by Jayne Hawke
She sniffed and looked away.
I slammed my hands down on her desk.
“I said get the God damn cu sith now!” I shouted.
Evander would be safe in his office, and I needed him to stay there. Away from the blades and wrath of my sisters.
“Iona?” Connor asked.
I was too late.
The white cars pulled up in front of the office building. My sisters were flowing out of the cars and running to the front door in their leathers.
“They know. They’ve come to kill him. I can’t take them all by myself. I need your help,” I said as I pulled out my blades and prepared.
The ultimate choice had been made. My sisters or the beast I had been sent to hunt. Killing my sisters would form scars that would never heal, but none were going to hurt my soulmate.
Connor casually sauntered up to my side. He cocked his head slightly as Emma burst into the lobby.
“You do not want to do this. The Hades god touched are using you,” I said.
“They are cleansing the city and giving us a place within this world!” Emma shouted.
“It’s all lies. You know it’s lies,” I said.
A lump had formed in my throat. I didn’t want to shed my sisters’ blood. I cursed out the gods for forcing this upon me.
The Hades god touched stopped outside of the lobby.
“Kill the dragon!” he commanded.
“The dragons are protectors against assholes like him!” I shouted.
Nicole and Sienna paused. They looked between the Hades god touched and me.
“Please...” I whispered.
My sisters ran at me.
FIFTY-THREE
Evander
I felt Iona approach the building. At first, I had thought she had returned to slip a dagger between my ribs. Anyone but her...
When she had demanded to see Connor, a spark of hope had formed. Then I saw her stand against her sisters. The women she had grown up with and saw as family. I ran across the lobby, forming my magic to destroy the enemy as Iona thrust her dagger into the throat of the closest Sister.
She had turned against her family for me. I wished that she had never been cursed with such an agonising decision. Blood splashed her face and coated her hands. Heartbreak and fury warred on her face as she fought with such intensity that for a moment I feared her. If anyone had ever stood a chance of taking my life, it was her.
The threads of magic had been woven without my conscious thought. I pushed them outwards in a great wave of power and destruction. Those sisters that had turned against Iona were killed instantly. Their life essence was ripped from their bodies, leaving the corpses to crumble onto the blood-soaked floor.
I gathered Iona into my arms and held her close while she trembled.
“Never again,” I whispered.
Never again would she suffer as she had that day. I would ensure that she didn’t endure that pain. She was my other half, my beautiful Iona.
FIFTY-FOUR
Iona
I pulled away from Evander and looked around at the fallen. The Hades god touched had screamed as Connor slaughtered them. He casually wiped blood from his mouth as he looked over the rest of the dead. They had been my family, my sisters.
Sienna and Nicole cautiously walked to us.
I ran to them and hugged them tight. Emotion overwhelmed me, and I let out a sob.
“I told you he was your soulmate,” Sienna whispered.
We laughed. A harsh bitter laugh reflecting the agony we were experiencing.
They were the only ones left of the huntresses.
“What now?” Nicole asked.
Evander walked up to us. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on him.
“You will be welcome to work with me, as my knights. You will protect those who need it in my territory.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said.
Sienna was scrubbing her eyes, trying to remove the tears.
“Come, you need to sit down and eat after a shock like this,” Evander said.
The numbness came next. It wasn’t sinking in. They were all gone. The decision had been made.
Looking into Evander’s eyes, I knew that I wouldn’t regret it.
“They used us,” I said.
“We should have fought and gotten out into the world,” Nicole said bitterly.
“They were all we ever knew,” Sienna said softly.
I squeezed her hand.
“I’ll provide you with an apartment and a good wage,” Evander said.
Nicole nodded and offered him a polite smile.
“We’re free,” I said.
FIFTY-FIVE
I was crying by the time we got to the elevator. There had been so many needless, pointless deaths, so many women and girls close to me gone in an instant. I knew there had been no choice, and that my love for him was right and pure. I also knew that the incredibly powerful killer with his arm comfortingly around my waist had killed the vast majority of people I’d ever met in a matter of seconds.
The two certainties mingled to become an icy hole in my centre into which my battle lust and pent up need poured until the steaming effervescence of it overwhelmed me and I grabbed him by the throat, threw him against the corner of his shining steel elevator, and climbed him until I could force my tongue into his mouth and claim him. I was still crying silently, my tears coating both of our faces, and I could sense his reluctance. He was worried about me, and as sweet as it was it wasn’t what I needed.
I ground myself against him, trying to draw out the predator, and even though he kissed me like a drowning man I could still feel him holding back. When we got to the penthouse, he carried me to his bed and, tearing my clinging body from his with an effortless shove that made my heart skip a beat, threw me backwards.
I landed softly on my back, sinking into the pure white satin sheets of the softest bed in the universe. Before I could get up, he waved a hand at me and I felt a heavy weight settle gently onto my chest, pinning me. I strained against it as he stood over me, taking his time in stripping out of his jacket and shirt, leaving his perfect chest and tight abs visible but completely out of reach.
I wanted to strain for him, to break free and run my tongue over each ridge and valley, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of watching a sister of the hunt squirm like a girl on his bed. Now in nothing but slacks, he walked to the bed in measured steps, each movement planned to give me a show I couldn’t break free of. When he got to me, he took his time unzipping the jacket of my leathers, parting it just enough to notice I wasn’t wearing a bra before continuing down to expose my taught stomach.
He ran his eyes over what he had exposed, my nipples and most of my breasts still hidden, and I felt as though I were miles beyond naked as he took me in, towering over me. He leaned in as if to kiss me but lingered a hair’s breadth away for an eternity of milliseconds before placing a kiss on me so gentle I wasn’t even sure it had happened. He continued down, kissing my neck, between my breasts, across my stomach, eventually coming to the waistband of the leather bottoms I still wore and dipping his tongue beneath it, a tickling promise of what he could offer.
My mind froze for a moment as I wondered what exactly that was and where he might have learned it. I was the only one he cooked for, but...
I pushed it from my mind and focused on the sensation of him unbuttoning and unzipping me with impossible, maddening slowness until I felt the cool air on my achingly wet sex. He began to run one long, murderous finger from my belly button down to my clit, and then I was squirming, whimpering under his touch even as I remembered what his hands had been used for so, so recently.
“Cut the Romeo bullshit and fuck me like a dragon, pretty boy,” I goaded, needing this to end, needing him in me and on me, his strength and killer’s instinct and not the gentle, kind fae I’d fallen in love with.
He winced at the word ‘dragon,’ his eyes darkening, and I knew I should feel bad, but all I c
ould think was that I finally had him. He tore the pants from me, picked me up, and slammed me against the huge windows looking out over the city. I gasped with shock and lust and the icy cold of the glass behind me. He pressed me there with his entire body weight, kissing and biting roughly down my neck as he unbound himself, and I thought of the marks I’d have to show Sienna and Nicole in the morning.
When I felt him at my entrance, I realized I still hadn’t seen or felt him. I had no idea what was about to press into me. In moments, I felt him quickly and firmly pressing home, felt inch after inch stretching me open until I began to wonder if there was even room for all of him. Just when I thought I was full beyond my limits, my nails buried in his back and my teeth in his shoulder, I felt his body pressed to mine. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of myself. I wrapped my legs around him and held him close, held him deep inside me, showing him what I could do.
He paused a moment, and I took it as a need for encouragement. I pulled his hair as hard as I could, baring his throat, and bit down on his neck until I tasted the strange, mercurial flavour of fae blood. He made an angry, monstrous sound and began to pound me against the window, the sound of it reverberating around the hard, sharp space, slamming into me until I had to let him go to breathe, falling back against the windows and panting like a whore. Without breaking rhythm, he grabbed my ankles, untwining them, and pressed them to the window above my head, the flexibility of a lifetime of training serving an unexpected purpose as he pressed a few precious centimetres deeper.
He settled into a quick, hard rhythm, our breathing coming in time as we built, and built, and built until he made one last heroic thrust and I felt scalding warmth pooling in me and fell over the edge, screaming his name so loud I was sure Connor and the girls could hear me in the lobby, screaming and coming until I thought I would pass out, until he was finally done and the fiery magic of his curse had been poured deep into me.
We stood there panting, my weight still effortlessly supported by his powerful physique, until we slowly came back to ourselves, our breathing and heartrates slowing to normal.
“Good work,” I said, and we laughed together in the suddenly quiet space.
He went to set me back on the bed, but I shook my head, kissed him gently on the lips with only the barest tease of my tongue, and whispered in his ear.
“Let me taste you.”
With a cat-that-got-the-cream grin, he slowly dropped me to his feet, letting me get my knees under me, and stood proudly over me, his softening member still a weighty mass between my face and his. Leaning up with my tongue extended, I tasted a man for the first time, and found my curiosity met with the salty-sweet tang of our melding. It wasn’t a good taste, not exactly, but it was us and that was enough. I licked him clean, all but worshipping the instrument that had brought me such pleasure, and then stood, leading him to the bed, and fell asleep in his arms.
FIFTY-SIX
When we woke, it was to a day too bright and perfect to be London. A thin sheet was draped over us, and I resisted the urge to clutch it to myself modestly when a plump housekeeper brought in tea and pastry. She informed us that Connor had given Nicole and Sienna accommodations for the night. I thought I read a hint of mischief in her eyes when she said Sienna’s name. No surprise she’d availed herself of the local amenities. I quietly hoped for something more permanent between them. As happy as she seemed exploring the city one bedroom at a time, I wanted her to have what I had, wanted everyone in the whole world to have what I had.
Evander and I spent the whole day in bed, talking about everything and exploring each other. We had all the time in the world, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way. When the sun began to set, we both knew what we wanted to do with his first night as himself in so many centuries. He dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting button-down shirt, and I put back on my leathers from the night before. We stepped out into the night sky and took to the rooftops, racing and chasing and kissing, playfighting and giggling, testing our balance and our nerve all across London. It was something I could do forever, and when morning came we watched the sunrise and I knew we really would.
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