“—after she kicked you out for being a fucking peeping Tom?—”
“Get bent, Goliath,” Killian jabs back without missing a beat, “when Lyra and her cling-ons practically mauled me in front of her door. And Imayhave mentioned something about keeping our clothes on ‘unlike last time’…”
“You have no one to blame but yourself, mutt,” Roth admonishes as we enter on the club. The bouncer opens the door and the crowd parts as we sweep past the writhing dance floor to our customary booth. The current occupants scramble like roaches when they see us approaching, and it takes only moments for our regular drinks to be delivered. It takes even less time for the vultures to descend upon us, eager to see us and be seen with us.
The ease of our earlier conversation is replaced by the familiar drone of meaningless chatter and fake peals of laughter. Cynthia worms her way in between Luther and Killian while Lyra pulls up her skirt to drape her feet over Killian’s legs, flashing the emerald green lace between her thighs. Calanthe feigns a false sense of arrogance as she cozies up to Roth. The moment his body tenses at her touch, I knock my knee into his under the table. Even if I cant do it sober, I can help ground him while he’s forced to play along with this sham betrothal.
A hazy curtain of smoke from my vape descends, shielding me from the rest of the club. When I tilt my head back and close my eyes, time falls away as my brothers do what they do best: Roth’s deep, measured voice responding to whatever bullshit Calanthe is spewing, Luther grunting at whatever story Killian is spinning to his adoring worshippers. Luther finally reaches his limit and stalks off for a breather, but when he doesn’t return, I emerge from my cocoon of smoke to look for him in the crowded club.
When the strobing lights illuminate the farthest corner of the dance floor, however, my world tilts.
Fuck.
Ohfuck.
She’s here.
My demon rushes to the surface of my mind to peer out of my eye despite everything I’ve just smoked to keep him subdued. Roth brushes his leg against mine under the table as a reminder of where we are, but my demon isn’t trying to escape, for once. He merely observes, fixated on the swing of her hips as she dances. The same hips I pinned to the exam table as I stroked her tight, hot, wet cunt?—
The sudden tug of her shirt stops me short.
She’s alone, dancing by herself, lost in her own little world...
There. Again. This time her shirt drifts up slowly, revealing the pale expanse of her stomach.
It’s not until her head tilts back that it clicks.
So that’s where that fuckingbastardsnuck off to.
I want to kill him.
I want to take his place.
I want to keep watching as she surrenders herself in the darkness to Luther’s touch.
Because he’s the only one on this side of the world who can wield his air affinity with enough precision and control to warp themotherfuckingelectromagnetic spectrum.
No one would ever guess he’s the one pulling her hips back as she reaches for him, because no one knows he can disappear with a single thought.
It’s one of the many secrets we’ve killed to keep—Fate only knows what lengths our families would go to if they ever found out the true extent of our abilities, how much damage we couldreallydo.
And he’s using them to touch the girl I was knuckle-deep inside of two days ago. The Nyx I know—so far, at least—would rather cut his fingers off than let them trail down her stomach, between her legs where she’s?—
Oh my fucking Fate.
She’s so close. Now that I know what she looks like when she cums, I’ll never fucking forget. Her eyes close, lips parting in a cry that echos in my memory even as the music screams in my ears. My demon surges forth and I grasp Roth’s thigh under the table as I struggle to rein him in, to smother the vicious, riotous hunger in my chest for just one more taste.
He moves silently, gripping my wrist until my bones scream from the pressure. If I can focus on the pain rather than the cataclysmic need to feel her again, then maybe we’ll all make it out of here alive. Just as my body begins to tremble with theeffort to keep my demon from bursting through my skin, she opens her eyes.
Time stills and the world quiets as she ensnares me.
Her cheeks are flushed, eyes dilated.
She sees me, and still, she doesn’t blink.
“Thane.” My eyes snap to Roth’s when his commanding tone breaks whatever this hold is she has over me. “Get me another drink, will you?” I nod and swallow thickly, disentangling myself from the throng of bodies around us. I can feel Roth’s eyes boring into my back and Killian clasps my shoulder with a firm grip before putting his trademark grin back to work, distracting everyone from my abrupt departure.
As soon as I’m out of sight of those hungry, prying eyes, I scramble through the dark hallway that leads to the mens room. The agony in my head increases with every step as my demon tries to tear his way out of my mind, overwhelming the shreds of my control keeping him ruthlessly contained. Pain stabs my eye from the overhead light when I burst through the door and rush to the last empty stall, crashing into the wall and sliding down until my ass hits the cold tile. The door bangs shut as whoever else was in here escapes, but if I can’t contain the power inside of me, it won’t matter how far they run.
