Chapter Sixteen Taranis #2
Batting back the feathery bush, I rip open the door to her balcony, my irritation spiking to dangerous levels as I find it unlocked. I may have aerial precautions installed to notify me of any incoming intruders, but she doesn’t. “Stupid, reckless woman . . .”
Even though I should feel better knowing that she didn’t leave my—our—apartment building in the dead of night, I don’t. Because when I take a tour of her apartment, I find room after room of spectacularly blinding color and horrific decorations . . .
But no. Fucking. Monika.
Where the fuck would she have gone, and when? Did I not have a conversation with her that ended in me fucking her with my tail about how naughty girls who walk around my place when they were expressly told to be carried or crawl don’t get to leave my bed? Ever again?
I grunt as I enter her bedroom and plant my hands on my hips, looking down at a bed that’s covered in a hideous green duvet that’s not even slightly rumpled.
She didn’t sleep here last night. Where the fuck did she go?
Who was she with? My tail swats at the air violently.
Maybe tail-fucking her in the ass would have sent a clearer message.
As my mind rages with worry—anger, I mean, not worry—the sound of elevator doors gliding open pulls my attention around, my entire body moving with it. That better be fucking Monika, and if she’s with anyone else, so help me . . .
My horns crackle with electricity as I step out of her bedroom, cut down the hall to her living room, cross it, and see her in her little entryway. “You dare,” I hiss.
She screams before she glances up, her eyes puffy and her hair mussed. I have a full-body reaction to seeing her standing there in my oversize T-shirt and black sweats that entirely swallow her curves, and what I feel is . . . unsure. I don’t feel like myself at all.
The electricity that passes through my horns makes my shoulders roll back.
I come alive, inhaling so deep I feel it in my toes.
And then lightning skitters out in a cloud around me, a huge burst that makes Monika scream a second time.
I exhale and the lightning cloud reabsorbs into my body, disappearing as quickly as it came.
I’m moving forward the whole time, my paces long.
Her apartment is big, but still smaller than mine, and I make it to her in seconds.
She’s standing up, whatever rags she was holding in her hand now discarded at her feet, her mouth fumbling over words.
I grab her by the throat, rage lighting like a match down my spine.
Pushing her back against the closed elevator doors, I bring our noses nearly to touch.
Against her lips, I exhale, “You dare run from me?”
While she chokes on some sort of excuse, I open the elevator doors behind her with a flick of my gifts and push her back toward the empty free fall.
She screams, “Taranis!” Her eyes fly open wide and she grabs on to my forearm, and I frown, not liking the feeling that she’s called me that.
Darius held her trust last night—a trust Taranis has never so much as touched. I want it back.
“Darius,” I whisper.
Her pulse pounds beneath my palm, and I don’t like that either. She’s been calmer in front of greater adversaries before, and I decide then that I’m not sure that’s what I want to be to her anymore.
“Darius,” she repeats.
I drag her into the foyer and whirl her body around, pressing her into the concrete wall. My gaze sweeps her face. Her eyes are all bloodshot. She hasn’t slept.
Her expression shifts, but I don’t take the time to read it. I press my mouth to hers, fully open, tongue seeking. My hard body softens the instant I feel her stiff limbs melt for me. I gather her up, spreading her thighs around my hips and grinding my cock against her center.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” I say on tortured breaths.
“I . . .” She shakes her head. “I lost it.”
“You lost it?” I hiss. That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one. I grab her hair and wrench her head back. Easy, I remind myself.
She whimpers, scrambling, “I . . . left it in the cab.”
“What company? I’ll have my people get it back.” My gaze is narrowed and heated. I don’t know why she’s lying to me. Where was she?
“Don’t bother. The guy was an asshole.” Her hands are on my chest, beating on it pitifully. “Please . . .”
“No. This is not the please I want from you.” I shake her head.
She winces, gloss forming on her eyes, and I don’t like that either. I grind my hips against her harder, and she gasps and licks her lips. But when I lean in to meet her heat, she contradicts herself and begs, “Nirvana.”
I jerk back. “What?”
“Nirvana,” she says, sagging in my grip in a way that spells defeat with all capital letters. I’ve never seen her like this before. So . . . drained. “I want to—you know I want to be a monster slut for you. But I can’t take a punishment right now, Taranis . . .”
“Darius,” I snarl.
“It’s hard to remember you aren’t Taranis when you’re yelling at me.”
I release her hair and she lifts her head. The strain in her expression bothers me more than I like. My whole body stiffens. Like I’ve been electrocuted. I stroke the outside of her bare arms. She’s cold as ice. “What happened? And don’t lie.”
She shifts her gaze from side to side as if debating lying, then exhales. “Cynthia got into a car accident last night and landed in the hospital. My mom was calling me, remember?”
I frown, hardly remembering that at all.
“My mom was so stressed I didn’t even bother stopping at my apartment to get shoes or my wallet. Or my car.” I start to set her down, but the moment her feet hit the ground she winces. “Ow.”
“You’re hurt?” The next breath she takes is shaky, and my stomach bottoms out at the sound of it. “Don’t you dare cry.” My front teeth are clenched. My spine is ramrod straight. “How are you hurt?”
“I’m not, really. My feet are just really sore. I walked here.”
“From where? Which hospital?”
“Central . . .” she says slowly.
I fucking choke. “That’s three miles at least.” My horns alight.
She rears back like I really am gonna hurt her, and I. Hate. All of it. “It’s not a big deal. Cynthia is okay . . . except for two broken legs . . .”
“I don’t give a fuck if Cynthia’s okay.” I struggle to control my volume as I snatch her up in a cradle hold and carry her down the hallway toward her living room. “I don’t care if Cynthia got turned into a fucking toad or was kidnapped for ransom.”
Monika winces when I say that.
“You don’t even like her,” I add.
“I did it for my mom. She was really freaking out. And they haven’t been able to get hold of Cynthia’s mom. I’m glad I went.”
“You should have fucking told me. Texted me. Something.” Holding her with one hand around her back, my tail beneath her knees, I use my free hand to grab her by the cheeks.
“You’re right,” she says through lips puckered like a fish’s. “I just . . . didn’t think about it, and I didn’t want to wake you up. You were snoring.”
I squeeze a little harder. “I don’t snore.” She grunts out what sounds dangerously like a laugh even as tears surface again in her eyes. “Stop that.”
“Sorry,” she says when I release her face, opting instead to comb her unruly hair behind her ear. “I’m just really tired. We can talk about whatever you came to talk about in a couple hours. Please. I just . . . need sleep.”
“Shut up, Monika.”
“What?”
“Just stop . . . talking.” I’m speaking through clenched teeth, and my hands are tense.
She winces as my claws dig into her body, and I spasm, my anger self-directed as I grumble out an apology.
I carry her across her apartment, back to her bedroom and the en suite bathroom—which is even bigger than mine, I find.
I set her down on the marble countertop between the his-and-hers sinks.
The fact that only one sink has anything surrounding it pleases me in ways I refuse to acknowledge.
I run the bath, stoppering the tub. It’s a claw-foot—must have been custom installed, because my tub is built in and looks totally different.
Everything about her place is eclectic, at best. There are crystals and candles lined up on little golden stands all around the outer edge of the tub.
I think about lighting them but find my ears burning at the thought.
Instead, I return to her and watch her try to focus on me with bleary eyes.
She’s swaying where she sits, exhausted in a way I don’t fucking like.
She looks nothing like the woman I had underneath me last night.
She looks like that tough woman’s soft insides.
It’s . . . hard to look at. She’s way too vulnerable, and when I tap her hip and she lifts it, giving me space to pull her sweats down and then off, the electricity burning in my chest burns hotter and releases from my horns in a burst.
Monika jumps. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” I glance at the mirror behind her and see that my eyes are a color they’ve never been before. White. And they’re blazing. “Arms up.”
When she lifts her arms, I peel the shirt off her, noticing that she’s still covered in my scent. I’m reluctant to bathe her for fear that it’ll fade. And then I decide I’ll just make sure to give her a reason to smell like me later. And every other day.
I blink and realize I’ve got one palm pressed to the side of her face, cradling her cheek.
My jaw clenches as I glance down again at her naked body, reminded that she left the house without a bra, underwear, or socks.
She must have been really scared. And I was upstairs sleeping more soundly than I’ve ever slept in my life.
I firm my grip and yank her off the counter more roughly than I intended. I all but toss her into the bath.
“I’ll be outside,” I mutter quickly. “Shout if you need anything, and don’t fucking drown.” I slam the door shut behind me.