by Jenica Saren
The son of a bitch crossed his arms over his chest and his grin only grew. "You need to take a chill pill, Big Tits, it's what you're here for."
The air rushed out of my lungs and I froze in place, staring at the man with an expression as vacant as a parking spot in the sun. "What did you say?" I asked slowly, my tone even.
"It's what we pay you for, ain't it, doll?" He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill that he stuffed into the top of my dress, and then patted the spot like I was a sow he got at a good price at auction. "That should cover it." He winked at me and that did it. I snapped.
"Get your nasty ass grabbers off the merchandise, you sick piece of miniature scum!" I shouted as I rose from my stool, towering over him by a good six inches in my heels. "Don't fucking touch me and get the fuck out of my club before I shove this heel so far up your ass, you'll be hearing it for weeks."
"Your mouth is too pretty to be talking like that," he replied, completely unfazed. He rubbed a hand up my arm and my stomach roiled in disgust. "Let me put something in it that will help, hmm?"
I completely lost it. I threw my fist into his stomach and he stumbled back several steps, the breath knocked out of him. I could see his mouth moving, I caught the slurs and insults coming out of it, but all I heard was my fist crashing into it.
My sense of sound returned to me as he lunged for me and two voices could simultaneously be heard shouting, "stay the fuck away from her!"
Before he got the chance to lay another hand on me, he was soaring across the room, having been thrown back by two impossibly tall, impossibly strong, and annoyingly familiar faces.
"You've got to be shitting me right now," I mumbled. "Of course both Twin Towers would be here at the same time. Of fucking course they would be!"
The two of them both turned to me and raised an eyebrow each, both used to my nicknames by this point. Well, not Rory so much. But he was used to my weird shit in general.
Rory reached a hand out to Kellan, a sly smirk on his face. "Boss," he introduced.
Kellen stared at the hand for a second before taking it and squeezing harder than was probably necessary. If it hurt, Rory didn't let it show. "Boyfriend," Kellan replied gruffly. My heart lodged itself in my throat. I was going to have to deal with that later.
I blinked at the two of them and turned to Rory first, jabbing my finger at him. "You're not my boss," I scolded. Then I turned to Kellan, doing the same. "And you're not my boyfriend."
Boyfriend? Really?
The impetuous man was struggling to sit up and I wanted to laugh at just how far he'd gone. I'd learned some sort of physics formula for how that worked in high school, but I'd long since forgotten. Either way, not a soul was making a move to help him up and I appreciated that.
"I'm going to freshen up and get ready for my next set," I said, looking pointedly at the both of them. "And then I'm getting shitfaced." I started to walk away, but Kellan stopped me.
"Actually," Kellan started.
I stopped walking and groaned in frustration. "Let me guess," I said, distaste dripping from my voice. "Eliam wants me home?"
I turned around to face him and he nodded.
"Am I not allowed to ever finish just one night of work?" I complained.
"Ria."
"Kel."
He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in an Eliam sort of way. "E wants to talk," he said. "About the seventh."
What a time for an info bomb.
16 Ria
The whole ride home, I was sulking and pouting like a little kid. I even tried guilting Kellan into taking me back to the club so I could finish my shift, but he wasn't having any of it. The guy was as rock solid on the inside as he was on the outside.
Well, not literally, I hoped. That would make any number of things very uncomfortable.
Before leaving, Rory and Kel had gotten into some kind of silent, macho staring contest. It continued on for somewhere around twenty minutes before they finally looked away from each other and Rory grudgingly told me to go get dressed. My not-boss and not-boyfriend somehow had a twenty-minute long silent shouting match, which Rory lost.
That part wasn't very surprising to me, if I was being honest. Kellan was the Deadly Sin of Envy and Rory was just an average human with above average looks. And an above average package.
Yeah, I looked. Sue me.
When we finally arrived back at the house, I felt like we'd been riding for hours. My muscles were sore, my joints were stiff, and my ass felt like I'd sat on an overly enthusiastic cactus that someone had pissed off and left out to die.
In layman's terms, I fucking hurt. All. Over.
Since Kellan had only travelled to the club and not driven, I found myself a little pissed that I hadn't been smart enough to just ask one of them to do that with me. It would have saved me a lot of wrong turns and mortification.
This time, when I got out of the Jeep, I held tight to the "oh shit" handle and didn't let go until both of my feet were firmly planted on the gravel of the driveway. Sparing my dignity one toe at a time.
I was still irritable and grumbling to myself as we walked up to the front door and into the house. Already knowing where everyone would be, I made a beeline for the living room, leaving Kellan to follow in my wake instead of waiting for him. I was mad at him.
Five heads turned to look at me, some mumbling their greetings, others remaining silent.
A brilliant idea struck me then and I ended up pulling out my best glare, which was ultimately ineffective if I didn't have the right words to back it up. Which I totally did.
"You seriously had to send Kel to come get me?" I demanded angrily. "Any one of you could have come, but no. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have your boyfriend show up at your place of work? Do you?"
All five faces morphed from boredom, to confusion, and finally to shock.
"Boyfriend?" The word came from all of them at once, each of them in their own state of confusion.
"You two are together?" Gray asked, looking a little sad.
"I thought I was your boyfriend," Gatlin stated, looking pissed. Typical.
"But you're my girlfriend," Rafe insisted as he stood up suddenly.
"Does this mean I don't have a shot?" Beck asked, obviously feeling out of the loop.
"When and why are the only two things I want to know," Eliam muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.
I felt Kel step up closer to me and I wrapped my arms around his waist, grinning up at him and batting my eyelashes.
I thought you said I wasn't your boyfriend? Kellan asked into my mind.
Just roll with it, big guy.
For a few moments there, I thought he was going to out me as the big lying liar face I was, but he surprised me.
"Yes, we are together now," he replied to the guys as he wrapped an arm around my waist. I tried really hard not to think about how good it felt, but I was already feeling the pain bubbling up. I could deal with it for a few minutes if my reward was their reactions.
Everyone's faces went carefully blank as we all just stared at one another in pressing silence. No one seemed to quite know what to say. Well, except me. I knew not to say a word and to just let him stew.
"Why him?" Beck finally shouted. Ah, the first to break.
I peeked up at Kel through my eyelashes and saw him raise an eyebrow at his brother. "Why not me?" Kellan challenged. He pulled me closer, pushing the limits of my bubble. "Are you saying we're not cute together?"
The word "cute" coming out of his mouth threatened to send me over the edge and expose me as the fraud I was. It didn't look right in any capacity.
"No. I mean, yes. But no," Beck said, stumbling over his words. It was actually both adorable and hilarious. "I'm cuter, dammit!"
I had to blink several times before his words actually processed in my still slightly buzzed brain. "You're not cuter than me," I protested.
Beck's eyes widened a fraction and he put his hands in fro
nt of him defensively. "No, of course not. But I'm cuter than him."
"You think you're cuter than me?" Kellan narrowed his eyes and released me, taking a threatening step forward.
Oh, this was getting either really good or really bad.
"Hell, I'm cuter than you," Gatlin snorted.
Kellan whirled on him then and while I knew - hoped - that he was mostly playing around, I still felt the challenge in the air.
"Just for the record, any of you that can pull off manly eyeliner is cuter in my book." I'd meant it as an offhand compliment, but my phrasing came out as an actual challenge and not just an implied one.
Everyone except Eliam glanced at each other and just a second later, they were gone, vanished into thin air as they travelled to... Wherever.
Several long seconds passed while Eliam and I eyed each other in confusion. When we couldn't hold it in anymore, I broke out in a fit of gut-busting laughter that only lasted a short while, but Eliam's lips turned up at the corners and that made me feel amazingly good.
"You're not together, are you?" He asked, a hint of amusement in his tone.
As I wiped a tiny tear from the corner of my eye, I walked further into the room and dropped down onto the couch to Eliam's left. "No, but he did introduce himself as my boyfriend to my boss," I told him.
He chuckled in response and my heart soared at the sound. It was an unconstrained, throaty sound that I imagined would vibrate my hand if I pressed it to his chest. Not that I was thinking of his chest. Or how smooth it was. Or how hard his abs were...
Pain.
Okay, no more abs. Got it.
Eliam cleared his throat and I refocused on him. "So," he began. "Has your hallucination... Said anything recently?"
I resisted the urge to snort at his awkward attempt at consideration. "Actually, no. She hasn't said a peep since whatever happened," I told him. "It's actually really strange, being alone in my head." The admission felt strange. I couldn't recall the last time I'd opened up to someone as much as I had to the guys in the past couple of days.
"When did you first start hearing and seeing her?" He asked, cutting straight to the chase.
Shaking my head, I leaned back on the couch and crossed my arms. "Too personal. Next question."
"That's not how this works, Ria."
"It's how it works now, so deal with it." Maybe I was being unreasonable, but I wasn't so sure I was willing to open up that much yet.
Eliam appeared to be deliberating something for a few minutes as I sat there essentially twiddling my thumbs. When he finally did speak again, I was a little bit surprised.
"How about a deal then?" He proposed. "Since you told me to deal with it, I will. A deal it shall be."
I blanched. "That's not what I meant."
"It's how it works now," he parroted. Asshole. "Don't you want to hear it?"
Debating the pros and cons, I decided that I couldn't say no without hearing it to one hundred per cent justify my answer. "Sure," I replied.
"You answer questions about you and I'll answer questions about us," he offered.
Shit.
That was actually a really good deal. But good enough to literally open myself up to actual agony, reliving torture? Would learning more about my guys be worth the pain? The part of me that was still young, still terrified, said no. Nothing would ever be worth that. But, the larger part of me that couldn't imagine life without them anymore screamed an undeniable, irrefutable yes.
It was a big choice to make, at least to me. Maybe I could convince him it would stay between the two of us. He already seemed to change his mood when it came to me like a chameleon changed colours, so there was a small chance that my story wouldn't make the tiniest difference to him. That was still a small chance, though, and a rather large risk.
"Kel said you were already going to tell me about the seventh," I pointed out, looking for a loophole.
He smirked at me and leaned back, mirroring my position. "Well, things change, don't they?"
There was a ninety-nine per cent chance that he was taunting me, trying to provoke me. I even considered taunting him back, but I was honestly coming down from my buzz so fast that I was nearing exhaustion. May I never touch another shot of tequila in my life.
"Why do you even want to know about me?" I asked warily. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't care if I was on billboards across the globe or had popped out of a tin can five seconds before. "Why the sudden interest?"
He shrugged. "Tit for tat, I'd say. You want to know more about us, we want to know more about you," he explained nonchalantly. Acting like it was no big deal.
"I'm not that interesting," I mumbled, unable to meet his eyes. It wasn't like I felt pressured to talk about it. I just couldn't stop weighing the pros and cons in my head.
Thus far, the two were evenly matched, much to my chagrin.
"I beg to differ," he said then. He leaned toward me and propped his arms on his knees, staring at me intently. "The sooner we each learn what we can about each other, the better chance we have at fixing your personal space issue."
"It's not a personal space issue, it's a love issue." I instantly regretted my choice of words as Eliam's face grew carefully blank. "Like, making love. Not love love." I laughed nervously and tried not to bury my face in my hands or crawl into a hole and die.
"Mhmm."
"Please forget I said anything," I begged. I was prepared to get on my knees and not in the fun way.
"I'll be doing both of us a favour," Eliam said dryly. "But I'm going to use the leverage I've been gifted." Oh fuck. There was the smirk.
That conniving son of a cosmic cunt.
"Fine," I spat. "I'll answer your questions. But it stays between us."
"I don't keep secrets from my brothers, most especially when it comes to our delightful pet mortal," he replied smoothly.
Raising my brows, I tried to look nonchalant. "Tell them what you want about Drea, but I'm off limits."
"I meant you."
"And you're an asshole."
He at least had the good sense to look mildly surprised. "What does that have to do with anything at all?"
"I thought we were sharing insults, my bad."
Eliam ran his hand through his hair. I loved that I was able to ruffle his neatly pressed feathers on occasion.
"When did you start having hallucinations?" He asked, bringing us right back to the topic.
"Who said you could go first?" I demanded.
He rolled his eyes at me and made a motion like he was going to flick my forehead. "Answer the damn question."
Sighing, I slouched down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, finding it easier to focus when I wasn't looking at him while he asked the hard questions. "Just the one, my inner self," I answered grudgingly. "And I was eight." I felt like I had barely whispered the words, but I knew that he had heard them regardless.
"Who is the seventh sin?" I asked, taking my turn.
He answered without missing a beat. "Lust. Her name is Lillith."
Lillith. That sounded so familiar. It also sounded very provocative and exactly like the kind of name that the Deadly Sin of Lust should have. I hated that.
"Why did you come here?" The question threw me off for a second. I was prepared for him to ask me about my actual past, but not my recent past.
"My fiance cheated on me with my best friend and I just sort of... Panicked," I told him as evenly as I could. "I got in my car and I just kept driving until I couldn't drive anymore, which was how I ended up here."
He made a satisfied sound that told me he found my story acceptable. As if I was telling anything less than the truth here!
"Where is Lillith?"
Eliam sucked in a tiny bit of air that whistled from the sharpness of the action. It was obvious already that he wasn't a fan of me saying her name. "I don't know. None of us do."
"Why did she leave?" I pressed, curious now more than ever.
"Wait your turn," he snapped. Oooh, get
ting testy already.
He was totally going to regret this deal.
"Why do you have those scars on your back?" His voice was as silent as a swift approaching death and as dark as a moonless, cloudy night.
A trickle a fear skittered over my skin as I tried to fight off the impending emotions that threatened to drag me under at the mention. "Next question," I choked.
"No, tell me," he demanded.
"I can't," I snapped through clenched teeth. "Next. Question."
There was a light rustling noise to my right and I wrongfully assumed that he was going to get up and storm off at my petulance. Instead, his face wound up inches from mine, blocking my view of the ceiling.
"Tell me," he growled.
"I fucking can't!" I yelled. "Stop pressuring me!"
He surprised me then, climbing atop me and straddling my hips, lifting my arms to the side of my head.
Pain flared before the liquid heat had a chance to pool in my core. "Does this hurt?" He asked.
"Obviously, asshole," I hissed. I was rewarded with a brief look of surprise crossing his chiselled features before he schooled them back into place. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that I'd all but told him I was attracted to him, since the pain only came with attraction.
No shit, Sherlock.
I remembered our steamy makeout session. There was no way in hell he thought I wasn't attracted to him after that momentous display of raging hormones.
"Tell me and I'll stop," he threatened quietly, his warm breath brushing across my cheekbones like the gentlest of caresses.
"I can't," I repeated for what felt like the millionth time.
"Can't?" His grasp on my wrists tightened and he leaned in close, brushing the tip of his nose against the outside of my ear. "Or won't?"
It felt like my insides were going through an office document shredder, metal teeth gnawing on my bones and tearing through my muscle. Sadly for me, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of winning this.
"Both."
He growled in frustration and the sound seemed to travel through me, ricocheting around my rib cage like my body was a pinball machine. "Just tell me, dammit," he rumbled. He bit the skin at my neck and two duelling fires ignited. One for destruction, one for life.