Black as Midnight

by Mary Martel

  This message had me frowning even harder. He expected me to just go to his house, which wasn't my home at all, and relax while I waited for him to bring the others home safely? Did he not know me at all? There was absolutely nothing in me that gave off the impression that I could be able to do something like that.

  Did he think I was that big of a coward or did he think I was just that useless? I understood his need to take care of me, and I even loved him a lot for it because that was how he usually treated the others as well. But this shit was becoming ridiculous. Eventually he'd have to peel back the bubble wrap and let me breathe.

  I knew that if it were up to Uncle Quinton that day would never come, and that upset me more than it probably should. Here they were putting themselves in harm’s way and I had been forced to the side, to run home and hide with people he thought could keep me safe. All I kept thinking were those people belonged with my people, Quinton being one of those, so they could help where it was actually needed.

  I didn't text him back, and I think that had more to do with being in a horrible mood because of the way he'd treated me.

  I shoved the phone back into my hoodie pocket and turned back to face Rain who was watching me carefully from his seat.

  "Was that Quinton?" Rain asked me.

  Who else would it be?

  "Yeah," I replied quietly in a sad, defeated voice. "He wanted to let me know that the rest of the guys had showed up and more of the Council had as well. He then went on to tell me I needed to go home and meet you, Simon, and Trenton there because you all would keep me safe."

  "So what's got you looking so down?" Rain questioned me seriously.

  I wanted to tell him how upset I was about being pushed to the sidelines to sit on the bench while the rest of them went off and threw themselves in harm’s way, but for whatever reason I couldn't do it.

  "Am I a burden to them?" I asked my father without looking at him. I stared straight ahead through the windshield, not bothering to look at the brothers in the backseat either. "Do they see me as someone less than what they are, just because I am playing catch up with the rest of them? It's not my fault I wasn't raised how they were, surrounded with magic, and the magic I did have had been choked to the point it had been gagged. I get that I'm a female witch and that's a coveted thing. I really do. But now that more are surfacing I'm worried. These other females probably know all about where they've come from and how to use their magic like pros. I'm not like that and always feel like I'm playing catch up here. I did good at Dash's the other night, no matter what anybody else says. I did what I did for Dash, because I know how much his cottage means to him, I wouldn't have done it at such a personal cost to myself if it hadn't been worth it. There isn't a single one of them who would have shied away from it if it had been something they were capable of. I don't want to be wrapped up in bubble wrap for the rest of my life. I want to stand tall with the rest of my coven and actually be something outside of a treasure and something they tried to protect."

  I sighed as I slumped back in my seat, my own words washing over me.

  "Baby girl," Rain said gently. "They can't help themselves. They've grown up in a world where women like you are a rarity and that's the world they live in now. I can't fault them for this because it's the same world I grew up in, and I can't help but being thankful to the bottom of my blackened soul that I have men like that looking out for my daughter, especially when I wasn't able to. Cut them a break. Not for you, but for them. They'll need it and I'm the last person who wants to say this to you, but I think this is the real deal here for you. They all love you and want what's best for you. It won't matter to these boys that there are other women popping up around the world with magic, because the only woman they see is you."

  His words were sweet and what any girl would want to hear from her long lost father. Rain loved me, there was no doubt about it.

  "Wait a second," Rain added thoughtfully. "Did you say that there were other women popping up, women who are witches? What are you talking about, Ariel?"

  I raised my hands and I lowered my face into them. I groaned. In my anger I had made a mess of things and stupidly blurted out things I hadn't meant to. I had wanted to give that information to Rain privately and not in front of the two brothers I really knew absolutely nothing about.

  I'd spilled the beans about the woman who'd stared back up at me from that photograph Marcus had given me.

  Damn.

  I hadn't meant to do that.

  "Uhh..." I muttered through my hands. "Maybe you could forget about that part?"

  Fat chance, I knew.

  "What aren't you telling me, daughter?" Rain asked quietly.

  I lowered my hands from my face and looked to him in defeat. This wasn't at all how I was supposed to do this. Marcus was going to be so upset with me.

  Rain eyed me with hard eyes and a cold look on his face. It wasn't his dead look so I knew I wasn't in trouble just yet and maybe could salvage this situation still.

  "I'll be right back," I grumbled under my breath as I jerked the door open and slipped out of the Rover. No one tried to stop me and I wasn't surprised.

  I retrieved the manila folders from the passenger seat and brought them back to the Rover. I climbed inside and closed the door behind me. The whole time I wondered why Marcus hadn't just simply put both pieces of paper into one folder. It seemed wasteful to me to use two folders when you really only needed the one. I was tired of everything, though, and not willing to dial Marcus up on the phone and ask him about it.

  Rain took the folders from me and opened first one, and then the other, without saying anything to me. Neither of the brothers sitting in the backseat said anything either. And, honestly, I couldn't blame them. They were probably wishing for a different female to guard at the moment.

  "Who is this woman?" Rain asked me.

  Who indeed? I really had no freaking clue who the woman was.

  "Marcus gave those folders to me to give to you," I said in a tired voice. "He stole them from Adrian and thought she was a witch in hiding from the Council."

  I stopped there because there was nothing else for me to tell him. I couldn't tell him my theory, and Marcus's, on who she was because there was a chance it might not actually be true and I would never lie to Rain.

  "Hmm," Rain muttered noncommittally, as he folded both folders in half and stuffed them inside his black duster.

  What the hell did ‘hmm’ mean?

  I eyed him and knew he wouldn't give me an answer if pressed.

  "Are we going to take her home and to safety, or are we going to go back and fight the hunters?" One of the brothers asked from the backseat. I didn't know them well enough yet to be able to tell the difference in their voices, but was pretty sure it had been Trenton who'd spoke.

  Rain patted his chest, where the folders had been tucked away, and I knew he was done with what was now going on in the shop and ready to move on to what he thought was important. That being the lady in the picture.

  "We go home," I said, my voice sounding upset and defeated even to myself. "We go home and we wait for them to come back to us. That's all we can do so that they don't know about Rain."

  Both brothers grunted from the backseat like they were angry and upset by my decision. Neither of them argued with it though.

  Rain drove us back to the Alexander big house while I watched people die on the video feeds on his phone.

  Not a single one of those deaths came from my guys or the Council. Instead, all the hunters died.

  And, when we got back to the big house, Rain refused to give me back the folders I'd given him and he'd driven away with my Rover.

  Both Simon and Trenton remained my shadows until Quinton got home.

  Part of me hated them all.

  Poor Marcus probably hated me when I called him later to tell him I’d left his borrowed SUV somewhere and he’d have to find someone to help go and pick it up. Though, he was Marcus, so he didn’t act upset in the
slightest.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I went to bed angry and woke up much the same. I also woke up annoyed because I was all alone in my big bed and the ginormous house was silent. I ran my hand over the middle and empty side of the bed, it was cold to the touch and I knew it had been empty the entire night. I'd slept alone.

  I wasn't sure why sleeping alone bothered me so much and tried not to think too much into it. I was already in a horribly bad mood, I didn't want to poke at it and make it even worse.

  I got out of bed and dragged my tired body into the bathroom where I showered and blow dried my hair while wrapped up in a plush, white, oversized towel that felt like heaven against my skin.

  I padded on bare feet to the closet, still in my towel, and attempted to hunt down something I didn't hate to wear for the day. Later, I planned on driving over to Dash's—if I could locate my Rover and wrestle my keys away from Rain that is—and pack up some of my actual belongings so I could tote them back here with me. I didn't want to pack up all of my things, it would feel too permanent to me and I knew that if I moved in here for good I would never, ever be moving out again.

  It seemed like every time I got comfortable in a home, the rug was ripped out from under me, and I was forced to find some place else to live. This time I hadn't been alone though and Dash had been forced to come along with me. We'd both been uprooted together this time and that made the whole thing a lot worse.

  I felt like if I moved all of my things out of the cottage, that would be some kind of betrayal toward him on my part. We were a tiny team in the middle of the chaos that was always my life.

  I was carefully pulling a pair of panties up my legs while trying to clutch the towel tightly to my chest when I heard the door to my bedroom open and then close. Footsteps padded across the floor.

  Quinton stopped in the doorway to the closet. His eyes raked over my bare shoulders and dropped down to where I had my panties at my knees. I straightened quickly, dragging them up the rest of the way. His eyes heated as they followed my movements. A little smile graced his face as he watched me cross my arms over my chest and get ready to do battle with him.

  "You're pissed," he observed in an amused voice, which only served to make me angrier than I had been before he'd walked in here.

  "No," I said sarcastically. "I'm filled with joy—can't you feel it oozing out of me?"

  His lips twitched like I'd amused him even more and something terrible came over me. I turned around and plucked the first thing I could reach off of the shelf closest to me. It was a hairbrush I had never seen nor used before. Probably an expensive one too. That pissed me off even more.

  I turned and threw the brush across the room, aiming right at his smug face. His arm shot up to protect his face, just in time, and the brush bounced right off his yellow and orange colored forearm. It crashed down to the floor uselessly in a clatter.

  Slowly, he lowered his arm and the look in his eyes had me shuffling back a step, away from him, away from that look. It wasn't anger, like I was expecting, that was there just below the surface and starting to leak out of his gaze. It was hunger, and the raw intensity of it aimed in my direction terrified me.

  "Get out," I whispered hoarsely.

  He shook his head as he stalked toward me. "I don't think so, Ariel. Not this time."

  I swallowed thickly. No ‘baby’ this time, that meant business, and the sweet side to Quinton that was only for me was nowhere to be seen. He was a predator as he prowled toward me, and I was his prey.

  This was all a game to him. A delicious game I didn't know the rules to, and I wasn't all that sure if I even wanted to play in the first place.

  I let out a startled noise when my back met with the shelves, and various things rattled, but thankfully nothing fell off.

  "We should probably talk about why I'm mad at you," I said in a strangled voice.

  He shook his head as he got right in my space, in my face. His hands went to my hips and he smoothed his palms up over the towel.

  "The time for talking is over," he murmured.

  His lips brushed over mine softly in a gentle caress that was hardly there.

  "I—" I had no idea why I protested or why I'd been angry with him in the first place. He was fuddling my mind.

  Quinton grabbed the edges of the towel and yanked it down. It unraveled from where I had it tucked in the front of my body and dropped to the floor.

  "Quinton," I choked out in shock, as I tried to cover the front of my body up with my hands.

  It was no use. "What do you think you're doing?"

  He pushed up against the front of my body with his and his hands slid down my sides, over my ribs and down. He stopped at my hips but only so he could tug on my panties. My hips jerked as they gave off a tearing sound and were ripped off my body. Quinton tossed them to the side.

  "I want to be pissed," he murmured, as he shoved his face in my neck. I shivered as his tongue slid along the underside of my jaw. "That Dash had you first. But I can't do it because that bastard deserves good things in his life more so than the rest of us."

  That was sweet, sort of.

  "Does it really matter who I had sex with first?" I asked in a quiet voice. It didn't matter to me, but he seemed to care a whole lot about it.

  "It doesn't really matter," he said. "But you know by now just how competitive I am and you knew I'd have something to say about this."

  He was right, damn it, he was right.

  I put my hands on his face and lifted it to mine. I stared into his dark, dark brown eyes that were filled with a fire that set my insides ablaze.

  "It's not a competition," I told him in a quiet, but serious voice. "And you damn well know it. If you're upset because I had sex with Dash, then how are you going to feel when I have sex with the others too?"

  His lips curved up in a dangerous smirk. "Are you already planning on having sex with the others?" he countered.

  Wasn't that obvious?

  "I thought that was the plan. Isn't that what you do when you're in a relationship with someone, eventually things get physical?"

  "Things are about to get physical right now," he joked. Or, at least I thought he was joking.

  I should have known better.

  Quinton’s hands slid around to my butt and down. He crouched and lifted me up by my thighs, catching me by surprise and making me let out an embarrassingly girly squeal. I wrapped my arms around his neck as I circled his waist with my legs, clinging to him.

  He carried me to the fancy two seater couch on the other side of the closet and laid me down on my back on it, while I was still wrapped around him.

  His mouth came down on mine in a searing kiss. I cupped the back of his head, cradling him to me, and tangling my fingers in his hair while he continued to kiss me.

  He broke the kiss, pulling away from me and sitting up enough to drag his shirt up his chest and over his head. He tossed it to the side and came back to me. The silver from his nipple rings glittered in the light for a moment before he curved his body back over mine. His mouth came back to mine as his hands went to my breasts. He cupped them with both hands, his thumbs immediately moving to my nipples.

  I moaned into his mouth as his thumbs ghosted over my nipples in a touch that was barely there and gone before I'd had enough of it. I arched my back into his touch and his lips left mine.

  He chuckled as he kissed down the column of my throat.

  He sat up and untangled my limbs from around him. My arms fell to my sides and my legs dropped down to the couch on either side of him.

  He stood up and kicked off his cowboy boots, one after the other. He used his foot to toe them to the side and out of the way. He watched me with a look of hunger on his face that stole my breath away when his hands dropped down to his belt. He didn't waste time on a slow, seductive show. With deft fingers he unlocked his belt, flicked the button, and unzipped his pants. He shucked them down his legs, taking his boxers, if he was wearing any, with them
. He bent over and pulled his pants off from his feet and tossed them behind him.

  I had a second to take in his nude body, and the curve of his thick, long cock before he dropped to his knees on the floor before me. It hadn't been nearly enough time for me to look my fill, but it had been enough for me to notice the silver metal balls just below the head of his cock. It looked painful and yet I had the strongest urge to put my mouth near it and flick my tongue against those little silver balls.

  He didn't give me a chance to touch him in anyway. Not Quinton, this was his show and he was in charge of how this was going down.

  His hands went to my thighs and he dragged me toward the edge of the couch. My butt was right on the edge of the seat. Quinton lifted my feet to the edge of the couch beside my body and spread my thighs wide, leaving me naked and exposed to his scrutiny.

  "Quinton," I said in a hushed, embarrassed voice.

  "Nope," he replied. "There's no hiding from me, baby. Not anymore."

  His words sent a shiver down my spine and I wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing to be so exposed to Quinton, he'd never let me go back on it now.

  He shoved his face in my groin and inhaled.

  "Jesus, what are you doing?"

  "You smell so good," he groaned. "And you give off the most delicious heat I've ever experienced before."

  His tongue flicked out and he dragged it through my wetness, making me shiver uncontrollably. My hand went to his hair and I weaved my fingers through it, holding on tight as his tongue flicked against my clit over and over again.

  I writhed on the couch and tried to thrust my hips up at his mouth that was driving me wild, but he held my hips in place with his hands, holding me down.

  Something inside of me was starting to build, trying to climb its way out, and I began to tremble as he kept at me with his mouth.

  "Quinton," I whispered but could say no more.

  My back bowed as pleasure surged through me, my orgasm finally set free. My body twitched under his hold as liquid heat pooled in my core and I cried out. I clung to his hair, holding him tightly to me.