“Is that Lilith?” he asked, pointing to the stone statue of the Goddess standing proud, holding circular objects in each hand.
I nodded. And then, because his eyes belonged on me and not a stone carving or colorful fabrics, I climbed onto the queen-sized, four-poster bed. On my knees at the edge of the bed, I was at eye level with Marcus who was still standing, except of course, his eyes were pointed elsewhere. Never mind. A woman always has her tricks.
I unbuttoned Marie’s black silk shirt from my chest one…button…at…a…time until he noticed from the corner of his eye and delicately unfastened the last two buttons himself. The top fell away from my shoulders like liquid. Marcus lowered his mouth until soft kisses quickly covered my shoulders and collarbone. Chills ran through me. His touch did things to me, good things. And I wanted so much more than his lips.
As if he read my mind, his strong hands gripped my waist and pressed upward, cupping the undersides of my breasts. He stepped as close to the bed as possible, until his thighs pushed into the side of the mattress. Everything in me wanted to tear his cotton shirt from his chest, but I wasn’t going to stop kissing the tops of his tattooed shoulders to ask if he’d brought another shirt with him.
Logic slowed my thrumming heart. He couldn’t have brought a shirt; he’d been run out of town with my coterie by our enemies.
No. I couldn’t entertain reality. For just a few stolen minutes, I wished that shit would stay on the floor.
Marcus’s lips found mine as his fingers went to work unbuttoning my pants.
And for the next hour, the only reality that mattered lay entangled on the bed, breathing each other in, and wishing to the Goddess herself we could be like this always.
I wouldn’t have led him up to our own private sanctuary if I hadn’t thought Marie would approve. Based on Celeste’s disapproving expression when Marcus and I finally showed up for breakfast forty-five minutes late, I may have misjudged the situation. Although, I couldn’t be sure if Celeste believed Marie would disapprove because I’d bedded an ex-Hunter in her room, or if it was Celeste who disapproved that she and I had now both had sex on the same bed. Either way, not an inch of me regretted it.
Okay, yeah, Celeste’s upturned brow when Marcus and I walked to the small dining table, hand-in-hand did give me pause. But only because, for those moments upstairs, it felt like those first times we were together, back before we attacked the Washington Hunter complex, back before I’d introduced him to my coterie and the other Wilds. Back before their disapproval of our relationship became a reality rather than an assumption.
And of course, that thought led to another, how Marcus really was on the outside. My coterie had accepted his help in taking down the Hunter complex and his support of Shawna. But just because they approved of him, did not mean they approved of us. Not to mention, the other Wilds didn’t approve of Marcus, not even as a helper, or a giver of intel. So if he’d stood back when he and my coterie had first arrived and shared hugs of absolute relief…stood back from a group of Wilds who actually accepted him…then how much worse would it be for him when we reunited with the other Wilds to complete our mission?
If there was still even a mission to complete.
I hated that my mind wandered to Alek and Marie. Aleksander was a male, but because he wasn’t a Hunter, he and his pacifist ways would probably be more welcomed by other Wilds than Marcus. Not that any part of me held any type of feelings for Aleksander. It was just that as I sat beside Marcus and scooped cold eggs onto my plate, I realized where the line had been drawn, and that Marcus was not on our side of that line. Which, in my mind, made absolutely no sense, seeing as he’d put himself on the line more often than Aleksander turned that opportunity down.
I caught Celeste’s look of discomfort.
“You worried about Marie?” I asked to clear the air and break the uncomfortable silence brewing between the two of us. If she had something to say she might as well get it out rather than constipate herself holding it all in.
“Why? Should I be?” she retorted.
“You tell me,” I responded in what was turning out to be a cat and mouse chase with words. Only, I couldn’t be sure who played the role of the cat and who played the mouse.
I took a bite of cold toast, wet with congealed butter.
“Everyone is tired and tense right now,” Olivia said with arms outstretched over the table. The other coterie members had no way of knowing the bubbling feud between my sister and me, how she clearly felt my being with Marcus was unfair while her love languished underground. A decision Marie made, I might add.
And so I let them all know. “She chose to go, Celeste. Don’t blame me for that. Blame her.”
“Marie didn’t want to go; she did what was right for her galere, for her sisters.” Celeste’s eyes bore into mine, tears trapped behind lids. “She parted from me, the person she claimed to have feelings for, for the good of her kind.”
Shawna and my aunts stopped to listen. One of them gasped at Celeste’s revelation.
“And how does that have anything to do with me?” I asked.
Celeste shook her head. “That’s what I can’t stop going over in my mind, that exact question. Because I think the answer is nothing. It has nothing to do with you because I don’t think you could leave the person you have feelings for, for the good of your kind.”
I sprang from my seat and Celeste mirrored me.
“Whoa!” Olivia yelled, stretching her arms out, one to each arguing sister. “This has gone too far! Celeste.” She turned to my standing, dark-haired sister. “It’s okay to be upset that you’ve finally found this special person, this special bond with someone you can actually have a future with, just to have it ripped away. You can be angry about that. You should be angry about that.”
“Because she won’t go into hiding with them!” Celeste yelled, pointing her head toward me.
“Oh my Goddess. I cannot believe you’re even considering giving up,” I exclaimed, ready to rip into her with my words.
“And Faline,” Olivia yelled, now turned to me. “It’s okay that you feel betrayed by the succubi galere, who promised to help and now they’re turning tail and running. But that’s their right, to change their minds about what’s best for them is their right.”
“To leave the other Wilds in captivity should be okay with me?” I said. “Well, it’s not. It just put the rest of us in a more dire situation than we were already in.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like to be a succubus,” Celeste added, tears rolling down her cheeks. “They can feel everything, all of it, our fear, our hurt. When we all get together, they have to feel all of our burdens. Now imagine if one of them were caught by a Hunter, imagine how that’d feel for them.”
Fire burned in me. “I don’t have to imagine it. I got to see it through our sister. Our. Sister. And if your precious succubus could feel our sister’s pain, then why didn’t they help her with it? If they knew, why didn’t they do anything?”
“You have no idea, do you?” Celeste walked around the side of the table, and Olivia moved too, to stay between the two of us. “Shawna’s PTSD isn’t just a feeling, an emotion. The effects of it are, and Marie wished more than anything she could remove the effects, but the relief would only be temporary and then Shawna would know the pain all over again. Marie was helping by stepping back on that one. And yes, our sister is rescued. Marie’s sisters helped make that happen. And now that they’ve seen those effects, they’re not willing to risk that happening to one of them!”
“Stop it!” Shawna screamed from the living room. She balled her fists at her side. “Stop talking about me like I’m mental or not here. I’m here. And I’m not mental!”
Abigale rushed to her daughter’s side. Shawna’s fists loosened.
“I care for Marcus,” Shawna went on. “He’s helped me a tremendous amount. More than I’ll ever be able to repay.” She shot a glance to the man sitting near me and then looked back towar
d Celeste and me. “So if Faline wants him around, I’m all for it. Because shouldn’t I get a say in this? He did help rescue me after all.” She paused and exhaled. “And if the succubi are scared and want to hide, I don’t blame them. No one should have to go through what I went through. And I wouldn’t ask anyone to volunteer to risk making that sacrifice.”
“But there are Wilds still going through what you went through,” I said on a breath, feeling exhausted and somewhat defeated. My sisters were my life, and to know one of them held contention for me…it hurt.
Only Marcus sat at the table. The rest of us stood, in a silent tense state, waiting for someone to make a move, to spew the next accusation that would set another off.
The front door to the apartment burst open, catching us totally off guard, and each Wild jumped into attack mode.
“I’m a friendly, an incubus!” the young-looking male announced before we could pounce, his hands in the air. I recognized him as the incubus we’d met in the incubi underground, lover of the succubus Heather.
Still, the bark suddenly covering my arm stayed put.
“The succubi,” he said, panting. “They never returned. They went to the Hunters and they never returned!”
Sixteen
The incubus smartly kept from crossing the threshold into the apartment. And we smartly waited for him to catch his breath and explain what the hell he was talking about before jumping at him for answers.
When he could finally stand straight and breathe at the same time, he looked to my aunts who’d gathered near one another, as he explained, “Their leader—”
“Marie?” Celeste asked, cutting him off.
He regarded her for a moment and then went back to talking to my aunts. I assumed he figured the hierarchy of a huldra coterie resembled that of an incubi hoard—elders were in charge. He figured wrong.
“Yes, Marie, I believe that’s her name.” He paused as though Celeste had confused his thoughts and crossed a few wires. When he got back on line, he continued. “Their leader took them all to their check-in, to the Hunter complex.”
“Wait,” I interrupted, now my turn to confuse the poor guy. “Why they hell would they do that? They had sanctuary underground with you all.”
The young incubus’s blank eyes met mine. He didn’t even try to offer up an explanation.
I re-approached my question in a way that maybe he’d understand and therefore answer. “When were they due back?”
“Due back?” he asked.
Damn, I’d crossed his wires again. I peered at the time on the microwave. “It’s almost nine o’clock in the morning. What time was their check-in?” I said.
“Oh.” The light of understanding lit his eyes. “It was at seven-thirty. I would have been here sooner, but I went to the rental first, where Aleksander said you’d be.”
“Their check-in was only an hour and a half ago?” I double checked.
He nodded.
“Okay, then.” I turned to ease Celeste’s worry. “They haven’t been gone long. Maybe their lesson session ran over. Maybe a new rule was enacted that they’d have to learn about.”
“Who sent you, exactly?” Celeste asked Mason, who now leaned against the door frame.
“Aleksander,” he answered, and maybe it was just me, but I thought I heard reverence in his voice when he uttered his leader’s name.
“He wouldn’t have sent someone if everything was normal,” Celeste said to no one and everyone.
“They’re incubi,” I reminded her. “They’ve not had to deal with check-ins a day in their lives. They don’t know what’s normal and not normal. Wasn’t Aleksander just saying that dealing with the Hunters was a necessary difficulty for Wild Women? Clearly he’s so far out of the loop that any thoughts or feelings he has on the topic are irrelevant.”
“He’s also a very powerful incubus,” the young man added.
We considered him for a moment, and he seemed to finally realize he was standing before a deadly huldra coterie. He straightened from leaning against the door frame and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
“Well,” I said in an antagonizing tone. I’d had enough of the incubi coming in, acting like they understood shit that was so out of their realm of existence that they assumed they knew all about it. “I do apologize for our obvious ignorance in the ways of the world, but you still haven’t told me why the succubi went to check-in at all. And also, what would give Alek any indication that the women were in trouble?”
Mason’s eyes shot to me. “Oh, he doesn’t like being called Alek.”
“I’ll take note of that,” I answered, mentally reminding myself to call the incubi leader Alek to his face the first chance I got.
“And,” the incubus continued. “We feel energy. I can’t sense that there’s anything wrong with the succubi, but if Aleksander sent me to fetch you then he must be feeling something.”
Celeste grabbed her purse from the couch and slipped her shoes on beside the front door. The incubus took a few steps back when my sister got too close. Is this out of fear of the unknown or something else, I wondered.
“He’s come to fetch us,” Celeste said, repeating the incubus. “I’m going to find out why.”
Five more incubi had been waiting in an alley when we arrived. Marcus refused to allow them to place a covering over his head and lead him into their underground home. I quickly agreed, citing that Aleksander could just as well meet us out in the open rather than having us go through the trouble of coming to him. Celeste bucked my opinion a little, but in the end, the discomfort of our fellow coterie members won out and she sided with her kind.
It took another twenty minutes before Aleksander stood before us, his gaze bouncing from me to Marcus and back again. If he was as powerful as his subordinate believed, he was connecting the dots of Marcus and my relationship. I almost wanted to ask him to let me know what he found once we were done, because when it came to Marcus and me our feelings for each other were so clear they confused me. Maybe for a mermaid and a human that kind of clarity would be illuminating. But for a huldra and a Hunter? Not so much.
When the two men, both over six foot and riddled with muscles, were done peacocking, I started in. “So, Alek, what’s this about the succubi going to check-in?”
The sun shone in the sky on this crisp morning, but its light failed to touch us, crammed in between two multi-story brick buildings. Wet remnants of boxes lay between a large trash bin and a moss-covered wall.
Aleksander bristled at my title for him, but he didn’t openly object. “You were not in the safe house I had secured for you.”
Celeste answered before I strung together enough words to turn down his offer. “We will gather our things and go straight there after this.”
I rolled my eyes. Apparently, my coterie had made the decision during breakfast while Marcus and I were upstairs. I didn’t blame them for wanting to feel secure, and admittedly, that was the exact point of a safe house. But nothing came without a cost, not even safe houses.
“I feel a shift in Portland and its surrounding areas,” Marcus started, answering my earlier question about why he thought the succubi were in trouble. He eyed Marcus again before pretending to relax by leaning against a brick wall void of moss. He folded his arms in front of him and kicked a leather shoe up behind him to wedge onto the wall. “An energy shift. It feels heavier around here.”
Seeing as I didn’t feel energy any more than anyone else, I had to take him at his word. Still, I wasn’t gullible either. “Couldn’t that be caused by an incoming natural disaster or something?” I asked, thinking about how I’d read that animals can sense impending disasters and run for the hills before it claims their lives.
He nodded. “It can, Faline. Very insightful for you to suggest. And I’d probably allow you to sway me into believing that’s precisely what I’m sensing. Except, I’ve been walking this earth for longer than his grandmother’s been alive.” Aleksander motioned to Marcus. “And in that tim
e I’ve picked up a few…helpful abilities. One of which is being able to tell the difference between a flash flood, an earthquake, and a group of scared women.”
Now it was Marcus’s turn to bristle. My ex-Hunter, who already stood as tall and straight as possible, jerked his head toward the incubi leader and tilted his chin just enough to pop his neck. I almost laughed. And I probably would have if we weren’t talking about the safety of a whole Wild Women group. A group I’d come to befriend and trust. A group whose leader my sister had developed feelings for.
“You know,” Aleksander said with all the ease of a clear summer day as he pushed from leaning on the wall and dusted the lapels of his dark gray blazer. “If you joined my…group, your neck problems would be a thing of the past, if you agreed to me changing you.”
“What did you just say?” Marcus asked, done placating the cocky incubus.
“Oh, no offense,” Aleksander added as an afterthought. “I’m sure you’re lovely just the way you are. But, how much more lovely would you be joining me, as a near-immortal? I could use your muscle.”
I’d never had to hold Marcus back before. Until now. The man gave me no warning. He didn’t shake his head or spew assaults. He took two steps and swung a fist at the incubus.
Aleksander ducked out of the way a millisecond before Marcus’s fist grazed the tip of his nose. It took me that long to get between the two of them and sprout branch nubs from the palms of my hands to threaten them both. Act right or get tied up. Those were my conditions. Although admittedly, my close-up view of Marcus’s pecs flexed under his thin cotton shirt distracted me enough to keep bark from rising to my skin. So my threats weren’t exactly backed up by much. Still, they didn’t know that.
Of course, my conditions didn’t include them playing nice-nice either. So the two men, much taller than me and certainly more muscular, glared at one another over my head while I stood, separating them.
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