by Skyler Andra
God, this woman was tearing my heart out with her words then leaving it bleeding and lifeless on the floor. Only then to heal it with a single gaze.
“How can you be so sure?” I asked not sure where this was going.
“Because I know you. Because you know what I am and whose powers I have.”
My wife and I had been through hell and high-water together. “I thought I knew Meredith too and I thought she knew me.” My voice came out pitiful and weak. I clenched my fists.
“All right, love of my days,” Mads said. “I’ve got this one.”
Just what was he up to?
Chapter 18
Locke
Rane and I both looked up at Mads who moved from the door, holding himself resolutely.
“Locke, mind getting up?” Mads asked.
“Um, no. I guess not.” I stood, retreating to the doorway, my body bunching with nerves.
Rane didn’t look as if he could take any more kindness right then, so even if I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him while telling him everything was going to be fine, I couldn’t. Instead, I got to watch as Mads took my place on the ground at Rane’s feet.
Besides the time Mads had sensually touched Rane and nuzzled him, begging for some man-on-man action, I’d never really thought that I was into men getting together. Apparently, I was wrong. Mads on his knees was oddly the opposite of submissive. His proximity to Rane, how he got in his space and leaned forward to tilt Rane’s chin up was oh so seductive.
Mads smiled wickedly for a moment and then far faster than I thought him capable of, he drew his hand back and slapped Rane across the face. Hard enough that it whipped Rane’s head to the left and sounded as if a gunshot had gone off.
I jumped about a foot. “Mads, what the hell?”
Rane lunged forward, pinning Mads to the ground. “What the fuck, Mads? What did I do to deserve that?” My heart jumped to hear how very much like himself he sounded. We might not be out of the woods yet, but we were getting there.
“Nothing at all!” I exclaimed, grabbing Rane’s arm. He shuddered when I pulled him off Mads. “And, um, Mads, at some point, maybe say sorry for that.”
“I’m sure I’ll get around to it,” Mads said, rising to a seated position.
Finally, I understood the method to his madness.
“Look, Rane,” I said, stroking his reddened face even though he flinched. “Mads was testing your control. It’s a lot better than you think. Maybe not against people who want to hurt you, but that’s understandable, right?”
Comprehension dawned in Rane’s eyes. “You don’t think that I’d hurt someone…”
“Never,” I assured. “Mads obviously doesn’t either, otherwise he wouldn’t have been such an idiot.” I pronounced the last words with a firmness to convey my point.
For a few moments I genuinely feared whatever was going in Rane’s head—if the extant trauma or bullshit programming was just too strong for him to fight. If we couldn’t convince him to snap out of it, then what would happen?
“I think I should say thank you for that,” Rane said, helping Mads to his feet.
“Are you going to?” asked Mads.
Rane smiled. “Give me a few months.”
Mads chuckled. “Though in all honesty, you should probably say thank you to Locke. I was just going to leave you in this place.”
I grinned at Mads, a deep certainty about him flooding through me. He might bitch about it, but at the end of the day there was no way he’d leave anyone behind. It was a big part of why I loved him.
Mads scowled as if detecting that I saw right through him. “Love of my days, it’s your damned fault I do half the stupid things I have lately, and there’s a long list. You’re the one who came in to find us.”
At this news, Rane turned to me with a mixed look of horror and fury on his face. “Wait, you came in here? On purpose?”
“Well, yes. But I didn’t tell Mads that!”
“I guessed right,” Mads said with a smirk, taking a step back.
Damn him, he knew that would flip a switch in Rane.
“Are you insane?” Rane rounded on me, his shoulders heaving. “Does that mean you left the underworld and came to Tennessee? You didn’t stay where it was safe?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re always safe when you’re dead, Rane!”
“I thought you had more sense than that!” Rane grabbed the sides of my arms with such passion and intensity that it stole my breath. I knew he cared for me and wanted nothing more than for me to be safe. His protectiveness made me swoon a little and I melted in his arms.
“Well, apparently not,” I countered, sliding my arms around his waist so I could press my cheek on his chest. “Because I’m actually in the middle of rescuing you from this hellhole, so shut up and deal with it! You can scold me later. Maybe even spank me for it.”
Rane brought my chin up so our gazes met. He kissed me as if he had been waiting to do so for years, and I melted under the power and ferocity of it.
At last he moved to whisper in my ear. “Locke, we’re going to have words about the risks you’ve been taking lately.”
The promise, the threat in that low murmur, trembled through me.
“As long as those words involve your cock thrusting into my pussy, then I’ll be happy to have that conversation.”
“Oh, they will.”
When I turned to glance behind us, Mads grinned like the Cheshire cat.
“You are a goddamn troublemaker,” I said with a scowl.
“Yes,” he answered cheekily. “I told you something to that effect when you met me.”
That was pretty hard to argue with, so I just said, “Come on, gents. Now we have to find a way out of these nightmarish fever dreams.”
Right as the words left my mouth, Rane’s house quaked as if an earthquake struck. Picture frames toppled off the dressing table. Lamps shuddered on the bedside tables. The bed rumbled, its hinges squeaking.
“I won’t argue with that, love of my days,” Mads replied, taking my hand as I pulled away from Rane. “Hurry, we better be heading off.”
Together, my hands clasped with Rane’s and Mads’, we exited the house. Rane gave it a brief glance before we left and a resigned smile, indicating he was done with this memory once and for all.
Outside, the nightmarish world continued falling apart. The sky, the houses and the neighborhood crumbled around us, breaking down to their main component parts before dissolving altogether. The ground quaked even harder beneath us as the world was ripped apart by some unseen force. I stumbled, but Mads caught me, holding me steady.
Crap, we aren’t going to make it. Had Byron and the other avatars accidentally destroyed the orb without knowing we were trapped inside it? Or had the scientists succeeded in extracting our godly powers by tearing our souls from our bodies?
“What are we going to do if it all falls out from underneath us?” I said.
Mads made a soft sound of surprise. I stared fearfully at the hand he held up that was more translucent than it should have ever been.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” he quipped.
“Mads!” I lunged for him as if that would somehow keep him together, to keep him with me, but he was misting away.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his body quickly fading. “It’s going to be fine. And if it’s not, it’s not like I’ll know, right?”
His grin lingered for just an instant longer before he vanished, leaving me feeling as if a portion of my heart was torn out.
I fell to the ground unable to figure out what to do next.
Rane hauled me to my feet, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tightly. To my shock, I noticed his arms becoming transparent too.
“It’ll be all right,” he told me. “Don’t worry, Locke. It’ll be fine. We’re not going to be apart any longer. I promise.”
I might have believed his words of comfort a little more if there hadn’t
been that desperate note to his voice as if he were trying to convince himself as well. Then there was no time to think about anything else because he disappeared too, and I was left alone in a crumbling world. The thought of my mother’s words, that I’d end up alone, stabbed me in the heart. All of the fears and anxieties I had about abandonment came to the forefront again.
Then, to my surprise, I began to fade just like them but I didn’t have the energy to react. I was ready to be back with the men I loved. All of them.
***
“Dammit, why does my mouth taste like menthol?” Those were the first words out of my mouth when I came back to myself on a cold, hard surface. My head shifted on something soft—a pillow perhaps. When I tried to sit up someone firmly pushed me back down.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Mads’ voice advised me. “I got up too fast and nearly had to puke.”
“Mads?” I glanced around what appeared to be the room where I’d helped the avatars escape from. “Wait, what’s going on?”
Mads leaned into my field of vision, grinning at me. By god, it made my heart ache in the best way to see him. Being in the orb had aged him, made him seem more worn out, leaving him with a cut slashed through one eyebrow. Why was he more battered than when he had been sent to that prison? At least he seemed himself again. There was a lack of internal pain that he had been carrying around for so long. Well, no pain my Cupid powers detected anyway.
“We all thought we’d take a shot at killing each other,” Mads joked. “Or rather, Byron and Rane decided to anyway. I’m far too sensible so I’m sitting over here with you.”
“Oh god,” I groaned, beckoning for Mads’ help to raise me into a sitting position. The nausea faded sooner than I thought it would, but when it did I pushed off and searched for the source of yelling. “Where is everyone?”
“This way.” Mads helped me out of the bed. “Come meet the man behind this. You won’t believe who it is even if I tell you.”
Curiosity coursed in my veins. Why was he being so mysterious? Was there supposed to be some big secret reveal or something?
I swallowed, thinking of what Rane or Byron might have done to the person. “They haven’t tortured him have they?”
“No. But they might be arguing over it.” Mads kissed me on the top of my head, doing little to calm my churning stomach.
Slowly, he led me out of the room and my stomach bunched with dread at meeting the person responsible for creating my personal hell for the last six months. We entered an adjacent room filled with rows of tables and chairs—a former a cafeteria by the look of it. Twenty or so people were seated at the benches, their wrists zip-tied together. My heart sunk at seeing them restrained. While they had captured, kept the avatars prisoner, and tested them like lab rats, I still didn’t advocate harming the defenseless…even if they were responsible. Still, I saw the reasoning behind it, and didn’t want to risk any further trouble.
That said, we had to figure out how to eliminate the threat for good. I wasn’t looking forward to any more break ins to my apartment. No more kidnappings. No more blowing up mansions. And no more spending life on the run. I had enough of the crap to last me a lifetime. Damn it all, I was going to get myself a new place, write the stories brewing in my mind, finish my Master’s and see where things went with the men in my life.
The twins stalked up and down the rows as watchful as young lions. Over in the corner, Ophelia leaned against the wall in an exhausted slump while Conor talked on a cellphone.
He’s probably calling his wife, I thought with a sigh.
Conor was married to Jillian, a gorgeously ageless woman and the avatar of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. An image of her face flashed in my mind when she’d realized that mercenaries had taken her husband. How all the other avatars had flinched away from her. Love was a terrible thing when it was crossed, and now I knew what that was like.
No one was going to cross me ever again. I’d make sure of it even if I had to mess with every single cord in this room to make it happen.
I didn’t get a chance to analyze said threads though because Byron and Rane shouting at each other became the main attraction of the room.
“You can’t keep them here!” Rane argued. “Let them go.”
“They held us captive,” Byron sharply countered.
“Hey, can you two keep it down?” I asked, stepping up beside them. “I’ve just had the worst acid trip.”
The moment he became aware of my presence, Rane swept me up in his arms, squeezing me so tightly I squeaked. It was only Mads’ pointed ‘ahem’ that made Rane put me down again with a slightly abashed look.
“You’ve been out for at least an hour,” he said. “And I guess I got worried.”
I grinned up at him. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. So what are we shouting about? Or is it recreational yelling?” I glanced at the scientists, nurses, guards and one man dressed in a suit.
Byron scowled, and somewhere in the back of my mind I noted how he hung back from me for some reason. I shelved the idea to deal with later since we were in the lair of the people who had harassed and kidnapped us.
“Rane thinks that we should just let these people go,” Byron said, incredulous contempt clear in his voice. “He thinks they’re harmless.”
Rane levelled a look at him. “The twins and I dealt with the ones who aren’t, didn’t we?”
“Oh god.” I pressed a hand to my forehead. “You didn’t kill anyone did you?”
“You didn’t take issue with it in the desert,” Rane pointed out.
Oh yes, I did. The fireballs, the heat waves of anger, the hail of bullets and the screaming still haunted me to this day. But I didn’t get to tell him that.
Byron pressed on. “They can lead us to the person in charge of all of this. I just need some time.”
I opened my mouth to tell them that Mads knew who it was, but the two stubborn bastards were intent on arguing it out.
“Time to do what?” Rane demanded. “I don’t have the stomach for torture and I don’t think you do either.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m not strong enough to do–”
“That’s enough,” I said, pressing my hands against both their chests, claiming their attention once more. “We’ve just gone through an incredibly draining experience and I, for one, am not about to let anyone be tortured here.”
Rane and Byron glared at each other.
“What do we know about the people here?” I asked. “Are they innocent of what’s happened or should we, I don’t know, call the cops and run for the hills?”
Rane blurted something, but I didn’t hear him over the burning distraction in my chest. An intense rage and hatred like I’d never felt before was emanating from someone in this room, directed at me, and it pulled me away from the conversation to investigate.
I turned to the captives. They all looked miserable, like pencil pushers and accountants who had managed to get on the wrong side of something far bigger than they’d anticipated. One or two had bruises, and though I didn’t want to be sorry for the people who had made my life a living hell for months, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of compassion. They kept glancing at the man in the middle of the group, a skeletal thing with drooping skin.
I stopped to inspect the new and faint cords belonging to members of this group. Most of them in front of me were normal. A few had sturdy cords that led off somewhere else to the usual array of suspects: wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, pets and family.
Except for the man in the middle of the group. At first glance, he looked as tired and frightened as anyone else, but when I dug deeper into his cord, fury and hate flooded it. It was the same angry heat attacking my cords. Now that I looked more closely, I noticed his dyed hair—not a very good dye job by the way—the gauntness in his frame and hands that told me he’d once been healthier. But that wasn’t the most surprising thing. The golden ribbon cord, like mine, was one of the brightest I had ever seen, and it led strai
ght into the ground. Sparks flew off it when I reached out to touch it, causing me to flinch. Glancing at him, I noticed his glare.
Startled, I examined him. No one else had ever noticed me touching their cord before. Curious, I stroked it again, eliciting the same response. Determined to uncover this mystery, I inspected his cord further by reading his love history and pulling his name from the information stored there. I gasped at discovering his identity. When I found the ability to speak again, I stepped forward, finally knowing who Mads had alluded to earlier.
“Hello, Colton,” I said. “It’s good to finally meet the real avatar of Cupid.”
Chapter 19
Locke
Colton Fowler struggled against his bindings. What was the former avatar of Cupid doing among the group of mercenaries hired to kidnap us?
The reaction of confused and questioning stares that went around the room was instantaneous. Every one of the avatars had missed him but Mads. I didn’t include Byron in the mix because he’d never met the man.
With a demented howl, Colton sprang to his feet and lunged forward, not caring about the fact that his hands were still bound or that a table separated us. The hatred in his cord told me that he didn’t care about anything beyond hurting me.
“Bitch!” he shouted. “You were supposed to drive them crazy. You were supposed to fucking destroy them!”
Whoa. For a small guy, he moved so fast that he rammed the table forward and smashed it into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending me on my rear.
More shouts erupted behind me as Rane and Mads apprehended Colton. As they dragged him backward, he kept kicking and screaming. Members of Colton’s team flinched at his outburst. The twins tensed, lurking close to the row of captives as a warning in case any of them got similar ideas. Ophelia and Conor kept their distance, observant but wary.
Byron helped me to my feet. “Locke?”
I swiped hair away from my face. “I’m okay. I just pissed off Cupid.”
