by Kelly Meding
“God, Evy.”
I thrust my hips just a bit, reveling in the exquisite fullness of having him inside me. “Love me.”
He groaned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
He was hesitant at first, his thrusts shallow and gentle, allowing me to adjust, but it was not what I wanted. I encouraged him with upward thrusts of my own, and his hesitation crumbled. I wrapped my legs around his waist and locked my ankles. He slid in and out, his hard, burning thrusts timed with his labored breathing. I rose to meet him, my own pleasure building again over the persistent throb in my back and the exquisite ache of his length stretching me. Loving me. I tried to ignore the wounds and concentrate wholly on Wyatt.
Not on my position beneath him.
On the way my insides quivered, and on the thick slide of him in my body, the scent of his sweat, the heat of his breath on my face.
Not on the way he pressed me down, held me hard to the mattress.
On Wyatt.
No one else. Nowhere else. Here and now.
Breath on my face … sweet and heady and human breath.
Holding me down … pleasuring me, driving me to orgasm.
Pressing me into the mattress … making love to me.
Making love.
His pace slowed; a thumb brushed my cheek. “Evy?”
I met his concerned gaze but couldn’t force out words. My mind and body were consumed by conflicting emotions as old memories scratched just below the surface. I didn’t want them but couldn’t seem to turn them off.
Somehow Wyatt knew, or he simply guessed my back was bothering me. He rolled us until Wyatt was beneath me, me straddling his waist, hands on his chest.
In control.
Just us.
I didn’t think I could love him more if I tried.
I set the pace, starting slow, a gentle glide up and down, and nothing else existed. The memories stayed away, beaten into the recesses of my mind by the pleasure coiling in my abdomen. I leaned down, thrusting my tongue into his mouth to taste him, and once again, we shared a breath. He squeezed my hips, and I rocked faster, harder. Our labored breathing melted into a dull roar that blocked out everything except the pounding of my heart and the joining of our bodies. Faster. Harder still, unrelenting. I closed my eyes and held on, his thrusts matching mine, as a second orgasm washed over me, fast and blinding. Pleasure rippled from head to toes, trembling my limbs and seizing my heart. I shouted, hearing only Wyatt’s voice as he roared his climax and spilled into me.
We melted together, a tangle of arms and legs and sweat and sex. I felt his lips on my face and throat. After a bit—seconds? hours?—he slipped out, and we rolled onto our sides. I snuggled close, nearly bursting with satisfaction.
Wyatt grinned at me with swollen lips and rosy cheeks. “You continue to amaze me, Evangeline Stone.” The awe in his voice threatened to turn me into a puddle of goo.
I kissed the center of his chest, tasting the salt of his sweat. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
Laughter rumbled through his chest. His hands stroked my arms and shoulders. “Careful, or you may inflate my ego.”
“Arrogance is your emotional tap, right? Just doing my duty as your partner.”
Partner. It was an odd word to use for a man who’d been my boss for the four years I’d known him—save the last month or so of our lives as we’d first become allied fugitives, and then so much more. All in such a short amount of time. Triumph and defeat. Love and loss. Joy and fear. We’d defied death, defeated a demon-possessed elf, protected the future of a were-Clan, saved the lives of countless innocents, and summoned half a truck into a log cabin—not too bad, really.
Wyatt folded me against his chest, and I could have stayed like that forever. Or until restlessness drove me back out into the world, ready to hunt and fight. Knowing I’d be able to return to his arms at the end of the day and be loved and protected all over again.
But I wasn’t able to.
Lips brushed my forehead. “Think we should change the bedding?”
“Be my guest.”
He chuckled. “We should probably get up, though.”
I lifted my head and peered over him. Groaned. The blue neon numbers on the bedside clock announced ten minutes until company arrived. “You’re right.”
“Go clean up. I’ll find some clothes and tidy up in here.”
I gifted him with a soft kiss, which he returned with enthusiasm, then reluctantly climbed out of bed, chilly from the loss of physical contact. I gathered my scattered clothes and went across the hall.
In the bathroom, I washed as best I could, then scrubbed my face and brushed my hair. No time for a proper shower. Everything ached deliciously and for all the right reasons this time. My cheeks were flushed and my eyes bright, and for the first time since waking from that damned coma, I looked somewhat healthy.
I returned to the living area. Wyatt was dressed in someone’s dark blue jeans and a hunter-green polo, not his usual color combo. “What, no black?” I teased.
“Not that looked clean.” He closed the distance between us and settled his hands on my hips. He didn’t have to ask the question lurking in his mind.
“I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. Kind of amazing.” I drew him into a gentle kiss, just enough to put the taste of him back on my lips.
The doorbell rang. I jumped, both of us startled by the unfamiliar chime.
“Gina wouldn’t ring,” Wyatt said.
A second chime, followed by a fist rapping on the door. “Mr. Truman?” a muffled male voice said, oddly familiar.
“Who the hell knows you’re here?” I whispered.
He crossed to the door on silent feet and peered through the peephole. His shoulders tensed. Not good.
“Mr. Truman, I need to speak with you.”
Wyatt turned his head toward me and mouthed two words I didn’t understand at first: “James Reilly.” I stared. Mouthed back: “Who?” Then the penny dropped. The private investigator who’d cornered him at Alex’s memorial last week. Fucking hell. Wyatt waved at me. I bolted into the bathroom (apparently my new favorite hiding place) and closed the door nearly all the way.
The front door creaked open. “What can I do for you, Mr. Reilly?” Wyatt’s voice was icy.
“I was hoping for a few moments of your time,” Reilly said. That same conversational tone, designed to set his interviewee at ease.
“I really don’t have a few minutes today. I’m about to head out on business.”
“Of course, and I apologize for—”
“How did you know I was here?”
The silence was deafening. I craned to see. They hadn’t moved from the front door. Still out of my line of sight.
“I’m an investigator, Mr. Truman. It’s my job to find people.”
“Have you been following me?” We both knew that wasn’t possible.
“No, I’ve been following a red-haired young woman who’s come to this apartment several times over the last week.”
Bastard was following Kismet? Why? Reilly said he was looking into the fire at Rufus’s old apartment building, and Kismet wasn’t involved in—Shit. If she’d gone to visit Rufus recently—
“So you were watching the apartment,” Wyatt said, “and you saw me come inside.”
“Yes, with a rather pretty brunette, as a matter of fact.”
I didn’t have to see Wyatt to know he’d tensed up, even if he’d somehow managed to keep his expression neutral. This Reilly was a major pain in the ass.
“Mr. Truman, may I come inside?”
“No. Like I said, I’m leaving very soon.”
“Of course.”
“I still have your business card, so why don’t I call you—”
“May I speak with Chalice Frost please?” Reilly’s tone had changed completely. Gone was the genial fellow asking harmless questions, replaced with cold determination. “Because unless she has an unrecorded twin roami
ng the city, she was the brunette I saw come inside with you. So where is she?”
Crap.
Chapter Twenty
“I really think you should leave,” Wyatt said.
“Why?” Reilly asked. “Because you have a dead woman hiding in this apartment? Or because the redhead I’ve been following has fingerprints that match those of a young woman named Virginia O’Malley who died seven years ago?”
Seven years ago—the time Kismet joined the Triads. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she’d changed her name, but it did. This guy was learning too much. There were always detectives or self-important P.I.’s who poked into Triad business, hoping to make a name for themselves or discover some huge cover-up. We had always dealt with them the same way—by making an offer they couldn’t refuse. Reilly was teetering very close to the tipping point.
“Fine,” Wyatt said. “Come in.”
Uh-oh.
The door clicked shut. Shoes shuffled across carpet.
“Might as well come out and show him.”
Trusting Wyatt to have a plan, I emerged from the bathroom and presented myself. Reilly stared wide-eyed, lips parted, as though he hadn’t quite believed his own bluff. He took a step toward me. Wyatt slipped behind him and got the older man in a choke hold. Reilly wheezed, fingers clawing at Wyatt’s forearm, face turning red. He was unconscious in moments, and Wyatt let his body slump to the floor.
“Now what?” I asked.
“He becomes someone else’s problem.” He crouched and searched Reilly’s pockets, producing a small notepad, which he flipped open. It looked nearly full of cramped, precise printing. Wyatt’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.
“Do I want to know?” He continued flipping pages as though he hadn’t heard me. “Hello?”
“Audaìn.”
My stomach knotted. “What?”
“It’s the name of—”
“Of a Blood Family. I know.” Or more precisely, of Isleen’s family. Isleen was as close to a friend among the vampires as I’d ever admit to having. She’d saved my life once by fishing me out of a sunbaked trash bin after I’d been stabbed and tossed into it. We were tentative allies. “Why does he have that name in his notebook?”
“Don’t know, but something tells me he’s not as disinterested in the paranormal side of this city as he seems.” Wyatt put the notebook aside and emptied Reilly’s pockets—wallet, handgun, car keys, an envelope of photographs.
I flipped through the pictures. They were impersonal shots, probably from surveillance. Photos of Kismet and her Hunters outside this building, Phineas outside his apartment building, various people I didn’t know at all, Wyatt at the cemetery with Leo Forrester, Wyatt exiting our old building. Near the end was one that startled me into nearly dropping the entire stack—long white hair, willowy build so slim as to appear sexless, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, pale skin shimmering in what was obviously daylight.
“Holy fuck,” I said, showing the photo to Wyatt. “This is Istral. It’s Isleen’s sister.”
“The one Kelsa killed?”
“Yes.” The night old-me was captured by the goblins, I’d gone to see Max, a gargoyle informant, and was blindsided. Max had been arguing with Istral about rising hostilities among the various races. Perhaps to prove she was serious, Kelsa—the goblin Queen who tortured me to death—shot Istral with an anticoagulant round that killed her within seconds. That was a month ago.
So much for Reilly investigating the apartment fire, which had happened over a week later. Four more photos of different Bloods I didn’t recognize followed, the last pictures in the stack. No names, no dates. The backgrounds had no discernible buildings.
“He knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on,” I said.
I rummaged around in the kitchen until I found a couple of zip ties to secure Reilly. Wyatt’s cell rang. He flipped it open with a terse “Yeah?” A pause. “We have a problem upstairs that needs to be babysat.” He explained briefly, then listened, and I shifted impatiently. “Okay.”
“Kismet?” I asked when he hung up.
“Yeah. She and Milo are on their way up.”
“Nice of her to call first.”
A smile ghosted his face, pinched off by worry. We maneuvered the unconscious Reilly into a dining chair, zipped him, tied him with a length of nylon rope from under the kitchen sink, and gagged him with a stretched T-shirt. Not bad for two minutes’ work. Then we collected the few weapons we’d had on us when we entered.
Wyatt’s phone rang a second time right as the front door opened. He checked the display, then handed it to me and went to shush the new arrivals.
“Stone,” I said.
“It’s Jenner. The money is ready to be transferred. I’ll text the account number to this phone.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jenner.”
“The Assembly will not forget this debt, Ms. Stone.” For a second, I thought he meant the money. Then he said, “You honor your species with your sacrifice, and that will be long remembered.” The vehemence in his words made me want to cry.
“Are your people—?”
“Searching, yes, but the city is vast and he is not likely to be kept in plain sight.”
“Well, with any luck, he’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
“Yes. Good-bye, Evangeline Stone.”
“Yeah.” I closed the phone, and a few seconds later, the account number was saved in the phone’s memory. One hour until we’d need to use it.
Kismet was already poring over Reilly’s photos and notebook. She didn’t try to hide her anger at the surveillance pictures, or the fact that she hadn’t noticed a tail. “Too bad the asshole didn’t follow me up to the cabin. We’d have been saved the problem of dealing with him ourselves.”
I snorted. “He said he was new to the city.”
“He could have been lying.”
“Does it even matter?” Milo asked. “He knows a lot more than is healthy for him, which makes him not our problem. He’s Nevada’s problem now.”
“Nevada?”
“Yeah,” Kismet said without looking up from the notebook. “He’ll be here with his team in twenty minutes to pick up the prisoner and take him to a holding facility for questioning.”
Terrific. Nice to be told pertinent details like that. Only she probably assumed I wasn’t in the need-to-know circle anymore, and she was right. “How’s Felix?” I asked suddenly. How selfish was I that it took me so long?
“Critical, but alive.” This time she looked up, her green eyes cold. “He’s had transfusions, but he also has a raging infection the doctors have never seen before. Tybalt’s staying with him.”
“Anyone want breakfast?” Milo asked as he wandered into the kitchen.
“Whatever you can knock out,” Kismet said. “Coffee, too.”
I stared. She wanted breakfast? The idea of eating anything made my stomach churn in an unpleasant way. Even though it was probably nerves, I wasn’t about to tempt fate. I shook my head at Milo.
“You should eat, Evy,” Wyatt said.
“I’ll have coffee.” It was my compromise. We’d been up all night, hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten much, and had used our Gifts to their limits and beyond. At least the caffeine would keep me conscious for a few more hours. “When’s Baylor coming back with the computer?”
“Around the same time as Nevada,” Kismet replied.
“Okay.” Time was ticking away loudly inside my head. I hadn’t felt it so keenly since the battle at Olsmill, and, while the end results wouldn’t be quite as spectacular as unleashing demons on the world, I was still preparing to sacrifice myself to protect others. Protect the city from the whims of a madman, and all I wanted to do was hide in the other room until the problem went away.
But I just couldn’t live with myself if I did that. It would have been so much easier to fall on my sword when all I had in my life were people I’d willingly die for. Because now I had someone in my life I’d not only die for but I wante
d desperately to live for.
The freshly deodorized scent of the bedroom surrounded me. I didn’t close the door, just wandered inside and sat down on the neatly made bed. Smoothed my hand across the damp blanket where I’d made love to Wyatt not a quarter hour ago. The pillows had lost their scent of us, and I longed for it. Just a small whiff as I pressed one pillow to my face. Held it tight to my chest. I shifted until my back rested against the wall and drew my knees up, locking the pillow in my lap.
The clock didn’t stop ticking.
“Coffee’s ready.”
I snapped my head up, unsure when I’d rested my forehead on the pillow and shut my eyes. Kismet stood just inside the bedroom. She’d traded her bloodstained shirt for something that belonged to one of her Hunters, judging by the bagginess on her slim frame. Her stance screamed of repressed frustration and the need to go a couple rounds with a heavy bag.
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what it’s worth, I admire you. I don’t know if I could do what you’re doing.”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d said she was actually a vampire, had sucked everyone dry in the other room, and was about to eat me for dessert. It took several tries to find my voice. “What is it I’m doing?”
“Willingly giving yourself to who knows what fate at Thackery’s hands, even after everything you’ve already been through.”
My lips curled in a sneer. “You mean I’m letting myself be potentially tortured to death twice?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing Thackery could physically cook up will ever come close to what Kelsa did to me.” The only true torture he could possibly inflict was leaving Wyatt behind to wonder, and to hope for my rescue, knowing Wyatt would never rest until he saw proof of my life or death. Knowing that finding my broken, disposed-of body for a second time might destroy him.
“We’ll be tracking you,” she said, stepping into the room and pushing the door to within an inch of being shut. She fished into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small box, the size of a tin of mints. Matte black, with a single red dot on the center of the lid. She didn’t have to tell me what was inside; they’d been explained to us in Boot Camp. “We’ll do everything we can to keep tabs and bring you back, Stone, but you may want this, too.”