Darkest Night: Mercenaries and Magic: A scorching enemies to lovers romance

by Alessa Thorn

  20

  Athena woke hours later, Kon sprawled out beside her. She ran her fingers down his warm chest to the semi-hard erection he had in his sleep. She wanted him as blissed out as she had been when they had last slept together.

  Athena pulled off the dark sheets and took a long look at his beautiful lean body. She carefully moved between his legs and took the tip of his perfect dick in her mouth. He shivered in his sleep but didn't wake.

  Athena licked down his shaft on one side and then up the other, wetting him down before taking him in her mouth once more.

  Kon moaned softly, moving his hips, but Athena pushed down on his abs with one hand and worked him with the other. She could taste pre-cum and knew he was getting close to waking and coming.

  "Ath…Oh, fuck, that feels amazing," he murmured drowsily, stroking her hair. Kon started to groan loudly, and Athena clapped her hand over his mouth, sucking him as hard and as fast as she could.

  Kon bucked his hips up, his exclamations muffled by her palm, before coming hard and filling her mouth. Athena swallowed him down, licked his dick clean, and only when she was done, did she move her hand away from his mouth.

  Kon looked half asleep, half confused and shaken. "Fuck, Athena, you almost gave me a heart attack with that wake-up."

  "Shh, go back to sleep, Kon," she whispered and tucked the sheet back around him. He mumbled something about crazy, beautiful women and was out again before she made it to the bathroom.

  Athena changed the bandage on her wound and pulled on her clothes. She was tempted to stay in bed, but she was too buzzed and knew she wouldn't be able to leave Kon alone to sleep. He was too tempting. She would want to lick all of his beautiful muscles and get on top of him.

  You're the only thing that's made me feel alive since I dragged myself out of that fucking fire…

  How was she meant to process that? She couldn't think straight around him, especially when he was being sweet and sexually aggressive at the same time. Her poor heart and body couldn't deal with any of that. Not with a bounty on their heads.

  Downstairs, Athena made coffee in the empty kitchen, her brain still a bit hazy. Iz and Leo were both wearing noise-canceling headphones and were busy typing away. They hadn't even looked up to say hello, but Athena knew better than to interrupt hackers when they were busy. They would surface when they were ready to.

  "Heard you got into a death match last night," Dante said, coming in with a grin. He put some bags of fresh groceries down on the counter. "Can't stay out of trouble for five minutes, can you?"

  Athena shrugged. "It was a mess, but we got a lead which is all we needed. How's it been here?"

  "Quiet, and a bit boring for me. I can't really complain about the view, but…" Dante replied, eyes darting to a tousled, focused Leo. He really was a hot nerd, and Dante did have a type.

  "You're incorrigible," she said with a laugh.

  Dante raised a brow. "Me? You're the one bunking with the very hot psycho upstairs. He's soft for you, Cub."

  "What can I say? I'm just so fucking lovable," Athena replied.

  Dante snorted. "You are not. He seems to like them mean and violent."

  "Where's Silas?" she asked, noting his absence.

  "Upstairs working out. Said to tell you to join him when you woke. I'll keep a close eye on things down here," Dante said innocently.

  "I bet you will." Athena's mouth twitched. "You even talked to him properly yet, or are you just shamelessly ogling him whenever he's not looking?"

  Dante, the biggest man whore she had ever met actually looked bashful. "Bit of both."

  "Did you ask him if he's even interested in boys before you started flirting with him?" Athena asked. Dante had gotten himself into trouble more than once by chatting up the wrong straight guy.

  "Leo definitely likes boys," he replied without hesitation.

  Athena shook her head, grabbed her coffee, and headed up to the roof. It was mid-afternoon, and her body felt all out of whack from staying up for twenty-four hours.

  Someone had gone through Kon's storage and had set up the outdoor area with the rest of the flat sitting cushions and carpets.

  Silas was going through drills with a sabre, his eyes vacant as he moved through the motions. Athena's earliest memories were of watching him train. She always expected her body to be like his one day and marked with the scars of battles past.

  "Join in or fuck off with your antsy energy, Athena," he said, barely glancing at her.

  Athena pulled back her hair in a ponytail and picked up the spare sabre.

  Despite everyone teasing her about her blade fetish, Silas had been the one to teach her how to use them properly. Even though he usually used guns, he still carried a sword on jobs. Blades were better for stealth and Silas was the king of the silent kill.

  Athena took up her position a short distance away from him to avoid getting in his way and started moving through the drills with him. It was as close to meditation as she could get on most days. Her mind was anything but quiet.

  She thought about what Kon had said about the Amun-Ra being the old Golden Dawn headquarters in Scotland and how it would've been shut for a hundred years. Athena knew when people were lying, and Ryker hadn't been. He hadn't wanted to be helpful, so he had been cryptic, but he wasn't lying.

  Iz and Leo will find the link. That's their job.

  It wasn't like Athena didn't have anything else to worry about. Kon had started talking about feelings, and she didn't even know how to…

  Silas appeared in front of her, his blade catching hers. "Out with it, Cub, you're stressing me out."

  Athena slid into a fighting stance and raised her blade. Silas grinned and did the same.

  "I don't know how to do feelings," she said, attacking him. He blocked her and sidestepped.

  "Feelings about what?"

  "Konstantius."

  Silas groaned. "I don't know if I'm the best person to be asking relationship advice. It's not like I've had any long-standing love affairs."

  "That's just the point. It's not… it's not how we are made," Athena replied. Their blades began to clash and sing in a steady rhythm.

  Silas swore as the tip of her blade almost caught his thigh. "If it's only about the sex, then you should probably be honest with him about it. Think it's a bit more for him."

  "It's not just about the sex with me either. You said it yourself; if anyone but Kon had given me this much grief over the years, I would've killed them. I couldn't do it." Athena started to sweat, her breath getting labored. "I mean, what would a full-time love affair even mean to people like us? And we are the same, Kon and I. He's not about to retire and get a corporate day job."

  "Why would he have to, Cub? You worked well as a team in Germany, despite you starting your bullshit. He stuck around and had your back. I'm not saying you're going to ever have a white picket fence or anything, but fuck, you like the guy. That's hard for you at the best of times, but you connect with him, and that means something."

  "Connect," Athena snickered and dodged his swipe.

  "You know what I mean. You talk each other's language or whatever. You both scare the shit out of everyone but each other," Silas replied. "Maybe I moved you about too much. You didn't have experiences like other girls with dating and whatnot."

  "Oh God, could you imagine me trying to deal with high school drama? I would've knifed the first person who looked at me wrong."

  "That's exactly why I didn't bother trying to force you to go. Kon is like us, kid. We can make space for him after this Liddell job if you want."

  Athena got a warm, glowy feeling about that prospect, which made her feel lame in a nice way.

  "You know, you should really ask Izabella about this kind of thing. She could pull her cards and tell you whether or not you're making a mistake," Silas suggested, straightening and knocking her strike aside.

  Izabella had a deck of cards unlike anything Athena had ever seen before. She claimed as she often did th
at they were cards that had been passed down through every generation of the women in her family. Because of this, they were an eclectic mishmash of tarot, playing cards, oracle cards, and ones that had been hand-drawn.

  The only thing that was the same was that the back of them had all been decorated the same way with a gold and black bee on a ruby red background.

  According to Izabella, it was her family symbol for the soul and miracles from her ancestors.

  Whatever the case, when Izabella pulled cards, you had to be damn sure you wanted the answers because she would tell you the truth with them with such an eerie accuracy that only the desperate, brave, or stupid dared risk it. Athena didn't know if she was any of those things just yet.

  "Since when have you been game enough to ask Iz for a reading?" she asked.

  "I haven't been, but I know she's good at it, like everything else she does." Silas gave Athena a crooked grin. "I don't need cards to tell me how good of a father I am or how badass of a mercenary."

  "Up itself much?"

  "I don't need Izabella to tell me you're in love with the Nightmare of Istanbul and can't handle it because you're worried that you'll lose him."

  Athena hissed, attacking harder like she could force him to take the words back. Silas retreated across the rooftop, waiting until the last minute to hold a defense.

  "Admit it to yourself, Cubbie. Being in love doesn't make you weak." Silas kicked out at her exposed side while her brain was fighting against the words he was saying.

  Athena rolled to miss the kick, but Silas chased, and by the time she was on her feet again, he was behind her with the tip of his sabre lightly touching her ponytail.

  "And you're dead, Athena. What have I always told you about showing off and getting on the ground?"

  "That you're wasting time, and if you're on the ground, you're dead," Athena chimed, slowly turning. She still felt winded and nauseous, like his words had physically kicked her in the gut. "Did you ever think you were in love, Dad? I mean, obviously, we are talking about before I came along because clearly you don't get laid half as much as you should."

  Silas lifted his middle finger at her. "No, I didn't have a lady love before you. I was in the army by eighteen, and I'm not into dick. After I got out, I didn't think I had the capacity to give a shit about anything or anyone. I was so fucking dead inside. Then I found you and knew I couldn't walk away. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Cub. You made me learn to be a human again."

  Athena frowned playfully and sheathed her sabre. "But I was half-feral then."

  "You're fucking half-feral now," Silas replied with a laugh. "And just so you know, I've gotten laid a lot more than what you think over the years; I just don't feel the need to tell you about it, like you do."

  "Who's getting laid?" Izabella asked, coming through the roof door. Her eyes skimmed over Silas's sweaty, muscled chest and her neck flushed red.

  "Hopefully me," Athena joked, lifting her fist to bump.

  "Good to know one of us is," Izabella said, pushing Athena's fist away with a half-smile. "I was actually coming up here to tell you to go wake up Turkish Delight. I think Leo and I have found something."

  21

  Kon woke a second time to find the other side of his bed empty. Had he dreamed Athena waking him up by sucking his cock so hard he saw stars?

  He got up and showered, his body slowly waking up and trying to adjust to the time differences. The sun was going down, and he was surprised he had slept so late. He told himself that he trusted the people currently living in his warehouse despite years of being alone.

  Kon rubbed at his chest, a strange ball of new emotions sitting there. Something about eating pancakes that morning with Silas and Athena made him miss his parents. It didn't matter how bloodthirsty they were. The Edgeworths were family, and they had included Kon into that circle.

  Kon dressed, and after fighting it for a full minute, he reached to the very back of his wardrobe and pulled out a wooden box. It was the type of trinket box made of cheap wood and sold to tourists at the Grand Bazaar. Kon would know because one of his first jobs had been hawking them.

  He sat down on his bed and tried to swallow the emotion clogging up his throat. He opened the box and took out the photo.

  Kon had only gone back to the burned-out house once. It was the day after the fire had been put out and taped off. In the charred rubble, he had found only two things worth taking. A photo of him and his parents burned around the edges and a half-melted medallion of the emperor Constantine and his mother, St. Helena.

  His mother, Azra, had always worn it and venerated Helena.

  "She was born of nothing, and yet she gave birth to Constantine, the great emperor. It was because of her and her son that our precious city became the center of the world. This world is what you make of it, my little emperor, my sweet Konstantius."

  Kon clutched the medallion in his hand as the memory of her voice came back to him for the first time in decades. He looked at his father, Eren, and could see the likeness in his own face. Kon was leaner, and his eyes didn't hold the same kind of happy warmth his father’s had, but their cheekbones were the same, their hairline, their full lips.

  Kon wondered what they would make of their little emperor now. He didn't even know how to come back from all that he had become. After they had died, he had survived long enough to fall in with the gangs. He had learned to lock up parts of himself, and because of that, he soon became known for his ability to kill efficiently.

  He wasn't the type to crave redemption for past sins. He had done what he must to survive. The only things he had ever craved were revenge and Athena Edgeworth.

  Once he got the former as well as the latter, what would he do with his life?

  He had been a ghost. Unseen by everyone, utterly expendable, until her.

  Absently, Kon flicked his fingers and made the lights go on and off. After he had done it once, the little magic returned to him and was getting easier and easier. Would he finally be able to study it properly when he had no fear of discovery?

  Now that he had open the gates of his memories, little things were coming back to him. He grabbed a notebook from his bedside table and started writing notes in it, the bits of advice that his parents had been willing to share. He wrote down what he had told Athena about energy transference and kept going.

  Half an hour later, he had a piece of the decorative vine from the bathroom and was slowly pulling the life from it and replacing it with his own over and over again. He could feel his mother's disapproval from the Afterlife. She always told him that it was one of the greatest sins and most dangerous to the magician to take the life of another living thing.

  If you get used to stealing power that way, it is a path that is impossible to come back from. The dark will have you…

  The vine wasn't attached to roots, so Kon liked to think it didn't count. It wasn't like the dark didn't already have him.

  "Look who's awake," Athena said, coming in with a smile. She looked ruffled and sweaty around the edges.

  "What trouble have you gotten into now?" he asked.

  "Sabre training with Silas. He kicked my ass as usual."

  Kon grinned. "A good thing I wasn't around to watch. I don't think Silas would appreciate me having an erection the whole time you trained."

  Athena came to stand in front of where he was sitting and ran her hands through his hair. "Did you sleep okay?"

  "Like the dead, thanks to you," Kon replied and tugged her closer.

  "I'm sweaty and gross; you might not want to make out—"

  Kon ignored her protests and pulled her into his lap so she was straddling him. "I like you sweaty and gross." He gave her a leisurely kiss, tasting salt and coffee on her lips.

  "What's with the vine?" she asked, taking it from the bed and rolling it between her fingertips.

  "I've been trying to remember things that my parents told me about magic," Kon admitted. He took the vine from her. "Watch
." It was more challenging with an audience, but after a moment, something clicked inside of him, and the vine withered before he fed his energy into it, and it turned green and strong once more.

  "That's amazing! Do it again," Athena said, face full of awe he had never seen before. He did it a few more times before she started kissing him, her hands running over his back and chest until he began to get hard.

  "If we aren't allowed to fuck, you better stop that right now," he growled.

  Athena smirked and ground her hips against him in a slow, teasing circle. His hand came down hard on her ass.

  "Cut it out, Edgeworth."

  "And you complain I'm no fun." Her eyes went to the wooden box. "Treasure or secrets?"

  "Both, I suppose." Kon opened it and took out the picture. Athena's whole demeanor softened.

  "God, look how cute you are," she said, staring at his mop of dark curls and missing front teeth. "Your mom is so beautiful."

  "Their names were Azra and Eren. I don't…I don't remember my surname. The boss of my old gang called me Zalam, the Arabic word for darkness. He said that he could see it in my soul. It stuck," Kon replied. He lifted the necklace and showed it to her.

  "Saint Helena and Constantine the Great?" Athena asked, turning it between her fingers.

  "Good guess. It was my mother's. She was into saints, but Helena especially. She always liked that Helena and Constantine were close enough that their likenesses were put together. She used to call me little emperor."

  "Could explain why you are so bossy," Athena teased. "Is that why you went with saints for the tattoos on your back?"

  "Yes, though at the time, I told people it was because I needed them watching my back. That I missed my dead mother wouldn't have seemed very tough."

  "You can be both, Kon." Athena slipped the chain over his head. "Keep her close. You're lucky that you have memories of her at all."

  The necklace felt heavy around his neck, but he didn't take it off. Overwhelmed, he kissed Athena's cheeks and was heading for her mouth again when there was a knock at the door.