by Callie Rose
He jerked his head at Kingston, gesturing for him to come over as he wrapped his arms around me.
I slumped against Jayce’s chest, sucking his sea foam scent in like it was fresh earth air. Kingston crowded near my other side, and I clenched his shirt in one fist, drawing him even closer.
Help me. Save me.
Jayce tilted my head back and kissed me deeply, pouring all of his essence into me, what felt like his entire soul.
His mouth was like water, and I was dying of thirst. I drank him in, pulling him close, running my hands over his body. Kingston’s arms circled my waist and he rolled me toward him as Jayce released me, then poured his own essence into me. Jayce’s kisses were like sunshine and spring water. Kingston’s were like whiskey and music. They flowed into me, filling me up, one after the other and back again until a bit of my strength returned.
“There,” Jayce said with a firm nod as he finally drew back. He pressed one more kiss to my lips—this one having nothing to do with feeding me—then pulled back, biting his bottom lip as he gave me a concerned look. “Anytime you need it, just say so. That’s what we’re here for, you know.”
“Thank you. Both of you.”
I squeezed his hand and offered him a weak smile. The energy was already leaking out of me. They might as well have poured water into a sieve, but it was enough to keep me steady for a little while longer.
“Let’s go,” I said quietly.
I hated letting them see me like this, so weak and helpless, and I didn’t want to waste the boost of energy they’d given me either.
Kingston and Jayce kept me flanked as we continued onward, as if ready to dive in and kiss me anytime I showed a hint of flagging strength, but I didn’t know if it mattered. I was a table with a leg missing. One poorly placed burden and I would topple over.
Several minutes later, a siren song drifted through the air, harmonizing with the screeching harpies.
“We must be near a sea,” Jayce mused.
“Shut her out,” I said, trying to sound stronger than I felt. “Focus on each other.”
Then I rolled my eyes at myself. Do as I say, not as I do.
The siren’s song reminded me of the school’s healer, Cassandra. She’d told me that I must be a strong succubus to have bonded with four men at once. There was a time when I had believed her.
Yeah, look at me! Strongest succubus in the world, collecting vulnerabilities like they were Funko Pops.
Because that’s what my bond-mates were, really. If I had bonded to one man, I would have been tasked with protecting that one person. Four guys meant four chances for an enemy to hurt me, to break my heart—to take me out of commission entirely.
Beside me, Jayce was drifting, drawn in by the siren’s call. I could feel it.
“Single file,” I ordered quickly. “Jayce behind me. Kingston, the siren’s after your cell phone. Take the rear and guard the treasure. Kai, you’re behind Jayce. Stay in line, and grab each other’s hands if you have to. She won’t sing forever. And we won’t let her snatch any of our own.”
I could smell the sea now. Salt and Sulphur, fish and blood.
We were drawing closer to it with every step, but I still couldn’t see it. Low, rolling hills blocked my view. The blood-red grass that seemed to grow everywhere slowly faded to black as it reached the top of those hills. Not a dead black, but a shiny, vibrant black. I shook my head. Life was all backward here. No wonder I felt like dying.
Dying…
Till death do us part.
That was another thing the healer had told me. That the separation sickness I would feel when I spent too much time away from each of my mates could only be cured by proximity or death. Either mine or theirs.
Which means Xero’s definitely alive. He has to be.
If he was dead, the bond between us would’ve been severed. I wouldn’t feel anything. Not the pull toward him. Not the sickness of being separated from him. I perked up, straightening my spine. This sickness was a good thing. If I ever started to feel better, it would mean…
But, no. I wasn’t going to think about that, because it wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t about to let him die on me.
The siren finally stopped singing as the sun crept low toward the horizon. The smell of blood was sharp and heavy on the breeze for hours afterward. I didn’t want to know what she’d killed.
“Ugh, I hate this place,” Jayce grumbled. “That shouldn’t make me hungry.”
“You’re not the only one,” Kingston said with a sigh. “Let’s make camp and eat.”
Jayce frowned, but didn’t argue. He knew he didn’t have a choice. I squeezed his hand and smiled up at him.
“I’ll buy you all the tofu you can eat once we’re back on earth. I promise.”
His eyes lit up, and he kissed me. I could feel the grin on his lips. “Honestly, I’d settle for cooked meat, but tofu sounds excellent.”
We made camp, then the dragon and hellhound went about the business of filling their bellies. I watched them go, and the sadness settled over me like a thick, prickly blanket. They were both so far outside of their comfort zones, and it was all my fault. Jayce, the life-affirming, beautiful soul, reduced to a base hunter. Kingston, the affluent, aristocratic businessman, forced to hike through miles and miles of nothing, foraging for survival. It was all my fault. If I hadn’t bonded with them—
“Hey.”
The deep voice dragged me from my thoughts, and when I looked up, Kai was at my side.
I blinked. I’d wandered away from camp and hadn’t even noticed. His intense eyes burned as he searched my face. Lifting his hand, he tenderly brushed my dark hair behind my ear and stroked my cheek.
“You’re not okay,” he said quietly.
“I’m fi—”
“We’re lying to each other now?”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and looked down at my feet. Gently, firmly, he lifted my chin until I met his eyes once more.
“What’s on your mind, Pipes?”
“I just—” God, the words were sticking in my throat. “I just feel so guilty.”
He frowned, looking confused. “Guilty? About what?”
I fought back the tears that had been threatening all week, looking up at the sky. A bitter laugh smothered the howling wail demanding to be released from my aching chest. I took a deep breath, dragging myself under control.
“It isn’t all about Xero, you know. I act like I’m all noble in coming here to find him,” I said harshly. “But if I don’t get him back, I’m going to die. And if I’d left any of you at home, back on earth where you were safe, I wouldn’t have survived this rescue mission even this far. All of you are in danger because of me. Fuck. How self-serving is that?” I hugged myself tightly, hurt by my own words. “You all let me drag you through literal hell so I can feel better. So that I can live.”
I expected him to agree with me, to tell me how selfish I was. A more rational part of me expected him to reassure me with platitudes that wouldn’t really mean anything just because he was under my spell.
What I didn’t expect him to do was pull me into his arms and kiss me deeply, but that’s exactly what he did. He wasn’t pouring into me, he wasn’t feeding me, he was just—kissing me.
As our lips parted, he touched his forehead to mine. “Is that the only reason you’re here, Piper? Did you spend two months walking through the underworld just to save your own skin?”
I shook my head, tears slipping down my cheeks. “No. He needs me.”
“Yes, he does.” Kai kissed my forehead and pulled away. His gaze was soft as he regarded me. Then he sighed. “I should have told you this before. Before everything. Before the rebar, even.”
I let a whisper of a chuckle slide from my throat. That goddamned rebar. None of this would have happened if one idiot hadn’t fucked up in Combat class and sent a piece of metal through my damn stomach, nearly killing me.
“I’ve always liked you, Piper. From th
e moment you walked through the doors of FU, I wanted to get to know you better. I knew you were like me in a lot of ways. Defiant. Protective. Full of history that was no one’s business but your own.”
I let a small smile pull at my mouth. Well, he’s got me there.
Keeping one arm wrapped around me, he ran the fingers of his other hand over my hair, smoothing the wild, dark strands.
“That was why I came to you when you were hurt. It wasn’t magic, not at first. I liked you, and I wanted you to be okay. And I couldn’t acknowledge those feelings afterward—or even believe that they were true—because of the magic.”
I pulled away and met his gaze.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” I blurted. “It’s not like you guys have a choice. You’re literally stuck with me.”
He shrugged. “That was how I felt at first. Like I had no choice but to be completely infatuated with you. I don’t like feeling like I don’t have a say in my destiny. You know that. Hell, the Custodians know that. There’s a reason I hid from them for so long. Once you and I were bonded, I started feeling like my feelings were being forced by the magic.”
Yeah. I had always been afraid of that. I swallowed hard, not really wanting to know the answer to the question I was about to ask.
“And now?”
He smiled at me, his eyes warm, his expression open.
“Now? Now I don’t know if it matters. I care about you. You care about me. We both care about Xero. So there’s a magical element to it—so what? Would you leave him here if you didn’t need him? Would you let him die?”
The thought made me viscerally sick. “No! God, no.”
He looked around at the hellscape we were in, as beautiful as it was terrible.
“Neither would I.” Then he looked back at me with a triumphant gleam in his eye. “So, you see? It’s more than magic. I’m done trying to sort through which part of my feelings are mine and which are the bond. All I know is that my feelings are real. They’re mine.”
A wave of emotion pushed me back into his arms, and I claimed his lips in a greedy kiss.
Yes, it was definitely more than magic. This overwhelming desire, this comfort and calm, that wasn’t magic. It was just Kai. Pure and simple. He and I were equals—he my vampire master, me his succubus mistress—and even then, it was more than magic. We were bonded on a human level somehow, in spite of the supernatural circumstances.
My mind finally quieted as our kiss deepened.
For the first time since Gavriel had taken Xero, I had a blissful moment of peace.
Chapter Three
I began to feel better in the following days. I hadn’t realized how much the guilt had been draining me.
Being apart from Xero was still crippling, but it was an easier burden to bear now that I was wholly convinced that I was here on a rescue mission first and foremost—and not just an attempt to save my own skin.
Still, after hours of walking on our thirty-fifth day in the underworld, I wasn’t quite as observant as I should have been. I was focused inward, following Xero’s pull.
“Guys?” Jayce asked hesitantly. “Does it seem a little… cultivated to you?”
I looked up but kept walking. Then I blinked, trying to bring the abstract landscape around me into some kind of sensical focus. I didn’t see what he was seeing.
“What are you talking about?” Kingston wrinkled his brow. “It’s the same as anywhere else. Rocks, shrubs, trees, bones of things, grass, random plants.”
I nodded in agreement, but Jayce’s frown deepened.
“No. They’re not random,” he said as he knelt beside a bush. “Look, the earth has been—”
He was cut off by a vicious roar. A half-second later, he was flattened to the ground by something that looked like a bear. The black and silver furry beast sprang up off him almost immediately and held a spear to his throat. It looked up and glared at the rest of us.
“One move and he dies,” the thing growled.
I raised my hands in surrender and gave the other two men a pointed look, wordlessly commanding them to stand down. “What’s your name?” I asked the dark-haired creature.
The thing—a werewolf, upon closer examination—laughed. “Tell a succubus my name? Do I look like I was whelped yesterday?”
“Not unless your mother’s twenty feet tall,” Kingston drawled dryly.
The thing blinked again, then laughed a different kind of laugh. A friendlier one, I hoped.
“You all aren’t Gavriel’s, are you?” He lifted the spear from Jayce’s throat and reached down to help him up. Jayce took the offered claw warily and pulled himself to his feet.
“Come on in,” he said, turning his back to us. “You look hungry.”
I exchanged puzzled looks with Kai and Jayce, but Kingston just smiled smugly, apparently proud that his smart mouth had gotten us out of danger and even secured an offer of hospitality.
We followed the werewolf through an obscured opening in a twin pair of shrubs and found ourselves inside a hidden little cabin. It reminded me of Vee’s, though this one didn’t appear to be underground. But it was homey all the same, and well-disguised amidst the shrubbery.
“How did you know?” I asked. “That we aren’t Gavriel’s?”
I assumed he wasn’t either, considering he was hiding out just like Vee had been, and he hadn’t killed us the moment he realized we weren’t minions of the fallen overlord.
“Three things,” the werewolf said gruffly. “First, you’re runnin’ around with your human skin on. Second, you gave a shit about your friend here. Third”—he turned and offered a wolfish grin to Kingston—“Gavriel burns the humor outta his recruits right quick. ’Specially sarcasm. He hates it.”
“Unless he’s the one using it,” Kai said darkly.
“Oh, you’ve met the man himself, have you?” The werewolf arched a brow, like he was impressed we were all still alive.
I nodded, not really wanting to go into the full story. Luckily, he didn’t press for more information. Instead, he disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared a moment later with a tray full of hot food and drink. My stomach audibly growled. I’d been surviving in the underworld on scraps of food and lots of sexual energy from my men, but God I wanted a sandwich.
We gratefully accepted the meal and started eating.
“Name’s Michael,” our host said as he sat in a big chair covered in animal hide. “You all look like Custodian recruits.”
“You know about Custodians?” Kingston asked, raising a brow.
“Do I look like an idiot? Everyone knows about Custodians. Those assholes are why I’m here. Tried to go back to earth once, see my daughter and her boys—never met the kids before I was turned—but the fuckin’ Custodians got me before I got to her.”
Kai leaned forward. “Did you tell them why you were there? That you meant no harm to anyone?”
“Sure! Said I’d had it with the underworld, and I wanted to see my kids. Be a grandpa, you know? Workin’ too hard to be the dad I wanted to be, but I retired with a bunch of money. I could’a been the road tripping adventure grandpa! But no, the damn Custodians couldn’t have that. See, I’d been in the underworld too long, according to them. I was clearly evil and lookin’ to turn my daughter and her kids so I could bring them back here with me.” He gestured around with a disbelieving laugh. “Here! Can you believe it? What kind of dad would I be if I tried to bring my kids to this shithole?”
Kai shook his head. “Yeah. We’ve been fed the same line over and over at Fallen University. But I’m pretty sure the underworld itself doesn’t turn you evil.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t. That’s a goddamn lie, and everybody believes it. It’s politics, is what it is. I hate politics. It ain’t the air turning people evil, it’s that son of a bitch Gavriel.”
“How does he do that?” I asked.
Michael gave me a paternal sort of look. Or, as paternal as a man-dog could look, I supposed.
&nbs
p; “You want to know? I been there. I worked in the recruiting office for a bit, janitor stuff. Janitor.” He snorted. “Cleanin’ up body parts. Orderly’s more like it. Or mortician, maybe. Anyhow. They read your mind. They find those little resentments that eat you up inside, and they make ’em bigger. Once that kind of poison gets strong enough, it spreads through your heart and mind, taking over. That’s what turns people evil.”
I instantly thought of Owen. “So—a young man who has shit luck with the ladies but feels like he’s God’s gift to women could be manipulated to hate all humanity. For example.”
“Manipulated?” Michael raises his brows, scratching at his scruff. “Ha! I guess if they were soft in the head, yeah. The same kind they’d recruit to suicide bomb or join the Klan, I guess. But if you got a moral center, boy, they’ll tear you apart.”
My heart sank, my stomach flipping wildly like a dying fish. “You mean… literally?”
“Yup. Seen it lots of times. See, what they do—it’s genius, but don’t think I approve of it just ’cause I use that term; Manson was a genius too—what they do is, they find a picture or a short video in your head, one that represents the whole resentment. They show that to you. Not on a screen or nothin’, they beam it right into your head. Then they hurt you.”
“So they make the connection between the thing someone already resents and additional pain,” Kingston said coolly. When I glanced over at him, I could see agitation churning in his eyes, belying his calm voice.
“Yeah, but it don’t stop there. The human part, the earthly part—they start adding to that. They expand the picture, blow it up—slowly, mind you—until it’s all of earth and humanity. Everything you loved is now part of the picture that brings you pain. But it goes deeper. They starve you while they do this. After, you got demons coming in with food and”—he shot me a look, then raised his eyebrows at the guys—“physical comforts. You’re their son, their lover, their pet, whatever it may be. That hole they dug in your soul? They fill it with themselves.”
Silent tears streamed down Jayce’s cheeks. Kai looked sick. Kingston’s cool, observant mask was frozen in place, an analytical barrier between his mind and the horror he was hearing. I sat and shook, feeling my body temperature rise. Xero was in there, held captive in Gavriel’s clutches. Were they doing that to him while we sat here talking?