Phoenix Everlasting

by Rebecca Royce

  I dramatically sighed. “I can’t believe in coincidences enough to get my head around the shadows picking Levi’s company for any other reason besides Levi being there.”

  “Unless it has to do with the semiconductors. Electricity. I mean, maybe they picked it because they need something from the place. And Levi being there was a benefit. If they really wanted to use Levi to get to you, their chance to do so ended. Once you could see who was a shadow and who wasn’t, they couldn’t spy on you from him anymore.”

  He made very good points. “So why electricity? What do they need to have happen?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.” He rubbed his eyes. “When I told you to stay or go, I didn’t mean for you to join in the fight. Frankly, I thought you’d leave. You don’t like watching the bodies fry.”

  “I’m never going to leave you in a fight. Whatever else does or doesn’t happen in the future, you’ll never have to face that dark alone.”

  He sucked in a long breath. “You never have. Even when you weren’t with me, you were. I’ve always been able to see you like you were that day when we were so young. You took a bullet, and you still tried to protect me.”

  “Tried being the key word. You did die, too, if I recall.”

  “I …” He shook his head. “The battle is making us sappy. I don’t want to get too ridiculous here.”

  What I really wanted was for him to take off all my clothes and—

  “Mom?” Grayson’s voice called out, followed by Dex. Soon the kitchen was filled with my family. The kids. My parents. Levi got off the phone and came inside. I moved to greet them all. Malcolm didn’t budge. I could feel his eyes on me as I moved around, getting everyone snacks and hearing about their days.

  Grayson pointed at me. “Was that Victoria who moved the picture in the hall? I know it wasn’t me. I mean, I wish I could do that. I can’t. I’ve seen her do that.”

  I kissed the top of his head, thrilled he let me and didn’t pull away. “It was Victoria and me. We did the wrong thing. We should not have done that. I’m sorry I interfered. It’s important we remember our values, even when things go askew.”

  He had such serious eyes. “I loved it.”

  “I know. But most of the time, the harder thing to do is the right thing and, conversely, the wrong thing is easy and fun. Victoria and I were not our best selves today.” I met Levi’s gaze, and he nodded at me.

  Molly grabbed my shirt. “Did you hurt your arm, Mom?”

  “I got burned cooking.” Lie. “That’s why we’re having pizza tonight.”

  My mom walked to my side and kissed me on my cheek. “Honey, I can cook.”

  “No, it’s a pizza night.”

  Levi nodded. “Pizza for sure. What do you like on yours, Malcolm?”

  “Mushrooms.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Thanks for the invite.”

  I wasn’t used to seeing Levi drink too much. He’d had a couple of bad nights since our marriage dissolved. Still, watching him drink and drink at my kitchen table proved something of a new experience for me. Fortunately, the kids didn’t seem to notice. They went to bed pretty quickly after dinner, and my parents followed suit. I could hear the television we’d recently installed in their bedroom playing what I thought was Perry Mason.

  Malcolm hadn’t budged from the table as he sipped his water with lemon. Exhaustion rode me hard. Were they waiting each other out?

  I sat after cleaning the kitchen and stared at both of them in turn.

  “Long day.” Was it okay to kick out the people you loved? To shove them out of your house?

  Malcolm grinned, a side smile. “I think Levi has something he wants to say to me.”

  Levi set down his wineglass. “So many things. I’m not really sure where to begin.”

  “Do you have enough liquid courage to get to it, or can I pour you some more?”

  I kicked Malcolm. “Sarcasm is not called for tonight.”

  Levi pointed his finger at Malcolm. “You burned down my office building.”

  “That was actually a courtesy for the families of the people who were killed when the shadows took them. I did that for Kendall. She’s worried we might someday have to identify your body from a pile of ash. Doesn’t concern me quite as much. But she’s got a sensitive soul.”

  Levi pushed his chair from the table. “It isn’t going to be fried up. It’ll be you. And when you’re good and dead from whatever you do to get yourself that way, I’ll pick up the pieces and have my family back.”

  I pressed my hands into my eyes. “Maybe you’ll both have to identify me. We all end up ashes one way or another. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that.”

  Levi laughed. “I don’t think I can drive.”

  Malcolm drummed his fingers on the table. “I can, but I don’t want to.”

  Wow. This was really going to be quite a night.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the end, Levi passed out at the kitchen table, head on his arms. I only realized he’d conked out when he started snoring. Malcolm rolled his eyes and stood. Before I could even fathom what he was going to do, he had put my ex over his shoulder then set him on the couch.

  “Kendall, baby, grab a bucket. In case he pukes in the middle of the night. I’m going to roll him over on his side.”

  I took a red popcorn bowl from under the sink and brought it over to him. “Thanks.”

  Malcolm raised his eyes. “Blanket?”

  I went back and forth to the playroom and then covered Levi with an extra quilt I kept in there. “Why are you being so nice to him?”

  “He had a bad day, and in the end, it’ll probably be he who ends up with you. I’m actually glad to think you won’t be alone.” His dark gaze met mine, and the heat I’d gotten accustomed to with Malcolm, even if I’d never get used to it, spread through me. He rose to his full height, staring at me.

  I motioned for him to follow me to the hall and stopped by the stairs. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “Because I’m going to die on Friday. Most likely. This was always a skewed fight. I’ll play my part and do my best. But my second death is days away. I can’t win you if I’m not here to compete. That being said, if he keeps drinking himself into a stupor whenever things go to hell, he’s going to spend the end of the world drunk. That won’t be of much use to you or your kids.”

  “I think over the course of my whole marriage I’ve seen him intoxicated once.”

  He shrugged. “Things were good then.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Levi right now. I want to talk about what you just said. You don’t have to do this. Decline the duel. I don’t give two shits if you battle and—”

  He took my face in his hands. “I don’t want to talk at all. Is that a possibility for tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  Maybe I should have cared I had a full house of sleeping people and a passed out ex-husband downstairs. Only I didn’t. Not one single bit. He picked me up like something out of a movie, and I did, for just a few moments, feel like a princess.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever been worshiped before, but that was what his gaze did to me. I shuddered. Was it possible to drown in the heat from his eyes?

  “When I’m gone, Kendall, I want you to remember me. Don’t find a way to forget. If there’s such a way. If Chase offers. Or Victoria. If they can make it all go away, for whatever reason, you say no. You hold me in your memory somewhere because, so help me, if there’s somewhere for me to go after this life, I’m going to wait for you there. If I have to remind you who I am, I’m going to be seriously pissed.”

  A tear slipped from my eyes and then another one. Before long, I sobbed against his shirt. He didn’t try to stop me with platitudes but held me while I alternated between weeping and banging on him.

  I must have looked like a lunatic—my face red, my eyes puffy—and yet he kissed me like he couldn’t get enough of me.

  “Darling girl. Enta hayati. Time was always meaningles
s to us. We should never have been given even these moments.”

  I know I said something back to him, but I couldn’t even fathom what I uttered. I needed his kisses, his hands on my body, the feel of his skin on mine. I stripped him of his shirt and pushed him down on the bed beneath me. Desperation made me bold. If he didn’t like something, he could let me know.

  His hands were in my hair as I travelled kisses down his body. He tasted of life, of love, of heat, salt, and male glory. I knew I wasn’t in my right mind. I didn’t care. I wanted him. I shoved at his pants until they were off, and I continued to travel down his body.

  “Kendall.” His voice was rough. “Let me touch you.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You stay where you are. For now.”

  He groaned. “Such a pushy girl tonight. Okay, you have your way. For now.”

  I stroked his cock, feeling him tremble when I did. He was long, hard, and heavily veined. I ran my fingers over the mushroom at the top of his length. He moaned, his hips jerking slightly. I wanted to know him completely. If we only had days, and I truly hoped he was wrong, then I didn’t have time to lose.

  He pressed himself against me as I stroked him. My mouth watered, and I gave into the need to taste him. We’d been in such a hurry the last time I’d not gotten to do this. He was long and hard. I couldn’t get him in my mouth the way I wanted to. I took him as far as I could to the back of my throat before I finished stroking him from the base to the top of my mouth. It must have been what he wanted. His hips buckled, pushing him further into my embrace.

  I pressed down as much as I could, moaning from the sheer power of the moment. He was fearless, and he was mine.

  “Kendall.” My name on his lips sounded strained. “You’re going to make me cum. I don’t want to in your mouth. Don’t get me wrong … yeah … I want to be in your hot warmth. I dream of it.”

  I quickly rid myself of my clothes; he watched my every movement. When my breasts were visible, he stroked his hand across my nipple, pebbling it. I didn’t waste time. We had so little. I stroked him one more time before I straddled him and pressed him deep inside of me.

  He moaned, and so did I, the sound like music to my ears.

  “No. Me on top.” In a move I didn’t see coming, he used one of his legs to trap me against the other one and managed to roll us both over until he was above me. “I want it like this.”

  He didn’t ask me if I was okay with that. To do so would never be Malcolm’s way. I nodded just the same. However he wanted me, whenever we could be together, I was game.

  I expected the wild ride of last time, and when he slowly pushed in and out of me, so achingly slow and somehow beautiful, I could barely breathe for loving him. He held my gaze for a moment before his lips caressed mine, ever so gently.

  “I love you.”

  I bit the bottom of his lip. “You’d better.”

  He grinned at me before he picked up his motion. I wrapped my arms around him, drawing him further in.

  It was fast. I didn’t need much coaxing. Simply having him inside of me had been what I needed. Malcolm was as familiar to me as an old lover who knew my body, and yet new at the same time.

  His neck muscles clenched. I could see how badly he held himself off from cuming too soon. I kissed him hard. “Don’t hold back. When you go, I’ll go.”

  He let out a long breath before he came hard inside me. I closed my eyes, letting the beauty of our joining move me to completion.

  Sometime later, I pressed against his side. I wasn’t asleep, but I suspected he dozed next to me. “Malcolm.”

  He opened his lids. “Ready to throw me out?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how you can stay, what I can tell the kids about your being here in the morning.” I rubbed my hand over the light dusting of dark hair on his chest. “Do you want to see if we can figure something out?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to do breakfast with your kids.”

  “Malcolm.” I kissed his chest. “You say things like that, and I want to throttle you. But I have to stop and think. You’re actually really nice to my kids, and they seem to really like you. Grayson may be hero-worshiping you. I mean, hell, you pulled a demon out of him and almost died. I’ve seen you checking on him at night. You ate pizza with us. Ice cream. So I’ve got to ask you, is it that you don’t like them or is it something else?”

  Malcolm stroked my arm slowly. “I never said I don’t like your kids.”

  “So help me, if you say you just don’t like kids in general, I’m going to bite you.”

  His eyes flared. “I like when you bite me. Might be worth it.”

  “Come on.”

  “Kendall.” He kissed my cheek. “I like your kids. I like them a lot. I’ve liked them since the night with the demon. They’re cute and nice. Super smart. I don’t think you’re even aware of how much they’re like you. How could I not like them? Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with children. But I like yours.”

  His words filled me with such a ridiculous amount of happiness. It didn’t really matter if Malcolm liked my kids or not. Yet I loved that he did. I kissed his chest. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Fifty-fifty, I’m dying on Friday. You want them to get close to me now?”

  I wanted to lock him in a trunk and not let him out until Saturday. I wouldn’t, of course. Malcolm had been trained to battle shadows. If he won, things would be much better for all of us. I loved him, but that didn’t mean I got to change who he fundamentally was. Or, at the very least, who he’d been made to be.

  “I’d say your odds are more like sixty-forty.”

  He laughed, which is what I wanted, so I grinned. “If I don’t die, I’ll come over here, go to sleep, wake up, and eat bacon with your children first thing.”

  “Will you haunt me?”

  He shook his head. “Much as I’d like to follow you around for the next fifty years, I don’t want to terrify Grayson or get sent away by Molly. I think I’m going to haunt Chase instead. He won’t be able to see me, but he has just enough power to know I’m there. It’ll irk him forever.”

  “Don’t die, Malcolm.”

  When I awoke in the morning, his half of the bed was empty. I smoothed my hand over it. I’d never slept a night with Malcolm, not when we were alive anyway. I groaned and closed my eyes. I’d slept through his leaving.

  I got out of the door, emptiness dragging me to move even slower than usual. It was early, and I had no idea if Levi had to go to work, if he still had a job, or what exactly had to happen now. My parents and the kids wouldn’t be up for another hour. I made my way to the coffeemaker and stood there while it slowly dripped, as though the smell alone might make me wake up.

  Levi groaned and stumbled into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “Almost.” We stood in silence for a minute. I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him this morning. Finally, when the beloved caffeine was ready, I poured us both a cup. He took two sips and looked at me through red-rimmed eyes.

  “I won’t do this anymore. I’m sorry I’ve done it so much lately. This isn’t me. No more drinking until I can’t think. I don’t have a problem. I don’t need to develop one.”

  “I’m not sure how or why or when a person becomes an alcoholic. This is a tricky subject. Just … please. I can’t worry about this with you right now. You’ve been through hell. A shadow almost killed you, and I had to help Malcolm set your conference room on fire.”

  He set down his cup. “I thought you were dead. Chase and Block are dragging me out to the parking lot, holding me there, and the building starts smoking. I thought, ‘That’s it, Kendall’s dead.’”

  “Well, obviously not dead. I tend to come back from that.” I waited for him to laugh. He didn’t. I shuffled my feet and wished I hadn’t made the joke to begin with. “Anyway, um, we still don’t know why they’ve targeted your office. Malcolm thinks it might not be about you. It might be a
bout the semiconductors themselves.”

  “The shadows want electricity. And for some reason they need it …” His voice trailed off. I could see his mind working. He contemplated all the reasons shadow creatures might want to use what his company created.

  I patted his arm. “There’s something else. I don’t want to lie to you. This thing between me and Malcolm, it’s serious. I don’t want to hurt you. Okay? I’m bumbling this.”

  “You’re trying to let me down easy? There’s no way to do that. I’m in love with you, Kendall. You were my wife. I’m not just going to let you go. I won’t get drunk again. At least not alone in a pathetic kind of a way. I’m not going anywhere.”

  My heart beat so strongly in my ears I could barely hear over it. “Listen to me. We’re done. We were done the day we signed the divorce papers. I’m sorry I keep hurting you.”

  “You’re in love with him. I get it. You’re also in love with me. This is going to end, and we’ll be back together.”

  “Oh, Levi. Right now, I just want to shake you.”

  “You’re in love with him.” A voice around the room caught both of our attentions and we jumped at the same time. Levi grabbed me, pulling me into his arms. We saw him at the same time. Top Hat. The most powerful shadow we’d ever encountered, and named thus because of the top hat he always wore, stood across the room from us. To see a being with no visible color, no discernable facial features, and yet that existed as a being of total darkness speaking to us would have sent Levi over the edge even a year ago.

  Unfortunately, Top Hat had nearly killed him and given him the ability to see the living shadows in the meantime.

  “You love the Warrior. You always have. Even as a child you loved him. That man, who should be with us, pulled the trigger on that gun, and you tried to stop Malcolm from dying. You didn’t know it at the time, but that moment alone is what sent you reeling toward the Others. The meddlers. You gave them the right to use you in a battle that’s none of your business and never was.”