"You say that like we haven't been feeding you," I said, climbing over her, taking my coffee when she handed it to me.
"No, it's gotten a lot better," she admitted. "How do I explain this to someone who doesn't really care about food?" she asked, pursing her lips.
It wasn't that we didn't care about food. We all used to. Eating had never been much of a thing where we were from, so when we came to the human plane, like many other things, eating had been something we'd all indulged in heavily. And each fifty years or so, the diet would change enough for us all to go through a phase again, testing out the new things humans had come up with. Food-like products that came in packages, were created in labs, not the actual food that came from the ground.
"Sometimes you just need something fatty and greasy that you didn't make yourself," she declared.
"Like pizza?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said, letting out a moan that was damn near sexual. "Exactly like pizza. Let's get pizza."
"We can do that. Anything else?"
"Can we see the ocean? I've seen the west coast, but not the east."
"It will be cold as fuck, but we can do that too."
"And fries."
"I thought you wanted pizza."
"I want pizza and fries. We puny mortals need to eat several times a day," she said, giving me a saucy smile. "Before you guys stole me, I used to have bigger boobs and butt, I swear," she added, tsking her tongue.
"In that case, why don't we do some pasta and ice cream?" I suggested, getting a girlish giggle out of her.
"I like the way you think."
I spent the day on pins and needles—and finally understood on a personal level what the humans meant by that turn of phrase—because a part of me was convinced Josephine was looking for the right moment to flag down a stranger, to tell them she'd been kidnapped, to beg for help, to run away from me and never look back again.
I couldn't shake the feeling, even as she told me about her mom, about the childhood she'd once played down like she hadn't struggled, when they clearly had.
It was there when we got a table at a packed pizza place, and she had eyes only for me. Well, only for me until a pile of grease and cheese and bread was put on a plate in front of us. Then I was pretty sure she preferred the pizza to me. At least until she grumbled that I'd let her eat too much and Red's borrowed skirt was too tight.
So we went ahead and picked up some pants. And my stomach was in knots as she tried on different pairs, modeling a few for me, asking me for input. When she dipped back into the changing room area, I was paranoid she wouldn't come back to me. Even though she did.
It was a present worry even when we went to the ocean, and she'd gasped and grabbed my hand. When she showed me the shells she found, holding one up with the glee of a little kid and declared, "This is a mermaid's toenail!"
By the time we swung by some drive-through to get her a greasy meal out of a bag which she ate while dancing around to some atrocious song on the radio, I started to feel some of the tension leave my shoulders.
Something dangerous uncurled through my system, something I could only name hope.
"That was the most fun I've had in a long time," she declared as we started down the long road to the house, the sun already well set. "And I don't just mean since you kidnapped me," she added, sending me a saucy smile as she licked the ice cream cone she swore she didn't have room for. "What?" she asked when she did another slow, deliberate lick while keeping eye-contact.
"You know what," I told her, voice rough.
"Well," she said, licking the corner of her mouth. "If you want to hold this for me," she said, pushing the cone into my hands as she moved up to her knees on the seat, "maybe I can see for myself what," she finished, leaning over the center console of the SUV, pulling my cock out, and sucking me deep.
It was right then that I finally felt the uncertainty leave my body. Because she'd had more than a dozen chances to get away from me. But she chose to come home with me. She chose to come home with me then go down on me in the front seat of the car in the driveway.
She didn't want to go anywhere.
She wanted to be right beside me.
And under me.
And on top of me.
But most of all, she wanted to be with me.
That was a high I was still riding as we settled in the library with Ly and Lenore. Drex had taken Daemon with him to the club. Minos was off, well, being Minos—probably sulking and listening to sad shit on repeat.
The girls had put their heads together and decided to put on some show about some brothers who hunted down and killed demons. They claimed to fuck with us, but they were clearly into it as Ly openly scoffed at the plots and I zoned out with a book, happy to have Josephine sitting near me, even if we weren't into doing the same thing at all times. A different kind of intimacy, if you will.
It was a perfectly fucking normal evening.
And, at first, when we heard the bikes, I didn't immediately jump to anything negative, figuring maybe the guys had decided to head back early on their little mission.
It wasn't until they got closer that Ly and I started to share unsure looks with each other.
There were too many bikes.
"Turn the TV off," Ly snapped, getting to his feet.
Lenore jumped, dropping the remote, having to scramble for it to turn the show off as the bikes came up the driveway.
"What's going on?" Josephine asked, following me as I got off the couch, going toward the bookshelf to grab the guns we kept stashed there.
Sure, if Ly and I decided to Change, we could tear humans to shreds with our bare hands. But that was a last resort for obvious reasons.
We'd pissed off plenty of people just by being bikers, by making deals that put other clubs out of business, by being assholes as a whole.
Any one of those clubs could come for retribution. We could easily handle that with some gunfire.
"Stay back," I demanded, pushing Josephine behind my back as Ly moved to do the same, even if Lenore wasn't mortal anymore. She could still get hurt. It still mattered to Ly to protect her.
The engines cut.
Footsteps made their way up the path.
They didn't pause to ring, to knock, just charged in like they owned the joint, like they were welcome.
There were what seemed like ten of them in all, coming to a stop inside the doorway.
There was something primal and otherworldly about them immediately, something that made me stiffen, that made Josephine let out a startled gasp.
It was that sound that did it.
It pushed past whatever strange boundary that had been in the way, whatever it was that made me flicker, that made me dance around what I think everyone knew was coming.
It was her fear that brought it out of me.
The Change.
But more instantaneously.
And with dramatics.
Meaning a low, feral growl escaped me even as my wings shot out from my skin.
I hadn't felt or seen my wings in so long I'd forgotten how they'd felt like an extension of myself, like extra arms. And one of those wings had wrapped around a startled Josephine encircling her completely.
To that, the leader of the group of men who weren't quite men lifted a brow slowly. Not shocked and not interested, even. It was at once curious and dismissive.
"You've been here too fucking long," he growled.
Growled because that was how his voice sounded. Like a growl.
I didn't recognize him personally.
But he was as tall as I was, but a mountain of a man. Wide, strong, with arms that were bigger than my thighs, a chest that looked like you could bounce shit off of.
His hair was dark, cut short at the sides and slightly longer on the top, there was a matching beard on his tan face, and something about him spoke of what humans would consider Middle Eastern lineage, though he had no accent at all to speak of it.
His eyes were black.
Cold, lethal, merciless.
Those were words that came to mind immediately.
"Here?" Ly asked, recovering before I did, making me look to see his wings were out as well, but only curled around Lenore, not wrapping her up completely. Not yet anyway. He'd long-since gotten used to his Claiming of his woman. He could control it better.
"Earth. The human plane. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. Not home."
"Home?" I clarified, drawing his gaze over to me again.
"Are we really playing these fucking games? I got shit to do. I don't have time for it."
"Then why are you here?" I asked, voice getting a little more threatening.
"I hear you've been looking for me."
Ly and I shared a quick glance, both of us realizing it at the same time.
This wasn't some biker we pissed off.
It wasn't some supernatural who didn't like us.
No.
This was fucking Marceaus.
The oldest of us.
The most brutal of us.
Red's mentor.
"You're Marceuas?" I asked, feeling the tension leaving my shoulders, letting my wing relax as well, tucking Josephine close, but not blocking her completely.
"Yeah, and as I said, I don't have the fucking time for this. What do you want?"
"Red."
"Red what?" he asked, brows screeching.
"Not what, who," I corrected. "Red. She worked for you. You trained her."
The realization came over him in a wave, making him lose some of the tension.
"I haven't seen her since she disappeared."
"She didn't disappear. She came up here," I explained. "To the human plane. Got sucked up with the rest of us."
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "That fits," he agreed. "What about her? I haven't seen her if you're looking for her."
"We're not looking for her. She's upstairs," I explained. "She went back down when we found an opening," I told him, not wanting to give away our secrets, let any other demons know they could use the witches if they wanted to. We'd been decent enough to them, but I couldn't guarantee all our kind would.
"And she's back?" he asked, confused.
"Yeah. She came back. Fucking battered. Every inch of her whipped. Toenails pulled out."
"What?" he barked, all that tension that had fled coming back with vengeance.
"Yeah. We're as confused as you are. But we were looking for you because that's not it."
"How is it not it?"
"She's healed. Very, very slowly," I told him, seeing the confusion we'd felt at witnessing it. "With human medical assistance," I added. "But something else is wrong with her."
"Show me," he demanded, waving his arm out, making his men fall back several steps. "Relax," he added when my wing tightened around Josephine. "I have no fucking use for your little human," he added. The pure indifference in his voice said he wasn't lying. But I kept her tucked at my side as we led him upstairs, leaving Ly and Lenore and Minos—who'd heard the ruckus and emerged in the shadows to keep an eye on things—to watch over Marceaus's men.
I led him into Red's room, stopping halfway in, waving at the bed. "She's been like this since she came up."
"No," Josephine corrected, making Marceaus look at her fully for the first time. "No," she started again, clearing her throat awkwardly. "At first, she was screaming. Non-stop screaming."
"She's still fucking screaming," Marceaus said, jaw ticking.
"What do you mean she's screaming?" I asked, confused.
He didn't answer, though. Instead, he made his way toward the bed, kneeling on the end, whipping off the blankets, and grabbing Red with rough hands, yanking her around.
"Hey," Josephine snapped, trying to charge forward, getting held in place by my wing.
I admired her desire to take care of her patient, but she was a fool if she thought she could stop this man.
Hell, I would be a fool to think I could.
Besides, I didn't think he was trying to hurt her.
He was checking her out, looking at her wounds, making grumbling noises to himself as he inspected every inch of her feet, her legs, thighs, stomach, chest, arms.
Finally, he flipped her onto her stomach, grabbing her hair as he leaned forward.
"What is he doing?" Josephine demanded.
But I had no answers for her.
All I knew was that Marceaus seemed to know what he was doing, was looking for something.
I knew it the second he found it, too.
Because he snarled.
If I hadn't been watching so closely, I would have missed him reaching into his back pocket. I would have missed the knife in his hand.
As it was, I was too slow to say or do anything before he was leaning over Red's body, slicing into her scalp.
"No!" Josephine shrieked, again trying to surge forward.
But it was over.
It was already over.
He'd carved a piece of skin off of her skull.
Then tossed it onto the bed, turning, and making his way back toward the door with bloodied hands.
"Where the fuck are you going?" I raged at him.
"Got shit to handle," he returned in his growling voice.
Like that, he was gone, and Josephine was pulling against my wing, trying to get to Red.
I let her go.
Because I was going in that direction as well.
But while she jumped on the bed to inspect the wound, my focus wasn't on Red herself, but the part of her that Marceaus had cut off.
And there it was.
What we had all missed all along.
The source of her screaming.
Both audible and silent, it seemed.
"What is it?" Josephine demanded, pressing the bedsheet to Red's bleeding wound.
It likely wouldn't bleed for long, though.
Because Marceaus had found the reason she hadn't healed in the first place.
"It's a cross tattoo," I told her, my mouth barely able to get the words out, my jaw was so tight.
"What?"
"A cross," I told her again. "We're evil," I reminded her.
"Oh! Oh," she said, brows furrowing. "Right. Holy things burn. But then... then how did that happen? How could demons do that to her?"
"They couldn't have," I told her. "Don't fucking ask me how, but humans did this. In hell."
Which meant shit had gotten bad down there.
If humans were able to act up.
If they were able to overpower one of us.
"I don't understand," Josephine said.
"Neither do I," I admitted. "Neither do I. But I do know one thing."
"What's that?"
"Red is going to be up and rearing to go in a couple hours at most."
"No."
"Yes, absolutely."
"That's not possible. She's too far gone."
As it turned out, we were both right.
Red woke up just about two hours after her former mentor and his men cleared out.
She'd looked around at us, confused for a moment. Then she'd taken all the information we'd tossed at her while she lounged in bed, her hand pressing absentmindedly at her tattooed spot, the flesh healed back over.
"Wait. Marcaeaus was here?" she asked. "And he's gone?"
That was when Josephine became right.
She woke up.
Then she got dressed.
And she was far, far gone.
Chasing after a man she clearly had a thing or two to say to.
"Are we going to talk about it?" Josephine asked after all the crazy died down, after the men and I had discussed it, had called the others to explain, to tell them to head home.
"Talk about what?" I asked as we sat on the couch in the living room.
"About this," she said, reaching out to stroke her fingers over my wing. The one that was still wrapped protectively around her. "This means you,
ah..."
"Claimed you," I supplied, finding the words a little clumsier on my tongue than I would have expected since I'd had hours to realize the same thing, to come to terms with it.
"Yes, Claimed me," she agreed, shooting an uncertain look my way, then focusing on my wing instead.
"It means what I explained to you. I've chosen you. You will always be all the one for me. I will protect you at all costs for the rest of your life. Whether you choose me back or not," I added, thinking of Minos and his unknown woman. The one who wanted nothing to do with him. The one who turned his once lively self into a miserable sack.
"You're immortal," she said, chewing her lower lip.
"Yes," I agreed.
"I'm mortal," she finished.
"Yes, you are."
"So, what, you would choose me and care about me and protect me even when I am white-haired and hunched over and smelling of arthritis cream?"
"Yes, Josephine, even then. It isn't about your looks. It's you. The whole package."
"What if... what happens when I die?" she asked, looking over at me, eyes sad.
"You've seen Minos," I told her. "Something like that. Something would always feel like it was missing if you weren't here."
Her eyes looked a bit glassy at that.
Not for herself.
For the pain a future version of myself might feel.
"What if... what if I didn't want to die?"
"You can't make that decision."
"It's my life. Mortal or not," she insisted, those tears vanishing. Her chin lifted; her spine straightened. I liked her soft and sweet, but her headstrong and defiant was sexy as fuck.
"Fine," I said, giving her a small smile, trailing a finger down her tight jaw. "You can't make that decision right now," I told her. "We can revisit it in a while if you decide your feelings aren't going to change."
I could tell she didn't like that answer, but the rational part of her had to admit there was merit to my suggestion.
"I guess I can live with that," she agreed.
"And me?" I asked. "At least for now?" I qualified.
"I think that can be arranged," she said, giving me a smile before climbing on my lap, sealing her lips over mine.
True, I might one day have to confront the idea of her no longer choosing me.
But right then, right that moment, she was choosing me.
And that was all that mattered.
The Healer (Seven Sins MC Book 2) Page 15
