35. Azzie
Thirty-Five
Azzie
As Davyn swung his arm, Loki vanished. Davyn spun, searching the room and sniffing. “Where are you?” His roar rattled me to my boots.
I already knew the answer, and Davyn should too. “He’s gone,” I said.
Davyn spun back to me. “Are you all right?”
His concern was sweet. How badly fucked were we that he was acting this way?
“I’m fine.” Already running the scenario. This was a test of my psyche? How much of it was real? Was that truly Loki?
He was gorgeous. Dirty blond hair that was mussed in a way that was either intentional or the product of hours of being lost in his own head. Based on the corset vest and trousers that made him look very good, my money was on intentional .
And he’d set off every alarm bell in my head.
“Thank Creation.” Davyn’s voice bled with softness and concern. “If you’d gone to work today…”
What?
We were in the apartment in Salt Lake City. How…?
On some level I recognized it when I woke up on the couch, but finding Loki looming over me pushed the observation to the back of my mind. Now that I had time to look around, Davyn and I stood in the place we’d left seven months ago.
Hadn’t we? The memory was hazy. Was it a dream?
No. I’d lived the last several months somewhere else. With Davyn. With Zeke. Finn. The assurance was cloud-like in my mind, but I held onto it.
“If I’d gone to work today, what?” I prompted Davyn to finish the thought.
He gave me a puzzled look and nodded at the TV that nearly covered the far wall.
We didn’t have a TV like that.
The news was playing video of the explosion. The one I knew now that Ki?—
The thought was gone again, and I watched the horror play out from the safety of our living room. Debris falling, smoke billowing out, all shot from the camera of an influencer who just happened to be filming that day.
That wasn’t right, though. The footage kept moving. Like it was being directed. As if we were watching a movie instead of real life.
No. I was supposed to be there. I had been there, and Davyn wasn’t. The casualties were still real, though. “So many people hurt,” I muttered.
“I’m glad you weren’t one of them.”
But that happened because of me, and I hadn’t been there?
Why couldn’t I reach half my mind? It was like there was a fuzzy blanket over some of my thoughts
“I mean it. Are you all right?” Davyn said again.
My phone rang. Enid . She would know what was going on. “Hello?” I answered immediately.
“Azzie. Thank God you’re all right. From the news it looked like it happened right near your work.” At least this sounded like Enid.
“I’m fine. I didn’t go to work today. Bad feeling.” Really? That wasn’t right. “Do they know who did this?” Why did I ask that?
Why was Davyn sitting on the couch watching me, barely moving?
“They do.” Enid’s answer jarred me. “All the news places are saying a domestic terrorist group took credit for it. They have a manifesto. I guess the organization is against centralization? Big cities? There was something about snowflakes and tears and Lennon.”
Half of me insisted this all made sense, and I struggled to hold onto the half that said I was stuck in crazy woo-hoo land. “Vladimir Lenin?”
“John Lennon. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I wasn’t. I stared at the TV, reading scrolling headlines that said the same thing Enid had. Across multiple videos. The explosion wasn’t about me after all? Was that what this meant? Where was my relief? “I’m good. Thanks for checking on me.”
“Azzie, wai?—”
I hung up. My phone rang again almost instantly and Enid’s name flashed on the screen, but I ignored it, and turned to Davyn.
“I thought it might be a prophecy,” he said. “Like the one your mom saw.”
“Me too.” The harder I grasped at the fuzzed thoughts, the faster they slipped away.
“It will be. At least one of them will come true soon.”
Several of them?—
My thoughts evaporated. No, there they were.
Several prophecies about me had almost happened, but then nothing. Mom had been so sure. She’d seen so many things, but when she passed away, and in the years after, it turned out she’d just been creative and a bit off her rocker.
The thought smacked me in the gut harder than a fist, but why?
Because I’d loved my mother. Because mental illness was hereditary, and what if I suffered the same?—
Because this isn’t rea ? —
Right . It wasn’t right that so many people were hurt, some dying, because some terrorist group was anti-urbanization.
“Hey.” Davyn’s voice was his, but the tone was too gentle. Too patient. He placed a finger under my chin and lifted my gaze to his. “Are you all right?”
No.
Yes.
Why was there a war in my mind?
“Yes,” I said.
He brushed his mouth over mine, and surprise and electricity jolted through me. What the?—
Davyn slid his hand down my jaw to grip the back of my neck, and deepened the kiss. With our lips crushed together, tongues sparring, the rest of the world fell away. He kissed me, held me, as if we’d always been together this way.
Had we?
When Davyn pulled back, he stayed close, his hand on my neck as he stroked my cheek with his thumb. He searched my eyes. “Are you sure, ?ngull?”
A pet name? “What did you call me? What does that mean?”
He looked surprised, and gave a stuttered chuckle. “You already know this.”
“I do, but I like to hear you say it.” Playing along was easy, and I couldn’t help but crave another one of those kisses.
“?ngull,” he repeated. “Because you’re my angel. Strong. Swift to deliver justice and mercy. Ethereal and better than any god. Are you certain you’re all right?”
Not in any way. “The news has me shaken. So many deaths.”
“You weren’t one of them. That’s what I care about.” Davyn glided his hand down my arm to grasp my fingers, and tugged me with him as he turned away. “I know what will help.”
Because he frequently did. He led me into the bathroom, and we stopped next to a much larger tub than had the right to fit in this apartment. Which was why we’d rented the place.
No .
Yes. Because it was big enough for both of us.
Both…?
Of course. Why was I fighting myself on this? Why was I questioning at all as he started the water running, then stripped off my dress. My bra and panties. Then removed his own clothes. We did this all the time.
We live together. Nakedness happens, but not like this .
Exactly like this. Gods, I’d always liked the way he looked naked.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” His concern and the way he studied me, devouring me with his gaze, erased the odd confusion inside.
I nodded. “Still shaken by the news. That it happened. That it wasn’t about me after all.” That must be where the conflict inside came from. I should be grateful neither Davyn nor I was there, but it meant the prophecies…
“Come on.” He slid into the tub, back to one edge, then prompted me to join him. “Let’s put your mind on something else.”
A twinge echoed in my mind. This wasn’t Davyn and me. We didn’t do this.
If that was true, why did it feel so natural?
Because the two of us together was normal and I was being weird.
I pulled my hair into a high ponytail. Nearly-too-hot water hugged my feet, then my ankles and calves, as I climbed into the tub. I lowered myself between Davyn’s legs, and settled in. The way he wrapped around me, his warmth pressing into me, soothed my fractured mind.
“I know it’s hard to see these things. Events play out as you were told, but you’re not a part of it.” Davyn’s voice low, rumbling through my back with each word. He soaked a loofah, then brought it behind me to let the water spill down my skin. “There are an infinite number of ways to interpret these things. Your time will come.”
He meant to be soothing, I assumed from everything else going on, but his words gnawed at me instead. What if it didn’t?—
Davyn brushing his lips along the back of my neck silenced my thoughts. “For now, be grateful you weren’t there. I am.”
He grabbed the body wash from the shelf next to the tub, and I heard the spurt of him squeezing a dollop into his hand. His palms slid along my back. The motion of his applying soap was a slow, deliberate touch that both calmed me and sent sparks dancing through me.
He rinsed my back, then grabbed more soap. This time he slid his hands up my stomach. When he reached my breasts, there was no hesitation, and a loud groan slipped from my throat as he cupped me and twisted my nipples between his fingers.
Fuck . This slow, seductive build was something I couldn’t imagine with anyone but Davyn. The deliberate touches and rough hands with tender movement. The way he spent extra time focused on that one spot, pinching and teasing until need throbbed between my legs and I squirmed from his touch.
His cock hardened against my back, the longer he worked. At least I wasn’t the only one enjoying this. The thought was smugness and satisfaction, but also delight.
Davyn dropped his fingers lower, gliding down my torso, and between my legs. Even in the water I was slick with need, and I gasped when he brushed my mound and parted my folds.
The pretense of washing was gone. This was straight-up teasing, and gods it felt incredible. The way he slipped toward my opening, then back to my clit. Teasing and coaxing. Pushing me until I was gripping his thighs and biting the inside of my cheek to swallow the whimpers.
“Don’t hold back.” Davyn’s breath brushed the edge of my ear, and his voice added to the build of pleasure inside. “I want to hear you come. I want the fucking neighbors to hear you coming.”
He circled my clit, harder and faster, as if he knew exactly where to touch and with how much pressure. Orgasm spilled from me, and I cried out with the release. Davyn kept stroking, but he eased off as I pulled away from climax, and moved his hands to my hips.
“My favorite sound.” He nipped my shoulder with his teeth. So gentle. So not-bear-like.
I leaned back into him, trying to find my breath. “I do like the way you think.” I tried to be sly and seductive about lifting myself with my hands on his thighs. I wanted more. I wanted Davyn inside me, and I wanted to hear him come.
Davyn gripped my wrists with a tight chuckle. “Not in here.”
“No? As good a place as any.”
“It’s not. Come on.” He finished rinsing me off.
We climbed from the tub, and he was just as methodical drying me as he had been in the bath. It was sweet. It was maddening. It didn’t ease the desire pulsing through me.
We left the bathroom, and my feet followed the path I’d walked hundreds of times since we moved in, toward my bedroom.
No, that was our office. Davyn and I slept in the same room.
We did?
Davyn lightly grabbed my arm before I could slide into the conflicting thoughts. “You can’t work now,” he said. “We’re not done.” He pulled me into our room instead.
Of course it was our room. This was our life.
Sadness whispered inside. I was missing out on something. But this felt natural and right. I had a good thing here.
Then why did it feel like the pieces weren’t all in place?
Davyn nudged me toward the bed, and the thought slipped away. I squealed as I stumbled, and landed on my back on the mattress.
The way he crawled up my body said the gentle build-up was gone. There was a ferocity in the way he watched me, a promise that I was his prey, that made a fist clench around my heart.
He knelt between my legs and thrust inside me without hesitation. The way his cock stretched me out was incredible. Always too much at that first penetration, but so good .
The creak of hinges yanked me from the bliss of Davyn buried inside me, and I jerked my head toward the bedroom door as it swung open. “Someone’s here.” I nudged Davyn off me and rolled toward the nightstand, reaching for?—
For what?
“What are you doing?” Davyn asked.
Why was he just watching me?
A man walked into the room, and recognition shook my mind. I knew him, but his name was out of reach. “Why are you here?”
And why didn’t I ask something more threatening? Why was no one attacking?
He was as tall as Davyn, though not as broad, and he had shockingly white hair. “He’s not real.” He spoke in a heavy Irish accent, and he was cute.
Finn . The name popped into my head.
“I’m quite real, and I’ll rip your throat out without hesitation.” Despite Davyn’s words, he didn’t move.
He’s not real . The newcomer meant Davyn. The Berserker who’d just given me incredible orgasms. The fact that two of us were still naked was the least of my concerns.
Why wasn’t Davyn attacking? Pinning Finn to the wall like he had when Davyn found me at?—
Where?
Zeke’s. Who was Zeke?
“Why come for her first?” Davyn’s question didn’t make any sense.
“She’s the one I found first,” Finn said.
“You know that’s not how this works.”
What the fuck was Davyn talking about? My head ached with the question, my brain hammering in my skull. The pain was enough to make my eyes water and my thoughts flex and stretch until they were distorted. Like two different images overlapping.
“The man I love needs her,” Finn said.
Wait. Love?
Finn clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow. A knife with a blade at least twelve inches long appeared in his hand. He vanished from where he stood, and reappeared on the other side of the bed, next to Davyn.
Finn drew the dagger across Davyn’s throat, cutting deep.
No . No, no, no. Davyn. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. Finn hadn’t just?—
Finn killed Davyn.
No hesitation. No provocation. No remorse.
Red clouded my thoughts, and all that mattered was retaliation. I was going to fucking kill Finn in return.