Chapter Seven #2
I was confident enough in my skills that I would make it damn difficult for him.
Normally, if I were taking out a target, I’d research them and tailor my attack to their weaknesses.
I would also have the right tool kit for each victim so that I could defend myself against their superpowers. I was only human, after all.
“I didn’t realise Wilder had a guard dog,” the man said dismissively as he relaxed into my hold, clearly having made the incorrect decision that I’m not a threat.
“He does, and this dog will bite.” I snapped my teeth at him.
The man huffed a raspy laugh. “Sounds kinky.”
He stared at me for a long time, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something felt familiar about him. I knew I’d never met him before, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on. His power signature maybe?
He didn’t look familiar. “Who are you?”
The man smiled wide, and it was unsettling, even for me. He went to answer but the telltale sound of sirens cut through the air. He used the moment to slam his hands into my chest, catching me a little by surprise.
The action made my blade slice through the skin under his eye, and he hissed a sharp breath. Couldn’t be that bad of a cut if he wasn’t screaming. Shame.
I ran after him as he darted towards the alleyway, and grabbed his arm, launching him into the wall.
I couldn’t kill him now, not with the cops about to appear, so I grabbed his hand, snagging the ring around his little finger.
I twisted and pulled, hearing a little satisfying crack as his finger broke.
He yelled at that and threw a lightning bolt over his shoulder.
It hit my shoulder and pain erupted along the nerves down my arm like fucking lava.
I instantly recoiled from him and hissed at the pain. Jesus, fuck, that hurt.
I hobbled out of the alley just in time to see the guy disappear into thin air as the cops approached from the other direction. Diving back into the alley, I called Acheron.
“What now?” he drawled.
“I need help. Get me out of here.”
Asking for help wasn’t something I normally did which is probably the only reason the brightly coloured charmer appeared quickly.
One second there was a wall in front of me, the next, Acheron appeared with a smug grin plastered across his face.
He was the only person I knew that could portal and I needed that right now.
“Well, this is delicious,” he purred. “The notorious hitman asking little ol’ moi for help.”
“Acheron, just get me out of here.” I was already regretting asking him for help and the pain in my arm and shoulder was becoming unbearable. It must be more than a zap of electricity that the witch hit me with.
He looked at his toxic green nails like he had all the time in the world. “Say ‘please’.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Acheron. Really?”
“Yes, really.” His grin was smarmy as fuck.
“Fine,” I gritted out. “Please.”
“Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?” he chuckled as he grabbed my hips.
“Wait,” I said quickly. “Before we go, can we nip to the café over the road? I want to grab something.”
“Sure thing, sugar. But you’re buying me something, too.”
No doubt it would be some sugary monstrosity with more calories in it than was sensible. “Whatever. Let’s just go.”
His magic hummed along my skin before the world disappeared from beneath my feet with a sickening jolt.
The world reappeared suddenly and my whole body lurched forwards. I hated portalling. Yes, it was a quick way to travel, but it always made me feel like my insides had been rearranged.
I fell into Acheron and his hands tightened around my hips to help steady me on my feet.
“Are you going to throw up?” he asked, mirth lacing his voice.
I shook my head despite it being a distinct possibility. “Can you get me, Benji? Please?”
“Another ‘please’ without me even having to ask? Are you okay?”
There was a high chance I was about to pass out.
I had no idea what the witch hit me with, but I suspected it wasn’t just electrical energy.
Acheron eyed me warily as I stumbled towards the long sofa.
My entire left side felt like it was on fire.
I dropped the food for Wilder on the side table and ripped my coat off, dropping it carelessly on the sofa.
Blackness danced at the edges of my vision and I pitched forwards.
“Whoa there, killer,” Acheron said as he caught me and helped sit me down on the sofa.
“I’m fine,” I said as I batted his hand away.
“No, you’re not. I’ll go and find Benji.”
“Wait,” I said as I grabbed his arm. I pulled the ring I’d stolen off the guy from earlier out of my pocket and handed it to Acheron. “Can you get anything off this?”
“Why?” he asked, eyeing the piece of jewellery like it was a snake about to strike.
“He was following Wilder… and…” Shit, it was getting hard to think. I tugged at the collar of my turtleneck, my skin heating and sweat starting to cover my body.
“You don’t look well, Byron.” He rested the back of his hand against my forehead. “You’re burning up. Who attacked you?”
“The guy… the guy following Wilder. The witch…”
“You’re not making any sense. Stay there. I’ll be back.” Then he vanished into thin air, hopefully to find Benji, because if he left me here to die, I was going to come back as a ghost and haunt him for the rest of his fucking life.
My body tumbled to the side as the world faded to shadows and for the first time, it bothered me that I might actually die. I wanted to see Wilder again and something like hope sparked in my chest. A fragile little flame battling against the darkness of my soul.
My mouth felt like cotton wool and my thoughts were sticky and slow as reality started seeping back in. My body felt like it had been through a tumble dryer, everything ached and my insides felt jumbled.
Fuck. I was going to be sick.
I rolled onto my side as my breakfast made its way back up but instead of hurling onto Damyr’s pretty white carpet, somebody held a bucket for me.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Bishop said brightly.
Too brightly.
His voice ricocheted around my skull like a ping-pong ball.
“What happened?” I managed to rasp out as I lay back on the sofa.
Bishop swiped at my brow with a cool damp cloth, and it felt like the most blissful thing ever. “You were hit with a curse.”
I frowned up at my twin. “A curse?”
“Apparently so.” He scowled at me like I was a moron. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That the random witch had to die.”
“In Wilder’s back yard? Really?”
“I have a really good clean-up crew.” A guy named Quill who I’d worked with since before my time with the Morozov Mafia. He was also a really good tattoo artist and was already getting pally with my twin. Bishop was covered in tattoos, whereas I only had the one that we shared.
“That’s not the point, Byron. It was reckless and impulsive.”
“You say that like you don’t know me.” Reckless and impulsive were my middle names.
Bishop threw his hands up in frustration. “Why go after a target you don’t know in the middle of the day when anyone can see you?”
“He was about to break into Wilder’s house,” I said simply.
His eyes narrowed in my direction. “And how do you know that?”
“Because I was standing in Wilder’s house.”
“And let me guess,” Bishop sassed. “You’d already broken in.”
I grinned. My twin knew me too well.
Bishop stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What is this, Byron?”
“What is what?” I sat up and the world span for a moment.
I gripped my knees to steady myself and it was only then that I saw the state of my arm.
My fingers were black and the veins along my forearm and up my biceps were also black.
I brought my hand up to my face and wiggled my fingers, watching them in avid fascination.
It didn’t look like my hand, but it definitely was.
How long was this curse going to last? Was it even possible to reverse it?
“Are you even listening to me?” Bishop snapped.
I dropped my hand and turned my attention back to him. “No.”
“Fucking unbelievable,” he muttered in exasperation, his tattooed fingers dragging down his face.
I patted the spot on the sofa next to me. “Come here.”
Bishop grumbled something under his breath, and he made to resist for a few seconds but eventually gave in. He always did.
We knew our relationship was…abnormal, but it worked for us. We were two halves of a whole and now that we were back in the same space again, we weren’t ever going to separate.
There was no me without Bishop and vice versa.
There had always been rumours that we were closer than two brothers ever should be, but those people could get fucked. What we had transcended the mundane. It was beyond the physical. It was… cosmic.
As Bishop sat down, I grabbed him around his waist and pulled him backwards with me until his head was lying on my bare chest.
“I’m worried I’m losing you to him,” Bishop confessed quietly.
“I know,” I replied. “You’re not, though. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Bishop tilted his chin up to look deep into my eyes. “Can you try to explain it? For me?”
I stroked my thumb down the length of his jaw.
“You’re my other half. When you’re not here, it’s like this gaping hole grows under my skin and festers until it’s painful and it becomes all I can think about.
You and me, we’re like fire and gasoline.
Explosive and unpredictable. But Wilder, I think he grounds me.
He pulls me back from the brink and helps me breathe.
It’s… fuck, I’m not explaining this right. ”
Bishop smiled softly, finding my confusion amusing. “No, I think I get it. I’m just trying to figure this all out and to adjust to the new dynamic between us.”
I understood what he was saying, we’d been apart for so long and only recently back in the same space. We hadn’t had a chance to really adjust to that before I’d let this obsession with Wilder manifest.
Bishop frowned at me. “I do have one question, though.
“Hmm?” I said as I ran my fingers through his hair. It was getting long. He needed to get it trimmed.
“I thought you disliked Wilder. When did that change?”
When indeed. I’d been trying to figure that out myself.
When I’d first met Wilder, he’d been a bratty little asshole, who mouthed off and did whatever he wanted, to the point where I wanted to bury his body at the bottom of the ocean.
Recently, he’d been quieter, more reserved.
Almost vulnerable. “When he became more like a rabbit than a pissed off kitty.”
“Ah,” Bishop replied, as if that all made sense. “You like that he feels like prey.”
That was true. If you stripped me down to my core fundamentals, removed all the superficial charm and the things I did to pass as ‘normal’ in society, I was a hunter.
“You’re right.” Bishop was usually right. “The rabbit in him calls to the wolf in me.”
“Wolf?” Bishop snorted. “If anyone is the pissed off kitty here, it’s going to be you.”
The door opened and Benji strode in looking a little flustered. He cast a quick glance between me and my twin but didn’t even bat an eye. That was one of the things I liked about Benji. He just accepted us as we were without even raising an eyebrow.
“So, little bird, what’s my prognosis?” I asked, a wry smile curling my lips as he knelt next to me. Bishop made to move, but I held him to me. My twin and I were on the same page again which was…nice. I disliked being at odds with him because it made me feel a little feral.
“Don’t call me that,” Benji chided, the blush on his cheeks a bright cherry red. “You know it pisses Damyr off.”
Bishop chuckled. “He’s going to keep calling you that until it doesn’t.”
“I know,” Benji grumbled as he leant closer to my left arm. “The curse is fading at least, so that’s good.”
“Do you know what it is?” I asked as I looked at my hand.
It looked like someone had taken a tub of black paint and dropped my hand in it.
It was quite fascinating, actually. I’d used bottled curses before when going up against particularly troublesome targets, but I’d never been hit with one from a witch before.
“Not exactly,” Benji replied as his hands trailed down my arm, his touch methodical but gentle.
“From what I could research and what Acheron could share, it’s just designed to cause pain, but it’s only temporary.
I can see the inkiness in your veins already receding.
Give it another hour or two and it should be gone. ”
“Good,” Bishop said, his voice a little drowsy. Maybe all this friction between us had been more taxing on him than I’d thought.
“Get some rest and you should be as right as rain shortly.” Benji got back to his feet and hit me with a thinly veiled death stare. “If you could try to avoid requiring my services until after Christmas, I’d appreciate it.”
“Regretting the Christmas Eve shindig?” I said with a chuckle.
“Almost,” he huffed. “Damyr is wincing at every bit of tinsel going up and I’m not sure whether I can handle anymore of his silent disapproval. There’s still so much to do and the party is tomorrow and—”
“Little bird,” I interrupted. “I might not know what love feels like, but I can see Damyr loves you. Let him fuck your brains out and then maybe he’ll be a little more relaxed.”
“True,” Bishop agreed. “He’s probably pissed because he doesn’t know how to help you. As far as I know, he’s never had a Christmas party here before. He’s probably just feeling a little lost and doesn’t want to disappoint you.”
“He’s also stubborn as fuck so he isn’t going to ask you how he can help,” I added. “He’s going to wait until you ask him.”
Benji dragged his hand through his blonde curls.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m going to go and find him.
” He stepped towards the door but doubled back on himself.
“Before I forget, Acheron told me to give this back to you. He couldn’t find anything on it.
No lasting impressions, no history, just a whole pile of nothing. ”
“Nothing?” I asked as Benji dropped the signet ring I’d stolen into the palm of my jet-black hand. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” Benji said as he turned to leave the room again. “I’ll see you later.”
No, he wouldn’t. He’d be wrapped up in his new husband and decorating and me, well, I was going to visit Wilder’s house again. I turned the little gold and black ring over in my palm and planned exactly what I was going to do with it.