The Spiral Begins
“Bishop!”
Ffffuck.
Bishop’s legs became twin slaves to the desperate whisper of his wife behind him.
He turned, finding her hurrying toward him with intuition oozing from her gaze. Worried. For who?
Of course she knew. But she didn’t know exactly what. Yet.
Her deep red sweater turned her all-knowing gaze the color of amethyst. There was no hiding the jealous wrath that brewed up plans for Sinrik.
He didn’t know what the fuck happened between them and wasn’t about to fucking learn it through her.
He’d learn it through that master of cock-sucking mayhem bitch.
His blood braced for impact with the lock of their gazes, every ounce of his evolving hungers ready to devour what would always be his.
She wrapped him in a tight hug. “Where are you going?” she breathed into his chest.
His hands roamed over her back, collecting all the delicate details that added another layer of steel to his gut. His cock. His fury.
She pulled back, searching his eyes with her troubled ones. “I know you’re going to talk to Sinrik,” she whispered. “And I know you’re angry at him, I can feel it.” Her brows furrowed more. “I wanted to talk to you about him.”
Her worry brought an unholy bat rage. It gnawed at the hinge in his mind and there was nothing in his gifts that could handle it. Part of him—the blackest part—said don’t fight it, suck it down, embrace it. And what was left of his sane side just stood there. A useless dumb-fuck, feeling the burn.
“We’ll talk after,” he forced, going in for a taste because it was the only thing that grounded him. The sight, taste and feel of her.
She stopped him with a headshake. “No, I need to tell you… things,” she said with a quick glance back before hitting him with a look that curdled his fucking blood.
Guilt.
He closed his eyes, breathing through a sickening adrenalin. What did she do?
“I drank his blood,” she blurted in a pained hiss, nails digging into his forearms.
“I know you did,” he seethed, eyes still closed, chest in a fucking vice. “What the fuck else did you do?”
“Nothing!” she swore, while all the dirty details lingered in her gasps. “I don’t know why I did it!” she strained around a sob. “But… it seemed like I was supposed to!”
He stilled at that tormented confession. Supposed to. Did he fucking make her somehow?
Fresh rage locked his jaw tight. “Why the guilt?” he barely managed, forcing himself to look at her.
Half a headshake. “Because it was… it felt so wrong.” He picked up her barely breathed words along with her raging pulse, both too loud in his ears and cock.
“You feel my anger for him,” he muttered, back to pissed. “Do you also feel the connection he’s made with you? Because I. Fucking. Can.”
Their eyes locked and all the details he never wanted churned in her tormented gaze. “What are you going to do?” she whispered. “I just... I really don’t think it was his fault either.”
Like fuck it wasn’t. “I’m going to have a civil chat with him.”
Her breath flew out. “You are so not civil right now,” she hissed quietly. “I’m not blind!”
Fuck, her worry for that prick was undoing him. Fast. “Go find Mah-Mah. She has news only she can tell you. I won’t kill him,” he said, wanting to spit on the words the second they left his mouth.
She grabbed him and pulled his mouth to hers, shoving his rage aside with her lips and tongue. He dug his fingers into her sweet face and turned her mouth into a last meal before the most unholy war.
He broke the kiss when he sensed him. The bastard. Approaching from behind.
Sinrik.
He cradled his wife’s head against his chest and raised his gaze. His fingers tensed around her skull as he passed him. He met the stare lasered in on him. Like he was a fucking target he wanted to take out.
“Ready King?” he murmured without breaking stride. All silk and snake. Eyes blazing, drilling deep.
Ruthless power coated Bishop’s muscles at the silent challenge. More ready than ever, you walking grave sack.
Beth’s fingers pulled his face back to her, almost breaking the rage bond.
She pled with her fretful gaze then pulled his mouth to hers again, sending Sinrik on his way.
On his jealous way. Bishop saw it crystal fucking clear.
He burned with the look of a man who’d staked a claim.
Bishop couldn’t wait to crush whatever sick delusions he had.
Walking in his swamps like he fucking owned it, like he fucking owned her.
He focused on his angel’s kiss, groaning with the hunger she carved into his burning chest. I’m yours. Forever. That’s what her sweet kiss confessed. And that’s what his soul fucking knew. Even as he contemplated Sinrik’s guilt and the methods he’d use to extract every filthy detail of it.
****
Bacon hit Phelony’s number realizing he wasn’t the only one watching his pissed Eveque at the far end of the room.
Bishop’s barely contained fury reached every one of his Twelve now locked in and watching their Eveque.
Waiting for a sign. A signal. A flicker.
Their muscles set on a hair-trigger of blood lust for that Mayhem cocksucker swaggering his ass right in their fuckin’ midst.
“Finally!” Phelony answered, a hot whisper in his ear.
“Bee-bee,” he whispered back, eyes still locked on the Sin-prick entering the hallway where Bishop was with his wife. “You’re not gonna fuckin’ believe this.” His adrenalin flipped to go-go green when his brothers all moved toward the target now in motion.
“Tell me!” she cried.
Bacon’s pulse rammed as he headed in for slick-dick who muttered something to Eveque in the hall. “Hoe-lee fuck,” he quietly warned, muscles locked as Bullets and Shank moved in faster.
“What!” Phelony pled.
“Bacon!”
Bacon’s legs locked up at the unmistakable boom of Seer’s voice. He shot a glance behind him, then back at Bishop who was lip-locked with his Belle Eveque.
“Bee-Bee, where are you?” he hurried, seeing Sinrik leaving.
“In the Creole kitchen where you told me to be,” she said.
Seer waved Bacon over and he hurried toward him. “I’m coming, don’t go anywhere. I love you.”
He hung up and pocketed his phone, dodging the traffic of bodies between him and a serene Seer.
Fuckin’ right, he forgot he was the swamp’s grade A informant.
Just hope he didn’t want one of his handshakes.
He was barely a teenager last time he had one and he was damn sure by now life had cooked up plenty of sins for the Seer to see.
Wait, what was he worried about? He was married now. To a saint.
“Walk with me,” Seer said, turning down the hall behind him when Bacon arrived.
He fell in beside him, shoving his hands in his leather jacket, glancing back one more time while wondering what Seer needed with the useless Horde cook.
“What you been seein’ these days?” Bacon fished discreetly as they made their way. “I don’t get much action aside from the promise of a looming food shortage.” He shot him a glance to see his reaction to that.
“Shadows in the Hatches,” Seer murmured, turning down another hall like he knew the place well.
Shadows. “Like real ones or… what?”
He reached an exit and paused, hand and blue gaze on the glass. “Not sure.”
Fresh adrenalin rode in at this news. But why tell him?
“I need you to go have a look around Nitro’s Hatch. See what you can see.”
Bacon got yanked into the prison of his blue eyes, getting pinned to some crazy mental wall. “Yeah brother, I can do that. No problem,” he said quietly to his stare, reminding himself he was guilt-free in it.
Seer suddenly tilted his head, eyes narrowing on him.
Shit, what?
Fear took a dump in his bloodstream as he waited in the gallows.
“How’s married life?”
Bacon smashed his fists deeper in his coat pockets with a light shrug, trying to remember what cool-headed looked or sounded like.
“Amazing,” he said, glancing behind him then out the door.
“Fate decided I needed a fuckin’ saint, I guess?
” He forced himself back to his gaze, finding a slow smile creeping up on his brother’s mouth.
“Inside and out,” Bacon added quietly, his guts loosening.
“Yeah, somehow I ended up with the most beautiful human being on the planet.”
Seer turned a full grin to the door and pushed it open. “You sound surprised.”
A blast of cold sucker punched him in the lungs as he followed him out. “Surprised? Nah, man, I’m shocked out my fuckin’ mind. Where we going?”
“Somewhere quieter.”
And fucking colder. Bacon matched his stride, looking for a way into the conversation he wanted to have without sounding like a teenager desperate for a small piece of the action. “When you want me to check on this uh, shadow business?”
“Soon as you can,” he mumbled, heading for a covered bench at the edge of the parking lot.
“Hell yeah, I’ll put everything on simmer,” Bacon said, his blood all lit up as Seer closed his wool coat tight and sat on the bench. Bacon sat too, his own breaths adding to the sharp air between them.
“What you want to know?” Seer asked, gaze swinging around to his.
Bacon froze at his knowing look. “Me?”
Seer stared at him, grin threatening.
Bacon released his breath all in one go at realizing what this was.
Seer had just opened the candy jar of nitty-gritties and offered him whatever his heart desired.
“Is everything too much for the humble cook to ask for?” He palmed his chest. “Nothin’ but darkness on my end, brother.
I get updates but…” He dropped his hands with a sigh, glancing around. “It ain’t like it used to be.”
“That’s part of why I’m here. You been wandering into my dreams.”
Bacon eyed him for hints. “Really,” he muttered, only barely worried as Seer nodded. “What am I doing in them?”
Seer’s single chuckle clouded the air before he aimed his twinkling eyes at him. “You’re wondering.”
A chill rode his blood that had nothing to do with the cold as he eyed the Seer. He wasn’t sure how to feel about making it into one of his dreams. “So… what am I wondering? While I’m wandering?”