by Nicole Thorn
My ankles and knees hurt so bad that I stumbled, and I quickly found myself losing track of where I ran. The branches whipped at me, tearing at the sweater I had brought for that very reason, tugging at my pants. Noise erupted all around me from the falling rain, and branches crunching behind me. When I finally stumbled out of the forest, I found myself not too far from the car, but I ached all over.
Verin caught up with me as I touched the door handle. He pushed me up against the car, his hands cupping my face. I had about two seconds before his mouth landed on mine with bruising force. My crossbow fell to the ground.
“I’m not leaving you,” Verin said, his voice a deep growl that I barely recognized as him.
I sniffled, shaking. Shaking so bad that I couldn’t even talk. I leaned towards him, putting my mouth on his again. He pulled me away from the car, opening the back door. We tumbled into the chilled cab, and he closed the door behind us. His mouth still worked against mine.
Verin’s shirt had been torn in several places, barely hanging on. I ripped it in the few remaining spots, and looked at his skin. I didn’t have any marks from where he had been injured, but I could trace the patterns of blood, and see what had happened to him myself. He didn’t let me do that, though. His mouth landed back on mine. He nudged me gently, and I laid down, pulling him on top of me in the process.
His skin felt damp from the rain, but I had already been soaked to the skin. Verin pushed my sodden sweater up, and dropped down to trace kisses across my stomach. The thing got pulled off, and dropped to the side. It plopped heavily to the floor of the car. I shivered in just my bra.
Verin glanced at me. Sitting up, he leaned between the seats, and started the engine. It rumbled to life with a blast of heat that immediately warmed my chilled skin. Then Verin came back, only now he tugged on my pants. He had kicked his shoes off at some point, and my mine had fallen off at another.
My pants met the same fate as the sweater, making a damp pile not too far from where I laid. Verin returned to my mouth, kissing, and pulling at my lips with his teeth. I moaned quietly, digging into his skin with my nails. Verin didn’t seem to notice or mind.
I did away with his pants and boxers in the same move. This wouldn’t be the first time I had seen him naked, but it was the first time I got to touch him. Verin groaned as my hands trailed down his stomach, and then lower. I gripped him carefully, convinced that I wouldn’t do it right, and he would be forced to tell me to stop. Instead, he moved his hips, and I felt him slide against my fingers.
I peered between our bodies so that I could watch the movement as he pushed back into my hands. I could have laid there watching that for forever, but Verin had other things in mind. He took my wrists, guiding me away from him with a small smile. “We keep that up, and this is going to be a disappointment for you.”
“No, it won’t,” I said.
He smirked as he undid the clasp on my bra with a quick twist of his wrist. He pulled the cups off me, and then flung it away with a second twist of his wrist. Verin took my nipple into his mouth, and I gasped, arching against him. My hands weaved through his hair, keeping him in place until he moved on to the other nipple. He sucked that one into his mouth, and I couldn’t help another, much louder, moan. I writhed underneath Verin until he smiled at me.
My underwear disappeared, and then it became all skin on skin. I could feel him along my thighs, and his body pressed against mine. His mouth took my lips again, kissing softly, tasting the inside of my mouth with his tongue. Like he wanted to be sure that he got to touch every inch of me before the night ended.
His hand crept down my stomach, and then between our bodies. I could feel him, hard and ready, pressed against the inside of my thigh, but he didn’t make a move to finish this yet. Instead, I felt his fingers brushing against my core. Rubbing and driving me crazy at the same time. I wriggled around, like that would somehow make this better. Surprisingly, it did, because he pushed one of those fingers inside of me.
My hands bit into his shoulders as he started to move that finger, in and out. Slowly, gently. When he slipped the second one inside, I nearly lost it. Little moans and gasps came out of me. I felt too warm and hyped up. Ready for him to continue, to do something more than just use those two fingers.
He kept pumping them until I felt seconds from exploding. Then he stopped, and shifted his hips ever so slightly so that I felt his head right where it needed to be. I stared up at him, panting. Like he had been waiting for me to look up at him before he pushed forward.
Verin moved slowly, inch by inch, until he filled me up completely. I felt the pain, but I didn’t mind the bite of it. I moved beneath him, spreading my legs further, to settle him between my thighs more comfortably.
Verin panted, like the effort of holding still almost felt too much. “Juniper?” he asked, his forehead pressed against mine.
“I’m fine,” I whispered.
He breathed out in relief, and then he started to move. I gasped, clinging to him. I thought his fingers had been nice, but this felt so much better. He never fully left me, pulling out until just the tip of him remained inside, and then he’d push forward again. He seemed fully in control of himself as he moved gently, like he feared he’d break me.
I moved my hips with him after I adjusted to the feeling of being so full, but I did not move carefully. I drove him to move faster, until the car rocked with our movements, and I didn’t care about that either. I didn’t care about anything but the feel of him inside me, and the heaviness that filled me up, ready to push me over.
My nails raked down his sides as we moved faster. The orgasm caught me off guard, powering through me, until I could only cling to Verin, who still pumped into me, propped above me. His hips froze, buried as far into me as he could be. I felt him come inside me, and that started my orgasm up all over again.
Then he sagged over me, and I held loosely onto him. I still had the energy to smile when he kissed my cheek.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Poisoned
Verin
I drove a sleepy Juniper back home to . . . well, I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t want to step into my house. Not that place where my mother died. But for practical reasons . . . I needed clothes, and sneaking into Juniper’s house might tip off her family that she’d gone out. It would obviously come out soon, but we could have this night, couldn’t we? This one bitter and wonderful night?
I needed it.
It felt easier, walking in as long as I had Juniper with me. It still smelled like my mother when we went inside. Like she’d been cooking, or dancing, or something. But none of those things happened, and I only felt the ghost of her.
Juniper and I went upstairs and straight to my bedroom. I gave her a sweater to wear, and I changed out of my destroyed clothes. They went in the bin, and I cleaned off the rest of the blood dried onto my skin. Some of it mine, and some of it not.
I felt it rumbling in my chest, what I’d done. I lost count of how many lives I’d taken, and maybe that had been a blessing. Something unforgivable happened tonight, and I would be carrying it with me for as long as I existed. Juniper had been right in her suggestion that those people could have been unwilling participants. I selfishly hoped that they hadn’t been. That as many as possible had done it of their own accord. Because that would clear some of this guilt out of my soul. This blackness that poisoned me.
But this had been my choice.
I walked out of my bathroom in fresh clothes and clean of blood. Juniper waited for me in my bed. I did not deserve the woman, and I knew that only I could be blamed for that. She shouldn’t have forgiven me for what I’d done in my fury. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been in my right mind, or that I wanted revenge. I did an evil thing, and shouldn’t have been forgiven. People did not get what they deserved. Good women got killed, and bad men got forgiveness.
What an ugly world.
***
I’d woken up with Juniper in my arms, still
asleep so deeply that she didn’t move an inch at my change in position. I laid there, listening to her heart beating steady in her chest. A sound I couldn’t fully appreciate before right that moment, but that I would for the rest of our lives.
I had made some choices that I would have to let her in on eventually. She and her siblings were human, and that wouldn’t stand. I didn’t use to have the same deep running fear that I had to keep Juniper locked up in a cage to keep her safe, but things felt different now that . . . now that I knew how easy it would be to lose someone. Here one moment and gone the next. I couldn’t be sure if that prophecy held any water, but I would take certain precautions, and I knew they would all agree with me . . . if the rest of them could forgive my sins. I expected Jasper might not want me around his sister after this, and Zander might’ve felt the same. But it changed nothing.
Mum didn’t want to be immortal, because she had been so in love with being human. I didn’t like that choice, but it had been hers to make. But I didn’t know how to go about getting someone turned into an immortal. There had to be a hundred ways, because I’d read enough stories to know. Zander even had a sister-in-law that had been turned into an immortal. Psyche had been born human, and she achieved goddess stature in her life. It didn’t matter how long it took or what I had to do; I would save them all. No more failures.
When Juniper finally woke up, she found me just lying there, eyes half closed as I stared at my wall. She rolled onto her back, holding my cheek in her hand. She didn’t say anything, but she pressed her lips to my throat for a few peaceful moments.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I can’t . . . I can’t fix what I’ve done, and I honestly don’t know where to go from here.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she promised.
“I just, I don’t think I really understand. I don’t know what I’m feeling, and it’s all these ugly things mixed together. It makes it hard to breathe, when I think about it. It’s like I’m being crushed.”
Her eyes turned shiny, and she nodded. “I understand. Don’t be scared. We’re all . . . ” She didn’t say the last word, but I knew what it would’ve been. Broken. I had broken, and so had all the rest of them. Six broken children, all alone and all together in the world.
“Tell me I’ll be all right,” I asked her weakly. “You can lie if you need to, but I need your voice to tell me that everything is going to be . . . better, one day.”
Juniper sat up, taking me with her. Both of her little hands held one of mine, and she nodded. “Everything is going to get so much better. I can honestly say that I think yesterday is going to be the very worst thing you’ll ever feel, and that’s over. You survived the night, and the rest are going to get easier. It’s going to hurt for a long time, but then it’ll start getting better. You have me, and the rest of the family. We know better than most what it feels like to be shattered.” Her hands tightened on mine before one let go, in favor of holding my face again. Juniper smiled softly. “And I like to think that your dad is going to keep your mom updated on you, telling her how you’re doing, and that you’re okay. She probably knows right now that we’re a thing. Lastly, Hades cared about her a whole lot, and that won’t change. I’m sure she’ll be as taken care of in the Underworld as someone can be.”
I repeated her words in my head several times, letting them sink in. I believed her about my father, and how he would treat Mum. He cared about her as much as a god could care for a human. She would live as happily as she could, for being stuck down below.
As for the rest of it, I couldn’t see better days from where I sat. I saw darkness, and sorrow, and the light seemed so far away. I’d only cast myself deeper with what I’d done.
“Do you think she’ll know about the people I killed?” I asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing Hades would tell her.”
She would be so upset if she knew, and she would take the blame for it. The woman had never done a bad thing in her life, but she would find a way to see this as her fault. I hoped my father spared her.
Soon, Juniper’s family would be up and around, and I didn’t want them to worry about her. I got her out of bed and took her downstairs for some breakfast first, because it would be a long damn morning of explaining.
I attempted to let go of some of the crippling misery, and enjoy Juniper tiptoeing down the stairs in nothing but my sweater. She hurried off to the kitchen while I went to throw her clothes in the wash. I had a better chance of not being murdered by Jasper if she didn’t come home mostly naked.
I returned to the kitchen, and found Juniper standing at the counter, staring at the cake I hadn’t touched since I found it. “This was for . . . ” She paused. “Is this the cake she was going to bake for me?”
I nodded, not looking at it as I sat at the counter.
Juniper lifted off the glass covering, and she bent to inhale. She swallowed, and turned her head to me. “It looks beautiful. She must have put a lot of work into this.”
I didn’t say anything to that, and Juniper left my side. I heard a drawer open, metal clank, and then a fork landed in front of me. “We shouldn’t let it go to waste,” Juniper decided.
I glanced up, and the chocolate scent of the cake hit my nose. I had to push away the terrifying thoughts that I wouldn’t smell this again. I wouldn’t come home to Mum baking and singing to herself. That part of my life ended.
I wrapped my hand around the fork, but no choice had been made yet. “Cake for breakfast?” I asked, stalling. “Not your style.”
“No,” Juniper said as she sat on my lap, putting an arm around me. “But Gwen worked really hard on this cake, and she did it for me. I think she would be sad if I didn’t have some of it.”
My heart felt heavy in my chest, and I watched Juniper. “There were so many things she wanted to do, Juniper. We were all supposed to have dinner.” I didn’t know why that small thing mattered so much to me, but it did. It would have been a nice evening, and it would have made Mum so happy.
“I know,” Juniper said. “But she’s not here anymore, and it’s my job to take care of you. I think if she could say it, she would tell me to make you have some cake, and give you a kiss, and remind you that life is going to go on. We’ll make this as right as we can. But first.” She picked up my hand, holding the fork. “Take an hour to think about only what’s in front of you. Trust me when I say that thinking about the bad stuff too much is going to do nothing but make you feel like it’s never going to end.”
I stared at the fork, and then the cake in front of us. Soon, it would start to go bad, and then it would go right in the bin. The last thing that my mother did in this house. And Juniper was right, because Mum would be disappointed in me for letting sorrow keep me from things. I couldn’t change the past, so I needed to be careful of my choices in the future.
I dragged my fork down the side of the cake, gathering up a good bit of chocolate, and I put it in my mouth. I obeyed Juniper, not letting myself think about how I would never have more than this one last cake. I could make more, but it would never quite be the same. One last time.
I handed Juniper the fork, and she took a great big bite of the cake. Her eyes widened, lighting up. “Oh, my gods . . . this is magical.”
I laughed, and agreed with her. “Mum knows her way around an oven.” Knew . . .
We went back and forth, eating the cake and chatting about how damn wonderful it tasted. Juniper dangled her feet off of my lap, and put on the best false smiles I’d ever seen. Ah, she had gotten good at this game, comforting someone broken beyond repair. I doubted she fully understood what she did for me, being my stabilizer. The one point of light in all this blackness. She meant home for me now, and I hoped to the gods that one day, she would understand what she meant to me and this whole damn world.
When the time came to go . . . home . . . Juniper hurried off to shower upstairs. I laid her clothes out for her, and waited on the bed. I had a lot of things to thin
k about. Juniper wanted me with her, but I didn’t think I would have such forgiveness from the rest of the lot. I wouldn’t go anywhere, and they would be smart enough to see that. Zander, I genuinely had no clue about. He knew somewhat what I felt, and he might have understood the choice I made, and the mindset I had been in when I made it. But his outburst happened when he was barely a teenager, and to two people who had it coming. The lives I took couldn’t compare to his.
Juniper came out of the bathroom in all her own clothes . . . but also my sweater. I would be glad to let her steal it from me, because seeing her wear it so proudly comforted me more than I could express.
She took my hand and led me through the light rain and back into her house.
Sure enough, everyone waited in the kitchen. I smelled food freshly cooked, and the chatter fell silent when they saw us coming. Everyone’s expressions went carefully blank, watching me.
“Just getting back,” Jasper noticed, seeing what Juniper wore. He sighed and went back to his eggs, resigned.
“What happened?” Zander asked coldly.
“I killed a lot of people,” I answered, though he already knew. “And I won’t make excuses, or try and talk my way out of what I did. I killed people that weren’t choosing to be a part of this, and I understand the weight of what I did.”
“Do you?” Zander’s eyes narrowed. “Do you understand that those people were probably terrified, and helpless, and now their families aren’t ever going to get them back? How much of that do you understand?”
“All of it,” I said through my teeth. “Death settled into me, and it’s not leaving. I fucked up and did something cruel. It can’t be undone.”
He shook his head. “No, it can’t. I don’t need to tell you how wrong you were. All I need from you is a promise that you’re not going to get my family killed with the next stupid choice you make, because there’s more than a good chance Argus is coming back for revenge like you wouldn’t fucking believe.”
