Repossession (The Keepers Trilogy)

by Rachael Wade

  “We should be more worried about what will happen if this plan of his does work.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  His brown-eyed gaze slid to mine. “Ah, forget it. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

  Jet’s voice stirred behind us. “I’ve been saying that all along.”

  Kale and I turned around and looked up to find him towering over us, hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

  “Don’t worry, Your Highness,” Kale answered quickly, rising to his feet. “I was just going. See you two at the meeting tonight.”

  “Oh?” I said, standing with him. “Okay … see you tonight.”

  Kale and Jet exchanged another tense glance before Kale disappeared up the rocky stairwell. I watched him as he exited, wishing he hadn’t run off so soon. Had he really believed all of that? That we could offer a truce somehow? That the Invaders would even let us do such a thing? My curiosity simmered, mixing with a surge of anger. Wasn’t that essentially what the traitors were doing? Giving in? Handing over control?

  How was what Kale was suggesting any different?

  “Why are you soaking wet?” Jet asked, his voice softening now that Kale was gone. His expression seemed to soften, too, and he leaned over to kiss me, letting his lips slowly brush mine. Only his mouth touched me as his body remained still.

  “Hhhmm?”

  “Your clothes,” he breathed. “They’re all wet.”

  “I decided to go for a swim.”

  “It’s six in the morning.” He nipped my bottom lip but still didn’t move to touch me, sending my blood boiling hot beneath my skin. “And you were with him. I still don’t trust him. I don’t buy this bull about him wanting us as allies. I think he lured us here because his little movement needed more recruits.”

  “He has a name.”

  “I don’t like his name.”

  “Jet.” I bit him back, my eyes widening a fraction at the sound of his moan. I really liked that sound.

  I wanted another.

  Leaning up on my tiptoes, I moved in to elicit moan number two, but his strong hands found my waist and he lifted me up, wrapping my legs around his hips.

  “Come back to bed.” His voice was husky.

  “I can’t sleep. That’s why I came down here.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  I exhaled quietly, my body sliding over his hard stomach as he lowered me back to my feet. “There’s no privacy.”

  His teeth skimmed the flesh of my neck, and a satisfied hum rattled low in my throat. “I know just the spot.”

  “You do?” I pulled him back down to me and kissed him greedily, surrendering to him completely. He groaned and welcomed my tongue, our mouths moving together like soft velvet, each stroke lusher than the last.

  “You’ve had the same look in your eyes since the meeting last night,” he whispered into my mouth. “Just forget the world right now, Sky. Just get lost in this.”

  “I want to,” I whispered back.

  And I meant it.

  EIGHT

  Jet’s hand was surprisingly warm in mine in the cold water. He’d convinced me to jump back in the Abyss; I didn’t object, even after the scare I’d had before he and Kale showed up.

  “Trust me, okay?” he said when we reached the farthest wall. Our heads bobbed next to the dark rock, the surface illuminated by the faint flicker of the cave’s lanterns.

  “We can’t swim any farther,” I said.

  “Just close your eyes and hold your breath. Don’t let go of my hand, whatever you do.”

  “I have to close my eyes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I trust you.”

  “Good.” His chilled lips met mine and he pulled back, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

  I nodded and closed my eyes, then inhaled deeply. I could hear him suck in another lungful of air and then duck beneath the surface. In less than a second, I was taken underwater with him, the warm pull of his hand tugging at mine. I blindly followed his lead and swam at his side, hoping he wasn’t leading me farther down. I knew some Black Hole residents got their kicks by trying to swim as far down as they could, but I was most definitely not one of them. Since the Invaders arrived, I’d had enough thrills to last me a lifetime.

  Jet’s hand began to drift vertically, and I followed suit, swimming upward until we broke the surface. I gasped for breath, feeling something light and warm on my cheeks.

  “You can open your eyes now,” he said.

  My eyelids fluttered open and I wiped the water from my lashes, smiling when I found the source of the warm light—sunlight. Early morning sunlight, pouring down on us from a hole at the top of the cavern. “How did you find this?”

  “I took a swim to wash up before I went to bed last night.”

  “You just accidently found this while washing up?” I gave him a side-glance.

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  My eyes narrowed.

  “Okay, more like I was trying the deep-dive challenge everyone around here seems to be obsessed with. And when I realized I couldn’t go any farther, I started to swim back up and found this. Nice, right?”

  “It’s incredible.” I let my head fall back, taking in the sunlight.

  “Come here.” His hand found mine again and he led me to a narrow crevice on the far side of the cavern’s pool. Pulling me up and out of the water, his big hands landed on my waist and his mouth lowered to mine. “Private enough for you?”

  “Plenty.” I grinned up at him, lifting his inked forearm between us. Dropping my gaze to the spiritual creatures splayed across his skin, I brought my mouth to the tattoo and trailed lazy kisses across it, savoring the feel of his arm muscles jumping beneath my lips.

  “You like?” I whispered, lowering myself to my knees to lift his shirt and kiss his navel.

  His entire body tensed as he groaned softly. “You turn me on so fucking bad I can’t think straight.”

  “So that’s a yes?” I flicked my tongue along his lower abdomen, lifting his wet shirt up and over his head as I stood and resumed full height. He still towered over me, his thick, toned body covering mine with heat. I loved our difference in height. Physically, he made me feel so small. His inner strength was a different matter. It made me feel equally powerful.

  Like I could conquer the world.

  My brazen fingers suddenly had their own mind, yanking my shirt and jeans off, then moving to his pants to undo the zipper. The deepening of his groan told me he approved, and he instantly responded to my enthusiasm, cupping my head in one hand and pressing my body into his with the other. “That’s a yes,” he murmured.

  Reveling at that green light, I crushed my mouth on his and pushed against him, letting the vixen inside me take over.

  There was a vixen in there. Who knew?

  Shoving him backward with every ounce of strength I could muster, I was met with a hard wall of immovable muscle. I pounded my fist into his chest, my fingernails pressing into the back of his neck. Still no movement. I wanted him to yield, wanted to harness that newfound power, wanted to take the lead, wanted … something. But it was no use.

  He caught my wrists and pulled back to suck in air, glaring down at me as I squirmed against him, my chest heaving. “Oh, so you want it rough, do you?”

  “I just want you,” I stuttered, my thoughts hazy and mind clouded with crazed lust. I turned him on? Within two seconds of having his hands on me, I was a senseless, uncontrollable, aggressive mess. “I’m impatient.”

  “I can see that.” He let out a low, husky laugh, his eyes filled with delighted amusement. “I’ve got no problem giving it to you rough, baby. I know you need to get lost right now, and I want to give that to you. But I don’t want you to be so lost that you forget who’s giving it to you. Look at me.” His fingers floated to my face, tipping my chin up to bring my brown eyes to his blue. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “Don’t complicate this, Jet. I jus
t want you, okay?”

  “You’d tell me if something was bothering you?”

  “Yes.” I looked away.

  “Look at me and say it.”

  I leveled my gaze with his, gritting my teeth. “Yes, I would tell you. Now I’m naked and I want you inside me, so can we chat later?”

  His lips twitched, his amusement flaring again. “Piss and vinegar.” Shaking his head, he swiftly lifted me up to drape my legs around his waist, then carried me over to the boulder-covered wall. My breath caught at the feel of his erection sliding against my core. “When I’m convinced you’re good and thoroughly fucked, we’re talking about this.”

  “Uh huh.” I adjusted my back and legs, then lifted my hips and slammed down onto him, forcing him deep. He growled, letting all his weight fall against me, pinning me to the cool rock. His hand fell to the jagged stone near my ear as he braced himself, his head dropping to the side of my neck.

  “Fine,” he grunted, gripping my hipbone, “have it your way.” His teeth clamped down on my collarbone and he started to move, his waist pumping hard. Tiny prickles of pain stabbed at my back, the jagged stone scraping at my skin, but I didn’t care. The pain reminded me I was alive, and once again, it was Jet making me feel that way.

  I cried out and Jet thrust harder, as if to make me pay for my impatience. His hand dropped from the wall and found my breast, kneading and pulling as he worked, his other hand ironclad on my hip. A soft whimper escaped me, but he didn’t let up, hammering into me hard and fast, every dip of his hips pushing me closer and closer to release. “Oh my God, Jet—”

  He delivered a sharp strike, knocking the wind and the words from me. “Chat later.”

  I tilted my head back and bit my lip, matching his thrusts hit for hit. I glanced down, enjoying the view and the rhythm of our hips as they rolled and bounced together. The slow build he was creating began to simmer low in my stomach, igniting a wild, desperate plea to burst from my mouth. My shout echoed, ricocheting off the cave walls and splintering all around us.

  “Take it all, baby,” he rasped against my neck. “Take whatever you need. Come on.”

  Sweat beaded on my forehead, rolling down my nose and cheeks in heavy rivulets. I cried out as the simmer began to boil, the exertion intensifying every emotion driving through me: anger at the Invaders, at the fact that our entire creation was a lie, our planet was a lie. Heartbreak for the hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—who already lost their lives because of them, and millions more who would soon share the same fate because of their attack. More heartbreak for my parents, for Jet and the little sister he’d lost, and even more for the very good chance that I was falling for Jet and the harsh realization that I’d likely never get to explore the full potential of that possibility.

  Finally, elation. Pure and utter elation, driven by the strength Jet was feeding me, through his presence, and now his body. All of it swirled deep in the pit of my stomach, stirred and awakened by the powerhouse of a man charging into me, banging me relentlessly against the cavern wall.

  “How do you like that?” He increased his pace, making it nearly impossible for me to catch my breath. “Fast enough for you?”

  “Jet!”

  “Sorry, baby. No time to talk.” Another feverish jolt jostled me up and then down, and it tossed me over the edge. I tipped and then freefell on a shout, my body imploding and disintegrating all around him. A string of strained, incoherent words poured from his lips as I made a silent descent, feeling the muscles in his thighs and abdomen tighten against me. We rode the wave down, rocking slowly back and forth, capturing the last few ripples of pleasure from the friction.

  “You have to promise me something,” I panted as we slowly rolled to a stop.

  “What is it?”

  “Whatever happens with this recon mission, whatever happens at the end of all this, you’ll never let me be taken by those things again.”

  Jet drew back to look me in the eye, then carefully slid out of me, adjusting himself and zipping up his pants.

  “I never want to be a prisoner again. Never. Now that I know what it feels like to be free … I can’t go back. I just can’t.”

  “I would never let that happen.” His fingers found my face, his thumb dragging a slow trail beneath my cheekbone. “Never.”

  “When I found my parents on our living room floor—” I choked, forcing the lump in my throat down. “Something happened to me then. And then I woke up in that prison, and I found you, and everything just … shifted. I’d never been more afraid of losing myself than I was when my world was turned upside down. I’d wanted that—to get lost, just so I could find something—for so long, but when it finally happened, I wanted nothing more than to go back to being that boring, restless girl from Morton.”

  The tiny lines around Jet’s eyes creased as his brow wrinkled, his lips pressing together as he studied me. Without a word, he lifted me up and cradled me in his arms, turning to press his back to the wall. He slid down to the ground, letting his knees come up, creating a warm hammock for my bare, sweaty body. “I’m sorry for all you’ve been through, Skylla. I truly mean that. If I could take it all back for you, I would. In a fucking heartbeat.”

  I leaned in and pressed my forehead to his. “But that feeling, of being lost, was short-lived. I don’t want that anymore. For the first time … I know what I’m supposed to do. That can’t ever change. I can never go back to being the girl I was. So I need you to swear you’ll let me die before you let me be held prisoner again.”

  He pulled my head back, cupping my jaw to deadpan me. “You have my word. Don’t even go there, okay? Look, despite my reservations about your not-so-secret admirer, I do believe in what the rebels want to do. We’re going to help them with this mission, and it’s going to work. I feel it.” His eyes scanned mine. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “I’m not sure what I believe. I only know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to be there to see your face when you find Hera. That’s all I want.”

  His expression softened at the mention of his sister’s name, and his gaze dropped to the tattoos on his arm. “I don’t deserve to find her, Skylla.”

  “Why would you say something like that?”

  He began to drag a fingernail along the black ink, beginning at the whimsical angel, toward the demon. His finger trickled from the angel’s wings and then along the bridge, slowly making the trek to the demon’s feet, above a square arrangement of Gothic text. “You ever feel like you’re in between?”

  “Of course,” I said, following the trail.

  “It’s what I know—being in between. Never in the right place at the right time. Always on the precipice of something good or something bad. Nothing’s ever … balanced. After I saw them take Hera, I couldn’t stop looking at this tattoo. I’ve had it for years, got it on my eighteenth birthday, but as soon as she was gone, I just couldn’t stop staring. Because that’s life, you know? Good and bad. You can’t have one without the other. The bad brings out the good in us, and the good can be corrupted by the bad. It’s always a struggle—to fight for the good, so it tips the scale.”

  He grew quiet for a moment, his gaze glued to the image, and I wanted to ask him what all that had to do with Hera. But I didn’t speak, just waited.

  A ragged breath was finally drawn from his lips and his gaze lifted, focusing on something in the distance. “If I had been there, just a little closer to her that day, I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve grabbed her before they took her away. She was playing in the yard—we were visiting my friend’s family in Alabama—calling for me, and I was standing in the doorway, one foot in the house, the other outside, on the porch. I was talking on the phone. The Invaders hadn’t moved in on that town yet, and I was trying to make some final calls, knowing the phone service would eventually go down. It was a miracle it hadn’t already, so I was frantic. I was so stupid for even letting her outside to play, but I �
�� wanted her to feel safe. Normal. I didn’t want to scare her. She’d been bugging me all morning to come outside and play with her, and I kept blowing her off. I was caught up in my own bullshit, you know?”

  “Don’t do this,” I whispered, feeling his body begin to tremble beneath mine.

  He kept going. “The Invaders came and I heard her scream, saw the Capsule and watched them load her into it, watched it lift off the ground and disappear. And there I was, looking back at the doorway, where I’d been caught in between doing what I knew I should’ve done and what I chose to do instead. I should’ve been out in that yard with her—should’ve never let her outside in the first place. And now she’s gone and if I never see her again, I deserve it.”

  I shifted and gently shook his shoulders, calling his gaze from that faraway place, forcing it to meet mine. “I said don’t, Jet. Don’t do this to yourself. Do you know how many people have asked that same question? All the what-ifs and could-haves and should-haves? Nothing good comes from those questions. Because they’re all hypothetical, and the past is the past. Hera knew you loved her.”

  A sad smile sketched his lips. “Maybe. But that still wasn’t enough to protect her. There’s no harder truth to swallow than knowing you’ve hurt someone you love.”

  I was about to say that we all hurt the ones we love. That we can’t help it and that for some reason, we’re just defective like that. Maybe because those we love most bring out the very best and the worst in us, and in some twisted way, we resist that magic. Maybe they awaken passions we never knew we had, and reveal all those ugly little truths about ourselves we don’t like to face. So we strike back, and sometimes the cut is deep. But as his gaze burned into mine, I was ushered into silence. There was something lurking there, and in that perfect moment of privacy, while I sat warm and safe in his strong arms, I didn’t want to explore those depths.

  Not now. Not ever.

  * * *

  “There’s been a change in plans,” Kale said, rushing up to us as we returned to our sleeping quarters.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Rico’s changing his strategy for the recon mission. The rebels are meeting now, for breakfast. Then we hit the road and leave tonight.”