by Owens, C. M.
“You’re like a fly in my web, like a mouse in my trap, like a big fat X on my treasure map. You know there’s no escaping me, so why do you fight so uselessly? We both know how this is gonna go… Neither one of us ever saying no.
“It’s not love, it’s not affection, it’s just a fucking obsession. It’s not a dream, it’s not reality, it’s just the taste of insanity. My body burning against your lips, while they play over me and build suspense. There’s no use in trying to fight, you’re gonna be mine tonight… cause’ it’s not love, it’s not affection, it’s just a fucking obsession.”
The music plays for a moment, and my eyes burn into his as he sits forward to fully revel in my little exhibition. The table in front of him holds his elbows, and the guy beside him leaves when he realizes he’s being ignored. I smirk as the lyrics pick back up, and I swing around the pole again as my body sways to the seductive melody.
“Why are we still talking when there’s nothing to say, and all we want to do is play? You don’t have to ask when the answer is yes, I’ll want you til’ my last breath. You can have me any way you please, I’ll crawl to you on my hands and knees.
“Cause, it’s not love…”
The chorus picks up again, and men drop to their knees in front of the stage. Their money is thrown at me along with their confessions of love, but I ignore them all as my eyes burn into the hybrid blues staring at me, waiting for me, wanting me.
“Baby wrap your hands around my neck, sink your teeth into my flesh. Make it exquisitely painful please, don’t you stop until I scream. Take me here, on the wall, on the bedroom floor, when I say stop, take me some more.
“Cause’… it’s not love, it’s not affection, it’s just a fucking obsession…”
The chorus continues playing as I hop of the stage. The whistles, screams, and pleads for more erupt as another girl swoops in to pick up the slack. Hale’s eyes are still burning into mine as I slowly stalk toward him.
He leans back just as I reach him, and I crawl across the top of the table until my lips meet his. His breath heaves out desire to pour into my mouth, and then he jerks me off the table to pull me into his lap while reaching into his pocket.
Sneaky, sneaky.
I use my gift to pin his hands against the tall back of the booth, and his breaths grow rasp as the bottle of olophine drops to the floor, shattering on impact.
“Not this time,” I seductively murmur, and my lips devour his willing ones as I release my hold on him.
He jerks me against his body harder as I feel his pants opening beneath me.
“Araya, stop, baby please,” he murmurs against my lips as my gift continues working to free his erection.
“No.”
He can’t take it any longer. He wants me too badly to deny me right now, and I need him. He rips my underwear to the side, and I feel erection surging into me with such a magnificent force. I don’t care who’s watching and neither does he as he pounds into me from underneath.
I clutch the back of the booth, and I feel his blood bringers sinking into me before the warmth fills me. I look down to see the empty vial dropping and shattering to the ground, but I feel too good to be brought down right now.
“I love you,” I murmur against his lips as I begin fucking him harder, and his eyes widen when he sees I’m refusing to give up my glorious savage high.
“Fuck,” he mumbles against my kiss. “Baby, come back to me,” he pleads.
My blood bringers unsheathe to warn him of the erotic venom to come, and he leans back as I break the skin on his shoulder. He gasps as he feels my toxins releasing, and he jerks me harder against his thrusts as he breaks the surface of my skin again to inject me with more medicine.
“It’s not going to work,” I growl, and then my lips reclaim his as I take control of the rhythm.
He exhales loudly as my movements quicken, and the up and down motion forces him to cling tighter to me. I feel him filling me, needing me, and desperately wanting me. He can have me this way. I’m always his. That’s how it should be.
He jerks me to him, and then I feel my release promising to happen any minute. I pull his hair to keep his face tilted toward mine as the kiss becomes shaken by our gasping breaths.
His body pressing against mine forces the lace to start to tear, but before it can shred, I scream out my wonderful, long desired release. He thrusts in again from under me, and his warmth fills inside of me.
My lips find his again because I want more - much, much more. He pulls me up while standing to his feet, and my legs stay wrapped around his waist. He smirks as his hands slide under my legs to pull his pants back up, but I refuse to release my grip on him.
I feel the backdoor pressing against my back as he pushes it open, and the fresh air slaps us in the face as he swishes over to his car. I hear the roar of the engine before I even realize we’ve sat down, but I don’t care. I’m not giving him up. He’s mine. He’s completely mine.
The morning light glares in my the face, and I roll over in the bed I barely remember getting into. My eyes pop open when I realize Hale’s body is pressed against mine, and he adjusts in his sleep to keep me draped under him.
Holy fucking shit.
I look around, and my eyes catch the numerous empty vials of olophine scattered around on the floor below. It had to have taken at least twenty to bring me down, if not more.
His phone buzzes, and he grumbles as he rolls away from me to answer it. I stay perfectly silent so as not to clue him in on my wakened state. Now that I’ve spent the night thoroughly ravaging him, things are just all the more complicated.
“Yeah,” he gruffly interjects into the phone.
“Thank fuck,” Clay exhales. “You have to find Araya. She’s looking for you, and she’s leaving one hell of a trail behind.”
I cringe as I think of the numerous junk bars I destroyed on my road to Hale.
“I heard about the bars. She already found me, Clay. It was crazy,” he sighs.
“Hale, I’ve never seen anything like it. She had more control, but at the same time she had less. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“You don’t have to. I saw it for myself. Her eyes were completely violet.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. She’s still asleep. We had a rather long night. It took me a while to bring her down,” Hale murmurs softly, and I detect a smug twinge behind his remark.
“Holy shit. How many vials?”
“I lost count after about twenty-seven. I’m running low now. I’ll have to stock up when we get back. I’ve gotten all I can get from around here. I’ll debrief you when I get back. It’s definitely a hybrid running things, and he used to deeply intertwined with Cheyenne. I just don’t know all the details of how. Araya was right all along about it being someone who had dwelled there. I still don’t have a name, but I know some of their pickup and drop off points we can stake out. I’ll call you when we’re on our way back.”
“Shit. We need to talk about Araya too. She injected herself numerous times before turning, Hale.”
“Fuck. What the fuck happened?”
“She spoke to Nicholas. He told her about her mother.”
“Damn it, Clay. Why would you do that without me there?”
“Because she wanted to. It isn’t like such opportunities come around that often. I’ll tell you about it when you get back. I’ll tell you this much though, keep her violet eyes hidden. Buy her some glasses or something. It’s the sign of an emergent’s child,” Clay reveals, and Hale’s breath hitches.
“I’ll do whatever I have to. Keep this quiet. No one can know,” Hale almost whispers.
“Believe me, it’s very quiet. Grayson and Angelica are cleaning up her evidence left behind before the unaligned find out it was one of ours destroying their bars and killing their filth.”
“I’ll grab a shower, and then I’ll wake her up in a couple of hours. She’s going to need rest after that long in savage.”
/>
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
I hear the phone shutting off, and then his lips find my shoulder as his hand runs down the full length of my body. I’m worried he’s about to wake me up for a good morning fuck, and I won’t be able to refuse him. After last night, I know who I’m meant to be with, but I’m not ready to tell either of them yet.
Brazen has been incredible to me, and it’s going to crush him when I have to tell him it’s Hale. It has always been Hale no matter how much I wanted or want to deny it. I’m not ready to walk across that bridge just yet.
He stands up instead of proceeding with his seductive ploy, and I hear him whisper, “I love you too.”
My mind flashes back to the strip club where I told him I loved him, and he never said it back at the time. He rarely does when I’m savage. I almost want to scream it out to him that I choose him, but I can’t. Not yet.
He walks into the bathroom, and I quickly start looking around for something to wear. I lean down and pick up the lacy bit of clothing I was wearing, and I shake my head in disbelief at the garment I wore in public.
“I don’t think so,” I murmur aloud while tossing it back to the floor.
As bad as I don’t want to return to Seminole in one of his shirts, it’s better than that option. I’m sure Angelica and Grayson have already recovered my car with my clothes in it by now since they were stuck cleaning up the mess I left behind.
I rifle through his bag, and I find a long-sleeved white button up to pull on. I smile as I smell him all over it, and then a small box falls from the bag. I look at it peculiarly, and I start to pick it up when Hale walks back out to catch my prying.
“You can look at it if you want to,” he says softly while drying his hair off.
“At what?” I ask innocently as I lift the box from the ground.
“It was going to be your other birthday present.”
I start to lift it when the realization of what a small box like this would be holding slaps me in the face. I sigh as the crack I made to the box closes, and I put it back in his bag without delay before I do something rash and foolish.
He was going to propose. That’s why there were so many roses.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he says with a pained tone.
“I’m sorry if I messed anything up last night,” I say to deter this intense conversation I’m not ready to have.
“Not at all. I was finished, and I was taking out a source to show the appreciation of the United for his cooperation. I didn’t care much for the scenery until you got there. He chose the place for the record,” he quickly tacks on.
I smirk when I realize he feels the need to explain his reason for being in a strip club. Then I sigh as I look around at the floor littered with more empty vials than I had originally noticed. I pull the shirt on and button it up so I can quit wearing the sheet, and his eyes stare directly into mine without fear the whole time.
“It was hard to get me down this time, and… oh shit… my eyes,” I murmur as I jump up from the bed.
I rush over to the mirror, and he casually joins me as I stare at the eyes in disbelief. They’re still solid violet. I’ve fully evolved, or devolved, or something.
“I’ll buy you some shades on the way back. Clay will have something ready when we get there I’m sure.”
“Hale, I could have hurt you last night. That’s the worst I’ve ever been. My savage was so calm, eerie, but ruthless all the way here, and I remember every bit of it.”
He tilts his head in a bit of bemusement, and then he props up on the dresser behind me as he pulls me into his arms before letting his lips brush my forehead.
“If I had been there, I could have brought you down sooner. I was mad, foolish, and irresponsible. I didn’t know Clay was going to throw you in a room with Nicholas in my absence.”
“Hale, don’t do that. You’re not responsible for me. Besides, I don’t know if you could have brought me down any sooner by being there.”
“You came looking for me. You wouldn’t have been searching for me if I had been there,” he sizzles out, and his lips almost brush mine as he leans down while pulling me up from the floor.
“I did. I always do. Hale, I-”
Panicked knocks at the door interrupt me before I slip up and tell him how I feel. He grumbles in frustration, and I sigh in relief as he walks to the door in those low-hanging pants.
He opens it to several uniformed unaligned officials, and I get sick at my stomach when I see them through the small gap.
“We’re looking for a gifted hybrid who has gone rogue. We believe her to be a girl, dark hair, and her eyes have been noted to be violet. She was seen at the Blood Fuck strip club last night, and we‘re going door to door.”
Fuck.
“Sorry, but it’s just me and my girlfriend here. We came in late last night after being on the road for several hours. We’re on our way to Casmel to elope. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“We need to speak to your girlfriend, Mr… Continenial?” the man says as he tries to step in.
I creep to the bathroom, and I turn on the shower quickly while jumping in. I listen in as Hale hears what I’m doing, and then he answers them as casually as possible.
“You can, but she just got in the shower,” Hale murmurs dismissively.
“That’s fine. We can circle back around. We have some other places to check out. Don’t leave town until we’ve spoken with her.”
“I’ll try not to, but as I said, we’re on our way to elope.”
“We’ll be back before checkout time,” the man gruffly inserts, and then I hear the door closing behind them as Hale sends them away.
“Let’s go,” he whispers to me as I hear him shuffling through his stuff to pack it up.
I jump out of the shower, and I dry off enough to pull the shirt back on. He walks in with a pair of boxers for me to slip into, and I roll them down to force them to fit while tying the shirt up to look a little less obvious.
“This screams walk of shame,” I grumble, and he laughs lightly while shaking his head.
“We’ve got to find some incredibly dark glasses right now. I’m talking full blood strength if you know what I mean, baby,” he sighs, and then he pulls my hand to lead me out of the bathroom.
He throws his bag over his shoulder, and his arm snakes around my waist to guide me so I can lower my eyes once we’re in the hall. I peek up to see a couple making out in the hallway, and I use my gift to pull her glasses from the top of her head as we walk by.
Hale smirks when he sees my newly acquired accessory hiding the purple tale, and then he jerks me against the wall to let his lips fall over mine as the unaligned officers walk by to knock on a door in the hallway.
We’re not far from the other lip locked couple, and I almost forget this is way to keep away the prying eyes as he softly inhales me. My hands tangle in his hair as the kiss deepens, and he pulls my lower half to meet his as he grips my ass through the boxers.
The officers speak to the new couple, and we hear the door shut as they go in. Hale withdraws very reluctantly, and he gives me a wink before pulling me away from the hotspot we’re in.
“We need to get back as soon as possible. Clay has to find a way to hide those eyes.”
“I hope Angelica and Grayson are okay,” I murmur worriedly.
“It’s Grayson. He knows how to fly low. It’s rare a hybrid escapes as a child and lives to be of an age where he can tell about it.”
I nod in acceptance, and then we reach the outside where Hale’s car is parked. He opens the door, and I lunge in before he swishes over to his side. The roaring engine blares out the promise of escape, and I feel the jolt as he slams it into gear to sling up piles of dust.
His hand grips mine once we’ve cleared the hotel, and it’s all I can do not to spill what I’m almost desperate to tell him now. I have to talk to Brazen first though. I can’t do this to him without explaining myself.
/> Chapter 6
Raising Hale
The Seminole comes into view, and I see the gates opening as their captain arrives home for the first time in several days. I’m wearing his shirt and boxers still, considering we didn’t want to risk stopping anywhere.
Everyone rushes out to the car, including Clay. I slowly climb out, and I see Brazen perched on the rooftop above us. He stands and drops the distance to the ground. His knees barely bend upon impact, and I get sick as the tortured expression on his face becomes clearer. It’s as if he already knows. Or it could be the fact he knows what I was doing all night long.
“Hey,” he says softly, and I fidget awkwardly as Hale walks on by.
“I’m sorry about the other day. It just came out of nowhere,” I murmur while keeping the shades firmly planted on my face to hide more than the purple in my eyes.
“It’s not your fault, and you didn’t even try to hurt me this time, baby. Maybe this is a good thing,” he says too hopefully, and those pale eyes make me feel all the guiltier.
“It’s not a good thing. I caused some serious damage out there, and they came looking for me this morning.”
The sun has already set after our exhausting journey, and Hale used the last of his gas supply to get us here on fumes. Brazen pulls down the glasses I don’t need, and he shakes his head as he stares at the purple in my eyes.
“Araya, I’m feeling a disconnect with you, and I don’t like the way it feels. What’s going on?” he prompts.
“It has just been a rough couple of days. Let’s go in. I really want to change and rest,” I murmur softly in an effort to stall the big drop.
“Yeah,” he says with a disheartened air.
Hale walks back out just as we make it to the doors, and his bag is still on his shoulder as he heads to his car.
“What are you doing?” I ask a little too pitifully when he starts to walk by without saying anything at all.
He stifles a grin, and I can see pain etching into Brazen’s face.
“I have to go to the Summit. It’s an ungifted hybrid colony, and their chief just called to tell me he has something to show me that could help us cipher the mystery girl’s identity. This is huge. I told him I’d be there as soon as possible. Clay and you will be coming in tomorrow after I’ve broken the ice. They don’t trust easily, so it’s a big deal for him to have even called me.”