She liked her name.
“It’s not your real name.”
“Anyway, Neeman, I said I was his slave because I’d hoped you’d take me to him.”
“How’d that work out for you?” He cocked his head to the side and chewed on a piece of gum. Selene had to squelch a flutter in her stomach at the sight. He really was quite an amazing specimen for a vampyr.
“Usually it works out fine.” She gave him her most beautiful smile.
His expression darkened. The gum snapped and popped in his mouth. “Not with me it doesn’t. I don’t like being lied to, or manipulated for that matter. If you want my help, you have to be honest.”
“Well you won’t have to worry about it after tonight. As soon as Mason comes, I’ll be out of your hair.” She let her smile drop.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he muttered.
“You think I’m lying again?”
Neeman shook his head. “No. Just mistaken.”
“How so?”
Neeman chuckled and snapped his gum again. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means things aren’t how they used to be when humans ran the country. Not in the encampment you came from and especially not here in the cities. Unless Mason is prepared to take you on as a slave, you aren’t going anywhere. And believe me when I say, I know his mate, and it isn’t going to happen.”
Anger flushed Selene’s skin. He had no idea. When Mason saw her, there would be no doubt. Whether he was now mated or not didn’t matter one whit. What they shared was a bond that couldn’t be broken by mating or years apart or anything.
“You’re different,” he said.
“Different. What do you mean?” She walked to the tray of food, picked up the lid, and picked at the food with her fingers.
“I don’t know. In the bar you weren’t so…”
“So what?” She looked up at him.
He shrugged. “Bitchy.”
She slammed the lid back down, pinching her finger. “You think I’m bitchy? Me? I’m not the bitchy one. I’m the nice one!”
Neeman opened his mouth to speak but there was a knock behind him. He snapped his gum and pulled open the door.
The years melted away as Mason entered the room. Selene’s head went fuzzy as she was flooded with wave upon wave of unexpected emotions. Her heart beat wildly but her stomach turned to gelatin as anxiety knotted her chest.
He shook hands with Neeman before turning to her. He stared for a long time, looking her up and down. He’d gotten older and his hair was longer but other than that, he was exactly the same. He didn’t move and her surety that he would take her with him ebbed away. The anxiety in her chest wound tighter and she feared she might pass out.
“Seraphine.” He crossed the room in one large stride and lifted her off the floor.
Crushed against his giant chest, she let out a sob and clung to him.
“Mael.” The feel of his hug was so familiar it was if she’d never been away from him. He shuddered and warm tears fell on her cheek. Memories long since buried rushed back to her. Long walks at night. The park they’d gone to visit that was no longer there. So many things. Years and years and years together. Times when all they had was each other. And now after being separated, it was like she’d never left to begin with.
They held each other for several minutes before he finally set her on the floor and pushed her to arm’s length to look at her again.
“I thought you were dead.” He brushed the tears from her eye. “Where have you been?”
“With my mother.”
He twirled a lock of her hair and tugged on it. “You cut your hair and went natural.”
“Yeah, there’s no such thing as hair color where I was.”
Mason nodded and his brows knit together. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m so glad to see you I can barely contain myself, but, why are you here? How are you here?”
The truth bottled up inside her like a shaken soda can. The pressure built and built and she wanted to release it before she exploded. She didn’t want to lie to him. It didn’t matter what her mother said, or what the elders of the fae wanted her to do to him. Let them come and try to wipe out the Earth, at the end both she and Mason would still be standing.
She opened her mouth to tell him the awful truth. To tell him about her mission to ensnare him and what was going to happen if she didn’t succeed. To tell about the fae and the demons and what was coming for him. All of it. Everything. But the words that tumbled out of her mouth were not her own.
“I escaped. It was terrible. You have no idea how they treated me. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was no better than a curlumon. Only at least curlumons get patted down and brushed by their owners and a nice place to sleep after a hard day’s work. I had to get away. To get here. Back to you.”
She resisted the urge to cover her mouth with her hand. Her voice had been too husky. Hopefully he would attribute it to her being emotional.
The words that rushed out weren’t far from the truth. In a way, she had escaped and it was true about the things that had been done to her… She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes in an effort to force away the images.
When she opened her eyes again, his golden stare pleaded with her. He wanted it to be the truth. She knew he did. But she read the wariness in his gaze. She’d seen that look before. She couldn’t blame him. She’d been gone for over twenty years, not a word, not a whisper, nothing. She held his stare. If she showed one ounce of nervousness, he’d know she’d lied.
Finally he nodded, pulled her close, and kissed her atop her head. “I missed you,” he whispered.
“I missed you too.” She hugged him tighter.
* * * *
Neeman’s muscles wound so tight he thought he might shred apart. It took every ounce of restraint he had to keep his mouth shut as he watched Mason with Selene. Mason loved the human, that was obvious. What Neeman wasn’t so sure about was how that would work out with Danika.
Danika had never been the jealous type, but she was fiercely protective of what was hers. And Mason was hers.
Mason turned to Neeman. “Thank you for calling me.”
Neeman nodded and chewed his gum.
“Can we leave now?” Selene looked at Neeman and for a split second, he didn’t want her to leave.
How had this infuriating female with the black hair and eyes the color of jade gotten to him? It was her scent. It had to be. Her scent swirled in his head and mixed him up. It was because he’d never drunk from the vein and he’d finally met a human who tempted him. He would not let that happen.
Mason looked down at Selene and squeezed her hand. “I’m afraid not.”
She pulled away. “What?”
“Selene, please. You must understand. I am mated now, to my soul bound mate. I need to tell her you’re here. I need to explain. Things are tense in the Vampire society. Between me, and all the humans we’ve found. Trying to make things better for the slaves and—”
“I can’t stay here.” Selene’s gaze moved to Neeman.
Neeman stiffened under the weight of her green gaze. What had he done?
“I need to talk to you. There are rumors.” She lowered her voice, as if Neeman couldn’t hear her. “Demons are returning.”
“What do you mean returning?” Neeman asked.
Her eyes stayed glued on Mason. “They’ve sensed you and now they’re coming. Some are most likely already here and my mother said—”
“Where’s your amulet?” Mason’s voice held a hard edge.
She reached up and clutched at her throat. “It didn’t make it through the rift.”
“Selene, you need your amulet.”
She pulled free of his grip. “I’ll be fine. I am fine. It was more for mental stability anyway.”
“Wait.” Neeman’s mind moved a mile a minute. If more like Mason were on this p
lane, it could mean the end of all of them. “How do you know more demons are coming?”
“She’s fae,” Mason said.
“She’s what?” Fae? How were the fae involved? They’d gone to their own plane years ago, Mason had said.
The phone rang in Mason’s pocket. He pulled out the phone and looked at it before pushing the button.
“Danika, what’s the matter, my love?” Mason continued to look at Neeman. “No, I just ran out to see Neeman, to explain why we weren’t able to meet with him earlier… Yes, I could have just called him, but you were resting and I wanted to get some fresh air anyway… Yes, I’m on my way, I’ll be back shortly… You, too.” He ended the call. “I have to go. Neeman, walk me out so I can let you know what’s going on.”
“What about me?” Selene thrust her hand on her hip.
Mason looked back at her. “I told you. You need to stay here. It’s only for a little while. I’ll come as soon as I can. Believe me, there is no one else I’d entrust your safety to other than Neeman. He’s the most honorable man I know.”
Mason’s words were a compliment of the highest degree. And despite Neeman’s reluctance to keep Selene in such a confined space, and so close, he wouldn’t be able to deny Mason.
“Besides, without your amulet, you need to stay inside.” Mason gave Neeman a knowing look.
Selene’s gaze burned into Neeman, making his gut twist. He snapped his gum.
“All right. But I refuse to be a prisoner here. I won’t be locked in like an animal.”
“But you won’t leave,” Mason said. It wasn’t a question.
There could be only one reason Mason had sway over her so completely.
“I won’t leave.” She looked at Neeman again. “You have my word.”
Mason turned to him. “Is it all right if she stays?”
“As long as she doesn’t disrupt our routine and she stays away from my men.”
“No worries there.” She rolled her eyes.
Neeman’s reasons for wanting her to stay away from his men weren’t purely for her safety. He didn’t need a riot on his hands when his men smelled her.
“She can stay. But she has to help out.”
“In what way?” Selene pursed her lips.
“Do you cook?” Neeman smirked.
Her mouth gaped open. “No!”
“Do you file paperwork?”
“Do I look like a secretary?” She glared at him.
“Well then I guess you can clean.”
Chapter 4
Selene had never been so humiliated in her life. Even as an outcast in the fae world she’d never been degraded to scrubbing toilets. She swished a brush around the bowl, giving as much effort to cleaning it as she was to twirling her fingers through her hair.
Why had Mason left her here? Why hadn’t he just explained who she was and taken her with him? All these years, she’d missed him more than anything. More than milkshakes, more than burgers, even more than Oreos. No one knew her the way he did.
Instead, she was reduced to scrubbing a bowl that was already as sanitary as the plates they ate off. She flushed down the bleach and blue water, tapped the wet brush on the side of the bowl, and stuck it in the bucket of cleaning supplies Neeman had brought her that evening.
Selene growled at the thought of him. All of her memories had returned from the previous evening. A good day’s rest and a hearty meal had been just what her mind needed to recover and what her spirit needed to recharge her magical stores.
In the club she’d been sure she’d felt Neeman’s desire as she pressed up against him, but he’d shown no more interest in her in the past eighteen hours than she had to the old man whose money she’d stolen. Even so, something about him attracted her. Maybe it was his tight, hard body, so different from the fae males. Maybe it was his icy stare, which seemed to look right through her.
Most likely was the fact she hadn’t been with a real male since she’d left America after the outbreak. Not that she hadn’t wanted a man, but she liked her men hard bodied and dripping with sweat. Not soft skinned and naïve like the fae.
There had been one fae. One who had lived on the Earth plane for years at a time, travelling between the realms before the rift had been shut.
Alone with him in his home, she’d seen his malevolent nature. His bed had been one of pleasure, but only for him, and once she’d rejected his proposal of marriage, she’d been labeled an outcast. That was when things had gotten hard and the torture had started.
Thoughts of Neeman ran through Selene’s mind and she found herself heating into a frenzy of desire. Her body throbbed with need. Stop it. Stop right now.
The last thing she needed was to be horny, cleaning toilets, covered in chemicals, in a compound full of men she couldn’t have.
* * * *
Selene walked out of the all-white bathroom and into the small bedroom. The room was furnished the same as the one she stayed in, but it had been personalized. She stepped up to the desk in the corner and ran her fingers over a small electronic device she’d never seen before. The white rectangle with the apple on the back was no bigger than a pack of cigarettes.
Next to it sat a similar device, only more slender and the size of a magazine. She set the first device down and pried open another device. Inside was a keyboard with all different letters on it and what looked like a flat television screen. A door closed down the hall, making her jump. She stepped away from the desk and grabbed her cleaning bucket. She peered into the hallway. There was no one there. She closed the door and walked past several rooms, heading for the end.
In the Tracking Squad’s wing of the compound, room after room lined the long hall, like her college dorm, only cleaner and silent as a meadow.
Neeman had told her to clean all the bathrooms on this floor. Each room had its own bathroom. But after seeing how clean the first few were, she decided to skip to the last. No one would notice if she didn’t do them all.
At the end of the hallway, she pushed the last door open and stepped in. The room looked exactly like hers, completely bare.
White bed, white desk, white rug, white walls. For a moment, she almost closed the door and left, but something caught her eye. The closet was ajar and clothing peeked out. Setting down her cleaning supplies, she walked to the closet and opened it.
Neeman’s scent floated out to meet her. She ran her fingers over the black t-shirts hung neatly and pressed into crisp submission. Black cargo pants also hung in the same manner. Below them, three pairs of highly polished boots stood at attention.
She laughed and shook her head. She’d rarely seen such order.
Bending, she picked up one of the boots. The bottom had not a spot on it.
She set the boot back and a large wooden box pulled her attention. She sat on the floor and removed the box from the closet. The top was carved like a mighty willow tree with thousands of tiny branches all reaching toward the ground. The sides were inlaid with woods of every color and set in a pattern that resembled bamboo. The front sported a large combination lock. Strange, since anyone who wanted into the box could simply break the wood.
“Open it.”
Selene glanced at the open door and then laid her hand on the lock and whispered “Recludo.”
The lock spun and then clicked open. She removed it and lifted the lid to the box.
Inside, as neat at the rest of the room, lay a stack of photographs, an ornate goblet, a knife, and a lock of hair. She lifted the photographs and thumbed through them. They were photos of Neeman and other people. He was younger in the photos, happy and carefree. In some, his hair was long, in others, a bit shorter than it was now. The photos were black and white and faded or scratched. There were photos of him at the beach, surfing. Photos in the mountains, skiing. One of him skydiving, another climbing a mountain. And in every happy photograph, he was still human.
“What are you doing?”
The deep voi
ce startled her. She turned, dropping the photos into the box and closing the lid.
Neeman stared at her, his gaze intense. He took several steps toward her. She clipped the lock on the box.
When he reached the corner of the bed, his eyes widened. He moved to her in one stride and pulled her to her feet. The box clattered to the plush rug.
“Hey!” She tried to wiggle free.
“I asked what the hell you think you’re doing in my closet with my things.”
A trickle of fear skittered over her and Selene rubbed her fingertips together. She took a deep breath, and sucked in his fresh, manly, ever so enticing scent.
“It’s your own fault. You’re the one who put me on toilet duty. And I haven’t been on this plane for so long I wanted to know what’s happened since I left.”
“You have no right to go through my things.” He bared his teeth.
Selene swallowed and kept up her nonchalant facade, though she wanted to run from his anger.
“So sue me. I never said I wouldn’t snoop.” She wrenched her arm free and crossed it over her chest. “You don’t like it, give me something else to do.”
Neeman stared at her hard for a minute, his fists clenching and unclenching. Finally, he blew out a large breath and turned from her, running his fingers through his hair.
His shoulders were broad and slimmed to a tapered waist and tight buttocks. She couldn’t help but stare at the round firmness beneath his pants. A flutter stirred in her stomach. What she wouldn’t give to be able to grab onto his firm backside as he— The room compressed around her like a vise, gripping her tight and overheating her body.
She coughed, and fanned herself, trying to get her thoughts under control. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man, but she needed to keep her wits about her. Her mother had been right in being concerned the draw of this plane might sidetrack her. And Neeman was definitely a distraction.
* * * *
Neeman pulled on his hair and tried to control his anger. Why had he agreed to let her stay in the compound? He had trainees to look after and demons to hunt. He had Vampires to protect and a million other things. He didn’t have time to police her.
Rise of the Fae Page 3
