“What did you see?” Saige asked, her body was visibly trembling with need. Her chest was heaving, and her skin flushed. Talon had always managed to get her nice and bothered with one dark glance. He’d be a liar if he said it didn’t stroke his ego.
Feeling full of himself and thirsty for all of life, his vim pushed her against the wall, in the next beat one hand was on her ass, the other bracing her protesting arms against the wall above her. Her words moved quick and smooth across her lips as she repeated the same chant she always said when he had her like this. He had no idea what she was saying, but he knew damn well it was meant to ward him off.
For all her gifts in witchcraft, you would think by now she would’ve given up on the spell that had never worked. The words only made him hungrier for her, fuck some barrier. Telling Talon no while her emotions were screaming out the longing she felt was the same as sending him an invitation.
Talon squeezed her ass just so, then against her neck said. “I see that my ass is back.” He squeezed harder. “Do you want to know what I smell?”
When her chants moved beyond a whisper, and the sultry tone of her voice defined the words even more, he softened his touch, silently allowing her to run, but she didn’t move. Saige stayed right there caged by his body, trembling as she stared up at him.
To this day, there were some immortals that could not begin to discern Reveca from Saige, even when they dressed in their own way. Talon had always known, at least—he’d learned his lesson the hard way the first time he had mistaken one for the other, and vowed to never do so again. Now sober or drunk, to him there could not be two females on the planet that looked and felt less alike than the pair of them.
Inside and out, nothing was the same. Saige’s eyes were not gray like Reveca’s, but silver. When she looked at him the way she was now, they grew even paler against her midnight colored pupils. Her lashes were longer, touching her high cheekbones when she looked down and away from him. Saige’s bottom lip was fuller and bruised from where she would bite it in thought when she assumed no one was looking.
Her shoulders were petite, where Reveca’s were strong, but each twin carried their own burdens. Reveca had the body of a Goddess full of curves a man could get lost in. Saige’s curves were less abrupt, lean and willowy until her glorious hips bloomed out like a rose, shaping an ass that haunted his dreams.
He noted all the physical differences within the first day of knowing them both; the ones on the inside had taken him lifetimes to understand. Considering neither one of them were chatter boxes about their pasts, Talon had to understand them on another level. The sisters were broken females, each mysterious, powerful, and otherworldly. No one would argue these obvious points.
It was where their pain came from that set them apart. Reveca mourned for the past, Saige mourned for the future. Reveca had nothing to lose, and Saige had it all. Every rule was broken by Reveca, while Saige held them all sacred.
Talon’s hand, still resting on her ass, guided her forward, unabashed he let her feel the effect she still had on him. “We can go down memory lane another time,” his words came out in a broken dark whisper. He wasn’t so good at hiding her effect on him either.
The last thing he was ready to do was to discuss all he felt and saw in his battle with Ambrosia. Someone had just rewritten the book of his life, and he’d be damned if he was eager to dive in. There were some miseries he’d rather live with than endure life without.
Saige was one of them.
“Tell me what you saw?” Saige said again having better luck hiding her nervousness, but not much.
She was determined to know what occurred in his battle with Ambrosia. Talon was sure she’d felt all he endured. At least the emotions. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing, this bond between them was nothing more than a sacred honesty. There was no hiding the darkest or most blessed emotions. The way she felt now, grateful and fearful, was charming his ego. Time had done nothing to subdue this fire he felt when he let himself notice this female.
“She’s dead,” Talon said slanting his head. “So no worries, this guilt you have for nearly walking me to my grave can die now. It shouldn’t arise again.”
His lips hung in a smug half grin. He felt her senses reaching out to him, looking for faults. There were none this time. He had not bagged some random female just to dull the pain and take the drop of vim it would give him.
Saige wasted no time stating her disgust for him and his actions in the past. Their last fight decades before she had belted, “Why in the fates you belong to me I will never reckon.” If she weren’t crying, he might’ve taken offense. But she was, she was breathless and furious.
She had caught him with someone beyond Reveca. To Talon it was business. Reveca had ditched them, and he was heavy in the middle of a battle with Rogues. The last he’d seen Saige before then she had spelled the crap out of him, a curse that nearly made him hate her as much as she wanted him to. He wasn’t about to give her another shot at adjusting the mojo behind her curse. Hating her would be a new kind of hell, a life without a ray of hope of ever finding a true connection.
“You know this means nothing,” he’d said to her. “Now that you’re here it’s over,” he meant he wouldn’t need random fucks to feed his vim; he could just look at her. Saige didn’t take it that way; her emotions were so raw and painful as they crashed into him that he nearly cut his own heart out hoping it would stop the pain and madness.
He clutched her then too, “I feel you. What is it going to take for you to surrender to what is between us? How many tantrums does your sister have to throw and must I live through? Do you mean for me to love her? If it hasn’t happened yet, it won’t. Not the kind of love you know I have in me.”
Saige shook her head as she weakly tried to pull away; he pulled her to his chest, and rocked her side to side as his hands moved through her long blond hair.
“You have to keep her alive...”
Talon gritted his teeth. This was Saige’s common plea: for him to keep Reveca alive. With Saige, it was always about someone else. Never about her. “I won’t chase her anymore,” he said quietly, he could feel Saige’s emotion settling as he swayed her.
“It’s almost over,” she’d whispered.
Talon had thought they had gotten somewhere with that fight, he was wrong. The next day she called him everything in the book, above all a whore who could not go one night without rutting with the first female that crossed his path.
Well, now he’d proved her wrong, hadn’t he? It nearly took his life, managed to get him raped by Reveca, but he had held his ground. The next time he was inside a woman it would be because he wanted to be there. Using females for vim, to burn bridges, and any other reason was dead and gone.
He vowed it.
Saige could search all she wanted; she’d only find his loyalty to a forgotten hope. Saige dropped her stare from him and looked to the side. “I could not come to you.”
“Why?” He tried to force the same anger into his tone that he always directed at her when they were not alone, or hell, when she was mentioned. But his humanity, a weakness only she could bring out, overshadowed any anger he tried to force into his question.
“The pain is necessary.”
Like a thousand times before he wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or herself.
Talon had a list of points he could argue with her now. So many things had come to pass, things he knew she had been waiting for. Still Saige did nothing, said nothing. Every second that had ticked by since she told him to let Reveca go to King had made him feel worthless. Like a discarded tool.
Talon had asked himself over the years what he would do if he and Reveca were not speaking or seeing each other and Saige finally came to him. Would he have the heart to set Reveca free? He never knew the answer. Day by day, he and Reveca had woven their lives so tightly together that Talon could not fathom a final division.
Then King happened. A lover returned from the grav
e, a male suited to protect Reveca from herself as well as Talon ever had.
Talon had felt an end begin to bloom, but it was Saige that held the match that would burn it all down. She was the one who knew a cruel secret. That it was not Reveca who sustained his immortal life, but Saige and the coven.
Saige told him this cruel secret while she was hidden behind a spell that shrouded her emotions from him. She had used this spell in the past; if he focused he could still sense her strongest emotions. That night he felt nothing. Saige was coldly telling him to leave Reveca, and she was doing so behind a closed door. No invitation to come home.
Talon’s tattered ego had tossed around the reasons, plots and plans he could’ve missed. The best he could discern was his role was to keep Reveca alive until King returned. Talon and his men were side effects that the coven could and would dispose of if it meant getting the Rapture they lusted after.
Saige had never bothered to prove his theories wrong. From Talon’s throne at the Boneyard, he’d heard all the long awaited fates surfacing, the time Saige had waited for was here.
“Rumor has it your daughter is well and safe,” Talon said as his forehead met hers.
Saige’s devotion to her faith had always wrapped around her missing daughter. To others, Skylynn’s absence had broken Saige. Talon knew better, her daughter’s absence was proof that whatever she said would come to pass was already well on its way. This child was the reason she gave him when he asked her to come to him. Saige refused to live her life until Skylynn was home.
The father? He was an angel in Saige’s eyes. Did she love him? The way any holy person would love a benevolent being that chose them for a pious task. It was hard as hell for Talon to discern the emotion between Lorcan and Saige. Once he did, he found a way to live with it. To see the fuck as some ass that had long since skipped town. According to Saige, Lorcan had told her who the great love of her life was. He’d also told her nothing came without sacrifice.
Saige never dared to say it was Talon that Lorcan had predicted, or that Saige watching her twin sister build an empire with a man made for her was the sacrifice. Talon felt this truth, and he’d be damned if he understood it. He’d long since lost the thrill of anticipation. There was nothing else he could do to change Saige’s mind. And there was no way to un-live the life he had with Reveca.
Saige reached up to cup his face as she pressed her lips together and did her best to fight the tears in her eyes. “They are going to kill her,” she whispered.
Talon leaned back. He didn’t track Reveca and her otherworldly diplomacies all that well as of late, but he did get the rundown on Skylynn. Mainly because Reveca was pissed about the ordeal, and when she’s mad, everyone knows.
According to Reveca, Skylynn was well and safe with a male that was tied into all of this bullshit King brought with him. This kid had influence and power. All good stuff, except it was bad in Reveca’s mind. Bad because he was not in alliance with her. Alliance in Reveca’s vocabulary meant ‘debt to be paid,’ when she said and how she said.
“My boys told me they were pulled into the Edge to watch a show, your daughter’s man has legions behind him. Legions just like her daddy. They were not needed.”
Saige drew in a deep breath. She despised it when he mentioned Lorcan, when Talon hinted that what was between Saige and Lorcan was more than a holy act to bring a child forth.
“Reveca,” Saige said.
“Reveca is trying to kill everyone now, it’s just the high of power. Not my problem,” he said as his hands moved up her sides. It had been centuries since she had let him get this far.
“They’re going to kill her—Reveca,” Saige said, moving his face so his eyes aligned with hers.
Talon furrowed his brow in distaste. Loyalty that runs as deep and rich as it did between Reveca and Talon could not easily be washed away.
“Who?” he bit out.
“You know who, you feel them.”
Talon dropped his stare, but for once Saige used her sexuality to hold his attention, her body pressed into his, her hands holding his face raptly. “I’ve told you before to have no shame.”
She had told him in the past to not fear the spirits he sensed. Saige had always been far more forward than Scorpio ever was about the matter. There was no way Talon could give in. He’d lost count of the lives he had taken before he was ever immortal. Since then it had been a blood bath. He’d never go as far as calling Reveca a tyrant, but the female had forced him to slay without mercy. It was the immortals that twisted Talon’s gut the most, all the ones she made when she was with Zale or the Rogues they tried to control since then. He knew how those beings felt. No one should have to face death twice in one life. Reveca’s carelessness had surely left unsettled spirits that would have a grand time twisting his head if he let them.
“It is not shame that stops me,” Talon said with a clenched jaw. “It’s regret.”
He leaned away from her, but Saige kept her hold on him. One hand fell above his heart as the other cradled his face. “There is a reason.”
“No, there is not,” he snapped. Talon dropped his head. “Why did they help me?”
“The haunts you fear are not the ones you sense inside.”
He swayed his head as a sarcastic smirk touched his lips for a moment. “Birds of a feather.”
“No,” she said earnestly. “Talon, they are there to protect you. They had no choice but to stop Ambrosia, your death could destroy them.”
Curiously he studied her. “And what are you asking me to do now?” There was pain in his tone. He didn’t trust the emotions he felt coming from her. Her fear was wrapped in apprehension. Saige knew she was about to do something wrong in the eyes of others. Considering the reason he was here in the first place was that some council had been called to vote on the execution of Reveca, he knew her emotions had merit.
“Am I to take on a hoard of witches? Do you not have a vote in the matter?”
Saige swayed her head. “The witches vote to imprison her.”
Warring sides of Talon swirled inside of him. One part valiantly trying to hold on to his new outlook on life, Reveca was in his past, not his future. And the other, unable to ignore the taunts of old rivals. Reveca blamed her dark mood on the imprisonment she saw the Edge to be. Talon knew now losing King was the bigger part of her misery. Still, Reveca was a wild creature that would rather die than be held captive.
“Same difference. Only now you have a bigger fight on your hands.”
Her pale eyes staring at him questioned.
“You’re going to make me say it? Are you trying to see if I have feelings for her? I do. I’m right pissed at the pair of you. Too much time has passed for me to not feel something. Here’s your reality check. This time when you come after Reveca it will not be her immortals defending her, but King and his legions.” He lifted his chin. “I’m not playing this game anymore. I refuse to stand between either of you.” In a lower tone he said, “There is nothing left for you to break, Saige.”
Her eyes watered and true pain swarmed through her emotions. With a curse, he pulled her body against his and swayed her. “I will never understand you.”
Her fists clutched at his chest. “It’s not the witches that will slay her. It’s you.”
A cold shock stuck Talon where he stood. Slowly he held her further away from his body, but she was slow to look up at him. “What do you know?”
There were few reasons Talon would be pushed to kill Reveca, and all of them were sacred. Saige, Adair, the Sons. If Reveca threatened any one of them, he’d stand between her and them. No question.
“I told you,” he said trying to reassure himself all was well. “She’s high on power now. She may have asked for Scorpio’s head, but she didn’t mean it, not really.”
“She did,” Saige said gripping her composure. “It is her or it is you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A Throng,” Saige whispered. “They are not s
pirits you hear, but members of your Throng. A spiritual body that can sense the emotions of others, a governing body to the Gods.”
No expression came to Talon at first, and then slowly he began to laugh as he shook his head. “You had me there, you did. When you have a real threat, or hell, when you want to talk about all this bullshit between us—when you are out of excuses, hit me up.”
He went to walk down the stairs, but she caught him. “Your denial doesn’t make it go away. If anything, it’s only made this day harder on you.”
The forcefulness in her tone stroked every nerve in his body, in an instant she was against the wall again, panting and electrified by his unbroken attention. “You want to know what I saw? I saw a woman who gave me hell perish. Do you want to know if I think I was the one in charge? No. I don’t. But if you think for one second I’ll let those beings take control and kill Reveca, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Promise me,” she breathed.
“What?”
“That no matter what, you’ll protect her.”
Talon furrowed his brown in doubt and confusion. Saige asking for Reveca’s protection was not new, the shame in her emotions was. The disgrace he felt coming from her was so rich that he was sure she was breaking one of her religious laws by asking him to do this for her.
“And if I don’t?”
Saige began to tremble as tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Talon’s hand fell on her face as his thumbs brushed the tears away. “What do you not know?”
She moved her hands across his chest, and with each stroke, her emotions calmed. “How can anyone be asked to do what we have been burdened with? No test of faith and loyalty should divide a soul.”
“Who is testing you?”
Saige was quiet for a moment, taking him in. “It’s been predicted—,” he went to speak over her but she landed her finger on his lips. “I tried to prepare myself for it all. I’m not strong enough.” She pressed her lips together before she spoke on. “No matter how many reasons I give myself, I’m not strong enough to make another sacrifice.”