An Echo of Darkness (The Redemption Saga Book 4)

by Kristen Banet

  “So you’re just going to torture me?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m damn sure not letting this end with blue balls,” she retorted, grinning. She leaned down and claimed his lips again, grinding against him like she was in heat. He smartly moved a hand to unbutton her jeans and slide in.

  “I’m not a total idiot,” he whispered, sliding a finger into her as his thumb gently rolled over her clit. She moaned into his shoulder. She had to grab his wrist and make him stop so she could readjust her position over him. When she was done, he went back to what he was doing. She wrapped a hand around his cock and stroked him.

  It had been a very long time since she’d just fooled around, but something about it was nearly more erotic than just stripping and getting down to business. They had too many clothes on, and that was part of the fun for some reason.

  He finished first, but she didn’t say anything, too wrapped up in what he was doing between her legs. There was now a second finger thrusting into her, finding her g-spot and pushing her quickly over the edge.

  She was panting over him as he pulled his hand away, and she watched with heated eyes as he licked them. He looked like he was imagining some dirty shit behind those stormy blue eyes. “I might never have had sex, but I’ve done a lot of other things,” he murmured, smiling.

  “We’ll take things at your speed,” she promised, putting her forehead on his chest. “Feeling any better?”

  “Well, knowing I can give you an orgasm as good as the other guys is definitely a positive.” He sounded like he was joking, but she wondered if it really was a joke.

  “The orgasms don’t matter. Just being here, with me, on my side, and in my corner…that matters.”

  “I’ll always be on your side and in your corner, even if you never want to see me again.”

  “Don’t let those insecurities drive you away from us. We’re a team, a family.” She closed her eyes as she kept her forehead on his chest. “You’re the first family I’ve ever had, you and Zander. I just got you back. I can’t lose you again, not now.”

  “I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her. They stayed there for what felt like hours. She couldn’t help but see the faces of those she’d lost already.

  Fucking December. Always a bad month.

  She buried her face into his chest, hoping the smell of him, alive and well, would drive away the rest.

  “Ready to go in?” he asked her gently. She hadn’t been crying or anything, but her silence must have told him where her mind had decided to go post-orgasm.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. They packed up quickly, making sure they grabbed any trash, since Quinn would kill them if they missed anything. Jasper reattached his leg as fast as he could, deftly, no longer fumbling over the straps like he once did.

  As they walked back, she left the sadder part of her mood in the woods. A smile took over her face as she snuck in a kiss to his cheek, making him grin at her. When they were out of the woods, they were laughing, talking about how bothersome Zander was, and how Sawyer decided that Jasper actually had one thing on him. Jasper knew what the word foreplay fucking meant.

  “That’s just mean!” Zander yelled out from the back porch.

  “Oh, I think someone is waiting on us,” she whispered to Jasper. “I think we should just throw our shit to the ground and run back into the woods.”

  “You know how he is. Can’t be alone for too long. I guess Vincent got tired of him.”

  “I think Elijah is with Quinn, too. Poor bastard has probably been waiting on us since we left.”

  “More than likely,” Jasper agreed, still grinning. “Netflix and chill?”

  “Sounds like a plan. Maybe you can teach him something about how to get a girl worked up properly.”

  “And without violence,” he muttered.

  She laughed harder at that. “Well, I kind of like the violence. Just a little. Sometimes.” She loved a good fight, in and out of the bedroom. It really brought her alive sometimes.

  “Oh god,” he groaned. She would have worried he thought she was insane, but since he was still smiling, she knew he didn’t.

  They went straight up to her room and she decided to curl into Jasper’s side as they turned on some show she hadn’t seen yet. The day ended just as she had wanted, relaxing and pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was exactly what she needed. For a single day, all her problems seemed so far away. The guys were pretty damn good at making everything seem pretty good.

  “I’m going to bed,” Zander said late into the evening. “You two have a good night, and thanks for letting me crash your time together.”

  “Any time,” Jasper said, yawning afterwards. It ruined whatever else he was trying to say.

  “Yeah, it’s a good time to crash,” she agreed, uncurling herself from his side, and stretching her arms over her head. “God, I’m tired.”

  Zander swooped down and kissed her, then darted from the room. She looked at Jasper beside her, wondering if she needed to ask the question on the tip of her tongue.

  “I think I’m going to my room for the night,” he answered, standing up. “Next time?”

  “Any time,” she said this time. “Whenever you’re ready.” She didn’t want him to feel pressured into getting into her bed. She wanted it. She knew if she had him there, she would be all over him, exhausted or not.

  And she appreciated his idea of waiting. It was sweet, in a really innocent way. Take a girl on dates, getting to know her, treating her right, then approach adding sex to the relationship. She didn’t have enough real innocence in her life and god, Jasper gave her that normalcy she never got the chance to experience.

  She figured she would always need it.

  “Such a gentleman,” she murmured to herself as he cleaned up her coffee table.

  “I heard that, and I try to be.” He smiled over to her, and when he was done throwing away the trash from their snacking, he gave her a kiss goodnight.

  She grabbed his shirt to keep him from pulling away too quickly, forcing open and claiming his mouth like she owned it. He braced himself over her, his arms reaching to the back of the couch as she kissed him. When she was satisfied, and newly horny, she let him pull away.

  “You should go before I don’t let you,” she whispered.

  “You make it hard,” he retorted, glancing down quickly.

  “I know.” She gave him an arrogant smirk as a blush moved over his cheeks.

  “Damn. I’m going. Good night, love.”

  “Good night,” she called as he practically ran out of her bedroom. As he left, Sombra ran in, already knowing the plan. Sawyer got up and began to strip as the cat went to her pile of things and started getting ready for bed herself. “How was your day, girl?”

  Sombra had tons of fun running with the wolves, Quinn, and Elijah. She even got to see Quinn and Elijah wrestle. For humans, they were strong males.

  “Oh, I bet you saw them wrestle,” Sawyer muttered, rolling her eyes. She couldn’t deny she was a little jealous for missing the sight herself, but she wouldn’t say anything out loud either. “Good night, Sombra.”

  Sombra just sent back a wave of love, but nothing else. The cat’s eyes were already closed.

  Sawyer turned off her lights and crawled into bed, feeling better on a chilly December night than she had in years.

  She was dreaming, and it was a pleasant one. That was the first thing she realized, finding herself in her own room - but not quite. Sombra wasn’t there, and none of it was real. Something hazy was all over, making the details of the room slightly obscured, not quite as crisp as the real world.

  And even though Sombra wasn’t there, that didn’t mean she was alone.

  “I shouldn’t have left,” he whispered to her from across the room.

  She looked over at him, not sure what to say. So she just beckoned him closer.

  Jasper wasted no time, storming across her dream room in just a few short steps. His mouth crashed onto hers as hi
s hands found her hips. She pulled him towards her bed. It might have been a dream, but they were both as real as they could be. This wasn’t a dream Jasper, but the real deal, there with her.

  And she would take him any way she could have him, dream or no dream.

  She twisted them around before she ran into her bed. It caused him to fall back instead and she straddled him, finding she liked to top her Golden Boy. She held his chest down so she kept the control, kissing his neck up to his jaw, then his ear. She kept him down, teasing him with those kisses, just to see when he would break. She wanted the storm.

  His hands grabbed her ass and held on tight. He even was bold enough to thrust upwards, causing him to grind against her and pull a moan from her.

  Then something else touched her mind.

  “Wait,” she said, sitting up.

  “Sawyer? What’s wrong?”

  Another brush. It was Sombra.

  “I don’t know. Sombra is trying to pull me out. Surely she would know nothing is wrong in here…” She frowned, looking around her dream room. Sombra couldn’t enter her dreams, but she could tug on the bond and ask Sawyer to come out, recognize the dreams aren’t real. It was something she liked. She liked that only Jasper joined her fully, but Sombra was still useful in the effort to help with the nightmares.

  The tug came hard, making Sawyer gasp.

  There was danger. And it was very real.

  “Wake up. Push me out too. There’s something very wrong in the house.”

  Jasper only nodded, then it was over. The dream faded in only a few seconds, all except him. “I’m going to run up.”

  “No. Get Zander. Get the guys. Make sure they’re okay. Plus, you can’t hobble on one leg. I’ll run a check of the rest of the house.”

  “Quinn should already know something is wrong, thanks to the wolves and his power. It’ll be okay.”

  As she watched him fade out, she fucking hoped it was all okay.

  14

  Sawyer

  The first thing Sawyer realized when she woke up was that Sombra slammed her with the order to not move. Not a single muscle. Don’t change the breathing. Pretend to be asleep.

  Sawyer sent back only confusion, but did as her cat advised.

  She got back something from Sombra she didn’t like, not at all. Someone was in the room. She could smell the other human, but she couldn’t see the other human.

  Sawyer’s heart began to race. She concentrated on bringing it down as she tried to feel any sort of magic that wasn’t her own, or the guys’.

  It felt like there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  Too much nothing.

  On the left side of her bed, there was a spot where not even her magic existed. Because someone was in the spot, giving off no bleed of magic. But they still took up space.

  Sawyer waited for a moment longer, until she heard her bed creak as someone gently put their weight on it.

  She sublimated right in time. Through her black smoke form, an invisible arm drove a knife down into the bed.

  She didn’t need to say anything. Sombra was already in action, since the attacker had given themselves away. With a vicious snarl, the black jaguar jumped and Sawyer flew across the room, reforming to see the black massive body of Sombra hit something still invisible. She even got her teeth on something.

  A scream of pain and a flicker. Suddenly, the cloak was dropping and Sawyer called her own before the man could turn around to see her. Sombra roared, but the man phased, falling down through the floor.

  “Stay,” Sawyer snapped, falling down as well. She knew everything about this house now, and knew exactly how to get around it with magic. She had long planned different escape routes and knew the easiest places to walk through, drop, or sublimate to get through the vents.

  Some things never wore off. Sawyer’s need to have plans was one of them, even if she never intended to act on them.

  Zander’s room was right below hers, and he was wide-eyed as she dropped in. “He went out the fucking wall before I could stop him. Outside, not the hallway.”

  “Get the rest of the team,” she ordered. Then she left him, running for his window. She phased through and sublimated on the other side as she fell to land. She could still see him, which was promising, as he ran for the woods. She wasn’t nearly fast enough in her sublimated form to catch him, since the wind was going in the wrong direction, so she reformed and took off running seamlessly. He was out of her blink range, but she was able to halve the distance with a quick one, not breaking her stride as she covered nearly fifty feet with just a bit of magic.

  He trained just as hard as her, fast enough to keep the distance between them. When he hit the woods, she grinned viciously. The fool was running into a domain he had no business being in.

  She followed, her feet pounding against the earth in a flurry of kicked-up dirt and leaves. She knew the trails, she knew the fallen logs and the terrain well now. If he stumbled over something, she had him. She couldn’t blink in the thick brush, but she knew it well enough to keep running, and that was all she needed.

  She kept him in her line of sight, just in case he decided to cloak. When he stopped in a clearing, she slowed down, keeping him nearly twenty-five feet in front of her. Her mind ran the numbers quickly, judged the distances, and knew that if he tried anything, she could make the blink easily and have him.

  He faced her and in the moonlight, she knew who she was looking at.

  Naseem of the Triad. The wind of death himself.

  “So, was this a personal hit or a professional one?” she asked softly, her temper growing cold in the December night. She took a vicious satisfaction in the blood that poured from his arm, dripping into the soil. Sombra had gotten him and left a mark. Good. It meant he would never forget the encounter.

  “Professional, of course. The Triad has never killed professional rivals for sport. Why would you think it was anything else?” He didn’t sound angry. He was rather calm, actually. It pissed her off more.

  “I’m no longer in the business,” she reminded him. “I work for the good guys, remember?” She moved onto a better question. “How did you find me?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that,” he scoffed. “Now, why don’t we finish this with honor? We can do that, right? No animals, no friends. Just me and you.”

  “You aren’t finishing anything tonight, especially not with honor,” she retorted. She wasn’t sure she could win now. Not against Naseem. His mastery over the wind was stronger than Jasper’s. She was lucky he hadn’t gotten her when she sublimated. He must have been too distracted by Sombra. He had a few other tricks as well, like his phasing, and she knew he was exceptionally well-trained in hand to hand combat.

  And now she knew why she couldn’t feel him. She hadn’t been able to process it earlier. The Triad was famous for it, that ability to totally mask their magic, making them invisible to other Magi on that front.

  Naseem was a dangerous opponent.

  “Are you sure? You forgot a weapon. Getting rusty in your retirement?” He gave her a cold smile and she curled her lip at him. He was right. She’d forgotten a weapon. Now she just needed to trust that Quinn would come to help and stay alive. “I never thought his whore was his assassin. Such a surprise. Axel has always had so many surprises, always kept everyone guessing. To think, people are scared of you, the whore who hated her master but still got on her knees.” He scoffed. “I’m the most dangerous thing in these woods. You shouldn’t have come after me.”

  “There’s more dangerous things in these woods than you,” she whispered onto the wind, knowing he would hear it.

  At that exact moment, wolves howled. She grinned.

  “Your little friends.” He sighed, nearly sounding bored.

  The earth began to shake and she knew that Quinn had found her. Naseem glared down to the earth. She couldn’t feel the other assassin and that meant Quinn probably couldn’t either. Even with Quinn’s strength, there was no readin
g something that seemed to not be there.

  But he could feel her. She had a feeling her feral lover always knew where she was in his woods.

  “We’re at a bit of a stand-off. I can’t catch you without a weapon.” She showed him her bare hands. “And you can’t kill me because you’ve run out of time. They’re in the woods now.”

  “My employer will be upset. Until next time, Shadow.”

  “Until next time,” she agreed softly, watching him disappear. At the same time, earth came up around her, walling her away from the world. She knew it was Quinn trying to protect her. She also knew Naseem would be long gone and impossible to catch now.

  As she stood secure in the earth, she considered what had just happened. If she had been nearly hit by the Triad, that meant two others, somewhere on the planet, were also targeted. That’s how they worked. They rarely did missions together, as a team. They were like a club. They did synchronized hits together, any time, any where. If one member was seen taking someone out, you just needed to wait for news to break about two other deaths.

  She’d never run into them before, not professionally. She’d met them at a few parties Axel had thrown. Funny enough, she’d known who they were, but since Shadow had no face, they hadn’t known who she was, standing at Axel’s arm. His arm candy, the woman who took care of his son. His whore. Certainly not his assassin.

  And she knew that for a fact. They had once asked him to introduce them to Shadow, so they could meet another assassin who had made waves in their industry. Purely professional, maybe even as allies.

  She’d been standing there as they inquired and Axel just laughed them off, shaking his head.

  “Shadow likes her privacy,” he’d answered. “If she wants to reveal herself, she will.”

  She never had. She’d never wanted to be one of those who found pleasure in the work.

  “Sawyer!” Quinn called out, pulling the earth down. She turned to him, but didn’t move. He threw his arms around her. “Where is he?”