Wicked Game

by Romy Lockhart

  She turns to scowl at me. “This is your fault, you stupid little man.”

  Diana groans and gets up, her eyes widening at the sight of her mother. I’ve never seen her truly terrified until this moment. She pulls the covers to her chest and shrinks back from her mother.

  “What are you doing here?” Diana doesn’t sound any calmer than she looks.

  “She was just leaving,” I say, bodily yanking the woman to her feet.

  She pushes me off and looks me over. “Who do you think you are? Leave us. Go slit your wrists open and bleed out on the kitchen floor.”

  The headache is back full force. I move before I can think about saying no to her command. I grab the bannister and slow my walk as much as I can. I’m screaming ‘No!’ inside my head, but I can’t stop moving.

  “That’s better. Now, where were we?” Diana’s mother asks.

  “You can’t do this,” Diana says, her voice cracking. “He’s all I have.”

  “That’s precisely why I’m doing this. It’s your punishment for being weak.”

  Their conversation is then drowned out my internal freak-out, and I’m out of earshot as I get to the bottom of the stairs. Too soon, I’m heading to the kitchen, opening the drawers to find a knife. I can’t stop this. There’s nothing I can do. Panic makes my breathing laboured. Shit. I don’t think there’s any way out of this. I see the knives and my blood runs cold. I reach into the drawer and my fingers curl around a handle.

  I’m pulling it out and positioning it to make the first cut when the headache disappears. My hand doesn’t move to slice my arm. I’m no longer under the Goddess’s control. I drop the knife back into the drawer and go running back upstairs, expecting to see Diana standing over her mother with something heavy. She’s sitting on the bed, her head hanging in defeat. Her mother smirks at me on her way out of the room.

  I know when I’m beaten and get out of her way to be rid of her without being told to kill myself again. That came too close. I could have been gone, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. Apparently, though, there was something Diana had done. I need to know what.

  I sit down and put my fingers under her chin to raise her face. She’s crying, her body shaking under her. A sob escapes her, and I pull her into my arms.

  “What happened?” I’m afraid to ask, but I need to know.

  She takes a few shuddering breaths before she pushes me back and wipes at her eyes. “I have a week to undo this choice, or she’s coming back to kill you.”

  “Undo the choice?”

  She nods, pressing her lips together. It takes her a few seconds to explain. “I chose you over being a Goddess. I have a limited window to change my mind. It’s a Dark Forces Goddess thing. We’re known for being fickle.”

  Well, fuck. I don’t know what to say. “Have you changed your mind?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “I’m sick of having no-one and nothing. I can’t go back to that, Logan. I love you. But I don’t know what choice I have. She said she was going to kill you, and she will.”

  “We have a week to think of something. So let’s do that.”

  I hold her and she clings to me. I know I’m going to have to save her. She’s in this situation because of me. I need to pull us out of it.

  How the hell am I going to outsmart a Goddess of Destruction? I don’t know yet, but I’m going to have to figure it out.

  Chapter Ten

  Eden

  Sky was right about one thing; Lawson’s place is huge. We go inside, and he points out the table where the note was left. Eli asks him questions about the house and what happened and doesn’t seem to get any of the answers he’s looking for. Then Lawson gets a pad of paper and starts drawing out a map of the surrounding area. He points out areas where Sky could have been taken.

  “And you haven’t checked any of these out?” Eli asks.

  Lawson shakes his head. “They’ll be expecting me to look for her.”

  Eli considers that and nods. “Give me your car keys.”

  He does it without asking. Eli glances at us both.

  “I’m going to take a drive around and see if I spot anything suspicious. I won’t go too close. I just want to see what we’re dealing with here.” He heads to the door.

  “Eli, you can’t go alone.” I wonder why Lawson is making a face at me, but I don’t dwell on it as I make my plea to the sexy sheriff I dragged into this mess.

  “I think I have to,” he says, leaving before I can say anything else.

  Lawson grabs my wrist as I make to go after him. What the hell?

  “Relax. I’m not trying to grope you, Eden. Let him go. That map was bogus.”

  “Oh.” I break away and cross my arms. It feels weird to have been left alone with Lawson.

  He sighs. “Okay, one piece of advice before I get into the heavy stuff. Don’t put asinine rules on yourself. You’re a Goddess of Love, Eden. It means you’ll fall easily for the men who are meant to be yours. You don’t need to wait for anything. It won’t change a thing. He’s yours. He knew the moment he saw you. Just like you knew the moment you met him.”

  Interesting. Even if it kind of sounds like it’s just what I want to hear, I’m going to think about it. “Um, okay.”

  “Good. Now, we need a real plan. There’s a way for you to connect to Sky to track her whereabouts. I’m going to show you how to do that.”

  “Wait. Why do you need to show me? Aren’t you in love with her?” Wait. Does that mean Sky’s one of many for him? Oh, God, I don’t know if she can cope with that. No. I definitely know there’s no chance in hell she’d be anyone’s third, or fourth, or…

  “Okay, first off, Sky’s the only woman I’m even considering sleeping with. Yes, you heard that right. We didn’t fuck the night I brought her here. I knew she needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t pressure her for that. I suspected she had the same secret as mine. Secondly, love means different things to different people. You need the physical act to feel closer to someone. I need them to open up to me in other ways. I love several people I consider friends. I’m not interested in sleeping with any of them.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so close-minded.” Wow, this guy just got even more incredible.

  “Lastly,” he says with a sigh, “You need to be the one to connect with her because you two have a pre-existing relationship. She was just getting to know me. She was starting to trust, but she’s been too hurt in the past to admit to herself that she might be starting to love me.”

  “What happened to you guys in the cult?” I know it must be horrific. Maybe I don’t want to know.

  “Like most cults, money is the end goal. Lure in people who have it. Let the influencers, the ones who bring in more of the rich members rise closer to the top. The ones left on the bottom rung are little more than slaves. My family weren’t rich. Hers weren’t either. They encouraged men to take multiple wives. They encouraged kids to do things they should never have to. It was a fucked-up place to be. No-one was a friend. There was too much competition for food at the bottom. Everyone for themselves just to survive.”

  “Shit. That’s horrible.”

  “Sky had it worse than me. She escaped with an older guy. He promised her he’d look after her. He turned her into a prostitute when they got out. She was fifteen.” He clenches his jaw tight before he talks again. “He almost beat her to death the night she started her period. So, yeah, she had it way worse than me. I had some close calls, but a thirteen-year-old guy who looks maybe five years older can scrape by on the streets a little better than a young girl with an abusive asshole of a boyfriend.”

  I want to cry for her right now. My heart hurts just hearing what she went through. “I had no idea.”

  “She didn’t want anyone to know, but it had been weighing on her. I knew the right questions to ask. I could read her mind. Put her at ease. She felt better after she got it all out.”

  “You seriously need to teach me how to read minds.”r />
  “It takes longer than establishing connections. I’ll teach you once we find Sky. I want to get her out before anything bad happens to her.”

  “How do you know something bad hasn’t already happened?” And now that I’ve asked, the dread that she’s already going through hell has a stranglehold on me.

  “I don’t for sure, but they tend to do things on ceremony. They kidnapped her to have her killed or tortured in front of their leaders. They have a ritual for this. It takes at least two days to properly prepare.”

  Okay, so that means we have… Shit. I don’t know. “How long have they had her?”

  “They got her just after midnight. I tried connecting with her and it didn’t work. I tried for hours before I realised it was useless. If we can find out where she is, we can work out when it’ll be safe to extract her.”

  “Safe?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “The top men aren’t always around. The Gods. We need to get to her when their backs are turned. Otherwise we’re just two new toys for them to play with. You know how it is when Dark Forces are around Good. They can’t live and let live. It’s not in their nature.”

  He’s right. I’d gotten lucky with Diana, really. She hadn’t been able to cause any permanent harm before I’d used her attachment to my former bodyguard against her. I doubt I’ll experience anything like that this time around. Not with men in charge of something so evil. “So, what do I need to do to connect with Sky?”

  “You need to think about her. Concentrate on finding the thing that bonds you and let it lead you to her.” He pulls out a chair at the table for me.

  I sit, and he tells me to close my eyes. I do it, trusting him to guide me.

  “Think about Sky. What she means to you. When you realised you loved her.”

  It feels weird, but I do it. Sky was the first person who auditioned for my band when I was given a record deal. She cracked me up with her jokes and wowed me with her talent. My manager thought she was too feisty, that she might try to outshine me. The label went with her opinion over mine. I gave Sky my number anyway and told her the second I had the chance to recommend her for her own band I’d call her. We’d become friends then, much to my manager’s annoyance.

  She was always kicking up a fuss over things that weren’t right. She wouldn’t put up with anything that pissed her off. Anything that didn’t seem fair or just. I can feel tears rolling down my cheeks realising what a terrible background she’d had to make her into the incredible woman she’d become.

  I’d realised I loved her when she stuck up for me on a joint tour in the early days. I’d been mortified by the tight leotard they’d wanted me to wear on stage. I was too green to just say no. Thought it might lose me my contract. Sky had told them to go fuck themselves. She’d given me her leather jacket to wear over the slightly less scandalous skimpy get up I ended up wearing instead.

  “There, you’ve found the moment. Now reach out to her. Ask where she is.”

  I don’t understand what he’s asking, and I’m about to open my mouth to ask when I realise I’ve done it. I feel the connection spark. I see a dark room, a basement, maybe.

  “She’s in a basement.”

  I gasp as I realise not only can I see what she’s seeing, I can feel and hear and touch. There’s a dripping nearby, murmuring voices. Her arms are chained above her head. She’s sitting on something kind of soft but not entirely comfortable. Her back is against a cold stone wall.

  “What do you see?” Lawson’s voice sounds far away.

  “She’s chained to the wall. There’s no-one else in the room, but I can hear people upstairs or something. I can’t make out what they’re saying. Something’s dripping.”

  “Shit,” he murmurs. “Could be almost anywhere. What do you smell?”

  “I don’t know, damp and rot? Nothing distinctive.”

  He sighs. “You’re going to have to keep checking in on her. Until we can figure out where she is there’s nothing we can do.”

  “What would help?” I don’t’ even know what I’m looking for.

  “Someone will take her to be prepared for the ceremony. Can you see what she’s wearing?”

  “I think jeans and a leather jacket. There’s not a lot of light, but that’s what it feels like she’s wearing.”

  He lets out a relieved sigh close to my ear. “That means they haven’t even started yet.”

  Oh, no. I can hear Sky starting to sob quietly, her body shaking. “She’s afraid.”

  “She knows what they’re going to do.” He touches my shoulder. “Come back.”

  The touch shocks me back into my own body. I blink, and the room swirls a little in front of me. I’m ashamed to admit I don’t want to go back there. I know I need to, but just thinking about it makes my heart hurt. “What now?”

  He starts to pace around. “We need to get to her before the Gods come. But if we wait to see who takes her to be prepared it might already be too late.”

  “Do you have a real list of places we can look?” As opposed to the fake one he gave Eli.

  “They move around, a lot. The higher-ranking members stay offsite. They keep the places guarded and come together for this kind of stuff. They’re so fucking careful.” He shakes his head.

  “So that’s a no?”

  “I think I need to walk around town when your lover comes back, see what I can find out.”

  “I should come with you.”

  “You can’t. When we’re together, people will notice us.”

  “What? Oh, right.” Out of the spotlight so long I’m forgetting who I am.

  “I don’t just mean because of who we are to the music world. Our abilities multiply when we’re close to others of our kind. It’s part of what makes the cult so damned dangerous. One Dark Forces God would be bad enough. When you’re talking about three of them? Deadly isn’t a strong enough term for what they are. It takes such little effort on their part to cause incredible destruction.”

  I shiver as he sits back down next to me. “But then, for us to team up against them…”

  “We’d still lose. We need to avoid them at all costs, Eden. You’re too green. I’m too… damaged.”

  “But then what happens if we take Sky? Won’t they just come after her again?”

  “Not if she’s already bound to me. They took her before things were settled. That’s the trick, Eden. You won’t know this, since Cupid’s such a prick, but once your lovers agree to be yours that’s it. There’s no turning back. Your enemies can’t give them direct orders to do anything to hurt you, or each other.”

  I gasp. “What? No, that can’t be…”

  “Look, I’m not going to pretend I can’t read your mind. The guy that Goddess used against you wasn’t yours. He didn’t agree to love you on your terms.”

  “But Asher…”

  “She might have been able to plant doubts in his head, given their pre-existing relationship, but that was a little mind-fuck he would have brushed off on his own if you hadn’t done it for him. She didn’t order him to do anything. He wouldn’t have taken her orders if she had. She did things the way she did them for a reason.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Now I’m really pissed at Cupid. He’s going to have some serious explaining to do the next time he shows his deceitful little face.

  “Look, we can get all caught up with this stuff later. I need to go out and figure out where they’re keeping Skyler. And I need to go alone because we’d raise too many eyebrows wandering around together.”

  I cross my arms. I know I’m immortal, but I’m still kind of creeped out about staying here on my own.

  “I’m not leaving you alone, Eden. Your lover is back, he’s parking the car.” He points to the security monitor and motions me over. “This is how you set and unset the alarm, in case you need to.”

  He shows me and gives me a code by writing it on the back of my hand.

  “Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck, Lawson.” Why do I get th
e feeling he’s going to need it?

  Chapter Eleven

  Eli

  It only occurs to me that Lawson was trying to get rid of me when I get to the third spot on his decidedly haphazard map. It’s the third fast food joint parking lot I’ve driven into so far, and now alongside being suspicious, I’m also getting hungry for a burger and fries.

  I only realize I haven’t eaten yet today when my stomach grumbles at me. I suppose in my rush to help out Eden I’d forgotten everything else. The drive thru lane is empty so I make a quick detour, ordering a triple helping of my craving before I head back to the musician’s mansion. Traffic’s light now, but it won’t be in another ten minutes.

  The whole way back I’m trying to lock onto the reason the guy sent me on a wild goose chase. The answer should be obvious, but I didn’t catch him looking at Eden as if was mentally undressing her, and believe me that wouldn’t have escaped my scrutiny. So it’s not that. I didn’t get any bad vibes from him in general. He seems genuinely worried about Skyler’s abduction. I’m not sure what that leaves. There’s something. I just don’t know what it is.

  I park in the driveway and don’t get the chance to shut the car door before Lawson comes running towards me. Panic swells. “What’s wrong?”

  Where’s Eden? My hand drops, to go for my gun.

  He shakes his head. “I just need to go out. She’s inside, got the alarm set. I saw you come back.”

  I’m suspicious enough to take hold of his arm when he starts to move past me. He locks eyes and something like determination flashes in his. My thoughts slacken. Why am I grabbing him? He’s not the enemy here. I let go and he rushes off. I’m about to lock the car door and go inside when I remember the food. I grab the bag first then get to the front door. It’s unlocked. I step inside.

  “Eden,” I call out, before realising she’s standing right inside the door, inches away from me in the hallway.

  “Lawson saw you come back. He had to go out.”

  “Yeah, he said that.” I glance back as I shut the door.

  Then Eden makes a sexy little moan and my attention snaps straight back to her. No man alive could hear that and not at least get a semi. The sudden throbbing at my crotch makes me glad I changed into jeans on the plane. It’s hard to hide that kind of movement in my uniform pants.