Endless Night (Fate's Intent Book 3)

by Bowles, April

  “Yeah.” Troy agreed, trying to hold off Simone. “We have a prior engagement that we should really be getting back to.”

  I looked over to Darius, expecting him to speak next but Monique was straddled across his lap and they had their hands all over each other while they were deeply kissing.

  Deep sigh.

  I cleared my throat and Darius finally looked over to see my less than happy face and Monique started moving her kisses down his neck. “Oh, you can’t be serious? Give me ten minutes.” I lightly shook my head. “Five minutes?” I raised one eyebrow and Darius sighed, knowing I disapproved and he looked back to Monique still in his lap. “I’m sorry, we can’t stay.”

  I was a little surprised but proud of him. I know it’s been longer for him and how he can get because of it.

  “Have it your way but you don’t know what you’re missing.” Monique backed off with a whimpering sigh.

  “I’m sure I have an idea.” Darius muttered as he watched her body move away from his.

  “We should probably be going anyway. I don’t know what Kanon was thinking sending us up here when he knows he’s going to be expecting us.” Simone said as she started walking back towards the curtained doorway.

  “You’re talking about the Pirate Lord?” Troy asked.

  “If you must know, yes. He expects a private show of just him and us at a precise time every night in his lounge. If he doesn’t get it there will be trouble and no one around here wants that.”

  It seemed perfect. There was that luck we seemed to have in this place. The plan laid itself right out before us and we didn’t have to do a thing—literally.

  “Kanon!”

  All three of them turned their head to the door with a gasp to hear an angry voice yell from afar.

  “See? He’s already getting mad. We have to go.”

  “When you see Kanon again, tell him we’re sorry we had to leave so soon but we’ll see him again later. There’s something we have to do first.”

  They nodded and left and we left out through the pub and walked out the front door. I didn’t care about any of the stares I got while doing it. I just wanted to get back to the inn.

  “This couldn’t be more perfect if I planned it myself.” I said.

  “Yeah, um—would it be all right if you didn’t mention—”

  Troy smiled and patted Darius’s back. “Don’t worry. We won’t tell Ruby about your almost intentions.”

  Darius just sighed. I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t have to say it. He was thinking about how he could have ever wanted her and I noticed he became exceptionally disappointed in himself about it. It was like he felt bad already even though she didn’t know and the answer hit me with shock. He loved her. I just hoped she wouldn’t find out his regret.

  Chapter 34

  Troy

  I was just teasing him. Of course I wouldn’t say anything. It wasn’t my confession to confess but after I said it, we remain silent until we made it all the way back to the inn.

  “Evening.” The old man greeted us from behind the counter when we walked through the door. “Just so you’re aware, the wife has been up there since you left yapping to your girls so you might want to get up there and save them.”

  Zayden laughed before asking his question. “Hey, Knox? Do you know of anything we would be able to use to cover up the marks on the girl’s hips?”

  “Couldn’t Adele do that?” Darius whispered.

  Zayden held up his hand and let the old man’s memory catch up to him. “I think I might have something. Wait here.” He turned and went to the back room.

  “I don’t know if she would.” Zayden whispered back. “It might be some kind of moral thing.”

  “Here.” Knox came back out holding a small jar and larger round container and handed them to Zayden. “Milee uses this for her face but we all know that it doesn’t work for her. Maybe it only works on true beauty.”

  “Thanks. We’re grateful.”

  We took to the creaky stairwell and went up three noisy flights to get back to the room.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be going now.” The old woman said, getting herself off the bed. “You kids don’t stay up to late, you hear?”

  “We won’t, Milee. Thanks.” Adele replied.

  “Bye.” She left the room and respectfully closed the door behind her.

  “That was quick. So, what happened?”

  We stepped in a little more slowly and looked at each other, knowing we should be very vague on the details.

  “Can we skip what happened and just get right to the plan?” Darius asked.

  “You have a plan already? Wow.” Jaylyn said. “Impressive.”

  “All right, so it’s going to be pretty much entirely up to you to pull off but it will work.” Zayden said as we walked over and sat on the opposite bed.

  “We’re fine with that. That was the initial plan.” Ruby replied. “What is it?”

  “Okay.” Darius began. “The hookers said—”

  “Hookers!” Oh, no. Not this soon. “Didn’t we say no fun?!” Adele had clear anger on her voice with her eyes on Zayden. Jaylyn and Ruby showed their own signs of shock to the news and were speechless about what to say.

  “Smooth, Darius.” Zayden said under his breath. “That’s a good way to get sidetracked.”

  “What were you thinking?!” Adele demanded.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Jaylyn muttered.

  Oh, no. Nothing like that. I wanted to tell her but Adele wouldn’t give me the chance with her constant outbursts. “You may have just ruined everything!”

  “Can we please relax for a second?” Zayden said. “Nothing happened.”

  “Now, when I talk, what exactly is it that you hear?”

  “Love, please.”

  “No, really because when I said no fun, I didn’t mean do the exact opposite and have all the fun you wanted because this really isn’t the time for that!”

  I saw that Zayden didn’t want to argue it but her loud voice made him shoot back with his own as it always seems to, starting another fight. “Why are you getting all defensive here?! There are no ties between us!”

  Ruby and Jaylyn gasped at the same time and looked at Adele sitting between them. Her eyes were unblinking on Zayden and even her breaths seemed to have stopped for a moment. She sat like stone.

  “I can’t believe you just said that.” Ruby covered her face in regret for him. I was ready to do a little bit of that myself. “Test—failed.”

  Adele laughed probably to hold back tears as she stood up and walked around the bed. “You know what? You’re absolutely right, Zayden. What was I thinking? I mean, it’s not like you left your country for me or anything. Only a crazy person would do that, so you’re right, there’s not. Just go, have your fun because you’re not getting it from me.”

  “Ooh.” Darius joked as Adele walked out onto the balcony.

  “Mistake.” Ruby muttered.

  “Oh, come on, Love. Seriously?”

  She said nothing.

  “She won’t answer you after that.” Jaylyn said. “And I wouldn’t either.”

  “Fine. We’re going to explain the plan and I know you can hear me so just listen! Okay, to get right to the point, every night at this precise time, the Pirate Lord holds a private show with just him and the three women.”

  “Wow, now that happens to be a complete coincidence, I’m sure.” Ruby mumbled under her breath.

  “You’re missing the key factor here. This is the only time where he is actually alone and vulnerable. It makes the perfect opportunity for you to get to him and take him out quietly.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that you want us to be hookers?” Jaylyn asked, confused to know if that’s what he was actually saying or not.

  “Well, in a way, yes. I’m sure they’re always looking for new talent and you can replace the others for just one show to get the job done.”

  “Okay, so we replace them and they replace
us? Is that it?”

  “Yeah, I’m having a problem with that.” Ruby agreed.

  “Mmm. Little one.”

  “It won’t be like that. We know you can do it and we know how we can get you in.”

  “Really? How?” Ruby asked.

  “We’ve made a new friend by the name of Kanon.”

  They looked at each other. “You did? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, he likes us and he’s not so bad either.” I said.

  “Okay, I only see one problem with this plan besides the obvious.” Ruby replied.

  “What’s that?” Zayden asked.

  “Ah, hello.” She pointed to her hips where her Black Wings of Death marks were exposed. “We can’t exactly walk around with this showing. Someone is bound to notice. Whores don’t exactly have a need to cover up.”

  “We’re a step ahead of you. Here.” Zayden held out the cream and powder he got from the innkeeper. “You can use this to cover it up.”

  Jaylyn sighed and took it from him, maybe like she was hoping he didn’t have a way around it. “You just think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Well, when you’re good, you’re good.”

  “Shit, I was afraid of that.” Ruby muttered as she took it from Jaylyn and looked at it. “Why always us?”

  Jaylyn shrugged.

  “It shouldn’t be that bad.” Zayden said.

  “So, these hookers?” Jaylyn asked. “What were they wearing so we can be prepared?”

  Darius laughed. “Not a lot.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.” Ruby got up. “Forget she asked.”

  Thanks, Darius. That didn’t help. They were clearly still mad even if nothing happened. I wanted to explain again but again, Adele stopped me. She came back into the room a little urgently and began taking off her weapons, tossing them on a chair next to her bed.

  I looked at Zayden and he became as curious as me but said nothing. He must not have thought she’d answer him, then again, she didn’t have too.

  Jaylyn asked the question that was on everyone’s mind while she went over to her. “Adele, what are you doing?”

  “I’m going in. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.”

  Jaylyn looked back at Ruby and she went over to them. They both started to take off their weapons with her and we rose to our feet. No way were we going to allow this. It was too dangerous.

  “Unarmed? Love, you can’t be serious?” Zayden said. “This isn’t the way. At least bring something.”

  “There are no ties between us, remember, Zayden? So, why would you give a fuck about what I do?”

  “That’s not fair. You’re taking what I said the wrong way.”

  “We’ll see.” Adele walked passed him and left the room.

  “Jaylyn, don’t do this. She’s acting crazy.” I said.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can.” She kissed me and that was it. She left out the door with Ruby and was gone.

  “Are we just going to stay here?”

  “We don’t really have a choice, do we?” Darius said. “We couldn’t go back there without being recognized.”

  “They’ll be back.” Zayden walked to a bed and laid on it. “They said they could go somewhere as long as they were with each other so everything should be fine. We might as well get some sleep. We don’t know how long they plan on being.”

  I wasn’t even going to try. We laid down in separate beds to wait and see what would become of this.

  Chapter 35

  Zayden

  Time went by fast.

  It felt like I only fell asleep for a moment but when I opened my eyes, it was already morning. I sat up and looked around the room. Troy and Darius were awake but no one else was here.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  “They haven’t come back yet.” Darius said.

  I immediately got right out of bed. “What?! What do you mean, they haven’t come back yet?! Where are they?!”

  Troy shrugged. “We don’t know. We’ve only been awake a few minutes longer than you.”

  This didn’t sound good at all. I was ready to go there and just make sure that they were okay but before I could take a step towards it, the door opened. Adele and Ruby stumbled into the room and landed on the same bed together, laughing hard with Jaylyn walking in and sitting normally next to them.

  I was a little relieved to see them back but it still didn’t explain what took them so long.

  “Where have you been?”

  Adele looked up. “Out! What’s it matter?”

  I went over, looking over her unusually happy behavior after hearing her slurred words. “Are you drunk?”

  “Yup. I might say that we are a little. Wait a minute, did I say might?”

  Jaylyn smiled and rubbed her leg. “Yeah, sweetie, you did.”

  “What I meant to say is that we are. Yup. We are.”

  “So, you’ve been out all night drinking?” Darius asked. “What a minor distraction.”

  It was but there was one thing that I noticed. “You don’t seem drunk, Jaylyn.” She didn’t because she wasn’t acting like them. She seemed rather normal.

  “I can’t get drunk because it’s like an illness. Healing thing, you know. Besides, it’s a foul state to be in. It’s not good for anyone.”

  “But she still had a great time with us.” Ruby said. “You should have been there.”

  “And there’s good news.” Jaylyn said.

  “What?” Troy asked.

  “We made quite an impression on Kanon that he booked us to do a show for tonight.”

  I was surprised. “How did you pull that off so quickly?”

  “It was easy.” Adele said. “All we had to do was have incredibly super crazy sex with everyone in the pub. It was fun.”

  I instantly became hit with anger. “You what?!”

  They paused for a moment then all laughed together. “I was just kidding but you should have seen the look on your faces!”

  I sighed and blew off that short second of steam. That wasn’t funny at all. “So, how did you do it then?”

  “Look at us. He couldn’t say no.” Jaylyn smiled.

  “That’s it?” Darius asked.

  “Yeah, and we were there the entire time talking about what is expected of us.” Ruby said. “Which brings us to the bad news.” She paused and stared off at nothing.

  “So, what is it?” Darius asked.

  “I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”

  “You said there was bad news.” Troy said.

  “Oh yeah. Adele, what was that bad news?”

  “Um—bad news? Oh, I remember now! It will be hard to get any kind of weapon near him so it’s pretty much just up to Ruby to touch him and watch his life wither from his eyes like the soulless being he is.”

  “Okay, so how is that bad news?” Troy asked. “It seems like it will be easy.”

  They paused again and were acting completely off, waiting for their brains to catch up to them and Ruby laughed. “You’re right! I guess there is no bad news!”

  Adele laughed too.

  “I apologize for them.” Jaylyn smiled. “They tend to get a little stupid.”

  “It’s okay.” I said. “I’m at least glad one of you were able to remain normal.”

  “Me too actually or things could have turned out really bad. The worst part was trying to keep Ruby in her coat without making it obvious to everyone. You know, because she tends to think her skin needs to breathe. That’s why she’s always showing it off.”

  Ruby sighed loudly from her outburst laugh and threw herself back on the bed. “I need a nap.”

  “That’s actually a good idea for all of you.” I said. “You have to be at your best for later.”

  Ruby and Adele agreed by just closing their eyes where they laid.

  It was cute but I shook my head and walked over to Adele. “Perhaps more comfortable will be better.” I picked her up and she was so out of it that she didn’t fi
ght it. She laid limp in my arms and I brought her over to another bed and set her down while Darius moved Ruby to a different bed as well.

  “You should think about getting some sleep too.” Troy said, moving himself so he sat next to Jaylyn. “You have been up all night.”

  “I hope I didn’t make you worry.”

  “Only a little but it’s okay. You should still sleep.”

  “Okay. I probably could.”

  “How about making sure they get to sleep first?” I suggested. I had Adele laid down but she wasn’t so drunk she’d be ready to pass out.

  “That’s probably a good idea.” Jaylyn rose to her feet. She was obviously tired but she took to my suggestion, placing her hand on their foreheads for just a moment until we knew they were really out. “That should do it.”

  “Okay. Come on. You’re next.” Troy helped lay her down, staying close with a hand on her at all times.

  “You probably can’t put yourself to sleep, can you?” I asked.

  “No but I won’t need to. All I need is this.” She kept her hold on Troy and her eyes closed.

  It only took minutes but she was out. I guess it helped she was up all night.

  “You don’t really think they slept with every guy there do you?” Darius asked.

  I laughed to myself to try and be quiet about it. “No. I’m sure Jaylyn wouldn’t have allowed that and even if they did, they would have come back a lot drunker than that. You saw what the guys were like in there.”

  “I guess that’s true. What was I thinking?”

  “Maybe it had something to do with you not sleeping with Ruby again.” Troy said.

  “It was a rhetorical question. I wasn’t looking for an answer and no, that has nothing to do with it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Darius took the time thinking about it while his eyes were down on Ruby in her bed. “I don’t know, maybe.”

  I smiled to the fact that he didn’t even know the answer and we waited with them, giving them the time they needed to sleep.

  Chapter 36