by A. K. Koonce
“The night he removed the curse outside Agatha’s house, he told me he wanted me to suffer like I deserve one more time.” Sinister’s accent is thick and clouded with anger. “He said he wanted you to see me once more just to torment us both. He was so sure of his actions that night.”
My eyes feel heavy, but the sick feeling turning my stomach wakes me the more and more he talks about his brother. I hate the toxic relationship Sinister had with him. My time with Kreedence was short, mere months compared to the lifetime Sinister had spent with the man. I know his mother never wanted Sinister to be like his father. That’s why he’s never seen Hell. Kreedence surprisingly kept that promise to his mother after she’d died.
But a part of who Sinister is was crafted because of who Kreedence was. Sinister strives to be everything Kreedence wasn’t. I think because of his mother, he tries so damn hard to be the opposite of what people expect.
And he is.
“Why do you think he did it all? He was obsessed with building my magic when we were together. He got me to promise him my heart, and if I had given it to him, he would have held impossible power over me. And in the end, he led me to Myla’s house. Why?” My voice shakes, and it doesn’t take long for two quiet shifters to climb up the ladder and stand at my side just from the trembling tone of my words.
Chaos’ big hand slides over my knuckles, and Sinister never stops his slow caressing of my collarbone, throat, and jawline.
Rime, on the other hand, only watches me intently, his mind clearly reeling but his jaw held tightly closed. No one speaks for a moment, and the sound of the slashing sea fills that silence. Until Rime finally says what’s tumbling through his mind.
“Do you ever think Kreedence and Ellise were connected?”
There’s no emotion to his words, but I can tell by the careful way he watches my reaction that this isn’t the first time he’s thought about it.
“I’d never met Ellise until Valencia. If she was a part of the demon’s life when I was with him, I—” I want to say I would have known. But I didn’t know anything Kreedence didn’t want me to know back then. He was who he wanted me to see him as on the surface. He controlled me in ways I never even realized. He controlled my emotions most days. If he was happy, everyone was happy. If I was angry, he was angrier. If I was hurt, he was the victim. And suddenly, I don’t even remember the real facts of my own relationship.
“I guess it’s possible,” I say on a voice so quiet all three of them lean a little closer. I take a deep breath of the salty air and steel my spine against the knotting feeling in the pit of my stomach. Fuck those memories, and fuck the demon who gave them to me. “What would either of them gain by manipulating a damaged mage?”
“A damaged mage, nothing.” Rime’s gaze narrows, his calculating attention sweeping across my features. “You’re not a damaged mage, Tamer. You just grew up in a damaged society.” His long fingers push along my knuckles until I tangle my fingers through his, and then I warm deep inside myself as I realize I’m surrounded by the three of them. That support I told Sinister about is all around me now.
“Did he ever mention Ellise?” Chaos’ bright eyes cut to Sinister, and we’re all hanging on the silence that slips by.
I lower myself, sitting on the rooftop while a thousand messy memories clutter my mind. The three of them sit, still surrounding me but giving me a little space that I didn’t even realize I needed until now.
“Kreedence never mentioned anything. We’d talk, but it was mostly …”
“What?” I ask, pulling back to peer into his downcast eyes.
“It was mostly him taunting me and testing me to see if I’d fucked you.”
My lips part, and a little piece of my heart clatters down and drops into my stomach.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Rime’s jaw tics, and for the first time since the two men met, he looks like he’ll murder the demon if he says the wrong thing. If I was some sort of sick game to Sinister, I fully believe Rime will kill him without hesitation.
“Kreedence knew I liked Arrie. He knew I stuck around too much to watch after her, and when I told him Arrie would never see me as anything other than a friend, it seemed to…fuel him in setting me up to punish me. It was fucked up but I would rather torture myself there every single day than leave her with him. I was young and I-I don’t want to talk about it.” He shrugs it off carelessly, throwing his arms across his knees, holding his hands there as he locks his jaw and puts up a wall all around whatever memories are flashing through his eyes right now.
I swallow down the rising tension in my chest, but it doesn’t help. I’m still looking at the torment in his gaze, and I want to ask a thousand questions, but I know it’ll only make that sadness in his eyes worse. The smooth roof is cool against my touch as I shift until I’m draped over his lap, forcing his gaze to meet mine and forcing his palms back on my body. His dark brows rise, and the deep look in his gaze is gone, but I can tell those memories will always be there in the back of his mind.
“I always loved you, Sin.” The whisper trembles from my lips, and I have to breathe through the anxiety of admitting that. It isn’t that I’m ashamed. I’m terrified. I’m incredibly terrified of having feelings for Sinister. I lost him once, and it took years to finally find my way back to him. To us. The real us. We’ve changed so much. We’re not teenagers anymore. Life has changed us so much that it amazes me that our feelings are still the same after all this time. “You were the only thing good in my life.” My hands push through that soft, dark hair of his, and he wraps me up against him, his nose burying into my neck in a way that makes me wonder if he ever really felt loved aside from the complicated friendship we had. “I loved you, Sinister.”
It’s as close to telling him how I really feel as I can get right now. I loved him. I did. I think I love him now, too.
His mouth brushes harder against the curve of my neck, shaking warm breath all along my skin before his tongue presses slow kisses along my flesh, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. And then he’s kissing me so deeply my breath is lost entirely while I fall into the desire tingling through my chest. Every hard flick of his tongue is promising, painfully promising.
He barely pulls back to whisper against my lips. “I loved you, too.”
A throat clears, deterring my gaze and putting a minimal amount of space between myself and Sinister. The breeze catches the pale locks of Rime’s hair, and he keeps his gaze on the horizon, not out of private respect for me but because he really does seem to be lost in whatever turning thoughts are twisting through his mind. Chaos, on the other hand, is watching us like he’s half a second away from stroking his own cock to the romance novel that’s currently playing out before his very eyes.
“So Ellise and the demon’s motives aren’t related?” Rime turns his empty expression back to me, and I realize we got a little off topic rather fast.
“I-I don’t know.”
“It’s something you should have more confidence in knowing if you were prepared to run off with her.” The spasm of Rime’s jaw is the only indication that his cruel, evenly spoken words are hurting him.
“I wouldn’t have left you.” I slide right off of Sinister’s lap, feeling the need for independence as I gaze into the palest, frost-kissed eyes I’ve ever seen.
The look in his gaze is questioning, searching. It’s a confusing look. And then I remember how often Rime’s been left alone in his life. Somewhere out there in the world is probably a mother who left him. A father. A family who didn’t want him. People who were supposed to love him and set him aside far too easily.
Pain strikes right through me. My emotions are on overload tonight, and they appear to not have any intention of stopping. I wish he’d let me love him. Maybe I can’t say it to him since he doesn’t want to hear it, but I do. I fucking love him whether he wants me to or not. There are some things, some very few things in this infuriatingly demanding man’s life that are out of his control. And this is on
e of them. “You’re stuck with this babbling mage, Rime.”
His lips barely tilt at the corner before he looks out at the darkness, avoiding the seriousness of my words. But I won’t let him.
“I’m yours whether you accept that or not.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he peers at me. “You’re definitely mine, Tamer.” From the small amount of distance that he keeps between us, he rakes that beautiful gaze across my body. “I hate that I can’t protect you from all the things you leap recklessly into.”
“You think Ellise is one of those things?”
“I fucking know she is.”
A beat passes as I try to think through the attachment I have to the Solstice Queen. A small part of her appeal was a bit of awe at meeting a sort of fairy tale legend in my mind. She was the one who saved Minden. That’s what I’ve been told about the beautiful ‘belated’ Queen all my life.
But a bigger part of me was drawn to her simply because I’ve rarely met anyone who gets it. I’ve been an outcast my entire life. People can say they understand what it feels like, but they will never understand if they don’t have a glimpse into that solitude of empty loneliness I hide so well. It’s a hole so deep that there really is a pointlessness to it all. I didn’t wallow in self-pity, but it literally didn’t matter if I got out of that little bed in my shack most days. And Ellise was the same. She was a drifter, just like me.
Most importantly, she was a mage. She’s experienced hate for something entirely outside of her control. We’re too alike. We’re a dwindling race of people. The number of mages I’ve met in my life is three. Three people, one of which is my own mother, are the only people on the planet who relate to me on that level.
So yeah, I was intrigued by the Solstice Queen.
Rime’s right though; I leapt too fast. It was stupid to feel connected to her, and it was foolish to be so excited about the life she described in Attika. I know it was naïve but I also know I’ll always wonder if she was right about the Northern Kingdom.
She was mysterious, and I know there’s more she hasn’t told me. And I will find out.
“I won’t run off, Rime.” The tension in his broad shoulders eases the moment I assure him. “I just need more answers.”
The four of us study one another as an understanding passes between us.
“We all do,” Sinister whispers.
Eight
Sex and Flowers
Dawn beams through the pale lavender curtains in my room, I stare blankly at nothing as I settle in for a few hours of sleep. Three men sleep downstairs on a pallet, and with how little sleep we’re going to be getting, I’m sure we’ll just keep the sleeping arrangement for today at least. We shouldn’t have stayed up so late. Rime was right, I should have used my magic on the staining and gotten more sleep.
Too bad I’m too addicted to being with them. I want to know all the little things that hurt them and heal them. I want to know everything. Not that I can get all those details in a single night.
Once again, I’m reminded of all the things I don’t know about them as well as the mysterious mage taunting my thoughts.
Before my eyes close, I do something that’s been mostly useless for the past five years; I try to peer into my sight. Before I’d met Kreedence, my sight was a strength for me. It was an asset that helped me daily to avoid incidents with my peers here in this small village. After I’d met Kreedence, I could barely see glimpses and shadows. And now, even after I laid that damn demon to rest, my sight is still blotted by dark magic.
Maybe he damaged it for good.
The asshole. It’d be very like him to damage me for all of eternity.
My gaze closes, and the salty smell of the sea that clings to my hair, to my clothes, to every inch of this room, grounds my magic. I use the natural energy of it to build up the power within me, trying with everything I have to see something, anything that could link Ellise to my ex. Anything at all that might help me understand.
Empty darkness cuts slices of light and humming words into my mind, but it’s muffled. It’s diluted with something shrouding over my sight. A puff of annoyance slips over my lips.
Rime’s so damn certain I’m not a damaged mage.
If only he knew.
I blink the heaviness from my eyes and try one more time, shoving all my force into the power that’s strumming through my veins. My jaw clenches. I push into the dark veil that’s blanketing my visions; I shove at it, forcing my mind to follow the trail of light that’s cutting into my thoughts.
And then I see her. The stranger looks as wild as the vines hanging in the trees behind her. Her blonde hair is knotted, tangled with dirt all around her face. Strands of silver can barely be seen in the paleness of her messy locks, but the lines around her eyes crease even more when she smiles. My brows tense as I watch her sing a song quietly, tossing out chunks of bloody meat. The meat falls over the edge of a cliff. Blood bleeds out over the surface of the sea, the white waves staining a crimson color. Something strange slinks beneath the surface, but my mind’s eye doesn’t linger on the winding shadow.
Stay out of my life, mage. I feel you here. Stay out! I flinch at her shouting, and then the image is ripped away from me.
Her image flickers away until darkness is all that I see once again. I blink up into the brightness of the room. The warm blankets are heavy against my chest, and I settle down lower into the feel of them.
All that effort for ten seconds of information. And for what? For some lunatic woman to scream at me.
Fuck.
How did she know? How could she sense me watching her? She…pushed me out. Like…a mage would.
Maybe I should ask the one other hiding mage in this village.
I grimace at the thought of trying to get my mother to talk about the one topic she avoids like the plague.
Arlow?
My eyes flash open despite knowing I won’t see the shifter who whispered through my thoughts.
Kain? I say his name with just as much uncertainty as he’d said mine, mostly just to toy with him.
I didn’t know if you’d be awake yet.
A beat passes, my eyes barely keeping open.
I’m the early riser type. A yawn parts my lips and slips into my internal thoughts, and I can almost feel his suspicion.
Why do I always feel like you’re mocking me?
Why do you make it so easy to mock you?
You like it, so I guess I just make myself an easy target for your own cruel amusement.
Oh, that’s a lie, and we both know it. Your ego would never allow yourself to be an easy anything.
His laughter rumbles through my mind like a physical touch along my skin. My eyes close, and I sink into the bed even farther because his voice is a delicious, calming sound that affects me more than he’ll ever know.
I miss your teasing, I guess. I miss your antics even. I miss you, Arlow.
Pain aches through my chest. I open my eyes slowly, hating how alone I am despite how connected I feel to him right now. We’re intimately bound together on the deepest level possible, and yet I can’t feel his body against mine.
I’ve never felt his body against mine actually.
And I’ve never been aware of that more than I am right now.
Where are you? Are you almost here?
My tongue slides across my lower lip, and I’m vividly imagining just how I’ll jump him the moment I see him. In my head it’s like a sea of purple and pink wild flowers around us in a romantic, slightly rough, slightly more rough than romantic, sexfest in a field somewhere that I’ve never actually been to before, but now I’m just ruining the moment with semantics, and nobody has time for that.
Are you listening to me? Arlow?
Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.
I’ll be home tonight if it doesn’t rain again. We need to talk, but everything’s under control. Don’t worry about anything.
Everything’s under control. Everything’s always under control when
Kain is around. The world is straight forward and black and white in his head. And yet he reached out to me…for no particular reason.
Did you check in with me just because you missed me? Why do I crave to hear him say it so bad?
A second slips in before he responds.
I hate not being there with you. It makes me crazy not knowing if you’re all right. I’ve sworn Chaos to secrecy but I’ll admit I’ve checked in with him about a dozen times since I left yesterday.
Kain, I’m not going to rush out in front of a moving carriage, for goddess’ sake. I’m an adult. How helpless does he think I am?
A carriage is most definitely the least of my concerns. With your bad timing, you’re more likely to rush out in front of a moving wendigo.
I shudder at the thought of the bloodthirsty creature but I can feel his smile against his words. His happiness is a palpable thing swirling through my chest.
Wendigo aren’t even native to this area. You’re just being ridiculous now.
Another humming laugh tinges his tone. I’ll just feel more at easy when I can see you again. Touch you and know that you’re okay.
I only let a small moment pass by before I’m thinking words that I don’t know if I’d actually say out loud to him normally.
You want to touch me?
He doesn’t immediately reply. He’s clearly much better at filtering his thoughts with me than I am with him.
So much that it’s all I’ve thought about since the moment I met you.
My thighs shift together at the sound of his growling admission. I shove aside my hesitation and ask him what I wanted to ask him the first time we spoke like this.
If you were here, how would you touch me?
Once more that small dip of silence spans between us, my breath coming and going in heavy doses, my heart spiraling so fast with the thoughts of all the things he hasn’t even said yet. The image of his hand sliding up my thigh makes a growl groan through the bond we share, and I wonder how much of my thoughts he actually sees.
