Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
MERRI
A girl could get used to the amenities in this penthouse. I may not have chosen to be stuck here and would rather be free to do whatever the fuck I wanted, but at least I had a steam sauna all to myself. I sat on the bench as steam filled the room, breathing in the slightly scented damp air and letting the heat permeate to my bones. Ever since my dream with mystery hot guy, I hadn’t been able to get his words out of my head.
“Are they the villains?”
My knee-jerk response was no, of course not. Lilith would never intentionally put me in harm’s way. She’d done nothing but protect me from the day she’d taken me under her wing.
But what if she was wrong about them? What if the horsemen couldn’t actually be trusted? Were we both fools for thinking that they were capable of being protectors? I mean, the four horsemen of the apocalypse weren’t exactly harbingers of glad tidings. They were foretold to bring about the literal end of the world. That didn’t scream heroic.
I groaned and rested my head against the light gray tile. I was no closer to finding my answer now than I was two days ago. Which meant I just had to keep on trusting Lilith. Maybe these worries were nothing more than intrusive thoughts my subconscious brought to light via one very attractive manifestation.
The hiss of another batch of steam as it pumped into the room made me flinch, but I took another deep breath and forced myself to relax into my surroundings again. I needed this. I’d avoided every opportunity to be around any of the guys since my dream, and doing so had made me a ball of tension.
Not that I was going to be able to continue doing so for much longer. Already, my hunger was rearing its needy little head. Malice’s gift had kept me sated far longer than my camming ever had, but it wasn’t a permanent solution. Sooner rather than later, I was going to need to ask one of them to lend a helping hand—or penis, as the case may be.
A wave of longing crested within me as I recalled the shattered look in Malice’s amethyst eyes as he found his release. The man had given me so much more than an orgasm to feed from. He’d let me behind walls no one had ever breached. It was satisfying in a way I couldn’t fully describe, but if ever there was proof that not all orgasms were created the same, his was certainly it.
And fuck did the greedy bitch inside me want to experience it all over again.
Feeling a little lightheaded from the heat, I forced myself to stand. The second I was upright, the ground lurched beneath me, and I shot my arm out, trying to catch myself on the wall.
“Whoa!”
I stood frozen, heart racing as I tried to figure out what the hell that had been. Just when I’d sensed it was safe to move, the ground trembled again.
And this time, it didn’t stop.
Another scream was torn from my throat as I tried to keep myself from slipping and sliding on the slick floor. Were we having a fucking earthquake in London?
It’ll be over soon.
What was I supposed to do again? Stop, drop, and roll?
No, you idiot. That’s only if you’re on fire.
Get in the damn doorway.
Easier said than done, given that I could hardly keep myself upright.
With a shaking hand, I wiped at the steam-coated door, a terrified squeak leaving me as I watched the door of the spa room swing wildly and the water of the hot tub slosh up and over the ledge. The ground was literally rolling.
Oh my God, is this ever going to stop?
An ominous cracking sound echoed off the walls as tiles began raining from the ceiling. Here I was, naked, sweaty, and about to die in a steam room. I needed out of this tomb before my death became a reality.
The trembling seemed to be dying down, so I used the extra stability as my opportunity to open the door. Before I could turn the handle, a large shudder jerked beneath my feet, sending the shelving unit filled with towels and other tchotchkes crashing down and blocking my escape. The only thing that kept me upright was my death grip on the handle.
“Fuck, no!” I shouted, panic creeping up my throat as I shoved at the door.
Nothing. Not even a little movement.
I couldn’t stay in here. Not with the steam still filling the room and the temperature rising. Surely someone was nearby. They’d let me out.
“Help! Please, somebody, help me!” I screamed, pounding on the glass in hopes one of them would hear me.
The shaking finally stopped, but I wasn’t confident it would stay that way. I’d seen San Andreas. I knew about aftershocks.
When no one immediately came for me, I stumbled back, intent on running and breaking through the glass or something. Using my body as a battering ram was better than nothing. Seriously, it wasn’t a well-thought-out plan. I just needed out of here.
Instead of a brilliant action-star moment, I slipped and went down hard. Pain burst across my hip and side, and by the grace of God, I just barely managed to keep my head from slamming onto the floor. The last thing I needed was a concussion or to lose consciousness while in here.
On shaky legs, I attempted to get to my feet, head swimming as the steam continued to billow in, the temperature rising to 140 degrees and climbing. The digital thermometer on the wall was flashing red. Red was bad. I’d already been in here too long by the time I’d decided to leave, but now I was in the danger zone, even for a supernatural creature.
I might be a succubus, but our kind was more human than most.
As soon as I put weight on my hip, I knew it was a lost cause. Agony ripped through me, and I fell to the floor again. Dragging myself to the door, I banged and screamed in desperate hope someone would find me. No one heard me. I shouted until my throat was raw, hitting the door over and over until I finally gave up. I pressed my cheek to the smooth surface, breathing heavily in the thick, hot air, knowing it was no use.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my voice ragged.
Of all the ways I thought I might die, trapped in a steam sauna hadn’t even made the top one hundred.
Chaos
Sweat trickled down my forehead, and my arms shook as I placed the fifteen-hundred-pound barbell on its rack with a grunt. The metal groaned in protest, but I knew it could handle the weight. I regularly benched this much, not that you’d ever see my name in the Guinness Book of World Records. The pathetic human who held that title only lifted 1401 pounds. But they had so little. I wasn’t going to take that away from him.
I’d only just sat up, towel in my hand so I could wipe the sweat from my brow, when the ground jerked beneath me.
“What the hell?”
I’d lived through my fair share of earthquakes, but never in London. It was about as unexpected as tits on a mouse. Or at least it was until you remembered that the end of days had begun. When faced with that eventuality, earthquakes were the least of our worries.
The mirrored wall on one side of the gym shattered from the force of the rattling. Racks of weights crashed all around me, and glass fell to the floor in deadly shards.
“Motherfucker!” I shouted, rushing to the doorway and waiting out the quake.
This wasn’t normal by any stretch of the imagination, which meant one thing. Another Prince had been released and brought a new wave of destruction with him. I would bet everything I owned that this was far from the worst of it.
When the shaking finally died down, I carefully made my way down the hall, intent on finding the others. The penthouse had seen better days, and I could already hear Grim’s cursing as he tallied up the damage.
Malice’s indignant shouts rang out from the stairwell. “I told you we needed to mount the shelves in my room to the wall, Grimsby! Now my computer is ruined, and it’s going to take weeks to rebuild. You can kiss Merri’s fancy firewall goodbye.”
Oh shit. Where the fuck was Merri?
My brothers and I were practically indestructible, but she was much more fragile than we were. She could easily be a casualty of the quake.
“Where is Merri?” I hollered, hoping one of them had eyes on her.
Footsteps on the stairs announced Malice before he came into view. “I thought she was with you, training.”
I shook my head. She’d been avoiding me for days. “No. I thought you had her.”
“Fuck. I’ll look upstairs, you check down here. She can’t be far.”
Spinning around, I jogged back down the corridor, peeking my head into the pool room and finding nothing. I was just about to make for the kitchen when I heard a muffled shout coming from the direction of the spa.
Apprehension zinged through me, starting in my heart, which I really didn’t want to acknowledge. I raced to the door and pushed into the room that housed a couple of massage tables along with the hot tub, cold plunge, and steam sauna. Water coated almost every inch of the floor, with sodden towels and broken bottles strewn about. The marble statue of Poseidon that Grim had unironically purchased centuries ago was now nothing but rubble spread across the floor. The god’s face was at the bottom of the cold pool.
Not lingering to consider the hidden meaning behind that, I didn’t stop moving until I was standing in front of the steam room. Merri was a lump on the other side. Her long hair sticking to her face and torso where it had escaped from her hair tie.
“I’m trapped!” she shouted, though her voice was hoarse.
My heart gave another clench when I realized she’d been screaming for a while.
Springing into action, I hauled the shelves away from the door and tossed them aside, desperate to get to her. I yanked the door so hard it came off its hinges, and clouds of steam billowed out, hitting me in the face, the heat nearly painful.
Merri toppled forward, landing on her hands without the glass to support her weight.
“Shit, sorry.” I crouched down, picking her up without thinking, though I immediately realized my mistake.
She was completely naked.
And now all those curves I tried so hard to ignore were pressed against my shirtless skin.
“I . . . thought . . . I was . . . going to die . . . in there,” she said through panting breaths, her cheeks red, body covered in sweat, eyes glassy and almost feverish.
“I’ve got you, Red.”
I carried her to the first available surface, which was a massage table, and sat her down, hoping she would cool off before damage was done. Her hip and side sported a deep purpling mark that had nothing to do with the heat.
“What happened here?” I asked, gesturing to the injury.
“I fell.”
“I’m sorry none of us were here.” The guilt of knowing she’d been so close to me and still in peril gnawed at my gut.
“It’s o... kay,” she panted, still breathing hard.
She needed water, but I didn’t want to leave her on her own to go get some. She also needed a shirt. It was taking everything in me to ignore the rosy buds of her nipples or the sweet flare of her hips.
I could blame her allure on her being a succubus all I liked, but the truth was, she was nothing more than a vulnerable woman at the moment, and I was the pervert lusting after her. Merri’s power wasn’t in play here. I wanted her. I’d been afraid for her. Those emotions were all mine.
“Did you find her?” Sin skidded into the room, worry written all over his face as he scanned the debris left by the earthquake. “Fuck. What a mess.” His eyes alighted on Merri, and the man immediately tugged off his tank top. “What happened?”
“She was trapped in the steam room,” I explained, already stepping back and allowing him to claim my place in front of her.
He draped the loose cotton over her head, concealing the body my fingers were itching to explore. But the arm holes were low cut, meaning more than enough temptation remained.
I had to get the fuck away from her. Before I did something incredibly stupid.
“She needs water and rest. Take care of her,” I grunted, not letting my eyes meet hers before I turned away and stalked out of there.
This was getting out of hand. I knew bringing her here was a bad idea, but I never expected it would be because I’d want something more with her. We were supposed to breed her to save the world. Full stop. She wasn’t supposed to mean anything.
She wasn’t supposed to be . . . mine.
I stumbled as the word floated through my mind, denial hot on its heels. I shoved down the rightness of it. The relief and primal possession that surged through me at the mere suggestion that I might keep her.
No.
No.
Merri was a job. That was all she could ever be.
I wasn’t a man who could offer a future to anyone. Fuck, I wasn’t even a man. Not anymore.
I was War.
Fucking horseman of the apocalypse.
And it was time I started acting like it.