His eyes grew angry. “What the fuck do you think I’m saying, Miriam?”
Pain flared in my chest. Then tears came to my eyes. They came so suddenly I couldn’t even think about stopping them, much less hiding them from him.
“You were sleeping with someone else?” I saw him flinch from the pain in my words. “Why?” I said. “Why, Black?”
He caught ahold of me, yanking me up against him.
For a moment he only looked at me, that anger still in his expression, then he seemed to really see me and that anger crumpled.
“Honey... no.” His arms grew warmer, softer, pulling me deeper against him. “I wasn’t fucking people. I didn’t have a lover... I got raped. More than once. And not only by humans. This isn’t...” He shook his head. “I didn’t say it right, okay? I was talking about rape. I thought you got that. I thought you knew what I was telling you.”
I stared at him, feeling that pain in my chest change.
Then it grew a lot worse.
It pooled darkly into my belly as I watched him avoid my gaze, coiling there until I really did feel physically sick. I remembered Solonik, and what he’d done to me. I remembered what my uncle had done to Black in Paris. The longer I sat there, the more that anger and grief turned into something closer to hate, until I could barely breathe.
I didn’t even know who I hated at that point.
Maybe some portion of the world, the people who would do these things and just walk away, always seemingly unscathed.
“It’s okay.” He kissed my face, leaning against me for real. He sighed, and when he did, his light opened more. I felt relief on him, even as he pressed into me, but I felt his embarrassment, too. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you like that.”
I shook my head, wrapping my arms around him. “Tell me whatever you want, Black. However you want.”
He shook his head, still leaning on me. “I’m sorry,” he said, without raising his head. “It’s not you. It’s nothing you did, Miri... but when you bit me...”
He hesitated, and that time I looked up.
Again, that shame glanced across his eyes.
“It was a conditioned response. Okay? I’m not angry with you. I’m embarrassed. That fucking thing fed on me and got me to like it...” Shaking his head, another plume of shame went through him. “...Not like it. I don’t mean like it, Miri.” Disgust filled his voice. “I don’t know what I fucking mean. He’d project your light at me while he fed on me. He’d make it so I saw you... and felt you, even with the collar.” His voice grew bitter. “He told me he’d train me to get hard whenever he bit me, and he was right.”
I just sat there in his lap, curled up in his arms, letting his words sink in.
When neither of us said anything after a few minutes more, I felt that shame begin to creep back over him again. I felt him wishing he’d stayed silent. Or told me some other way... or later at least, not sprung it on me the first second we were alone.
I spoke before I knew what I meant to say. My voice came out strangely cold.
“So?” I said.
When he stiffened, raising his head, I bit my lip, but held his gaze.
“So what?” I said, my voice harsher. “I’ll bite you whenever you want, Black. I’ll do whatever you want... no matter where that urge comes from. So he did that? He trained you to get off on his twisted crap? So what? You belong to me.” I stared up at him. “You belong to me. Whatever he taught you to like, that’s mine now... and yours. Not his.” Tears came to my eyes as I watched his face. “You belong to me, goddamn it. Do you understand?”
That pain in his eyes faded slowly, the longer he looked at me.
“Do you?” I said, wiping my face angrily. “Do you understand, Quentin?”
He nodded. Even more of that tension faded from his eyes as I watched.
“Say it,” I said. “Say you belong to me.”
“Untielleres, ilya...” he murmured, stroking my cheek with his hand.
“No. Say it in English,” I said.
“I belong to you, Miri. I belong to you.”
“For how long?”
“Forever, wife.”
I nodded, clenching my jaw, my arms folded. “Good. And fuck that guy. I am so going to kill him when we run into him again.”
Black stared at me for what felt like a long time.
Then slowly, as if he couldn’t help himself, he broke out in one of those killer grins.
* * *
Want to read more by this author?
While you’re waiting for the next Quentin Black book, check out her paranormal mystery romance novel set in communist Russia, featuring an angel who falls to Earth while chasing a demon, and the KGB agent who tries to help him:
SHADOW WINGS
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QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY is a dark, gritty paranormal romance and mystery series starring brilliant and mysterious antihero Quentin R. Black, along with his partner, psychic forensic psychologist Miram Fox. For fans of Sherlock Holmes and paranormal romance, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black tries to redeem himself by making the world safe for his kind.
THE ALLIE’S WAR SERIES is a dark, unique and gritty psychic romance involving a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled unpredictable twists.
THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she has to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, a modern day version of the coliseum.
THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES is an unusual shifter romance centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth. Part urban fantasy, part detective series, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate Shifter series explores crime solving, interstellar warfare and alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.
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“Seeking Truth in Made-Up Worlds”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JC Andrijeski is a USA TODAY bestselling author who writes paranormal mystery, mystery romance and science fiction, often with a sexy, metaphysical and apocalyptic bent. JC’s work has been featured in anthologies, online literary, art and fiction magazines as well as print venues such as NY Press. She’s originally from the Bay Area in California but has traveled extensively and lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia and from coast to coast in the continental United States. Currently, she lives and writes full time in Bangkok, Thailand.
To learn more about JC and her writing, please visit http://jcandrijeski.com.
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BLACK AND BLUE
Quentin Black Mystery #5
Copyright © 2016 by JC Andrijeski
Link with me at: http:
//jcandrijeski.com
Cover Art & Design by Jennifer Munswami at
J.M. Rising Horse Creations
www.facebook.com/RisingHorseCreations
2016
Published by White Sun Press
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Table of Contents
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE: History RepeatsPrologue
ONE: 24 Hours Earlier
TWO: The Other City of Angels
THREE: Wined and Dined
FOUR: Dinner Guests
FIVE: Mapping the Ground
SIX: Something’s Wrong
SEVEN: Condition Black
EIGHT: The Mirror Crack’d
NINE: Of The People
TEN: New Guy
ELEVEN: Fire Alarm
TWELVE: Not Who But What
THIRTEEN: There’s Always A Reason
FOURTEEN: You Already Know What They Are
FIFTEEN: Cowboy
SIXTEEN: Break-In
SEVENTEEN: Scout’s Honor
EIGHTEEN: Machine Shop
NINETEEN: The White Coats
TWENTY: Puzzle
TWENTY-ONE: We All Suffer Here
TWENTY-TWO: Kill Them All
TWENTY-THREE: Pay the Piper
TWENTY-FOUR: End of the Road
TWENTY-FIVE: The Long Journey Home
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) Page 32