Etched in Bone

by Adrian Phoenix

  She traced a finger along the raised scar the Morningstar had seared into his chest. Memorized the sigil that she’d felt burn like ice against her own heart.

  She traced her finger in a wet and lazy circle around his nipple. “Think you can manage to keep awake?” she purred, pinching the hardened nub.

  Her only answer was a low, deep growl that sent heated shivers down her spine.

  Heather trailed her other hand in a soapy downward glide across Dante’s flat belly, inching ever lower. Grasping him, she stroked his velvety, diamond-hard length, her pulse racing. He burned against her palm. His breath caught in his throat.

  Fire pulsed through Heather’s veins, fluttered through her belly. All thought ashed as she continued to stroke him, her wet, soapy hands sliding back and forth with increasing speed. She kissed his muscle-corded shoulder, the nape of his neck. Tasted soap and water and burning leaves.

  A shock wave of pleasure—Dante’s—rippled through their bond in ever-expanding blue-flamed rings into her mind, swirling heat through her body, before boomeranging back to him. Song pulsed between them—hungry and dark and passionate—a song of deep and mutual need.

  I want you.

  Heather didn’t know if Dante whispered those words in a rough voice or sent them fevered into her mind. But they blazed within her like white-hot stars.

  “Turn around,” she said. And started to drop to her knees on the porcelain.

  He moved, slipping free of her hands and spinning in a heated blur of motion. His hot hands gripped her hips, lifted her up. His arms wrapped around her, cabled steel. Without even thinking about it, she scissored her legs around his waist.

  “You’re supposed to stay put,” she whispered.

  “Fuck that. Ain’t happening.”

  Dante looked into her eyes, his dark, gold-flecked gaze drinking her in, then with one hard, urgent thrust, he was deep inside of her, his momentum knocking them both back against the wet, slippery tile.

  Heather cried out, pleasure coiling through her in hot, honeyed loops as Dante drove into her with long strokes. She laced her arms around his neck, twisted her fingers into his wet hair, and yanked.

  With a low growl, he kissed her, his tongue slipping between her parted lips, claiming her mouth. She kissed him back with equal intensity, claiming his. Savoring the taste of his amaretto lips.

  She felt Dante slip one arm free from her waist so he could brace his hand against the wall as his rhythm deepened, keeping time with earthy song cascading between them like a heated waterfall. Blue flames licked and kissed their wet skin, slid along their entangled limbs.

  Dante was here with her, here and now, and Heather would do whatever it took to anchor him in the present, to see him free of the past. To keep her promise to him.

  It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops.

  I’ll help you stop it forever.

  Their breath mingled, harsh and panting, rough with fevered need. Dante’s lips slid along Heather’s throat, his fangs scraping the skin. With a soft yes-yes-yes moan, she arched her neck. His fangs pierced her flesh and she felt the heated pull of his lips as he drank in her blood. He pounded into her with a feral, primal urgency.

  Pleasure spiraled through Heather in tighter and tighter loops, spinning her to the cliff’s edge. She decided not to plunge into pleasure’s deep pool alone.

  She was taking Dante with her.

  Heather surrendered to his pounding rhythm and poured every skin-tingling sensation in her body—the feel of him inside of her, his scent, the taste of his lips, the slickness of his sweat-and-water glistening skin—back through their bond and into him as an intense orgasm throbbed throughout her body in pulsing waves.

  she sent.

  Heather locked her arms even tighter around Dante’s neck as his muscles stiffened, spasmed, caught in pleasure overload. He came with a low, ragged moan. His movement gradually slowed and, wrapping both arms around her, he rested his fevered face against her shoulder.

  “Fuck, catin,” he whispered. “Je t’aime aussi.”

  Heather smiled into his wet hair. “Payback, Baptiste.”

  “T’es sûr? Two can play that game.”

  Easing her off him, he trailed molten kisses from her lips to her breasts and licked each hardened, aching nipple, one after the other.

  Then he dropped to his knees, his hot hands curving around to her ass.

  Heather sucked in a breath, realizing he was going to make her pay too.

  Over and over and over.

  33

  REAL FUCKING CLEAR

  NEW ORLEANS,

  CLUB HELL

  March 28

  “SO THE ASSHOLE MESSED with Annie, huh? Brainwashed her?”

  “I don’t know for sure, of course, but that’s my guess since she knew two names she shouldn’t have—Gehenna and the Morningstar.”

  “Motherfucker. Think me and him are gonna have a little chat later.”

  Sitting on their rumpled bed, Heather leaned back on her elbows and watched Dante pull on a pair of low-riding black latex jeans. Side laces ran the length of each leg from hip to ankle in double rows of gleaming metal eyelets. The pants fit so well that Heather yearned to peel them off, shove him back onto the bed, and climb on top of him.

  Christ, Wallace, quit visually molesting him. Physically is so much better.

  Dante glanced at her from beneath his lashes as he threaded a belt through the loops, its triple rows of steel studs glinting in the room’s low light. A smile tilted his lips.

  “I heard that, catin.”

  Cheeks burning, Heather tightened her shields. “Dammit. I keep forgetting.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll become second nature with time.”

  “Well, until it does, could you at least pretend not to eavesdrop?”

  “Nope.”

  Just as Heather opened her mouth to verbally flip him off, Dante moved in a blur of black latex and white skin. She felt the fevered touch of his hands everywhere at once—along her hips, across her breasts, tracing her sides, brushing her throat, trailing between her legs—then she found herself flat on her back on the bed, Dante propped on his elbows above her, his body pressed against hers. Mischief and heat smoldered in his dark eyes.

  “Yup. Physically is so much better,” he said. “But visually ain’t bad either.”

  “You cheated. Again,” Heather protested, fire fluttering through her belly. “You said I could cheat the next time.”

  “And you can. It just ain’t next time yet.”

  She smacked his shoulder. “Fibber. In that case—get off.”

  Dante’s eyebrows lifted. “Fibber? That the best you can do?”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire—”

  Dante kissed her thoroughly, effectively ending her chant, his tongue promising all manner of wonderful, toe-curling, pants-on-fire-in-a-good-way things, then he pushed himself away and onto his feet.

  Heather stared at the tin ceiling for a moment, getting her breathing under control and regretting her decision to insist that he get off her. When—not if, I refuse to accept if—things finally quiet down, I’m going to keep him naked and in bed for a week. Maybe two, if I survive the first week. She sat up, tugging down the hem of her tight, moss green sweater.

  Dante sat in the ivy-patterned armchair, strapping on his boots, a smile on his lips. A sexy and wicked smile, damn him. It looked like she needed to start a Dante payback list. Item number one: eavesdropped on my thoughts, then molested me while I was fantasizing about molesting him.

  Music thump-thump-thumped up from two stories below as the band inside the Cage launched into a practice song before the actual set. The hard-pounding beat vibrated through the floor, into the soles of Heather’s Skechers, and into her feet. The empty absinthe bottle rattled on the bureau.

  A woman’s microphone-amplified voice shouted, “Don’t turn on the fog machine yet!” before dropping into song.

  Dante looked up, surp
rise on his face. “That’s Saints of Ruin. Shit. I was supposed to join in on a couple of songs. I didn’t realize they were playing tonight.” He trailed a hand through his hair, his pale fingers gliding through the glossy black. “I’ll hafta make it up to them.”

  “I’ll be honest,” Heather said. “I’m surprised the club’s going to be open tonight. You told Mauvais that things weren’t finished. He might decide to attack first—a preemptive strike or another fire.”

  “Mauvais’s an arrogant fi’ de garce, but he tends to play by the rules—even if I don’t. He won’t use fire. Not in the Quarter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ain’t allowed. Local nightkind law going back to the city’s first big blaze. Torch one building and everything in the Quarter burns. Huge no-no. Fatal consequences for the asshole responsible, et cetera, et cetera. The club’s safe, chérie.”

  “Okay, maybe so,” Heather agreed. “But this rendezvous of Mauvais’s to pick up his minions could be a setup.”

  Dante snorted. “Minions. I like that. But yeah, a setup was my concern too.”

  Heather frowned. “Was? What changed your mind?”

  Dante rose to his feet and went to the dresser. His fingers blurred through the stack of clothes, then plucked a shirt free—fishnet and PVC and metal straps. He tugged it on.

  “According to Vincent, Mauvais’s cruising Lake Pontchartrain on his yacht, laying low and playing with some new treasure he picked up. He ain’t even thinking about me.”

  Heather frowned. “A treasure? What kind of treasure?”

  Dante finished buckling the straps on his shirt and turned around. Like claw marks from some monstrous beast, five slashes cut across the shirt’s left side from above the pec to the hip, revealing glimpses of the fishnet-covered white skin underneath.

  His dark eyes held hers. “Something he picked up in a cemetery. A stone statue.”

  Heather stared at him. “Holy shit. Loki.”

  “That’d be my guess.”

  “What happens if Mauvais frees him?”

  Dante shook his head. “No idea. Don’t know if he can. Depends on how much I weakened Lucien’s spell. And maybe it doesn’t matter, since I ain’t hiding from the Fallen—” His words trailed away and his gaze unfocused, the pupils swallowing up the brown in his eyes until only a thin ring remained.

  Heather’s heart constricted. “Dante?” She hastily tightened her shields, adding another protective layer of visual steel, then stood up and went to him.

  “Penance,” he whispered.

  Blue fire crackled around Dante’s hands. The smell of ozone thickened the air.

  Heart thudding against her chest, Heather jumped back out of easy reach.

  Dante squeezed his eyes shut, twisted his knuckles into his temples. Blue light gleamed against his skin, glinted in his hair. Blood trickled from one nostril. “Focus,” he muttered. “Shove it below and fucking focus.”

  Keeping a wary gaze on his glowing hands, Heather funneled cool, white silence through their bond. “Baptiste, can you hear me?”

  A spasm shuddered the length of Dante’s body, his muscles snapping taut. He stumbled backwards, hitting the wall shoulder-first. The plaster cracked behind him.

  Panic iced Heather’s blood as she realized that, if he had a seizure, she’d need to spike him full of morphine while dodging his flame-swallowed hands.

  Dante slid to the floor, one burning blue hand sweeping against the absinthe bottle. It tunked to the floor, but instead of rolling away across the hardwood, it flitted into the air on pale green wings, no longer a bottle, but something else altogether.

  Heather watched it fly up to the ceiling and bat itself against the overhead light’s white dome—tink-tink-tink. She squinted. Green skin. Dark hair in a pixie bob. Tiny green, glittering boobs.

  Is that a fairy? And should I let it—whatever it is—out before it splatters its little green brains all over the ceiling?

  Heather dashed over to the French windows, yanked the heavy curtains aside, and flung open the doors. Cool night air smelling of the Mississippi and sizzling cayenne shrimp poured into the room.

  The green fairy continued to batter itself against the light. Tink-tink-tink.

  “Christ,” Heather muttered.

  She sprinted to the switch and flipped the overhead off. The only light in the room radiated from Dante’s hands, bathing everything in a soft, flickering blue glow. The fairy zipped down from the dome, fluttered anxiously around Dante’s hands for a few seconds, then buzzed out the French doors, trailing dust smelling of bitter wormwood into the night.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Heather closed the windows again and locked them. The blue nightlight created by Dante’s hands vanished, leaving her blinking in the darkness until her eyes adjusted to the street light filtering in from outside. Switching on the bedside lamp, she knelt on the floor in front of him.

  Dante had drawn his legs up, wrapped his arms around them, and rested his forehead against his knees. He looked folded-in on himself. Shut off. Worn out.

  “Baptiste?” Heather brushed her fingers against his silky hair. “Let me help. Burdens are easier when they’re shared. You don’t need to carry anything alone, cher. Maybe together . . .”

  “Don’t know how to do it any other way, catin. Ça va . . .” His breath caught in his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was rough, raw. “No, that ain’t right. Ça va pas du tout. I think . . . I feel . . . I’m losing ground bigtime.”

  Fear coiled around Heather’s heart. “You need time,” she said. “You need to heal, you need to grieve, and you need to be left alone, dammit. Forget about Mauvais for tonight. You’re not ready to face him. Wait until you are.”

  Dante lifted his head. Blood was smeared beneath his nose, and his pale, beautiful face was luminescent with loss layered upon loss—Chloe, Gina, Jay, Simone, even his relationship with his father—his heart a funeral pyre.

  “I can’t. I’ll lose Trey.”

  A sharp pang of sympathy pierced Heather. “Let someone else go.”

  “I got Simone killed, cherie, I can’t just sit on the fucking sidelines. Can’t let my friends risk themselves.”

  “No. Sorry. You’re not allowed to risk yourself either.”

  “Ain’t asking permission.”

  “You’re not ready, Baptiste. Give yourself some time.”

  “Gorgeous and pigheaded,” Dante murmured.

  “Well, there’s the pot calling the kettle black. You’re the captain, the king, the goddamned maestro of pigheaded.”

  Dante laughed. “God damn, catin. Tell me what you really feel.”

  Opening his knees, he looped his strong arms around her and pulled her between his legs and up against his fevered heat and hard muscles, into his scent of burning leaves and deep, dark earth.

  Heather knuckled her fist into his shoulder hard enough to make him grunt. “You’re not ready,” she repeated.

  “Je connais,” Dante whispered, his voice stark. “But I gotta do this. I feel like I’m running out of time.”

  His words filled Heather with dread. “I refuse to lose you.” She slipped her arms around his waist.

  “I refuse to lose you too, catin. Ain’t adding your name—”

  “You won’t,” Heather promised, her throat almost too tight for words.

  “I’m gonna make sure,” Dante said. “I wanna get the FBI and SB off your ass. You have any contacts in the Bureau you can reach out to?”

  Heather pulled back within his tight embrace so she could see his face, study it. Uneasiness prickled against her spine. “Yeah, I do,” she said. “But why?”

  Dante met her gaze, his deep brown eyes steady, his expression resolute. Her pigheaded alert sounded a klaxon inside her head.

  He’s about to prove me right on the captain, king, and maestro comment, dammit.

  Even knowing that, she still wasn’t prepared for his next words.

  “I want to set up a meeting with the FBI a
nd SB so I can make my position on the matter of your continued well-being real fucking clear.”

  Heather stared at him. “Are you nuts? Have you lost your goddamned mind?” She twisted free of his embrace. “They’ll say yes, then trank the shit out of you when you arrive.”

  “Yup. Which is why I won’t be going alone, catin. I’ll be doing something I’ve never done—take a fucking rock star entourage with me. But it won’t be roadies, groupies, and self-appointed ass-kissers, it’ll be nightkind Elders and Fallen muckymucks.” He shrugged, a dark smile tilting his lips. “D’accord, so it is roadies, groupies, and self-appointed ass-kissers.”

  “Holy shit,” Heather breathed, hope and possibility blossoming with her like late-blooming roses. “With those kinds of witnesses, that could work. You’d have the Bureau and the SB by the short hairs.”

  “Oui. At least I hope so.”

  “One thing worries me—you could still be triggered. One quick word and you might be transforming your allies into buttercups.”

  Dante nodded. “Ain’t allies. I can’t trust them either, ’cuz they’ll have their own agendas. But yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. That’s where you come in.”

  Realization sparked. It was the only thing that made sense. “If they trigger you, or attempt to trigger you, then I trank you, so you can’t be used.”

  “Exactement.” Dante touched his forehead to hers. “And then we make sure those fuckers don’t live long enough to trigger anyone ever again.”

  “This just might work, Baptiste.”

  “Fingers crossed, catin.”

  Dante’s lips closed over hers in a deep and tender kiss, and she kissed him back, tasting the sharp tang of his blood, her hands sliding into his hair. The touch of his tongue flooded her with desire, transforming the kiss into an unspoken promise.

  This isn’t all. There’s more. J’su ici—always. Ain’t losing you.

  When the kiss finally ended, Dante reluctantly released her, then rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. A smile tilted his lips. “Time for my coming out.”

  “My boyfriend, the debutante. Who knew?” Heather teased. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”