Annabelle continued. “We all thought we were stupid because we couldn’t find that command structure. But we couldn’t find one because there isn’t one.” Annabelle waved at the colored threads. “The groups are connected so they can support one another but the connections are local and limited and it isn’t hierarchical. The groups are all independent, for safety. Like—”
“Like a terrorist network,” grated Kian. “Goddamn it, how did I not see that?” His eyes darted around the network of paper and wool. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“So what the hell is it?” asked Aedan.
The whole time she’d been explaining something technical, Annabelle had been confident. Now that she’d come to the end of her knowledge, it was as if she’d remembered she was shy and awkward. “Umm...I’m not sure,” she said, flushing a little. She slid down from the tree to stand beside Carrick. “But I think maybe someone built it.”
We all stared at her.
“I mean, it’s artificial,” she said. “A real cult starts because some crazy person believes in something and recruits followers, right? But I don’t think the person who started this was crazy. I think they’re very, very smart. They’re not doing this for ego, they’re not interested in being worshipped. It’s for something else. I think they took the most effective parts of a cult: the drugs, the recruitment, the intense sessions that bring people under control. And they combined that with the structure of a terrorist network, so it’s almost impossible to find the leader. I think they’ve learned some lessons from organized crime, too: getting DAs and judges under their control. There might be other influences I’m not seeing.”
I felt my skin begin to prickle and crawl. This thing had been scary enough before. Now, it was terrifying.
“But who would set all this up?” asked Kian, half to himself. “Why?”
Annabelle shook her head. “I don’t know. But it means there is someone running it, somewhere. Find them, find the heart of this thing, and we can maybe find Bradan. But we aren’t going to get any closer from the outside. The whole setup is designed to prevent that.” She took a deep breath. “Someone needs to go inside. Someone has to go inside the cult.”
24
Aedan
Sylvie caught my eye across the room and in that instant we both knew. I knew what she was thinking, she knew what I was thinking, we both knew we were going to argue about it.
Everyone else was just staring at each other, aghast at what Annabelle had suggested. “Let's all get something to eat while we think on it,” said Kian at last, rubbing his smoothly-shaven chin. He scowled for a second, as if he’d expected to find stubble there.
“I'll join you in a bit,” I said. “Need to work out first.” I turned to Sylvie, pretending to be casual. “Want to join me?”
“Oh, hell yeah.” She stalked past me and out into the garden.
I could feel Kian’s eyes on me: he knew there was something wrong but I didn’t want to get into it. I just shook my head, grabbed some training pads and followed Sylvie.
She was pacing on the lawn, already fuming. It was still early and the air was cool but the anger was rolling through me, making my skin blaze. I stripped off my t-shirt and threw it to the ground then shoved my hands through the elastic straps on the pads and held them up for Sylvie to hit.
She went into our normal training routine, starting with quick jabs. And as soon as the punches started, the fight began. “You know I’m right,” she muttered.
“No. No way. I’m not letting you do it.” I absorbed two solid blows.
“I’m the only one who can!” She lashed out with a vicious right.
“If anyone’s doing it, it’ll be me.”
“Oh, come on! They already know you! They’ve got your names and photos from when you were kids. It has to be one of us girls and it’s too dangerous for anyone else.” Her fists slammed into the pads faster and faster. “I’m the only one who can handle herself!”
I growled. God, she could be so frustrating! I remembered when she'd arrived at the gym for our first day of training, how I'd told her she had no power, no balance, no presence. She'd fixed all those things. When she was fighting for something she believed in, like now, she was the fiercest fighter I'd ever met. But it didn't change the fact she was small. And fragile. And mine. I had to protect her from everyone...including herself.
I ripped the pads off my hands and thrust them out to her and she strapped them on. "Didn't you hear what Calahan said?" I asked. "No one has ever escaped the cult. No one. Not one feckin' person." I threw a hard left into the pad, then a right, knocking her back with each blow.
Sylvie set her jaw and did her best to hold her ground but I had more raw power. “I want to help!” she yelled.
“If you go in there, you'll not come out again!" I walloped the pad right in the center and she staggered back a good foot.
But then she recovered and stepped forward, chin up, so beautiful it made my heart ache. “I can do it.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t that I doubted her. I just couldn’t risk losing her. “I'm not letting you. Those bastards took my mom. My dad. My brother. I'm not letting them anywhere near you!” I threw punch after punch, driving her back and back….
Suddenly, she threw herself inside my arms, her speed and agility beating my strength. Feck! Her lithe body pressed against mine all the way from shoulder to ankle and all the fight went out of me. There were two low thumps as she dropped the pads to the ground.
“You have to let me do this,” she said, looking up at me defiantly. “It’s the only chance we have of finding Bradan.”
I closed my eyes. Please don’t make me make this decision. I couldn’t risk her. Not Sylvie. But I couldn’t give up on my brother, either.
No! Tell her no! My chest filled as I inhaled to argue...but Sylvie moved with it, so close I could feel her heartbeat. My angel. My vicious, sweet fighter, willing to do anything in the world for me.
I glared off into the distance, not wanting to accept it. But I knew she was right. “Feck!”
“You’ll be right there,” she told me.
“You’re fucking right I will be,” I grated. Just talking about the plan, the fear was like an iron band across my chest.
She laid a soothing palm over my heart. “You won’t let them take me.”
I captured her in my arms and crushed her against me. “Damn right I won’t,” I breathed.
It was long minutes before I finally relaxed my grip and looked down into her eyes. I stroked a lock of dark hair off her cheek. I have to marry this woman. It wasn’t just her beauty or the way she saw the good in me. It was this, this strength inside her. Who else would do what she was doing? Who else would put themselves in harm’s way to help me and my brothers?
The ring was under the bed. I could do it right now. Sylvie, just wait here a ‘sec. I’d ask her to close her eyes, run upstairs and get it, and when I told her to open them again I’d be kneeling in front of her.
I stared down into her eyes, torn. No. Not now, not just after we’d been arguing. She deserved for it to be perfect. And then, because I couldn’t look at those lips a second longer without kissing her, I leaned down and did exactly that.
25
Sylvie
The kiss was like an anti-fight. Every soft contact healed us, every brush of his lips let us know how much we needed each other. All of our anger rushed out of us, meeting in our lips and cancelling out. The way I opened under him, the way he owned my mouth...it said what we needed without words. He only wanted to protect me; I only wanted to help him.
The anger evaporated but that left behind the adrenaline. Just like when we fought in the ring, all that tension and fight-or-flight edginess had to go somewhere. His tongue swept across my lip and my whole body stiffened, the heat welling up inside me and then searing out to every part of me, making me tremble. I flexed against him, spine arching, wanting, needing, to put every inch of me against every inch of him.<
br />
He broke the kiss just long enough to look at me again and when I saw how those blue eyes were clouded with lust, I went weak. I took a staggering step back, overwhelmed for a second by the size of him, the brute strength of him.
He followed, pressing up against me, not allowing even an inch of air between us. His hands slipped under the back of my tank top and up my back, rough fingers over naked skin. I drew in a shuddering gasp of cool morning air and when I breathed it back out against his chest, it was scalding hot. I could hear both of us panting, desperate. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said.
In answer, he leaned down and kissed me again, deep and hot, making me his. He captured my lower lip between his teeth and sucked on it, making me groan.
He looked towards the house. “Everyone else is having breakfast.” So innocent a sentence. But the Irish in his voice, the low growl as he said it, loaded each word with dark promise. I knew exactly what he meant and the idea of it made my head swim with fear...and excitement.
Both of us glanced at the swing. Then, before I could say anything, Aedan had put his hands under my ass and lifted me off the ground, my legs automatically going around his waist. He walked over to the swing and set me down on the seat, kneeling down before me as I grabbed hold of the flower-covered ropes. He was so big, we were now almost eye-to-eye.
He knee-walked forward and I spread my knees to let him in, the denim of my jeans rasping against his. He only stopped when he was right up against the wood of the seat, my legs open wide to accept him, the feel of his muscled torso between them making me heady.
Then he started kissing me again and, as my eyes closed, I felt his hands peel my tank top up my body and over my breasts. I felt the cups of my bra flip up and then my breasts were throbbing in the outside air, nipples tightening in the cold for a second before his hot mouth enveloped them and I cried out in delight.
His mouth pressed me slowly back, his size and strength not giving me a choice even though the last thing I wanted was to resist. His tongue swirled around my nipple sending crackling, sparking streamers of pleasure through me. My hands tightened on the ropes and my arms straightened as I leaned back, back…. My ass shifted on the wooden seat, scooching forward until my groin was right up against him. He pressed harder in towards me and I groaned as the hard ridges of his naked abs stroked my inner thighs and the softness between them.
My arms reached their limits but he was still pushing my upper body back. I tentatively released my grip on the ropes, trusting him, and felt his big hands slip under my shoulders to support me. He had most of one breast in his mouth now, the soft flesh engulfed in heat, his tongue circling, making me twist and grind my hips in response. I leaned further and further back, my legs kicking out and straightening to balance me, feet off the ground. Aedan was leaning right over me: when I opened my eyes for a brief second, his hulking body blocked out the sun—
And then I felt my hair go slack and realized it was trailing on the ground beneath me. I was lying flat, supported only by my ass on the swing and Aedan’s hands under my shoulders. He held me there, working my breasts slowly and firmly with his mouth. Hard licks that made me quiver right to my core. Soft bites, lips covering his teeth, until I was thrashing and panting, my denim-clad ass twisting on the wood, my outstretched fingers clawing at the grass above my head. “I need to,” I said in a strangled voice. “I need you.”
His hands grabbed mine, hauling me back up to sitting. But he didn’t stop there: he jumped to his feet, pulling me to standing, and I gasped as the sudden movement sent cool air washing against my spit-wet breasts. While I was still catching my breath, he pulled my tank top and bra off over my head. Then his hands were at the buttons of my jeans and mine were at his, both of us panting with anticipation.
I couldn’t resist running my hand over the bulge at his groin and he growled. Then I was shoving his jeans and jockey shorts down around his thighs and his cock sprang free. He didn’t bother taking them the rest of the way off, too focused on helping me pull my jeans and panties down my legs, my sneakers going with them in a tangled mess. Then he was picking me up and twisting around. I realized what he was going to do only a second before he did it.
He sat down on the swing. A good thing it had been built for grownups: his muscled hips only just fit. He pulled a condom from the pocket of his jeans and rolled it on. Then his hands were on my naked ass, urging me forward….and down.
I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder at the house. No sign of anyone. I put one foot on the seat of the swing and stepped up into the air, grabbing the ropes for support. I gingerly threaded my feet between the ropes and his body so that I was astride him, facing him. Then I lowered myself down.
My eyes widened as I felt the first hot touch of him against my wet folds. We’d never done it quite like this before. We could stare right into each other’s eyes as I slowly sank down onto him, using my feet on the ground and my hands on the ropes for support. I rocked forward and back a little, experimenting, then gasping as I got it just right and he slid up into me.
My fingers gripped the ropes hard and then I worked my way down, a finger width at a time, sinking, sinking. Low groans and pants stirred the air between us as I took him, feeling every inch of him: that wonderful stretch. I lowered and lowered, teeth gritted with the effort of holding back, letting him slowly fill me. And then my ass touched down against the hardness of his thighs and I slumped against him, my naked breasts pillowed against his pecs. He was in me to the root.
We kissed, long and slow, our bodies seeming to meld into one. His thumbs found the little creases at the top of my thighs that drive me crazy and I wriggled against him, gasping. Then his palms slid along my legs towards my feet, urging them upward. Urging me to take my feet off the ground.
I lifted...and moaned. I was weightless, sitting completely in his lap, and there was the soft movement like the rocking of a boat as the swing moved. A slow, lazy throb of pleasure strummed through me as my body tightened and relaxed around the hardness inside me. With every breath, I could smell the flowers on the ropes. I could feel the cool outdoor air lapping at our bodies, caressing every part of us save for our fronts. We were so closely joined that not even a breath of wind could get between us.
There was a pause: everything stopped. I opened my eyes and found I was staring straight into his. Aedan looked at me with more passion, more need than I’d ever seen. And something else, too: a rare second of pure, Irish wickedness. He arched one dark brow.
I realized what he had in mind and my eyes went wide. Could we? How would it feel? The blood was rushing in my ears, the pleasure tightening and coiling in anticipation. My eyes answered for me. Yes!
Aedan straightened his legs and we lifted. I gulped, clutching at the ropes: it was like that moment on the runway when the plane gathers itself for take-off.
And then we swung.
My hands were already gripping the ropes but now they clutched frantically, working higher and higher. As we swung forward, my weight seemed to increase: I was pushed down on Aedan’s cock, grinding there, and as I leaned instinctively forward against him, the base pressing hard against my clit. My whole body trembled, pleasure rushing and soaring inside me, my legs kicking out behind him.
Then we reached the apex of the swing and I was weightless for a second. He fell a fraction of a second before me, his cock drawn from me with satiny smoothness...and then I was chasing him down, the delicious weight and crush against his muscled thighs and abs, the swell of pleasure as his angle changed inside me. My hair flew out behind me as we rose. We reached the top of our backswing, me facing up into the sky and him down towards the ground, and then I was hooking my legs back beneath us and we were plunging back down again.
Every swing was a glorious, heart-pounding rush of sensation. It was so intense and yet so intimate because we hardly moved, relative to each other. We could stare into each other’s eyes as the world sailed past us, experiencing every second of each ot
her’s pleasure.
Without words, we kicked harder. Swung faster. We drew our breath in on each swing and panted it out at each apex. His hands reached up and covered mine on the ropes. The tiny movements of him inside me, no more than an inch or so of travel, meant I could focus on every tiny sensation: his heat, his hardness, the twitch of his hips as he got close.
I was barely hanging on myself, the pleasure twisting in on itself, growing hotter and brighter with each pass of our heels over the ground. I’d never experienced anything like it, had never climbed towards my peak so smoothly and steadily. I could feel how wet I was around him, how hard his whole body had become. His thighs, under me, felt like rock. The ropes creaked. The air rushed past our bodies. My naked toes strained for the sky and—
He leaned forward and kissed me, letting go of the ropes to tangle his fingers in my hair, and I groaned and panted my orgasm into his mouth. It was like dawn breaking, huge and unstoppable, washing through every part of me. Aedan kissed me deep and hard, his hips drawing back just a little...and then, when he could hold it no longer, his hips surged forward and he broke the kiss, arching his back and thrusting up into me as he released.
26
Sylvie
It was strange, waiting to become a victim. It went against every instinct I had. As a woman, I’d learned about avoiding situations that put me at risk. I’d come to trust those gut feelings that tell you to get out, now, because someone means you harm. Then Aedan had taught me how to stand up to people and intimidate them, fight them if necessary.
And now all of that was useless. If we wanted to find Bradan, I had to just wander through the crowd, oblivious to everything around me. I couldn’t be cautious or alert: if they picked up on that, they wouldn’t approach me. I had to be a lamb to the slaughter.
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