by LeeSha McCoy
I don't wanna think the worst, but her absence is speaking fucking volumes right now.
Maybe she’s giving me time to calm down…
Fuck that. If I meant something to her, she would've come here to explain as soon as she could. There ain't no excuse.
If the tables were turned, I would've straight been begging Aura or Ella to take me over there so I could tell her what the fuck happened.
And that’s on God.
***
I arrive at hold three half an hour before the match. Everyone's raring to go, but this is the final match of the tournament and there are hella spectators, so everyone's hyped up for this shit.
Shame I’m not anymore.
There’s no way I’m in the right frame of mind for this. I cried half the drive over here, and I ain’t cried since I was ten, when Manchester United lost the cup final. It’s not that I’m afraid to show emotion, I just ain’t really felt anything that deep.
Right now, though, I could easily curl up in a corner somewhere and ball my damned eyes out.
“What’s good, bruv,” Rome says as I dap him.
I give him a nod before dapping Dre and DJ. “Hey, Tiny.”
“Hey.” She looks behind me, so I turn around.
“The fuck is Harmony doing here?”
“She’s come to watch the match,” Rome says. “Mom asked her to on her behalf. Her and dad had some shit to deal with out at the holds back home, so Ella dropped her off instead.”
“Right…” As long as she ain’t here to start a fight, ‘cause I will straight up kill her with this mood.
“Ready for this shit?” Dre asks, smacking my back.
“Yeah.” I try to keep my voice even, ‘cause these brothers of mine know me too fucking well, and I ain't on getting asked a million and one damn questions today.
Harmony gives me a look when she reaches that clearly asks, ‘you sure you're okay?’ Which tells me she knows, but that doesn’t shock me. Her and my sis are tighter than those yoga pants Karrisee wears when I take her hunting.
I sigh.
As mad as I am at her, I miss her so much. If she ain't at mine when I get home, I'm gonna call Ells’ name until she takes me over there.
I give Harmony a nod when she gives me that look again, but then she turns her attention to Tiny.
“The wares from hold one said they forgot their water. Wanna come for a drive with me to grab some?”
“Can’t they get someone to bring it over?”
“Sis, hold one is over an hour’s drive away,” Rome says. “There’s a Tesco just down the road.”
“Yeah, but—”
Tiny’s eyes widen. “I thought I could talk to you about something on the way.”
Harmony sighs, and all kinds of warning bells start firing off inside my head. Something’s up with this entire shit.
“Go on, Har,” DJ says. “It's literally ten minutes there and back. You’ll miss five minutes, tops.”
“Fine. We'll run, it will be quicker. Come, Tiny, let's go.”
They run off the pitch and into the trees, and then I'm engulfed with another wave of emotion that doesn't feel like my own.
I look around at my brothers. “You all good, yeah?”
They shrug. “Yeah, why?”
“No reason…” Maybe DJ’s missing his mate already. I shove the thoughts away and call the rest of my teammates over for a pep talk. “No mercy, understand? Fuck hold one. They’re getting left, just like their water.”
“Facts,” Dre says.
We all dap, then everyone cheers on their way to their starting positions. As much as I ain’t on this, I am glad for the distraction. I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anybody.
The referee blows his whistle, but I don’t kick off, because fear literally paralyses me.
What the fuck is going on?
“Amarey?”
I spin around to see Karrisee behind me on the side-lines, slowly stepping away from Rome, then her eyes find mine.
“Amarey?”
The fuck is she doing here?
Rome shifts with a growl, and then so does everyone else, spectators included.
Then it’s my own fear I feel. “Run to me!”
Thirty-Five
Karrisee
A few moments earlier…
“Can I go yet?” I ask for the millionth time.
“No.”
I grind my teeth as I glare at the back of mom's head. She's pacing beside her throne, and so is dad. Something is going on here but they're not saying what.
‘What do you think it could be?’
‘I have no idea, but they're making me nervous.’
I'm already all over the place. I barely slept last night, and I felt angry on and off the entire time. I know Amarey's hurting and I'm the cause, but as much as I've begged mom to send me to him so I can fix this mess between us, all she's said is no.
She suddenly turns to face me. “I'm going to give you the rest of your noir magic now.”
My eyes widen. “Really?”
She nods, but she doesn't seem happy about it. If anything, she looks concerned. “Give me your hands.”
I hold them out, and she grips them firmly. “I know you're capable of grounding this, sweetheart. You just have to believe you are.”
“Mom…”
“Tell me you believe,” she says forcefully. “Say it.”
“I can,” I reply quickly. “I will ground it. I promise.”
“The earth will speak to you, so listen, and really listen. Trust Malika, she'll always know what to do when you have doubts.”
“I will.”
She kisses my forehead, then dad comes and does the same.
“You're scaring me.”
“We love you. Believe.”
I blink because she’s acting like she’s given me my noir magic, but I haven’t felt a thing. “I don’t—”
She disappears from view, and I arrive in the middle of nowhere.
What the hell? ‘Malika, she didn’t give me any magic, did she?’
‘Not that I can tell.’
This makes no…
I hear a whistling sound, so I turn in its direction and see Amarey in a field with dozens of others. There’s also a huge sea of other people on the other side of them.
They’re wares.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Malika says. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘No...’ I step back. ‘It isn’t.’ “Amarey?”
The closest man to me turns to face me, but his intrigued stare quickly turns into a defensive one, right before he shifts.
“Amarey?” I say again, this time finding his eyes across the clearing.
He looks at the man closest to me, and I see and feel his dread.
‘What are we gonna do, Malika?’ I try to use my magic, but I don't have it. ‘Why would mom send me into this shit without it?’
‘Candessa said something before I left, but I’m still trying to figure it out.’
‘Well, figure harder, because we're about to get eaten.’
All the other wares suddenly shift, and I take another step back.
“Run to me!” Amarey shouts, then he shifts as he runs towards me, barging every ware he comes into contact with out of his way.
I run as fast as I can, screaming as the ware closest to us almost catches us, but just as I feel the whisker of a claw on my arm, Amarey pushes him back and pulls me behind him.
He backs us up and shifts. “The fuck are you doing here, Karrisee? Of all the fucking places.”
“Mom sent me. I think they've set us up.”
He twists his neck. “What?”
I nod. “I think this was all planned.”
He looks back over at the crowds of growling wares stalking towards us. “I fucking knew something was off. Jesus. Stay behind me. Don't fucking move.” He shifts again, and then I can only watch in horror as the wares begin to charge at him, all at the same time.
The first few wares
he deflects, but they start to spread out and surround us, and that’s when the panic really sets in.
‘Malika, do something!’
‘I’m trying. Candessa said to feel, but I feel nothing.’
‘Mom said to ground it. Did she mean my magic?’
‘Maybe.’
‘But we didn’t even ground it in the kratius. She didn’t give me anything that I didn’t already have.’
Malika doesn’t answer, and I begin to lose hope. No wonder mom and dad looked at me the way they did. I’m gonna die.
I stay close to Amarey while he continues to fight, but it's clear he's gonna be overwhelmed soon, and I feel absolutely hopeless. Never in my worst nightmares did I think my life would end like this.
“Mah!” a woman screams in the distance, and then she shifts and charges at me.
My entire life flashes before my eyes.
To my shock, she doesn't attack me or Amarey, though, she begins to help us.
She kicks serious ass, too.
I thank the heavens, but we're still out numbered. I need my fucking sword. I need my magic.
“The earth will speak to you, so listen, and really listen. Trust Malika, she'll always know what to do when you have doubts.”
‘I’m letting you out,’ I tell her, and I relinquish control of my body.
She immediately drops us to our knees, but when I ask what the hell she’s doing, she silences me. ‘Please,’ she begs the earth. ‘We won’t harm you in any way, you have our word.’
Our entire body stills, but then the heartbeat of the earth begins to pulse through us, and I feel our noir magic ground.
Malika and I are forced to merge as the whispers come, and then suddenly, I can translate the growls around me.
“Run with her Amarey. Run!” the woman helping us yells.
“No, Amarey,” Malika says, translating the earth's whispers. “Howl.”
“What?”
We get to our feet and draw our sword so we can stand beside him. “Howl. Now!”
He blinks. “Can you understand us?”
“Yes, now howl!” We swipe our sword against the closest ware to us, causing him to jump back. We don't want to kill anyone…
“That ain’t me. I ain't my mom.”
“Just howl, for fuck’s sake! Trust us.”
He still hesitates, so we use our magic to hold the rest of the wares back, then we slip our hand into his. “Howl.”
And he does, making every single ware here immediately fall to their knees.
Silence falls, and so do the earth's whispers.
‘Thank you,’ Malika replies before handing me back control of my body. I retract my sword and look up at Amarey, but he's staring at the wares at his feet in shock.
“The fuck?”
He’s suddenly dressed in a sweatsuit, and then Ariella appears.
“Tell them they can rise, Mah.”
He turns his head to her. “Sis?”
Sis? “What?”
Ariella nods. “He's my brother.”
What the fuck?
“Tell them to rise, Mah.”
“Get up,” he says, and they do, but they stay where they are.
“Do you want me to remove their memory of this so it buys you more time with mom and dad?” she asks him.
His grip on my hand tightens. “No. Let them find out. I'm sick of hiding this shit.”
“Alright. You two should go. Karrisee, you have full use of your magic here now.”
I just nod. I'm still stunned from finding out she's Amarey's sister.
“Home, Karrisee.”
I almost ask him where, but somehow, Malika uses his mind to find out, and I take us there.
Thirty-Six
Karrisee
Amarey goes straight to his kitchen when we get to his.
‘He’s going to make a drink,’ Malika says.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I can hear his thoughts.’
‘What? How come you can but I can't?’
‘I don't know.’
He stops in his tracks when I use my magic to place two glasses of Caroian rum on his table, then gives me a quick look. “Thanks.”
I don’t even know how I know that he can drink that, but I do.
‘He's hurting, Karrisee. We need to make it stop.’
‘I know. I can feel it.’
He downs one glass, and then the other.
“I'm sorry for hurting you. I swear, it's not what it looked like.”
Before he can reply, I show him the entire memory of what happened, all the way from the moment Heiro approached me to when we took his life.
“Regardless of me not knowing who you were to me, I never would’ve done anything with him or anyone. I haven't so much as thought of another man since you entered my life.”
The pain in my chest eases, but I still feel a lingering ache there.
He sets the empty glass down before coming to stand in front of me, then he rests his forehead on mine. My emotions spiral, but I soon realise they’re his, not mine.
“Seeing that... It killed me.”
“I know.” I rest my hands on either side of his face. “I hurt me, too.”
“We can feel each other, can't we?”
“Yes.”
He sighs as he lifts his head. “Why didn't you come sooner?”
“Mom wouldn't let me. I told you, they set us up with so many things... I just don't know why.”
“The journey. That's what they do. Lessons and shit.”
I let my hands fall to his chest. Now it all makes sense… “They worked.”
“How?”
“Because, everything that happened made me fall in love with you, Amarey.”
A different type of ache replaces the hurt, and I know the pain has left him.
“Say it again.”
“I'm in love with you,” I say, ridding him of his t-shirt. “We both are.”
Malika forces me to merge with her, and then we run our hands down his chest. “We've felt like we've waited forever to touch you. Forever.”
We remember the way he protected us on that clearing, even though he was mad. Unconditional love. This man really loves us, and we could cry with how thankful we are to have him.
We step forward to kiss his chest. “Thank you, for protecting us how you did, for forgiving us…” We look up at him. “We won’t hurt you like that again. We swear it.”
“You better not, ‘cause I’ll kill you myself.”
That makes us smile, and so does he, but our attention soon falls to the pulse quickening in his neck. “We wanna bite you so bad.”
He lifts our chin. “I wanna kiss you…” But before his lips find ours, he hesitates.
‘He's scared of losing control and releasing bane.’
‘Can we stop it?’
She's quiet for a moment. ‘Yes.’
‘Do it.’
‘Done.’
‘What about our venom? Can we stop that, too?’
‘Yes.’
I’m relieved. Something tells me it would hurt him more than it would a vampire if I let that slip.
“Babe?”
I return my attention to Amarey, but before I tell him I’ve fixed the bane situation, I decide not to. I don’t wish to emasculate his self-belief in any way, or make him believe he’s not strong enough to control himself.
“We trust you.”
He curls a firm hand around the back of my neck to pull me closer. “I love you.”
Then finally, he kisses us, and we immediately know our lives won't ever be the same. It's as if our souls have entwined and it’s the three of us against the world.
We gasp for breath, overwhelmed with both passion and fire. He tastes just as we imagined he would, and those lips… We can’t wait to feel them all over us.
“Babe…” He feathers eager kisses along our jaw, to our neck, his silky beard heightening the sensation. “I wanna taste every single inch o
f you... But once word gets back to my parents about what happened, they're gonna come here.”
“How long will it take them?” I ask, completely ignoring his hesitation and removing our dress instead.
“Minutes.” He steps back when he realises we're naked. “Fuck... Then he scoops us up, only to rest us back down on the table. “We should wait until after.”
We hook our thighs around his, then drag a nail along the hem of his pants. “Probably.”
He curses again, but this time at our pussy. “You smell so good…” He runs two fingers through our drenched heat and growls. “I'm gonna destroy you in the worst way.”
We throw our head back and release a passioned moan. “We hope so.”
“The answer was please.”
We’re abruptly dragged to the edge of the table, and after throwing our thighs over his mountainous shoulders, he goes to work with his lips, tongue… Fingers deep, and… “Oh, fuck… There…” Straight to the g-spot with no directions needed.
He even uses his teeth gently on our clit without us asking, undeniably making good on his word. He leaves not one of our special places untouched, and the way he releases low growls and groans drive us wild.
And to feel how much he enjoys it only adds to our pleasure.
“So good, bae.”
Another low growl tells us how much he likes us calling him that, but we also feel his love of it in our own heart. “That’s what you call me from now on,” he says, lifting his head, but then his eyes suddenly darken. “You are fucking sexy. Do you know how badly I’ve wanted to put my hands on this body? This perfect fucking body.”
I open my mouth to answer, but he circles our clit with his thumb, making us moan and throw our head back instead.
“I can't hear you, babe.”
“I…”
He lowers to rest kisses on our stomach, and for the first time, I don’t attempt to cover it. Malika never cared about my insecurities, and now, seeing how obviously aroused Amarey’s been by us, I can finally say I’m glad I was made like this, because I was made perfectly for him.
“Do you want me to bite you?”
Oh, God… Is he seriously going to?