“Yes to the shower. No to the food, and I’m afraid to sleep after what I’ve seen,” I whisper hoarsely.
I finally look up at him and frown when I see red smudges on his cheek.
“Are you bleeding?”
He scoffs, then pulls me up to my feet.
“Not my blood, baby.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
Elias gives me a brittle-looking grin.
“You don’t have a choice,” he replies. “We brought in the Prophet, Ezekiel Moore. Normally, we terrorize them for just a little bit longer, but my brothers decided to shorten the timeline so you can… prove yourself.”
My stomach turns again, but I must’ve gotten all the coffee out. I only gag.
“Tonight?” I ask weakly when I manage to catch my breath.
Elias shakes his head. He looks almost as tired as I feel, his pale eyes offset by dark shadows.
“No, Little Sapphire. It’s almost morning, and there’s been enough excitement for one day.” He pulls me closer and pushes his jacket off my shoulders. It pools on the ground at my bare feet. “Let me get you a toothbrush.”
He joins me in the shower, but for the first time tonight, we don’t touch each other to chase an orgasm. His touches are still possessive, still admiring. But he doesn’t linger. He’s washing off evidence of last night to prepare for what’s coming next.
???
With a groan, I lift my head off the pillow, wincing at the dried saliva tugging on my cheeks. I only sleep on my front when I’m really tired, and I always end up drooling. I stretch my stiff neck and look around for Elias.
It was dawn by the time we went to bed, and it’s pretty dark again outside the blinds-covered windows, so I must have slept all day. Crash course into carnie life, I guess. No ringmaster, though.
My bladder sends me to the bathroom, and as I get up, I notice boxer shorts and a T-shirt folded at the foot of the bed. He must’ve left them for me. When I step out of the bedroom, I hear murmured sounds of a conversation right outside the trailer. I pee and brush my teeth, dress in the borrowed clothes, and tentatively try the door handle, finding it unlocked.
“Oh, look, dead girl’s awake,” one of the performers says—the knife thrower.
“Behave, Cole,” the illusionist drawls. “She’s not dead until she fucks up.”
“But she should’ve been,” the fire eater mutters.
With a scoff, I put my hands on my hips and straighten to my full height.
“Jeez. Did someone collectively pee in your cereal this…” I look west, where purple and orange color the sky. “Evening,” I finish after a lame pause.
Smirking, Elias stands up and walks to my side. With a decisive move, he pulls me against him and takes my lips in a claiming kiss. Might as well piss a circle around me. Still, I melt into it, my lady parts waking up like he’s their personal coffee machine.
“Good morning to you too,” I murmur when he pulls back.
“To borrow Cole’s joke, you slept like the dead,” he teases. His voice is pitched low, but I know everyone’s listening. I feel myself flush—he couldn’t have missed the copious amounts of drool on his pillows.
“Yeah, well… it was a night,” I say lamely.
Elias gives me a beaming smile. I can’t tell if the glint in his eyes is contentment or madness.
“That it was. Let me formally introduce you to my brothers.” He points at the illusionist, who’s similar enough in looks to him that he must be related. “That’s Silas, my half-brother and second-in-command.”
Silas gives me a mocking salute and a bitter smile.
“Reporter,” he says.
