But one day he’d escaped. Like me.
And he’d sworn vengeance.
But the man who’d so heinously abused him was killed before Ryodan got the chance, and he’d been cheated of his vengeance.
He said, “For thirty-two years, three months, and eighteen days, I carried rage and hatred for everything and everyone in my heart. Thirty-two years I walked around, dead inside except for a single emotion: fury. Then I found him. Alive. I’d been deceived. He hadn’t died. The bones I’d dug up and crushed to dust weren’t his. His friends had protected him. Lied. Transported him away.”
Another image: Ryodan killing a man who was well into his seventies. Snap of a neck. Life to death in an instant.
“And it didn’t make you feel any better,” I murmured, lost in another, ancient time.
He took his hands from my head and I opened my eyes.
“Wrong. It made all the difference in the world. The moment I killed him, the poison inside me vanished. I was weightless. Free. I was born that day. I needed the vengeance. I needed to kill him. Right or wrong, that’s who I am. Sometimes people take too much from you and you have to take back.”
I nodded. I understood. Killing Ro would have soldered shut a weeping wound inside me, but as a teen I’d stayed my hand for one reason alone: the other sidhe-seers would have ostracized me, and I’d wanted to be with them. When you’re young, people don’t believe you can think straight and have good reasons for things. Mac could have gotten away with killing her because an adult’s word carries weight. Mine didn’t. I wouldn’t have felt one ounce of regret. I would have felt that a rabid dog had been put down and that was what you had to do with rabid dogs. I wouldn’t have tortured or drawn it out. I never do. And yes, it would have made my anger go away. Especially after I’d learned the extent of her involvement with my mother. I would have felt that justice had been served.
“I wanted to kill Rowena more than you know,” he said. “But I wanted you to do it more.”
I inclined my head in a wordless thank-you.
“Get Dancer,” he said. “I’ll take you through and help you free Shazam. But then the three of you will leave that world for a new one and never look back. Seize life, Dani. For fuck’s sake, I saw your mother’s plaque.”
“Right, and who’s the snoop now?” I said with a strained, wry smile, but sobered instantly. “Mac told me a few weeks ago that you’re bound to this planet, reborn here, so if the planet is destroyed, you’ll die, too.” Although she’d said she wasn’t certain if the Nine would die instantly or continue living until they were killed, then not be able to be reborn. Regardless, it would be the end of their immortality: instantly or within a normal life span.
“Mac’s talking too much.”
“The world’s ending. Get over it.” I reached up and touched his hair, traced the planes of his hard, chiseled face. I was touching Ryodan. And he was just standing there, letting me do it, looking as surprised as I felt. This touching stuff was addictive now that I’d begun doing it. It freaked me out. I didn’t know the rules. Part of me wanted to hug everyone and see how they all felt. Part of me never wanted to hug again. I resented the intensity of all the emotions I was feeling. Things had been so clear as Jada. Nothing was clear anymore. Except that Ryodan was strong and electrifying and so bloody alive. And in a week, give or take a few days, whether I went through to Shazam or went where a superhero should go—to lead the colonists on another world, relinquishing my personal desires because that’s what superheroes did and you never saw a happy superhero—he might be dead. I’d never get to see him again. I’d lose my archnemesis and my mentor and the man that felt so much joy you could almost catch in your hands when he laughed. I didn’t want him dead. I wanted him to be immortal and always out there, with something to tell me, doing something to challenge me. I wanted to know he was alive somewhere, always.
I didn’t think before I did it.
I stretched to my full height and kissed him. Like I kissed Dancer. Soft, sensual butterfly wings against his lips. Unlike the last kiss I gave Ryodan, this wasn’t one to provoke or challenge or say “Fuck you—can’t touch this.” It was a kiss that said simply, “I see you and admire you and want you to live.”
He froze, and just when I was realizing what an idiotic thing I’d done and began to pull away, the temperature in the office ratcheted up fifty degrees like the air was on fire, and I was on fire and so was he, and he was kissing me back in a way I didn’t know a kiss could be.
It was so different than kissing Dancer. Dancer’s kiss was sweet and dreamy and exciting. Ryodan’s kiss had razor edges, sharp and dangerous as the man. Being in Dancer’s arms was like living on the edible planet. Being in Ryodan’s was like stepping into the eye of a cyclone. Dancer was easy laughter and a normal future (sans abrupt death). Ryodan was endless challenge and a future that was impossible to imagine.
Dancer accepted me any way I wanted to be without question. Ryodan made me question myself and pushed me to be the most I could be.
Then my hair was loose and his hands were buried in it, and he was kissing me so deeply his fangs grazed my teeth and I tasted blood. I was acutely aware of every inch of my body that was touching every inch of his: his forearm grazing the side of my neck, his hands cradling my skull, his mouth so soft yet hard, his powerful chest against the only part of me that wasn’t muscle, one of his thighs slipping between my legs, making my knees tremble and nearly buckle.
He kissed like he did everything, with exquisite skill, passion, and one hundred percent focus. Here was where Ryodan shed his aloof businessman attire, his cool facade, and came to life with the heat and intensity of a thousand suns. And I realized that was what had so entranced me on Level 4—I’d seen him drop all his guards and fuck like a man on fire, with nothing held back. Open, unguarded, just like he’d been when we’d talked.
Ryodan, controlled, is formidably fascinating.
Ryodan, open, is indescribably addictive.
He kissed me like I was the empire he was sworn to protect and would die a thousand deaths to keep secure. He kissed me like I was a woman with a deep dark wildness that needed to be fed and he knew just how to do it. He kissed me like he was dying and this was the last kiss he would ever taste. Then his kiss changed and his tongue was velvet and silk as he kissed me like I was fine bone china that needed exacting care and gentleness. Then the storm built in both of us and I ground myself against him, and he was searching with his kiss and his hands sliding down to my ass for the part of me that was a savage animal and so was he and we were going to forget the world and become two primal, uncomplicated beasts fucking as if the universe depended on our passion to fuel it. And I was pretty sure we could. I felt something building in me, a hunger that was exhilarated to be alive and knew it could come out and play as hard as it wanted, because I could never break this man. Not even with all my superpowers. I could dump every bit of myself on him and never have to worry about giving him a heart attack or breaking a bone or giving him a black eye by accident. He could handle anything. My high temper, my need for adventure and stimulation, my intellect, rages, and rants, my sheer physical strength, even the darkness of my shadow-self. He was a broad-shouldered beast. He was hard and capable and permanent and had an immortal heart. A frenzy of lust exploded inside me and I met the savagery of his kiss with all the savagery in my soul, and there is one fuck of a lot of it. With a distant part of my brain, I thought about Dancer and wondered if he could handle perhaps a small portion of this part of me and if maybe I was holding back not just because I was afraid to be so damned fucking vulnerable but also because I was afraid I might hurt him and—
Ryodan broke the kiss and pushed me away so abruptly that I stumbled backward over the chair behind me and nearly went down. My body was cold where the heat of his hands had been. My legs were shaking and I was so full of heat and need that I couldn’t even speak for a moment. I just stood there, wanting him back, touching me again, holding me,
taking me apart inside and waking every cell up. What would it be like to get naked with this man, shut the world out and let go of everything, knowing he could handle all of it for me? Walk away from responsibility, let him take over, feel safe. Get to rest. Recharge. Go out into the world whole.
I regained my balance and stood, staring blankly at him. He’d opened a box inside me that I couldn’t shut. Not fast anyway. “Wait, what?” I shook my head, trying to clear my stupor. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You need to leave. Now,” he gritted.
“That’s not what you mean. Your body doesn’t remotely mean that.” I hurt from the lack of contact with his body.
“You’re a fucking virgin.”
“Oxymoron. I’m a nonfucking virgin. And there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin. I kept it for a reason.”
“Get out,” he repeated, and his silver eyes went cold and hard as ancient coins. The open, unguarded man disappeared right before my eyes and it pained me to see him go. It felt like being cut off from something sacred. Like being deemed not sacred enough to get to see it.
“Right, so now you get to be Jada?” I snapped.
“Jada had purpose. I just didn’t want you to be her all the time.”
My hands fisted at my sides. “I don’t get it. You kiss everyone else. For fuck’s sake, you kissed Jo. I’m as pretty as Jo.”
“You. Aren’t. Everyone else.” He paused, then said in a rough voice, “And you’re not pretty. Goddamn it, Dani. You’re beautiful.”
“And there’s yet one more reason why what you’re saying makes no sense,” I said angrily. He could die! “What if you die and never get to kiss me again?”
Silver eyes narrowed, glittering with anger. “That’s why you wanted to have sex with me? Because I might die sooner than Dancer and you figured you might as well fuck us in the order of who would die first?”
I bristled. “I didn’t say I wanted to fuck you. I was just kissing you. And you were kissing me back. And you were liking it.”
He stepped back and the light fell in such a way that half his face was shadowed, one side clear and easy to see, the other concealed by darkness. “Come back in three days with Dancer,” he said as tonelessly as I’d ever sounded as Jada. “We’ll save Shazam. You’ll find a world and make a home with Dancer and never return to Earth.”
“Fuck you, Ryodan,” I said, stung by his rejection, his icy remoteness, and my return to being on the other side of his infernal walls. For a few minutes I’d been in the garden. And I’d been evicted.
“Just said no to that,” he said coolly.
I whirled and kicked up into the slipstream.
Nothing happened.
I was shorted out.
Sometimes I really hate that man. At the moment, I really, really hated him.
Pretending that I’d never even tried to freeze-frame, I stalked from his office, slowly, long-legged, and sexy as hell, showing him exactly what he was never going to have. I put into sensual motion all those incredible feelings that had been awakened in my body by him and Dancer.
He’d had his chance and blown it. Rejected me.
No man gets a second chance with Dani-O.
Not even the great Ryodan.
As the door slides closed, I rest my forehead against the cool glass.
My office feels empty without her in it. The sun vanished behind clouds.
She stood there looking at me with fire in her eyes, comparing herself to Jo, unable to see they weren’t remotely the same. Yes, I’d casually fucked Jo. One doesn’t casually fuck Danielle O’Malley.
Her energy is nuclear, white-hot and pure as the new-driven snow. Passion is where she’s united, suffering no conflicts. I might be forged of hellfire but the woman-child is forged of pure energy and emotion, fierce and Valkyrie-strong.
Another man will experience her raw self-discovery, the volatile nuances of her first time.
I could have watched her talk for days. Eyes shining, face luminous, heart blazing in her face so brilliantly it had illuminated my entire office, warmed my cooling skin.
I still feel the burn of her hands on my face, in my hair, sliding down my body as our kiss took a much deeper, more savage turn.
But a storm like me isn’t what should come crashing down on the last vestige of her innocence.
She needs a slow immersion with a gentle hand that gives far more than it takes, a man who will dance her slowly, tenderly, into love. She needs something the fierce-hearted warrior never had: a normal, good experience with a normal, good man.
I’m not that man.
Fucking me would make her more like me.
Fucking him will make her more like him.
I knew the child. I know the woman. She’ll never be satisfied with a single lover. Dani craves experience, challenge, change, tempering, growth. She needs to taste it all. I understand that.
One day she’ll choose a mate. She’ll hunger to be a wolf running with a wolf of her own at her side, equals in everything, and when that time comes, she’ll need to know she’s chosen the absolute best.
I am that man.
But she has no basis for comparison.
She’ll give her virginity to Dancer. Soon. She’s on fire.
She wears my brand.
I’ll feel far too much of it. This time and every time.
Immortal though I am—if I survive the next week—the coming years might seem my most eternal yet.
I will never be her first.
But one day I’ll be her last.
DANI
I stepped out of the shower and toweled myself dry, smiling, listening to the sounds of Dancer banging around in the kitchen getting dinner ready.
There was only this moment, this night. The warmth of home, the delight of my best friend making a homemade pizza, the promise of a movie we’d pause more often than we played so we could talk about everything under the sun.
I’d made a deal with myself—no thinking tonight. No thoughts of tomorrow or Shazam or Dancer’s heart or the fate of the world. I know a truth: worrying doesn’t make tomorrow better; it only makes today worse. I wanted a single golden night before I made the hard decisions I had to confront.
Mind neatly compartmentalized with my Jada parts put away and my Dani parts free, I dried my hair, ran my fingers through the tangles, then stepped back and looked at myself. Naked. Clear-eyed. No makeup. No perfume or lotion. Just me.
I’d realized something on the way back to the penthouse. Sex with Ryodan would have been just that, sex. It would have been intense, wild, mind-blowing. Sex with Dancer was much more complicated. It would be making love. It would be sweet, tender, and heart-blowing. But hopefully not literally.
I’d figured out a way to trick myself. Since Dancer taking off my jeans was the moment I kept freezing up, I just wouldn’t put any on. Problem solved.
When I walked naked out of the bathroom, Dancer’s back was to me, but he must have heard me because he turned around, holding the pie and teased, “Mega, I know you definitely want mushrooms on your p-p—PUH.”
The pizza hit the floor and exploded when he dropped it. Crust went flying and sauce splattered across the floorboards and up the cabinets. Not that he noticed.
“Holy fucking fuck!” he said fiercely, then stood with his mouth ajar, saying nothing. After a moment he snapped it shut so hard his teeth clacked together.
He stood there, trying to keep his gaze on my face, like maybe it wouldn’t be polite to stare at my body, and I teased, “Dancer, you big gorgeous geek, I took all my clothes off so you would look at me.”
Permission granted, his gaze dropped like a stone. He looked down, up, down, and up again. I shivered as his gaze moved over me, making me feel hot and cold at the same time.
He stared and stared, and just when I was wondering what I might have to do to move things along, he reached behind his head, yanked off his shirt, unbuckled his belt, dropped his jeans, kicked them away into the piz
za sauce, and he was naked, too.
“Couldn’t let you be naked alone,” he murmured.
“No,” I agreed, “that wouldn’t be right.”
“And I want everything to be right. I want it to be perfect for us. For you. You deserve that.” He moved toward me—finally!—still looking me up and down, slow and intense and astonished and gratifyingly awed.
For all my bluster about being epic when I finally had sex, I felt shaky and nervous and not at all composed. Butterflies fluttered from my stomach all the way up my throat. I tested my ability to access the slipstream. It was gone and I was relieved. I didn’t want to hurt him. “I’m pretty sure, since neither of us have done this before, it won’t be perfect.” But he was perfect. I’d seen my share of naked men, and although Dancer got shorted in the heart department, he hadn’t been shorted anywhere else. He was young and hot and sexy and his eyes were brilliant and shining and round with wonder.
“Are you kidding me?” He reached for my hand “With our IQs and hearts, if we can’t make love right, there’s something seriously wrong with us.”
I let him lead me, walking slightly behind him, enjoying the view of his back and ass. His skin was darker than mine but then again pretty much everyone’s is, and I couldn’t wait to touch it everywhere. As he moved, muscles rippled, and I shivered thinking about him stretching naked on top of me, pushing inside, wrapping my legs around him. His name suited him. He moved like a dancer, powerful, controlled, strong.
Stopping at the bed, he turned, stared at me a long moment, then with an explosive exhale said, “Christ, Dani, you’re so beautiful. So, so…”
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