You could tell a great deal about a person by the fear that drives them. Was it fear of death and obscurity getting you up and performing each day? Was it fear of being unseen, becoming another nothing in all the other nothings? For Liam, it was losing. Losing a fight, for sure, but more, it was losing this.
He could feel the weight of the band and me around him, pressing in, caging him emotionally in a way that reminded me of Jake. He knew where we were, knew we were safe, and so he could finally unleash. He thrust in deeper, unable to hold himself back, hating pulling back but loving the slow sink inside me. But he couldn’t get far enough in, despite thrusting harder, pushing at my cervix, the sensation a sullen bruise of a pleasure. I craved that stretch. I craved him. I wound my hands in his hair, tugged his mouth down on mine, and worked my body until we became one.
I loved many of my consorts and was well on the way to loving others. My heart just kept swelling bigger and bigger, room always found for the next one. Because that was who I was, deep down—someone who loves. I might’ve run away from that, the consequences, but I found it hard to armour my heart against those around me. But for all of that, I wasn’t sure how often I’d made love.
With Aen, definitely. I remembered his eyes shining bright as we got tangled in each other in his bed, him nursing my heart back to health as he lay between my thighs. With Marlow? Not enough. Not nearly enough. But weirdly, now, this was what Liam and I did. We made long, shuddering love to each other, caught up in each other’s eyes, the presence of the other guys as they slid in close to stroke my legs or my hair or my breasts somehow adding to the intimacy. Liam was always going to come connected to them, so that’s just what we did. The room filled with a divine light, getting brighter and brighter as we lost the fight to prolong this, the feel of each other’s bodies too seductive to resist, but each time we lost the battle, we got closer to this.
He stopped abruptly, looking down into my eyes, something like fear on his face as he fought for more, but when I felt the first jerk of his cock inside me, I was undone. I loved to jump off cliffs? Well this time, I dive bombed off the highest peak, the descent a screaming, writhing, nail-raking fall into bliss. Sex didn’t deserve to feel this fucking good with Liam bloody Hartley, but it did and he did. Caught by the clasp of my cunt, he erupted inside me, thrusting that fraction deeper to get that last little bit of more.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“While you guys are having a great time, some ladies have decided they really need to pee. They’ve been hammering down the door while you’ve been, well, hammering—” Billy said.
“Yeah, we get the idea,” Liam replied, darting in close to take one more kiss before pulling free of me.
I was dazed, sore, absolutely in need of a shower, feeling like I’d been rolling around on a porn cinema’s carpet or something. Jake moved forward with a smile and then waved a hand, making me stiffen as a wash of cool water did just that.
“Didn’t bring a cum rag,” he said. “Something we’ll need to rectify going forward.” He looked around the group with the sweetest smile on his face, obviously imagining all kinds of group public fornication and being so damn happy about it.
Johnno helped me to my feet, then moved over to the door, pulling it open to admit what we thought would be lines of women. Instead, there was only one, Aen, with Mark and Marlow in tow.
“We’ve been made,” Mark snapped. “We need to get out of here right now! Get whatever fae magic bullshit you’ve got going because…”
His words trailed off as the door was yanked open, a smug looking Jimmy standing in the doorway.
“Bringing the girl here? Ballsy move, mate. Woulda loved to do business with you, but you know how the Rutherglen is. Hit them with it, boys!”
A canister was thrown inside the room, spurting out red smoke seconds later.
“What the fuck!”
“Pre-drugged the drinks,” Aen said muzzily, trying to perform the motions to open a portal and failing. We all failed as the smoke seemed almost to push itself into our lungs. “They knew.”
That was the last thing I heard as the world went sideways, everything bleeding to red.
Trigger warning
This chapter has fairly graphic depictions of violence perpetrated on Kira and some of her guys. Skip over if you want to avoid that.
Chapter 30
Be more sensible, take fewer risks, plan things more thoroughly. The new, revised Kira was supposed to be getting in less trouble, not more, but here I was, with all of my lovers, each of us tied to a chair in a very familiar room. The grungy bare concrete décor, the large drain in the centre of the floor, the rusty trail of dried blood staining it, all told me very clearly where we were. My head whipped around, checking to see who was here first, and there was relief and despair when I saw everyone was accounted for. The guys’ heads were still hanging down, unconscious. Not Duke and his crew. I hoped to the goddess that they’d gotten away and were safe, because we very definitely weren’t.
“I got you every single one of the bounties on your list,” Jimmy said as they walked into the room.
“Not Washington and his crew,” the Rutherglen sneered.
“No one’s gonna catch those Mother lovers. Too smart by half, those cunts. Makes me wonder if this lot were little more than bait.”
“He’s not coming for me,” Rutherglen snorted. The two of them watched the power crackle over his skin. “None of them will come for me again.”
We’ll see about that, I thought furiously. My awareness dropped down inside me to the dark well that Lilith usually filled.
“Well, well, look who’s awake.”
The Rutherglen stood over me, tossing a baseball sized red stone up and down in his hand. Slap, slap, slap. I watched it go up and down, a familiar revulsion rising. Whatever they’d given the guys in the club, it was nothing compared to this. That was slight, a buzz that slowly, effectively had ripped down the barriers between us. This? It was like he was tossing an atomic bomb up and down before me, but it was already going off.
“Not so strong now, huh?”
My head fell forward, the effort of holding it up too much. Weakness, nausea, my heart racing to try and make up for a lack washed over me, my gorge rising, and I found myself gagging on the sudden wash of acidic saliva.
“Aw, poor little girl. Thought she could play with the big boys.”
A thin whine rose in me as the world swirled, Rutherglen some macabre tilt-a-whirl attraction, swimming up through the hazy mass. His grin was too wide, his teeth sharp as knives as he smiled and smiled.
“You brought this on yourself. You could have come to me, stayed by my side, Jennifer on my right, you on my left. Together, we could have ruled the world, if you’d just learned your fucking place.”
I had a mouthful of bile anyway, so I may as well use it to good effect. It sprayed from my mouth, splattering over Dave’s smug bastard face, forcing him to jerk away, then he just stood there for a moment as he processed what I’d done.
This was the moment when I thought Lilith would come rushing out from within me, darkening my eyes, melting the electrical cables used to hold me, and we would stab our claws into his stomach. This was going to be the moment when I stopped fucking around and put Dave down like the rabid dog he was. Instead, I remained pinned to the chair, utterly unable to defend myself as he drew back his hand.