Red Hot Candy (22 All-New Delicious Romance Books by Best-Selling Authors about Alpha Males, Billionaires, Cowboys, and More for Your Summer Reading) (Red Hot Boxed Sets)
Page 43
As the thought formed, he spoke it.
“Come with me,” he said, pressing his weight into her again, feeling that pain sharpen in his chest. “Come with us when we leave…please, Nara. I want you with me…”
He didn’t know what he expected.
Once he said it, it hit him that he had no idea what she might say.
His pain worsened exponentially when he saw her nodding, right before she opened her light to him again, enveloping him in heat and the faint scent of flowers.
“Yes,” she said, nodding as she fought to catch her breath. Tears filled those shocking blue eyes, even as she smiled up at him. “Yes, Fig…I will.”
*
He must have fallen asleep.
He woke to much bigger hands on him, more than one set, and far less pleasant than Nara’s had been.
Terian blinked into an overhead light that blinded him, even as he was being dragged out of the duvet-covered bed. He heard Nara shriek from the area somewhere to his right, and suddenly he was wide, wide awake.
He let the hands pull him up to standing, even as his aleimi flickered out, assessing the situation.
Humans. Four of them. Armed. One, the same one holding Terian’s arm, gripped a club of some kind in his free hand. The two closest to the door held guns. The fourth, who held Nara a few yards away, gripped something metal in his other hand, what might be a pipe.
Terian read them as soon as he’d confirmed their race.
Words filled his mind. They came from all directions at first. Jumbled, at least a few of them partly drunk. Angry. Looking for a fight. Wanting to hurt her. He felt desire in that, but also a more general dislike of seers. Possibly of females, human and seer.
One of those minds stood out sharper than the rest.
The leader. One of those by the door, holding a gun.
Fucking glow-eye cunt...she’s probably hoping this American faggot can take her out of the country with him. If she thinks she can leave here without us knowing, she’s got another thing coming...should hobble the bitch...
Another hum of thoughts muttered, calculating as he looked around the room.
He’d better know he’s paying for this roll...whatever she told him...
Terian’s eyes shifted to the human who’d thought both things, taking his measurements in a glance. Thick-bodied, dark hair on his head and arms and hands, squat neck, maybe five-foot-eight or nine––he wore a coarse cap, worn trousers with suspenders and a few days of stubble on his face. Essentially, he looked like what he was, a low-life even among humans.
Still, Terian found his thoughts comforting, in a sense.
They didn’t know what he was.
They assumed him human...and American.
Also, at least one of these rank-smelling humans must be Nara’s current owner, and Terian was guessing it was the one whose thoughts stood out louder than the rest.
They’d saved him the trouble of hunting the bastards down, at least. Also, they’d kindly not taken the precaution of bringing a seer as back-up.
All of that ran through Terian’s mind in a blink.
Then he looked at the bigger of the two by the door, not the one who’d been thinking so loudly about hurting Nara, but the human who stood next to that one. The taller man had a thick beard and nearly-black eyes. He definitely looked and felt drunk. He wore a coarse-spun shirt, gray with countless washings, under his heavy coat. He also held what looked like a MAB Model D pistol clenched in one hand and trained on Nara. From what Terian remembered, the gun was a piece of crap semi-automatic made by the French.
Still, it would do.
Reaching out with his aleimi, he wound his living light tightly into the light of every human in the room...all but their leader, who he wanted to remember this. Well, perhaps not remember it, since he didn’t intend for the human to be around long enough for that, but Terian wanted him to be aware in the moment, at least. Using his own light and the light of the Rooks, he took control of the other three humans in a bare handful of seconds.
Once he had them, he focused back on the two humans by the door.
“Take your gun off her,” Terian said to the human with the MAB, the one whose mind he now controlled. “Right now.”
He pointed at Nara’s owner then, who held what looked like a German Mauser pistol. A much better gun, in Terian’s opinion, than the MAB.
“Aim it at him. Please,” Terian added politely.
Nara looked at him, her blue eyes wide, but not in dismay. If anything, Terian saw a glint of relief there, what might be more of that wonder at how much he had changed. Whatever the precise thing that Terian felt, it didn’t carry any flavor of disapproval...which is what he’d been looking for, if only for permission to do what he intended to do. If anything, he felt heat on her, desire.
Noticing one of them had hit her, cutting her lip, Terian frowned.
It would only make this easier.
By then, the bearded human by the door had already re-aimed his pistol at his human comrade, the man who was likely his boss. The one holding the Mauser aimed his own gun back at the one with the MAB, his eyes and expression holding confusion.
“Anton...?”
“Shoot him,” Terian said, his voice cold. “Shoot him now.”
The boss gave Terian a disbelieving look, right before looking back at the taller Frenchman.
“Anton, what are you––”
Two shots rang out loudly in the small room, nearly simultaneous.
The squat, muscular human who’d gripped the Mauser fell to the floor, landing face-down, the Mauser leaving his fingers and clattering a few feet across the floor.
The large bearded human gripped his belly, blood around his fingers from the shot from the Mauser. Given where it hit, Terian surmised it had been less well-aimed, possibly more of a reflex grip of the trigger than a real attempt to hit the other man. The human fell to one knee as Terian watched, his expression still blank from Terian’s grip on his mind.
Both the shots and the falling body together were loud.
Loud enough to wake others in the building, Terian realized.
More to the point, loud enough to wake Revi’.
A shocked grunt came from the couch, right as the second human fell to his knee, slumping partway against the plaster wall. In the same instant, Revi’ leapt to his feet, still shirtless and barefoot, his clear eyes unfocused, his hands balled into fists as he looked around.
“What the fuck is going on?” he growled loudly in German.
Internally, Terian rolled his eyes.
Still, he smiled a little, too.
“Don’t speak German here, goddamn it,” he said to his friend sternly in English. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“What is this?” Revi’ said, blinking his eyes, still obviously waking up, still looking ready to box someone. “What is happening?”
“Take his gun.” Terian motioned at the kneeling human, who still gripped the MAB pistol in one hand. “And kill him, for fuck’s sake. The other one couldn’t shoot straight, apparently.”
Revik still looked confused. Even so, Terian’s words must have reached him.
Revi’ had always been good at taking orders.
He relaxed his stance slightly before looking at the Frenchman holding the MAB. Assessing the situation in a glance, he walked over to the human with his oddly distinctive gait, a fighter’s walk and graceful even under what had to be at least mild alcohol poisoning. Once he reached where the man knelt, he took the gun from him easily, as Terian asked. Without hesitating, he shot the glaze-eyed Frenchman in the head.
The thick body slumped, like a puppet with cut strings.
“You can shoot this one, too,” Terian said, motioning with his head towards the human who still gripped his bare arm, standing behind him.
It wasn’t an instruction he would give to most others...even seers. Not with the human he’d indicated standing so close to him.
But Revi
’ was a frighteningly good shot. Even drunk.
The male seer aimed the pistol, firing again without hesitation.
Terian stepped to the side and back as the human collapsed on the bed behind him, bleeding from a hole just above his left eye. He was obviously and instantly dead.
Lowering the gun, Revik glanced at Terian, quirking one dark eyebrow. A slow curl of smoke left the end of the MAB pistol he gripped in his hand.
“Something you want to tell me, friend?” he said.
Terian clicked softly in amusement, then followed Revi’s gaze to Nara.
Revik’s eyes rested more heavily on her, taking in her naked body.
Terian could almost feel the heat rise in the other male seer’s light.
“Who is this?” Revik said, still staring at her. “She with you?”
“Yes,” Terian said, his voice cold. When Revik glanced over, Terian gave him an openly warning look. “She is with me, brother. In every sense.”
Fighting to ignore it when Revik looked back at Nara, Terian focused on the human who still held her instead. The male looked openly afraid now, even though Terian still held a good portion of his mind. Enough to keep him from doing anything stupid anyway. The human still had a hand wrapped around her throat, the other wrapped around the pipe, but Terian could tell it was more because he couldn’t move in any meaningful way.
“Let go of her,” Terian instructed him. “Now.”
The human complied at once, stepping backwards. He dropped the pipe, too. When Terian loosened his grip on the human’s mind, he started babbling in French, both hands up in a supplicating gesture.
Terian didn’t bother to read him to know his exact words.
Instead, he motioned towards Nara with one hand. His voice softened. “Come here, darling. Please...”
He felt Revik flinch. He looked at Terian, his expression openly bewildered now. Seeing the humor rising to the other’s clear eyes, Terian smacked him sharply with his light.
“Not a word out of you, brother...” he warned. When he saw Revik staring at her again, he growled, “...And stop looking at her, before you lose something you might miss. I’ll explain later. Suffice it to say, she’s coming with us.”
Revik grinned wider. Even so, he bowed his head in a polite acquiescence, taking his eyes off where he’d been examining Nara’s naked body openly.
“Whatever you say, brother,” he murmured, that humor audible in his voice. He looked at the human who still pleaded with them in French. “What do you want me to do with this one?”
Terian shrugged, wrapping his arms around Nara, who coiled her body around his, making him hard all over again. He shifted the angle of his body, if only to hide his reaction from the other male seer, although he knew Revi’ wouldn’t have cared.
“Whatever you want,” he said.
“Are you going to tell me who he is?” Revik said, his voice faintly amused again.
Terian’s expression grew taut, even as he looked down at Nara’s face, at her bright blue eyes. He held her tighter against his chest. “They’re seer slavers and pimps, brother.” he said coldly, not looking away from her. “You can draw your own conclusions about why I wanted them gone. And draw from your own conscience on the last of them.”
When Terian glanced up, Revik gave him a harder look.
Understanding shone clearly in his eyes and light.
When the shot rang out that time, Terian didn’t bother to watch. Instead he wrapped his arms tighter around Nara, murmuring in seer language against her neck.
*
He didn’t explain much to Revik. Not about who Nara was, or how he had known her, prior to meeting her again in Paris.
Still, Revi’ knew enough not to question him overly.
He also modified his behavior accordingly, which Terian appreciated even more.
His treatment of Nara was politely distant, warm in a brother-sister-fellow-seer kind of way, but he kept his light to himself, which is all Terian wanted.
Nara had some curiosity about him too, of course.
Terian felt it on her at times as they made their way back towards the ocean, but it didn’t carry any kind of charge that might have made him paranoid, or make him worry that she might have a less-than-sisterly view of Revik herself. Rather, she seemed curious about the two of them together, about how they had met, what they were doing together, who they worked for. In a quieter moment or two, Terian felt Nara wondering whether Revik had been the reason for his disappearance from that small town they’d shared in the Ukraine.
He wasn’t, of course.
But there would be plenty of time to explain all of that to her.
First, he would bring her to their boss in the Rooks.
She would be trained.
And then she would never leave him again.
As he thought it, she glanced up, smiling at him in a way that told him she’d heard at least part of what had drifted through his mind just then.
“Why did you not come back for me?” she chided him softly, snuggling deeper into his chest.
They were on a ferry steamer now, heading back from the continent to London. The wind gusted icy shards at his face, but his chest was warm where she shared most of his jacket, her head and hair snuggled into the crook of his neck.
“I could not,” he told her only, smiling when she looked up at him. He kissed her when she smiled back.
“But you can take me with you now?” she pressed, curiosity still in her voice.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“What will we do?” she said, still trying to feel his light behind his words, to glimpse the things he still, of necessity, must keep from her...at least until she was with him for real. She would have to be connected to the Rooks’ network first. She would have to become one of them, then he could tell her everything.
“Fig,” she said, shaking him lightly, gripping his coat. “What will we do then?”
He smiled at her, then gazed out over the horizon of the sea.
“Then,” he said softly, kissing her neck. “Then we will save the world, my love.”
“Will we, now?” she said, caressing his face with her fingers.
Terian glanced at Revik, who stood a few feet away, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes trained out over the same view. Feeling Terian’s eyes, Revik turned. Terian saw from his expression that the other male had been listening to them talk, that Terian’s words had affected him. Even as he thought it, Revik wiped his cheek with the heel of one hand, nodding to him, right before he held two of his fingers up, a seer’s sign of a vow.
It meant brotherhood too, Terian knew...and sisterhood.
Terian smiled at his friend, sending a pulse of warmth to his heart.
Revik smiled back, right before his eyes returned to the horizon.
“Yes, my love,” Terian said, smiling back down at Nara’s face. “Yes, my love. We will. We will save the world...our people, at least. Together. Do you not believe me?”
Studying his eyes, her own grew serious, deep pools of blue as she read his face and light. He let her look at him, hiding only what he had to, opening as much of himself as he dared as she continued to turn over his words. Just as he thought she might laugh at him again, or accuse him of teasing her, those blue eyes grew unnaturally bright.
She nodded then, looking up at him in wonder.
“Yes,” she whispered, nodding again. “Yes, Fig. I believe you.”
He smiled back, even as she pulled his mouth down to hers.
***
Read more in this world with:
ROOK (Allie’s War Book One)
Like most humans, Allie spent her life distancing herself from Seers, a race of human-like beings discovered on Earth. Yanked out of her life by the mysterious Revik, Allie finds out that her blood may not be as “human” as she always thought…that Seers are nothing like she imagined, and the world is nothing like it appears to be…
Pick up a FREE copy of ROOK at:
Amazon
Or pick up the first two books at a discounted price:
ALLIE’S WAR SEASON ONE (Books 1-2)
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Amazon
About JC Andrijeski
I write in a variety of genres often with a sexy, metaphysical and apocalyptic bent. My work has been featured in anthologies, online literary, art and fiction magazines as well as print venues such as NY Press and holistic health magazines. I travel extensively and have lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia and from coast to coast in the continental United States, but currently reside in Asia. To learn more about me and my writing, please visit jcandrijeski.com.
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Table of Contents
Red Hot Candy
Table of Contents
The Things I Never Said by Jo Raven
Perfectly Equipped by Lacey Silks
Billionaires in Disguise: Rae, Kidnapped by Blair Babylon
A Fan-TAB-Ulous Night by Olivia Rigal
Take it Easy by Daisy Prescott
Before Flesh by Sky Corgan
Scorched into Submission by Daizie Draper
Pandora's Box by Sarah M. Cradit
Braving Love by SJ Mayer
Always Enough by Molly McLain
Mine In Dreams by Olivia Hardin
Like Home by Mira Bailee
Unshakeable by JC Valentine
Yearning to Yield by Pavarti K Tyler
First-Class Scoundrel by Liv Morris