Betrayer (Hidden Book 7)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  I opened my legs to him, and it was all the encouragement he needed. He held himself above me on his elbows and tangled his fingers into my hair. “I love you, Eunomia,” he said softly.

  “I love you, Brennan. I need you.” Words I had never said to another soul in the entire length of my existence. “I have never needed anyone the way I need you.” He kissed me, and then trailed hot kisses down my throat, to the side of my neck where his teeth gently clamped onto me, and I could feel his hardness, his heat pressing against my opening as I writhed in need.

  “Please,” I moaned.

  He entered me, slowly, tenderly, filling me, stretching me, his teeth still clamped onto the side of my neck, his fingers tangling almost painfully in my hair as he tried to keep control.

  We groaned together as he filled me, and then he stayed still, letting my body adjust to him. And I needed it. “Well-endowed” did not even begin to describe him.

  “How do you always know what I need, Eunomia?”

  “I pay attention,” I said, gasping as he began moving his hips. He went back to sucking and biting the side of my neck as his hips pumped, as my body rose up to meet his. He lowered one hand from my head to my breast, which he rubbed and tweaked. My entire existence was rooted to those three places on my body: my neck, where I could feel him marking me, my breast, which was in tender agony from the way he touched me, and the feel of him thrusting harder and harder into me as he drove us both nearer to release.

  “Oh, gods, I love you,” I whimpered as he thrust into me, slowly, agonizingly, filling me and then receding almost completely, making me feel every single inch of him. It was a sweet agony, and I never wanted it to end.

  I could feel sharp canines against my neck as he pushed into me harder.

  “Oh,” I gasped, and then my release tore through me, endless, crashing over me with the strength of all I felt for him, multiplied millions of times over. He moved harder, less controlled, and then I felt a sharp pain at the juncture of my neck and my shoulder as his canines punctured my flesh, marking me, his teeth clamped onto me as he took me. I cried out again as a second orgasm pulled me under, and I heard him growl my name against my neck, felt him stiffen and then lose all control, as his own orgasm tore through him.

  He was tireless, and even after his release passed, he kept thrusting into me. He kissed my neck and shoulder tenderly, licked the tender flesh there as if trying to soothe it. He only stopped for as long as it took to roll us over so that I was astride him again.

  “Ride me,” he said, and a shiver went through me at the tone, at the way he looked at me. My body was practically limp with exhaustion, yet I did not want it to end. I rested my hands on his chest and started moving my hips as he thrusted into me. He looked me over for a long moment, his eyes still glowing with that beautiful blue light. He cupped my cheek, then ran his hand down to my chest, gently cupping my breast and rubbing his thumb over an aching nipple before running his knuckles down my stomach until his fingers slipped between us.

  “You’re never getting rid of me now, Tink,” he told me, a cocky grin on his face. “You’re mine.” He touched me in ways that overwhelmed me completely, the pleasure almost too much to handle, and he watched my expression.

  “Brennan,” I whimpered.

  “Say it,” he growled.

  “I’m yours,” I moaned. “I love you. I’m yours.” I threw my head back as another wave of ecstasy rolled through me, and I heard a low chuckle as he watched me shudder in pleasure. When it was over, he settled beside me, pulling me into his arms. I wrapped my arms round his waist, trying to get my breath.

  I lay there with him, and felt his hands running up and down my back, his heart beating against my cheek, his scent surrounding me. Tears flooded my eyes, and my breath hitched.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

  I held him tighter. “Just emotional, Cub,” I said. “I love you so much,” I whispered.

  “I love you too,” he murmured. “This… what we have between us, there’s no coming back from. You’ve ruined me, Eunomia. There’ll never be anyone else.”

  “There better not be,” I muttered. “It took me thousands of years to make my way to you. I am never letting you go.”

  “Good. For the first time in a very long time, I’m looking forward to the rest of my life. We’re gonna make this good,” he promised me as his fingers lazily trailed up and down my spine. “This is everything I ever wanted, and I swear I’m going to make sure you know every day how much you mean to me. I’m looking forward to days lived by your side, and nights when I’m going do nothing but worship you and revel in your moans when you beg for me.”

  My heart was pounding. I knew he meant it.

  “You have brought me low, my love. I have never begged in my life,” I said sleepily.

  “I love it when you do,” he said against my shoulder as he kissed me.

  “I’ll likely do it often. If you are really lucky, I will make you beg as well.”

  “And I’m looking forward to it,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, and I smiled and let sleep pull me under.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The days stretched on, each day feeling a little more desperate as we still lacked any sign of baby Hades. I had very little time to spend with Brennan. I spent every possible moment tracking Mollis’s son, and when I was not doing that, I was hunting souls and undead.

  There were far too many of them, and, as I had first suspected upon seeing the undead corpse at Rayna’s home, the undead threat had most certainly reached Detroit. The few days my team and I had taken to recuperate had resulted in a flood of unchecked undead activity in the city. Now that we were back to work, my New Guardians and I mostly seemed to be keeping it under control, but every time it felt as if we had gotten them all, there were more.

  “We all know where this is goddamned coming from,” Quinn muttered as we returned from turning yet another wandering soul over to Tisiphone.

  “Whitechapel,” I said. Too many of the undead we fought in Detroit had been from Whitechapel. My Guardian senses registered that immediately and I had found, to my delight, that Quinn and Claire both seemed to be gaining that particular skill as well. The others said they sometimes felt inklings of knowing, but they were not quite there yet.

  “Fucking Whitechapel. And they’re being brought here to keep us scrambling. Why?” he asked. The rest of the team was in my apartment. Erin was holding a cloth to her arm.

  “I’m bleeding!” she said, and, despite her words, she was grinning. “Blood. Look!”

  I had to laugh. The New Guardians’ reactions to their increased physical bodies was entertaining, if nothing else. They had all spent so long as nothing more than energy. It felt strange to them, now, to be seen by others. They had just gotten accustomed to the immortals being able to see them, and now, it appeared, most humans could see them as well. Since the day we had watched Mollis destroy Mary, my team had not only grown closer, but more dedicated as well. It seemed that the embracing of their roles was resulting in them gaining fully physical forms, as well as Guardian powers to go with them. I could not have been more pleased with the way they were advancing. They were quickly becoming among those I truly trusted and admired, and the prospect of working with them for the rest of my days made me quite happy.

  “Do you want a bandage?” I asked her with a smirk.

  “No! This is glorious. I’ve never been so happy to see blood in my life!” Annie and Cathleen laughed, and Quinn merely shook his head.

  I turned back to Quinn. “I agree with you. Do you want me to send you all to Whitechapel again to continue your work there, or would you prefer to remain here until this situation is handled?”

  “What do you want, boss?”

  I considered our options. Keeping Detroit undead-free would be wonderful, but I could not just allow the undead to continue to overtake the cities they were already in. “We need more Guardians,” I sa
id, rubbing the back of my neck. My mind raced. There had been thirteen of us originally. Knowing Nyx and her love of balance, it was quite possible that there would be enough New Guardians out there somewhere to make it thirteen once again. Quinn stood silently at my side, and after a few moments, I looked up at him.

  “You were able to sense all of the others. The other New Guardians,” I said. “You sensed Annie just as easily as I did.”

  “True. We can all sense one another, just like you can sense us. It’s weird. You’d think we just feel like the other souls.”

  “But you don’t,” I continued for him, nodding. I glanced at the rest of my team. My team, who were coming fully into their powers, who were beginning to feel more like the Guardians I had spent my life with than anything else. But different, too. The same, and different.

  Better.

  I came to a decision. “If I sent you out to start searching for other New Guardians,” I began. “Could you do it?”

  He stared. “Uh…”

  “You know how to rematerialize. You and Claire are both quite good at it now.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, and I smiled.

  “We need more.”

  He took a breath. “I want to do this for you, lass. I do. But here’s my thing: how the fuck do I know if they’re any good or not? Right? Say I come across one of us, one who feels like the rest of us do. Dead, but overlooked by the crows and the old Guardians because our energy signature is just different enough to make us invisible to them… what if I bring ‘em to you, and they’re not on our side? What if they’re more like the things we’re fightin’ against?”

  I nodded, understanding his concern. The incident with Mary, as well as the general discomfort that we now had with trusting anyone, thanks to having not one, but three, betrayers somewhere in our midst, had us all second-guessing what we knew, as well as who we really knew. “If you find them, I can take them to my Queen or her mother. They can look into their minds. If there is even a shred of doubt, then they will be imprisoned. If they are like the rest of you, then we will take them in and train them.”

  “I’m in, then,” Quinn said, nodding. The rest of the team approached, each with determination in their eyes, nods of agreement.

  “We’re all in,” Claire said.

  “Good. Bring any you find to the Netherwoods. Directly to the palace. Even if Mollis or Tisiphone cannot see you right away, there are demons there who will help you contain any who happen to be troublemakers.”

  “You will come after us if you need us, though, right?” Erin asked. “You’re not just going to go out hunting on your own.”

  “You just do not want to miss out on the fun,” I joked.

  “I do not see how any of this is fun,” Cathleen said, brow furrowed.

  “I— never mind,” I said, smiling to myself. The day when I was the one who was not taking something completely literally had finally arrived. “If I have need of you, I will find you. Quinn and Claire both have phones now. It will be easy to keep in contact with one another. And the same goes for you. Do not run into undue danger. Be careful. There are enemies afoot, and they would not hesitate to destroy you if it would cause more chaos, which it would.”

  “We will,” Claire promised. They started preparing to leave, pocketing phones, putting shoes back on. I watched them with some amusement. Tisiphone had taken them under her wing, providing them with new, modern wardrobes. Erin and Claire both had a very feminine style that suited them. Cathleen was very much a jeans and t-shirt kind of woman. Quinn reminded me of a lumberjack. Annie had a classic, demure style that suited her quite well.

  As I looked them over, Annie saw me watching them, came to me, and pulled me aside.

  “I cannot do this,” she said quietly.

  “Why not?”

  “I am not the fighter they are. What if we come up against trouble and they have to depend on me and I’m not bloody good enough?”

  “You went with them before, to hunt,” I pointed out. “And I recall Quinn saying something about you stabbing away at Alecto when she tried to attack Quinn back in London.”

  “Yes, but that was before I heard about what the Fury was able to do to you. She sliced your neck. Stabbed you in the stomach…” she trailed off, shaking her head.

  I could have smacked myself. Of course. The stabbing would have triggered horrible memories for her. And those particular injuries were too similar to the ones that had killed her.

  “You are strong and you are a quick learner. And you have a good head on your shoulders and often see things others do not.” I had to remind myself that, like all of my New Guardians, she had not had a happy life. Annie, in particular, was not especially brimming with confidence. During her natural life, she had had issues with drinking, was spurned by everyone she attached herself to, and occasionally turned to prostitution in Whitechapel in order to earn enough for food and lodging. Murdered and mutilated by the one known as “Jack the Ripper,” but who I knew as Eveline Noonan. She had spent her entire time as a soul in hiding, haunting the place of her death. “And no one will harm you.”

  “Yeah?” she asked in disbelief. “I’ve heard that before.”

  I met her eyes. “If you would prefer to let all of this go, to be sent to your final judgment and what comes after, I will escort you to my Queen myself. I well understand being tired and fed up. There is no shame in it.”

  “You would let me do that?” she asked quietly.

  “Of course. Or you can go back to what you were doing before I found you.”

  She gave a small shiver. “No. No, I hated that. There is nothing worse than not being seen. You start to wonder if you are insane. To be able to see everyone around you, to hear them, and know that none can hear you… no. I do not want that again.” She put her arms around herself, over her stomach, a stomach that had been ripped open in her murder, her intestines and uterus removed from her body. “I want to help,” she finally said.

  “Any help you give me will help me find your murderer more quickly. I want you to know that,” I told her. She met my eyes and nodded. “And Quinn is like a very large, very mean guard dog. He would rather be hurt himself than see any of you harmed.”

  “That’s the truth,” Quinn said from my left. I glanced at him, and he was looking at Annie. “I promise it, Annie.”

  She took a breath, and gave another small nod. “Then I will go with them to find more of our kind. Do you truly think we will find any?”

  “I certainly hope so,” I said. I shook hands with each of my New Guardians, and watched as they joined hands and then, they were gone.

  “Nyx protect them,” I murmured, closing my eyes. I opened them and glanced at the clock on the wall near my kitchen. I had promised to meet Brennan at his office so we could go out together in search of baby Hades. We would meet up, and then check in with Tisiphone to see where they needed eyes.

  It was likely pathetic that I was excited, almost gushingly so, over the prospect of seeing him despite everything else that was going on. I checked my hair, reapplied lip gloss, and focused on rematerializing in the building downtown where the Supernatural Affairs Division was located.

  When I appeared in Brennan’ office, I could hear that the department was much busier and more chaotic than it had been at any other time I had been there. People rushed back and forth in the corridor outside his office, and I could hear phones ringing, voices speaking. To be fair, it was not all that unexpected; everything was a mess.

  I sat down, knowing Brennan would be in when he was able. He was expecting me. I only waited for a few moments, when the door opened. Instead of Brennan, however, it was Jamie, his partner and right hand. She had started as his assistant, but her investigative skills and experience in alleviating tension when out on calls soon proved to be too much talent to let go to waste. She was an agent, and typically worked with Brennan on the cases they were handling.

  She was also the Detroit area’s only female shifter alpha.
Her father had been the pack alpha before her, but had fallen fighting at Mollis’s side. From what I had heard, it had been hard-won, but she had faced every challenge to her leadership brilliantly.

  I smiled when she walked in and noticed me. She was dressed, as Brennan usually was, in a dark suit, though she wore heels. I was pleased for some reason to see that the bubble-gum pink hair she had had when I first met her was back. She had gone back to her natural shade for a while, but clearly felt more comfortable in her role now. It absolutely suited her, setting off her dark complexion in a really stunning way.

  “Hey, E!” she said in greeting. I stood and we embraced. “How are you?”

  “I do not even know how to answer that question right now,” I told her, and she nodded.

  “Seriously. What a mess, right?”

  “Anything new?”

  She shrugged and sat down with a sigh of relief. “Other than pretty much every church in town denouncing our girl as some kind of plague on our society that caused all this mess, you mean?”

  “Morons,” I muttered.

  “Amen.”

  “We have been on top of the undead situation here,” I said.

  “Yeah, but they’ve seen it now. And now that they have, everyone’s paying a hell of a lot more attention to the word of undead in Europe and Asia. Shit is bad in London.”

  “If I never hear about London again, it would be a beautiful thing,” I said.

  She let out a short laugh.

  “It was much worse in Japan and Paris before as well, but the creation of undead in those areas seems to have halted. Their focus seems to be London. And that is where I will be as soon as Mollis’s son is found.”

  “She’s not doing well, E,” Jamie said quietly.

  “I know.”

  She grimaced. “No, she’s really not good. You haven’t seen the news yet this morning, have you?”

  A sense of dread settled over me. “Do I want to ask?”

  She shook her head and took her phone out of her jacket pocket. After a moment, she handed it over to me. There was a video from one of our local news stations on the screen, paused.