15. Threx Fish Food
fifteen
Threx: Fish Food
The smell of salted pine drifted through the galley as I tapped my fingers along the ivory linen tablecloths in the floating ballroom.
I did not much care for ferry boats or the idea of being trapped here by people who wanted me dead.
Despite the no-contract rule in public spaces, you could never be so sure.
Poison always finds its way into glasses.
Vendettas wait in the shadows, and for men who run on sex and cortisol, nothing good ever happens when they get bored.
I tossed a glance at my phone, waiting for Daph’s reply.
It helped not to think about how far away she was, though even I knew that little trick wouldn’t last forever.
There was no way to prepare for the storm that was coming.
All I could do was sit and wait for the moment it dragged me under, and the world burned.
I peered at the thread again. Knowing Daph, she was probably teetering between flipping me off and hunting down a bottle of hot sauce in that sorry excuse of a cabin of hers. From what I’d seen, it was smaller than her apartment, which until now I had thought to be impossible.
Me: Waiting…
I typed the letters, throwing a look at Wolfe while he pushed Lyla across the dance floor like he was born for this. Maybe that was his tragedy. Daphne and I crawled into this life so we wouldn’t die in the one that broke us, but Wolfe never got a window: just chains and a crown.
Dot. Dot…
I don’t think Lyla ever took into consideration what being Wolfe’s queen actually meant. She was too desperate to be made real to notice her king had no heart left for anyone but Daphne, not when he thought nobody was looking.
Me: Coward
“You’re Threx, right?” something soft and deadly asked, towering over me in a red strapless number that turned her into a dagger.
I peered up at her, irritated by the way her blonde hair and perfect body made me feel empty. When Daphne wasn’t around, everyone lost their face. They were just skin on bones. Breathing meat. Things that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know you,” I said, annoyed, flipping my phone facedown and pressing it to the table.
“Do you want to?” Her brown eyes perked, sparkling beneath the smoky colors framing them. When I did not respond, she leaned forward, pushing her breasts into my face. “Well, do you?” she asked again, wetting her bottom lip with the pink of her tongue.
My cock gagged, literally furious that this person existed in a space Daphne did not.
I am aware Daph thinks I’m just some fuckboy who puts his dick into whatever and whomever he wants, which is true, but what she doesn’t know is that I hate them all. Their mouths. Their bodies. The fact that they are never her.
“No,” I growled, shooting her a look as she plopped her ass into the chair beside me. Judging by the scythe burned into her wrist, she was a Reaper.
“Is Zade here?” I asked, leaning back to put some distance between us and the awful smell of lavender she must have poured on herself before attending.
Zade Carden was second to the leader of her guild and my mentor, once upon a time.
“Why?” She picked up a champagne flute, sloshing the contents before taking a drink. “Would you rather fuck him instead?”
I leaned forward with a grin. “Yes.”
She laughed and killed the glass in one sloppy shot.
“I am Kiera,” she stated flatly, though I knew that wasn’t her real name.
Reapers were classified by letters, with Z being the end before Death himself.
K put her in a low-to-mid tier, probably running fewer contracts that required precision over planning, or serving the guild instead of the mission.
“I don’t care,” I said, flipping my phone over when a voice message from Daph finally appeared. Hmm. I’d bet my left corroded artery it was her telling me to fuck off.
“Give me ten minutes,” Kiera dragged a finger around the rim of her empty glass, “and you might rethink that.”
“See, that is where you are wrong,” I replied, taking a deep breath as I lit a cigarette. More time would only make me hate her more.
Wolfe gave me a nod to check if I was okay, and it seemed strange to nod back.
To think he was parading the target on Lyla’s head, shoving her into his purview until anyone with a trigger could understand exactly who she was, made me sick, but not in the way you imagine.
I should have felt something for her. A shred of remorse!
Maybe guilt? But I didn’t. And that was fine, because Lyla did not belong to me, and I was taking care of my own.
However, Lyla did belong to Wolfe, and that was what bothered me most of all.
“Think so?” she flirted, assuming I was baiting her with the attitude that came standard with my kind. We were all dicks down here, and my personality certainly wasn’t unique. But that is what she wanted: a rough fuck from a stranger. She wouldn’t have singled me out otherwise.
Sure, my hands were black, but the Underworld stained them.
Reapers hit the good guys as often as the bad ones.
No questions. No remorse. Just dollars. And this is one way she could feel whole.
But not from me! Putting her together again was sacrilegious, and I had already died on someone else’s altar.
“How about I offer you a money-back guarantee?” She laughed. “If you hate it. Full refund. Or,” her lip twitched with spite. “Better yet. You give me what I want, and I’ll give you an address to a bunker you may want to see.”
Reapers had amnesty, which meant they could move through territories, wander between factions, and not die for it.
“My dick for Reaper intel?” I scoffed. What was this woman playing at? Was she just bored? “Because that makes a hell of a lot of sense.” I yawned, stretching my arms. “You want to know what I think?”
“Yes,” she smiled.
“I think you’re just trying to lead me to my death and get laid while doing it.”
Kiera’s eyes sparkled with a vacant emptiness that comes from being down here too long.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But if I don’t get what I want, you will never know.”
“Okay, Fucktress,” I called her, watching her petals bloom in all the wrong places. “Why the hell would a K-level Reaper be willing to help me?”
“Because a Z-level Reaper sent me here tonight.” Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time since engaging with me, she stopped flirting. “And you apparently have friends. But,” she nodded toward Lyla, “she doesn’t. Poor thing.”
My neck tightened, a broken fever crawling beneath the buttons of this goddamn shirt.
“Now, lover,” she cooed. “Let’s fuck.”
Kiera shoved off the table, her black eyes ordering me to come along.
I sighed, pushing my phone into my pocket as she led me down a narrow corridor into the side restroom.
The door was metal, painted white, and creaked when it opened.
Whatever Zade was up to, it was worth the follow, even if this ended with her as fish food.
Because if this woman touched me, I wouldn’t think twice before throwing her ass over the guardrail.
“Gah. Getting a guy into the bathroom used to be so much easier,” she said, glancing at her tits in the mirror. “They’re a good size, though, right?”
“I like them bigger,” I admitted, swallowing the image of Daphne’s full breasts in the shower, and the way water slipped down her taut nipples whenever I pressed them between my fingers. Clearing my throat, I leaned against the wall, forcing my dick to behave.
“You’re a real asshole. You know that?” She growled, pulling a fortune cookie from a hidden pocket, and tossed it at me. “Don’t eat it all in one bite.”
I caught it, eyeing the thing as if it might explode. How much money did those fuckers have to James Bond their messages into food?
Kiera turned, her red dress hugging her hips, before she paused at the door.
“You’re up your own ass,” her lethal features knitted together. “My boobs are fucking perfect.”
I gave her a smirk even though she was wrong and pocketed the cookie for another time. Whatever Zade was up to would have to wait. I needed to get back to Wolfe and my so-called queen.
I shot down the corridor. Relieved to find the beverages fully stocked at our table, I grabbed one and downed it to feel the burn in my throat.
Wolfe was staring at me, but he knew from my expression that everything was fine.
Maybe I would tell him about the bunker; maybe I wouldn’t.
The fact that he caused both women to become targets on Karsten’s hit list made trusting him that much harder.
Daphne: Now, who’s the coward?
Just seeing her name made my blood feel better. I dropped into the chair at the table, fishing for one of my earbuds and hitting play. Whatever she was about to tell me, I didn’t want to share.
At first, it was quiet, something like white noise shifting in the distance. Maybe she was moving around on her bed. I stared at the screen, turning the volume all the way up.
What the fuck is… I listened closer when Daphne let out a whimper that turned my body into liquid fire.
Holy. Shit. I swallowed when her breathlessness became moans, the melody of her pleasure echoing through my skull.
Fuck, my girl could sing. Cry war. Tear the stars from the fucking sky.
Daphne rolled onto her side, sending a flurry of dark starlight straight behind my eyes, pressing her lips against the phone so I could take it all.
Damn.
My mind fucked, pumping my thoughts inside her, taking pleasure in how her pretty sounds coated my ears the way they would my fingers.
I wanted to taste them.
Taste her.
Tie my arms and feed her into my fucking veins.
I shifted, dipping my head low until nothing but the ivory tablecloth filled my vision while she continued to twist and turn, circling higher and higher until the entire world began to snow.
“Thay.” My name drifted from her lips, and I nearly came under the goddamn table.
“Daphne,” I breathed to no one.