Apocalyptic Read online

  Falon’s ragged plea was more about him than it was about me. He’d just marked me so all immortals would see me as his. Pretty fast turnaround time for second thoughts.

  His name was a sigh on my lips. Legs wrapped tight around his waist, I met his thrusts with frenzied enthusiasm. With clawed fingertips I raked my nails down his back. He moaned in my ear, sending a shudder through me.

  “I don’t fucking belong to you,” I managed to get out around moans and sighs.

  His tongue on my earlobe made me pause, trying to remember what the hell I’d been saying. Right. Telling Falon what he wanted to hear. I could call him on his bullshit, but that wouldn’t keep this train on the track to orgasmic bliss.

  Grinding his pelvis against mine to rub my clit with each stroke, Falon grabbed my chin and forced my head back. Moist, messy kisses adorned my chin and throat. The occasional scrape of teeth sent electric shocks to my groin.

  An especially powerful thrust forced a cry from me. Falon buried his face in my neck and muttered, “If only that were fucking true.”

  Eyes wide, I stared at the lights that scattered across the ceiling from the window. Wrapping both legs tight around him, I held him deep as I came. So many things had changed tonight, including here in this room.

  When it was over, Falon didn’t say a word. Hooking an arm around my waist, he dragged me beneath the sheets and tucked me in against him, baffling me beyond comprehension. What in the frickin’ hell was happening here?

  Out of curiosity, I tested his embrace, squirming as if to get away.

  His forearm stiffened, rock solid. Immobile. He held me in place, trapped against his body. Against my temple he murmured, “Tell me what happened with Salem.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Are we fucking cuddling right now?” I hissed into the darkness. There were a lot of things I’d managed to overlook with Falon, but this was not one of them.

  He pressed his still hard erection against my ass and muttered, “Do you need my cock inside you just to have a conversation? We’re talking. Naked. In bed. Live with it.”

  Usually we both managed to stick to the mostly unspoken rules of the playbook: Get in. Get off. Get out. At least I liked to get out pretty much the moment we’d finished. Laying there in his arms felt all kinds of wrong. We didn’t do this.

  I clamped my lips shut tight against the insult that threatened to leap off the tip of my tongue. So he wanted to lay here touching me while I told him about Salem and Lilah. No big deal. Perfectly normal as far as lovers go. Ha. Sure.

  Swallowing down the small dose of panic, I tried and failed to relax fully in Falon’s embrace.

  He pinched my ass, chuckling when I yelped. “Talk, dammit. Don’t make me beat it out of you.”

  So I told him everything. A full recap of events featuring Lilah and Salem. Falon listened attentively, absently dragging a hand up and down my side. He never stopped that simple, repetitive motion, not even when I faltered in the retelling and had to stop to choke down a swell of emotion.

  “I’m not surprised that Lilah made such a move,” Falon said when I’d finished speaking. “I am surprised that Salem allowed it. There’s no way he didn’t see it coming.”

  “It doesn’t matter now anyway.” My chest deflated under a heart-wrenching sigh. “It’s over. She wins. I lose.”

  A hand on my shoulder, Falon rolled me over to face him. “Is that what you think? That it’s over? As long as you have even the smallest speck of light, it’s not over.”

  I wanted to believe him. Willow had said the same thing. They should know, right?

  Shadows fell across half of Falon’s face, a pale glow of streetlight bathing the other. His wounds were almost completely healed. On the outside anyway.

  I touched a faded bruise on his cheek. “What about you? You never really told me what happened with Bane after you left.”

  He gave a lazy half shrug. “I confronted him on the other side. Found him in his favorite watering hole talking shit. Told him to stay the fuck away from you. A fight was had. We were split up and sent our separate ways. Until next time. Nothing else to tell for the most part.”

  “For the most part?” I frowned, uncomfortable with the warm twinge in my chest at the thought of him trying to chase Bane off. “Spill it.”

  A smug smile spread across Falon’s face. “I’m glad you asked. During our exchange of witty repartee and jibes, mine far more clever than his of course, Bane happened to mention something. He said once you realized who he was, you attacked him.”

  Oh, Falon just loved that. Our faces were inches apart. There was no lying or denying. He could already see it in my eyes.

  “Yeah…? So?”

  “Defending my honor, were you? I’m touched.” His smile turned into a full-on smirk.

  I wanted to slap it off his face. He was loving this too much. Yet I couldn’t lie. I had snapped and gone at Bane. Playing it off like no big deal, I gave him a shove and said, “Oh, don’t get hard over it. He’s a piece of crap demon. Nobody should have had to go through what he did to you both.”

  Falon’s mischievous chuckle made it hard to keep a neutral expression. He pulled me in against him, face to face this time. My automatic reaction was to sling my leg over him, lining up our groins.

  “I’m always hard around you, succubus. You don’t make it easy to stay clear headed.” He went in to kiss me, but I turned my head, giving him my cheek, a playful avoidance.

  Rubbing the warmth between my legs against him, I teased, “The funny thing about that is I’ve barely used the slightest bit of thrall tonight. Your little show in the bathroom, the missionary weirdness on the bed. That was all you.”

  “Fuck,” he cursed, grasping my chin in a hand, forcing my lips to his. “You are toxic, Alexa. I wish I’d never met you.”

  A hand lost in his tousled silver hair, I mumbled against his mouth, “Such sweet things you say.”

  Reaching down between us, I wrapped my hand around his shaft and pressed the tip to my entrance. Every encounter with Falon went like this. Every climax, every wild fuck, it didn’t ease our hungers for each other. It fed them.

  That pretty much summed up my entire existence.

  I teased him by sliding the head of his cock against me, not yet taking him inside. Falon’s ragged groan in my ear made me crave more. When at last I took him inside me, he kissed me roughly, a kiss filled with loathing and twisted affection.

  Falon wasn’t alone in his anguish. I too felt the discomfort of where our fling had led us. This was not love. It never would be. And yet, it was just as friggin’ complicated.

  Slowly he fucked me. Movements unhurried, like a leisurely Sunday stroll. So much time face to face had me itching to avoid deep eye contact. I buried my face in his neck, breathing him in, tasting the perspiration on his skin.

  When it was over, sunrise began to draw near. I started to roll out of the bed only to be held in place.

  “Just stay for a few minutes. It’s ok not to rush away the second I pull out.”

  I settled back in the bed, relaxed this time against him. A few minutes wasn’t much to ask. What surprised me was when five minutes passed and Falon had fallen asleep. No wonder he’d managed to stay quiet for that long.

  Huh. I risked a glance at him. Asleep, chest rising in even breaths, face almost peaceful, Falon embodied a strange serenity. Such a tarnished beauty he was.

  He’d fallen asleep next to me. It screamed trust and comfort. Did I want Falon’s trust? Had I earned it? Had he earned mine? Should we be this comfortable with each other?

  The sudden urge to leap from the bed gripped me. Trying not to rush and disturb him, I disentangled myself from Falon and slipped from the bed. I paused to study him. Sprawled out, the sheets gathered around his lean waist. A work of art broken beyond repair. Tainted now, a product of his environment.

  Aren’t we all?

  Sunrise was less than an hour away. I had to get moving if I wanted to make it h
ome with time to spare. In the bathroom I dressed with the careful silence of a predator who knew how to move with stealth.

  A glimpse in the mirror stole my breath. The mark Falon had placed on me was visible. Like silver paint on my skin. Flicking on the light, I leaned in for a closer inspection. A silver feather marked my skin. On the side of my neck but close to the front, easily seen by all. It spanned from just below my jaw to my collarbone.

  I ran a finger over the feather, feeling the thrum of immortal energy within its design. As the light moved over me, the silver etched in my skin lit up with a metallic sheen.

  Should he have marked me this way? Should I have stopped him? If so, why didn’t I feel concerned?

  Falon was a guy who came with many warnings from those who knew him. However, most of those people weren’t exactly upstanding do-gooders themselves.

  Gathering my things, I headed for the door. When my fingers touched the handle, Falon’s voice cut through the room. “I’ll see you at sunset, wolf. I’ll be sticking to your ass like glue until this all blows over.”

  I didn’t know if he meant Arys and me or Bane. Or both. It didn’t matter.

  Opening the door so the hall light streamed into the room, I nodded. “Falon, if this mark brings more trouble my way than it deters, I’ll gut you with my bare hands and feed your insides to vultures. Catch you later, lover.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The dark over the horizon had just started to thin when I pulled into my driveway. Beating sunrise had become second nature, a combination of instinct and timing. Having several minutes to spare, I stood in the front yard for a minute, staring at the house.

  I could feel him in there. Arys. A mass of black inside my head, my heart. Reaching out to draw me in.

  For just a second I faltered, wavering on my feet. I flung out a hand to stay upright as vertigo spun me upside down. Maybe I shouldn’t have come home. Spending the day alone in the hotel wouldn’t have necessarily been safer. Not with so many humans in the building. If I lost it and went on a bender… Ugh.

  No. I couldn’t run from Arys forever. If we were going down, then it had to be together. That’s what I told myself when I opened the door and walked into the house.

  Only to be met by an eerie silence. I kicked my boots off and closed the door, loud enough to announce my arrival. Wherever Arys was, he didn’t need an announcement. He felt me too.

  Following the vibration of my dark flame, I descended the curved staircase to the basement. I reached the bottom, passed the laundry room, and turned the corner to find Shaz and Jenner standing outside the large unfinished room. The heavy-duty metal door that used to hold me in there during a visit to Shya was closed and locked from the outside.

  “How the hell did you manage to get him in there?” I nodded to the metal door, eyeing the small slot where one could see through. It was slid closed.

  “With great fucking difficulty.” Jenner swiped a hand over a gash on his brow.

  Both of them looked me over with open scrutiny, seeking and finding. Jenner prodded my energy, sampling it for himself. Tasting how dark I was now.

  Shaz searched my eyes for inner wounds. For the bleeding soul within. I threw myself in his arms, letting my wolf weep her pain to his. So tight I held him. Just feeling the warmth of his skin. The wolfish scent of him. The best friend who’d become the love of my life.

  He stroked my hair and murmured, “It’s going to be ok, Lex.”

  He didn’t have to say anything else. Shaz just let me cling to him. The scent of Arys’s cologne faintly lingered on his clothes. It made the ache downright crushing.

  When I’d soaked up as much comfort from my white wolf as I could, I turned to the door. I could feel Arys there, on the other side, waiting for me to open the tiny window. I shouldn’t do it; I should go upstairs.

  “How bad is it?” I asked in a hushed tone. “What are we dealing with here?”

  The two men exchanged a look. Jenner spoke first. “He’s not rabid or crazed if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s worse than that.”

  “Worse? How so?” Confused, I glanced at Shaz for clarity.

  “He’s like a concentrated form of incubus,” Shaz said. “Everything he already was, amplified. We almost lost him when he mind fucked both of us on the way down here.”

  Jenner glanced uneasily at the metal door. “Nobody should be alone with him.”

  “I need to talk to him.” I fidgeted, unable to stand still. Being this close to Arys had me vibrating. No mere door between us affected that.

  “Can I just ask,” Jenner began, “what is on your neck?”

  Oh, right. There’d be several people wanting to know. I started to touch the feather, then stopped myself. “It’s a mark that will either protect me from a demon with a hard on for Falon or make me that much more appealing. Guess we’ll see.” I didn’t mean to be so flippant, but with my other half so close and the dark fog swirling in my head, I couldn’t give much thought to the silver feather.

  “That sounds risky,” Jenner commented.

  Shaz said nothing. He merely brushed my hair back to better see Falon’s mark. His eyes revealed nothing. If he thought it was a mistake to allow the mark, he knew this wasn’t the time to say so.

  “Everything is risky.” Reaching for the metal slider, my hand shook. I drew it aside quickly, then stepped back, afraid to be too close to the door.

  The slot was too small to even put a hand through. It wasn’t a grab I feared. It was looking into those eyes.

  All I could see was a pile of blankets and a mattress on the floor, left there from my brief time suffering under Shya’s curse. I waited, tense, knowing that Arys had a flair for the dramatic.

  “How lovely of you to come, my wolf.” That velvet smooth voice oozed sinister intentions. Still he hadn’t stepped into view of the door. “It wasn’t so long ago that we discussed this very thing, was it? One twin caged by the other. It’s fitting, I guess.”

  I swallowed hard and said, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to be different.”

  A pause. He wanted to make me squirm and it worked. My spine prickled. My gut clenched.

  “I guess we’re not so special after all.” Suddenly he was there, in front of the door. “Come inside, my love. Let us finish this once and for all, hmm?”

  Behind me, Shaz stiffened. Like an aroma, Arys’s ink black vibes wafted forth to envelope us like a cloud of smoke. The hypnotic pull drew me closer.

  I met his midnight blue eyes through the tiny window. “It’s not over yet, Arys. I still have a link to the light. I’m not giving up.”

  Gaze narrowed, he studied me. No, there was nothing rabid in his eyes. Quite the opposite. Instead he was calm and cool. Smooth as sin.

  “You’ve been with Falon. I can feel him all over you.” Absolute wickedness flashed across his face. His sexy grin bared fangs. “I bet you still taste like him, don’t you? Let me taste you, my wolf. Let me taste him on you.”

  That dirty request sent a shockwave of heat to my groin. It didn’t matter that I’d just screwed such urges out of my system with Falon. The power in that incubus command made my blood hot.

  “Stop it,” I hissed, shoving away from the door.

  His sinister laugh followed. It reached inside me. My head. My soul. All around. I got the sudden irrational urge to dig him out of me with my own claws.

  “Don’t play coy with me, Alexa,” Arys admonished. “I get off on knowing you’ve fucked another man, and you love that. Get your sweet ass in here so I can ravish you.”

  Was my hand moving toward the door? Yes! I snatched it back and reached for Shaz. He took my hand and held it tight.

  I choked on a swell of desire. Arys exuded it like a toxic oil spill. It poured over the atmosphere, soaking it. “Look, Arys, I need to know that you’re still with me on this. You promised not to give up, but I don’t see you fighting this.”

  He eyed me through the slot, back far enough tha
t I could see most of his face. So I didn’t miss the telltale twitch in his jaw. “For the first time since I first took you to bed, I don’t hear that annoying fucking voice in my head. The light. And I’ve got to say, I don’t miss it.”

  Panic stabbed my heart. “Arys…”

  “It’s over, my love. We lost. Do us both a favor and end it already.” Cold and hard, his expression became a mask of indifference. The person looking out at me through those familiar eyes, I didn’t know that person. It scared the hell out of me.

  Wounded, a tiny part of me wanted to crumple. But the part of me that wanted to bitch slap the look off his face was bigger and angrier. “I’m the one who links light and dark, and I still have them both. If anyone is going to figure this shit out, it will be me. So I’ll damn well decide when it’s over.”

  A stare down ensued. The dark had made Arys it’s bitch. Not me. Not yet. Oh it crashed through me like a storm now more than ever before. Having no beginning and no end, just a constant flow circling through me, patiently wearing me down. I refused to let it have us both. As long as it didn’t, we had a chance.

  A monster lurked in Arys, staring out at me. Refusing to allow me even a glimpse of the man I knew inside the killer, the dark sought to take me too. It raged in me, demanding that I play its game. I wanted to. Of course I did. The murderous intention in my dark lover’s eyes was enough to keep me fighting.

  “This is me, Alexa. This is who I am. Who I’ve always been. The darkness.” Low and menacing, Arys spoke through clenched teeth.

  “No, it’s not,” I argued, straining against Shaz’s hold on my hand. “You are not total darkness.”

  The intensity in his intimidating stare grew uncomfortable. Love and hate lived there. “You know me. You always have.”

  My jaw dropped. I remembered the night he’d said that to me. When the darkness raged in us both one night while reading his journal. That same night he’d told me that he wanted to see terror in my eyes.