by Lily White
“I have no plans. I’m not hiding anything. I told you all there is to know.”
Lie.
Lie.
And lie again.
I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.
“I went and saw her.”
Rage crawls through my body...but not surprise. I’m going to have to chain Damon down to keep him away from Em.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“And what? You fucked her?”
If he says yes, I’ll break his jaw. It’s that simple.
I’m not entirely convinced Emily isn’t playing us against each other. Regardless of her insisting she doesn’t want to come between us. She fucked us both in high school, and while, yes, that was allowed back then, I’m sure as hell not okay with it now.
“Would it matter? You said you’re done. That you can’t stand her.”
“I also don’t fucking trust her,” I bark, my voice echoing out so that I’m sure everybody standing around here heard it.
He only grins and pulls away from my hold.
“You gave her up, Ezra. Don’t fucking forget that. She might have made promises to you a long time ago, but don’t think that means anything now. You gave her up. It doesn’t mean I have to. Or that I will.”
He storms off without another word, and I choose not to chase him down. Not in front of everybody, and certainly not with Tanner and Gabe staring at us like they’re putting together a complicated puzzle.
I don’t need another family meeting with those assholes. Not when the last time they had one about us, they tied us down to have it.
Dust kicks up in my path as I make my way back to the cars, lean against the SUV where I was standing previously and cross my arms.
“Damon’s fine. He said he’s annoyed with how long this car shit is taking.”
Five sets of eyes stare at me, but it’s Priest that breaks the silence.
“That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”
I glare at him.
“Just get the Jeep done so I can get the fuck out of here.”
It pisses me off that Damon won’t let Emily go.
Mostly because it means I won’t be able to let her go either.
Not that I was planning to in the first place.
Emily
Three days away from the insanity in my life has been heaven. I can’t lie about that.
Three days away from the issues with the twins. Three days away from Dylan. Three days not having to worry about the other issue I have going on that will reach critical mass eventually.
Three days.
And then the news article came out claiming Ivy and Gabe broke up.
My good times and mini-vacation are over.
“You both need to get out of there. Mason just called me and said they’re leaving town. As in all of them, Emily. That never means anything good.”
Panic races down my spine as I pace the dining room of my parents’ cabin. How the Inferno managed to find us is anybody’s guess, but we certainly can’t stay here and wait for them.
“Okay. I’ll let Ivy know. Thanks for calling.”
My thumb hits the screen to hang up, and I practically jog into the living room where Ivy is talking to Gabe.
“Get off the phone, Ivy. I need to talk to you.”
She hangs up just as I round the corner, my voice shaking a bit too much when I tell her, “They found us. Ava just called and warned that the guys are leaving town.”
I’m not surprised that her panic isn’t as immediately obvious as mine. But that’s Ivy. Even if she’s screaming in her head right now, she can hide it behind a sweet smile and a steady voice.
“Okay. This is fine. We have two hours at least. Gabriel was still at his office when I called him, so they haven’t left yet.”
Or they just left within seconds of Ivy’s call with Gabriel and mine with Ava.
After a quick discussion about where to go, which only ends with the decision to just get the hell out of here and make it up as we drive, Ivy and I run upstairs to collect our things, both our hands full as we run through the house shutting off lights on our way outside.
By the time my feet hit the porch, Ivy’s already frozen in place, her bags hanging limply from her fingers.
“Where’s the car?”
Panic floods my body as I stare out at an empty parking area which should have the Jaguar Ivy stole from Gabriel.
“Ivy,” I turn to see she’s still motionless, “where’s the car?”
Her eyes don’t blink, the bags in her hands slowly slipping free from her fingers.
“I have no idea.”
Wrong answer, because...nope.
That can’t be her answer.
Unfortunately it’s the only one she can give me before a spark to our right catches our attention, the head of a torch lighting up as we both slowly twist around to face it.
Shane steps into the circle of soupy yellow light pouring over the parking area. His tattoos jump out immediately to identify who he is, not that I can see his face with the devil mask he wears.
“Oh, my God,” I mumble, this scene instantly familiar because I’d attended several gauntlet parties in high school. I know exactly what I’m looking at.
Grabbing Ivy’s hand, I stammer, “I thought we had two hours.”
Another torch lights up, and Damon steps into the circle of light. He doesn’t terrify me as much as his brother, doesn’t send a cold shiver down my spine. But if one is here...
My eyes shoot out to study the darkness beyond the light, as if, just by the ache of my heart alone, I’ll know where Ezra is standing.
“Apparently not,” Ivy whispers. “We’re fucked.”
One after another, the Inferno light their torches and step into view, each one bare-chested, each one with a mask. But it isn’t until Ezra moves into sight that my heart drops into my feet, and my knees tremble.
He’s so beautiful.
So cold.
So ridiculously cruel that I need my head examined for wanting his touch despite how much it hurts me.
I can feel him. In front of me. Behind me. All around me. He consumes me, even when doing nothing more than standing fifty feet away.
“Who’s missing? Which one of them isn’t here?”
It’s not until she mentions something that I notice there are only eight of the nine men standing around us.
“I don’t know. I see Ezra and Damon, but...”
My eyes are back on Ezra, and even though his eyes are hidden behind the mask he wears, I know his stare is locked on me.
Hating me.
Accusing me.
Wanting me, despite everything we do to each other.
For a few minutes, Ivy and I go back and forth about what to do. And while I’m being sensible by telling her to walk back inside the house with me, she’s losing her mind by wanting to do the stupid thing and run.
If she runs, they chase. And when they catch her, she won’t return to this cabin the same person.
Ivy can take care of herself. She’s a strong girl. But not even she is strong enough to endure whatever it is they do to people in the woods.
“Ivy, seriously, turn around and come with me.”
“I can’t do that,” she argues, and I’m about two seconds away from hitting her over the head, knocking her out, and dragging her inside since I’m the only rational person standing on this porch.
Only a crazy person would attempt to run. It’s the same thing as being faced down by a pack of wild dogs. You run, they chase, because you’re making it fun for them.
“Why?”
Glancing around at the men still standing with their torches and devil masks, Ivy blinks at me once before saying, “Because I’m running.”
She takes off before I can grab her, all of the Inferno turning their heads in some coordinated, creepy ass slow motion, to follow the direction she takes. My pulse becomes a staccato rhythm in my throat,
my palms sweaty and my legs weak.
One of them lifts that damn horn they always have that’s like something out of the Viking era, and when the haunting sound of it fills the air, I tremble in place.
Where do you even get a horn like that? This entire thing is bullshit.
I know what’s next. After the horn blows, they take off, and I turn to face them, waiting for that exact thing.
Except...they’re not running. Not one of them so much as twitches to take off in Ivy’s direction.
Instead, all those creepy masks turn back my direction, and I damn near collapse right in front of them.
Noooooooo…
This isn’t happening.
There’s no possible way they’ll come after me instead of Ivy.
Unless...that’s exactly what they were planning all this time.
Nope.
Fuck this shit.
I am not playing this game.
Not today, Satan.
I lunge for the door as they all run my direction, dirt kicking up around their legs when I glance back and turn the knob, practically falling into the house before I shut the door and throw the lock.
A heavy body slams against the wood right at that second, hard enough to rattle the frame before I see his shadow run off the side of the porch, while the rest -
Where the hell are the rest of them?
I press my back against the door and fight to swallow.
They’re surrounding the cabin, and I have no clue if they’ll find a way to get in.
Okay. I need to take a breath and think rationally.
We’ve kept this place locked up, and I’m sure if any of them still manage to get in, I’ll hear them coming.
Lights.
I need to turn on lights.
But then again, that’ll show them exactly where I am.
No lights.
Fuck!
I’m back to rationalizing.
I have never asked the Inferno for a favor, which means I have never failed to pay a price. They have no reason to run a gauntlet on me.
Unless you count what I did to the twins at the end of high school that led to both of them going to jail and me to the hospital.
The Inferno does, in fact, have a bone to pick with me, and for that reason, I need to hide.
I haul ass into the living room with every intention of reaching the stairs to run up to my bedroom.
It doesn’t happen, not when I’m grabbed around my waist by a pair of arms that lift me off my feet and slam my back against what feels like a brick wall.
Kicking doesn’t help free me, and the only thing the scream tearing from my throat manages to do is make Ezra laugh.
And yes, without seeing him, without hearing him - without anything - I know it’s Ezra.
My body reacts to him, my heart stuttering as both misery and relief flood my veins.
The mix is toxic, it’s wrong, it’s tearing me in half as he flips me around to toss over his shoulder and runs me upstairs.
Still, I fight, my feet kicking and my fists banging on his back. He gains control of my legs by wrapping an arm over the backs of my thighs, my body bouncing over his shoulder with every powerful step.
I’m not even sure how he can see where he’s going because it’s pure darkness in the hall, but eventually he shoves through the door to one of the guest rooms and slams it closed behind us.
“Let me go,” I demand, but that’s only met with more laughter.
Ezra lets my legs go and allows me to slide down his body to my feet, but before I can move away from him, he traps me against a wall, his heavy breathing the only sound between us.
“You were going the wrong way,” he teases on a soft voice that sends chills down my spine.
It pisses me off that he uses those words against me now, that he uses a memory to terrify me.
“I don’t think away from you is the wrong way.”
The answer only makes him grin.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I hiss, so fucking angry that I press my hands against his chest and shove.
Not that it moves him. He only steps in closer.
I can barely see anything in the dark, my eyesight still adjusting, but I feel the air move around my face when he lifts his mask, the heat of his mouth when it’s suddenly on mine.
My lips part the instant his tongue sweeps out, my heart hammering inside my chest as his hands dive into my hair.
He’s done with me, and yet this man is kissing me like he’s been drowning for several days and is coming up for air.
He wants nothing to do with me, and yet his hands are fisting in my hair, and his mouth is demanding submission from mine.
How weak does it make me to give it to him?
At least until a noise in the hallway grabs his attention. Ezra steps away from me as the door opens, his stare locked on my face when the light flicks on and blinds me, my lips kiss swollen and pulsing.
Our eyes dance together like two people losing each other, or like two people who realize they’ve already lost.
“I see you found her.”
Damon.
The guilt sets in immediately.
“Yeah,” Ezra answers, his voice a low growl. “She ran up here to hide. I chased after her.”
Liar.
Eyes releasing me to look at his brother, Ezra asks, “Are the guys all inside now.”
Damon is studying me when I look at him, his eyes narrowing enough that I know he doesn’t believe his twin.
“Yeah. Thanks for unlocking a door for us.”
I can’t look at either of them. I’m too mad. Too guilty. Too...everything.
“Sorry about that, but I didn’t have time. I heard Emily running and went after her. But I found my way in and figured you all were smart enough to follow.”
How did he get in?
And silently at that?
“Whatever. Come on, Red. We’re not going to hurt you. We just wanted to scare you a little.”
A little? I’d hate to see what these guys do when they want to scare somebody a lot.
Pushing away from the wall, I walk to Damon, feeling only slightly safer by his side.
“Where’s Ivy?”
“Probably still running. Gabe was waiting out there for her.”
So there were nine of them, after all. And Ivy probably ran straight to the person she thought she was running from.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Damon asks, his arm slipping around my back as we walk. He hooks his fingers over my hip and tugs me close.
“Why is he doing that to Ivy?”
He laughs.
“It probably has something to do with her destroying his house, taking out all our tires, dumping him in Tanner’s front yard-“
I glance up at him, and he grins but presses a finger against his mouth to tell me to keep that secret.
“She’ll be fine. You know how they are.”
He’s right about that. Sadly, it does nothing to make me feel any better, especially when he walks me downstairs to where the rest of the Inferno is waiting.
Quickly glancing at Tanner, I startle to see a woman sitting next to him, the same pretty brunette I last saw running from him at the party.
This must be the infamous girlfriend, and for as curious as I am to find out why she would date someone like Tanner, I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything.
I look away from them to see Mason staring at me with warning behind his eyes, but it’s Shane’s stare that stops me in place, our eyes locking together from where he’s kicked back on the couch with his foot propped against the coffee table.
It’s obvious he’s not happy to see me with Damon’s arm draped around my body, but he quickly looks past us in the next second to where Ezra is standing.
I can feel the air grow cold behind my back, can feel those cruel hands and icy temper scraping down my spine.
None of these guys are happy, especially Ezra, and there’s nowhere I can ru
n to escape.
Ezra
I’m about one bad decision away from starting a war. One violent act. One thoughtless reaction.
Somehow managing to keep my distance while Damon walks Emily down the hall, I clench my teeth to see his hand snake around her back to slide over her hip.
Mine.
The fucking word is on repeat in my head, every whisper of it pushing me closer to ripping his arm away and breaking it for touching her.
It’s just a bone.
It’ll heal.
Damon would be fine.
Unfortunately, it’s not the physical damage I have to worry about in this particular moment.
It’s the simple fact my brother would know I’m full of shit about what I’ve told him.
It’s also the truth that if I get violent with him, there’s nobody in this house who can stop us.
So I do nothing. I walk behind them without saying a word, careful not to fist my hands, and struggling like a madman not to rush forward and rip her from his hold.
Shane sees the truth of what I’m thinking the instant we get downstairs, his stare locked on me from over Emily’s shoulder, a silent warning for me to keep my hands to myself.
None of this should matter. I can’t want her. I can’t have her. I should fucking hate her. And I still don’t know what she’s doing with William. My first thought shouldn’t be that I need to touch her. I shouldn’t have made the stupid mistake of kissing her.
Yet that’s exactly what I did, just as soon as I had the first opportunity. And I’m not stupid enough to believe that if given the chance now, I wouldn’t drag her back in that room and take my time tasting every inch of her.
Which means I need to get the hell out of this cabin.
“When do you think Gabe will get back?”
I ask the question as Damon walks Emily over to an empty couch, dropping his weight down as he pulls her along beside him. The corner of my lip curls, but I force my attention to Tanner.
He drops his head back against his chair. “Not sure. Depends on how long he decides to torture her. In the meantime, we should go grab the cars and park them closer to the house.”
“And grab our shirts,” Sawyer suggests, since all of us are still in only shorts.