by Kit Rocha
Appeased, Lex accepted the goblet. The pride thing was bullshit, but a proposition... That made far more sense. "I'm listening."
Cerys circled to take a seat on a low, sleek couch. "You've come far since I last saw you. For the longest time, I thought you weren't going to make a move at all." Cerys's gaze dropped to the collar circling Lex's throat. "Having Dallas O'Kane in hand makes you a powerful woman. More powerful than you realize, since he's just doubled his territory."
Sector Three. The news only compounded Lex's already surreal disbelief. "You think I'm playing him."
Cerys froze with her glass almost to her lips. "Playing is a crude description of what we do, but yes, Lex. I assumed you were seeing to your own interests as well as his dick."
And of course, those two things had to be intimately connected. "Good thing you're sitting down, because this might shock you, but any attention I lavish on Dallas's dick is for its own sake. I take care of my interests in other ways."
"So defensive. So vehement." Cerys sipped her wine, and from the amusement in her gaze, Lex could tell she didn't believe. Not yet. "You don't need to be ashamed of who you are. You're exactly what I need. A woman strong enough to carry on the work I've started."
Lex's blood chilled. "You've got to be shitting me."
"Your time in Four may have honed your edges, but it's been abominable for your vocabulary."
Fuck my vocabulary. Even thinking the words put a grin on Lex's face. "I ran like hell the first chance I got. What makes you think I'd ever come back here for more than a grudging visit?"
Cerys set aside her glass and crossed her legs, her posture relaxed and easy. "Because for all that you hate me, you're not stupid. It doesn't matter whether you hold his leash or he holds yours. Maybe you truly love one another, but that's even more reason to consider my offer. Dallas O'Kane is hungry for power, and you could give him an entire sector."
It was what he wanted--he couldn't have worked his ass off for so many years if ambition didn't drive him--but at what cost? "He wouldn't take it. Not like this."
"Not without a battle? Without bloodshed? Wealth, influence and information, served up on a silver platter." Cerys quirked an eyebrow. "Perhaps you don't know him as well as you think you do."
"He knows how I feel about this sector." She took a step closer to the couch. "I can't run it unless I'm here, and I'd rather die."
Cerys's face froze into a polite mask. "I see. I'm sorry you feel that way, Lex."
The words held just enough threat to send a shiver up Lex's spine. "Don't be sorry," she snarled. "Find someone else to carry on your little legacy and leave me the hell alone."
"If you insist." It seemed too easy an acceptance, but Cerys rose and changed the subject. "I heard you visited your sister today."
Rage. Lex went with it, let it explode in a hot rush of temper as she threw her goblet at the wall beside Cerys's head. The delicate crystal disintegrated, raining wine and sharp little shards all over the couch.
Even Cerys couldn't mask her shock. She tried, struggling to compose her features, but her hands trembled and her voice, when she spoke, was strained. "You always did have a temper. It's a pity you've abandoned your lessons in self-restraint."
"I missed on purpose." Lex's voice wavered, and she steeled it before continuing. "My sister. If you fuck with her life, make things hard, even breathe funny in her direction, I'll kill you. Slow and painful, with my bare fucking hands. Count on it."
"You've become shrill, darling." Cerys smoothed a hand over her hip and turned away. "It's a sign of a weak will."
"Test me, Cerys. I'm begging you."
"Begging. Another bad habit you've learned from Dallas O'Kane." She'd regained her cool by the time she turned, and her words sounded bored. "If you've run out of things to throw, you may take your leave."
"Gladly." On her way toward the door, Lex ran her hand over a small statue on a side table. It was porcelain, pre-Flare, almost certainly worth more than Cerys had paid to buy her all those years ago.
She took great pleasure in tipping it off the table and listening to it shatter on the floor behind her.
Mad's lips twitched as he fell in beside her outside. Before they'd made it three steps, the door slammed shut with enough temper that the twitching turned into a grin. "Now I'm jealous. You got to break things and I didn't."
"I'd let you go back and break her face, but Dallas would bitch."
"Maybe. Might be worth it, though." He slung an arm around her shoulders. "Until I started a sector war, I guess. Or maybe two of them. That's the best part of being an O'Kane and a descendant of Sector One's Prophet. No one knows who to wage war on first."
Lex relaxed into his embrace, allowing herself a moment to indulge in the comfort of it before straightening her spine. "Better to let it slide, then."
They turned a corner, and Mad jerked to a stop as a brunette stepped out of an alcove in front of them. She was pretty, in a soft sort of way, with a flowing robe that hugged her curves but hung modestly to the floor.
Mad recognized her. He didn't release his grip on Lex, but he nodded. "Jade."
"Maddox." She turned to Lex and bowed as low as most initiates bowed to the head of their house. "You must be Lex."
"Yeah." Lex tipped the girl's face up with two fingers under her chin. "But I'm not in the mood right now. Sorry, honey."
She didn't flinch, but her suddenly slumped shoulders screamed disappointment, along with something worse. Resignation. Jade straightened her back but lowered her gaze. "I only want a few moments. Could I walk with you?"
Damn it. "Five minutes, okay?"
"Thank you." Even her smile, wide as it was, couldn't chase the shadows from her eyes. Mad released Lex and fell back half a dozen paces, and Jade took his place. After a few steps, she glanced at Lex again. "You look so much like her. Avery, I mean. She was my dearest friend while I was in training."
This woman looked years older than Avery. "And you chose to come here instead of taking on a patron?"
"Chose is always an interesting word in this place, isn't it?" Jade stared ahead, but her voice turned wry. "I chose to excel at my training. I chose to devote every waking moment to becoming extraordinary, thinking it would bring me more latitude. I miscalculated."
"Let me guess--instead, it turned you into me." Lex smiled a little. "Overachiever and pariah, all rolled into one."
Jade laughed softly. "Your greatest sin isn't that you're a pariah. It's that you're a legend. Legends are dangerous. They have power over people's imaginations."
"Then the smart thing would be to stay away from me, right?"
"It's too late for me." She lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. "I'm a legend, too."
"Kindred spirits, then." Lex stopped and leaned against the wall. "Are we chatting, or are you getting around to asking me something?"
Jade folded her hands together with another nervous glance at Mad. He'd stopped, far enough back to be out of easy listening range, but he made no attempt at hiding the fact that he was watching them both.
Wetting her lips nervously, she turned back to Lex. "I know that he helps women escape sometimes. The ones who are pregnant and want to stay that way, or who've been hurt."
The ones no one bothered to go after because they weren't important or notorious enough to be legends. "If you're talking to me, it must mean you think Mad can't help you."
"When I was seventeen, Cerys needed influence within Eden to keep Sector Two whole. And one of Eden's councilmen needed..." Jade laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "He needed his ego stroked by a virginal whore. The Rose House specialty, and I have stroked his sad little ego very thoroughly." She looked away. "Every other weekend, for the past seven years."
And she wanted out. "That's a slightly stickier situation than normal. But you know that."
"I do," she agreed, still staring at some invisible spot on the wall beside Lex's head. "Especially since he had me leashed."
Drugs, the ki
nd meant to keep her compliant. Obedient and helpless. That sort of thing would make a piss-poor leash if getting clean was easy--or even likely. "Your chances are slim, then. You want to try anyway?"
Jade met her gaze, and there was steel in those brown eyes. "I can give Dallas O'Kane plenty of incriminating information. In return, I want a safe place to fight and protection if I make it. I know you can't answer now, but I need to ask. I need to know."
It could be a trap, Cerys's backup plan in case Lex threw her offer back in her face--literally. Or it could have been her way of getting rid of Dallas all along. Spiriting away some councilman's drug-addicted fuck toy guaranteed trouble for him and his sector. Cerys wouldn't have to lift a finger to have Dallas out of the picture forever.
But Jade could also simply need help. For every trainee out of the Flower District who was happy with her patron, there were a dozen more who wound up miserable and desperate, and it was that possibility that had Lex whispering, "I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you." Jade stepped back with a sad little smile. "You do look like her. Maybe that makes it easier to trust you. I miss her."
"So do I." Lex caught Mad's gaze and nodded.
Mad swept in, rescuing Lex from further conversation by inserting himself carefully between them. "I've got to get you back to Dallas before he skins me," he murmured. "Jade, a pleasure to see you again."
"And you, Maddox." She inclined her head with a teasing smile. "Give my regards to Bren, would you? He's a fascinating man."
"I'll do that." He sounded almost grumpy, and Mad bustled Lex away with Jade's soft laughter following them around the corner.
Lex caught his hand and held it tight. "Tried to be noble, huh? No screwing women who can't say no?"
He scowled. "I've got no problem with women who sell sex, but it's different when they're groomed to think it's their only fucking purpose. Hell, you know that."
"Course I do. So why the long face?"
"She gave me a once-over, said, 'I suppose that was inevitable,' and jumped on Bren's dick." He huffed out a laugh. "Maybe. God knows what they actually did."
"Yeah." Lex brushed back an unruly lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. "If she winds up in Four, you'll have plenty of time to get to know her. If that's what you want."
He snorted. "C'mon, Lex. Not even one joke about my hero complex?"
"Not in the mood," she said again, smoothing his shirt as they reached the guest quarters. "I've decided we need a few more heroes."
He stopped abruptly and tugged her around to face him, his voice deadly serious. "Shit, Lex. Are you all right? I know it's been a long day, but..."
Things had gone fucking downhill when she started scaring people with positivity. "I'm ready to go home."
Chapter Twelve
Dallas knew his day had been too fucking long when he was surprised to find Lex in his suite.
Granted, they hadn't had much time to settle into a routine. And he'd always made a point of collaring outsiders before, women who could fit into his life when and where he wanted them and disappear without drama when one of them tired of the arrangement. The woman made that call, more often than not--some because they'd gotten what they wanted, and others because they wanted what he could never give.
None of them had been around, day in and day out, underfoot and there to witness the days he was too tired to play conquering barbarian, too tired to do anything but fall back on the bed and wait for his thoughts to settle enough for sleep to come. Most nights, he drank them into silence, which meant an early morning with an aching head and a vicious temper, and the women who wanted the fantasy of kneeling for the ruthless Dallas O'Kane didn't want Declan groaning about his throbbing temples.
Christ, he should have thought about that before slapping that collar around Lex's throat. He was too exhausted to take off his own boots, and there she sat, curled up on his couch with a book, gorgeous and patient and deserving a hell of a lot more than a man who'd just fall asleep on top of her.
Especially after the last couple days.
She looked up, her brows drawing together as she closed her book. "You look like hell."
"That's where I've been." He kicked the door shut behind him, and damn. Even the four steps to the couch felt like a battle. He dropped beside her with a heavy sigh and stretched out his legs. "Honestly, I expected a hell of a lot more push-back against this. I didn't expect that I'd have to step on half the guy's necks to keep them from charging out tonight to stake their claims on new territory."
"Some of them are hungry. They want to make names for themselves the way Jas and Bren have. And don't forget the money."
He'd bargained hard with the other sector leaders when it came to defining profit, hard enough that the men would have their chance to get wealthy, if they worked for it. "Yeah, but money won't do 'em a fuckload of good if they get their brains splattered on the walls by moving too fast and being careless."
"Relax." She slipped behind him on the couch and started rubbing his shoulders. "No one's getting splattered, because you're going to make them understand that wisdom is better than speed."
He snorted but closed his eyes as her fingers dug into a knotted muscle. It hurt, the kind of pain that came with relief on its heels. "I have my doubts that some of them will understand, but they'll damn well obey either way."
She worked his muscles harder. "The first option's easier."
"If everyone's thinking on the same level. God love some of the guys, Lex. They're good and they're loyal...but they're not all Jasper or Bren or Mad."
"So, you pair them up with ones who'll stop and think. The buddy system. You've been doing it for years, haven't you?"
"I suppose..." He leaned forward as Lex's hands worked lower. "But I don't want anyone over there at first except the guys I can trust to keep their heads. We need recon. Intel. If I stuck Six in front of a map, do you think she could figure out what was where?"
Lex brushed her lips over the back of his neck. "Doubtful. She'd do a lot more good on the ground."
"You think she could handle that?"
"She wants to be useful. Let her."
Inside knowledge of Trent's operation and what might be lingering in Three could save him time and headaches. And it wasn't like he'd have to feel guilty about sending her--she stuck to Bren like a burr as it was, and no one would get past him to hurt her.
Lex's lips touched his skin again, and Dallas relaxed into the caress. "Nice to have a second brain to figure this shit out when mine gives up."
"You need sleep." She slid her arms around him. "You've been going nonstop for days. You barely rested when we were in Two."
Sleep. It beckoned with a sharpness that only made his growing erection more ridiculous. "I was thinking about it more seriously before you wrapped yourself around me."
Lex climbed off the couch with a short laugh and pulled at his hands. "No sex until you've slept at least half the night. If you wake up in the middle of it and want to fuck me numb, you be my guest."
"Someone's feeling bossy," he grumbled, but he couldn't sound irritated. There was something fucking adorable about Lex when she was like this. He'd seen it with Noelle before, the open affection, the teasing...
Too bad it only made him harder.
"And if you can't sleep..." She moved in close, pressing her body to his as she spun him around so he backed up against the edge of the bed. "I know how to fix that, too."
That perked up his mood and his dick. Amused, he sank to the mattress and lifted his arms so she could drag his shirt over his head. "You gonna read me a bedtime story, Lexie?"
"Better." She dropped his shirt, slid to the floor, and reached for the laces on one of his boots.
He grinned and extended his legs to make it easier. "You're gonna read me a dirty one?"
"Or make one up. This story..." His boots hit the floor, one and then the other. "It's about a king and his concubine."
"Does she have to tell him a story ev
ery night?"
Lex threw back her head and laughed. "You want me to be your Scheherazade?"
Of course an educated woman out of Sector Two would understand the reference. Dallas hooked his foot behind her leg and tugged her closer. "Could you think of a thousand and one filthy stories about what the king and his concubine get up to?"
Her fingers curled around his belt buckle and pulled it free. "I'll show you instead." She rose, off her knees, and leaned over him. "The first night, she stripped him naked and danced for him."
More than willing to play along, he lifted his hips without looking away from her face. "Watch the goods, love. This king's been hard since you started touching him."
"If you're waiting for me to complain, you'll wait a long damn time." Her eyes glimmered with amusement, but also appreciation. She peeled his pants down his legs and tossed them aside, leaving him nude and ready.
Then she straightened and stared at him.
Grinning, he stared back...and wrapped his fingers around his aching dick. "I'm imagining you dancing," he lied, dragging his fingers up his shaft. Pleasure formed a lazy haze, but he didn't need to imagine her naked. All he had to do was stare at that collar, at her disheveled hair and dark eyes, and know she was here, in his bedroom.
His.
"Mmm." She swiveled her hips in a slow, languorous circle and licked her lips as she grasped the hem of her loose white T-shirt. Tugging it up a few inches flashed the upper lines of her ink, and her tiny, barely there shorts just begged his gaze to follow her endless legs up to her thighs.
Gorgeous. Fucking beautiful, and if he didn't watch how fast he was stroking himself, he'd blow before she got her hands on him. "You don't hurry it up with the stripping and I'm gonna make a new rule. No clothes in my bedroom."
But she was shaking her head before he even finished his sentence. "You like it too much when I take them off." She crossed her arms, dragging the cotton up, over her head.
There was nothing under it but golden skin and soft, firm curves. Lex opened the button on her shorts with one hand, then eased her thumbs beneath the denim and shimmied it down.
