There was a satisfaction that came from watching him fall silent, his mouth clicking shut. Yet more came from shaking Johnno off, feeling the loss and relief all at the same time, clambering over him until I got to the corner of the booth where Lucas sat. His eyes went wide as I straddled him, my hands going to his wrists and holding them down, pushing my face up into his.
“Well?” I said, not letting him look away, shifting when his gaze did. “What are they forcing you to do that you secretly want?”
I felt the power in his body, the muscles trembling with the effort of not throwing me off. And he could, as easily as a cat. They were all big guys, but he dwarfed me so much that I felt almost like a small child trying to pin an adult. I heard the rasp of his breath, the sounds of the band behind me starting to move, protest. But he stayed with me, staring back now, a whole lotta something going through those stormy eyes. I smiled to see that hard mask drop, to see the tempests building in those pale blue eyes.
“It’s this, isn’t it?” I said, grinding my hips down on his, feeling the kinda frighteningly large lump there. He might look like he wanted to rip my head off, but his body wanted to rip my clothes off.
It was about then that I got the game they were playing at the party, my own smile an echo of their sly ones. Did I look like some distant sneering goddess as they had looked like gods? Did he tremble from looking at, smelling me?
Yeah he did.
He threw my hands off, his hands going under my jacket and around my back, jerking me closer, his mouth crashing down on mine. It was an ugly, messy kiss, but the fact that I’d been able to ruffle his feathers so far that he completely lost his cool just made it super hot. He leant me back onto the table, offering me to his bandmates as he followed me down. His bloom filled my nose, a deep woody scent flavoured with pine, making my head spin as his tongue went down my throat, his hands clawing at my clothes. I matched him stroke for stroke, relishing the feel of all that power. While all of them were taller and bigger, he was so much more that I felt almost fragile in his arms.
Of course, all good things have to come to an end.
I had my hands buried in the thick fall of his hair, my lips around his tongue, sucking lightly on it, when the sparks started. Initially, the crackling sound I assumed was just him and I was right, in a way. Then, through the dizzying maelstrom of feeling, I felt the lightning begin again. They shivered at the edges of my vision, like a storm off on the horizon, the strikes of power shaky and hazy. They didn’t get any more powerful, since Lucas hauled himself back and off me. He was going to bolt, I saw it in the raging storm inside his eyes, so I slammed a sneakered foot into the vinyl seat beside him.
“What. The Fuck. Was that?”
Lucas was a mess. His hair was mussed, his shirt rucked up over a fucking gorgeous chest, his eyes wild, but I could feel the combined weight of the group’s regard on him, holding him where he was.
“Name a male god,” he rasped out, still taking long breaths to catch his.
“What?”
“Name a male god. Any of them.”
“What like Zeus or Odin or some shit?” I said with a frown.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” I looked around at the others, who just waited quietly.
“Them, Indra, Taranis, Orhmazd, Stribog. The great sky father,” he said with an unhappy twist of a smile. Weirdly, the lighting in his eyes settled as his expression got more and more angry. “That’s your lightning man.”
“That’s your lightning man,” I echoed.
“We’re all descended from humans and gods. Well, I’m from his. Too pure for some reason. The sentinels, if they knew about this? They’d have me put down like a dog. It’d be quick and humane, but still, I’d be executed. Because he wants back in, dear old great whatever granddad, and from what I can tell, he thinks he’ll be able to do that through you.”
Well, fuck.
14
I sat on the table, unable to form a thought or response, and feeling so spaced out, I was afraid I’d fall over. The guys seemed to think it as well, as Billy and Liam drew me down between them.
“Skin to skin,” Liam said, and the two of them pulled off my jacket, tossing it across the aisle, and then my shirt. That was probably going too far, leaving me in just my bra in the bus, but as their skin settled against mine, the brain fog began to fade.
“I’m out of here,” Lucas said, moving to climb over Johnno.
“No.”
Liam’s voice was like a whip crack, slapping all of us down.
“It’ll be OK, butterfly,” Billy said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me over to rest my head on his shoulder. I wanted to resist that warmly amused voice, that grip, but I found myself settling into him and going boneless. “That’s right. Give it up to me.”
“Why does this make me feel so much better?” I asked, my eyes falling closed.
“All part of the psychic bond you forged so cavalierly.”
My eyes snapped open to see Aen standing up and leaning against the edge of the other table, regarding us with that sly smile of his. His eyes dropped down to study my bra in intense detail, winking at me when I began to splutter.
“A quintet, now a sextet. What an appropriate name.” He chuckled as we just stared. “When fae wanted to pool their resources, just like Daedelus did, hoping to reach for the heavens, they made these kinds of bonds. Bands of unbeatable warriors, kings of neighbouring kingdoms making invincible empires, all a result of these alliances. Tying yourself to others at the soul level, never able to break apart… Beautiful, terrible.” He shrugged. “A bit of both. And now you’ve put down roots, my flower, permanently too.” He looked a little sad at that for a second. “We talked about a courtship period, Jonathon.”
“You don’t know what it was like—” Johnno said.
“Of course, I do,” Aen said with an irritated wave. “She’s no diluted hybrid, no little scrap of a god trapped in mortal form. She’s a goddess. Every single one of us fights the urge to lay ourselves at her feet, craving the bite of her heels as they come down.” Jake whined at that. “But because we are men, we corral her and cage her and tie her down, terrified of what she’d do if she pulls free.” As if to confirm this, Liam’s hand went to mine, Billy’s arm tightening. “But you’re missing the point. If the old bastard in the sky is coming for her, what are you going to do about it?”
Silence fell over the bus at Aen’s words, causing him to snort and shake his head.
“Savage little children, playing with stars in the dirt with no idea what you have in your grubby little hands. Sky daddy’s agents are all around you, wanting to break this apart to package you and confine you all into their established order in preparation for his return, and all you’re focussed on is your petty power struggles. You’re bound now, too late to change that, so the question then becomes what’re you going to do about it? Rutherglen, the host courts, all of them power brokers and goddess killers. And one of their agents is coming now.”
Aen really was like a cat, coming and going as he pleased, and he winked out now just as he’d come. The guys were up, out of their seats, and searching for the man, but he was well and truly gone. But if we’d doubted his pronouncements at all, we were about to have one confirmed. A sharp rap on the bus door had all of us turning to look at who was mad enough to stumble in on this.