaning the words against my lips.
“Of course I missed you, you big…stupid…idiot!” I kiss him again with each insult then hug him tight again. “When Xander came to arrest me I thought—”
“Charming, Rory,” Xander’s cool voice purrs from behind me. I turn in surprise—I assumed he’d left with Dr. Belmont. “I see how it is. I bring you to safety, but it’s the roughneck who gets the kiss.” His dark eyes shift from me to Drew. “She kisses me too, you know. Don’t think it makes you special.”
“You slimy, shape-shifting sack of—” Drew lunges for Xander, but some combination of his wounds, his tied hands and my body holds him back. When Drew’s clear blue eyes lower to mine again, I can see the fury in them. “He didn’t bring you to safety, Rory. Don’t believe that for a fucking second. He had me arrested, then he came for you. If your mother was alive, she’d be—”
“Pleased, I imagine.” Xander licks his lips as if he’s savoring the look of confusion on my face. “All I’m doing is following her orders.”
“Wait—you two know each other?” I look between them, trying and failing to piece all of this together. My eyes land on Xander’s smug, darkly handsome face. “You knew my mother?”
“We do. And I did. His mother, too.” Xander leans back against the wall, crossing his arms over the medals and regime insignia on his chest. “I’m afraid our three histories are slightly more complex and intertwined than you’ve been led to believe, Rory.”
A low growl emanates from Drew’s throat, but I hold up a hand before he can start barking insults at Xander again.
“And this is what she wanted? For me to work for the Regime—train with them like a good dog so they could groom me into becoming their personal fucking—”
“Bitch?” Xander says the word like he’s trying to get a rise out of me. I grit my teeth and decide then and there that I’m not going to let him. “I never questioned why your mother wanted you here, Rory. Emily Bright was a great woman and a powerful witch, but she often worked in mysterious ways. I’m simply following the orders she left me before she—”
“Before she killed herself,” I say softly, then shake my head and correct myself. “Or…or before her powers killed her.”
“…Yes.” Xander hesitates like he’s choosing his words carefully again. “Before her powers killed her. Perhaps that’s why she wanted you here when your Awakening started—instead of in the hands of an incompetent roughneck human who couldn’t even keep you from wandering off at night.”
“Oh, of course. Better to hand her over to Belmont and the Warden so they do what they like with her.” Drew’s voice is dripping with venom.
“I’ve orchestrated for the Warden to be in the capital during Rory’s stay here. Which you’re welcome to thank me for later, Rory…however you see fit.” Xander’s eyes slide up and down my body in a way that makes me feel like I’m wearing a lot less than just my prison shift. “As for Belmont, she’ll behave herself in the Warden’s absence. I’ll be here to ensure as much.”
“Don’t listen to a damn thing he says, Rory.” There’s hurt in Drew’s eyes that seems to reach deeper than just the bruises on his skin. “This piece of shit has been playing you—playing both of us. Being two-faced is just part of his DNA.” He shoots Xander a scathing look. “If your mother hadn’t told me to contact him when your Awakening was getting close, I never would have—”
“So you knew too.” A pang of something sharp resonates in my chest. “Seems like the only person that my mother didn’t warn about my fucked up glow-hands is me.”
“She did it for your safety,” Drew tries to reassure me.
I’m not sure it works.
“It’s true, Rory.” I’m surprised to hear Xander chime in. It seems like it’s the first thing he and Drew have agreed on since I got here. “The less you knew about your powers, the better off you were.”
“Why? So I could come into them confused and afraid and completely in the dark?!” All the months of blackouts and headaches. All the months of research in the library. All the months of fear—that I was dying, or worse, that I was going insane. And all that time, the answers were right under my nose—if anyone had been so kind as to let me know where to look. “Someone could have told me. Someone should have told me.”
“Your mother wanted you to have a normal life, Rory.” Drew’s voice is soft and sincere. “What you have ahead of you…it’s not going to be anything close to normal. Not for a long—”
“That’s enough.” Xander’s voice rings out harsh and abrupt. The second Drew hears it, his mouth opens again like he wants to say more…then closes in resignation again. “Rory, no one is here to lie to you.”
Drew makes a sarcastic noise in the back of his throat and Xander shoots him a cold stare.
“We don’t want to keep you in the dark any longer,” Drew adds. If his hands weren’t still tied behind his back, I imagine he would be stroking my cheek right now. I wish he could. “All we want is to keep you safe, Rory.”
“Agreed. And in order for that to happen…”
Xander looks pointedly at Dr. Belmont’s contract, still sitting there on the table.
“Tell me about this Guardian bullshit,” I say instead. Changing the subject, or maybe just buying myself some more time. “You seem to think you’re my…my Guardian.” I blink blankly at Xander, making sure he can see my displeasure at that notion, before I turn to Drew. “Does that mean that you…?”
I want Drew to answer me. I want him to say yes. Yes, he’s my Guardian as well. Yes, that’s the reason our mothers taxed him with the burden of keeping me safe. Yes, he’ll protect me from Dr. Belmont
—from the mysterious Warden that he and Xander have spoken so cryptically of—even from Xander, if he turns out not to be as noble and well-meaning as he says he is.
Instead, Drew only hangs his head. He can’t even meet my gaze.
“I’m afraid our friend Drew has already had his chance for his Guardianship to awaken.” Xander answers my question instead, coming up behind me and plucking a lock my hair off my shoulder. He holds it up, studying it idly in the room’s low light. “When you had your Awakening, Rory, a tattoo appeared on my chest. Burned right through my shirt, in fact.”
He drops the lock of hair and unbuttons the stiff black shirt beneath his Regime jacket, pulling it away to reveal the same mark he showed me on the night he arrested me. A dozen or more dark, interlocked circles forming an even larger circle is emblazoned on his chest, just above his heart, like he was branded with it.
Instinctively, I turn my hands over and see the same mark on my palms, filling in one of the circles at the tips of the pentacles on each. When I raise one hand to Xander’s firm, chiseled pectoral, I feel every cell in my body roar to life as both of our marks begin to glow.
Desperately, I turn to Drew, raising my hand to the same place on his chest.
Nothing happens.
I press my palm hard against Drew’s bare, muscled breast.
Drew raises his eyes to me and shakes his head. There’s an apologetic look swimming in his soft, calm blues.
“Generally speaking,” Xander pipes in—unhelpfully. “His Guardianship would have awakened with a…kiss.” I glare at him over my shoulder and he only smiles. “But it seems that not every man who is graced with the pleasure of those lips can prove himself so worthy…”
“That’s enough!” Drew snarls as he pushes past me, bound hands and bruised ribs be damned. “I won’t have you talking about Rory like that, you fucking—”
“What? Shifter? Bastard?” Xander laughs coldly, taking Drew’s shoulder in his hand and pushing him away. “At least I’m not a mongrel fucking half-breed like—”
“Stop!” I yell the word, either loud enough or with enough force that the word hangs in the air, ringing in my ears long after it’s left my mouth. I hold my hands out like I’m trying to push Xander and Drew apart. Something bright and glowing, like pale plasma suspended in a vacuum, pours from my hands and moves them for me.
“Oh dear.” Dr. Belmont’s voice is full of faux-concern as she re-enters to see me—or, I guess, my magic—gently push Xander and Drew’s bodies to opposite sides of the room. “Goodness, Rory—it looks like we’re bringing you in just in time.” She looks to Xander. “Has she signed yet?”
“Not yet.” I answered the question for him, holding my hand out for Dr. Belmont’s pen. “But I’m ready now.”
“Rory, wait—”
I give Drew a stern look. “They already beat you before they even asked me the question. I don’t want to find out what they’ll do to you if I say no.”
“Good girl.” I can hear the pleasure in Xander’s voice. “Your mother would be—”
I shift the stern look to Xander. “Frankly, my mother is dead. She could have prepared me for this—all of it—so I could make these choices on my own. Instead…” I gesture vaguely. They’ve stolen all option of choice from me about my powers, how to use them and what I should use them for. Nothing more needs to be said. “I don’t know if she would have been proud, or happy, or even upset by all of this—I just know that this is the only option I have now.”
Dr. Belmont’s pen is cold and heavy in my hand. My markings are sending little jolts of something—fear or panic or warning, I’m not sure—racing through my nervous system as I lower the tip to the line at the end of the papers where I’m meant to sign my name.
I hesitate.
“If I sign this, Drew will no longer be harmed.” I address Dr. Belmont with steel in my voice. “Nor will I. Nor will Xan—Commander North—or any of my other Guardians, for that matter.”
“Naturally,” Dr. Belmont agrees.
“Or the girls in Eastwatch. Cassandra and…” I search for the pink-haired girl’s name for a moment and draw a blank. “Either of them.”
Dr. Belmont smiles her cold, tight-lipped red smile. “That’s completely fair.”
I nod my head at her. It’s all I needed to hear.
As I touch the tip of the pen to the paper, I feel an unexpected prick of pain on my palm. When I sign my name—Rory Emily Bright—the ink runs a bright, vivid red.
Dr. Belmont meets my look of confusion with a soft little laugh as she takes the pen and papers from me, rolling them up together into a tight little scroll.
“Magical agreements,” she says as if that explains any of this. “Always best bound by blood.” When I look down at the palm of my left hand, there’s a pinprick of blood in the center of my marking. “Commander North—I trust you’ll be able to assist Miss Bright in finding her accommodations?”
“Of course.” Xander nods and places his hand on the small of my back, pressing me toward the door harder than I can press back.
“Wait!” I hiss at him, turning my head to glace back at my best friend. “Drew!”
“Rory!” Drew calls after me, lunging forward.
But not fast enough.
The door slams hard behind me, and Drew is gone again before I even have a chance to say goodbye.
I hope not for the last time.
The room Xander takes me to is in an adjacent building to the glossy-windowed one I signed my contract for the Regime in. This one is through a set of beautiful, slightly overgrown gardens—a dark stone villa with a set of winding grand staircases that lead up to what must be a dozen or more rooms.
“The dormitories.” Xander leads me to a room at the end of the hall and unlocks the big, oaken double-doors with a silver skeleton key. As the doors swing open, he presses the key into my own hands. “This one’s yours.”
It’s much nicer than I’m used to—nicer than I maybe even deserve. The bed is huge, plush and four-poster with a midnight blue canopy draped over the top of it. There’s a full-length mirror to one corner of the room, just outside of what looks like a walk-in closet, already full with a fresh wardrobe.
Xander catches me looking at it and plucks at the skirt of my shift, his fingers brushing against my thigh. “All in your size—scout’s honor. Let the maids know if anything has been overlooked—or if there’s anything you don’t like. We should get you out of that shift.” He doesn’t miss my glare at that, though his only reaction is a cocky grin. “As you like. Maybe you’d prefer a bath first?”
He nods to the other corner of the room, where a massive porcelain claw-foot bathtub raised up on a low marble platform. When I go to examine it more closely, it’s obvious that it could probably fit ten of me.
Or one of me…and five handsome, broad-shouldered guardians…
I blink that thought away as I glance at all the expensive-looking soaps and oils, perfumes and little chocolates on the little brass table next to the bath.
“All of this…is for me.” I say it while looking up to Xander. It’s not exactly a question…but I need someone to pinch me right now. To snap me out of this. To wake me up from this dream so I can go heat up a can of soup and catch the train to the library for a double shift.
“It’s yours.” Xander nods, pinching my cheek like he could read my mind. “Not so bad, is it?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “If you don’t mind selling your soul for bathtub full of rose petals and some chocolates shaped like seashells.”
Xander laughs dryly. “It can seem like a lot at first. But you’ll get used to it.” He gives me another long, lingering up-and-down gaze that makes my heart skip a beat. “If the bed is too big for you, you know…I could stay the night…”
“Out,” I order him, pointing to the door. With a wink and a shrug, he holds his hands up in surrender and makes to leave. But as he goes, something occurs to me and I stop him just as he reaches the door. “Xa
nder…”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Drew…is he going to be alright?”
He smiles softly and shakes his head. “Of course, Rory. You’ll see him tomorrow—after our training session, naturally.”
I hold that thought in my mind—training session—and instead, probe him a little further.
“You really think Dr. Belmont will keep her word?”
Xander considers it for a moment. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Rory…but it will cost you.”
“What will it cost?” I cross my arms over my chest and give him a discerning look.
“A kiss.”
Moonlight pours in through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, lighting Xander’s face. It’s not a bad lighting for him, really. I doubt any lighting really is. He’s an undeniably handsome man—too handsome for his own good, maybe. And as far as Xander’s kisses go…
I enjoy them. I’ll admit it. I enjoy them a lot—maybe too much for my own good.
“Okay.” I cross the floor to him and go up on tip-toe to place a soft, chaste kiss against his pale, cool cheek.
When he looks at me, offended, I’m smiling.
“That was a dirty trick, Rory,” he teases. “You might just make your own way here yet. Still…a deal is a deal. Just don’t think I’ll make that mistake twice.”
Suddenly, he wraps an arm around me, pulling me close to him. I catch myself just in time, placing my palm against his chest, just over his heart. Our marks sing to each other through his uniform as he runs his fingers through my hair.
“Anyone you meet here will keep their word—as long as it’s either in their best interest to do so, or if you’re in a position where you can force them to.” His voice is low and dark, like black velvet. His breath is warm, and his lips are mere inches from mine. “I would strongly suggest you find some way to accomplish the latter. Now…may I kiss you, Rory? Properly, this time?”
Crimson Kisses: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 1) Page 5
