by May Dawson
Tristan grabbed my shoulders. His face was lined with worry. “Deidra. It’s going to be all right.”
I caught his hands in mine. “You should go.”
He frowned down at me. “Where the hell is this coming from?”
“It’s not safe here for you,” I said. “But you know he wants me here. He’s not going to hurt me. This is going to take time…”
I wasn’t talking about it taking time to work myself close enough to kill Truby anymore. I was talking about making sense of the past, of my magic and my powers.
That didn’t mean I’d trust Truby. I could use him for the knowledge I needed without trusting him.
“I’m not leaving you.” Tristan said sternly. “We’re in this together.”
He sounded like he meant it, but something in me resisted. My parents had meant to be on my side, and yet what they’d done would haunt my nightmares. “That’s nice, Tris. But I don’t know who I am…”
“I do,” he said. He sounded so sure and confident, but today it didn’t bring me a sense of relief.
“No, you fucking don’t, Tris.” I stepped back out of his reach. “You barely know me.”
“Deidra,” he said. “Come on. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t pretend what’s between us is....” My anger was boiling out, and from the look on Tristan’s face, it scalded him. But I barely managed to stop myself, even though I knew he wasn’t the one I was furious at. I swallowed the words, my chest heaving with emotion.
His face twisted with anger. “Yeah, I came here with you because there’s nothing between us.”
“You came here because it’s your job,” I shot back. I was so furious that I turned to walk away.
Tristan caught my shoulders. He could force me to look at him, but as I took in his handsome face, I felt a whole new level of fury.
“If you were anyone else, I’d rip your fucking hands off for touching me when I don’t want you to,” I warned him.
“I’m sure you would.” When he stared down at me, his hazel eyes flashing, I couldn’t quite read his expression.
Then Tristan’s lips brushed mine.
I was going to shove away from him, but when his lips teased mine open, I swayed into him, kissing him back. Fuck. My body responded to him, no matter what else was going on; my anger didn’t fall away, but lust bloomed alongside it. No matter how angry I was, I still wanted him.
I kissed him hard, then tore my lips away.
The two of us stared at each other, breathing hard.
“You think you can kiss me and change anything?” I demanded.
“I thought maybe kissing you would remind you,” he said.
“Oh, trust me, my memory’s never been better.” I remembered now what my family had done to me.
All I’d wanted since Liam died was family. But maybe Liam and the Hunters were never what I needed.
“It’s just sex,” I said. “That’s all that’s been between us.”
“Oh yeah?” His hand slipped from my shoulder, sliding down the curve of my side.
Despite myself, I bit my lip at the way his touch sent my body on fire. He reached the hem of my shirt, paused, then raced his hand up my bare skin. His cold fingers almost made me pull away, and then his thumb slipped under my bra cup, stroking over my breast. My nipple pebbled at his touch, and warmth pooled between my thighs before I pulled away.
“What do you think you’re going to prove?” I demanded. I took a step back, and my shoulder blades bumped the stone wall behind me.
“I don’t have anything to prove,” he said. “It’s just sex, right? And you want me too. I know you do.”
His voice had a taunting edge. I stared back at him, my jaw setting.
“Here?” I said. “In his garden?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Dry, weathered bushes concealed us from the house’s windows. “Why not? You don’t give a fuck about anything, right? Isn’t that what you’re claiming right now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” The smirk that broke across his lips made me want to slap him. “I know you, whether you can admit it or not. I know you need me. Need this.”
I stared him down, but his cocky expression didn’t falter, not even to turn to anger. He was so damn good-looking, though, with his big shoulders and his golden-amber eyes and even that smug, dominating attitude.
I crooked my finger at him, beckoning me toward him.
He gave me a long look, sticking his hands in his pockets, as if he might not come.
Then he closed the distance between us. He pressed his lips to the corner of my throat, and his kisses had me tilting my chin up, welcoming him in.
He still had his hands in his pockets, like he wasn’t the one who didn’t give a fuck, not that he was fooling anyone.
“Really kiss me,” I said, and there was a dark, cruel edge in my voice that I’d never heard before, “if you’re going to beg me for it.”
His teeth scraped over the skin under my ear, and I jumped. But the rough touch just made me ache more, my hips swaying forward before I could resist.
“I think you’re the one who’s going to have to beg,” he muttered.
I straightened, about to tell him off, but his hand cupped me between my aching thighs. He gripped me hard, confident, stroking me forcefully enough to light a fire through my jeans.
He wasn’t acting like I was breakable anymore, the way the guys had treated me sometimes.
His touch teased the ache into something hotter, something unbearable. Despite myself, my hips rocked under his touch, betraying how much I wanted more of him. I slid my hands up the hard planes of his chest to cling to his shoulders.
He lowered his head to my throat, alternately kissing and then biting. His mouth was as much a tease as his hands.
“Tris,” I murmured. I wanted more of him.
He ignored me, pushing aside the collar of my shirt. His lips were a soft flutter against my skin. Then as he began to suck a bruise, my back arched at the sensation.
I reached for him, trying to balance out the desire between us, but he pulled back out of my reach. He caught my wrists and yanked them both above my head, pinning me against the wall so he could take both my wrists in one big hand.
I could break his grip on me. I could. But I didn’t.
I let him pin me against the wall. His fingers teased over my abs through my shirt, then undid the button of my jeans. When he brushed against my mound through my panties, my hips jerked again. I bit my lip at waves of desire that rushed through me, as my knees went weak from just his smallest touch.
He wouldn’t let me touch him, but he teased me through my panties, massaging and teasing until I was sure he could feel me soaking through the thin cotton to his panties.
“You’re an ass,” I accused, my voice rough with desire.
“Don’t.” His voice was warning.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t lie to us both, putting distance between us that isn’t real.” He hooked a finger in the waistband of my panties, drawing them down.
Cold air slipped across my heated sex, but nothing could cool me down when I was this close to Tristan.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” I said. I didn’t want to think about all the people who had loved me and betrayed me. I didn’t want to think at all.
I just wanted to feel, and when Tristan’s hands were on me, what I felt was good.
“I don’t care,” he shot back.
His hand that had pinned mine suddenly relaxed. Tristan spun me around, and I caught myself with my palm against the rough stone wall as he gripped my hip with one hand.
His cock teased between my thighs, then stopped. I pushed my ass back into the warmth of his hard lower abs, and his hand stroked over my thigh, coming closer and closer to my throbbing heat.
His thumb brushed against me, and I jerked against him at the rush of sensation. But it didn’t matter; there was nowhere to
go. When I jerked, my shoulders just brushed against his chest. His big body caged me against the wall, keeping me warm no matter how cold the winter day around us.
“You heard me,” he said, his voice rough with desire too. His fingers teased relentlessly against my clit, stroking fire that burned hotter and hotter. “I told you I wanted to hear you beg.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t my style.
“You tried to hurt me,” he murmured into my ear. “Didn’t you?”
I could still hear my own voice, how mean I’d sounded. Really kiss me then, if you’re going to beg me for it. Regret curled through my gut. Who the hell was I becoming?
He stopped, his fingers curling closed, his fist against my mound.
“What do you want from me?”
“You know what I want.” His lips teased against my skin, and my traitorous body swayed back into him again.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t bear to have him walk away from me, but the word was one I had to force out. “Please.”
If he’d said anything else smug to me, I would’ve stormed away, but he didn’t say another damn thing. Silently, he resumed circling my clit with his fingers, teasing through my slits. His fingers were slick with my heat.
I rocked my hips back into him, and he shoved deep inside me. When he wrapped his hand around my hip to hold me in place, his fingers were hard, and he shoved deep inside me. No matter how rough he was, I wanted it harder. I slammed my hips back into his.
The two of us moved in frantic, wild motion. His fingers kept working against my clit, even though the base of his cock massaged me too.
I rose onto my tiptoes as every muscle tensed. He kept stroking me mercilessly as my orgasm built, and my fingers curled against the hard stone, trying to find a purchase to ride out the building desire that had my limbs trembling.
“Tristan,” I murmured, and this time when I said his name, it came out very differently.
He didn’t answer. He grabbed my hips as I came, my back arching until my head brushed his shoulder. He kept going, and I felt him shudder deep inside me.
Then he went still, his fingers still against my aching, satisfied clit.
“Tell me it doesn’t mean anything,” he said into my ear, his lips intimately close.
He pulled away then.
I whirled. He was already putting himself away, jerking his jeans back up. My limbs were weak and languid, and I stared at him with my eyes narrowed, trying to work up the same rage I’d felt when we started.
“Just because I just had a great orgasm, doesn’t mean I can’t punch you in your smug face,” I warned him.
He shrugged. “Try it. Sounds like foreplay for the next round to me.”
He looked so unruffled, standing there again with his hands in his pockets. The wind teased his tousled brown hair.
“I didn’t know you were such a goddamn asshole,” I said.
It was hard to sound dismissive when my pants were still around my thighs. I jerked them up, my fingers so stiff with anger that I could barely get the button through the loop.
“If there was nothing between us but the job,” Tristan said, “I’d let you get away with your lies. But you know damn well that even if the sex is good, there’s more than sex between us.”
“You’re the one who said you’ve had sex with lots of girls before—”
“I didn’t love them,” Tristan said abruptly, cutting me off. He just stared at me, daring me to make sense of that.
Maybe I couldn’t destroy things between Tristan and me so easily. Maybe he wouldn’t let me. I wasn’t sure if the thought was comforting or if it was terrifying, because if I let myself trust him, and Cade and Nix, then I’d be vulnerable.
And when I felt vulnerable, I felt like I was that small girl in the woods again, screaming as fire laced through my veins.
“Leave me alone,” I said, storming toward the house. Maybe I’d just spend the day ping-ponging between men who pissed me off.
“Fine,” he said. He raised his voice so I couldn’t get away from his words, even when I was trying to get away from him. “But you know the truth. You know you’re not alone—no matter how fucking hard you’re trying to choose anyone but us.”
Chapter Thirty
Tristan
I followed behind her at a distance. Deidra was almost back to the house, her posture stiff with anger, her dark hair blowing in the wind, when Truby came down the steps.
If I were him, I would not fuck with her right now.
“We’ve got to move.” Truby’s voice rolled across the open air. “The Hunters have found us.”
Deidra stopped dead.
“I wonder how that happened,” he said, his jaw set, as his gaze flickered over her shoulder to me. “Are you coming with us or not?”
She looked over her shoulder at me, her expression unreadable, then back at Truby.
“Don’t look at him,” Truby snapped. “He’s a Hunter. You’re a witch—probably the most powerful witch of your generation if you just let yourself be—and you don’t need him to answer for you.”
“It’s not like that,” Deidra’s voice was icy.
A beautiful blond woman glided out of the house, followed by a dark haired man who looked at Deidra with glittering, unnatural green eyes.
“You need to know about your sister,” Truby told Deidra. “Corson, show her.”
Corson. I knew that name.
Demon. He was a demon.
“Deidra!” I shouted. “Get away from them!”
Truby sighed as if I was tiresome. I broke into a run.
But Deidra didn’t even look back at me. She tilted her head to Corson as he crossed the frozen grass to her, as if she was hypnotized by him.
He took her face in his hands, his thumbs digging beneath her eyes as if he’d pop her eyeballs out. My hands balled into fists. I was almost to her side, ready to slam into him, as Deirdra’s eyes flickered rapidly underneath her eyelids, as if she was dreaming.
“Stop.” Truby held a warning hand out to me. “He won’t hurt her. But she won’t forgive you if you keep her from her sister.”
There was mockery in his voice.
But that didn’t mean he was wrong.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. “How long until the Hunters arrive?”
“We have time.” He sounded calm.
“There are no Hunters coming, are there?” I asked. “You just want to force her to make a choice. You or me. Hunters or…family.”
He stared at me, his gaze making a shiver of tension travel down my spine. I wished I could just kill him.
“I wish there were no Hunters coming after us,” he said finally. “You know Liam and Conner destroyed my entire coven—my friends, my family?”
“Yeah, I’m sure your friends were lovely people.”
Deidra cried out. The blond lay her hand on her shoulder, whispering soothing nonsense.
“What’s he doing to her?” I moved close enough to stop them, but held myself back.
“It’s not what he’s doing to her that makes her cry,” Truby said.
That was when I realized Deidra was crying, her teardrops trickling over the demon’s thumbs.
“What are you showing her?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” Truby answered. “They’re her memories.”
I shook my head. I didn’t believe him.
“They never lie,” the blond said. Her wide blue eyes were luminous and innocent.
“Who never lies?” I demanded.
“The demons,” she said. “They help people find the truth.”
“I’m sure,” I snapped back. Demons are real civil servants.
“What do you see?” Corson asked her.
Deidra’s eyes snapped open. She stumbled backward, as if she was trying to escape Corson’s grip, but his hands fell without trying to hold her.
I caught her around the waist, keeping her from falling, but she was stiff in my arms.
“Deidra,” I said, my voice coming out with a frantic, urgent edge that even scared me. I schooled my voice to be calm. “What did you see?”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she turned back. Her green eyes were dark, shadowed.
“I killed her,” she said, her voice flat. “I killed my little sister.”
“If you stay with me,” Truby promised, “if you master your magic, you can see your sister again.”
Deidra’s face was distraught, and my heart raced in response. That bastard had offered her the chance to raise her sister from the dead without missing a beat. He’d intended to manipulate her all along.
“Deidra,” I said, trying to figure out how to reach her. “You know he’s just telling you what you want to hear. You can’t go with him.”
She reached for me, and I closed the distance between us.
“You really mean it,” she said quietly. “You want to be there for me. You want to be my new family.”
I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before, but when she looked at me with affection shining in her eyes, I realized it was true. Nix and Cade and Deidra and I had all lost so much—when I thought about it, my past flickered by in a series of dark nights and funerals—but we had a second chance with each other.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes to all of that.”
“You don’t know what happens to my family,” she said, her voice breaking. “You deserve better than that, Tristan.”
“Don’t—” I started.
She was already turning her back on me.
“I’ll go with you,” she told Truby.
“No!” I started toward her.
But the ground rolled up beneath me. I tried to keep my balance, reaching out to Deidra, but my hands closed on empty air.
I fell into darkness.
It felt like hours later that the first glint of consciousness broke through.
“What the hell happened to them?” Cade’s voice was harsh with fear. He slapped me, hard enough to jar my teeth.