Chapter 10
Veyyr didn’t check to make sure I followed as he wove his way through the first alley we came to, stepping over a pair of legs that stuck out from the side of the building without so much as pausing in his long-legged stride.
Me, I did glance down, pausing until I saw the rise of a chest, half covered under a thin blanket. This was our world, I knew it, and I knew that not all could be saved.
My throat was tight, sadness slowing me more than anything. Because this could be someone I knew, or it could have been me if not for the kindness of Red and Dakota.
I paused, my hand reaching for the blanket, tugging it up around the elderly man’s chin.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Slipping the bit of dried fruit from my pack, I tucked it into his hand. “De nada.”
Above me, Sorrow gave a cluck of approval.
Only then did I step over his legs, and hurry after Veyyr.
The smell of rotting…something, I couldn’t even tell if it had been food at some point…clung to the inside of my nose and mouth and I let myself focus on that and keeping my guts in place, rather than the pain of seeing someone laid so low.
From the rickety rooftops of the buildings around us, Sorrow flitted, keeping pace with us but he was quiet, as if he knew that drawing attention was not a good idea, not here. Not in Bone Town.
I picked up my pace to catch Veyyr before he turned the next corner. “What are we actually here for?”
“Information.”
A half-truth at best by the way his voice went flat. As if he was trying to convince me of something with a single word.
“But that’s not only it, is it?”
He did glance over his shoulder then, giving me just a corner of his face.
A narrowed blue eye, tattoo at his temple, the silver hair braided up and back, the partial hood hanging down, all which made reading him and this conversation, much harder.
Was he…smiling? The fleeting moment was gone, and I couldn’t be sure if the crinkle at the side of his eye was indeed a smile, or a grimace.
“Secrets abound, Mallory. If you truly don’t remember this world, let this be a lesson to you.”
His long coat snapped out around him as he turned away from me once again. Following him didn’t bother me, better than having him at my back, wondering what he was up to.
Feeling the heat of those icy eyes on my skin as if he were peeling back each layer of my clothing, one piece at a time.
Shake it off, Mal. This is not the place to let your mind wander. There it was again, that voice that was female in my head, but not mine. A voice that had—I was sure of it—trained me.
Just another question in my mess of a life that seemingly had only been a few days long. The only thing I knew was that the warlock in front of me was my one anchor, despite how much he didn’t want to be, despite how apparently tangled to him my shadowy past was.
At the next intersection Veyyr stopped, and his hand drifted to his sword strapped to his hip. “Guards.”
While I had no magic to be ‘zapped’ Veyyr certainly did.
My own reaction followed his, my hands going to my own weapon, arms crossing as I reached for my sword and dagger off my left arm, my fingers brushing against the handles.
Waiting. Tension rising the longer we stood silently.
With nothing but the steady drip of water off the building next to us, I strained all my senses. Forcing myself to draw in a long breath, I was unable to pick up the smell of anything past the rotting food and filth that stained this place.
Finally, it came to me, the soft thud of footsteps, the clink of armor, a cough of a guard patrolling.
Veyyr stepped back, spun toward me, his hands leaving his weapons. “Trust me.”
Trust him?
He had me pinned against the wall before I could react, and with my arms crossed, he’d most effectively caged me.
His head dropped and he all but picked me up so I straddled his thigh, the tips of my boots barely touching the broken pavement and stones.
His head dropped so his hood covered both our faces, but it was his hands and… fucking hips…that had my attention.
Rolling his hips forward, he shoved his body against mine as his mouth found my ear. “They need to pass by us. I cannot afford to be taken and they know me.”
The guards knew him. I was not surprised. “So you are trouble? Shocker.”
I untangled one hand and wrapped my arm around his shoulder, pulling him tight enough that he grunted, my fingers digging in hard to the back of his neck.
“Don’t be a bitch, Mal.”
Fucker. “Don’t be a pussy, Veyyr.”
He pushed harder, slamming me against the wall, driving a hissing gasp out of me. Our eyes locked, noses touched, anger snapping in the air between us.
There were voices at the edge of the alley, the guards now had a full court view of me and Veyyr. He put a hand to the wall, bracing himself. A laugh from one of them, voices that didn’t really penetrate the snapping anger that roared up through me.
If he wanted to play rough, so be it.
I slipped my other hand under the hood and grabbed a handful of that long silver hair and clenched my fingers. “Fuck you,” I whispered.
Snarling under his breath, his free hand dug hard into the lines around my hip, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
I wish I could say I heard those we were hiding from leave, but there was too much intensity, too much anger as Veyyr slammed me against the wall, his hips punishing us both, and I hated what it was doing to my body.
The feel of his hair tangled in my fingers, the snapping fury in his eyes, the feel of breath across my lips, so close.
The moisture growing between my legs. His thigh pressed between mine, solid heat and danger. I hated the sound that caught in my throat—half warning, half wanting something I shouldn’t.
But I couldn’t look away, couldn’t give him the win of letting him see that this moment was affecting me in such a visceral way.
That was until his eyes began to dilate, darkness filling up the space that should have stayed icy blue and angry.
Until there was more than heat—but a solid hardness pressing against me, demanding to be let in.
Until I was struggling to keep control of my own breath, until his lips parted, both of us shuddering, our muscles firing with adrenaline as we fought what should have been a sham, an act, both of us dancing on the edge of rage and desire.
Razor sharp, I didn’t want this and wanted it more than anything at the same time.
I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my legs tighter, trying to find a better angle for a release that I knew I shouldn’t want from him but that ached through me, demanding I do something about it, desire picking up my breath with each lift of my chest.
Because while I didn’t know for sure that he was my enemy, he was a shadow from my past that I knew in my gut I shouldn’t trust.
His breath came harder, his chest against mine, fingers flexing against my hip. One of us had to break this spell. I wasn’t sure if it was because we didn’t want to, or because it was a game of chicken. Maybe somewhere in between, neither of us could back down.
I licked my lips, trying to find words and his eyes drifted down, locking on my tongue and mouth.
Fuck, I had to put a stop to this. “You have no idea who they work for?”
Veyyr’s throat bobbed and he let me go, slowly.
If I had thought for a moment that he wasn’t affected by the contact, I couldn’t deny the pressure of his hardness against my belly.
As I slid down the line of his body, skin to cloth to breath—it was too much, too close.
Worse? The space he left felt colder than it should have.
“I have my suspicions, but they aren’t my main issue.” His voice was husky thick. “Even if they are a problem.”
He finally stepped back, lifted a hand and then dropped it. “We’re almost there.” Turning, he led the way again.
Almost where? Orgasm city?
His body stiffened ahead of me, and I put my hand over my mouth.
Had I said that out loud? Gods above what was wrong with me?
He brought out this childish, ridiculous version of myself that I just couldn’t understand.
There was no badass fighter when he was around—just…
a side of me I suspected not many had seen.
Forcing everything that had just happened to the back of my head, I followed him to a one-story building that looked like it had been made of desert sand, the blocks a pale tan that had weathered and cracked but held even through every Rift opening.
Take it in, describe it to me. Find the entries and exits, the dangers. Pretend what happened back there…didn’t.
Taking in the building, I calculated quickly.
One entrance from the front, a main wooden door with a large knocker on it, a fountain and small pond out front that trickled with a very little water, made of sandstone, there were spots in the roof that were made of wood, so that would work for slipping out if needed.
Several windows were boarded up, and there was a word scrawled across the front, carved into the sandstone.
I wanted to ask more questions about the Bone Town guards, hell, I wanted to get my hands on one of their weapons if I could, maybe I could shove it in Isla’s face.
But there was something about the house in front of me that had all my attention, despite the distraction that the mystery of the guards had offered, and the lingering fire burning through my veins that Veyyr had lit.
The stones under my feet, the smell of the desert, it all brought on a flash of near memory.
I turned slowly to look at the fountain and saw something that made my breath catch.
The image was not in the now—not real—but it hit with the weight of a memory.