“And stay there, cool off,” Ethan added. “For at least a half hour.”
I glared at my companions. “I hate all of you.”
“Walks are good for dogs.” Ethan grinned.
I flipped him off and ran out of the house.
Alex
I WOULD KILL her.
Just like I’d killed them.
Maybe not on purpose.
Maybe it would be an accident. Something that happened out of my own selfish ambition, because the pain was too much, because I was too distracted with my own needs.
But I knew it just as I knew my name, my purpose, my own daily suffering, and pain.
I would kill her.
And it would destroy me.
Her body trembled as I picked her up into my arms and slowly carried her up the stairs into my section of the house, a place I hardly let anyone enter, a place that nobody dared even try since it dripped with my scent.
And my scent had a way of making even the most logically minded people lose their shit.
It was why we never kept pets.
Mason refused to be called one anyway.
The point was, living organisms could only stand me for so long before they either needed me beyond reason, or hated me for their own want.
My parents had hated me.
Why would Hope be any different?
I’d unlocked a part of her that could never be hidden again, a part of her that would always need me, crave me, want me. And if we were separated she would die.
Of course she would hate me.
Because she would run.
And she would die.
And it — all of it — would be my fault.
A heaviness settled across my shoulders as I kicked open my door and laid her on the bed.
Her breathing was shallow.
And my world exploded into bright colors just watching her inhale and exhale.
I was owned by her.
And I would never tell her.
I crossed my arms and hovered over her and then shook her awake.
When her eyes opened, they were red like mine.
Pride swelled before I pushed it the hell down and fought for control. Taking her again would be glorious. This time, I’d hear her scream my name before she passed out, this time, I’d strip her naked and lick her until I had her taste memorized, this time—
“What happened?” She pushed up on her elbows as her eyes went back to a boring chocolate brown. One I didn’t find beautiful at all.
Not.
One.
Bit.
God, she’d tasted like chocolate.
No!
“Congratulations are in order I think.” I winked, careful to keep my tone happy. “We’re mated, and we can now continue on saving the world. Thank you for your participation in the immortal mating program.” I held out my hand. She stared at it. “You shake it.”
“I’m human. I know how to shake hands.”
“Then you’d be doing it, but all you’re doing is staring at mine. I know how much you want to taste them, lick every inch of them, and there will be plenty of time for that when we have our scheduled sex, but until then…” I shrugged. “Out.”
“Out?”
“Yes.” I nodded slowly. “Are you always this dense? Out of my room.”
Finally, Hope took my hand and moved to a sitting position on the bed, she looked good there; she belonged there, by my side, in my bed, between my sheets, me between her thighs.
I shoved the thought far, far away and gave her a perfectly bored expression. “Has your hearing gone?”
“We’re mated.” She said the words carefully then blinked up at me. “And now you’re kicking me out of your room?”
“Here’s how this is going to go, elf…” I sat down next to her and patted her knee. “I’m going to use you for sex, so neither of us dies. I’ll grow in power because well, naturally mates are stronger together… you’ll be fed, clothed, and be given a roof over your head and maybe, if we can convince tight-ass Cassius, we’ll get you a nice 401k with a stellar retirement plan.”
She jerked back. “What did you say?”
“401K.” I leaned in. “Basically we’ll match whatever—”
She slammed a hand over my mouth then jerked back. “I’m not stupid. I know what a 401K is. What I don’t understand is why you’re kicking me out. Aren’t mates…?” A pretty blush stained her cheeks. I wanted to lick the exact spot where her skin turned pink and then see how many times I could make it change color. “Aren’t they almost… married?”
“Yes.” Damn she was frustrating and clearly not getting the point. I didn’t want to be mean. But it was necessary. Keeping her alive was more important than making sure her heart was intact. I would kill her, just like I had killed the rest of her family. A person did not come back from that. I would never forgive myself. She would live.
Or I would die trying.
Even now I shook with the power she gave me, the power that I’d always tried to hide — ever since the elves deaths. I had too much of it — I always did, I always would.
“Look,” I grabbed both of her hands. “It’s been fun, but this—” I pointed between us. “—is nothing but an agreement that mutually benefits us both. We have a world to save from itself, and you have… things to plant.”
Her stunned expression made me want to take back the words the minute I said them.
She huffed out a breath. “So, I’m basically your sex slave.”
“With,” I said cheerfully, “a 401K. Think of the possibilities, kiddo!” I pulled her to her feet and slapped her on the ass. “Now, out you go. I’m exhausted.”
“But—” She choked out the word as tears streamed down her face. “Was I not good enough? Did I do a bad job?”
I hated myself. “I’ve had worse. And with proper teaching, you’ll get better.” She was the best I’d ever had. Even now I craved her, could smell my scent all over her.
Hope was still frowning and silently crying when I shoved her toward the door.
I didn’t have room in my life for failure.
Not now.
Not when I had a job to do.
And I refused to fail them, her race, for the second time.
Distance. She needed distance away from me. Better she know that now than getting her hopes up that this relationship would be anything more than physical.
It was survival.
Necessity.
It would never be love.
Hope
WITH EVERY STEP I took away from Alex, a tingling sensation burned down my arms, like a low-level shock to my skin. I clenched my fingers tightly and kept walking until I reached his bedroom door.
When I placed a hand on the doorknob, another jolt had me resting my head against the sturdy wood before I was finally able to turn the knob and pull the door open.
Why was I so weak?
And why did it feel like I was getting weaker?
That was why he hated me.
I represented nothing but weakness to him.
But how was that my fault?
How was any of this my fault?
The burn transformed into a slow pulsating hum as I glanced one last time over my shoulder to see Alex pull out an old-fashioned kitchen timer and turn it a few times.
“Cooking a ham?” I tried joking. It was either that or actually face the fact that I’d been completely screwed in more ways than one by one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes on.
I’d been a loner all my life.
And yet in that moment, I’d never felt it in such a suffocating way. Maybe it was the warmth he gave off, for one split second I felt beautiful, flawless, important.
Wanted.
I gulped back tears and straightened my spine.
I might be physically weak.
But showing him my emotional weakness was out of the question.
That was mine.
And I wasn’t going to give i
t to him — even if my heart felt shaky with every breath I took.
“Sex clock.” Alex winked. I hated his wink. It made my legs turn to jelly and my body burn with desire. It would be easy to hate him if his smile wasn’t so perfect. If his scent didn’t roll off of him in waves, tempting me, teasing me with every inhale.
He would be easy to hate if he was anything but a siren.
“Sex clock,” I repeated dumbly as my body roared to life.
“I like to be punctual in all things.” He crossed his toned arms over his bronzed chest. He almost looked normal. If normal meant he had diamonds for eyes and hair with shots of shimmering rainbow colors that changed with each movement — each breath. And his lips, full, tempting, made for sin, like they had a mind of their own. How could something so normal, albeit hot, make him stand out as something far more than human? Even now my body betrayed me, but what was worse, he felt — like home. Right. Like all my life I’d been missing a piece and finally found it, only to get told I was wrong. “When the clock strikes….” His grin grew as he moved his fingers in a little come hither motion. “You come… running.” He paused. “Amongst other things.”
My body was completely in agreement with that plan.
My heart hated my body.
And my mind hated everything.
Even him.
I closed my eyes briefly before I opened them again and said the only thing I could say. “I have plants to water.”
His expression fell.
And for a second, he looked like he was going to say something, like he was going to reach out and pull me against his chest and tell me he’d been kidding, or that he couldn’t handle another second without touching me.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, tossed me a pair of keys and said, “Take one of Ethan’s spare cars, it’s right out front. Not the first time he’s been forced to share, oh and Hope? Make sure you shower before you’re in my bed again… I don’t like sharing your skin with dirt. Gets on my tongue… understand?”
I had a sudden vision of chucking the keys at his head or maybe just shoving them into his heartless chest — instead, I shrugged and said. “I’ll be back when my job’s done if I’m too dirty you can always find some other human to torture.”
His predatory glare was back. “Why would I waste my time on another human when I’ve spent all day training you?”
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any ruder, any more cruel.
I didn’t hang my head.
I didn’t cry.
Maybe because I knew it was too good to be true. A siren.
And a glorified gardener.
Who had elf blood.
Whatever that meant.
Green thumb?
Yeah, right.
More like, it was the only job I could get.
I think.
The memory was fuzzy.
Like all of my memories lately.
I ran out of the room before I did something stupid like cried — or worse, begged him to kiss me again.
As I stumbled down the stairs, keys clenched in my right hand, a jarring slice of pain struck between my ribs as though I was having some sort of serious heart attack.
With a cry, I fell down the last three stairs and with a loud crack landed on both kneecaps.
That was going to bruise.
“One reason,” a gruff voice said as two legs appeared in my line of vision. “Give me one reason not to rip his head from his shoulders.”
Strong arms pulled me into the air nearly sending me into the ceiling before placing me on the ground. Mason sniffed my neck and then knelt before me, his gruff hair covering most of his face as twigs and leaves poked out from the sandy brown mess.
“Be still.” He demanded in a low voice before his mouth descended just inches from one knee, he blew across the ripped part of my leggings, exposing one bloody knee, and then did the same to the other. Within minutes, the stinging stopped, and then the crazy wolf man licked me.
Twice.
I tried to jerk away, but his strong grip held me firm.
When he stood. The pain was gone.
The burning in my body — still sadly there.
I didn’t realize anyone else was in the room until a hand appeared from my peripheral and slowly slid up my neck. “I can only stop it for so long.”
I turned and saw green.
Bright green fire.
Ethan’s eyes locked on mine before he very casually touched his lips to my neck while Mason held my hand.
A brief pain stabbed me in the neck.
And then.
The burning increased before steadying off into a pleasant hum that didn’t make me want to scratch my skin off.
“What did you do?”
And why was I between two immortal men like a sandwich?
“Fighting fire with fire.” Ethan lifted a shoulder casually. “It will get better, give him time, it’s a very….” His eyes went back to normal. “Tedious process.”
“That?” I pointed back up the stairs. “That was tedious?”
“It’s harder for sirens.” Ethan spoke the words slowly before sharing a look with Mason.
“Sirens.” Mason spat the word. “Are always hard. Never soft.”
“That’s the point I think.” Ethan offered a slight smile while Mason let out a low growl.
“Thank you.” I rubbed my arms as I stepped away from both of the overwhelming men and then tried to find my way out of the house.
By the time I reached the front door, it had been at least fifteen minutes.
The car was exactly where Alex had left it.
What was I even doing?
Going back to work?
Like that was going to make everything suddenly better? Like my life would make sense again?
But it was all I had.
The monotony of a job.
I had to get away.
From all of them.
But especially from him.
I glanced back at the house and slowly looked up only to see a curtain fall from the window.
Alone again.
Only this time, I knew what it was like to be a part of something — to belong. So the pain at getting in the car and driving away wasn’t only acute. It was a painful awareness that I really didn’t fit in anywhere, that there was something wrong with me, not everyone else.
He didn’t want me.
I was a means to an end.
I closed off my mind to the feelings he’d brought out in me and focused on the road.
Drive to the immortal compound.
Water the plants.
As I had done since the day I was hired.
I tried to conjure up the memory and was left seeing an image of myself at the compound listening to the human training coordinator rattle off instructions. But how had I known about the job? How had I even gotten there?
Already being with the immortals was muddling my mind if I couldn’t even remember what I had been doing two years ago!
Or was it days?
Panicked, I turned up the music and pushed all thoughts of Alex and the immortals away.
Alex
London, England 1815
THEIR EYES WERE empty, as though someone had sucked the souls directly from their bodies. The scent of earth filled the air.
I fell to my knees amidst the gory scene before me, dipped a finger in the blue blood… and tasted.
The youngest elf had just left to get Sariel.
They’d been nervous about another one of the elves.
The scene unfolded before me like a play. One of the elves, the smaller, announced a pregnancy.
A hush sounded around the room as a moment of silence descended over the chosen women.
Elves were capable of mating with immortals and humans alike, they helped further the races — though every time they brought a new life into the world, it meant that they sacrificed their own.
To bring life.
It meant their own de
ath, no matter who they mated with, human or immortal.
That was why they were a protected race.
But weak.
Weaker even than a human. Even though they had blood that fused with both worlds, they were a lot like Dark Ones — they didn’t belong in either.
And yet, it was a great honor, to carry an immortal into the world.
“Who is the father?” one of them whispered with leeriness in her voice.
“He is beautiful.” Her sigh was heavy with longing as the scent of burning wood and charcoal filled the air. “He said he would take care of me… of us.”
One of the other women stood. “You smell wrong.”
“Maybe it is the pregnancy?” another piped up.
“Her eyes. Look at her eyes.” With a choking cry, one of the elves covered her mouth.
The small one shook her head. “I feel fine.”
Dark smoke filled the air and then.
Death.
Five minutes. Had I been on time…
Death would not have come knocking.
I jolted awake from the nightmare covered in sweat. The dreams always ended there.
Like a puzzle without its final piece.
They had never found the killer.
And the bodies of the elves were buried in the immortal compound, locked away from anyone trying to seek any part of their bones for some sick ritual.
Because all immortals knew, the only way to create an abomination — was to use the immortal dead.
My memories always ended there, as if a giant ass chunk of my past was so painful that my brain refused to logically lock onto the memories like they were real. And every single mention of it to Cassius only ended up with him shrugging and saying. “All in good time.”
I wiped the sweat from my body with the cool sheet and stood as the moon shone into the room, casting a silver glow across the white sheets.
She belonged next to me.
But every time I closed my eyes, I saw her blood on my hands.
I would be her death.
With a curse, I stomped over to the window and pushed it open, taking a much needed deep breath.
My car was still gone.
I glanced at my nightstand and let out an irritated sigh. It was late at night — too late for her to be by herself. Who the hell took a job watering plants anyway? Especially a defenseless human?