by Jamie Magee
One second he was Mr. Smooth, dominating as hell making her melt under his blameless touch. The next he was flat on his back on the table, and Saige was straddling him as her lips crashed into his.
It took him a few heartbeats to convince himself that he had not slipped into some wild fantasy of his, or worse had been knocked out by her to buy her time to escape. No. This was real. As real as it was eons ago. Her lips were starved, soft as satin and innocent as rain.
He pulled his shoulders from the table as he held her wild long hair back from her face so he could ravish this kiss, deepen it. When he felt her hips rock into him as her hands fell over every lined edge of his chest, one of his hands fell to her chest just between her lush breasts. There it was, her heart beating out of control, more proof this was real, more importantly, this was Saige.
His hands slid around her gripping her ass and pressing her down on his hard length. Fuck he could not get close enough! Her lips broke from his as a soft moan escaped her. Responsiveness like this was going to saturate any purity she was planning on keeping; she might as well be screaming his name, demanding that he not stop.
His kiss fell to her long neck calling out more of those delicious, quiet sounds. He gripped her tightly, and then had them both standing in the next beat. Talon had too many instincts firing at once. The first was he was not taking this female for the first time on this table. He wasn’t taking her anywhere Reveca had been. The second was he’d be damned if he let anyone see her this wild and free, that was his secret to know.
Standing was as far as he got, not only did Saige whimper when the hold pressed her near virgin clit against his shaft distracting him even more, he was now positive someone was coming their way.
Talon had barely let Saige slip from his grip when Scorpio charged through the door like he was answering a battle call. In a beat Saige was behind Talon, pulling herself back into the vision of composure. Like the hard on Talon was sporting didn’t lay out the evidence of what was going down.
Scorpio’s mouth fell agape for a second, and then he stood on guard like he was waiting for the heavens to rip open and doomsday to descend on the Boneyard.
Fuck if it did, Talon was going to die happy. Maybe not satisfied, but fucking happy.
“What is it?” Talon growled.
Scorpio took one step forward then the door behind him slammed shut.
“You and I can settle up later, I’m busy,” Talon said having a hard time steadying his breath. His mind was on fast-forward. He knew how many steps it was to his cabin. What he was taking off Saige first and last, he knew exactly how and where he was going to kiss her and could already hear his reward laced with sweet moans.
“You and her?” Scorpio said still darting his stare to the ceiling.
“You got something to say about it?” Talon snapped.
“Fuck me,” Scorpio said as he vanished.
Talon circled the table, opened the door and looked down the hall; once he closed it again he cared little for where the fuck Scorpio had zapped to or what he thought of Saige. Each step he took back to Saige caused her chest to heave and the rose blush he loved so much to slide down her glowing skin.
One step before her and he was cock blocked, literally. Scorpio appeared between them glaring down Saige.
“You really want me to kill you, don’t you?” Talon growled pushing him away.
“You tell me how,” Scorpio demanded of Saige.
“Tell you how what?” Talon demanded.
“He doesn’t know. You know, don’t you? You know better?” Scorpio accused.
“He knows,” Saige said as her eyes welled. “He’s always known.”
Scorpio lunged toward her, but was too late. Talon had Saige and was across the room before Scorpio realized they were gone. Scorpio turned and kept his confused, angry stare on Saige. “All this time, you couldn’t say anything to me?”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Talon said glancing back at Saige. “You got somethin’ going on with him.” If she did, there would be no end to Talon’s wrath. The Boneyard was about to be in ashes.
“No… yes… you’re not understanding,” Saige said as her nails dug into Talon’s back using him as a shield from Scorpio. Her fear alone was a red flag. Talon had seen this female thwart armies with a flick of her magic. Now she was scared of one biker?
“From the first day, you could have stopped it,” Scorpio seethed. “Toril would’ve listened to you.”
“No, not the Toril you knew, she wouldn’t. She shunned me for saving Talon.”
“Reveca, she hated Reveca.”
Saige swayed her head. “No, it was me. She loathed me even more when I would not deliver my sister’s head to her.”
“Do what?” Talon said keeping his stance, not sure who he should be directing his anger toward.
“We are empaths,” Scorpio snapped. “Feeling right as rain now? Do you not think I would sense Toril’s rage for you if she had it? That I would not have in the past?”
“We are well now,” Saige said grasping one of her calmer balanced tones.
“Are you then?” Scorpio said lifting both his brows sarcastically. “And what brought that about? Talon is still blind, and Reveca’s head is attached. I can’t imagine you could’ve swayed her with any gifts but those to win her affections.”
Saige’s stare searched Scorpio’s looking for answers and truths she could clearly see he didn’t possess. It wasn’t her place to tell him. Stating her truth was as far as she would go.
“I told her of your son,” Saige said trying to hold a firm tone. “I gave her Jamison, that is. They spoke for days on end. When she emerged, she fell to my feet and kissed them. And when she rose we were sisters again.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about,” Talon demanded when he saw shock hit Scorpio’s expression. Better yet, when he saw belief.
“You tell ‘em. Clearly, all of you prefer me to be in the dark,” Scorpio said as he fell into one of the chairs.
Talon looked over his shoulder at Saige before he turned. “What the hell is going on?”
“You know,” she whispered. “We’re not haunts...we are connected.”
Talon didn’t hear the words at first. They bounced off the safety wall wrapped around his sanity. “Who isn’t?” he asked finally.
“What I’ve been trying to tell you for years, Talon.” Scorpio snapped. “You’re not haunted. You are a supernatural entity designed to keep dark gods in check and the universe spinning. Only Reveca fucked you up when she saved you from death.” He glanced at Saige. “Or she did.”
“It was the wrong spell. All I knew was that he could not go to waste; he had to be here for this Rapture. I did what I could,” Saige argued.
“And he wouldn’t have,” Scorpio snapped. “All of us are born, and we all die, only we returned connected to our purpose. You and your sister not only put him in harm’s way, but you tainted him.” Scorpio balled his fists. “I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
“You mean you don’t know if I will let you kill my sister or not,” Saige spat in the cold manner she was known for.
This conversation had just gotten a bit rich for Talon, half of him was still going through all the ways he was going to ravish Saige. The other was flashing over all the almost conversations he had with Scorpio about the haunts that came and went, and the very real ones he had with Saige about the matter.
And now that Reveca wasn’t crazy, Scorpio was out for her head, was simmering to the top of the news breaking realities.
“How twisted are you?” Scorpio asked searching for his own answers. “All this time you sensed him. How did you live with it?”
“Sensed who?” Talon said sure they were not talking about him.
“I’m through playing it cool,” Scorpio said. “You, Talon. You. You are a member of a Throng. We’re not haunts. You are hearing us, feeling us. Seeing our lives. Our talents are yours. You’d know that if you didn’t run
from it, but you have. So, now what do we have? You trying to play catch up with what we are and me trying to play catch up with who we are.” He ticked his head at Saige. “Now she’s different, she accepted who she was, locked onto the power of it. Prob gave her coven a nice hard on when the rush rolled in. The downside? Every time you fucked her sister or any other whore, she felt what you were feeling. Every time you were in danger, scared, hurt, ecstatic, lustful—all of it, she felt it.”
Scorpio grunted. “No wonder she was always a cold bitch ‘round you.”
That was it. Talon delivered one callous, powerful on point punch to Scorpio’s jaw, by the time Scorpio hit the ground Talon was already facing Saige. All he wanted to see was denial; one iota of proof that none of what Scorpio said was true.
It was truth he found staring back at him. Painful gut wrenching truth.
Chapter Four
Okay, so maybe it didn’t totally fucking suck to be imprisoned against his will in this castle or illusion—whatever the fuck it was. Shade had been hard pressed to come around to any such idea no matter how hunky dory Bastion tried to make it seem by carrying on with life like it was any other fucking day. He’d even caught shorty doing laundry and shit.
All the damn cooking...
The palace would produce food on its own if no one bothered to prepare it, the thing was Bastion liked to cook. Must be a witch deal because Gwinn was always at Bastion’s side preparing some kind of something. Sometimes it wasn’t even food they were cooking but something to make something better, or yeah...Shade wasn’t tracking any of what they were plotting. His attention was on getting out, theirs was on making the best of it.
Shade could and would eat for kicks, but never three square meals a day. The only upside to any of it was when he and Thrash were sent to slaughter dinner.
Not that Shade got off on killing animals, far from it. He got off on mattering. On doing his part to take care of his own. Shade would have been far happier hunting in the great wide open where he had miles to walk and time to think. As it were, he could only walk to the other side of the castle that was equipped with its own farm. Like with all the other needs they could have, the livestock’s feed appeared every day when needed. The shit disappeared too. Now that was a mind fuck.
In all truth, he should not even trust he was killing a meal for his woman. It’s more than likely some fucked fairy dust or some shit. But hey, it made her happy. So, he did it. Where did it get him tonight? Nowhere. When he made his way into the dining hall, steering clear of the walking dead girl who was holding a serious grudge against anyone or thing with a dick, he stopped short.
Gwinn was nowhere in sight.
All his senses reached out looking for his woman as his mind and body prepared to rip whatever fuck had taken her to shreds.
Thrash looked up from the love affair he was having with the chicken leg before he cocked his head in the direction Shade already figured out Gwinn was in. “Queen of the Nile here said something and she took off toward her garden.”
“The Nile,” Zosime sneered as she fingered the fruit in front of her. “How...what is the word...dense can you be?”
“Dense enough not to give a fuck where you came from before you fell out of a pack of smokes.”
“What. Did. She. Say?” Shade asked, doing his best to be as nice and understanding as he could be with the female the way Gwinn had begged him to be.
It was harder than it sounded. Zosime took one look at Shade and came after him with those talons for nails. “You, you were there!”
He’d be damned if he knew what he was there for when it came to her. It was the most Zosime had said about the matter once Gwinn and Bastion, the only two she bothered to consider to be on her level, pulled her off of Shade. Thrash got a beating or two himself. She called him the whore’s royal guard or some shit. If anyone said anything directed to or about a woman they had defended, Reveca came to mind first and foremost.
“Every, fucking time,” Thrash had grumbled as he stormed away from Zosime the day she attacked. “There is no end to the enemies Vec has left in her wake, and somehow that’s our fucking fault.”
Shade may have been a bit cloudy on everything that happened to him before he was a Son, but he was damn sure he had not met Zosime since he was Son. Zosime treating him and Thrash differently but loathing them all the same backed up his theory. Which left Gwinn searching for a time when he could’ve helped her in his past as a Voyager.
The whole deal gave Shade chills. He was no fucking time traveler. He paid attention to the conflicts around the Boneyard. He had no other choice, this conflict had all but saturated his palate, giving him insights he was just fine not knowing before. Jade was said to be a Voyager. Apparently, Finley had been hanging out in the Fold with Little Dove. So had Adair. It was a stretch, but it was rumored Judge was there when he took Zen out.
No offense. But Shade was not like any of those people. Especially Jade, the way she walked around laughing at her private jokes or better yet, staring at shit that was not there.
Gwinn thought Shade’s history was fascinating, a bit terrifying, and overall, a great honor due to the power a Voyager had, particularly one who could seal time. That little trick was reserved for the elite of Voyagers. Shade thought it was a fucked up fairy tale that Mia spun right before he skipped town or some shit.
It had only been a few weeks since the bomb drop of this possible backstory, not enough time for Shade to agree with, and plenty for him to ignore it all together. Gwinn never brought it up around him, but he was sure every spare second she had was digging into the power a Voyager had. He would’ve told her to drop it all if Jade hadn’t come up missing right about the time Akan decided he wanted to flaunt his balls and act out.
Whatever Gwinn uncovered was bound to help with the details of Akan’s take down, and then Shade could squash the rest. He was not whoever they thought he was. He was Shade, a male who liked things nice and simple. Even if he was locked in a fucking illusion! He never liked haughty bitches, particularly ones who accused him of doing shit he didn’t do. Making Zosime his least favorite person right about now.
Shade stalked over to Zosime then loomed over her. Her flinch? Yeah right, this bitch thought she ruled all. Worse, she thought she had been to hell and back. Not much left to rattle her bones. “What did you say to my woman?” Shade demanded.
Without so much as a glance up at him, she tossed the contents of her wine glass on his chest. “I told her last time I drank wine at your table I wound up with a knife in my chest and a cheating bastard haunting my mind!”
As if she were the one insulted she sat down and turned her head in rage as she held out her hand waiting for more wine to appear, and it did. Snatching it and pouring it over her snake hairdo was far too tempting, and would’ve happened if Shade didn’t storm off in the direction of Gwinn.
By the time he climbed the endless stairs to the garden observatory, he had shed the wine-stained shirt. With his jeans hung low on his hips, he stormed into the garden. Four steps in and the heavy wooden doors not only closed but also latched behind him.
His defenses went on high alert as he realized all the weapons were on the other side of it.
Cautiously, he stepped forward feeling like he was walking across the heavens as he did. The night air was thin, lacking the thick humidity the low-lying swamps he was accustom to. There was zero light making the stars so bright that there were a few he would have to squint at if he stared in the direction of their cluster too long.
Even though this garden was on top of the castle the soil was rich and dark. Most of the fruit grew up there, more so grapes than anything. A medieval vineyard of sorts. As far as Shade knew Gwinn had spent next to no time there either— she liked the herb gardens and the rare trees found in the north and south gardens on the lowest level.
He could feel her; whatever she was doing she was drenched in happiness, almost euphoric. One step forward and the squish of his boots in th
e damp soil all but announced his presence with a bullhorn. Which would have matched his rage moments before. Now, though...he was in a better mood.
Silently, he slipped out of his shit kickers and then his socks, seconds later his bare feet were quietly moving through the star covered, vine-laced gardens. Every kind of delicious idea in existence came to him as he came closer to his female. Each and every one of them died when he heard the crack of a twig right behind him. He turned full of defense only to cock his brown when he saw his witch bathed in starlight slowly chewing a grape she had harvested.
She was filthy, her feet all the way up her shins were covered in the juice of grapes, even more delightful splashes were across her stomach and chest, her bare stomach and chest. Instant hard on. Zero to ‘you are mine, woman.’
“Looks like we had the same idea,” Gwinn said with a sultry smile as her dark eyes took in his violet stare, strong profile, his thick shoulders she loved to anchor her nails in, just to hold on when the male let himself lose control. Her enchanted stare traveled down his defined pecs, licking her lips as she did, and then further down, ridge after ridge led down into a V highlighting her favorite part of him. “There he is, has he missed me?”
A growl and lunge forward was her answer, when Shade’s lips landed on hers, and his tongue twirled in the juices of the fruit lingering in her mouth, Shade was sure he was drunk on her. “What are you up to, female?” he asked feeling a hum consume him.
He should care that for all they knew some witch was watching them getting their jollies off. He should care that the asshats that drove them into this illusion could easily be seen from the edge of the garden. He sure as fuck should still be pissed at the cigarette woman who threw wine on him for no reason at all.
But he could not give less of a fuck.