I put my arm around his stomach to stop him from twitching. His good arm came to rest above his head.
“Shame there’s not enough room for three.” I looked up to see Tor peeking through the door. He snuck inside to our bed.
“What do you want?” Knoxe growled.
Tor winked at me and kissed Knoxe on the head. “Didn’t kiss you goodbye, baby.” That earned him a thump on the shoulder. “Don’t you like kisses, baby?” Smartass stroked our leader’s head.
I laughed, and Knoxe’s hard façade cracked into a slight smirk. God, I didn’t realize how much I needed that. Needed Tor’s light-hearted touch.
Tor grabbed Knoxe’s ponytail and jerked his head back, placing a kiss on his lips. For a moment, Knoxe fought him, but as Tor pressed him harder to his mouth, he softened into the kiss, letting a bit of tongue action go on. Talk about H.O.T! Male on male action in audiobooks rarely happened unless I listened to ménage… hmmm… maybe I should order some from Tor who could sneak it into the prison.
I ran my hands along Knoxe’s stomach as they kissed, and he groaned.
Much to my displeasure, Tor pulled away. “Don’t worry, baby. It’s just our secret.”
“More, please,” I prompted in a delirious haze.
“Later.” Tor moved over to a cabinet to remove a blanket. He returned, shaking it out and throwing it over us. “Get some sleep.”
I grabbed his shirt and tugged. “You know, if you two keep kissing like that, I’m going to get jealous.”
Damn straight. Knoxe seemed more comfortable with Tor, and I just wanted him to be at ease with me, too. Sure would go along way with helping me feel like part of the team, but maybe he was a little weird with what happened earlier in the private area of the casino. I hoped not and pushed away that idea for now.
They both chuckled.
“Just what the doctor ordered then.” Tor crouched beside the bed, his face so close as he brushed my hair. He gave me a long, deep and searing kiss to match Knoxe’s. I tasted them both on his mouth. Warm, and spicy, like ale. Something I’d savor all night as I fell asleep.
“Night, Candy Girl.” He brushed my hair once more before leaving. I missed him already and didn’t want him to go.
Astra
Now Knoxe and I were alone. We had a love hate relationship, but lately, we were getting along better. A few months ago when I joined the Guardians, he’d never have let me touch him, let alone snuggle with him. Progress. Hash tag it for the win.
We stayed like that, cramped up and side by side, the hospital monitoring equipment beeping in the background, his bones cracking and resetting. I winced a few times at the horrid noise, reminding of my own experience. Knoxe shifted his arm to wrap it over me as I nuzzled into him harder.
Ohhh… maybe he didn’t feel so weird about it.
“We’ll find another way to get that money.” Knoxe squeezed me to his chest, and I moved my head to look up at him. “I promise. We can sell Tor’s mermaid pearls.”
I propped myself on my elbow. “What?”
Knoxe had confiscated them, threatening to have them destroyed, which cost Tor money to buy his mother a wheelchair. He was still mad about that, I could tell from the little digs at Knoxe, and I tried to support him where I could, telling him we’d figure it out.
“I hid them. I couldn’t exactly hand them in, could I?” Knoxe’s dark eyes were soft and sincere. “That’d get Tor into more shit.”
I lay back down and rubbed Knoxe’s belly. It warmed with my touch. “But he needs that money for his family.”
Knoxe stiffened and stopped breathing. “I’m saving Tor from himself.”
From Knoxe’s admission, I could tell that despite his hard edges, he cared for his men and wanted the best for them. I also knew, despite our initial hiccups, and the frosty welcome he’d treated me to, he cared for me. He wouldn’t have risked all this for going to the fae casino.
One of Knoxe’s suit shirt buttons was held on by a single thread, and I played with it, thinking about how it represented my state of mind when we departed the fae. How it left me shaken and scarred. How I’d have to face it tomorrow and many counseling visits to get over the traumatic memories.
The thread also made me think of my team, and how they barely hung on after they lost Jaz. Because he was also on the spectrum, Pascal struggled to fit in and be normal, just like I had. Raze bore his secret alone, and the constant strain and burden of being caught, until I came along. But he refused to talk about it with me, except threaten my silence. Tor’s commitment to his family and desperation to do anything to provide for them, earned him a longer sentence. Knoxe was tormented by Jaz’s death and his responsibility for his team.
I played with Knoxe’s button, twisting it around my finger, as if it were the delicate thread connecting him to Jaz, his grief, and fixation on vengeance.
“I’m sorry you lost Jaz.” The calming serum encouraged the words out before I could stop them.
I wanted to bang my head on Knoxe’s chest. Jaz was supposed to be a forbidden topic. A no-go zone everyone in the team avoided. But it seemed like the right time to mention it. It had helped a lot to hear things like this when my best friend died in a car accident.
The thought prompted old memories to surface, and I wondered if they might help Knoxe’s grief. “I know how hard it is for you.”
He sucked in a whimpered breath, and his fingers clawed on my shoulder, and I continued massaging him.
I kept going because it had to be said now. “I had a friend die in a car accident when I was eighteen.” His chest pumped in faster breaths making my head rise and fall. “She was a passenger in a speeding car. They dodged an oncoming truck that fell asleep and hit a tree.”
Grief bubbled up my throat, bursting out in a sob. Hot tears pricked the corners of my eye. I fisted his shirt. Knoxe brushed the tears away and whispered something in my ear, but I didn’t hear it over the boom of my own pulse. I threaded my hand around his neck and sobbed into his chest. Silver blazes, I was the worst cheer up party in the history of the Guardians.
“The rest of the team blames Jaz for landing us in the Guardians,” he admitted, and I shifted my head to study him.
“Why?” I didn’t know much about the story besides what little Tor had offered me, that Jaz had planted evidence on the rest of the team.
“The Guild found Jaz guilty on four counts of breaking the rules.” Knoxe looked away, but I clasped the side of his face, drawing him back to me. He wasn’t shutting me out. Not this time. Bottling up his emotions for too long served to anger and alienate him from the team.
Hollows formed in his cheek where he clenched his jaw. This was hard for him to admit. Harder to accept, and he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. The Guild’s guilty verdict and the opinion of three of his teammates were odds not stacked in Jaz’s favor, yet Knoxe still clung to his friend’s innocence. I didn’t know the whole story. My hand slid behind his neck to persuade him to tell me. I needed to know to understand him.
He took a breath before continuing. “Betraying Guild secrets to the serpents. Conspiring with the enemy. Stealing Guild property. Lying under oath….”
I stroked Knoxe’s jaw, relishing the roughness of it, the sharp angle, the strength in it. The strength of a born warrior and leader. “Did he do it?”
“No fucking way.” Knoxe shook his head with so much conviction that even I believed him. But then he glanced away. “But the psychologist says I’m suffering from delusion. That I refuse to accept Jaz betrayed us and landed us in here.”
Doctors didn’t know everything. That was one thing I’d learned. For years, they’d thought me bratty and temperamental before they diagnosed me with Aspergers. But fifteen years ago, they didn’t know much about the disorder.
“They think I’m fucking mad.” His voice raised an octave. “Because I believe my mate when he swore his innocence to me.”
This was a very sensitive topic, and I had to tread lightl
y to extract enough information for this puzzle. “Is it possible that Guild was wrong? That Jaz isn’t guilty?”
“I don’t know anymore.” Knoxe pinched his forehead between two fingers. “Jaz’s dad was dying of asbestos related lung disease. His family caught up fighting his dad’s employer in court for restitution. It was bankrupting them.” His voice broke on the last few words, and I didn’t blame him.
Crap. That was one hell of a motive to sell secrets to the Serpents.
The court system favored the rich and not the poor, and anyone with enough money, like large corporations, could hold out and fight for longer. Those bastards dragged out the legal proceedings for so long, it forced them to give up. My uncle had fought his company for a leg crushing injury that left him disabled, and the company’s lawyers flipped it, blaming him, lessening his payout. Screw the justice system, it was too flawed, too corrupt.
The same applied to the Guild’s system. Look what it had done to me. A twenty-five-year sentence for stealing a magickal parchment they obtained under false pretenses. That information didn’t belong to them. They were the thieves.
“Maybe I am delusional.” The agony in Knoxe’s voice broke me. The heartache and confusion in his eyes shot me like an arrow to the heart, and I wanted to draw out all his pain and burn it to the ground.
I adjusted myself, leaning on my elbow, holding the back of his neck, bringing him closer. Our lips met, soft at first, then crushing together in a dizzying and blinding heat. He kissed me as if his whole world depended on it, like he was clinging to me for his sanity’s sake. I kissed him back, trying to flush out his never-ending suffering, ease the burden he carried and fought with every day. With the brush of my tongue, he sighed into my mouth.
At first meeting, Knoxe and I had gone from zero to hate in three seconds flat. Out of all the men on my team, I never thought we’d get along or see eye to eye. Yet, here I was, kissing him as if I’d break apart if I didn’t! Finally, it felt as if a missing piece of me had come home. I didn’t know what to think anymore, I was so confused. We clashed, we argued, but we couldn’t deny our attraction. Now, we were destined for something even more fiery and more passionate. But we were combustibles, dangerous and flammable, and if something went wrong, we could burn the whole world down.
Tor
This place smelled like shit. Blood, sweat, tears, torment, and death. Caves as dark as hell and lit by dim blue crystals on the walls. Talnok prison had the reputation as one of the cruelest penitentiaries in the gantii universe. Prisoners here rarely survived their sentences. That was why there were few criminals in the Unseelie realm. The fae were terrified of ending up in this hellhole. A prison of stone caves, dripping water, rats, dank air and screams… God… the screams. Some poor bastard getting tortured.
Flashbacks of my own torture, of Supergirl’s and Knoxe’s torment froze me for a moment. Her screams bellowed in my ear. The ropes tightened on my wrists and burned my flesh. Helplessness washed over me. Fuck, I used all my self-control not to lose my shit. I touched my wrists where the ropes cut into me.
Calm, Tor. Calm the fuck down. Get the job done.
But I couldn’t calm my pounding heart or the uncontrollable anger surging inside me. They’d touched my girl, and I’d make them wish they hadn’t. When I was done with them, they’d be screaming like the poor sucker in here, begging me to stop.
Knoxe squared his shoulders and held his head high. He was flanked by Raze and Pascal, with me following behind and Supergirl beside me.
Supergirl, my babe… girlfriend… squeezed and twisted her hand, a nervous gesture, accelerated by what I presumed were her memories of yesterday.
I took her arm, pulled apart her hands. She fought me until I pressed my palm to hers, slid my fingers between hers and held her tight. Tension slid from her arm, but her torso and back remained rigid. I wished there was something I could do to make her forget. Maybe after this side mission, I’d take a visit to the black market for a memory wiping spell so she never had to relive it again.
“Tor, you’re up.” Knoxe’s harsh words sliced through my thoughts. “Get me the Goddamn signed paperwork to transport the prisoner.”
Great. The casino incident had left him in one of his ferocious moods. Now he’d take it out on us if we failed. But I didn’t blame the poor guy for being desperate to get in and out with the prisoner. Shit was getting real now that we had less than twenty-six hours to save our asses. We’d lost a day back at the Guardians for Supergirl to calm down, for Knoxe to get healed and get permission from the warden to return to the Unseelie realm.
As Guardians, Guild prisoners, we couldn’t just move between the realms without authorization, otherwise the bracelets we wore would emit a frequency to incapacitate us.
Knoxe looked haggard with dark circles and sunken eyes from not sleeping and exhausting himself to convince the warden to let us return to the Unseelie world. I didn’t want to add to his list of shit to deal with.
“Roger that, boss.” I gave Knoxe my usual smartass salute that encouraged the tick in his face to reach a steady beat. No smile today. Got it.
Getting people riled up was kind of my thing. My only form of entertainment in this pitiful existence at the Guardians. That and the thrill of a fight with gantii. Until Supergirl came along. But that was another story.
I glanced thirty feet to my right at the administration office, at the female fae behind the desk, writing on a luminescent parchment that looked to be composed of dead fireflies. Fae were ancient and a lot harder to persuade, hence why I failed to protect Knoxe and Supergirl last night. I hoped this one wouldn’t be difficult. We could have done with a break right now.
I caught Raze looking at Supergirl for the fiftieth time today, and not in a concerned way. His dark blue eyes were narrowed and hostile. He’d been doing that ever since we arrived back from the vampire’s homeworld. I couldn’t tell if he had a problem with her or if it was his weird way of showing interest. Couldn’t blame him if he was. He had excellent taste. Supergirl was a firecracker, and I had not hesitation in sharing her.
On the other side of Knoxe, Pascal tucked his head and fiddled with his tuning forks, standard behavior for him because his autism dictated he not meet anyone’s gaze. But he was no weakling. The guy was the most powerful of us all. Not hesitant to dispose of anyone who fucked with us. Man, I still remember the way he beat those vamps a few weeks ago. Damn. Superhero stuff. Smaller than the rest of the guys, he was still tall, athletic, with green eyes and spiked, bright blue hair. Sometimes I felt sorry for the guy because he struggled with anxiety and not understanding jokes or direction.
All right. Enough of that. Showtime.
I pulled the zipper of my uniform down. Chicks dug my chest. Supergirl went wild with it, groping it, running her hands over my muscles. I looked good, and I knew it.
“What are you doing that for?” Supergirl grabbed my arm. “You don’t need your man-chest for a mission. Put it away!”
Raze chuckled. Pascal tilted his head, probably not following as usual. Knoxe bit into his knuckle and stared at the wall, a million miles away. He had a lot on his mind, and it was my turn to ease that burden.
“Don’t get jealous.” I kissed her on the forehead. “You know these are all yours.” I winked and lowered my zipper to expose my pec, squeezing it, making it twitch.
I didn’t do this to tease her. She needed a distraction from her thoughts, and my jokes always worked.
Okay, I might have had other underlying motives too. To show the other’s she was mine. They were welcome to have a taste, but I’d always be her first.
Supergirl smacked me on the chest. My feisty little one wasn’t gone. I hope she’d make me pay for my cheek when we got back to the Guardians. Over the last few weeks, she’d really gotten into hurting me, using the nipple clamps, and turning all dominatrix on me. But I’d have to give her some space and time to process the crap that happened last night because that shit wasn’t easy to for
get.
“I’m not jealous.” She let me go pretty quick. The irritation in her eyes made my dick come to life. “You’ve got magick for that.”
Sure did. The power of persuasion. But no harm in rattling Supergirl if it took her mind off the shit we were in.
“Sometimes the stronger-willed gantii are resistant to my magick.” Those types required more effort to trick or convince. Hence the point of my man-chest. “This will test her out.”
“You’re so cliché.” Supergirl rolled her eyes.
Raze chuckled again. Big guy might not have had much to say, but I could tell by the sly smiles my way he enjoyed my banter. I’d get to the bottom of why he glared at her later.
Pascal frowned and tilted his head. Sometimes I felt sorry for him that he didn’t get my jokes. Wasted, man. Wasted.
My dick throbbed, begging to work Supergirl into a frenzy. I enjoyed provoking her to get a reaction. She was crazy hot when mad. Yeah, I was a bastard, but I couldn’t resist when she got my dick hard.
Down boy. Later.
Once we kidnapped this prisoner, got the fucking bugs out of our necks, kicked the fae’s ass and got back to the Guardians.
I pulled my zipper up and winked at the boys. “Watch and learn, fellas.”
Supergirl twisted her hands again. I broke them apart and kissed her knuckles. I was reluctant to leave her when she wasn’t her usual self. But an order was an order.
I backed away, approaching the counter to the pretty, young elf behind it.
“Hello there.” I leaned on the counter, making sure I puffed out my chest.
The Unseelie looked up from her parchment, glittering with dark shapes, words of the ancient fae language. She rolled it up and put it aside, standing to come to the counter. Her large, blue eyes sized me up. She met a lot of criminals in her job.
“What’s your business, Guardian?” Her long, pointed ear flicked. Fae had incredible hearing, and they did that when they heard something.
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