by Sadie Moss
The gargoyle’s eyes narrow and he glares at me, his gigantic nose sniffing the air. “You,” he hisses. Then he speaks louder, presumably calling out to the others he came here with. “It’s her! The angel!”
“Ah, motherfucker. This isn’t good.” Nix sounds equal parts distressed that we might die here and worried that we might have to actually run for our lives.
The gargoyle dives for us, not even waiting for his friends to arrive from the main room. Ford immediately puts himself between the monster and the rest of us, roaring with fury and lashing out with a vicious punch.
I let out an involuntary scream, terrified that Ford’s going to shatter all the bones in his hand. But before the punch lands, Beckett yanks me through the doorway and down a short set of stairs into what appears to be a dark, narrow corridor.
“Come on, angel, we’ve gotta go!”
I start running down the corridor just behind him, feeling useless. I have my angel blade that I can summon, but I’m not the best in a fight—especially not in close quarters like this. The tight corridor limits my ability to use either my wings or my sword. The sins are all much better in these kinds of fights than me. Even Nix, and he’s literally the personification of laziness.
Beckett keeps his hand on my arm as he leads me on. Ryland’s bringing up the rear, and when we get several yards down the tunnel, he stops and turns, glaring at the gargoyle behind us with such intensity that I honestly think the stone beast will drop dead.
“I’ll handle this.”
My heart drops into my stomach. It’s not that I doubt his abilities, but can he really deal with a gargoyle all on his own? This feels like his pride getting in the way.
“You need help. You need backup!” I blurt, stumbling to a halt as Beckett tries to yank me forward.
“I’ll be fine.” His chin is down, giving him an almost animalistic look as he stares at the approaching gargoyle. The ground shudders with the force of the heavy stone footsteps.
“Never would’ve pegged you for the self-sacrificing type,” Sawyer drawls. “But Trin’s right. We’ve got your back.” He shoots a glance at Beck over my head. “Get her out of here. Go!”
Before I can protest, Beckett practically picks me up, hauling me farther down the dark hallway as the other men launch themselves at the gargoyle. It’s so dark that I can’t see anything, and I don’t know how Beckett’s able to see anything either, but I have to trust him. I don’t have a choice. And even if I did have a choice… I’d still trust him. The others too.
The tunnel is shaking all around us from the battle, and I’m worried that it’s going to collapse on top of us.
“Just keep going,” Beckett tells me as I hear Ford give a yell that shoots through me like lightning.
Fuck. Are they going to be okay? I don’t want any of them to get hurt.
“Okay, time to go!” Remi runs up to join us, his blue-green eyes flashing in the darkness. I can hear thundering feet behind us.
“What did Ford do!?” Beckett demands.
“Oh, the usual,” Remi says.
The tunnel shakes even more, and I dodge as part of the ceiling crashes down on us.
“He’s just collapsing the whole thing. Fighting stone with stone, you know?” Remi continues, sounding sarcastically cheerful.
“Are you serious?” I ask, my voice hardly more than a croak as my heart climbs into my throat. If anyone could bring down a tunnel by getting into a fight with a bunch of gargoyles, it would be Ford, so I’m not all that surprised, but I’m still horrified.
What if the stones fall on him? What if the entire tunnel comes down, and we’re trapped down here forever?
Beckett takes a hard left, and another set of stairs come into view ahead of us. He gives a low, breathless grunt of satisfaction, and the two of us put on an extra burst of speed. I hurtle up the stairs behind him, catching a glimpse of streetlights and the night sky. I would heave a sigh in relief if we weren’t still running.
We explode out into the night air with the rest of the sins right on our heels. I turn around just in time to see the tunnel collapsing behind us. Ford’s the last one out, and he barely makes it before the stones crumble and fall. Knight and Ryland pull him onto the street, supporting him when he nearly goes to his knees. He looks like he’s taken some heavy hits; there are bruises and scrapes all over him. But he’s okay.
We made it. All of us.
Now my knees nearly give out on me. The tunnel behind us is gone.
“Valentina’s going to bill us for that.” Sawyer speaks into the sudden eerie quiet as the rumbling dies out. “It’ll take her forever to fix that tunnel.”
“Are the gargoyles… are they…?” I trail off, biting my lower lip.
“Dead?” Ford growls, shaking off his brothers and walking up to me—with a slight limp, I can’t help but notice. “Yeah. Rock beats rock.”
I know he probably won’t appreciate it since Ford’s not the most touchy-feely guy, but I can’t help myself. I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Ford goes stiff for a moment. Then, to my surprise, he tentatively wraps his arms around me and hugs me in return. His body is tense, as if it’s spring-loaded, but he’s not shoving me away like I feared he might. We’ve been closer than this before, with a lot fewer clothes on, but sex is different than open displays of affection like this. This feels even more intimate, in some ways.
Even though I could happily keep hugging him for a lot longer, I pull back so he doesn’t have time to get too awkward about it. “What do we do now?”
“You’re demon-marked,” Ryland says, sounding supremely unsympathetic about it. “Which means you’re going to be a beacon for all kinds of supernatural creatures to come out of the woodwork and try to kill you. As long as we’re in the city, you’re not safe.”
“We can go to my place,” Nix pipes up.
Phoenix, thanks to being Sloth, is a bit of a hermit. He doesn’t like to be disturbed. In fact, when Beckett, Remington, and I went to Nix’s place for the first time, they had to disable all of his crazy security measures before we could get inside his house. It’s a veritable fortress. It’s also pretty far out of the city, which is a benefit. There won’t be anyone else around.
“All right.” Beckett shoots me a look, his emerald eyes blazing, then nods curtly at Ryland. “We’ll go to Nix’s house.”
As secure as Beckett’s apartment is, it’s not as defensible as Nix’s place will be. Luckily Beck is Greed, not Pride, so he’s able to recognize that and not get all touchy about it.
I just hope this plan will be enough to keep us safe until we can find a real solution.
Chapter Four
TRINITY
I’m shaking with nerves the entire way to Nix’s place.
What if someone can track us there? What if people have already guessed about Nix’s home base and have set a trap for us? What if… well, you get the picture.
The possibilities spin around in my mind until I feel dizzy despite the fact that I’m not even moving. I’m just sitting in the car staring out the window. There wasn’t enough room for us in just one car—not even a minivan could contain all seven of the sins and me, and honestly, I can’t see Beckett driving a minivan even if you put a gun to his head. So we split into two cars, with Ryland driving one and Beck driving the other.
The sins are nervous too. I can feel the energy of the three men in the car with me, their tension seeming to suck up all the oxygen in the small space.
Beckett’s knuckles are white where he grips the wheel, and Ford still looks pissed, like he’s in the middle of a fight, even though we’re just sitting here.
Knight never talks, but he’s the most empathetic of the group. He tends to take on the emotions of those around him, so he was an absolute twitchy mess when he climbed into Ryland’s car. I wanted to hug him just like I did Ford, but that will have to wait until we get where we’re going.
&nb
sp; “I don’t think we’ve been followed,” Beck says as we finally pull up to Nix’s front gate. We took the long way, or rather a bunch of false ways, to try to throw anyone who might be tailing us off the trail. But you never know.
“No need to worry. My security is the best,” Nix promises, punching in the code that lets us in. “A whole army couldn’t get in here.”
“You’ll regret those words if you have to prove them later,” Beck notes.
The gate swings open, and we roll through. Ryland’s car is right behind us, and I twist around in my seat to make sure the gate shuts firmly after we’re all in the compound.
Everything seems to be in order when we get inside the house, but the men all split up to check, leaving Sawyer alone with me in the living room. None of them said it out loud, but I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to be my bodyguard in case something goes wrong.
All of the men are on edge, and it’s keeping me on edge too, but as I pace around the living room, I can’t help but notice how Sawyer is watching me. There’s something churning in his amber eyes as his gaze tracks me—not like he’s worried for my safety, but like he’s trying to puzzle me out. Like I’m a puzzle that he’s finding harder to solve than he expected.
The others are all more relaxed by the time they get back, nodding at one another as they converge in the living room.
“We’re all secure,” Nix announces, flopping down onto the couch and running a hand through his tousled ash-brown hair. “I told ya, you know. I said that my place was going to be fine. It’s like Fort Knox up in here.”
“Forgive me for not taking you completely at your word,” Beck says dryly.
I kind of agree with him on that point, actually. I don’t think Nix would ever intentionally be so lazy that it puts me or his brothers in danger, but he might accidentally put us in danger as a result of his laziness. Like, I dunno, if he forgot to pay his electric bill or something, and his whole compound went dark. In any case, it’s good to have backup and several second opinions confirming that this place is truly safe.
Knight sits down on the couch next to Nix and gestures for me to come and sit with him. I haven’t figured out much of the sign language he shares with his brothers, but I can understand the basic, obvious gestures. With a wan smile, I walk over and sink onto the cushions. Nix and Knight press against me from either side, like they’re worried I’m cold and are trying to give me warmth.
“Hey, Trin. You feeling all right?” Remi asks me, his voice warm and soft.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m okay.” Given the circumstances, anyway. I’m physically fine, just rattled.
“With Ford’s unique solution of collapsing the whole tunnel, it’s a wonder the poor thing’s not more upset,” Sawyer notes, arching a brow as he leans against the arm of another couch. The scars on his face shift a little with the movement.
Ford glares at him, nostrils flaring. I can tell he’s still amped up from the fight, although he doesn’t seem to be limping badly anymore. “Maybe if you hadn’t pissed off the one witch who has the power to curse you and make it fuckin’ stick, you fuckin’ idiot, we would’ve had an easier time with her and gotten outta there faster.”
Sawyer crosses his arms, narrowing his eyes. “If you had a better idea, there were ample opportunities to say so. Or are you just angry that you don’t have the same connections in the magical world that I do?”
Knight signs something at the two brothers that makes them glare at him. The silent man smirks, looking smug, and I have no doubt that whatever he just said, it was snarky as heck.
Ryland doesn’t look amused by any of it. He turns toward one of the doorways leading to another part of the house. “I’m going to see what being demon-marked entails and how we can prevent it. The rest of you, behave.”
Beckett, without even saying anything, follows him. They just sort of fall in together and work side by side like that. I’ve noticed it several times since Ryland joined us, and it makes me ache inside—because despite all of that, they still look at each other with barely disguised anger. I don’t know what caused the rift between them, but it’s obviously deeply entrenched.
“Do you think they’ll really find anything?” I ask Remi, who’s headed into the massive kitchen around the corner. Nix’s house is huge, to say the least. He could host dozens of people in here comfortably. But usually it’s just him and has been for some time. Before the guys and I barged in here asking for his help with the demonic portals, I don’t know how long it’d been since his last visitor.
“If anyone could,” Remi calls over his shoulder to reassure me, “it’s those two. They won’t stop until they’re satisfied.”
Knight gets up and follows Remi, apparently hungry. A moment later, Nix heaves himself up from the couch, stretching and yawning as if he just woke from an hours-long nap.
“I’ll go check the security footage. Make sure everything looks good, test the alarm systems, all that.” He grins down at me. “Make yourself at home, babycakes.”
He saunters out of the room, hands shoved in his pockets, the picture of languid ease. Sawyer plops down onto the couch in his place, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling.
Ford rolls his eyes. “I’m gonna take a fucking shower.”
He really should. He’s covered in dust and scrapes and blood. His blood, I suspect, because I don’t think gargoyles bleed like regular supernaturals do. They’re made of living stone, after all. They’re more likely to crumble than bleed.
“Let me know if you need anything!” I call after him. He could use some help with his bandages afterward, if he needs bandaging.
Ford grunts in acknowledgment, nodding as he strides out of the room.
Huh. I think he’s actually starting to warm to me.
An outside observer might think he warmed to me right away, what with the whole almost-having-sex-against-a-wall thing, but despite our attraction toward one another, that whole incident started because he was mad at me. He was convinced I’d been sent to seduce his brothers, and he was determined to get me to admit it.
But after the Blackfire Tournament, a lot of things changed.
For one, we had sex that didn’t begin as an argument. And for another, he openly admitted that he wants to protect me. That he cares about me.
That he trusts me.
He didn’t make a whole big flowery speech about it or anything, but he’s not really the big speech type. He communicates more with his actions than his words, and he’s shown me in a lot of little ways how he feels about me. Honestly, the fact that he’s willing to accept my help with something like patching him up after a fight is a pretty big deal for a guy like Wrath.
I watch him go with a sappy grin on my face, then settle back on the couch next to Sawyer.
The room suddenly seems very quiet in the absence of six of the sins. It’s just Sawyer and me left.
I look over at him. His reddish-brown hair gleams in the light as he stares up at the ceiling. It doesn’t seem like he’s contemplating the paint job up there so much as avoiding my gaze. He’s been wrapped up in himself ever since our visit to the witch. Ever since Valentina spoke to him.
There wasn’t a lot of time to unpack it all while we were running for our lives, but I know that what she said affected him, and I want to help.
“You feeling okay?” I ask quietly.
Sawyer snorts. “Of course I am. Don’t tell me you fell for Valentina’s bullshit back there.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“It’s nonsense.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s not nonsense if it clearly affected you.”
Sawyer turns his head to look at me, arching an eyebrow. “I really don’t think this is any of your concern, angel.”
I shrug. When Sawyer turns on his lust power, he’s like a freaking magnet—it’s impossible to resist the pull. But right now, he’s doing the opposite. He’s trying to keep me at arm’s length, pushing me away so hard I can almost feel it like a physic
al force.
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” I say simply. “But I’m here to help you, if you want. We can talk about it. Having someone see through you that clearly and be able to… to curse you like that, it can’t be easy to deal with. I just want to lend my support.”
Something glints in his amber eyes as he cocks his head at me. “Mmm, you really are a sweet thing, aren’t you?”
On a dime, he switches tactics. Instead of a push, he turns it into a pull. I can feel heat starting to pour through me, and I realize that Sawyer’s using his power on me, just like he did when we first met. He’s flooding me with lust.
Logically, I know that.
Logically, I know he’s using his power as a defense mechanism, just another way to keep his walls up. He’s using it as a diversion because he doesn’t want to let me see any more of who he really is.
Logically, I understand exactly what he’s doing.
But the thing about lust is that it’s the antithesis of logic.
My breathing becomes shallower as arousal spikes in my veins, rushing to my head and frying my brain cells. I turn to face him, my thighs spreading, wet heat pulsing through me.
“Sawyer…”
I’m trying to sound annoyed, but the breathiness of my voice makes me sound more like I just came a little.
“Trinity…” He murmurs my name back, and the way he says it makes my clit throb. “Why are we wasting time talking about Valentina,” he asks, his hand sliding up my thigh, “when we could be doing much more enjoyable things instead?”
He bends down, and I lick my lips. But he avoids my mouth, dropping a kiss to my neck, to the hollow of my throat, to my collarbone. I whimper, squirming with desire. It feels so good. Every time his lips meet my skin, it both satisfies me and ramps up my need even higher, like he’s feeding an addiction deep inside me.
I want him.
I want him to kiss me, to put his mouth everywhere, his hands everywhere.
