The Redemption Saga Box Set

by Kristen Banet

  “You care for him so much,” Sawyer noted. “He’ll be fine though.”

  “I know.” Elijah chuckled. She closed her eyes when he rolled to his side towards her. “How are you?”

  “I would be better if you didn’t interrupt my date yesterday.” Sawyer teased, grinning. She wasn’t mad about it anymore.

  “I didn’t interrupt your date,” Elijah corrected. “I interrupted the post-date make out session in the garage.”

  “Prick,” she said, reaching to swat his chest. She closed her eyes to soak up the sun and lost track of the time. She had probably fallen into a light sleep. A laugh woke her up and she felt water splash over her legs. She sat up and narrowed her eyes on the water.

  The sight was breathtaking. Elijah was in waist-deep water, dripping wet in the afternoon sun. His cheeks were flushed with excitement and the heat. Quinn dove under the water where she couldn’t see him.

  “Get in the water, Sawyer!” Elijah called out to her, grinning like a mad fool. Right before Quinn pulled him under. Sawyer tossed her head back in a laugh as Quinn dragged Elijah into the deeper end, and when Elijah tried to get air, Quinn just shoved his head back under.

  “Save me, Sawyer!” Elijah called out, between laughs.

  “She isn’t going to save you,” Quinn growled, wrapping an arm around Elijah’s waist. He forced Elijah back under.

  “Quinn, be nice to the poor boy!” Sawyer yelled out, smirking. It was impressive that Quinn, leaner and smaller than Elijah, could take down the cowboy.

  “He likes it,” Quinn retorted. She saw that he didn’t let go of Elijah though. Elijah took the chance to grab Quinn and drag them both under.

  She sighed happily and enjoyed the sight of them roughhousing. She had little to no understanding of the friendship between them, but it was fun to watch the manliest men she knew play like boys. She knew they were nearly always together; they were keyed into each other’s moods and protective of each other.

  She laid back down and closed her eyes again, just listening to them laugh. She dozed back off.

  She dreamed of sunny days. Of a happy moment with Henry, pushing him on a swing set. She had been pretending for him to be happy, to be excited for him to get out of the house and play. Looking back, it was one of her happiest memories, though at the time, she remembered aching. Her ribs had been bruised and she’d favored them for weeks after it.

  But Axel would never ruin a good day where she took care of his son. He would let her out of the house, under close watch, to push him on the swing. She was burnt out, no magic left. All she could do was enjoy the moment with Henry, and it had become a small bright spot through a dark hell.

  Then she and Henry made it home and he was sent to his room.

  And she was alone with Axel. Her world went dark the moment she was alone with him.

  She sat up and groped around, not sure what she was looking for, her heart racing. The sun was bright and hot, and the air was humid, but now the shade from trees was over her resting spot. She pushed to a standing position and nearly slipped off the rock.

  “Sawyer?” Elijah called. “Sawyer, what’s wrong?”

  She gasped for air, trying to stand up straight. It had been a long time since waking up from a nightmare had rattled her like this.

  “Sawyer.” Quinn’s hoarse whisper cut through and a hand grabbed her upper arm. It steadied her.

  “A nightmare.” She rubbed the scar on her chest with her free hand. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

  “You are working with Jasper?” Quinn asked. Splashing of water told her that Elijah was also getting out.

  “I am,” Sawyer sighed. “I am and it’s not going as quickly as I want it to but hell, at least I was able to wake up this time before…”

  “Before?” Elijah inquired. “Sit.”

  She fell back on the rock, ignoring the shooting pain from landing too hard.

  “She doesn’t have to tell you,” Quinn snapped, glaring around her to Elijah.

  “She doesn’t,” Elijah agreed. He sat down next to her. “You can if you want to, though.”

  “I don’t,” Sawyer curtly informed him. “I would like to pretend it hasn’t ruined my nice day.”

  “Whatever works,” he murmured. He bumped shoulders with her and she sighed. “Go find one of your boys, let them make the day good again.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sawyer groaned, swatting Elijah on the chest. Quinn was laughing a little. “Can we just…forget about it?” She waved her hand, hoping to dismiss the entire conversation. Sex was the last thing she wanted. She couldn’t even find the humor in the suggestion.

  “If that’s what you want,” Elijah said, then they let silence fall.

  Sawyer’s mood had soured, and she got up. She grabbed her clothes down and pulled her tank on, then her shorts. She didn’t say anything as she walked away, hoping the long walk back to the plantation house would clear her head.

  “Can’t have sex,” Sawyer mumbled to herself, alone on the trail. Not after that nightmare. She’d sent Henry to his room, and while she was burnt out and magicless, Axel had raped her.

  What a fucked up time that had been in her life. Over and over, she looked back and wondered if she could have changed things. Let that first assassin kill Axel. Tried to run earlier instead of being naïve enough to think that Axel loved her. Found and escaped with Midnight before she was killed, but then Sawyer wouldn’t have been there for Henry. She could have taken Henry and disappeared later, but her fear of Axel’s retribution had been paralyzing and her love for Henry had been too much for her to even consider walking away without him.

  She was back at the plantation house and in her room when she realized that she forgot her phone back at the swimming hole.

  “Fuck,” Sawyer muttered angrily. She stormed back out of her room and outside, but didn’t bother using her magic to make the trip to the swimming hole faster. She wanted the angry walk. Maybe it would burn off the soured mood and lighten her heart again.

  She was close to the swimming hole when she heard the moan. She frowned but didn’t stop walking closer. She did stop when the view of her favorite rock came into sight - and the two men on it.

  Chest to chest, they were staring at each other. Quinn was laid out on the rock, Elijah propped up on his hands over him. Quinn grabbed Elijah’s messy hair and pulled him down, and bit his lower lip, tugging on it roughly.

  Sawyer watched Quinn roll them over, a growl erupting from his chest. She winced in sympathy at the hard impact Elijah had with the stone. It didn’t stop, though. Elijah grabbed the feral Magi and swung him back down as well. It continued like that for several moments, and she didn’t like the aggressiveness about it. She wondered if she should step in and stop the fighting, but when she took a step forward, another thought crossed her mind.

  They were wrestling for dominance.

  And the cowboy finally won, it seemed, when he grabbed Quinn’s hips, forcing him to stay down.

  Sawyer’s breath caught at the sight of Elijah kissing his way down Quinn’s chest. She had walked back in on them having a tryst. Quinn raised his head to watch the cowboy as well, panting. She didn’t blame him for wanting to watch either.

  Her heart raced, and she wasn’t entirely certain as to why. There was something immensely erotic about the sight of Elijah licking over Quinn’s abs on his way down to his incredibly hard cock.

  She was captivated, but her mind was screaming for her to turn around and walk away. She had known they were close and that Elijah played both fields.

  This was not what she had been expecting.

  She flirted with Elijah constantly and he flirted back. He was with Quinn. They were lovers. She just kept watching, realizing it was a serious turn on to watch Elijah make Quinn’s head fall back as he took the head of Quinn’s cock into his mouth.

  Quinn’s head rolled to look in her direction and she locked her gaze with the ice-blues of the feral Magi. Fear ran through her f
or getting caught just stunned and watching them. She would kill a person for walking in on her and a lover. Guilt at her accidental voyeurism filled her chest. This wasn’t her business and she had no right to stand around and get off from it.

  She didn’t say anything, just turned and blinked away. Out of sight of the swimming hole, she ran. She flew into the back door of the plantation house, out of breath. She didn’t even get her phone. She’d completely forgotten about it the moment she had seen them.

  “Fuck,” she gasped, placing a hand on her chest. She hadn’t been in the mood thanks to the nightmare, but that sight had woken up her sex drive in seconds. She never thought two built, gorgeous men getting off together would do anything for her. “I need answers.”

  She walked to Vincent’s office and through the door, not bothering to knock or use the door knob. She startled Vincent enough for him to mess up the papers he had in front of him.

  “Are Quinn and Elijah in a relationship?” she demanded, pointing towards Elijah’s desk like he was there. “Am I flirting with a taken man?”

  Vincent’s eyebrows flew up, but he remained silent.

  Sawyer waved dramatically to Elijah’s desk. “Am I stepping on something that I shouldn’t?” she snapped.

  “No,” Vincent replied carefully. He stood up slowly and walked to her. “No.”

  “There’s a ‘but’ there, I can feel it,” she said angrily. She was not a whore who stole boyfriends or lovers from other people. She wasn’t going to be the thing that ruined whatever those two had going on, and she was honestly getting very pissed off that Elijah constantly flirted with her. He was with someone else, someone she respected. They were all supposed to be friends and he was…

  “You should talk to Elijah and Quinn about Elijah and Quinn.” Vincent sighed. “I can tell you that it’s not as bad as you think though.”

  “He’s with Quinn and also in this stupid deal,” Sawyer yelled.

  “He’s not…fuck,” he mumbled. “Sit down. Tell me what happened.”

  “I saw them!” she roared.

  “Excuse me?” he sputtered. “You saw them together?”

  “Yeah. I left my phone out there on accident and went back to get it. I must have snuck up on them accidentally.” She took a deep breath as she explained, trying to calm down. “Quinn saw me.” She felt faint at that and sank into the chair in front of Vincent’s desk.

  “Sawyer, there’s no way, under any circumstance, that you can sneak up on Quinn,” he told her plainly. “If you saw them together, he let you see them together. He would have felt you coming the moment you stepped foot in the woods.”

  “Oh my god,” she groaned. “He’s going to kill me. Quinn is going to kill me.”

  “No, he’s not.” He chuckled. “I think you should wait to talk to them before making any assumptions.”

  “I can’t look them in the eye anymore, that much is certain. Vincent, I saw Elijah sucking-”

  “Don’t tell me what you saw. Please.” Vincent waved a hand to cut her off. “Please don’t.” He muttered a small curse and went back to his own seat. “They should have told you about their arrangement earlier. It’s not like it’s a secret that we’re trying to keep or anything. I just felt they should tell you, not me, Zander, or Jasper. It’s their thing.”

  “Arrangement?” Sawyer frowned at the choice of words. Not relationship.

  “Yes. Arrangement. Quinn is, or at least was, feral. We all know it. He can’t go out and pick up some chick from a bar, Sawyer. Or a guy if he’s in the mood for it. I’m not sure he cares either way. Whatever floats his boat at whatever moment he’s considering it. Elijah and Quinn are best friends, nearly brothers in spirit, and their bond is deep. I’m not sure I even understand it.” He took a long, slow breath. “But they are not in a relationship as far as my understanding goes. I think the best term would be fuck buddies.”

  “Oh.” Casual. Friends with benefits. That changed things a little. It also made more sense. Quinn didn’t seem like the type of person who would commit, and not because she thought he was noncommittal. He probably just saw the sex as a separate thing from the friendship.

  “Yes. Oh.” Vincent chuckled. “Why did this freak you out, Sawyer?”

  “Because Elijah is in this little deal,” Sawyer admitted. She had intentions of eventually sleeping with him. She couldn’t resist one day saying yes to his flirtatious ass and seeing how it went. “I don’t know, really. I don’t do men who are with other people. I’m not the other woman and never will be.” She thought a little harder. “I don’t want to hurt Quinn.”

  “I don’t think I’m the person to explain this to you,” Vincent whispered. “They will be fine. You will be fine. I can’t really help past telling you that you aren’t getting between them by flirting and maybe being with Elijah.”

  “Yeah, I’m beginning to realize I may have overreacted,” Sawyer replied. “Actually, I feel kind of stupid now.”

  “If it helps, when I found out after they started, I accused Elijah of taking advantage of Quinn.” She heard laughter in Vincent’s story. “Quinn was young, barely twenty. He was obviously unaccustomed to our ways of doing things, and I found him and Elijah in bed together. I accused Elijah of seeing someone he could easily get in bed with.”

  “What happened?” she asked, shifting to get more comfortable in the chair.

  “We were living in a smaller place, a temporary location. We had to move. Quinn nearly brought it down on my head for making the assumption,” he finished.

  “See, that sounds much more like Quinn than what I had been thinking. I’m so happy I didn’t accuse Elijah to his face for trying to cheat on Quinn with me.” She would have. She was feeling a bit idiotic. She knew better than to jump to conclusions. She’d been worked up by the scene and bombarded by new implications of what it meant for her and them, the friendship she had with them.

  “Yeah, thankfully you came in here and didn’t do that.”

  Sawyer was still uncomfortable though. The sight had turned her on and she’d violated their privacy. She was embarrassed over her actions. She was disturbed that she was turned on when she’d just had a nightmare that should have warned her off sex for at least a week.

  “Sawyer?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered. She looked over to the chess board. “Want to play?”

  “Why?”

  “It would give me something to do for the day.” She didn’t have much else to do and she hadn’t spent time with Vincent in a few days outside of their workouts.

  “Want to go get out of your bathing suit first?” He stood back up and went to set the board up.

  “No, I’m good,” she replied, moving to sit on the black side of the board. When he sat down on the white side, he didn’t start.

  “Something else is bothering you,” he commented. She knew better than to play evasive with Vincent. He would get what he wanted before the game of chess was over. It’s how he’d gotten her to admit to not sleeping with him because of the nightmares. Because of what she had done the last time they were in bed together.

  “I had a nightmare while just laying out on the rocks. It really got to me,” Sawyer told him. “Between that and seeing them, I’ve had a weird day. It started good. Now I’m not sure what it is.”

  “Okay,” Vincent sighed. “I take it you won’t tell me what the nightmare was?”

  She decided to throw him for a loop. If she was going to get shocked and surprised today, then he would too. So she gave him the information he didn’t think he would get. “I was playing with Henry,” she whispered. “It started as a happy memory. I woke up right as it took a dark turn.”

  “Dark turn?” Vincent repeated back to her. She looked into his eyes and saw that little bit of haunted and broken there.

  “I brought Henry home. Axel was feeling randy. I sent Henry to his room. Axel raped me,” she explained. She frowned, considering a perverse thought. “Is it rape if I let him, even if I didn’
t want it?”

  “I think it was,” he answered in a strangled, choking way that made her wince.

  “It was a long time ago,” she reminded him, hoping it accounted for something, anything.

  “For you,” he mumbled. “I’ve only known for a couple short months.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t unload this kind of stuff on you.” Sawyer groaned and leaned back in the chair. “It’s unfair. He’s your brother.” This was why she wasn’t sleeping with him. She didn’t think he deserved all the horrors of Axel Castello, once a brother he loved.

  “He hasn’t been my brother for a long time,” he said with conviction. “You’re my friend, though. I’m always willing to hear it. Always. You understand?”

  “I’m not always willing to share,” she replied. “You understand?”

  “Better than most here.” He pushed a pawn forward. She looked down and mindlessly pushed one of her own. “I’m always willing to listen when you’re willing to share.”

  Complicated. Sawyer hated how things were always so goddamned complicated. She and Vincent didn’t have the same level of pain between them like before, but it was still there. They had this complicated history they would never escape, which led to a complicated relationship and complicated feelings.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  They played silently after that and Sawyer appreciated the peace. She was beginning to find refuge in Vincent and their chess games. They were quiet, thoughtful moments in a world of chaos and explosive personalities.

  “Check,” he announced.

  “Of course,” she mumbled. She’d only won once so far, and it had been sheer luck. She moved her king in hopes to save herself, but she knew it was about to be over.

  “Would you…like to come see me tonight?” he asked, refusing to look up from the board.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she answered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I figured I would ask.” Vincent sighed and moved his Queen. “Checkmate.”

  “Vincent,” she whispered. “I really don’t want to hurt you. You have to understand that.”