“The smell outside…” one of the Loup said. “I smelled vamps.”
“Are vamps after you?” Hunter asked.
The vamp raised his head, his face a mask of fear. “The Nappers. The Nappers are after me, aren’t you fucking listening?”
“Not anymore,” Hunter said. “Clean this up.”
“Wait—”
But Hunter was dragging me from the room, and the vamp’s cry was cut off.
Back outside in the fresh air, I turned on Hunter. “We could have gotten more information off him?”
“About what?”
“These Nappers he was talking about.”
“Did you see him? He was shaking. There are no Nappers, just the paranoia of a Bliss addict in withdrawal.”
“Or maybe he was scared.” But I wasn’t so sure now.
“We’re done here,” Sariah said.
Hunter opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off.
“Yeah, we’re done.”
Because the urge to rub up against Hunter was a physical ache now. I needed to stay away from him. I needed to stay away for good, but my gut told me he wasn’t going to make that easy, and suddenly, going on the run didn’t seem like such an awful idea.
Chapter Nine
Nox dropped me off at the pinnacle, and I headed inside, grateful to be home. Exhausted, both physically and mentally. Resisting my primal instincts around Hunter was getting harder and harder.
There was a cup of cocoa with my name on it somewhere, but by the time I made it into the kitchen, the will to make the milky drink had died. Instead, I pulled out a chair and sat down with my head in my hands.
“Fee?” Cora entered the room. “You okay?”
“I need a boyfriend to dote on me and make me cocoa.”
She chuckled softly. “You don’t need a boyfriend for that. You have me.” The clatter of pans followed as she set to work. “Although Grayson will make you cocoa once you’re mated to him.”
There was something odd about her voice. It sounded wobbly and strange.
I looked up, studying her back as she poured milk into the pan and set it on the stove. There was tension in the way she held herself.
“Cor…what’s wrong?”
She turned to me with red-rimmed eyes and a slightly puffy nose. She’d been crying, and Cor rarely cried.
“Cor?”
“There’s no amulet,” she blurted out. “The Masterton Coven doesn’t have one, and they don’t have a witch powerful enough to make one. The kind of amulet that we need has to be created by a single person’s unbound energy.”
“So, not a coven member.”
“Right, which explains why Azazel didn’t go to the covens. We need an independent witch, and the last one Vi knows of that could make one is the witch Jasper killed.” Her mouth twisted, and she swallowed a sob. “I’m so sorry, Fee.”
It was a relief to know the score. To be done waiting. “Don’t be. At least we know where we stand now.”
“Conah’s arranging documents for you, and Mal’s getting a series of safe houses organized.”
The guys were already on it. My stomach trembled, and I nodded. “It’ll be okay.”
“Yes, it’ll be okay.” Cora pulled out the chair next to me, sat down, and took my hands. “We’ll get through this. It’ll be like a road trip. We’ll have so much fun.”
Oh God. She was going to hate me for this. “I’m going alone.”
She frowned. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Fuck off, Fee. We’re a team.”
It looked like I was going to have to be harsher. “I don’t want you to come with me, okay. You’ll just slow me down.”
She flinched, and then her eyes narrowed. “That bullshit isn’t going to work on me. I know you, Fee. I know what you’re trying to do. You can’t offend me and push me away. I’m too thick-skinned for that shit.”
Urgh. “Dammit, Cora, you have a life now. You have a chance to make something of it. To be an amazing witch. You can join a coven or be independent or whatever you want, and learn about your power.”
“I’m a freak, okay?” she said. “Witches aren’t meant to be able to do the kind of shit I can without a connection to a coven or without using blood, sex, and pain. I’m a freak that can do major miasma manipulations without any help. You think if they find that out, they’ll be cool with me hanging with them?”
“Shit, Cora…”
“Yeah. I’m coming with you, end of discussion.”
The air crackled, and Cora squeezed my hand on reflex, then looked over my shoulder. She cursed softly.
I glanced behind me to find Jasper standing by the fridge.
“Fuck off, okay,” she said. “Not tonight. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
“That isn’t the deal,” he replied coolly.
Cora stood so fast her chair clattered to the ground behind her. “Fuck off, Jasper, okay. Just fuck off!”
Her words were sharp with annoyance.
“You’re upset,” Jasper said.
“No, what gave it away?” Cora said sarcastically.
Jasper winked out and appeared beside Cora. The air around him was charged and thick. He cupped her face and forced her to look into his eyes. She didn’t resist, didn’t pull away from his touch, but her death glare spoke a thousand words.
“No,” Jasper said. “No, this won’t do at all.” He leaned in closer, and Cora’s mouth parted slightly. “What ails you? Tell me, and I will fix it.”
She pressed her lips together and jerked out of his grasp. “Unless you can find me a mirage amulet, then no, you can’t help me.”
“A mirage amulet?” He smirked. “I can do that.”
Cora blinked at him in surprise. “Sod off. You’re taking the piss.”
He looked confused. “I don’t take people’s piss.”
Cora glanced at me and then back at Jasper. “You know where we can find a mirage amulet?”
“No. Not where you can find one. Where I can find one. But it will cost you.”
Cora tensed. “What do you want?”
He leaned in and whispered in her ear.
Her face paled.
It was bad. Whatever he was asking for was bad. “No, Cora. We don’t need it.”
Jasper grabbed her jaw, and from her wince, it was obvious he was hurting her. “Do we have a deal?”
“Let go of her!” I made a grab for his shoulder.
Pain lanced through my arm, and I was flung backward into the fridge.
“Fee!” Cora cried out.
Oh, shit. My head. I pulled myself up, anger coursing through me.
“Stay down,” Jasper said. “You’re no match for me.”
“Hurt her again, and we’re done,” Cora said. “I will fight you. I’ll fight you with every fucking breath.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “So dramatic. Do you want my help or not?”
Like hell. “No.”
“Yes,” Cora said. “You have a deal.”
“Dammit, Cora.”
“I’ll be back with the item in a few hours,” Jasper said. “Be prepared to pay the price.”
He vanished, and Cora sagged, grabbing hold of the table. “Fuck.”
“What did you promise him, Cor?” I grabbed her shoulder. “What did you do?”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Nothing I can’t handle, trust me.”
“Why won’t you tell me? Since when do we have secrets?”
She met my gaze levelly. “Since now, babe. Since now.”
I was in the second lounge, Chaos Dimensions on full blast, when Conah and Mal returned. Cora had retired to her room to wait for Jasper, and my stomach was in knots. This helped. Killing monsters helped.
Cora had a secret.
She was keeping stuff from me, and it hurt. But how could I deny her privacy? She was her own person, and that meant there would be parts of her life that she’d want to keep to herself, and she was doi
ng this to help me. Doing it for me.
“Fee, we need to talk,” Conah said before switching off my console in the middle of a battle.
“Seriously?” I glared at him.
“Wow, Conah, not cool,” Mal added. “She was on a kill streak; how many was that?”
“Thirty.”
Mal let out a low whistle.
“Will you shut up,” Conah snapped at him. “This is more important.”
I set down my controller. “I know, okay. But you don’t need to worry about the safe houses and the papers. Jasper’s gone to get a mirage amulet. Apparently, he knows someone who has one.”
“The malevolent spirit?” Conah asked. “We’re trusting him now?”
“Hold up,” Mal said. “He did help Fee and Cora get us out of the Eye.”
“For a price,” Conah said.
But there was no denying the relief on his face.
I smiled tightly. “Yeah, there’s a price this time too. Cora’s paying it, but she won’t tell me what it is. I doubt it’s donuts or eclairs, though. She looked scared.”
“Cora’s strong,” Conah said. “And Jasper won’t physically hurt her. He needs her.”
“I know, but there are ways to hurt someone that go beyond the physical.”
There was silence as we all absorbed this.
“Well,” Conah said. “At least we have a backup plan should we need it.”
“I doubt we will,” Mal said. “This Jasper entity seems to have his fingers in a lot of pies.”
Pies… My stomach grumbled.
Conah frowned at me.
“Have you eaten?” Mal asked.
I arched a brow and then looked at the coffee table littered with empty crisp and mini cake packets.
“Proper food,” Conah elaborated.
“I was too lazy to cook.”
Conah rolled up his sleeves to expose toned forearms. “I’ll fry up some steaks. We can eat in the kitchen.”
My mouth watered at the thought of a sizzling, juicy steak, or maybe two. Conah fried them to perfection.
“Can we have creamy mash too?”
Conah smiled. “Yes. And there’s a chocolate tart in the fridge.”
How had I missed that?
“I need to shower,” Mal said.
A shower sounded great. After my run in the park and the stint in the stinky room, I could do with one myself. “Yeah, me too.”
I stood and stretched. My T-shirt rode up, and it wasn’t lost on me how both guys’ gazes zeroed in on my abdomen.
“You want to save water?” Mal asked.
Conah snorted and shot me a warning look before striding from the room. Our conversation from the night before came back to me. Mal’s curse. His guilt. His punishment. I’d become a part of that. He wanted me but denied himself a full connection. He wanted me but denied himself my heart.
He teased me, but he was testing himself because I could see the sincerity in his eyes even if it was masked by his cocky smile.
“I’ll wash your back, and you can wash mine,” he drawled in typical Mal style.
I stepped closer and smiled up at him. “Sounds good to me.”
His mouth parted in surprise. Yeah, weren’t expecting that, were you?
I pressed my palms to his chest and then pushed up on tiptoe so my lips hovered beneath his. “I can give you a reach-around if you want?”
Mal groaned. “Fuck, Fee.” He closed his eyes.
He wanted me, but he needed to allow himself to be more than a distraction. “You let me know when you’re ready, because I’m ready, Mal.” I smiled softly at him. “I’m ready to give you my heart. You just need to be ready to take it.”
He scanned my face, his emerald eyes filled with conflicting emotions.
I bridged the final inch and kissed his lips softly, sweetly, and then released him and walked away, leaving him standing, stunned, in the middle of the lounge.
The determination to free him from his curse was a calling in my blood now. I wouldn’t fail. Because a world without Mal would be a gray, empty world.
By the time I’d showered, food was ready, but Cora hadn’t emerged from her room. There was no way I was eating without her, though.
I knocked on her door, and when there was no reply, I entered. The scent of sex hit me, making my knees weak.
What the fuck?
The room was gloomy, but there was enough light to see two figures writhing on the bed. I caught the flash of naked limbs, a muscled back, and taut buttocks. There was a naked man on the bed with Cora trapped beneath him.
Not a naked man.
Jasper.
It had to be.
Get out. Get out now, my brain screamed at me, but I was rooted to the carpet as my mind struggled to comprehend how this could be a thing. How could she let him—
The price.
This was the price.
Bile climbed up my throat, and then I caught sight of Cora’s face. Her head was turned to the side, eyes squeezed shut, mouth pressed in a line as if she was enduring something distasteful. I took a step toward the bed, anger spiraling up inside me. The bastard needed to get off my friend.
But then a cry erupted from her lips, and her arms came up to grip Jasper’s ass, to urge him to move faster, harder.
Fuck.
I backed up as his laughter echoed around the room, accompanied by her cries of pleasure.
I stumbled out into the corridor and pulled the door closed.
My friend was fucking a malevolent entity, and she was enjoying it.
Chapter Ten
“You had no right!” Cora bristled with rage.
I stared at her from my spot in the center of my bed. She was pissed. Smoke-coming-out-of-her-nose pissed. But lying to her about what I’d seen wasn’t an option. Plus, I needed to understand the dynamic between her and the malevolent Jasper.
“You invaded my privacy.” Her chin trembled.
The steak I’d eaten churned in my stomach. “I’m sorry.”
And I wasn’t only apologizing for entering her room while she was having sex, and she knew it.
Her shoulders sagged, and she plonked her butt on my dresser chair and covered her face with her hands.
“Argh, Fee, this is all so fucked up.”
She could say that again. The image of her and him flitted through my mind, and the sounds she’d made… She’d enjoyed it. Heck, I was no one to judge, but come on. Jasper was plain evil by his own admission.
“Cora…Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“You had sex with him to pay for an amulet for me. It’s a huge deal.”
She sighed and raised her head. “It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”
“What?”
“It’s how he feeds, Fee. Sex is how he feeds. The deal is to increase the frequency of our...encounters.”
Mal fed on sex too, but for some reason, this, with Jasper, felt ick.
My stomach turned. “Cora…”
She made a slashing motion with her hand. “It doesn’t hurt. I mean, it’s sex and he’s good at it. I just…I hate that I like it. I don’t want to like it. I don’t want him having any more control over me than he already does.”
But she’d agreed to it for me. To save me from having to run. Hunter came to mind. The way he made my body react even though I didn’t want it to. The difference was I could stay away from Hunter. Cora was bound to Jasper in a way I couldn’t even comprehend. He was always a heartbeat away. He could find her wherever she was. There was no running for my best friend.
I scooted to the edge of the bed. “We have to find a way to get rid of him. There has to be something.”
She gave me a weary smile. “Trust me, I’ve been looking for a loophole. A way out of this deal ever since we got what we wanted from it. Nothing so far, but if there is an escape hatch, I’ll find it. It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it.” She reached into her pocket and pulled o
ut a necklace with an amulet dangling off it. “You need to deal with this.”
I plucked it from her fingers.
“Put it on,” she said. “It better fucking work.”
I guess we were done talking about Jasper then. I knew better than to push her. She was in an impossible situation, and reminding her of the yuck factor wasn’t helping. I took a deep breath and forced myself to drop the topic.
For now.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
“No, Cor. Thank you.” I turned the amulet over in my hands. The chain looked deceptively fragile, but it was weighty and solid, and the amulet was an emerald gem set in a gold frame etched with symbols. “Did he say where he got this?”
“Some bloodwitch in Asia who owes him a debt. He said he was certain it would work, but maybe not in the exact way you expect it to. Oh, and it has to be touching your skin. It won’t work otherwise.”
There was only one way to find out. I slipped it on and tucked it under my shirt. Nothing happened, and then my skin began to prick all over like I was being stabbed by a thousand needles.
“Fuck!” My voice came out deep and masculine. “What the fuck?”
Cora slapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide and then she burst out laughing.
“What? What is it?” Shit, my voice.
She shook her head and pointed to the mirror.
I crossed the room to the dresser and leaned over her to stare at my face. My angular, male face.
“You’re a guy,” Cora said. “You’re a hot, young guy.”
Motherfucker.
I had a penis. An honest-to-God penis and hairy balls. I turned and studied my taut buttocks and lean muscular thighs. I had a six-pack and pecs too.
“How old do you think I am?”
“About ten inches.” Cora’s gaze was fixed on my cock.
“Stop that.”
“I can’t help it. It’s a beautiful dick.”
“Early twenties,” Cyril said, answering my original question.
When the fuck had he slithered in?
“Um…Yeah,” Cora added.
She needed to stop ogling. “It’s not real, Cor. It’s a glamour.”
Reaper Unveiled (Deadside Reapers Book 4) Page 5