Unintentional Addiction: Lotus Adaamas Series

by Stone, Layla

  “Sure, sweetheart. Why don’t we talk in my office? I’ll tell you about the extra contacts I’ve made on Yunkin.”

  She swiveled around to face Trent. “See, baby. Told you Demons understand money. Not threats.”

  Z held out a hand towards his office, waiting for the second when he could shove her inside, hoping that Shine could take her down while he took on Trent and the Night Demons.

  Wrin side-stepped him and touched Shine on the cheek as if she were asking for him to join them. “Love your cheekbones. I could just lick them for days.”

  Z didn’t understand why Shine’s eyes glossed over until Wrin moved her hand. A fat-black-night tab was still stuck to Z’s friend’s skin.

  Instant knockout.

  Z watched as Trent and his goons rushed him. He felt a cold prick on his skin too, but he didn’t drop unconscious. He just went limp. A sit-back-fatty tab. His eyes were open, and he watched and heard as Trent and Wrin laughed victoriously together.

  “See, I told you. Did you set the charges?”

  “Ready for you.” Trent handed over a black device with a single silver switch.

  Wrin pointed at Shine and Z. “Pick them up and bring them to the front. Z deserves to see this himself.”

  See what for himself? What charges?

  Damn it, they were going to blow up his warehouse.

  Zane tried to scream, jerk, move, anything to get them to stop. Adelia was in the bathroom. They could not blow up his warehouse with his future mate inside. No way could he let that happen.

  Trent looked down at him. “At first, we were just going to take your clients. But then you tried to kill me and brought my wrath.”

  Brought his wrath?

  Trent was clearly watching too many Terran entertainment videos.

  Zane couldn’t wait to be free and kill the nip. But he was still trying to move. Nothing. He tried blinking his eyes, still nothing. He tried breathing harder, but he had no control over that either.

  No. No. No.

  They dragged Zane down the hall, past the dead bodies, and out the glass door into the parking lot, farther and farther away from protecting the one person he needed to protect. He couldn’t let Adelia get blown up.

  One of the goons sat him up as Wrin smiled and began counting down.

  Adelia. Please hear that something is going on and escape.

  Z fought against the numbness.

  He was paralyzed in his body but not his mind. He let his consciousness fall back and land in his mind palace, his mental office. He stood up and held out his arms, pulling from every single person sleeping at that moment. Several fluffs of gold and white floated to him. So many, he was surrounded by it. He kept calling more and more, forcing the energy into his body.

  He could feel the tingle, but it wasn’t enough to move anything.

  Reaching for it, he called more. Ripping energy straight from the sources.

  The tingles got nastier, which meant it was working. He kept going and going. Finally, he felt his body move sluggishly.

  Moving back to his conscious body, he heard Wrin call out, “Three…two…one.”

  So he did something he’d never done before. Not even when his parents had left him. Not when he had no place to live, no food, no…nothing.

  He prayed to Seth to save Adelia.

  Wrin flicked the switch, and Z watched but saw nothing. Then he heard a few bursts of explosions around his warehouse. Flames reached to the sky, and the heavy metal walls cracked and splintered.

  He couldn’t get up. It killed him. Inwardly, he felt every explosion, every lick of flame, and he hoped against hope that Adelia didn’t suffer.

  Gone.

  Wrin squatted down next to him but not in front of him. “This is the consequence of pissing me off, Z. Your clients are mine, and even if you got a few hundred on Yunkin, that’s nothing to the hundreds of thousands I have now. So, do yourself a favor and start over on another planet. This island is mine.”

  She had no idea what she did, and he knew in that moment that he was never going to tell her. He would just find her and kill her and make it long, drawn-out, and bloody.

  Trent thought that Z wasn’t Demon enough. He was, he just knew how to contain it. But now, the Demon was ready to find its Kirca roots.

  Trent squatted down on Z’s other side and held a container filled with pink powder. He recognized it from the video in Shine’s dream. The stuff that ate bone, flesh…all of it. “I took this from Shine. You left your Minky desk powered on once, and I found his password. Was going to use it on you, but Wrin said that’s not how Adaamas Demons do things. But she didn’t say I couldn’t use it to destroy your prized Grummer.” Then he was gone, and he heard a window smash and his Grummer alarm go off.

  Trent was learning from Wrin. To take away his possessions. He didn’t care in the slightest. What he cared about was that Adelia was dead.

  As soon as he was free, he was going to spend all his time and energy destroying everything in Wrin’s and Trent’s life. Kirca-style.

  Wrin patted his thigh before standing up. Whoever was holding him up let go. He slowly fell over, hitting the side of his face on the parking lot blacktop. He was forced to watch his life’s work, almost a hundred plus years-worth of hustling, burning in front of him. But he would give all that up, for Adelia.

  To experience the fire in her voice when she was angry with him. To hear her polite words. To feel her skin, taste her mouth, and feel her take her pleasure, demanding it. She was a female he would have happily spent the rest of his life with.

  25

  Shame

  Adelia had just pushed open the door to her apartment when she felt the reverberation of an explosion. She looked around, wondering what it was. Two more shockwaves, and then nothing.

  Odd.

  Holding Z’s bottle of cinder oil in one hand, she closed the door with her free palm. Then she rested her head against the door. “You are an idiot,” she told herself.

  Who the hell was she? She was a monster. That’s what she was.

  She’d had sex with her boss on the concrete floor while his friend was in a container a few feet away, barely alive.

  “I hate you,” she said to herself.

  There was so much dishonor in how selfish she was. Z’s friend was dying, and he was probably acting out emotionally. She’d straight-up taken advantage of him.

  Feeling like trash, she made herself walk to the kitchen counter to place the stolen bottle of cinder oil on it.

  She had healed from her fight, but she doubted that Z would like finding the bottle gone when he checked.

  “You have to take it back,” she told herself, but she really didn’t want to. In fact, she didn’t want to see Z again. If she did, then she would also have to give back his white button-up that she’d put on to cover the goods as she made her escape back to her apartment barefoot.

  Unbuttoning said shirt, she walked towards the bathroom and prepared to take an extra hot and soapy shower.

  She washed her hair, her skin, and every inch of her body that Z had touched. She had no idea what he would do after his friend woke up. But she doubted that her job would weather the storm.

  His friend had almost died because she had brought a stolen ball of homner to Z’s office. She had put him in the middle of what Captain Eriben had feared all along.

  There was no way she would be able to fix this.

  She had been exiled from Yunkin, fired from a Krant ship, and would soon be banished from Lotus Adaamas. She sure knew how to screw up.

  After a quick shower, she threw on a soft blouse, jeans, flats, and a yellow sweater. She applied more lip gloss, makeup, and hoped she could keep a straight face for when Z told her what a scumbag she was.

  She was halfway to the warehouse when she remembered that she’d left the cinder oil. She stopped the Rounder and made it go back so she could pick it up. She was holding onto her honor with a thread. She didn’t have much value as a person,
but at least she could keep from being a thief on top of everything else.

  The Daamas Rounder turned down the street for the warehouse, and she instantly saw the smoke. It was getting thicker in the air the closer she got.

  Her prayer to Seth was automatic. Please let Z be okay. Please let Z be okay.

  The Rounder stopped at the corner. Her stomach clenched. The warehouse was black and unrecognizable.

  Z had been in there when she left. And he wouldn’t have let his friend die.

  She got out, bottle clenched in her hand, her legs moving but her mind numb. She was stunned. Above the ruins floated five hovering pods. They dropped white, foamy contents over the building. The fire was out, and the white stuff was soaking into the material. Eating it away.

  Did I do this? She tried to think. What if the one who’d gotten away had come back?

  “Pet!”

  She turned, knowing that male voice.

  “Pet!”

  Z looked wild, his hair a mess, his shirt torn, black soot everywhere. She ran to him, worried that he’d lost his friend. Knowing she was a monster, she could still be there for him. No one deserved to lose their best friend.

  Z threw his arms around her so tightly, she almost couldn’t breathe. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” she said quickly.

  “Shut up. Shut up. How are you alive?”

  She didn’t understand the question. Was he angry or not? But his hold on her was good, and she took it. The bottle in her hand was starting to slip. “I’m going to drop it, let up a little.”

  “What?” His arms loosened but he didn’t move away. He watched as she showed him the bottle. “I’m sorry. I took this with me. I shouldn’t have.”

  He looked at the bottle and then her and hugged her again. “Shut up.”

  She held him back, no longer caring what happened. He was upset, and she would be here for him. Bringing up the cinder oil had been stupid.

  He moved his mouth to cover hers, then pressed in and kissed her as if he were dying inside. She kissed him back, giving him what it seemed he needed. Giving him all she had left of her honor, of herself. “I thought you were in there when it blew.”

  She broke the kiss. Her eyes connected with his, and she saw what she hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t distraught over his friend. He was…No, he couldn’t be nearly hysterical over her. Not her.

  “Did Shine get out?”

  Z noticed her change in topic. “He’s alive. Unconscious still.”

  She felt that. Was he going to be okay? Asking would be bad, so she didn’t. Adelia tucked her head into his shoulder and just held him.

  His hand was tight around her neck, making her get as close to him as possible. Then he let her go, one arm at a time. He looked her over. “You left?”

  “I didn’t have any clothes to change into.” She grinned a little. “I needed a shower and to give you some time to…process.”

  “Process?”

  She didn’t want to explain her change in topics again. “Are you hurt?”

  He lowered his face and rubbed his lips over her head “No. A few burns, but I’m fine.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.” Then she looked at the building again. No container. No way to heal his burns or cure him of her addictive hormones.

  Oh, no.

  She moved back, pushing him away. Her skin, her mouth, the kiss. Protectively, she covered her mouth. “I kissed you.”

  He moved back to her. “Don’t take credit for my kiss, Pet. That’s rude.”

  She stepped back. “But you can’t cure yourself. Can the cinder oil cure you?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.” He stepped to her again.

  She pointed at his chest. “You have to.”

  He swatted her pointed hand away and grabbed her waist to pull her close. “No, I don’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re not getting into that right here.”

  Her jaw dropped. This was it. He was going to…she had no idea.

  “But next time the building burns down, think about grabbing the whiskey first.”

  Was he joking?

  This time when he moved in, she expected another joke. She got a soft kiss instead. He pressed his lips to hers again and then gave her another soft one, this time keeping their mouths together for a time.

  When he finished, he took her hand and walked her to the parking lot where Shine was waiting for them. Awake. Shine looked at her.

  “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t dislike you.”

  “Oh. Thank you,” Shine said.

  “And I’m sorry about what happened to you. It was my fault for taking the homner in the first place.”

  Shine’s eyebrows rose. “Z said the same thing.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Z argued.

  “Okay, you two continue to fight it out, preferably away from me. I’m headed to my lab to reset my security system. I’ll contact you later, Grach.”

  “Okay,” she responded, wondering how long it would take him to call her by her name.

  He started walking down the way, and she turned to Z. “What do we do now?”

  “We?”

  She didn’t know if he was trying to make a point with his one-word response.

  “First, I’m taking you to my home where I plan to shower and change. Then we are going to talk about the issues between you and me. Then, if that talk goes well, I will be working from my home office, and you will be working at getting out of your apartment and moving to my home.”

  “What?”

  “Yep, come on, the Daamas Rounder is here.”

  26

  Life Happens Fast

  Z walked her into a two-story home.

  Inside, the place smelled like some kind of cleaner, and it looked empty. As in nothing on the walls. Z brought her into his living room. It only had a single couch and table and a large Minky Screen on the wall. He waited for her to sit down and then pulled over the dark leather coffee table to sit in front of her. Her knees were pressed together caged by his legs, his hands on her thighs.

  “I’m going to take a shower and order us food. You have fifteen minutes until I return. Take that time to think about one thing: are you willing to stay here with me on Adaamas? Everything else we can work through together, but not if there is even a shadow of want or hope that one day you will leave.”

  He was not thinking straight. Adelia pointed out, “I can’t leave because you’re addicted to me.”

  “I will go through withdrawals, and they will suck, but I looked it up, they won’t kill me. But that is not what I asked you to think about. The one thing you need to think about is whether you can live on Adaamas. Okay?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. “Fifteen minutes. Think hard.”

  Then he got up, and he was gone.

  When he left, she felt the pressure of having to decide something that she wasn’t prepared to think about. It almost felt like when her parents had come home and told her that they had arranged a marriage for two weeks from then.

  No, that had been way worse.

  This was different. This was Z asking her if she would stay on Adaamas. But really, he was asking her to stay with him because why else would she stay on Adaamas? It was a hellhole of a planet. She hated how hot it was, and they had a stupid sense of time. Demons and their idiotic deals or payments for being decent ran rampant. She hadn’t seen anything she liked so far.

  In the time she’d been here, she’d hated it.

  No, that wasn’t true. Adelia loved her apartment. Small, quaint, and hers. Inside her home was what she loved, not out of it. What happened out of it didn’t matter to her. Inside was her domain. Inside, she controlled everything. If she were asked if she could live there for the rest of her life, the answer was easy.

  Yes.

  But this wasn’t about living on Adaamas, this was a complicated situation. She
wanted off the planet so she could settle down and find a mate.

  So, the question was mostly hypothetical. If she had a mate, would she be able to live on Adaaamas in her apartment?

  She thought about it.

  Tried to imagine it.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t imagine an actual mate. Instead, she pictured Z inside her apartment. Imaginary Z, looking over her simple apartment and scowling, hating it. His house, the one he lived in, was simple, but elegant and expensive.

  She leaned over and took a swipe at the far end of the coffee table and noticed the dust. The house was picked up, but not cleaned. Maybe he didn’t spend a lot of time at home. Actually, that had to be a certainty because he was at work nonstop.

  Sitting on the couch, she was not sure what she had decided. Not sure she could answer Z’s question honestly. She worried that her time was coming to a close.

  It did.

  Z walked back into the room and sat down. His hair was wet but not dripping. He was wearing a black t-shirt with an odd design on one shoulder. His jeans were dark, and she liked it.

  A lot.

  “Did you make up your mind?”

  “No.”

  He hesitated for a fraction of a second, but she noticed it. “You can’t see yourself staying on Adaamas? Correct?”

  “I didn’t make up my mind.”

  “I gave you fifteen minutes,” he countered.

  “Who makes a decision in fifteen minutes?”

  “I do. Actually, I make my decisions in seconds.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good practice.”

  “Not to point fingers, but I think I’ve made more out of myself and my poor situations than you have made out of yours.”

  That was low. Harsh. And true, which hurt more. “I don’t make final decisions in fifteen minutes.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long did it take you to pick out your apartment?”