Chapter 30 #2
“I don’t know your story,” Tristan repeated when John had sat down.
“I honestly don’t really care. But I know you were trained as an alpha, and I am learning how very buttoned up those are.
You are currently stepping into a reality where there are no rules.
Not on Jessie’s side of things. With her, you take things as they come, and you adapt.
Trust me when I tell you that. On my very first detail as a beta, I was blindsided by a vampire and saved by Austin Steele.
I repeatedly froze on the job. I was way beyond my comfort and expertise level.
It was a hard reality to face at first. Maybe just a hard reality to face, full stop. ”
Tristan laughed, catching Natasha’s attention. Her eyes were hazed with alcohol and face flushed. She was further gone than he’d ever seen her. Phil alone seemed to handle the nights out with Niamh.
“Hey,” she said, drawing all his focus. She reached out for him, and then stumbled, falling into his side.
He grabbed her, helping her stand, and slid a hand along the small of her back. Pulling her close, he breathed in her intoxicating smell and felt her heat soak into his skin.
“Hey,” he murmured, taking in her beauty.
She furrowed her brow and then slapped him across the face. Seeing him smile, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Arousal flared through him. Their tongues tangled before he backed off.
“Hi,” he murmured against her lips. “Having fun, little mate?”
He didn’t miss her full body shiver at his words. She liked the term.
She threaded in between his knees, her hands at the back of his neck now, her chest nearly pressed against his. “You set me up,” she said loudly. She’d lost control of her volume. “Since when do you have entire territories trying to get in your pants?”
He ran his hands down her back, stopping just above the swell of her butt. He longed to keep going, to grab her athletic ass and pull her harder into him. He’d be taking advantage of her in the moment, though. She had zero inhibitions right now.
He settled for rubbing back up her sides and again along her back, enjoying the contact. Enjoying her eyes closed in pleasure.
“Since always, little angel,” he answered arrogantly. Her eyes opened, her gaze now traveling his face. “You just never noticed because you had no interest.”
“I still have no interest,” she whispered, though more to herself. She swayed a little closer, as though a magnet, its other half tugging.
“No?”
“No. I have no desire for you at all.” Her energy caressed every bit of him, exposing her lie. “I detest you most of the time.”
“And when you don’t detest me?”
Her resolve broke. “I want you so badly it’s hard to think.” Her lips crashed into his, needy and insistent. She chased his tongue with her own and her body pressed up against his sensuously.
“Okay, angel.” He pulled away before he was lost to the feeling of her. His groin pounded for release. “Let’s take a second.”
She snuggled into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I’m legless,” she murmured. “That’s what Niamh says.
It means ‘incredibly drunk’. But in fairness— “ She pushed away from him so she could take a deep breath. If she wasn’t already spinning, she would be soon.
He needed to take her home. “I really did hold my own. I really did!” She breathed out heavily in alcoholic fumes, closed her eyes, and burrowed her face into him again.
“I totally get what Jessie is always saying about a night out with Niamh. I thought—how bad can it be? Well. Let me tell you!” She yanked her upper body back.
He held onto her to keep her from pitching backward. “It can be vera bad. Vera—ver-eee bad!”
“I’ll take you home now—“
She slapped him again. Then her hands reached into his hair, clutched painfully, and she slammed her lips onto his again.
His arousal roared through him with the treatment. A tidal wave of passion threatened to take him away. Mustering all his strength, he wrapped his fingers around her upper arms and, as delicately as he could, pried her off.
“Wait, little angel,” he said, breathing heavily. “Wait, wait. We can’t do this now.”
“Take me home,” she murmured, her forehead against his. “Fly me home. Apparently mates fly their women home. Fly me there and make love to me, Tristan. We both want it. I want it. I want you inside of me. I tasted you, now I want to feel you.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned, needing to push her farther away to get his bearings but not wanting her to take it as a rejection.
It was the last thought that sobered him.
“We need to go,” he said, rubbing her outer arms. “I’ll fly you home, but you need sleep.”
“I’m good. I’m okay.” She gave him a one-eyed thumbs up.
“She has drunk two or three drinks to my one, did you know that?” She lifted her brows before attempting to turn and point at Niamh.
“And he”—her finger vaguely waved in Phil’s direction— “kept pace with her no problem. They don’t even seem drunk. How is that possible?”
“It is not.” Jasper took two wobbly steps closer, his hands on his hips and his hips trying to slide out of line with the rest of his body. “It is not possible. That is the synopsis.”
“Synopsis?” Ulric asked from behind him, leaning heavily against the wall between two tables. He held a half empty drink against his chest, and there was a wet stain below it. “That is not the right word, dummy. How about…sum-der-ay. Wait, no.”
“Go home, Larry, you’re drunk,” Aurora said from a table. She wheezed out laughter and bent over.
Fred sat on the other side of Aurora with her computer open and a coffee cup to the side.
Without looking up, she reached forward and moved Aurora’s mostly empty drink away, so Aurora didn’t hit it with her face.
Fred was apparently working while playing babysitter.
She clearly knew better than to drink with Niamh and Phil.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Tristan tried again, “I will fly you back to the hotel and tuck you into your bed, okay?”
“Your bed,” she stated.
He gritted his teeth. He wanted nothing more in the world, and maybe he would, but he wouldn’t share that bed with her. He couldn’t. He didn’t trust himself to keep his hands to himself.
“Sure,” he said noncommittally. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Her hazy eyes met his and stuck, vulnerability shining within them. “I have a lot of darkness inside of me, Tristan. I have done so many things I’m not proud of. That I had no choice in. But…to protect Sebastian, and Jala, I would do it again.”
Jala was Sebastian’s sister, Tristan remembered. She’d died years ago.
A tear slipped out of her eye. “I killed their uncle. Did I ever tell you that? I don’t really tell people.
He’d locked me in the closet again. He used to do that all the time when we were bad, which he thought was always.
I’d get locked in the closet because I wasn’t a blood relation and he didn’t want to explain to my drug addled, dead-beat parents what had happened to me.
He’d lock me in the closet, and he’d…” More tears fell.
“It’s okay, we can—“
“He’d beat them bloody. I had to take Jala to the emergency room once.
I used all my babysitting money to get a taxi.
I had to leave Sebastian at home because I couldn’t carry them both and Sebastian wasn’t as badly off.
We were just kids. I took Jala in and made up an excuse.
She got jumped, I said. Because if they knew it was their uncle, Jala and Sabby would go into the system.
They’d be separated and lose track of each other.
They insisted I never tell. And so, I didn’t.
I just patched them up as best I could. But then one time, he locked me in the closet and it didn’t latch all the way.
I got out before the panic set in, and I saw him.
He had a hammer. I knew this time, this time, he’d kill them.
I just knew it. And so I went to the kitchen, and I got a knife…
and I got to him before he got to them.”
More tears slipped down. Jasper lost the fight to keep his body in a straight line and fell between the tables, distracting the others. John moved to help.
“There was so much blood.” Her eyes held a haunted look.
She cried softly. “So much blood. It was everywhere. All over the place. And then Jala had a vision.” More tears fell.
“There was no point in resisting her visions. You did what she saw or else it would happen the hard way but still end up the same.” She cried harder.
“We framed the neighbor. He would’ve gone to jail anyway.
He had a warrant, I guess. We lived in a really bad place.
We framed him to get us off. Me off. And then Sabby and Jala essentially hid in my house until we could steal enough to all run away.
And that’s what my life has become.” Her cheeks glistened.
“Killing and killing. Torturing. Stealing. Killing some more. And it’s all my fault.
It all started with me.” She hiccupped. “Whatever I might say, I have no one else to blame b-but myself.”
John passed by again, but he didn’t take his seat. He faced the rest of the bar, his back to Tristan and Natasha, giving them a moment.
“You did what you had to do to save your family,” he said gently, his heart aching for her.
He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.
“You’re doing that still. We all are. I have so much darkness within me, little angel, it would make you weep.
It would scare you. You wouldn’t want to share a bed with me or even stand this close.
I have traveled the darkest parts of a world that isn’t supposed to merge with this one.
A plane of existence so vile, it is a wonder I didn’t come out coated in evil. Or maybe I did.”
“Tell me,” she whispered, pleading. Wanting her own demons to get out of the way or maybe just have company.