Chapter 31
Lock
My panic hadn’t faded one bit since I laid Sam in our bed. I wanted to stay there until she woke up, but after making sure her wounds were healing, I left her there. Seraphim was sitting on our new couch, which kind of pissed me off, and I marched over to him, ready to put him through something similar to whatever Sam just experienced.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
“I told her to stop.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Like you, Sam needs to learn how to use her words instead of trying to take what she wants by force.”
“I’m using my fucking words,” I roared. “I’d much rather tear you into a thousand tiny pieces so it’d be easier for the fish to eat you.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is, just that Sibon can’t be allowed to have control of it. She doesn’t even know it exists inside me. Only Vas does.”
“Why hasn’t he told her?”
“Because even though he serves her, he doesn’t want the world to end in fire.”
“Why’d you let it hurt Sam?”
“I didn’t. It was tucked away just fine before she had to go digging around inside of me. That was all her.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
“I can’t,” he growled. “Some things aren’t meant to be wielded, even by the strongest beings, and we are not those.”
Shoving my hands through my hair, I tried to quell the urge to throw this bitch through the window. ‘Not meant to be wielded by the strongest beings.’ What a pretentious fuck nugget.
“Will she be okay?” I asked.
“She’ll be fine, but she can’t do that sort of thing again. Like Vas said, an Ark is all but meaningless without its Nexus and she doesn’t have the capacity to handle these abilities without those that can actually command them. She isn’t all powerful and she would have died if you hadn’t snapped her neck.”
“It was like she was stuck.” My body felt cold, the fear and pain I’d felt through the bond coming to the forefront of my mind. For a moment, I’d been convinced I was going to lose her and it had been the most hopeless I’d ever felt, surpassing even the time she’d given up on me.
“She opened a connection between us, then she ripped the door off its hinges and came through with a bulldozer.”
“So, stop her next time.”
He laughed dryly. “She has power over me, Hemlock. Physically, I am stronger than her, but if she believes something will benefit her, she has the ability to influence me to submit. I can fight it and it’s not like mind control or anything, but in terms of my magic, she can take what she wants if she manages to get deep enough. That’s what makes her dangerous and it’s what she needs to learn how to control.”
“So teach me.”
We both looked toward the hallway where Sam was now standing with her arms crossed. Seraphim approached her, then reached out to cup her neck. I shoved him in the shoulder and he whirled on me, a pillar of orange smoke rising beside him.
“Jesus Christ,” Sam shrieked, marching past us. She threw open a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of vodka. Holding up a finger, she took three large swallows, then set it down. “We can deal with the other thing in a second. Right now, let’s talk about you two.”
“What about us?” I asked, swiping the bottle and taking a few drinks myself.
“Being around you two is like being stuck in an elephant seal mating ritual.”
My nose wrinkled. “This is not a mating ritual.”
Seraphim leaned against the fridge, smirking in the way that made me wonder if his blood would make a good replacement for liquid smoke.
“I’d like to point out,” he began, “That I am in no way pursuing Sam.”
“I seem to recall you kissing her on more than one occasion. For that alone, you deserve to be spit roasted.”
He barked a laugh. “Sam, you should introduce your boyfriend to Urban Dictionary.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Shut the fuck up, Raf. Lock, don’t use the term spit-roasted when referring to Raf.”
“How do you feel about the Eiffel Tower?” he asked, earning a murderous glare.
I didn’t know what was going on at this point, so I took another drink. Sam took the vodka and swiped a hand down her face.
“Maybe we all should talk about our feelings since we’re going to be spending a lot more time together.”
“A lot?” I repeated with a groan.
“Raf and I are a super special team, Lock. That’s just how it is. With that comes some shit you probably won’t like. Our blood draws us to each other, and he wants to protect me. Right, Raf?”
“Right.”
“Earlier, he touched me to check in and share his energy with me to ensure I was healed.”
“I could have ensured it,” I said through gritted teeth. The idea of his hands on her at all made my fingers twitch toward my blade.
“Baby,” she cooed, taking my hand. “It’s not attraction like that. You know that, so why are you being so growly?”
“I don’t quite believe he doesn’t want to fuck you.”
“He doesn’t want to.” She looked at him, raising her brows expectantly.
His gaze shifted to me and orange danced in his eyes. “Sure.”
When I stepped forward, Sam moved to block me. “Raf.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “I mean, if the circumstances were different, I’d definitely fuck you and I think you’d fuck me. However,” he went on, ducking to avoid the dagger coming for his face. It bounced off the fridge and clattered to the floor. “Nothing I’ve done has been about that and I have no desire to be anything more than this super special team, as Sam put it.”
“See?” she said a little too animatedly. “Everything is peachy.”
The lingering amusement on Seraphim’s face was not ‘peachy’, but I nodded to appease her. The front door opened and Ryan appeared a moment later, looking between the three of us warily. His eyes kept darting back to Seraphim, making it clear he was uneasy about his presence.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Team meeting,” Sam replied casually. “Where were you?”
He held up two bags. “Lock sent me shopping. I don’t know what use you have for chains, but I got them.”
“They’re for an experiment,” I said with a shrug.
“Right,” Sam drew out the word for an unnecessarily long time. “Let’s get back to this ‘teaching Sam how to stay out of Raf’s scary places’ business.”
Seraphim leaned his elbows on the counter, his face level with hers. “They’re not that scary, but if you’d like, I can put on the scary horn mask.”
“Stop it.”
“You’re no fun. Besides, I don’t have an answer for you.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know how this is supposed to work. If I’d known you could do some shit like that, I would’ve been more careful about the connection.”
“Once again, we have no answers. We’re flying by the seat of our pants here and I’m sick of it.”
“There’s someone who probably would know.”
“Let me guess. The pretty faced telekinetic basement dweller.”
“He isn’t telekinetic, but yes.”
“There’s no way he’s going to answer your questions when he knows we’ll kill him.”
“We’re not going to kill him. We’re going to let him go.”
Sam snorted. “Why would we do that?”
“Because I’m going to convince him to help us.”
Dropping my forehead to the counter, I took a deep breath. “This is exactly how plans fall apart. Even if you get him to agree, he’ll go back to her and betray us.”
“Vas is all about the winning team. He’s smart and he knows how to survive. If he believes we can beat Sibon, he’ll flip on her in an instant. He bears no true loyalty to her or to anyone.”
“He cares about you,” Sam pointed out. “I think it’s a good plan.”
Getting to my feet, I took the bags from Ryan. “You two can do all of that and I’ll prepare our Plan B, which I guarantee we’ll be needing.”
“What’s Plan B?” she asked.
I held up a length of chain. “Vampires are strong, but one cannot summon enough momentum to break free of these with the added resistance of water. Without the ability to draw breath, he will die and remain in that state until someone returns him to the surface. I wonder if the fish will feed on his undead body while he’s down there.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to Plan B because that’s grotesque.”
“We fucked over the corpses of newlyweds the other day, darling.”
Ryan made a startled sound and Sam shot me a glare. “I’ll be back. Be nice to Ryan while we’re gone.”
I caught her arm before she made it outside. Grabbing onto the back of her neck, I kissed her firmly, exploring her mouth with my tongue. I was intimately familiar with her taste, but I memorized it again.
“Don’t do that again,” I said.
She nodded. “I’ll be safe. I promise.”
“Good girl. If you somehow succeed, I’ll find another use for these chains tonight.”
Biting her lip, she glanced down at the one wrapped around my hand. I could sense her arousal, but as much as I wanted to bend her over and take her right here, I knew it wasn’t the time. I jerked my chin toward the door and she disappeared through it, along with Seraphim.
“Well, Ryan, I haven’t actually tested this undead underwater thing yet. How do you feel-”
The front door slammed, making me chuckle. The guy never stayed in a room with me for very long. Luckily for me, he was pitifully slow, which made him my guinea pig until Sam finished and undoubtedly unleashed that fiery temper on me.
Silencing her with my cock sounded like a wonderful way to close out a day of torturing her friend. I’d blessed him with eternal life. What were a few hours at the bottom of a lake in the grand scheme of things?