Sinner’s End (Forgotten Shadow Lords #1)

Chapter Nineteen

A Pocketful of Ruin

Lethe

Mana’s plan to seduce the girl who was designed for me is the worst fucking idea I’ve ever heard of. Any other night I might have been able to ignore his ploy. Play the wounded puppy part I’ve come to accept at his side, float through the haze my Maker left over for me and take the next sunrise in my stride.

Tonight, I want to rip his throat out and bathe in his blood before I tear everything in this sin-imbued place apart. I don’t care if I terrify her, and something tells me as I step in front of the three of them—Mana, Adreana, and their spare—that my soulmate won’t mind in the slightest.

She looks up at me with a faint amount of curiosity. “Are you joining us? No tears allowed after the way you cried all over me before,” she admonishes sweetly.

I stare into her eyes, waxen like cerecloth, and shake my head. “You’ll sleep in my bed tonight, my love.”

She blinks at me long and slow, caught up in the dream state that creature put her in. Her hand detaches from Mana’s as she takes a half-step forward. His growl is overridden by her half-smile that goes straight to my cock, but I ignore the pleasures of this mortal form.

Let her take her place as promised. I’ll spend my immortality serving the pits of this hellish overworld if she’s allowed to fulfil her fate.

I pray quietly, knowing her intended destiny without understanding my own, but giving it freely all the same. I don’t receive an answer, nor do I expect one.

Adreana reaches me, her lips grazing the corner of my mouth, gliding along my cheek. “Come with us. Lethe. ”

My name on her lips, stunted as though she pulled out the memory from a place long tucked away, leaves me aching.

“I will not share you.” I cup her cheek, rubbing my thumb along her soft skin. Something flares in the depths of her eyes, an awareness maybe. I want more of a reaction from her at my touch, but this isn’t the moan I know, the one my soul screams for, but the barest shade of one.

I promised I’d bring her back from whatever precipice she stands, whatever the cost.

“Not your choice, cupcake.” Kaleb’s meaty hand claps my back and I swear he leaves a mark.

Still cradling her gently, I throw an elbow back, hoping to connect with something important. Kaleb’s yelp tells me I did, and I smile into her eyes.

Fake Adreana smiles back. “I’ll sleep in your bed.”

I wrap my hand around her nape, pulling her into my chest. “Good girl.” I kiss her temple gently as she snuggles happily into my chest, apparently having forgotten Mana and her cohort altogether. The dark-haired man glowers at me. I give him my best reflective grin. “I’m happy to share the spoils. You get that one.” I nod to the girl who manned the bar earlier.

She grins back weakly and spews a week’s wages of tequila all over Mana’s shoes.

He curses as I lift Adreana in my arms, and turn the first corridor I come to, anything to get away from Mana’s mess. Footsteps that don’t belong to me echo mine. I turn my head to find Kaleb flanking me on one side, and Mana’s pale pet on my other.

“I can manage her alone,” I force out, gripping her tighter.

Adreana shuffles against my torso and bites my nipple.

Pain builds in my chest. I swallow it back like a treat, heedless of the tear that rolls down my cheek as she bites and licks and sucks. My cock goes on a rampage, straining against the white leather pants Mana dressed me in like his personal fuck toy for tonight’s work. Not that I have any intention of working at Harken, not while Adreana remains in this state.

“You’re such a little macho slut, aren’t you?” Bowen coos, winding his fingers through her hair.

Kaleb slaps him away with the free hand not pinching his nose to stem the blood flowing there.

“Thanks.” I give him a short nod.

“Not her, you.” Bowen doesn’t break his stride as he hops in front of us, walking backward. “She bites, you get hard. How much pain would it take for you to blow in your pants before you make it to your room? For you to fall to your knees while you hold her, protect her? Would you still be able to protect her then?”

Bowen’s taunts grow while I count the steps between where I left Mana and my room, wondering if I’ll get there before he unleashes hell and tries to snatch her back.

I don’t know if I’m a match for the creature seething beneath his skin, or if he’s a match for my beast, but tonight we might find out. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or not when my door is in range and I push past Bowen with no further interference, laying Adreana out on my sheetless bed. I brush her hair back from her face tenderly, and push back onto my knees, settling in place.

“This is it?” I twist to find Kaleb staring down at me, his head tilted to one side. “The fuck did you do to earn Mana’s punishment?”

His bewildered stare leaves me trying to see my spartan room through his eyes. The bed with no sheets, the single stool with my jacket draped over it. Stone floor, that, if I press my palms to their smooth, worn surfaces, weep with the tortured souls of those who screamed here for so many nights. They have been my nightly company through the long nights when this body refuses to sleep. Mana seems to share that problem when I’ve found him wandering the halls.

I shrug and turn back to Adreana. “I requested it.”

“You—” Kaleb’s mouth snaps shut, his teeth clanging together in an audible snick.

“—are a fucking maniac,” Bowen finishes. “Mana will give you anything you ask for. Do you know that?”

I don’t bother to turn back to the broken soul residing in the twisted thing that barely deigns to be called human . “It’s not for me to ask.”

“And yet you bring her here.” Kaleb paces behind me. “At least at my place she’d be comfortable.”

“Better than his rooms. Here, maybe we can bring her back.”

His pacing stops. “How?”

I reach into my pocket and extract a small green vial. “This.”

“No.” A hand snatches it from my fist, and I don’t need to look to know who took Mana’s venom.

“That could work, you know,” Bowen muses. “Clever pet.”

He pats my head, massaging his fingers into my scalp. A deep pleasure radiates there, and for a few moments I forget the pain in my knees. A rumble works its way along my throat, almost escaping my mouth before I remember what we’re supposed to be doing and shove him back.

“Glad you approve.” I hold a hand out. “Kaleb?”

“ForgetMeKnot isn’t the answer.” He steps into my range of vision and folds his arms, staring down at her, his jaw set. “Addi, honey, you in there? Please?” he begs softly, dropping to his knees beside me. “Addi?” He reaches out to brush his knuckles across her cheeks, tracing over her lips.

A sadness emanates from him in this bleak place, and the stones sing all the louder. If he hears them, he says nothing at all, leaning over her, his head dipped like he might kiss her. I lean forward with him, ready to shove him back, but I don’t need to as Bowen takes the moment of our dual distraction, snatching the vial of Mana’s homemade drug and smashing it over Adreana’s chest.

The green liquid covers her halter-neck top where it pools over her heart for a second. The fluid shimmers like a gemstone as I rear back, his throat in my hand.

“The fuck did you do—” I roar, but it’s Kaleb’s choked breath that gives me pause. I drop the interfering pale man, watching him carefully as he brushes himself off, and drop back to my knees to face Adreana’s still form.

The emerald pool between her perfect breasts darkens, wavering. A darkness forms there, lifting from within, as though drawing poison from her. But as it extracts the shadow, Mana’s drug sinks into her, right over her heart.

Adreana stiffens, the darkness taking a longer form over her. Bowen stiffens behind me, knives flashing in my periphery, then it’s gone, along with her breath.

And then there’s nothing at all.

I stare at her still form, the place where the drug sat no more than a tarnished stain between her breasts. Her chest doesn’t rise, or fall, and her skin is the texture I associate with a doll’s. Lifeless. I try to move, but I can’t.

“Is she gone?” Kaleb croaks, like he’s forcing the words out. He manages to place a hand on her skin and yanks it back. “She’s freezing. Like—”

“Death.”

The door to my room bursts inward. Mana stands there, barefoot, wearing only his black leather pants, his face twisted into an expression of pure horror.

“You fucking fools, you killed her.”