by J. Kearston
“Who do you sell to?” I ask without preamble.
He huffs. “Funnel orders through a shop two towns over and they distribute from there, why?”
“Something’s wrong. Delivery guy is twitchy as hell and freaking out over running late. I can’t say for sure, but I think you’re getting fucked over somehow.”
He relays the message to the others as I start heading back. “Come back to the forge.”
I snort. “Duh. I wasn’t about to fix some asshole’s truck for free and wait to get jumped. I look like the dumb blonde that goes into the creepy basement?”
I hang up and go back without any more weird shit happening, finding the triplets in the middle of a heated debate. Kinsley slams his hand on a table, more pissed off than I think I’ve ever seen the usually laid back man.
“I fucking told you there was something shady about that guy! What do you bet we’re giving weapons to the enemies on a damn silver platter?! I told you we needed to be more selective of our clientele.”
Kaiden throws something at the wall that shatters upon impact. Kahl scowls, stomping towards me. “You’ve dealt with more of this shit than we have, what are your thoughts?”
Well, be still my demonic little heart.
“Best guess? Kinsley’s right. Someone’s probably hoarding and I doubt it’s just to defend the town.”
Kahl scrubs a hand down his face, looking burned out. “We can’t just only deal to Hadeon; we don’t get enough orders to make our bills. Everyone here already has a weapon, not all stockpile their collections. Besides, we get half of our materials from out of town; it would be financial suicide.”
I get where he’s coming from. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
“Trust me, I get it better than anyone,” I point out. “And if you don’t supply the weapons, they’ll just get someone else that will. But when you’re backed into a corner you shouldn’t just lash out at the first thing that appears in front of you. If you want, I have a suggestion.”
They gesture for me to continue. “Send someone they won’t recognize to investigate and make sure we aren’t just being paranoid before doing anything. Then, if we’re right, the fun can begin.”
Kinsley perks up. “How so?”
My grin is an excited one, bordering the line of cruelty. “Sabotage.”
Chapter 15
Ezra
“Should we be alarmed by how happy she looks right now?” Vyrian asks in a loud whisper, teasing.
For his benefit, I give my best villainous laugh, contorting the metal with ease. I’ve said for years that I would be the perfect fit working in the forge with my brothers, but they always had excuses. That this was manly work, that this was the only place they could get away from me. Bullshit of wanting to be the providers for the family. But now the gloves are off and I’m in my element.
Soren and Caius did a recon mission a few towns over to look into who’s been buying our weapons and what they’re doing with them. It looks like two of the neighboring cities not far off have been gearing up for war, but thankfully, with each other. The more we researched the leaders, the more it became clear where they stood politically and that signed one’s death warrant.
The neighboring city buys our weapons, marks up the cost, and then has been dealing with both of the feuding towns. It keeps us a few steps back from the fallout, but we have no illusions it won’t come back on us eventually. So, we needed to pick a side, and by default that means the one not advocating for rounding up women for genetic experimentation.
It also means my brothers can’t turn down my help because I can make this process go a hell of a lot faster. I may not have their technique and finesse, may not be able to make the same quality and beauty I adore in my weapons, but I can at least rush the process along and let the guys add the finishing touches.
We have two trucks outside we’re preloading since we told the main buyer we started doing delivery for large orders within a certain distance. Naturally, he freaked out, but tried to hide it. He started asking all sorts of questions to find out how far we go and how many other ‘loyal’ customers we’re dealing with these days.
The first truck will be taken to him. The second truck will be taken to the enemy’s city where we will charge regular price instead of inflated, ensuring he does business directly from us from now on. That’s the fun truck they put me in charge of; the sabotaged weapons.
I make sure they can stand up under initial scrutiny, but have weak cores and spots that won’t withstand a hard application of pressure. Primarily, I’m in charge of fucking up the process, which isn’t hard. Temperature plays a key role, so cooling something too quickly can cause microscopic stress fractures. Then I just coat the defective core in the proper metal and I let my brothers worry about the handles and such.
“Honestly, Yri, I was made for this. Ten points for heat resistance, am I right?”
He chuckles, kissing my temple as he passes by on his way back to work. There’s an unspoken rule that no one actually talks about the embarrassing or awkward shit and I love them for it. After the Soren incident, no one said a single word, though the stigma of keeping hands to ourselves has disappeared. Now, they don’t hesitate in their casual touches and I might actually appreciate that more.
Nope, totally lying, I want the orgasms.
Doing it yourself is one thing, but someone else doing it? Fuck, that’s addicting.
“Shit, why didn’t we train her to help again?” Kinsley tosses out there, struggling to keep up with me.
“Because she’s annoying?” Kaiden jabs, but his hands are flying just as quickly.
I scoff. “Because I make you look bad, you mean.”
He flips me off and goes back to work while I laugh, and after two days at this rate, both trucks end up full to bursting. Yri takes one and Cai the other, leaving my standard shadow by my side. We finally get a rest from the breakneck speed we’ve been pulling, and so soon after the Gauntlet, I’m beyond worn out.
“So what do you say, nap?”
I stretch, extending my arms above my head. We start walking towards their house, nothing to do now but settle in and wait.
“I need to swing by the utility company first, but sure,” he rumbles.
“Someone really needs to invent a way to pay from our phones; we could save so much legwork.”
He chuckles. “Well you better get right on that, little dragon, and make us our millions.”
We continue weaving our way between people on the sidewalk as my sleep deprived brain mulls it over. “We just need a way to connect the computers the same way we do phones so we can pass information from one to the other, like a giant web. Then everyone would know what’s going on in different parts of the world so much easier.” I trail off, lost in thought as we get in line to pay.
“Ezra.” I turn at the sound of my name, finding Vince standing in the line beside us.
There are about four people ahead of either of us, waiting for their turn at the two plexiglass covered windows inside the small lobby. Soren’s hand falls possessively on my shoulder and I lean into the touch instinctively.
“Hey.” I give a half wave in a pitiful attempt at civility.
“I got another shipment in recently that might interest you,” he offers and Ren’s hand tightens on my shoulder, knowing after last time I’m tempted to go break into his car while he’s still inside.
“Nah, I’m good, but thanks for offering.”
Anything involving Vince is a bad idea. He’ll definitely want something in exchange, and after Yri and Ren’s concerns he’s involved in trafficking, it’s not worth the risk just for something shiny.
He continues on trying to entice me anyway. “This one’s an obsidian blade set into an opal handle, goes for a pretty penny.”
Don’t picture it, don’t picture it, stop picturing it...fuck.
“Ezra!” Soren snaps, shaking my shoulder.
I let my nails lengthen into claws and dig
them into my palms until I feel blood pooling. The pain helps to ground me, get me out of my head. I glare at Vince’s smirking face, debating if we can afford bail right now.
“Fuck off,” I snap, breaking the staring contest and turning to pointedly ignore him.
Of course, that’s when I see the people in line ahead of us staring back at me with their pupils blown. I whirl back around to Vince who’s still smirking, but not nearly as lost as the men around us are. The first fist flies, coming from Soren when a guy shoved him.
It devolves into chaos, too many bodies in the small space. I drive my knee into one guy’s groin, slamming my elbow back to bash into another’s nose. When I feel a hand wrap around my arm, my skin heats to blistering levels, but still, he doesn’t let go.
Vince is sneering down at me, his eyes dancing with cruel satisfaction. My eyes quickly dart from his face to his hold, noting the glove covering his skin. He’s an idiot if he thought that’s all it would take to gain the upper hand.
While one arm may be restrained, the other isn’t. Two seconds later my knife is buried into his forearm and I yank it down with a spray of blood.
Stab first, ask questions later.
I tug my arm free and stop holding back, kicking the side of his kneecap hard enough I know I broke something. He goes down with a howl, and just like my training sessions with the triplets, I drive my fist into his temple. He drops, not getting back up.
I turn when I feel a pinch in the side of my neck, dread pooling in my stomach. I can already feel the sluggishness hitting my muscles. With as overtired and exhausted as I already was, it’s hitting me quickly. I bring a flame to my palm and bitchslap the motherfucker, reveling in his scream.
My vision starts to waver, but I don’t waste however much time I have left being distracted, searching out Soren. Another swipe of my knife and a few hits, and my legs give out, crashing to my knees. My ears are ringing and when a hand reaches for me, I strive for the flames I always call for, not finding so much as an ember.
All that remains are ashes, quickly slipping through my fingers.
***
Everything’s dark and my head is screaming, threatening to make me vomit. I take slow, deep breaths, trying to wrangle my scattered thoughts into something resembling useful.
Focus, Ezra, fight through the fog.
As soon as I realize I’m on a bed, the urge to throw up returns with a vengeance. I gently shift my ankles and wrists, audibly sighing in relief when it’s clear I’m not restrained. A floorboard squeaks and I freeze, extending my muddled senses to the best of my abilities, attempting to learn anything that might help me.
“Ezra?” a low voice asks on a whisper.
“Soren?” I croak out, my throat dry.
I could sob in relief at not being alone, though I chase that away with my building anger that they not only hurt me, but him too. I’m going to burn Vince and whoever he’s working with alive, record their screams, and play it every night to lull me to sleep.
“Thank the Fates,” he rushes out, and the bed dips as he sits beside me. “How are you feeling, little dragon?” he murmurs softly, caressing my face and gently stroking his thumb over my face.
“Like I was hit by a truck,” I groan and a second later he’s helping me sit up, a water bottle pressed to my lips that I greedily swallow down. “Where are we?”
He pulls me into his solid chest, resting his chin on the top of my head. “Home.”
I blink, surrounded in darkness and his charcoal scent. My brain is still fighting to keep up, begging me to slip back into unconsciousness. If it wasn’t for Soren’s hold, I would slump back over easily.
“Wait, what?”
He kisses the crown of my head, gently rubbing his hand over my back in soothing strokes. “You don’t seem to have much faith in your bodyguard, beautiful,” he jokes, but it sounds forced.
“Suck up all you want, you’re not getting a raise,” I respond, my words slightly slurred as I start to fall back asleep. “Bullet points please, I think I’m about to pass out again.”
He stills, a low growl building in his throat that courses through his chest, weirdly soothing on my face. His hand returns to stroking my back, but the motion’s jerkier than before.
“When you passed out, the pheromone issue took care of itself and the other men in the room stopped acting like idiots and realized what was happening. They restrained Vince before he woke up and the guy that tranquilized you until your brothers could get there and decide what to do with them.
“I took you to the hospital to get checked out, but they said it just needed to wear off, gave you a bag of fluids and sent us off,” he scoffs, angry. “Didn’t even make a report. So I brought you home to sleep it off.”
He helps me get comfortable and I sink into the pillows, turning onto my side and feeling far more at ease now. “Cai and Yri?”
He lies down next to me, drawing me closer and draping an arm over my hip. “Rushed back here to check on you and are currently with your brothers, torturing information out of the bastards.”
My eyes flutter shut, trusting them to take care of it. “And you didn’t want to join the bloodbath?” I mumble, half asleep.
His thumb starts tracing a path over my hip, lulling me back to sleep. “Don’t worry, little dragon, there will be plenty of blood to shed when you awaken. Sleep now, revenge later.”
Chapter 16
Caius
Blood stains the cement at my feet, yet still I don’t let up. Every time he passes out, we wake him up and start all over. My knuckles are split, I’m covered in his blood, yet still it isn’t enough. He almost managed to grab her, right under our fucking noses.
A familiar sense of loathing fills my veins, unadulterated hatred. Being enclosed in this room has my nightmares constantly replaying in my mind, only spurring me on. I use them as fuel, refusing to let them hold me captive again.
Beneath their house is a god damn fortress. Completely fireproof, reinforced, and stocked to survive at least a year. Kinsley had the good grace to look repentant when they dragged our prisoners down here at least as he explained. Before we came along and they accepted their sister was going to take mates, they had been working on a backup plan. They figured they could just set her up down here until her heat subsided, or use it as an emergency bunker if things continued to escalate.
It’s fairly massive, about the size of a studio apartment. They set up a well system in an adjacent room to double as a bathroom and have water access, which I have to applaud, but it’s the other door that made my jaw drop. Inside is enough weaponry to arm all of Hadeon if it came down to it.
We’ve been at this for days and I’m about ready to just gut him despite him not giving us any useful information. My time is spent between this and checking on Ezra who has been in and out of consciousness all of this time as she fights whatever they injected her with. Soren stays with her, but Yri and I rotate at times like this, times when we’re so close to snapping and need to calm down before doing something reckless.
“What is this place?” Her voice reaches through my rage, flooding my system with relief.
“How’re you feeling?”
I ignore the bloodied man bound to the metal chair in front of me, turning to her instead. She looks pale, but beyond that, back to normal. Yri has an arm wrapped around her waist, and by the tightness at the corner of his eyes, I figure he’s helping support her. He may be able to hide his anger better than I can, but everyone has a tell.
“Pissed off,” she snaps, emerald eyes dancing with the fire I’ve desperately missed.
“You’re gorgeous when you’re angry,” Yri praises, fawning over her like usual. “Like an angel of death.”
Her lip twitches as she tries to hold onto her anger instead of caving into his charms. “You’re ruining my dramatic effect here, Yri.”
He shrugs. “I’ll fix it then. This is the prison your brothers were going to keep you in when you went into heat
to protect you before we came along and thwarted their plans.”
That certainly does it and now she’s positively livid.
“Take it out on him, love. No need to pull punches; if he hasn’t talked yet, I doubt we’re going to get anything from him anyway.”
Her anger pushes strength through her veins and she slips out of Yri’s hold to march over. Vince is already dead; the triplets weren’t as good at holding back. If you asked me, I’d say Vince goaded them into it rather than face whoever hired him.
Ezra embeds her fist in the man’s cheek, snapping his head to the side and waking him back up. “I hear they’ve been going easy on you,” she taunts, opening her palm. “But I’m not feeling as generous or in a particularly forgiving mood right now. Five seconds.”
The oxygen is practically sucked out of the room when no flame flickers to life in her open palm. My stomach drops, so I can only imagine hers.
“What did you do to me?” she whispers, horrified.
At that, the man smiles. His swollen, bloodied lip cracks open as it pulls at his bruised cheeks and the one eye he can open settles on her.
“Makes it easier to hold them when they can’t fight back,” he laughs, pleased with himself. His shoulders shake with his crazed laughter.
I grip his greasy hair and yank his head back, snarling. “How long until it wears off?”
He keeps his eye trained on Ezra though, watching her face as he answers me. “Who says that it will?”
Her face hardens, a savage mask concealing her thoughts. “You’re not going to tell us anything, are you?”
He spits in her direction in lieu of a response, which is an answer in itself. In a flash, my blade slices through his throat, leaving him to bleed out as I walk over to her.
“He’s got to be bluffing,” Yri manages through gritted teeth.
Ezra goes completely silent. I want her to scream, to rage and fight with all of that fire I just saw coming back to her eyes. But right now, all that’s left are ashes and she needs us to be that strength for her until she finds it in herself again.
