“Excuse me.” Laken groans before bolting for the kitchen. “I’ll be washing my eyes out with soap.”
Soap. Maybe as a courtesy she could gargle with it, too. Just knowing Flanders defiled her makes me want to vomit. Speaking of Flanders, didn’t she say she was with Carter before he dove into her mouth?
“How long have you two been here?” I ask, curious as hell as to when their private party began.
“Since the game ended in tragedy.” Carter slides into Fletch and pulls a blanket over the two of them.
“I’m adding the blanket to the burn list,” I say under my breath.
Fletch beams me in the face with the pillow he just employed as a penis protector.
I toss it back in the event he discovers a creative need for it before heading off to find Laken.
Fletch has more than his fair share of balls to sleep with Carter, front and center, in the common room—either that or he’s dumb as a post. If he gets caught, they could both get tossed out on their bare-naked asses.
The clanging of pots and pans fills my ears as I take in the scene from the kitchen.
Flynn has his hands up like there’s a hostage situation underway while Laken turns two long-handled pots into a pair of annoying gongs.
“What the heck?” I shout, speeding over. It’s only then I notice Hattie cowering in the corner, looking scared as all hell with her arms up over her head. “Whoa!” I disarm Laken before she commits a culinary-based felony. “What’s going on?”
Flynn jumps up, pumped with adrenaline. “I was making out with this chick, and your psycho girlfriend storms in and starts banging pots and pans in our ears like its fucking New Year’s Eve. You’d better call Flanders and tell him to set up a permanent bed at the palace for the mentally unstable.”
Coop’s grandfather started up the psych hospital, and ironically I’d like nothing more than for his grandson to take up residency there.
Laken snatches a dirty steak knife from the counter before I can defend her mental stability and darts over to Hattie like she’s about to decapitate her.
“Laken!” I dive over the island and knock her down in a play that could rival any move made on that field tonight. She struggles free, sending the blade sliding up my cheek.
“Shit!” She drops the knife and covers her mouth in horror. “Oh my God, Wes, I’m so sorry.”
“We’re out of here,” Flynn says, moving Hattie toward the door. “Lay off the booze, girl.” He shouts to Laken. “You’re one mean drunk.”
“Wait, Flynn, she’s…” Laken folds into me helpless as they walk out of sight. “She’s not human.”
I touch my cheek and examine the pink stain on my fingers.
“You’re cut.” Her voice quivers as she lays her hand over mine.
“It’s just a graze. I’ll do more damage with a razor in the morning.” I get up and help her to her feet. “What did you mean she’s not human?” God knows we have enough of that floating around in our world for me to consider it an option.
“She’s”—Laken shakes her head as if searching for answers—“a real bitch. I saw her hanging all over some guy back at Henderson. Her tongue was in his ear, and it was just sick. I don’t like her messing with Flynn like that. He seems like a nice guy.” She pinches her shoulders to hers ears as if she were stressed beyond belief.
“What?” I pull her in and melt a kiss over her lips. “Trust me. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of more than Flynn. He’s anti-monogamy—roaming hands don’t offend him. Now—pots and pans might offend him if they’re used in an effort to stop him from hitting a homerun. I think you should let Flynn worry about Flynn. But that’s what I like about you best.” I run my hand up her cheer sweater and adhere to her heated skin. “You care about how other people feel.”
“You’re right, Wes.” She gives a limp smile. “I absolutely hate the thought of someone being taken advantage of. It kills me to know there are people being used—abused and tortured in this world, especially when I can’t do a damn thing about it.” She buries a hard look into me as if she were wielding that knife all over again.
I clear my throat.
Just hearing those words makes me think of those kids down in the Celestra tunnels. I’ve seen their long faces, their hollow eyes that let you know they miss living—that they’ve already died on the inside.
Laken freezes like she’s having a seizure—probably envisioning Flynn getting his ass kicked by the new chick. Little does she know he’d enjoy it—pay for it if he could.
“Hey”—I change the subject—“tonight you mentioned something about hanging out with Carter at the party.”
Her mouth opens as she glances past my shoulder.
“Did I say Carter?” Her lids rise unnaturally. “I meant Fallon.”
“Fallon.” I give a quick nod. “That’s probably what you said. I was just too pissed at Coop to notice.” I lead her toward the stairwell on the way to my bedroom.
Why do I get the feeling I’ve just been lied to?
I wish I could care right now whether or not Laken was being honest with me, but I’m so tired of waiting for her to come around. That damn fall from the tree house really messed her up, and now my dick and I are left to our own devices as far as alleviating duties are concerned. Although I’d better wait until her memory is fully restored because, with my luck, she’ll wake up one day and realize she’s been sleeping with someone she considers a brother. She’ll probably never speak to me again. And I can count three times tonight her memory has cut out like a bad engine.
Laken and I step into my room, and I wedge the door with a chair in the event Fletch decides to crash our private party. The last time he caught me with his little sister, he turned me into a bruise from the waist down.
“So what are we going to do?” She hops on my bed and bites down a seductive smile. Her ponytail glides from her shoulder like a golden waterfall. “You said you wanted to show me something.” Her gaze falls to my jeans then rides back up again.
“You’re a naughty girl, you know that, Laken?” I pull off my jacket and slip in next to her.
“Is that something you should say about the girl you’re going to spend the rest of your life with?” It comes from her lips soft, not one ounce of sarcasm to back it as an off-handed remark.
“Most definitely not.” I pull her fingers to my lips and kiss them one by one. Spending the rest of my life with Laken would be an honor I’d die to achieve.
“On second thought,” she purrs, “I can be the naughty one in this relationship—in fact, I volunteer.” A wicked gleam flickers in her eyes and sends my body perking to attention in all the right places.
“Mmm, maybe not tonight.” I adjust the hard-on in my jeans. “Laken.” I bury my face in her neck a moment. “You seem willing.” I shake my head. “But I’m not one hundred percent sure you’re fully back.”
“I’m fine. I’m remembering everything.” Her eyes round out with desperation as if she’s overeager to please me.
“I can’t do it.” I swallow hard. Everything in me is screaming we should. “I can’t take advantage of you. I won’t let it happen—but I did want to show you something.” I reach back on my nightstand and pull out a notebook.
“What’s this?” Laken twists into me to get a better look.
“I’m thinking about getting a tattoo.” I hold back a smile as she settles herself next to me. Her creamy thigh glides over my jeans, and I swallow down a groan.
“A tattoo?” A trembling laugh escapes her. “You’re hardly the type. Let me guess, you want Asterion’s ugly mug emblazoned on your back. You’re that dedicated to this school, I can tell.” She gives a vixen-like grin.
“Wrong. I’m that dedicated to you.” I tap her nose with my finger.
“Me? Oh, please don’t tell me you’re going to ink my face across your body. I swear I’ll never speak to you again. Besides, that’s going to be creepy when we’re finally together. The last thing I want to do
is make out with myself while kissing your chest.”
“You’d kiss my chest?” I stroke a finger along her jawline.
“Yes.” She scratches at my stomach. “I will. I plan on living a long, happy life with you, Wes.” She looks down at the comforter, saddened by her words as if she didn’t mean them at all.
I glide my hand around the back of her neck and listen in a moment, hoping to get the details on why she just went from ecstatic to cliffside plunge in under five seconds.
I hear the words Cider Plains, and old Wes thumping through her mind, and I know exactly where she’s at. She’s right back in Kansas, with a version of me she insists existed.
“Laken.” I expel her name with a sigh.
“Sounds like I’ve disappointed you.” She presses her lips together. “What’s in the book?”
“Hey—” I pick up her chin with my finger. “You could never disappoint me. You do nothing but please me, I swear.” Mostly on a nightly basis in my dreams but that’s another story. “This is what I wanted to show you.” I open the lined journal to a page with a sketch of her name written out in elaborate scrollwork.
“Wesley,” she whispers, mesmerized by seeing her name laid out in such a grand manner. “Is that what you’re thinking for the tattoo?” She searches me with those unknowably pale eyes as if she were frightened for me.
“Yes. I want to. I am. There’s not a thing you can do to stop me,” I tease. “I’m having it done during Christmas break. I found this guy. He’s supposed to be the best. You can come with me and hold my hand if you want. In fact, I’m begging you to. I’m sort of a wimp when it comes to pain.” I hike my cheek up one side. “True story.”
“Wes. Of course I’ll come with you. I’m totally flattered you’d do something like this, but really you don’t have to. I’m right here, and you’ll always have me.” Her brows knit, and this time I could swear she’s about to cry.
“Whoa, what’s going on?” I toss the notebook to the ground and scoop her into my arms.
Her eyes well up with tears, and she gives a hard sniffle into my neck.
“Nothing,” she whispers, as she starts to cry. “It’s just, I want things to be like this forever.” She buries her face in my chest with her warm tears dampening my shirt.
I glide my hands up the back of her sweater and blow out a breath. Shit. I wish to God I knew how to fix this. Why would there be tears if we already have everything we want—namely each other?
God, I miss you, Wes, and I don’t give a damn if you hear me.
Hear me?
“I miss this.” She looks up at me. “I miss touching you.”
My stomach lurches.
For a second I thought she knew I could read her mind, and the idea set off the panic button. If Laken knew, she’d hate me for the sheer dishonesty. If we’re supposedly this close—practically ordained as husband and wife, then she should share all my secrets.
“I’m right here Laken. What do you miss?” I press my lips against hers.
“I’m tired of you waiting for me to get my memory back.” She blinks away the tears, her eyes as red as bloodstains. “I think maybe…” Her hand slides down my chest and crests over the growing bulge in my jeans. “Maybe if we were together—if we shared everything, then I could truly come back to you.”
I take a deep breath and consider this. I’m ready to cave. I’m ready to give Laken whatever the hell it takes to get her mind back in shape—the memory of who she was, her family—I want to give it all back to her. I’m just not sure the portal to all that knowledge is locked in my pants.
“You really think that’s going to make a difference?” I ask, staring off into the ceiling as if the answers were scrawled out up there, and all I had to do was connect the dots.
Laken slips her hand into the lip of my jeans, her fingers graze me in places I’ve dreamed of, wished for.
“I’m positive, Wes. It’s like there’s this secret between us, and it’s creating a hurdle for me to feel as close to you as I’d like. It must be that—the two of us finally being together. What else could it possibly be? I mean you don’t have any secrets from me, do you?” She twirls the hairs just below my belly in a dizzying circle, and I close my eyes a moment.
“Laken, you’re going to start something I know we’re not ready to finish.”
Secrets. A dry laugh pulses through me. Only a sweet girl like Laken would think of sex as a secret.
On some level she’s sensing that something’s wrong. She’s a Count, and according to her genetics, a damn strong one. She’s picking up on the fact I’ve got all this Celestra juice flooding my veins, and she doesn’t know what to classify it as. God, what if she senses Skyla on me and thinks I’ve been cheating?
“You know I would never cheat on you.” It pops from my lips out of the blue.
Shit—exactly what every guilty boyfriend says.
“What I mean is,” I pause in the event I feel the need to bury myself further, “I would never even think of another girl or want one. You’re it for me, Laken. Hand to God, you’re all I’ll ever need. I was serious as death when I took that oath the other night, and I’m equally as serious about getting your name indelibly marked over my skin. I want to have a piece of you near me at all times. You’re all I ever think about from eyelids open until I fall asleep, and then I’m lucky enough to have you greet me in my dreams.”
Her smile expands, and she warms the room with it.
“You dream of me?” There’s a twinkle in her eyes as if she’s picking up on the unchaste nature.
“Damn straight,” I say, lowering my lips to hers. “And someday, each one of those deranged fantasies is going to come to life.”
She tips her head back and belts out a laugh.
“Then take me now, and make me yours.” Her eyes fills with sorrow again as if the very thought had the power to scrub the joy from her soul.
I dig my fingers into her hair and comb through it, soft as silk.
“You said you wanted our first time to be special, that you wanted to wake up next to me in the morning and do it all over again.” I’m starting to resent the fact I have a strong memory. A little forgetfulness would have had the power to cure this gnawing ache in my gut, not to mention give some much needed attention to the parts of my anatomy that crave it most.
“I was lying.” She flat lines.
“Very funny,” I say, pulling her in until our stomachs touch. “Besides, you’re right. I do have a secret.” An entire boulder feels as if it’s lifted from my chest. “I want to share it with you more than anything. It’s a big one, and I need to know that you won’t say anything.”
“I won’t.” She gets up on her elbow, eager to hear whatever I’m about to tell her.
“It’s not something I can tell you. I’d rather show you. It’s something I do and I’m afraid if I try to explain it with words it’s going to sound a whole lot worse than it actually is.” I take a breath and hold it because I know damn well the odds of it looking as bad as it sounds are close to one hundred. But maybe if she comes to understand the need for it—if she understands why we have to oust Celestra, deplete them of their physical strength, maybe then she’ll see it’s for the greater cause. In reality, all we’re doing is reducing them to human. Nothing wrong with that, since ninety percent of the population functions just fine that way.
“I’m going to love you no matter what it is you’re doing,” she whispers, her eyes still dewy from tears. “I’m sure it’s not bad because you’re not a bad person. And if it sounds bad, then I’d rather see it. Whatever this is, I think it’s important we hurdle it together. We can make it through anything, Wes. I know we can.”
I wrap my arms around her and seal my lips over hers.
Laken thinks we can conquer just about anything together.
I hope to God she’s right.
I hope to God that Celestra doesn’t ruin anything between Laken and me just like they’ve managed to screw up the
entire universe.
And if they do, all the more reason to wipe the bastards off the face of the earth.
But Laken and I will persevere, and so will the Counts.
5
A Pearl in the Night
Laken
Wes walks me back to Austen House under a landscape of clever winking stars. I complained of feeling dizzy, and he chalked it up to fatigue since it’s well past one in the morning.
I watch from the large bay window in the common room as Wes makes the slow trek back up hill. The shadows swallow him whole as he plods in the direction of Henderson Hall. Wes dissolves in the night as if he never existed. That’s how this nightmare feels—the Wesley I grew up with, the one I loved with every cell in my body has been swallowed by the dark shadows, dissolved completely.
The fireplace dims as my dorm sisters stream their way upstairs.
Outside, a glimmer of light catches my attention from the wall of necrotic evergreens that flatten out over the horizon. I lean into the frozen glass to inspect it.
A breath gets caught in my throat.
Holy shit—I recognize that tall, lanky boy and the girl attached to his side. It’s Flynn and fake Hattie.
I bet she’s going to lure him into the woods and hack his head off for sport before feeding him to the Spectators. Flynn is about to become a delicacy, and he doesn’t even know it.
I pluck my phone from my bra and send a quick text to Coop.
Change of plans. Up for a hot date in Sleepy Hollow?
He texts back a few seconds later. Let’s not and say we did. If you’re in the mood to be chased, I can make other arrangements.
A private smile curves my lips at the thought of Coop chasing me around the furniture. Of course I’d let him catch me—tackle me.
Typical Coop—everything I say is somehow attached to his balls.
I glance up and catch Flynn disappearing deep into the velvet reserve of the forest, the long arm of the demon who’s leading the way, still mercilessly attached to his side.
I’m going without you. Take that, Coop. I’m not some damsel in distress that needs to be saved. Or at least I’d better not be.