by Lora Leigh
Tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t cried in years. Those tears had lain trapped inside the shattered remnants of her soul, unable to escape.
One escaped now. She felt it fall from her closed eye as she fought to open her eyes, felt it burn down her cheek.
She knew they wouldn’t survive without her. Why did they think she had chosen to remain in the darkness rather than sinking deeper into it and letting go completely? They were bound. She couldn’t break that bond, couldn’t escape it, no matter how she tried when her conscious mind ruled her.
As she hovered between the soft light surrounding her and reality awaiting her, she felt a cool, longed-for weight settling against her breast, before surrounding her neck.
She knew what it was, knew the promises that had been broken when they had taken it. Promises she’d wanted to die without.
“This was taken from you.” Shane’s voice penetrated the warmth gently. “Remember the promises that went with it, baby? Our promises?”
Another tear fell, scalding her flesh, forcing her to drag her eyes open despite the pain that lanced her body and the fears that filled her mind.
She had to open her eyes. She had to see them.
Blurry at first, her vision cleared enough that she found herself staring into Sebastian’s black eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping again, she thought, exhaustion trying to swamp her.
“Siren,” he whispered, his eyes damp. “Have you been climbing again? That spanking’s coming.”
God, how she wanted to smile.
“Goofy.” The word was slurred, instinctive.
“Oh God. Alyssa.” His head lowered, his lips against her ear. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t dare leave.”
Behind him, Shane stared down at her, his face haggard, his blue eyes so dark. They knew not to go so long without sleep. They became irritable and made her snappish. She didn’t like it when they were irritable.
Swallowing to dampen her lips, she breathed out in exasperation, so tired it was all she could do to speak. “Sleep, Cowboy.”
Shane’s throat tightened, working as though he had difficulty swallowing before he nodded sharply. “When I know you’ll wake for us again I’ll sleep.”
Wasn’t that just like them? The hazy thought drifted through her mind.
“Bossy,” she sighed weakly. Staying awake was so hard.
“Alyssa. You can’t let them just get away with this,” Summer drawled, though Alyssa could hear the tears in her voice.
“Never.” Her eyes drifted closed. “Never. Just had to know…”
Had to know they were there. Had to know the bonds weren’t broken.
Oh, they were going to pay. Because as the warmth and healing sleep pulled her back into that place of dreams rather than darkness, there was the fragile thought that she would never remember a moment of it anyway.
And she’d sworn to herself before she was thrown into the darkness that she would break the hold they had on her.
Forever.
That she would definitely remember.
“I hate the two of you for real,” Summer muttered.
“Shh.” The drugged sound coming from Alyssa shocked Summer and had her eyes filling with tears again.
Fuckin’ bastards! she mouthed silently.
“She’s ours,” Shane said softly, his head resting next to hers, his larger body still sheltering her.
“Too bad you didn’t remember that six years ago,” Summer told them. “Maybe she wouldn’t be here now. And it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t stay.”
“The hell we can’t—”
“You don’t understand. You will not stay with her, De Loren.” She spoke slowly, firmly, as though speaking to a child. “Because whatever made her husband decide to kill her had somethin’ to do with you, and that’s a fact.”
“We took care of it. And Stanhope had nothing to do with it,” Shane snarled. “It’s over.”
“That’s not what my intel says, Cowboy.” She fluttered her lashes at him as though flirting, though the sneer in her voice was anything but. “From what I hear, you two have that little mess you made in Spain to clean up, and you’re gonna give Alyssa time to regain her strength before she has to deal with you and the obvious destruction you evidently bring to her life.”
He couldn’t argue that, as much as he wanted to.
“You’re in no position to make that demand,” Shane pointed out, determined to stay with Alyssa now.
“I’ll make a deal with you then.” Summer smiled back at them. The curve of her lips would be frightening to some. “You give her time to finish healin’ and regain her strength; then I’ll contact you and give you a clear path to her once she’s done so.” Her expression hardened. “Until then, you use the next two years to clear the danger out of your lives and put the agency behind you. Otherwise, me and her daddy will have a little talk. And he really likes me. And the CIA really likes his influence on their fundin’ at the moment.” She glanced at her nails while the other hand still held the weapon. “Get the danger out of your lives; then you can have your shot. Make a choice and make it now.”
“The doctor believes if she begins to recover then she’ll be at full strength in eighteen months,” Shane pointed out.
“That was his best-case scenario, sugah,” she assured them. “Twenty-four months is his actual time line for her. It will take you that long to clear the agency junk out of your life and make damned certain nothing in your past endangers her. Because I promise you if it ever does, you won’t have a chance against the hillbillies I send out after you. That’s a Georgia promise, assholes. Take it to the bank.” She wrinkled her nose in an expression that would have been enchanting if it hadn’t gone along with a threat to kill them.
As much as Sebastian hated to admit it, she was right. There was also the follow-up investigation needed to ensure Gregory Santiago hadn’t been working with anyone else. There was no evidence he had been, but Sebastian knew it was foolhardy not to make certain.
Looking down at Alyssa, he touched her cheek, then leaned to her and let his lips touch hers.
“Sing for me, siren,” he whispered. “Let me feel you again.”
Having that part of the bond disappear had nearly broken him. The one they’d shared in Barcelona, a sense, a certainty she was there, waiting for them.
Letting his lips caress hers a moment longer, he moved from the bed, standing between Summer and Shane as he took that place next to her.
Shane hated leaving her. Hated knowing Summer was right, that there was garbage they had to clean up before they could come back to her. At least now that sense of urgency that Alyssa could be taken from them at any moment was gone.
Leaning to her, he kissed her as well. A gentle, lingering touch of his lips to hers before he moved to whisper in her ear.
“Feel me, siren,” he whispered. “Feel us. Are you warm now, baby? I promise, you get cold again and we’ll be here. And soon, you won’t be able to chase us out of your bed. I swear it.”
A final kiss to her brow and he stood. Giving her one last worried glance, he turned to Sebastian.
“Let’s go,” he breathed out, his voice rough. “While I can make myself do it.”
They left her room, stepping back into the night and leaving the heart they’d fought to return to for so long.
Summer stepped closer to the bed. She’d be damned, but Alyssa was breathing easier, the monitors showing a small but noticeable improvement. And she knew she hadn’t seen Shane or Sebastian wrap Alyssa’s fingers around the stones of that necklace, but that was where they were. Shane had to have done it, she told herself. There was no way in hell Alyssa had the strength to do so.
“Girlfriend.” Crossing her arms over her breasts, she glared down at the closest friend she had. “You don’t even know the bill you’re gettin’ on this one.”
It was going to be a helluva debt, though, because she’d played the best bluff of her life. It was gonna be hell topping this one
.
Part Two
12
Two years, three weeks, and six days and oh, about twelve hours, give or take a few. Math was Shane’s area of expertise, not his. Sebastian knew it had been too fucking long, though. And his siren had grown only more beautiful.
Two years after Summer’s demand that they give Alyssa time to heal, to fight back from the attack and the weakened condition it had left her in, her father’s lover and soon-to-be fiancée, Landra Collier was hosting his fifty-fourth birthday party. God love Aunt Landra’s heart. His aunt ensured Alyssa had to stay in one place for a few hours tonight anyway. Something she hadn’t done at any of the other parties he’d tried to corner her at over the past weeks. She ignored their phone calls, their texts, and refused to see them. And catching her at a party proved impossible.
Sebastian had waited, though. The gifts were presented, the cake was cut, and now everyone was enjoying champagne, dancing, and a jovial atmosphere sure to be the talk of the town come morning. For Sebastian, it was the first chance to approach Alyssa since he and Shane had been forced away from her eight years before.
His siren. God help him, he missed her.
Tonight, she was wearing black rather than the icy, pale, almost white blue she’d worn the first time they’d seen her.
Little sleeves trailed just off her shoulder, gathered, and led to the low-cut back. Her full, beautiful breasts rose above the snug material cupping her like a lover’s hand from breast to hip, where it flared out in yards of material. Behind her, the flow of the dress was gathered just slightly above that pretty ass before falling into a train that trailed behind her a good twelve to fourteen inches. In front, the material whispered to the floor, giving just a glimpse of the toes of her matching four-inch heels.
Diamonds and a single sapphire gleamed between the tempting mounds of her breasts and she wore no other jewelry. Not in her hair or in her pretty ears.
Sebastian made a note to have Shane take the rest of the collection from the De Lorens’ safe and bring it back with him. Pretty diamond and sapphire drops for her hair and around her wrist. The engagement ring he and Shane had had made and pretty earrings.
The rest of the jewelry carried the same theme. A single sapphire protected by two diamonds. The siren protected by them. By their promise.
Always bound, they’d promised her.
Since the night they’d been forced to leave her with Summer two years before, one of them had always watched over her. She was never left without protection, never allowed to be at risk again.
Watching her move now, the feminine shift of hips and rear, he gave a little sigh. His cock was so damned hard it was like iron trying to bust the zipper of his tuxedo slacks.
Eight years. It had been eight years since he’d allowed himself to face her. At least while she was conscious. Eight years since he’d dared to consider approaching her. For six of those years, to do so would have been meant a punishment she would have never recovered from, one he and Shane would have carried the guilt of. For the past two years Sebastian had simply watched her from afar, the changes in her more unsettling than he wanted to admit.
Those changes in personality and behavior were so striking, it was as though he’d never known her. Never touched her or heard her cries of pleasure. They were changes he knew hadn’t occurred without trauma. And now he wondered how he’d managed to stay away from her in the past two years, let alone the full eight. Kept from coming to her, from touching her, loving her, hearing her cries of ecstasy as he and Shane possessed her.
The pleasure they found with her was like nothing they had ever known. It was like being part of a storm, part of ecstasy itself.
She wasn’t the same girl they’d lost themselves to in Barcelona, though. The laughing, sensual young woman in those damned frilly skirts and little sleeveless shirts, her feet bare, her long hair tangled around her face, was gone.
Or naked, perspiration glistening across sun-kissed flesh as she stared at them, crying out her pleasure.
No, she wasn’t the same woman.
This woman moved with restraint. There was none of the promise of passion, and wild pleasure was nowhere in sight. It was deeply hidden, sensed now rather than felt.
Her thick, heavy fall of ash-blond hair that would have fallen to just below her shoulders. Now it was upswept and pinned into artful disarray. Little curls and precisely pulled strands of the multi-hued strands trailed along her neck and the side of her face. Finely arched brows swept over icy gray eyes. Eyes the color of winter clouds, darkened and filled with an oncoming storm.
Lithe, graceful, enchanting. And untouchable. Restrained, careful, without the passion and love for adventure that had filled her that summer in Spain.
Every look, from her perfectly composed expression, her chilly gaze, and her proud posture spelled untouchable. Unapproachable.
The Ice Princess was merely taking a stroll among her subjects and they dare not attempt to even touch the hem of her gown for fear of retribution. Or of frostbite.
The fanciful thought had a scowl pulling at his brow. Alyssa wasn’t icy. She wasn’t uncaring or without emotion. The woman he watched now was the same woman they’d warmed two years ago, the same one whose innocence they’d taken, but the heart of that woman was so carefully frozen now that reaching it was only done when she dreamed.
How they did it, how they’d known her pain, her fears, for the past eight years he didn’t always understand.
His grandfather called it being soul bound. Some lucky men of the De Loren line knew a love that flowed so deep, so strong, that their souls would meld with their women’s. Fernando De Loren had been confused how two of his grandsons had soul-bound the same woman, but he’d been certain the bond was there.
What Sebastian knew was the bond between Alyssa and him was unbroken. Just as the bond she and Shane shared had remained strong, steady.
When she slept.
It was almost amusing how she’d blocked herself from them. It would have been amusing if it didn’t piss Sebastian off so damned much.
Forcing his gaze from her, Sebastian let it travel around the room, as he watched the lustful stares that followed her. Every man watching her imagined she belonged to them. How could they help but to lust after her? She was every man’s fantasy. A wet dream walking. She sure as hell had his unruly flesh reacting despite the invisible Do Not Touch sign he could feel guarding her virtue.
She might be untouchable, but the male eyes there were definitely enjoying the view, Sebastian thought, as he shot the middle-aged tycoon eyeing her ass as she passed, a glare. The bastard was older than her father. He should be ashamed of himself.
The look on Grandpa’s face wasn’t one of shame, though. It was pure appreciation and wishful thinking. That was one treasure the graying grandfather of eight would never have a chance to touch. A sweet the bastard would never have a chance to taste.
She did have a fine ass, though. Nicely curved and pert, it bunched and flexed with graceful movements, the toned muscle shifting beneath her dress and drawing the eye without being in the least overt.
Every move she made whispered come-hither, while every look from her cold gray eyes sent the chill of rejection. And she could have had damned near any man in the ballroom and many of the women as well if that was what she wanted.
The cream of Alexandria’s social set had turned out for her father’s birthday party, thrown by none other than one of the most popular widows among the political elite. Rumored to be occupying the senator’s bed after his wife’s death two years before, his soon-to-be-announced fiancée, Landra Collier, had thrown a lavish celebration.
Aunt Landra was the queen of parties as far as Sebastian was concerned. Imaginative decorations, always with the utmost taste and style, and a guest list that had the political elite vying for invitations.
Champagne flowed from crystal fountains; a buffet of the choicest tidbits was offered as well as sweets so elaborately decorated they look
ed more like confections of art. Several box-office stars were in attendance, as well as a couple of Billboard’s highest-ranking musicians. Music drifted through the ballroom, seducing those who ventured out to dance and making brave even the most timid of guests. And occasionally those Billboard stars stepped to the stage to croon to a rapt, appreciative audience.
The party was also rumored to be a preliminary step to establish backing for a presidential bid for the senator as well. After eight years serving as senator, Davis Allen Hampstead was said to be ready to make his move on the White House. And there were those who believed he had an excellent chance at succeeding.
Though that rumor hadn’t been confirmed among Sebastian’s sources. And his sources were some of the best, even among this crowd.
“Would you explain why you’re watching Ms. Hampstead-Stanhope make her rounds?” Khalid Mustafa questioned him from where he had stepped to Sebastian and leaned against the white marble pillar near the foyer entrance.
Stanhope. Her married name was guaranteed to have him gritting his teeth. Why she’d kept it after the death of her husband he had yet to figure out. Harvey Stanhope had died, along with Alyssa’s mother, only days after Shane and Sebastian had rushed to reach Alyssa. The certainty that Alyssa was dying had nearly driven them crazy before they reached the United States.
They had nearly lost her, twice. Her husband’s attempt to murder her had nearly succeeded. Margot Hampstead’s plan to ensure Alyssa’s husband never harmed her again had succeeded, though. She’d killed Stanhope, even as she’d ensured her own death, according to Summer.
“I don’t consider this your business, Khalid,” Sebastian informed him softly, never taking his gaze from Alyssa. “Go play with your wife.”
Khalid didn’t often need an invitation to get nosy, though, Sebastian had learned, especially when it came to his sense of protectiveness where certain women were concerned.
“It would appear Marty is rather busy at the moment,” Khalid sighed. “But I’m fairly certain I have warned you that Ms. Hampstead-Stanhope wasn’t a woman I would be pleased to learn you and your cousin were attempting to seduce, though. You’re about to make us enemies, De Loren.”