by Leeah Taylor
“Well,” he laid his arm behind her. “Maybe this is one of those things where everything happens for a reason.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Let’s hope her and Damien don’t kill each other.”
“They’re certainly a ticking bomb waiting to go off, but they’ve been that way since as long as I could remember.”
“I don’t know what she sees in him. He’s a selfish dick as far as I can tell.”
She’d be right, but he doubted she knew the entire story and it wasn’t his to tell. Falling in love with Juliette terrified Damien, and instead of embracing it, he took his fear out on her. Punished her for his twisted thinking.
“Juliette has always seen passed my brothers bullshit and down to his raw core. A beauty and strength buried deep, and she’s always determined to wretch it out of him. And he’s fought her every step of the way.”
“Also, very Jules.”
She relaxed, kicking her legs up in the space beside her and snuggled back into the crook of his arm. He stiffened and stomach clenched tight as jasmine engulfed him. Fuck me. How does she have that power?
She giggled. “And here I thought the Sterling sex king was all suave and smooth.”
He swallowed. “Guess even I have my weaknesses.”
She glanced up at him. “Not sure how I’m possibly your weakness.”
“Those damn eyes of yours,” he admitted. “Can make any man go weak in the knees.”
God knows I’ve been weak for years now.
“Yeah well,” she smirked up at him. “Pretty sure your eyes have dropped a few panties in your day.”
He chuckled. “A few boxer briefs too.”
It was an easy silence to fall in with her. Comfortable and welcomed. He needed her to stay, to find out why it came easily.
“Oliver?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“This could be dangerous.”
She was dangerous the second she walked through the door at Juleps. Holding the power to break his heart if she walked away.
“Yeah, Riley, it could.” He wrapped an arm around her chest, sinking deeper when she reached up and held to him. “Or it could be beautiful.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
He smiled. “I’m kinda counting on it.”
Riley | 5
“Jules,” Riley pleaded. “Let me come with you.”
Juliette stepped up on the curb, shaking her head.
“No, I told you, it’s safer here for you. I need you to be safe.”
Riley crossed her arms. “Safe or so you can bolt?”
She saw it in Juliette’s eyes. The idea trying to take control. Leave her there and take off the minute she finished the barrier spell.
“I will not leave you here.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Ollie looked from her to Juliette, crossing his arms.
“Tell her she can’t abandon me here.”
Juliette rolled her eyes. “I told you, I’m not.”
She arched her brow. “Your track record of telling me the truth lately is stacked against you.”
“Riles.” Juliette gritted out.
“I won’t let her leave you behind,” Ollie said, lifting his brow. “She’ll have me to deal with if she tries.”
“There, feel better now?” Juliette tossed her hands up and started up to the house. “Can we please get on with this?”
She caught a foul mood since Ollie made her suck down two blood bags.
Even with Juliette’s recent string of half-truths and lies, Riley trusted her, but she wouldn’t put it passed her to cast the spell and run. Leave her behind and believe she was doing what was best.
It wasn’t best. They were in it together. From the first night, they were all in. Juliette swept out the back door of a bar. Her eyes lit up in a purple fury and locked on to the tracker Riley had been dodging for weeks.
It was her blood, Juliette sniffed out, but it was the tracker she went after. And she drank him dry like a rabid dog possessed. In a matter of moments, Juliette became the family she’d left behind, and it was them against the world. She’d be damned if Juliette would duck out now.
“Riley,” Ollie grazed her arm. “You okay?”
She nodded, shaking the memory off. “Fine.”
“Not letting her take off. I’ll go blows with my brother if that’s what it takes to keep her here.”
She believed him. The bond she witnessed come to life between them. As if no time had passed. Ollie looked at Juliette like she meant the entire world, yet it wasn’t intimate. Or lustful. Just adoring and loving. Protective.
“Come on,” he nudged her toward the house. “Get you all settled in.”
She stepped up on the porch, taking in the old brick house. It had a bit of character with the vines creeping up on the shutters. Very Frost.
Ollie stopped when Juliette blocked the door. Her expression was unreadable, but Riley knew there was raging chaos brewing.
“Doll,” Ollie reached passed her to the door and opened it. “Still your home. Don’t need an invitation.”
“I know,” she muttered.
“Then go inside,” he said.
She barely looked back at him. It couldn’t be easy for her to come back. Storming back into Sterling, her home, blazing, and going toe to toe with the man who cast her out. Riley always knew she was strong. Stubborn. Beyond bull headed. But deep down it all broke her a long time ago.
Riley reached for her, but she pulled away. “Jules…”
Clearing her throat, Juliette shouldered past Ollie and down the steps. “I’ll be in the jeep. Don’t take long, I want to get this over with.”
He watched her go down the path and get into his jeep before shaking his head. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.” Ollie sighed. “Well, come on in.”
She wasn’t sure what to expect on the inside of the house but when she stepped over the threshold, lived in and cozy was the last she expected. It was warm with dark mahogany and deep red walls. Gorgeous hardwood floors. Bright light filled the rooms from the big picture windows in the front room.
“Finally, I can actually get a decent introduction,” the blonde from last night hurried down the steps. “I’m Chelsea.”
Riley took her offered hand. “Riley.”
Juliette told her a heap of stories about Chelsea. From the all-night chocolate binges to sneaking out all hours. Keeping the brothers on their toes. She was her best friend. It seemed Juliette had no shortage of them.
“Keep the cute kitty cat company?” Ollie asked.
Heat burned into Riley’s cheeks. “You aren’t funny.”
“Sure, I am,” Ollie laughed. “You just have no sense of humor.”
Her mouth fell open. “I certainly do.”
“I guess we’ll have to see,” he backed away to the door with his charming smirk. “Taking you to lunch when we get back.”
She crossed her arms. “Who says I want to go to lunch with you?”
His smile grew even more. “You do.”
Damn him.
Chelsea shook her head. “You want some coffee? Lucien makes the best cup in the city.”
“Thought that was Shirley’s?”
“It’s a close second.”
She followed Chelsea down the hall into the kitchen. Despite the mahogany cupboards and dark marble countertops, the room was bright from the light streaming in from the open French doors.
“Lucien,” Chelsea practically purred.
He glanced up from the newspaper in front of him on the counter. A slight smirk perked up on his lips.
“Ms. O’Hare, pleasure again.”
“Mr. Good Looking in a Suit, likewise.”
He smirked, shaking his head. “Where’s Jules?”
Chelsea passed him to the coffeepot and scoffed.
“I’m guessing she never came in,” she said.
Riley took a seat at the kitchen island. “She didn’t.”
Lucien pinched
between his eyes. “No doubt she’s spiraling.”
Riley hummed a confirmation. “Completely over your dick of a brother.”
Chelsea giggled and filled a mug with coffee. “And she hasn’t even spent time with him yet.”
“Don’t you start,” Lucien warned. “Put you over my shoulder.”
She pecked him on the cheek before handing Riley the mug. “Don’t have time for any of that.”
He arched a brow. “I’d make time.”
Riley blew on the coffee, shaking her head and hiding the smirk. She only knew of Lucien and Chelsea, separately. Not together, as a couple. She had to wonder how Juliette felt about it. Only natural if she felt jealous, even if it made no sense.
“I have to head to the District and listen to Louisa drill me about Juliette,” Chelsea filled a bright teal thermos with coffee. “Where is she? She needs to be blessed. You need to get her here. Those Frost brothers better not be hiding her.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I can solve the Louisa problem very—”
“Lucien, I love you, but stay away from the Elder.”
Riley watched them. This Lucien was far more relaxed and laid back. His collar loosened. A black tie meant to cinch it up laid on the counter beside the newspaper. But it was the stunning love and brightness in his eyes as he snatched Chelsea around the waist to pull her close, seeming to soften him.
He pecked her lips. “You be careful, yeah?”
“Always,” Chelsea kissed him back before pulling away. “Maybe, if you can talk your brother down, we can actually have a family dinner together.”
Lucien’s expression pinched. “I’ll see what I can do Gorgeous.”
“Good,” she smiled. “Now I’m off.”
She grabbed her thermos and slipped out the French doors. Riley turned to Lucien, pointing behind her with her brow pulled together.
“We have to play sneak around the city,” Lucien sighed, getting up from the counter and going to the coffeepot. “She parks in the private alley behind the house. Sneaks out before Sterling gets too busy. At this point Louisa believes she has a lover in Pearson.”
Riley’s mouth fell open. “Wow.”
“Keeps us alive, at least. Witches take their laws seriously.”
“Must be the cousin to werecats insistence on arranged marriages and looking down on any relationship that isn’t with another werecat.”
“Yep,” Lucien said. “Except werecats don’t hang and burn as a punishment.”
“No, they toss you out like a stray instead.”
It didn’t happen often. Werecats preferred werecats. Or at least that’s what the cats insisted. Yet last night, with Ollie, her body preferred the look of that vampire. The eyes. The ink. The way he devoured her with a look. The urge to purr for him was greater than she’d ever experienced. Even with the few attractive cats she crushed on as a teen, the urge was never so intense. Suppressing it for the charming Sterling sex king was almost painful.
“Is that what happened with you?” Lucien asked.
Riley stiffened with eyes wide and her stomach dropped. It’d been easier if it was the case. She swallowed passed the lump in her throat. At least running wouldn’t have been the only way of life.
She cleared her throat. “No, it’s not.”
“I wasn’t trying to upset you.”
She mustered a nod and looked away from him. Lucien didn’t know any better. He didn’t know her history. The secrets, and memories, needed to stay buried deep where they belonged. In the past.
She trained her gaze on the courtyard beyond the French doors. That doesn’t belong. Slipping off the stool, Riley went over to the open doors.
“Made of money, yet you don’t have a gardener?”
The four large concrete planters were nothing more than a graveyard of weeds and dried up dirt.
Lucien came to a stop beside her and crossed his arms over his chest. “It was Jules favorite spot. The planters overflowed with every color and species of flower you could fathom, and Damien paid a lot of money to make sure it stayed that way for her.” He glanced at Riley. “Why do you think she has the room with the balcony?”
“I assumed it was the only room left.”
He smirked, but it was sad. “It took six months and Ollie’s charm to get her out of the attic. It scared her. So sensitive to everything. It took time to even get her to interact with us. She wouldn’t go outside, and that took another three months.” He pointed to the courtyard. “And the first time she did, it was out here.”
“Let me guess,” Riley huffed. God, I want to hate him. And yet… “Damien was the one to bring her out here?”
“He was,” Lucien smiled. “And all it took was her eyes to light up. To see the first hint of emotion that wasn’t fear and anger. He moved to the room we meant for her and gave her the one with the balcony to see the courtyard whenever she wanted to find the peace he saw it gave her without having to leave her room if she didn’t want to.”
She still hated him on principle.
“What are the chances he sucks it up and says it already?” She asked.
“Honestly?” His brow arched. “I think my brother has reached his end.”
“I guess we can only hope.”
“Hope for Jules? Or is it more?”
She shrugged as heat slithered up her throat. “I don’t know.”
Lucien laughed. “Don’t think I didn’t see the twinkle in my brother's eyes years ago when a picture of you popped up on a computer screen. He’s smitten. And,” he went back toward the coffeepot, “by the pink in your cheeks, you are too.”
“Is it crazy I’ve been as smitten with a picture of him?” She admitted with more fire burning in her cheeks as she turned away from the courtyard.
“No,” he chuckled under his breath. “In fact, it sounds like fate might actually have a…”
An echoing boom swallowed up his words as the windows shook. Riley’s heart slammed up into her throat. Lucien was a blur, and a whoosh of air passed her. The front door stood wide open before she could react.
Jules.
She sprinted out onto the porch, down the stone path to the sidewalk with her stomach in knots and to Lucien standing at the corner. Following his hard stare toward the bay at the end of the street and smoke billowed in the distance.
“Lucien,” she whispered. “What is that?”
The color drained from his face, and he swallowed.
“Val Valena.”
A sob scraped up her throat and lodged there, but nothing stopped the hot tears from slipping down her cheeks. Her bottom lip trembled, trying to hold it all in.
Jules couldn’t be in there.
She was all she had left.
Ollie| 6
Lily was an instant attraction and pull the moment he laid eyes on her. She lured him in with her sweet smile and stealing his heart and soul. Soothing and taming the wicked parts of him, demanding he submits to the warring down in his core.
The memory rippled through him, and he couldn’t afford to let it take it root. Not now. Lily needed to stay buried down deep where she didn’t risk shredding his heart beyond repair, again.
One look at Riley and he knew she held the same power. If he let her, she could soothe the scraping in his depths. She might even be capable of loving him in all the ways he needed since he lost Lily.
He flexed his left hand close to his chest as he poured two shots. Riley wiped her angry tears away and hugged tighter to herself. Juliette’s harsh, glacial tone down in the basement upset her. He saw it. Hell, it pissed him off too. The things going on down there weren’t okay. Rebecca or not, Juliette didn’t belong giving into the angry rage of it all.
It wouldn’t give her the peace she was seeking.
His hand tingled and burned raw with an itch he couldn’t calm. The Ingeot was taking its sweet time healing it.
“It still itches?” Riley asked.
He nodded and drank the shot back. She sna
tched a clean, folded rag from the counter. Water from the sink behind him turned on and he poured another shot. She hopped up on the counter beside him, took his hand, and began unwrapping it.
“My brother got too close to a fire once, burned his foot good. He was screwing around, he kinda deserved it.” She shrugged, tossing the gauze into the trash. “He moaned and cried for days after about how itchy it was as it healed.”
She shook her head, and an amusement twinkled in her eye as she pressed the cold cloth to the top of his hand. The burning itch slowly vanished, and he relaxed.
“My mom would stick him in a cool bath. Sometimes with oats. And others just the cool water. It’d shut him up.”
He peeked up at her, catching the sly smirk on her lips before wedging himself between her legs.
“Are you insinuating I’m whining?”
She giggled. “I’m just saying.”
“Mmm,” he nodded.
A little closer and he could finally taste her lips. See if she was as sweet as she looked. His mouth watered. The door to the office upstairs flung open, forcing his attention to the top of the stairs, and Chelsea stormed out.
“No Lucien, you knew. A text message. A call. You owed me a heads up.”
Lucien hung his head. “Chel…”
“No! I deserved to know. Just… I’m going home.”
He chased her down the steps. “Chelsea wait—”
She spun on him. “What!”
Ollie figured his big brother deserved the hell storm coming down on him. He owed it to Chelsea to tell her Rebecca was back.
“Take Xavier with you, please.”
“Well no shit, Lucien. Thanks to Rebecca, I get to go home, pack a bag and move to the house. I’m sure you’re happy now.”
“Chel, it’s not how I wanted—”
“None of this would hurt so much if you’d have taken five minutes to tell me.” She shook her head, and tears were brimming. “Five minutes was all I needed, Lucien. I’ll see you at home.”
His shoulders fell as she walked out.
“This is bad, right?” Riley asked.
Ollie sighed. “Depends on how you look at it. The witches finding out was inevitable.”
Lucien leaned against the bar. “It’s the fact Rebecca exposed the secret like she did with Chelsea’s mother.”