by Sadie Moss
“She seems to be becoming a better person,” I note. “Dean says she is, anyway. He could be blinded by love, so to speak, but I don’t think he is. And I’ve seen her thoughts, her memories… it’s just so odd, you know? I’ve never met her. I’ve never actually spoken to her. But I’ve felt her, literally felt her, how she’s feeling, and I’ve seen her life through her eyes—it’s like I know her better than I know anyone else, and yet I don’t know her at all.”
“She could probably say the same about you,” Kasian points out. “In some ways you’re probably just as confusing and mysterious to her as she is to you.”
“Oh, come on, I’m not mysterious.”
“Roxie’s really ambitious and driven. She was probably confused about why you weren’t, why you didn’t have a solidly set career path or a ten-year plan. You’re into dance, she’s into science. I bet you she took one look at Dean and thought you were crazy for never dating him. Just like you took one look at Cross and Theo and thought Roxie was crazy for not dating them.”
Well, when he puts it that way…
“I suppose you’re right.” I lean my head against Kasian’s shoulder and he hums, bringing his hand up to stroke through my hair. “I’m glad that she’s making more of an effort with my family. They deserve a good daughter. But… I also hope she’s not too good of a daughter for them, you know? I don’t—it’s so selfish, but I don’t want them to get too attached to that version of me, because it’s not me, and they’re not Roxie’s family, they’re my family. And I miss them. Fuck, I miss them.”
“I get that.” Kasian keeps stroking my hair. “And it’s not selfish. It’s natural. You know, I don’t know much about Roxie. I only know what I knew from when we briefly flirted and then hooked up once. But I bet you that for all she complains about them, she feels the same way about you and her family. They’re not bad people. They’re misguided, and often selfish, but they’re not malicious. And I think underneath all the nonsense, there’s definite love there. Roxie’s probably freaking out as much about you being with her family as you are about her being with yours.”
I nod against his shoulder. “You’re really good at this.”
“At what?”
“Comforting.”
Kasian chuckles. “I grew up in a family of passionate hotheads. My mom always said that some nurse must’ve switched the bassinets when I was born because I’m nothing like the rest of them. That’s not a bad thing. But I was often the peacemaker at home. It’s just something I’m good at.”
“You’re good at a lot of things,” I tease him, kissing his cheek.
Kasian chuckles. “You’re not so shabby yourself.”
I laugh, and kiss him again, this time on his neck. God, he’s so handsome. Not that—I definitely am not with him just because he’s good looking, but sometimes, when he’s doing something as simple as sitting here and laughing, I look at him and it hits me all over again how lucky I am. I think it with all of my guys. I’m just so lucky. He’s so handsome. Damn, I love him.
Before I can second-guess the words coming out of my mouth, I whisper, “I love you. You know that, right?”
Kasian turns, and I sit up properly so that we’re looking each other in the eye. He takes my face in his hands, and God, I love those gentle hands more than almost anything. How could I possibly give this man up? How could I possibly give up any of my guys?
“I love you too,” he says, like it’s the simplest of truths, like he’s reminding me of gravity.
I should probably be freaking out over this—after all, I don’t belong in this world, and he does, and never the twain shall meet, so on and so forth. But right now, I don’t feel any panic or frustration. It’s just wonderful to know that this man loves me, and I love him, and there’s nothing else in either world that feels like it matters as much as this.
Our lips meet, and the kiss is gentle at first. Kasian’s lips are full and warm, and just firm enough against mine to let me know that he’s got me, he’s always got me. I draw his bottom lip between my teeth, and I feel him smile before he slants his mouth over mine and kisses me again, taking it deeper this time.
His hands find their way to my waist, and mine glide over the broad muscles of his shoulders, and then we start to undress each other. There’s nothing desperate about it, and nothing shy either. Every bit of me that he uncovers is my gift to him, and every piece of him that I reveal is his to me.
We move upward on the bed until we’re lying side by side, mouths still tasting and exploring each other. When he peels my pants down my legs, I can feel him delving into my pocket for the Disc of Eile. He finishes undressing me and himself, and then he moves up my body and almost reverently places the disc against the skin of my chest, letting it rest there.
He kisses a circle around it, pressing his lips to my skin over and over, and I draw in a deep breath as I gaze up at the ceiling. It feels a little like he’s sealing a promise, or maybe thanking the disc for keeping me here with him, for allowing me to come back to him and Cross and Theo when I’m pulled away.
There’s something so achingly sweet about it that it makes my heart hurt, and I shift a little beneath him, trying to find a cure for the pain.
He’s big and broad-chested, solid in every way, but he’s careful to keep his weight on his knees and hands as he trails a path down my skin, between my breasts, down the line of my stomach. I can feel my stomach muscles clenching and relaxing in anticipation as he stops to flick his tongue around my belly button, and I let out a sound that’s half laugh, half sigh.
Kasian chuckles softly, but he doesn’t stop, lowering his head even more as his tongue traces over my lower belly. I gaze down at him, biting my lip as I watch his large frame settle between my legs. My thighs are open, splayed to either side to accommodate his wide shoulders. My toes curl, and my legs move restlessly, anticipation gathering inside me like leashed lightning.
His large hands wrap around my thighs, spreading me a little wider and giving him the perfect angle as his tongue darts out to flick my clit.
Just once.
Just a tiny brush of his tongue-tip.
But it’s enough.
A naked cry falls from my lips as my back arches off the bed, the electric current that was building inside me tearing through my body in an instant. My pulse kicks into high gear, and my whole body shivers as Kasian licks me again.
All my guys are good at going down on me, and I’m pretty sure they all like doing it. But Kasian? Kasian is mildly obsessed with eating me out, and I’d be lying if I said I have a single fucking complaint about that.
Keeping me spread open for him like a fucking buffet, he gives my pussy a deep, wet kiss that leaves me panting. His tongue strokes along my folds, tasting and devouring me, before moving up to lap at my clit. And every time I think I’ve figured out his pattern, he changes it again, ratcheting my body up one more notch.
His tongue is warm and smooth as he laps at me, and it rolls over my clit like a wave until I’m tossing my head back and forth on the mattress, begging for something incoherently.
I honestly don’t know what I want. If I want him to take pity on me and let me come, or if I want him to never, ever stop doing what he’s doing right now.
Both, maybe.
My hands move of their own accord, massaging my breasts and tugging at my nipples, sending little sparks of pleasure dancing through me, a contrast to the slow-building wave of sensation gathering in my pussy. My legs keep trying to close around his head, an instinctive reaction as my body attempts to handle an overload of sensory input.
Kasian’s tongue runs down my slit and back up, gathering my wetness before sliding over my clit. He repeats the motion again and again, slipping deeper into my core every time until he’s practically fucking me with his tongue.
“Oh, God!”
I arch off the bed again, my legs squeezing together hard. And this time, Kasian doesn’t push back. My thighs clamp around his head, and he gra
bs the outsides of my legs instead, pinning me to him and throwing my legs over his back as his tongue flicks over my clit in a blur.
It’s too much.
It’s too fucking good.
I come hard on his face, twisting and convulsing as he keeps lapping at me, pushing one orgasm into another. My ass is all the way off the bed now, Kasian’s firm grip holding me up right where he wants me as he draws pleasure out of me like he’s wringing out a sponge. I fist the blankets on either side of me, holding on for dear life as I keep coming and coming.
Finally, the movement of Kasian’s tongue slows, and I suck in my first full breath of air in what feels like minutes. My muscles are shaky from clenching so hard, and as he gently sets my lower body back down on the mattress, I feel myself sinking into it like I’m melting.
He presses a small, sweet kiss to my clit, and even that small pressure on the sensitive nub draws a shudder out of me.
As I gaze down at the man nestled between my legs, I have a sudden vivid memory of the first time he did this. We barely knew each other then—in fact, he arguably didn’t know me at all—but he still kissed me and worshipped my body like I was something special. Even then, the connection between us was visceral and palpable.
Undeniable.
But now?
Now it’s something so, so much better. He knows me, inside and out. And he loves me. We love each other.
I can feel it in the way he touches me, in the way he reads my body like he can peer directly into my brain.
“Kasian,” I murmur, my voice thick. When he looks up at me through his lashes, I crook a finger, certain my voice will fail me if I try to speak again.
But he doesn’t need any more urging than that. His tongue darts out to taste his lips as he crawls up my body, and I can feel his cock heavy and hard between us when he drops his head to kiss me.
I need him inside me.
Fucking yesterday.
My heels press against his firm ass, and he gets the hint, lining himself up with my swollen, wet entrance and sliding inside. I feel him release a shuddery breath as he draws out and thrusts in again, and he sets a measured pace, moving in and out of me in long strokes that stretch every inch of my channel.
I can’t stop staring at him. I’m lost in him, in the sight of him and the feel of him. His dark eyes are hooded and warm, and I can feel the heat pouring from his body as he plunges into me again and again. Our bodies rock together with every thrust, the bed shifting beneath us, and I hold on to him as my inner walls grip his cock.
Unbidden, tears spring to my eyes, a rush of emotions joining the flood of physical sensations crashing through my body. I blink furiously, trying to keep them from spilling over; I don’t want Kasian to think he’s doing anything wrong.
But I should know better than to think I can hide anything I’m feeling from him. He sees the small drops spill from my eyes, and instead of worry or panic, I see something like understanding pass over his features. He dips his head, pressing his lips to the corners of my eyes, the side of my face, my cheeks, my jaw.
His lips brush the shell of my ear, and his breath stirs my hair as he murmurs, “I know, Gabbi. I know. But love is never a bad thing. It’s the best thing there is. And no matter what happens, I’ll never, ever be sorry.”
The soft words make me cry harder, but it’s a good kind of cry. It’s a release. And when Kasian has kissed away all the tears that spill from my eyes, there’s nothing left but the pure love that burns between us. And when he comes inside me, I wrap my arms and legs around him, taking everything he has to give.
We’re both a little sweaty, and our skin sticks together as Kasian rolls us over, his cock still buried inside me.
He goes back to running his fingers through my hair, gently working through the tangles that’ve developed, and I can hear his heartbeat under my ear as I lay my head on his chest.
I feel… at peace. And I know it’s temporary. I know it won’t last. We’ve still got to get up; there’s still so much to do.
But in this moment, I don’t feel that. I just feel at peace.
And I know, deep in my heart, that I can’t give this up. I love all of my guys too much. I don’t know how yet, but I have to find a way to keep us all together. I just have to.
I can’t consider any other outcome.
Chapter 15
I wake up the next morning with a renewed sense of urgency. I practically bounce out of Kasian’s bed as he groans groggily, looking at me like I grew a second head while we were sleeping.
I don’t know how this whole thing is going to end or what I’ll do once the dust settles and I’ve got to go home.
But you know what? That’s something for future Gabbi to worry about. First things first, I’m gonna take care of this cult so that they can’t get at anyone I care about ever again. Not my guys, not Bianca, not my family—not even Roxie.
Maybe I don’t know her in the conventional way. Maybe we haven’t officially “met.” But I know her. We’ve seen each other in the most intimate ways possible, and I care about her. I want her to be safe and happy too, just like everyone else I have in my life.
Kasian and I meet up with the other men, and we start out the day by going to the library.
We’ve been holding off the cult from getting to Roxie, but having met their leader face-to-face last night, I’m determined to do more than stop them.
I want to take them down.
And that means we need to dig up more information on them.
There has to be a way for us to identify their members. Gunner had that owl tattoo behind his ear, but you can’t exactly go up to people and tug back their ears to see if they’re in a cult, and besides, that might not be a cult-wide thing. Maybe Gunner only got it because he wanted to look “cool,” and it was a lucky guess of mine that it was associated with the cult. Maybe only certain members of a particular rank are allowed to get that tattoo. Maybe they all have that tattoo in different areas of their body.
But there has to be some other way to figure out who they are and where they operate from, so—to the library we go.
Theo is all over the internet research, and Kasian’s good with the books, but Cross and Bianca get bored quickly. Cross might be a top student but his studying methods are, shall we say, haphazard. And Bianca’s constantly getting distracted by something—usually social media on her phone.
We do manage to find some information on the Cult of Singularity, but just like every other time we’ve looked, we run into the same problem.
Namely, the fact that everyone thinks this cult is complete nonsense.
Laughable, even.
It reminds me a lot of how people view Scientology in the Dull World. Scientologists believe in insane stuff like aliens coming down and creating the human race, that we’re constantly beset by evil invisible spirits, and all these other wacky things. Or maybe we are the aliens, but we’ve forgotten? I don’t know. Point is, nobody on the outside takes it seriously.
This cult sounds much the same, which explains why those cops were laughing about it.
Occasionally, we find a news article about a former member who says the cult is full of awful people who abused them, but for the most part these guys are the laughingstock of the cult world. Even other cults apparently make fun of them. Good lord. I mean, you’ve got to be on the low end of the totem pole if other cults are laughing at you.
Nobody takes these people seriously. They think that the cult is insane for thinking that the other world, the Dull World, is holding the Hidden World back in their magical potential, and even crazier for wanting to erase or destroy that other world.
Even if it was possible, the articles say, and it isn’t, why on earth would we want to do that? But it’s not possible and we can’t do that, so let’s just laugh at these idiots instead.
Except clearly, it is possible, or at least a lot less impossible than everyone thought.
“Sheesh. Good thing we didn’t go to the poli
ce,” I note as we all crowd around one of the books Kasian has found, a tome studying various cults and how they lure people in with their twisted rhetoric. It’s called Mom, It’s Just a Phase, and it takes a bit of a humorous approach to the whole thing in between dispensing advice and information.
“Yeah, they would’ve laughed us out of the station,” Cross adds.
“Or they would’ve gotten us in trouble for pointing fingers,” Kasian says. “And they might’ve realized who Gabbi really is.”
“What I don’t understand,” Theo murmurs, pointing at a few lines on the page, “is why nobody’s ever taken them seriously when this cult has persisted for so long. It’s one of the oldest cults out there; look at the timeline. But everyone just assumes it’s ridiculous, despite its staying power. Why?”
“In my world we have something called the Illuminati,” I point out. “They were an actual group, in the 1700s. But they fizzled out after a couple of decades. It was this really popular thing at the time to try to form secret clubs, I guess. But for some reason there’s been rumors for literally hundreds of years that the Illuminati still exist and that all these famous people are secretly Illuminati and trying to take over the world.” I shrug. “Sometimes ridiculous rumors persist because they’re so ridiculous?”
“But this isn’t ridiculous,” Bianca grumbles. “It’s real, and it’s dangerous.”
“There’s nothing useful in here.” Kasian closes the book and shoves it away with a sigh of frustration. “Nobody ever took them seriously so nobody’s bothered to get concrete information on them. Nothing on their initiation practices, how you recognize members…”
“Other than the creepy people in cloaks who were following me around,” I add in a mutter. “But obviously not all their members wear cloaks, or at least, not all the time.”
“So we’ve got nothing.” Cross blows out a breath. “Great.”
“Nobody ever thought they’d be a real threat,” Theo says. “So nobody bothered to dig up valid information on them.”