by Elise Jae
The thought makes me sick with want.
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
No, she shouldn’t have. “I told you to say what’s on your mind. I’m not mad at you for doing what I asked.”
I’m mad at the Saints for being so cruel as to offer her to me with one hand.... and still manage to snatch her away with the other.
There are dozens of men out in the club who are in love with her—infatuated. I’ve no doubt that one of them would say yes. Hell. Maybe they all would.
And I can’t ask her not to ask anyone else.
She stands, walking toward me with slow, measured steps.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, her hand slips over my shoulders. “I asked, because Noa and I are never going to have kids.”
She doesn’t say if it’s because he can't or…
“And I realized that I wouldn’t want them with him anyway.”
She presses a kiss to my shoulder blade and, eyes dropped to the floor, she slips into the bathroom to clean up.
My mind is too jumbled to process the implications of that. And while she’s in the tiny commode, I step back into my clothes. Wondering if it might just be easier to slip out before she returns.
But easy doesn’t get anyone what they want.
And when she comes back out, I’m waiting for her. Sitting in the chair, like we’re about to get started, not like we’ve just finished.
Holding her panties out to her on a single finger, I watch her walk to me, a faint smile on her lips.
Maybe she thought I’d take the easy way out.
“I will give you anything I can, Hannah. But a child… one I could never know as my own…. That would destroy me.”
Her brows pinch, and she looks down. Sadness twisting her lips. “I have a feeling it might destroy me too.”
She leans down and brushes her lips against mine. “Some dreams require everything or nothing.”
I don’t have the chance to ask what that means.
She pulls her robe on and snags her bra, hurrying from the room before she’s fully dressed, and the wave of sadness that sweeps over me forces me to stay put.
My jaw is clenched so tightly, I might crack a tooth. I have to force my mouth open, have to force myself to stand when it’s been too long.
And when I leave, I have to force myself to not punch Luther when he gets in my way.
Eight
HANNAH
Once again, the club floor is packed. Too many bodies to search through. Still, I scan the floor for my regulars, my favorites. The few I’ve been willing to see lately
None of them are here.
I’ve been told I’m doing my job too well. Half of them have abandoned me for their newly acquired bondmates. I can’t blame them for that.
Not even Fault is here tonight.
And maybe I shouldn’t be.
Because I don’t want any of the men around me. I want Hazard. And once again, I don’t want to share him.
I rub at my eyes, they feel… gummy, and everything’s a little hazier than normal. But I know Margot hasn’t added a fog machine to the general ambiance.
The lights, however... she might have turned up their intensity.
The swirling green and purple stabs at me every time I forget and accidentally glance at the wrong spot on the ceiling.
I lean back against the wall and pinch the bridge of my nose. Maybe I’m getting burnt out. Maybe I need to take a vacation and head to the tropical regions of the planet for a week.
But I doubt that would drive away the strange emptiness that’s settled over me.
I don’t have to search my memory to guess what caused that. The look on Hazard’s face when I voiced my terrible request still haunts me.
Maybe that’s why my skin feels like it’s covered in a fine layer of thorns.
The music switches over and the heavy bass seems to punch straight through my chest.
This was a bad idea.
One of the waitresses skims past me, the scent of her perfume too sharp.
I wasn’t feeling well before I left the house this afternoon… maybe I should have stayed home.
I’d much rather be scrolling through listings for apartments to narrow down—I’ve looked at four so far. All of them had their own problems.
Pushing off the wall, I slip into the back… I definitely should have stayed home. But I was certain Hazard would show up tonight. And I’ve never been wrong before….
The moment the door closes behind me, my ears ring, the sound shooting through my brain like a blade.
I take a deep breath, but the sudden queasiness that’s gripped me only gets worse. I’m too hot and too cold all at once. The hallway isn’t level and I have to hold onto the wall as I stumble back to the dressing room.
If I’d had anything to drink since I came in… I might have thought I’d been drugged, but….
I’m barely through the curtain before I hit the floor.
There’s no air in the room. Every fiber of my being is on fire and frozen solid all at once, and my heart seizes.
It feels like I’ve been poisoned. Ice on my skin, a burning sear in my veins.
Someone screams, but it’s not me. All I can manage is the painful croak as I try to breathe.
I feel hands on me. Know that others are there, but couldn’t tell you who they were or how many, or…
I hear someone yell something about “on my side” and the world spins. It’s enough to make me throw up.
Margot comes into view, her hands on my face. “You have to breathe Hannah. You don’t get to tap out on me.”
But my next inhale fills my lungs with needles, and everything goes black.
HAZARD
I don’t like the numbness I feel….
When I step into the club there’s an anxiety that’s slipping through the beams of light and pounding bass.
Margot isn’t anywhere to be seen.
Something is very definitely wrong.
I make a circuit through the rooms, avoiding anyone who tries to catch my eye. Even if there was a plan when I arrived. There’s no chance I’m sharing her with how I feel right now.
Finally, when I’m sure she’s not sequestered in some dark corner by someone who’s trapped her, I go in search of Margot.
This time, no one tries to draw my attention. Instead, they move the other way.
But the whole mood of the place is off.
I see the woman I’m looking for—not the one I want—behind the bar and even from here, I can tell her smile is fake.
I manage to stop myself from shoving the man on the stool to the ground to get him out of the way. “Where is she?”
Margot’s eyes go wide. “Let’s talk.”
She hurries out from behind the bar.
The man she had been speaking to looks at me like he might need to pick a fight, but as soon as I meet his eyes, he thinks better of it.
Margot grabs me by the front of my shirt and drags me through the room. We draw too much attention, but I don’t care. I need answers more than I need to keep a low profile.
The opening in the wall that waitresses disappear through is almost impossible to see when you don’t know where it is.
The fact that I’m in this hall is the thing that truly scares me. Stepping past the proverbial curtain is a bannable offense.
I feel like I’ve been afforded more liberties than the average patron, but even I haven’t been allowed back here.
“Something’s wrong. Tell me now.”
She gives me a look that tells me just how happy she is to receive an order.
“If it was anyone else, I’d tell you to get the fuck out and come back when you remember your manners.”
“Margot….” I can’t hide the impatience, the concern… any of it from my voice.
I clench my teeth to keep from threatening her.
She glances toward the door we’ve just come through. “She had a seizure.”
“Is she
okay?”
Margot grimaces. “No. But she will be eventually. Maybe.”
I don’t like the hesitation. “What aren’t you telling me.”
Margot grimaces and pulls me further into the back. “The seizure didn’t have anything to do with her health. She doesn’t know it yet… but her bondmate’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“I called as soon as she was stable.”
“That’s why all the others are so unsettled.”
She nods. “I’ve seen it a few times before and it’s still… awful. The ones who were in the room… I sent them home. If I hadn’t, their bondmates would have been down here within the hour. Watching something like that tears your stomach out through your throat.”
I almost ask about her bondmate. But that’s a secret no one knows.
“Is she still here?”
“Yes. I’ve put her in one of the rooms. I doubt she’ll wake before tomorrow afternoon.”
“Can I see her?”
“Hazard.” The warning in her tone is sharp. “I know you and she had an agreement, but…”
“Please, Margot. I just need to know she’s still—” I can’t say what I think then. I’ve heard stories of one bondmate’s death killing the other, but I don’t know if there’s any truth to them.
She takes a deep breath and in the end, just nods.
I follow her through the back halls, places where the women move from client to client, and where the backroom waitresses get their drinks from the secondary bar.
Margot stops at a door, her hand on the handle, a card in her hand to unlock it. “She doesn’t look well. But I promise you, I am monitoring her and I won’t let anything happen to her.”
I nod, because there’s really nothing to say.
Hannah is on the bed—one that we’ve used a dozen times—bathed in a soft light.
She’s pale and unconscious. If I didn’t see the faint rise of her chest, I’d think she was dead.
Margot doesn’t let me go in.
“Satisfied?”
“No. But we both know you won’t let me go to her.”
“She’s going to be confused enough when she wakes up. I don’t need you here making it worse.”
“I would never hurt her.”
“I know you wouldn’t. Not intentionally. But this isn’t something you’re prepared to deal with.”
I watch her for just a little while longer, counting breaths. “Promise me you won’t let her wake up alone.”
“I’ll be here to pull her through it.”
“Thank you.”
I leave, because there’s no reason to stay. I trust Margot will keep her safe—even from me, though she doesn’t need to. And I trust that she won’t wake up tonight. Margot has no reason to lie.
But when I get in my car, I don’t turn toward the mountains. I don’t head for the Shadow Zone and that empty outpost that’s supposed to be my home .
I turn my car toward the house I left her at last week.
The place is swarming with officials. A coroner’s van sits on the street, and a familiar man stands beside it, speaking to the coroner.
But I can’t place him. I pull my comm clip out and snap a quick picture. Because something tells me figuring out who he is—and why I know him—is important.
There’s nothing I can do here either. I have no actual claim to Hannah. There’s no reason for me to be here. There’s no reason anyone should give me an explanation.
The drive home feels longer than it has before, and I arrive, still too numb to feel sian.
My outpost is cold, the emptiness seeping into my bones, and I force myself to keep moving. I pull the man’s face up on my wall screen. Staring at him longer than I ought to. But I still can’t place him. And when I finally give up, I consider calling Kimba… but she’s ready to pop. For all I know, she’s already gone into labor.
Dropping to my sofa, I drag my hands over my face and consider wrenching it from my head. There’s nothing I can do but wait.
And I hate that more than anything else in this world.
Nine
HANNAH
Consciousness is a cruelty I hadn’t expected.
But when I claw my way back to the ugly brightness, at least there’s a beautiful face waiting to greet me.
“Don’t sit up.” Margot presses a cold cloth to my forehead. “You’re going to feel dizzy for a little while longer.”
“What happened?” I try to piece the night back together. “Was I drugged?”
“No.” The word is short, and a dozen thoughts race through my head as I try to determine what could be worse than someone slipping me something.
She’s right, I am dizzy. Even lying down.
“Noa is dead.” She says it so bluntly….
“That’s ridiculous.”
“As soon as I saw you seizing, I knew. But I’ve checked. He’s gone.”
I feel like I should cry or feel… something.
But I’m hollow more than anything else. Hadn’t I just been trying to get away from him?
The thought that occurs to me first isn’t about him.
“I guess that means I’m fired.”
Her smile is pained. “Can’t work here if you’re not bonded.”
He took that away from me too.
I didn’t realize it was possible to despise him even more than I did.
“Drink this.”
I take the glass from her and swallow it down with out looking… and immediately sputter and choke.
“That’s whiskey.” I cough some more as my throat burns. “I thought it was water.”
“You needed something stronger.”
“Warn a woman next time.”
Margot’s brow pinches. “I hope there never is a next time.”
And for whatever woman’s sake… I hope so too.
“You’re taking this better than I expected.”
But something in the way she says it makes me think she didn’t expect much more.
“I was looking for places to go. I’d planned to leave him and just hadn’t found the right place yet.”
“Would he have let you?”
I hadn’t asked, but… he’d never denied me anything before.
“We were broken from the start, Margot. Can you tell me that you would feel nothing if your bondmate were to die? Because I feel nothing.” I look away from her, because that's not right. “I feel nothing but hate for a man who felt nothing for me.”
Taking a deep breath, I do sit up now, letting her help me. “Do you know how he died?”
“No. I was more worried about you than him.”
I nod and wonder if I’ll be able to go home. And if I do, what waits for me there.
“Can I call someone to come get you?”
I shake my head. There’s no one I want to be with right now—no one that’s appropriate. “I just want to go home.”
It’s a lie. I just don’t want to be here.
Margot hesitates, and for a moment, I think she’s going to argue with me, but instead, she goes to the door, opening it and letting me stand on my own. But she watches me like a hawk. Like she’s going to step in and catch me the moment I put a foot wrong.
I’m steady as I ever have been. She doesn’t need to worry about that.
But she doesn’t leave me as I change into my clothes and pack up my things. I have to take everything. Just in case there really is no coming back.
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks.” Margot says as I roll up my favorite robe. “If you need anything. You know you can call me, right? Or Kimba.”
“I do. And thank you. For everything.”
When I leave, I don’t look back. I can’t or else I might break.
How horrible is it that I’ll mourn the loss of Margot's far more than I’ll mourn Noa?
The drive home is too short. But the house seems deserted. I imagine if someone official is waiting for me, they’re inside.
But it’s
not anyone official who appears as soon as I kill the engine.
Noa’s nameless business partner slinks in to the garage behind me—from where, I don’t know.
I won’t close the garage door with him inside. I don’t even want to get out of the car with him here. But he isn’t going to leave on is own.
“What do you want?”
“Just one last look at you before they send you back to Earth, whore.”
I’ve been called far worse by people I care more about, so I don’t even flinch. “Is that all?”
“It would have been better for everyone if you’d just died with him.”
“Your friend is gone, and you’re grieving. I get that, but—”
“You don’t know anything. And if you knew what was good for you, you’d go inside, you’d get Noa’s gun out of the safe, and you’d stick it in your slutty, cock sucking mouth before you pulled the trigger.”
The way he looks at me… he’s thought of doing it for me.
I don’t know what relationship he and Noa had. I know they weren’t lovers, but the way he’s talking to me…. Like he blames me for Noa’s death….
The problem is…. The man in front of me is one of the few men on the planet who could probably send me back to Earth. He’s one of the few men on the planet who could tell the truth about my bond being broken. And if I can’t properly bond ot a sian man….
Which means, to stay… to get my life back, I have to rebond. And as soon as possible.
I want it to be Hazard… but Hazard has already put in for a bondmate. He expects someone else, and I won’t trap him with me. I won’t trap anyone with me who wants a bondmate when there’s no guarantee.
But there is one man who sees me who’s told me he will never bond. And maybe he’s my answer.
The big man everyone at Margot’s is afraid of—the man who won’t put in for a bond mate because he’s terrified the woman who steps off that ship is going to run the other way.
Maybe we are an answer to each other’s problems.
I barely remember the drive to Fault’s home. As soon as I park, everything feels wrong. But what doesn’t anymore?
The concrete around me is cold. It’s like a different kind of tomb than the one I live in. Not that the icy wind sweeping in will reach the interior of Fault’s home.