“Six years, Royce. Six damn years, and I want her more now than I ever did back then. Fuck time.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because from what you just told her, you’re far from getting anything. She’s our chance, or was our chance, to finally get our third. You really made sure that didn’t happen. Again.”
“She could be our witch. I never denied that.”
“Then what the hell are we waiting for? We need to go after her.”
“She said she’s done. We’re respecting that. I also don’t think I should be binding myself to a witch. Not now.”
“Oh, pull your head out of your ass!” Ryan spat.
“What?” Royce asked, arching his brow.
“For years, I’ve stood by and watched you shut out the world and me so you could prepare for your big vendetta. Enough is enough, Royce. Get over it.”
“You want me to just forget what happened to mom and dad? Is that it?”
“No. I want you to stop acting like our life is over just because theirs is.”
Ryan wasn’t expecting a punch to the face. A sharp pain went through his nose, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
So they were doing this. Fine. He’d take an angry Royce over a zombie one. Maybe then he’d get angry about what he’d just done to their witch.
Ryan was far from done.
“That all you got, Bro?” He spit blood onto the sand. “Because they’re dead, and they aren’t coming back.”
“Fuck you, Ryan.”
The second punch he expected, so he braced himself.
His ears were ringing now, but he wasn’t going to fight back. As much as his twin needed an ass kicking, he wasn’t going to retaliate.
Royce needed this. They both did. They’d gotten into enough fights as kids to know when one of them needed to vent.
“Their killer got away,” Ryan said, ignoring his head spinning. “No magic you do is going to fix that.”
Ryan watched as a red glow consumed his brother’s eyes. His power was fueling his rage.
Oh, shit, Ryan thought just before Royce’s element shot out and punched him in the gut.
He hit the sand with a thick thump, causing granules to swirl up into the air.
Ryan’s breath was forced out of him.
You can’t kill him, Ryan reminded himself. He’s family.
But nothing was stopping Ryan from giving Royce a taste of his own medicine.
He distracted Royce while he called forth the power of air. Royce was too enraged to see and feel the breeze pick up around them.
“They died, and we weren’t there to save them,” Ryan said, feeling his elemental force fill him with energy. “Give it a fucking rest already.”
“No!” Royce yelled.
This time Ryan dodged his brother’s right hook and sent the power of air at his sibling, lifting Royce with the air current until he fell face down on the ground.
Royce stayed there for a moment in defeat before pushing up to kneel in the sand.
When Ryan felt Royce’s anger lessen, he knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“If you keep holding onto that anger, it’s going to destroy both of us,” Ryan said. “Do you think they’d want that?”
Royce kept his head down, but he still shook it. “No.” He was breathing hard as the word came out. “They wouldn’t. Not like this.”
“Good, because I think the best healing remedy for both of us just ran away.”
“I don’t know if she can forgive me,” Royce said, his voice solemn. “I don’t even know if she should.”
“Coming from someone who has to forgive your ass on a daily basis,” Ryan said, wiping blood away from the corner of his mouth, “I’m sure we can help her with that.”
Royce looked up. “I got you good, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, which means I owe you two punches to the face, and I’m saving them up for when you really piss me off.”
Royce laughed for the first time in months. “Sounds fair.”
Ryan realized then how much he missed that sound and his brother. “Damn straight it’s fair.” He looked over to the direction Carmen had disappeared in. “Now, can we go after her?”
Royce stood up. He had an aura of confidence and purpose that had been missing for a long time. “Lead the way, Brother.”
Chapter Seven
Carmen was antsy as she paced back and forth on the sand, her toes sinking into the tiny granules. Sexual frustration hovered around her annoyance, reminding her of how good it felt to have the twins so close to her. Kissing her. Touching her.
Hell, what kind of messed-up nonsense did she get herself into now? She usually appreciated some drama in her life, but this one flew off the soap opera scales.
Seeing the Durant brothers was unexpected. So was the fact that they were hotter than ever. They were full-grown men now. Men that made her fire roar to life.
The most frustrating part was that she felt an even stronger attraction to them than she ever had while in high school.
Someone had to be laughing at her.
Goddess help her.
For her entire life, she wanted to become part of a Perfect Triad. Annoyed her family about it endlessly. She even created a fantasy wedding when she was a little girl. Two of her stuffed bears wore ties she snuck out of Dad and Papa’s closets, while she made a white sheet her wedding dress. She even forced her sisters to be her play bridesmaids a couple of times.
Yeah, she had it bad, but there was something about the fantasy of having two men adore her for life that she fell in love with.
Carmen’s parents were the perfect example of how precious a triad could be. They had their moments of disagreements. Her mother was too strong-willed to not have an opinion on everything. Even in arguments, Carmen and her sisters saw how much their parents loved each other.
Now that the opportunity to have her own warlocks was staring her right in the face, what did she do? Run. This was becoming a habit of hers when she faced Royce and Ryan. All three of them seemed to have the run-away-from-your-problems gene, but something about having the Durant brothers as her warlocks scared her senseless.
But this time, she wasn’t the problem.
Royce was.
She never felt so much anger for one man.
No, that wasn’t all.
Carmen was angry at herself too.
Despite her wrath, she still sensed her body aching for the Durant brothers.
Traitorous body had different priorities.
Her feet warmed. She looked down and saw her feet had scorched the sand. Black footprints marked her worn path.
Well, at least her element was just as confused as she was.
“You idiots!” Someone was yelling off in the distance.
Carmen looked up to see where the booming voice was coming from. She saw shadows dancing further down along the beach, away from the crowded festival.
No one was near her, but the shadows seemed close by as they moved off the sand and behind some big rocks in the distance.
More arguing came from the area of movement.
It seemed like she wasn’t the only one having a bad night.
She started to move away. Then she heard words that froze her.
“Those Brixton women are getting stronger,” a voice shouted, “and you had to go piss one off!”
Brixton women? Carmen would have thought it was a coincidence, but her family was the only Brixtons in Kala West.
Why were they mentioning her family, and who did they upset? Was it Claire?
She had an odd feeling that something was off, and she hoped it had nothing to do with her sister. She hadn’t seen her anywhere, but she thought that meant Claire was off in happy warlock land with her sexy duo by now. What if she was wrong?
Wait, didn’t she still have the spell working for her? Her own magical concoction of invisibility. She could get closer to figure out what they were talking about, and whoever was over t
here wouldn’t see her. As long as she didn’t step on another beer can. There was no way she could be that accident-prone in one night. She hoped.
Carmen eased closer to the flickering shadows until she heard clearer voices.
“How were we supposed to know she was off limits?”
“Because I told you the first time you tried to approach her,” a man said. “I specifically said to leave her be. Your disobedience is starting to annoy me. Of all the witches here, you had to go after a Brixton.”
“We didn’t know she was off limits,” a younger male voice said. “That’s what happens when you don’t tell us everything.”
Carmen peeped over one of the giant rocks limiting her view.
Three figures stood around a small pit fire, one smaller than the bonfires of Firewick. One had his back to her, but she could see the other two a little better. The darkness and flames didn’t make their faces completely visible, but she knew she had never seen them before.
With bruises and tattered clothes, they looked like they’d been on the losing side of a fight. One looked more beaten then the other and had dried blood on his shirt.
Carmen figured they were already healed, since she didn’t see fresh blood on either of them. That also meant they were probably warlocks. From the looks of them, they didn’t seem like smart ones, though.
The man she couldn’t see faced them and wore a bright red cloak that appeared too formal for the beach. A small nugget of her mother’s teaching came back as she remembered that was the cloak of an Elemental Board member. Master of Fire, if she was thinking correctly. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard his reprimand of the two warlocks clearly.
“You have to prove your responsibility to know information, and so far, you two idiots have yet to do that. My nephews would have been more competent.”
“You promised us more power than any other triad in the coven and the witch of our choice. Starting to sound like you’re going against your word, Master.” He spat out the word Master like a bitterness that made him sick.
“In time, you’ll get what was promised, but you will not bond with any Brixton witch. I won’t have them ruining this. Not when I’m so close. Besides, I don’t think my benefactor would be too happy with dead Brixtons.”
Carmen gasped without thinking.
Shitstorms and spellcasters. What the hell was wrong with her?
She obviously didn’t know how to eavesdrop on people, because all three men turned to stare at her.
They saw her, which meant her spell had abandoned its host.
It was so past time to flee.
She pushed away from the rock and ran.
“Grab her!” the Master of Fire yelled.
She could hear footsteps run after her, and she took off as fast as she could.
Carmen hated running with a passion, but her flight responses were in high gear. Still, it was hard to run on the sinking sand, but she wasn’t going to let them come near her.
There was no way she was going to outrun them, not with the sand holding her back and her breath slamming through her chest, so she stopped to pull in her energy. It was her best bet.
She guessed at their distance.
Twenty feet maybe.
Then fifteen.
Ten.
She turned around quickly to throw her fire element at her pursuers, but they were closer than she estimated.
Fucking math did her in every time.
The flames from her body extinguished into smoke as one of them knocked her down to the ground, forcing what little breath she had completely out of her.
Both were on her as she grabbed for something, anything to give her leverage, but all she felt was sand.
She twisted on her stomach, but that only angered them more.
“Where do you think you’re going?” one of them taunted.
Hands yanked her by her hair until she was on her knees. Sharp granules pressed into her knees.
“Get the hell off me!” she screamed.
The hands that pulled her up forced her back until she felt something pull and fall from her neck.
Her necklace. Idiots broke her necklace.
She tried to reach for it, but the bastard who held her snapped her back even more.
That was it. It was all she needed to feel anger fill her body until all she saw in her eyes were flames.
“Stop fighting and we won’t hurt you,” the other younger one said.
Right. Like she’d believe that.
“Speak for yourself, man,” the first moron who held her said. “Maybe she can stand a little pain.”
Carmen felt heat pool in her belly like a molten pit. Never had she felt rage like the kind that coursed through her body in that moment. Her voice steadied. “I’ll show you hot and pain.”
“She’s getting hot,” the young one said.
“I already said that, dumbass,” the other said.
“No, her skin is burning up.”
“Hey, stop that.”
No longer could she tell who was speaking, but both men had let her go.
What was happening to her? She was submerged in only raw magic, a power that had a force of its own.
Something hard and solid hit Carmen in the back of her head, and that uncontrollable rage turned into pain.
“Incompetent fools!” a voice shouted behind her. “Must I do everything myself?”
Carmen turned and finally got a closer look at the Master of Fire’s face. The symbol for his element was embroidered on his chest.
She also saw the stone he raised in the air right before he hit her again, knocking her out with it. Carmen wasn’t sure if the blackness welcomed her or if she simply embraced it to stop the pain.
***
Royce felt like shit. He was sore, but it wasn’t from the fight with Ryan. Something deep inside of him was broken, and it knew it had every bit to do with him letting Carmen leave them like that.
Damn, he was an idiot. Even he knew that. He’d stood there like a fool as Carmen poured her heart out to them, and what did he do? Nothing. Nothing but force her to run away. All that time consuming book after book, and he didn’t have the slightest clue of how to handle love when it literally blew up in front of his face.
“She couldn’t have gotten far,” Royce said. It felt like forever since they started looking for her, and his magic already felt her absence along with his body. He remembered the way she felt pressed up against him, so much for him to hold and explore, yet so small compared to him and Ryan.
Even now his cock stirred at the memory of her beautiful body so close to his. He promised himself that when they found her, he was going to make sure every inch of her body was ingrained in his memory forever. He didn’t mind if it took longer than that.
“She shouldn’t have left in the first place,” Ryan said back.
“Look, I wasn’t expecting her. She just...caught me off guard. Seeing her after all this time.”
“But you still want her as much as ever.”
It wasn’t a question. They both knew they wanted Carmen. That was evident more than anything they faced before.
Royce had lost so much after his parents died. Both of them had. He knew it hit Ryan too, but somehow his brother didn’t let that ruin his hope for the future. They’d both tried on many occasions to find their parents’ killer with no success, and that just hardened Royce to anything else, even the possibility of him and his brother finding their third.
Now they’d found her and lost her all in one night. All because he couldn’t tell her how he really felt. Even when he was a teenager, he was scared of the feelings he had for Carmen. He’d never known something or someone could feel like his sole reason for existing until he met her.
He was just an asshole for realizing it now, and he hoped it wasn’t too late.
“We’ve been searching up and down this beach for an hour,” Ryan said. “She could be at home.”
“Maybe,” Royce said. “Let�
�s go a little further.”
“We could try a spell to find her.”
“We’d need something of hers to do that, and I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything. That is, unless you somehow unhooked her bra when we had her between us earlier.”
“Fuck!” Ryan cried. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He hit his forehead with his palm before laughing.
Royce laughed with him. It felt good to finally do that. He’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be anything other than angry. “You mean you’re finally thinking with that big head of yours?” he asked.
A serious look filled his brother’s face, which was almost hard to see as the moon disappeared behind some clouds and created deep shadows of night. “She’s different,” Ryan said. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Royce. Ever.”
Royce smiled at the way his brother seemed to also be changing due to their curvy witch. Wow. It felt good to call her “theirs.” He loved how it sounded, and he was going to make sure when they found her, Carmen knew which warlocks she belonged to. He was ready to do as much convincing as it took. He hoped it involved endless hours of nakedness in bed. That was time he would love to take advantage of.
“I know, Brother,” Royce said. “Trust me. I know.”
The beach lit up as the moon reappeared, making it easier to see further up ahead of them. Something caught the light of the moon and sparkled in the sand.
“Hey,” Royce said. “What’s that?” When they got closer to it, Royce picked it up. It was someone’s necklace. Words hung at the end. When he read them, his heart stopped. Everything stilled until fear was the only thing left.
“It’s Carmen’s.” His voice was barely recognizable to him.
“What?” Ryan said. “Did she drop it?”
“The latches are torn. Like it was ripped off.” Suddenly, the fear morphed into a new beast, one Royce was too familiar with. Rage filled his body, and he could feel the heat of his power rolling beneath his skin.
“If someone harmed her, I swear they’re dead,” Ryan said.
Royce could feel the wind pick up and the same emotions pour into his twin.
They found Carmen and lost her all in one night. All because he couldn’t tell her how he really felt.
The Alpha Warlocks' Own: An Alpha Warlocks of Kala West Story #3 (A BWWM and BBW Paranormal Ménage Romance) Page 5
