by India Arden
Everyone but Aurora.
She wasn’t just still, she was frozen. Even her hair was moving in slow motion, floating eerily behind her, mid-whirl. “It’s something to do with the Arcana,” Zephyr said.
Rain shook his head. “There’s nothing in the literature about the Arcana being able to do this.”
Ember took stock of the situation, and with that infuriating authority of his, declared, “It’s the Bonding. That’s all it could possibly be.”
It was clear we should make tracks before the rest of the world snapped out of its fog, but… “We can’t just leave Aurora,” I said. That much was obvious. All three guys immediately agreed with me. And that was a first.
“If we let go of each other,” Zephyr wondered, “does that mean the Bonding falls apart?”
I didn’t know. None of us did. But it wasn’t worth the risk. We were linked, Edward to me, me to Rain, and Rain to Zephyr. That left the guys on each end with a free hand. We all clutched one another tightly wherever we could, so as not to break the Bond, and the guys on each end looped their free arms around Aurora.
“She’s warm,” Zephyr said. “And weirdly pliable.” He shuddered. “This feels so wrong.”
Ember said, “Save the commentary. Just focus on getting her out of here.”
“How about this?” Zephyr suggested. “Everyone saw us heading for the alley to the West. Change course and go North. A simple redirect.”
“Let’s do it,” Ember said. And with his blessing, we shambled Northward in an ungainly cluster—Aurora frozen, heels dragging on the ground. Me, not much better, so spent my vision was tunneling.
“First time’s the hardest,” Rain murmured in my ear while he shored me up. It was oddly encouraging and unexpectedly intimate. The two of us had never had much to do with each other. Not that I disliked him. We got along fine. But I was a loner, and he’d been joined at the hip with Zephyr since they were children. But now I felt a palpable thread of connection where nothing of the sort had existed before.
Apparently, the Arcanum had changed more than just our names.
One door in the North alley was marked with our Rebel symbol—the one I’d designed. Ember called it a “star,” and I let him. But it was so much more than that: an anarchy symbol and pentagram all in one. And you could spray-paint it in a few quick swoops. The door led to the back of a Greek restaurant I wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with. I’d dated the hostess until she found someone willing to buy her trinkets and entertain her bizarre crying jags. The sex had been fun, though, and I still got the occasional text from her whenever her fiancé was out of town. Hard to imagine her being our contact at the business, though, what with her propensity to burst into tears.
Still clutching one another, we crab-walked through the kitchen. Three guys were working back there, all of them now motionless. A prep cook’s blade was poised mid-chop over a half-diced onion. Soup being ladled into a bowl quivered in the air. Flames flaring around a pan of calamari waved sluggishly, while a spray of bright sparks drifted like ash in an updraft. The smell of olive oil and lemon and oregano died quickly, as if the scent molecules we’d inhaled were spent after the first sniff. The world wasn’t frozen, exactly. Just slowed so acutely that it might as well have been.
We pushed through the swinging doors and out into the dining room, where patrons were gathered at the windows to watch the cop cars screaming by. I couldn’t help but check the hostess station. Although Rita wasn’t there, Shane was—a willowy guy with an infectious smile and a way with Pop Rocks. I hadn’t exactly dated him…more like a series of interesting hook-ups.
Pushing through the exit onto the street was like wading through quicksand. Even the atmosphere itself resisted us, and the murk grew thicker with every step. The haze began to form distinct filaments, and eventually, those filaments became tendrils of darkness. By the time we crossed the street, the darkness clung to our legs like Silly String. Were we accumulating it by moving, or would stopping cause even more buildup?
Either way, the Bonding was sliding out of our grasp, and we all felt it.
I cast around and spotted a white minivan with the passenger side visor down. “Van,” I said. “Two o’clock.”
We course-corrected and slogged toward it. “Are you good to drive?” Ember asked.
I grit my teeth. “Always.”
26
AURORA
I thought I’d been sick back when I was infested with sewer parasites. Apparently, I hadn’t even known the meaning of the word sick.
One minute, I was hand in hand with Zephyr, running toward the alleyway. I turned to see Ember trying to pry Sterling up off the ground, and then everything was a blur. I came to in the back of a car with my head in Rain’s lap. “What happened?” I said, but it came out slurred.
“S’okay, Princess, we got you,” was all he’d say, but when he smoothed back my hair, a very non-Arcane tingle spread across my scalp—and I felt that it was more than just words to shut me up, and maybe I really would be all right.
Sterling pulled up in Lerman’s back parking lot and let us off right by the freight door. “Hey….” I said and reached out to him as Rain eased me out of the backseat. My fingers closed on air, but Sterling turned to me and met my eye. His skin was still oddly translucent, and his eyes looked bruised. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
“Can’t someone else go hide the car?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Not unless they pry the steering wheel out of my cold, dead hands.”
The other three guys hustled me through the warehouse door. The pallet jack wasn’t nearby, but a shopping cart was.
A shopping cart.
“Think of it this way,” Zephyr told me. “When I was a kid, riding in the cart was my favorite part of going to the store.”
I thought it was best not to mention that I’d grown up in a compound and had exactly zero childhood memories of riding in grocery carts. Or grocery shopping in general.
Ember and Rain sidled along anxiously beside the cart as Zephyr pushed, each of them holding my hand. It felt like the ubiquitous emergency room approach on every medical TV drama. “You feeling any better yet?” Rain asked. His hair had fallen from its knot and hung in long, loose waves.
“She’ll be okay,” Ember said, as if insisting it was so would make it real. “Give her some time.”
I took a deep breath and realized it didn’t hurt as much as the last one. “It is getting better,” I told them, and the relief on all their faces was palpable.
Ember gave my hand a squeeze and said, “I need to go check the news and the police scanner, and make sure we weren’t followed.”
“We got this,” Rain said, and his words were as soothing as a caress. Ember broke off from us and we wheeled on.
Not that I recognized the hallways from the ceilings scrolling by, but we did take an unfamiliar turn. “This isn’t the way to the security station.”
“We can’t keep you locked up there forever,” Zephyr said gravely…and I realized that maybe I was too much of a liability after all. Back at the green, I’d nearly got us all killed. Even worse, I was nothing but deadweight when it came to our defense. Everyone else had manifested Arcane power, while I’d cowered there uselessly and let myself get knocked out by…whatever it was. Hopefully not Gus. The thought of that pervert touching me, even with a tendril of air, made me physically ill.
But even though I was a huge burden, part of me must have been convinced I was still part of the team. Because the disappointment I felt over the thought of being cut loose was profound. “Tell me something,” I said.
Rain threaded his long poet’s fingers through mine. “Shoot.”
“You wouldn’t have really killed me. Would you?”
He and Zephyr both jerked back, and one of the shopping cart’s front wheels went wonky and started to shimmy. “Kill you?” Rain said. “Where’d you get that? I’d never so much as raise my hand to a woman…and Zeph won’
t even kill a spider.”
“Spiders are very beneficial,” Zephyr said.
I gave a tired laugh. “You can drop the act. We’ve been through enough together that I deserve the truth.” Besides, if there was any way we could move forward, it wouldn’t be with me looking like the fragile, inane, useless part of the team. My eyes were open. And I needed for them to know I wasn’t as ignorant as they thought.
But the guys weren’t buying it. “What act?” Rain asked.
I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I was too worn out to keep playing their game. “I heard you. Back when you locked me up in the guard station, your voices carried. Zephyr planned on shutting me up—I heard him plain as day. So, don’t bother denying…what’s so funny?”
Rain was biting his lower lip and trying not to smile—failing miserably—while Zephyr flushed pink.
Some of my strength must’ve been returning. Enough to feel annoyed. “I heard you,” I insisted.
“That you did.” Rain couldn’t squelch his grin anymore. He had a gorgeous smile. “But the part you didn’t know about—”
“Dude, no—”
“—was the hand gesture that went with it.”
“I was just joking around,” Zephyr said breathlessly. “That’s how guys talk.”
And how was that? Through the bars of the shopping cart, I saw Rain giving a little jerk-off gesture, and then everything fell into place. Zephyr wanted to shut me up, all right. With his dick. I rolled my eyes. “Really classy.”
Zephyr’s blush reached his ears and his cheeks deepened to scarlet. “I meant it in a totally flattering way. Like, you know…’cause you’re so, uh…. Not that I’d ever…I mean, not without your permission—”
Rain said, “Cut your losses, dude. Apologize and move on.”
“What can I say? I’ve always been awkward around pretty girls.”
I probably should’ve been offended. But he was so incredibly flustered, I knew the awkwardness was real. And besides, if no one actually wanted to kill me, we could work out everything else.
He dragged the cart to a stop in front of a door I didn’t recognize, a wooden door set with opaque white glass and a plate that read Accounting beside it. Zephyr said, “If it’ll help clear my name in any way whatsoever, I’d like to point out that this was all my idea.”
“What was?”
He and Rain lifted me gently from the cart set me on my feet. My knees trembled.
“This really calls for a blindfold,” Zephyr said. “Is there anything we could use for a blindfold?”
Rain gave him a tolerant head-shake. “Just open the door.”
With the giddy anticipation of a new Aspirant waiting for Transfiguration day, Zephyr pushed open the office door. Whatever that office used to be, it was nothing like that anymore. Right now, it was…pink.
Very pink.
The walls were covered with sheet sets, the types of things normal teenage girls were sent off to college with. One was printed pink with glittery silver stars, another, pink flowers and paisleys. All of them in various roses and peaches and lavenders, sprinkled in glitter and foil and lit with winking fairy lights.
“You like it?” Zephyr asked eagerly.
“It’s, um….”
“It really wasn’t habitable before,” Rain said. “This used to be the payroll office. And during the Riots, a disgruntled forklift driver scrawled fucktard all over the walls in big fat permanent marker.”
“Oh.” I supposed I did prefer the cotton candy look to the evidence of some angry jerk’s temper tantrum.
“I thought white would have a little more panache, but the graffiti showed right through.”
“We made you a bed,” Zephyr added excitedly. “Packing foam. The egg crate stuff they use for shipping electronics. Nice and thick. You’ll sleep like a baby.”
Rain grinned. “Or if not, at least it will baffle any untoward noises.”
The makeshift mattress was an ungainly wad covered in an ombre dyed sheet of red, magenta, and pink. They helped me over to it and eased me down. It was a lot softer than my memory foam at home, and noticeably lumpier, but I was so bone-tired and worn out, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel like settling onto a cloud. A fairly lumpy cloud. Unfortunately, it was so soft and pliable that a corner of the fitted sheet trying to contain the foam popped right off beneath my weight.
“Hold on,” Zephyr said, “I got this.” He tugged the corner into place…and the opposite corner popped free.
Rain grabbed that side of the sheet. “The tension’s all wrong. Push and pull, got it? Yanking it around like that won’t get you anywhere.”
“I should get up and let you—” when I tried to lever myself up, my hand just sank deeper into the foam wad. A third corner popped off. Zephyr grabbed that, and the fourth corner popped. Rain laughed and tried to hook it back on. It was like a big, awkward game of Twister. One that had a guy scrambling on each side of me to tame a sheet that had a life of its own. I flailed some more in my attempt to get up, but not only did the foam refuse to give me up…it sucked Zephyr in, right up against me.
His lips parted in surprise. His breath ghosted across my cheek. He tried to backpedal and only ended up pressed harder against me. I had no leverage whatsoever. The only thing to push against was him. And sliding my hand up his chest accomplished nothing but stiffening one of his nipples.
At the same time, we both said, “I’m sorry.”
We laughed nervously, and he said, “If I’d known home decorating skills were all it took to get a girl in bed, I woulda spent a lot more time reading Martha Stewart.”
We floundered some more, very nearly pried ourselves apart, then rolled back together, shoving against each other even more pointedly than before. His thigh slipped between my legs, and the friction of it pressing up against my sex lit me up inside. My breath caught in my throat.
“Honestly,” he said, “I didn’t plan this.”
“And that’s the truth,” Rain said. The foam pile shifted as he settled in behind me and pressed against my back. And he clearly had no interest in helping me extricate myself from the packing foam. His long, hard body settled against my back, spooning my rump, and I made a noise in my throat before I could even help myself. With one hand settled on my hip, he pressed his lips to my neck, just behind my ear, and his beard ruffled my hair. “Zeph’s plans never pan out this smoothly. Especially when he’s all tongue-tied and flustered. He can barely even speak to a girl who can pronounce the word Arcanum and use it in a sentence. Imagine how giddy he is around you.”
“Is that so?” My voice had gone all funny.
“I don’t mind playing wing man. In fact…I might prefer it.”
Rain’s hand crept lower, fingers sparking tingling trails down my thigh. “If you’ve still got your three-ginity, we can help you ditch it. Not to brag, but we always give a lady something to smile about. Usually more than once.”
Zephyr pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ve never been the meat in the sandwich, but I’m more than happy to be the bread. And whoever doesn’t believe that two heads are better than one should clearly be shopping at a different deli.”
Before my brain could even engage, my body said yes, please—right now. Heat rushed down my spine and gathered between my legs, and I felt myself slicken. Need blossomed in every point their bodies touched mine. Breasts and butt, yes. But unlikely places, too. My belly, where it pressed into Zephyr’s hipbone. My shoulder blade, pushing into Rain’s chest. Zephyr’s lips were close enough to capture. Rain’s tongue was blazing a wet swipe of pleasure down the side of my throat. Every fiber of my being wanted them to take me and use me and wrack my body with pleasure. My back arched, driving my rump into the bulge in Rain’s jeans, and all three of us groaned in anticipation….
Until the half-heard sound of footsteps grew too close to ignore. I gave Zephyr a hard shove and pushed him back far enough for me to catch my breath and come to my senses. I’d never even been wi
th a guy. What on earth made me think I could handle two?
He rolled off the foam and was up on his feet by the time Ember joined us. Don’t ask how I knew it was him by the sound of his gait alone. I just did. Zephyr quickly rearranged himself, then shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to look casual. He failed miserably.
Rain came across no better—he didn’t even bother getting up. Just rolled onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head like lounging on my “bed” with me was the most natural thing in the world. Never mind that it was now nothing more than a tangle of packing foam and pink sheets.
Ember paused in the doorway and took in the scene. His expression stayed neutral. Maybe. I hadn’t known him long, and he was always some shade of serious. But either I sensed that he didn’t like what he’d walked into…or I was just projecting my own moral discomfort onto him.
“Sterling was able to print out more information about the Bond,” he told Zephyr. “Come take a look, whenever you’re ready.” He half-turned, then cast a parting glare around my new room. “And, seriously, stop subjecting Aurora to your pawing and let her get some sleep. She’s had one hell of a day.”
27
Apparently, there’s no such thing as being too embarrassed to sleep, because the moment Zephyr and Rain took off after Ember—Zephyr with breathless apologies, and Rain with a look sultry enough to melt my panties—I fell into an exhausted, dreamless slumber. I woke up what felt like many hours later, headachy, dehydrated, and tangled in packing foam.
