“You’re welcome, Sheriff.”
Sullivan chuckled at that. He dipped his head to suck one of her taunt nipples into his mouth. God, this woman was really was one of a kind.
Teja made a low sound of pleasure, arching into his touch. “Of course, the problem with the tank,” she continued breathlessly, “is that girls are always buying you pretty things. You’re probably immune to gifts. It’s all been done.”
“A tank does have a way of standing out from the crowd, though.” He switched to her other breast, nipping gently.
Teja jolted. “Gaia, I know you like to go slow, but…” She trailed off with a whimper.
Sullivan felt it, too. The Phazing energy between them was tighter than ever before, dragging them both deeper and faster into pleasure. There was no way he was going to be able to drag this out for long.
His eyes locked on her and he began unfastening his pants.
She swallowed. “So, then I thought of another idea.” Her gaze went down to his straining erection and she bit her lower lip in anticipation. “I thought maybe I could charcoal someone who really annoys you.”
“I do have a shortlist of really annoying Cult members, I’d like to see extra crispy.” Sullivan switched back to her clothes, yanking the jeans from her legs. She wasn’t wearing underwear, either, God bless her. “Start with flambéing Gion. He’s right at the top.”
“I’d love to, but that won’t win your trust, either.” Teja shook her head. “You’re so strong, Sullivan. If you wanted someone gone, you’d just get rid of them yourself.” She gasped as he lifted her off the ground. “God, you’re sooo strong.” Her lips found his, kissing him hungrily.
Those damn powers went crazy. If they didn’t hurry this up, he was going to lose his mind. Sullivan trapped her between the wall and his body. He nudged her legs opened, his free hand testing the soft, wet evidence of her desire. He groaned at how ready she was for him already.
Teja moved against his fingers, needing more. “Hurry.” She whispered.
Sullivan shook his head. Teja’s hands were still behind her back, leaving her vulnerable to anything he wanted to do. “Wait.” His jaw clenched, trying to hold back. The Fire House influence told him that this was exactly how it was supposed to go, but he had to be sure she was okay. “Do you want the handcuffs off first?” He wanted to keep playing bad cop with her, but he’d stop if she asked.
Somehow.
“Don’t you dare untie me.” Teja’s legs wrapped around his waist, tugging him closer. “I’m being kidnapped and it’s fucking perfect.” She slid against him, her body like something out of a dream. “I swear, only a Wood Phase would ask such stupid questions.”
“You say such sweet things to me.”
Teja laughed out loud at that dry statement. She always seemed to appreciate his snarking. “You know, I waited a long time for my Match.” She grinned up at him, her hazel eyes glowing. “And you were sooo worth it, Sullivan.”
He nuzzled the blue streak at her temple. “Does that mean you’re not divorcing me anymore?”
“Do you know what I finally decided about my list of ideas?” She said in way of an answer. “I realized that isn’t a way to make you trust me. Not unless I tell you the truth.”
Sullivan braced himself. “Which is?”
“I am totally, hopelessly, sickeningly in love with you, Sullivan, of the Fire House.” She smiled. “Take all the time you need to trust in that, because I’m not going anywhere.” Emotions warm and real lit her stunning face. “We can wait to Phase as long as you need to, okay?”
Sullivan felt tears sting the back of his eyes. “Okay.” He said hoarsely and lowered his mouth to hers. Swinging her around, he carried her towards the bed. Sullivan dropped onto the mattress, with Teja on her lap.
She immediately maneuvered herself onto her knees, so he was right at the entrance of her warm channel. “Hey, I like this even better. I’m on top, but still erotically abducted…” Her words stopped on a gasp.
Sullivan’s hands found the curve of her waist, drawing her down until he seated deep inside of her. There was no telling where he left off and she began. Teja’s body melted around him, as he filled her completely.
She was right. It was fucking perfect.
Teja’s head fell onto his shoulder, like she could no longer keep it upright. “Okay. Enough screwing around.” She panted. “You need to take me, right now. I mean it. The energy is…” She broke off with a moan, moving against him. “Now, Sullivan.”
He couldn’t agree more. But, still he needed to tease her just a little. “I’m pretty sure I’m the kidnapper here, darlin’.” His palms cupped her breasts, squeezing them together and admiring their weight. “That means I get to set the pace. It’s one of the perks of criminality.”
She smirked at that. “You’re gonna lecture me on how to be a villain? That’s adorable, Wood Phase.” She made some otherworldly movement with hips and Sullivan realized he fully believed in magic.
He was holding it in his arms.
“Oh my God!”
“That’s more like it.” Teja said sweetly. “You might be powerful,” she found the rhythm she liked, riding his body with a gleaming smile, “but so am I and I’m waaaay more ruthless about it.”
“I am totally, hopelessly, sickeningly in love with you, Teja Pryce.” He whispered. “Jesus, don’t stop.”
“I won’t. Believe me.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “God, Sullivan. My energy is going to get free. There’s no way I can stop it. I know you don’t want to let yours go, so you probably want to hold on for a second and…”
Sullivan released his powers.
“HOLY SHIT!” Teja shouted as the Wood energy poured over both of them. Sullivan had the satisfaction of seeing her face go blank with shock and pleasure before he was swept under, too. Teja dropped her barriers and he lost the ability to think.
Their powers combined with a sonic boom. It resonated though the room and sending the candle flames jumping three feet in the air. There was so much power that Sullivan was blinded by the force of it; growing and combining, until something new was formed. Something whole and unique and stronger than either of them had been separately. It was incredible.
It was… magic.
And with the Phazing came a swell of pleasure so deep that Teja screamed out her release. “Sullivan!”
“Teja.” A fireworks display went off in his body and he felt himself explode. Sullivan’s instincts had been right all along. Teja was his. Christ, how had he ever doubted that? The woman was a part of him. When he was beside her, he was exactly where he belonged.
As soon as he regained use of his limbs, Sullivan roused himself to untie her. “Are you alright…?” He began, but Teja didn’t let him finish. The second her hands were free, she grabbed his face between his palms and gave him a smacking kiss.
“Tell me you did that on purpose.” She ordered. “You let your powers go, which means you trusted me enough to Phaze, right?”
“I trust you completely.” His eyes were level. “Completely, Teja.”
“Well, why shouldn’t you? I’m awesome.” She beamed. “I told you we could hold off on the Phazing, though.”
“We Fire Phases don’t like to wait.” He reminded her. “It’s rule twenty-four.”
“Twenty-three.” She corrected. “Rule twenty-four is: “Kill ‘em all.”
“Of course it is.” Sullivan grinned, thinking of the craziness that he was now a part of. “Your family are such poets.”
“Our family. You just took on half their load, Sherriff.”
“Please --God-- let’s not spoil the moment.” He smoothed back her hair. “Teja, seriously, there’s no reason to hold my powers back from you. To hold anything back from you. You’re my Match. I know that with everything in me.”
“Finally.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you have any idea how much work you are to court, human? It’s been a real pain in the ass to win you over.”
“Well, lucky for us both, you’re irresistible. There was no way I could hold out for long.” He arched a brow. “What about you? Are you going to hold back, anymore?”
“Nope. Turns out my emotions aren’t frozen, after all. They just needed someone who glows bright enough to warm them.” She nipped his jaw. “Now would probably be a good time for you to warm me up, again. In fact, it’s your turn to be kidnapped.”
“Well, if that’s what your feelings are telling you, I think we should respect them.”
“For a law-keeper, you have a deviant streak that’s very attractive.” She teased. “No wonder I had to fight off half the realm to claim you.”
“Hey, I just believe my wife should act on her feelings. Especially when those actions involve you doing possibly criminal things to my naked body.”
“Wife?” Teja tilted her head, like something new occurred to her. “Hey, I know we Phazed, but would you feel more secure if we have one of those wedding thingies? I looked it up earlier and there’s --like-- a whole ceremony humans have when they mate.” She nodded like he might not have known that.
Sullivan’s hand traced the curve of her cheek. “You’re already my wife, Teja.” He said honestly. “But, I wouldn’t say no to a really big ring that makes it official in my culture.” He shrugged. “I’m always going to be mostly human.”
She grinned, pleased with that answer. “I like you being mostly human.” She stacked her hands under her chin and rested against his chest. “And I can get behind the whole wedding deal. Then, I’ll officially own you in two different dimensions. And the Fire House can pull off one hell of a party.” She frowned in deep concentration, already envisioning the spectacle. “Do you think we should have poison ivy centerpieces or go with the traditional hemlock?”
“Whatever you want, darlin’.” Sullivan murmured, rolling her beneath him. “But let’s figure out the seating charts for the mortuary later.”
“Good thinking.” Her eyes gleamed eagerly. “I think you mentioned something about your naked body. So, this time, let’s see if we can manage to get all your clothes off.” She yanked at the edges of his shirt, sending buttons flying. “Or, if not this time, definitely next.”
Sullivan laughed, his lips finding hers. Crystalline snow flurries drifted around them and candles flared higher, as her incredible powers danced through air. Life with Teja was like nothing he ever could’ve imagined, but it was exactly what he’d been searching for his whole life. Love and a sense of belonging filled him. It was all so beautiful. Teja was so beautiful.
She kissed him back and Sullivan wasn’t even surprised at how incredible it all felt.
With Teja everything was magical.
Epilogue
You can’t stop ripples in a pond. Once they start, they change the whole surface of the water.
You can’t always predict the patterns they’ll make or foresee the objects they’ll impact.
Time is a lot like that.
When you toss a rock right in the center of it, you can’t know exactly what will happen.
Sometimes you don’t realize until it’s too late that you’ve tied yourself to the stone.
Daphne, of the Time House- “After the Fall: A History of the Dark War”
December 26th
“I told you it wouldn’t work.” Zakkery glanced over at Daphne, of the Time House as she appeared in the middle of the room. The Smoke Phase was still handsome edging into pretty, a fact he tried to mitigate with punk rock clothes and a haircut that fell over his matinée idol face. “No way would the Fire House get the Happiness box from Sullivan and just hand it over to us. That’s assuming Sullivan even has it.”
“He has it, Zakk. He must.”
“Well, maybe he does, but we don’t.” Zakkery shrugged. “At least Eian’s dead, though. I always hated that Winter Warlocking prick.”
Zakkery was stretched out on a red leather sofa that he’d appropriated from the set of his favorite TV show. Since he was often stuck on guard duty, he’d been decorating the Smoke House’s plastic and stone dungeon to make it more livable. And his idea of “decorating” was really just stealing stuff from places like human sorority houses and video arcades. This was possibly the only prison on the universe with a pinball machine in the corner.
The stupid thing never stopped jangling and blinking.
“Vandal’s still out there.” Daphne shook her head. “And the future still isn’t fixed.”
“The present’s not so great, either.” Zakkery arched a brow. In honor of Christmas, he’d stapled-gunned some twinkle lights to the wall in the shape of a tree. They blinked above his head. “You promised me that you could find my Match, remember? So where is she?”
“You’ll get her. Calm down. Some things went a little cat shit, but I have it under control.”
“You always say that, Daph, but Gion’s birthday is getting closer and we still don’t have the Happiness Tablet.”
“You think I don’t know that? Relax. I’m already moving onto Plan B.”
Raiden, of the Radiation House watched them through the Plexiglas door of his cell, quietly filing away all their bickering. For several weeks, he’d been locked in a forgotten basement of the ruined castle, a victim of the two most exasperating kidnappers in the world. The solitude of it didn’t bother him. Raiden had never been a people-person.
For a man who’d spent his entire life fighting, it was difficult not to even try to escape his eight-by-eight cell, though. The inactivity was grating, as was the confined space. Raiden was so large that, when he stretched out, his feet and head nearly hit the opposite walls. It was claustrophobic and he wanted out.
He could’ve gotten through Zakkery. The boy was a sneaky, amoral criminal, but no one could match Raiden in a fight. He believed that without any ego or arrogance. It was just a fact. If he had to, Raiden could kill Zakkery in a dozen different ways. …But, he couldn’t hurt Daphne’s sidekick without hurting Daphne. And Raiden would never hurt Daphne.
Not intentionally.
Since, he wouldn’t be getting out of the cell without bloodshed and he was unwilling to shed their blood, all he could do was gather information and try to reason with his pain-in-the-ass abductress.
On the plus side, being stuck here meant he could spend almost a minute a day with his Match.
Daphne was doing her damnedest to ruin the world, but she was everything to Raiden. Absolutely everything. He’d waited for her for so long that just being near her was amazing.
Even if she did hate him.
The woman was astonishingly lovely, with wide topaz eyes and a face straight out of a girl-next-door fantasy. Her honey colored hair pulled back in a ponytail, highlighting the sandy colored marker at her temple. Today, she was decked out in a very short polka dot skirt and an oversized shirt decorated with an iridescent yellow bee. Raiden had yet to see her in an outfit that didn’t sparkle, twinkle, or glow in the dark.
He watched his Match pace, her long legs taking her back and forth across the cement floor. Something must have happened, because she seemed more agitated than normal.
Raiden felt his own tension level rise in response. “What’s Plan B?”
Daphne ignored him. She was good at that. Raiden wasn’t a talkative guy. Most people paid attention when he said something, because it was so rare and because his ruined voice tended to draw attention. Daphne just tuned him out like the chattering of some droning radio announcer.
“Yeah, what’s Plan B?” Zakkery demanded.
Him she answered. “It’s my backup plan to get the box. It’ll work, it’ll just be messier.”
“Messier than this?” Zakkery scoffed. “Jesus, I vote we come up with a Plan C, then.”
“We don’t have time.”
“For a person who can travel through time, you’re always so impatient.”
“Impatient?” She repeated incredulously. “Five hundred years of searching and I’ve got nothing on the Happiness Tablet.”
&nb
sp; “Remind me again why you can’t jump back and get the damn thing from Parson. Then we could just forget about his human cop of a grandson. Trust me. It’ll be easier.” Zakkery arched a brow. “Have you met Sullivan Pryce? He’s five kinds of annoying.”
“I can only time jump within my own lifetime and Parson died before I was born. It’s the same reason I can’t go back and stop the Fall, or meet Charlemagne, or go on a dinosaur safari.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Anyway, I know Sullivan Pryce has the box. Which means the Fire House has it. We just need to convince them to turn it over.”
Zakkery rolled his eyes. “Oh, that should be simple.”
“Everybody’s willing to trade for the right price.”
Daphne was trying to find the Tablets of Fate. Individually, they could level planets. God only knew what would happen if she managed to unite all nine of them. Raiden wasn’t sure how many she’d collected so far, but, knowing Daphne, it was probably too many.
The edges of her body faded like pixilation on an old TV set. Daphne could only stay in the “past” for fifty-one seconds at a time. Usually, she timed the whole thing with a studied casualness, but now she looked over at the plastic Hulk Hogan clock on the wall and swore. “She’d better hurry up.”
Zakkery frowned. “Who?”
“Just sit there and look pretty. I can handle this.””
Raiden didn’t like the sound of that. He got to his feet and moved closer to the door of the cell. “Fee?”
She flashed him a glare. The nickname was the only surefire way to get her focusing on him. “I told you not to call me that.”
Having her attention didn’t make him feel a lot better, since Raiden could see on her face that something was very wrong. “Why are you so afraid?” He demanded.
Zakkery sent her a concerned look. “You’re afraid of something? You said everything was under control.”
“It is! Ray has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Raiden kept his eyes on hers. “I saw you frightened once before.” At the time, he’d thought it was a hallucination or a vision, but now he knew it had really been her. “I know what fear looks like on you.” He braced his hands on the plastic door of his cell, his heart hammering. Daphne was the ballsiest person he’d ever met. If she was spooked, something bad was headed their way. “Let me out of here.” He ordered.
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