I shake off the apprehension that has taken up residence in my subconscious. Hoping my smile doesn’t look as fake as it feels, I gently push on his chest and hop off the counter. “Nothing. Let me go wash up and get out of these clothes.”
Hendrix snatches my long ponytail and roughly yanks me to him. Like a Pavlovian response, desire pools between my legs at his indelicate touch, just like it did last night. Which is something we need to discuss with Tristan and Constantine. Tonight. No putting it off.
“I think you forgot something, Firefly,” he says in that seductive British inflection that immediately turns me on.
“And what would that be, Mister Knight?”
Hendrix’s blue eyes heat. “I’m going to fuck that sassy mouth later.”
This beautiful man and his filthy promises.
I hope this aspect of us never changes. Childhood best friends to lovers. Marriage and parenthood. Even after all the years we’ve known each other, our love has only intensified. I did have my doubts along the way. Those old worries would stumble into my thoughts and tap dance inside my brain. One damaged woman, three possessive men. How could I ever be enough? How could our relationship, our marriage, sustain itself? We are in our mid-twenties, still young, even if the life we were born into hardened us at an early age. I’m not naïve enough to think things will stay exactly as they are. People change. They grow apart, take different paths, want different things as they get older.
Turns out, all Tristan, Hendrix, and Constantine ever wanted was me. And through their love, I learned something important. Soulmate love is a forever love. Unbreakable, undeniable, and everlasting. I am enough. They show me every day that I am.
And I need to do the same. So whatever feelings I harbor for Aleksander need to dig a hole and bury themselves. What happened last night will never happen again.
Grabbing my throat, Hendrix tilts my chin, and my lips eagerly part for him, his tongue dipping inside my mouth as he tastes and takes. “Love you, wife.”
I cup his cheek, and he lilts into my palm. “Tá mé i ngrá leat…my ass is vibrating.”
A quick grin of interest flashes across his handsome face. “Did you put?—”
“My phone,” I interject, pulling it out of my back jeans pocket.
Last year, Hendrix bought me vibrating beads and takes great delight in making me come in front of people. It’s difficult as hell to hide an orgasm in the middle of a crowded restaurant or during a video call with Alana.
I’m puzzled when I see Pyotr’s name flash on my screen. “Hey.”
Loud static buzzes in the background, making it impossible to hear him. “…get…house…”
I hold my finger to my other ear and step out of the kitchen. “What?”
“…fucking house…”
“Our connection is bad. Let me call you back.”
Four phones go off at the same time, including mine, alerting us to someone outside, just as a shadow of a man’s silhouette moves past the glazed glass side panes of the front door.
“Syn, get out of the fucking house!” Pyotr’s voice comes through on a panicked shout.
But his warning comes too late.
Splinters of wood explode inward when the door flies off its hinges, and two men come barging inside, automatic weapons raised in front of them.
“I have her!” one of the men yells.
The phone slips from my hand and clatters quietly onto the runner rug. I blink, unable to move, even as the house erupts into chaos around me. Shouts, the sound of glass shattering, the voices of strangers who shouldn’t be here. Fénix’s terrified wails.
I stumble back when the masked man presses the cold barrel of his semiautomatic to my chest. “Get on your fucking knees!”
Darkness snakes its way through my blood, stripping away my humanity like a wildfire burns through dry kindling, leaving nothing in its wake but scorched earth and ash. The darkness beckonsherto come. Entices her with visions of blood and death.Aoife, it seductively whispers.
I didn’t want this ugliness to ever touch my child. I never wanted him to ever witness the monster that lurks inside his mother. Nor did I want the Society to ever stake a claim on his innocent soul. We’ve worked hard to keep that part of our livesaway from him, so he could grow up without fear or hatred or brutality. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I gave my proxy to Andie and stepped away from the Society, letting her and the guys handle things because I wanted to be a mother and a wife and a student who was free to pursue her dreams of medical school. Free to be Syn, not Aoife.
These motherfuckers are about to painfully learn their mistake in bringing that part of me back.
Hate and rage coalesce, burning me from within.
