22. Thorne
Chapter 22
Thorne
“The guys are ready.” Lucian hands me the latest report. “They’ve stepped things up so I think we can go ahead and prep for the Reckoning.”
“Good.” I mull over the report, satisfied by what I see.
The two of us are sitting in the office space we share at Erebus House. It’s good to hear that the guys are ready because this is the last week of training before things get next-level serious. It will be the survival of the strongest from here onwards.
Lucian leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Do you have any idea of who you’re going to choose?”
I raise my brows and give him a side-eye stare. “You know you can’t ask me that, right?”
“I’m asking anyway.”
“Alek has a good chance.” That’s all I’m telling him. I know he’s concerned about Alek because they’re cousins.
“That’s good to hear. I promised his parents I’d look out for him. Of all the people in our family, they’ve been the most accepting of my mother and me.”
“I know.”
Like Ivy, Lucian is a stepchild. And his real father is in prison.
Lucian always caught flak from everyone because his stepfather is a high-ranking judge on the Knights’ council and his mother used to be a stripper. She stripped to take care of Lucian when he was a kid. They’re also Italian, not Russian like most of the families in the leadership.
“Alek is a hothead.” He smirks.
“So are you.”
“Yeah, but there’s trouble and there’s trouble. I’ll worry about him when I head out to Russia for my placement.”
Lucian’s family are in tech, too. But tech in relations to sophisticated heavy duty weapons and aircraft. He’s doing a yearlong placement at their branch in Russia before he returns here to finish his degree.
“Alek can handle himself.” I set the report down and stare at him. “And if he’s chosen for the unit, there’s even less to worry about.”
“I appreciate that.” He gives me a curt nod. “What’s going to happen when I’m gone? You and Caspian haven’t said anything about a replacement to fill my spot.”
“Because we’re not getting one.”
Lucian looks thoroughly surprised at my answer. “Really?”
“We still have you for a few months, and once you’re gone we’ll have to manage. You won’t be gone forever.”
“A year is a long time, though.”
“Yeah, but this unit is for life. It’s about trust. Trust is more important than ever now.”
“It always was.” He looks me over and I can see he’s got questions. “What’s going on with you, Thorne? First you save a freshman from certain expulsion, then act like a madman in her English class.”
I smile briefly. “I’m good.”
Everyone heard about how I threatened Aiden, and because Raventhorn is Raventhorn the whispers about Ivy and me began trickling across campus starting the night of the pool party.
Admittedly I did act like a psycho the other day but Aiden deserved it. People don’t know the real him. Under that cool mask he’s a sick motherfucker, so I end up looking like I’m the one in the wrong when we clash.
“And is the girl good, too?”
“She is.” And I still have the taste of her in my mouth. In fact, it feels more like she’s sunken under my skin and is now flowing through the fibers of my mind. “What about your girl? Don’t tell me you won’t miss Eilish when you’re gone.”
Normally he makes some comment to shoot me down and throw me off the topic of Eilish, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to do that today.
“It’s going to be the first time I will be away from her for so long. At first I didn’t want to go, but my stepfather insisted.”
“We’ve all had to do a lot of things we didn’t want to do.”
“We have. Please take care of my girl for me while I’m away.” I’ve never heard him sound so sentimental. And he finally— after all these long years —called Eilish his girl.
“Of course I will.”
“Thanks, bro. Girls like her only come around once in a millennium. When you see them you know you’ll never meet anyone quite like them again.”
His words sink in and I nod, thinking of my own girl.
Ivy is a once-in-a-lifetime girl, too.
That’s why I’m so fucking obsessed with her.
Tick. Tock.
It feels like there’s an annoying clock in my head reminding me that time is my enemy.
I’m in my computer science class. I would have skipped it but I had to show my face today. Professor Kane is used to my absences, but he’s also used to me pulling it together the night before exams and scoring higher than everyone.
I showed up today because we’re doing practical work and I created the algorithm the class will be using for their project. If shit happens I need to be here to fix it.
Not being here makes me look bad.
Aiden is here, too, so I know if I were absent and the professor needed me that fucker wouldn’t hesitate to taint my name.
I have two minutes left until the class ends. It feels like the longest fucking two minutes ever.
I’m only agitated with time because Ivy is at my apartment waiting for me.
I can’t wait to have her again. She’s all I’ve been thinking about all day. Since talking with Lucian earlier I’ve been salivating for her body like she’s my last meal.
I plan to eat her the instant I see her.
Finally the two minutes are up. Heather, the girl I hooked up with over the summer, makes her way over to me. Painted on her face is the same sassy smile she’s been using since the semester began to try to win me over.
She knows that hookup was just a one-time thing, so there’s little point chasing me.
I spare her the embarrassment of the rejection I would have given her and move the opposite way.
Once I’m through the door I’m almost tripping over my feet in my haste to get to Ivy.
Several people try to stop me to make small talk but I keep going, my head straight and my dick harder the closer I get.
Within five minutes I’m at Erebus, climbing the stairs to reach my apartment.
I all but yank the door open and head to the bedroom. That’s where I told Ivy to wait for me, and that’s where I find her standing by the wardrobe, dressed in the yellow lingerie I bought for her. She looks like she just stepped out of a porn magazine.
The bra is tight and too small, so her voluptuous breasts are barely contained.
The thong—if you can call it that—is nothing but a string holding together a small triangle that covers the slit of her pussy.
Fuck me. This girl is fucking magic. Every other girl I’ve been with has been a poor substitute for her. Ivy Yegorov is the real deal.
And she’s pissed at me. Clearly because of what I’ve dressed her in.
Or maybe she’s just pissed to see me. I don’t really care. She’s fucking beautiful.
“You were supposed to be lying on the bed waiting for me.” I grin at her and tilt my head to look her up and down.
“You are an asshole. I don’t want to wear this.”
“And yet you are.”
“As if I had a damn choice.”
“You always have a choice, Bambi. It's just that your particular choices are limited. And the alternative to defiance doesn’t look that great for you. This, on the other hand…” I wave my hand up and down as if I’m touching her, caressing her body from head to toe.
“It makes me look like a slut.” Her voice is stiff.
I grin back at her and hold my hands out wide. “But you’re my slut. My good little slut.”
“I’m not a slut.”
I walk up to her and scan her beautiful, tempting body. She was fucking made for me.
Her throat works as she swallows and watches me. The other week she was scared of me, now she looks like she’s scared of herself. Scared of what she’s starting to feel for me.
She wants me, too. It’s in her eyes all the time now, and it makes me savor how much I’ve broken her.
I catch her face and lift her chin. “Bambi, if I want you to be my slut then that is what you’ll be.”
“You bastard.” Her hands fist at her sides.
“Yeah, I am. Now get on the bed.”
She stares up at me. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to go home.”
“Changed your mind about what exactly?”
“I don’t want to be with you tonight.”
I laugh and stroke the hollow of her throat. “Why’s that?”
“You’re not going to humiliate me.”
“Oh, I see. Well, sorry, my little slut but that’s not for you to decide. Neither is going or staying. Once again I have to remind you that I own your beautiful ass. So get on the goddamned bed.”
Her confidence vanishes but the rage is still there, racing with the rapid beat of the pulse in her throat.
I release her and she glares up at me but she does as she’s told, padding across the room to crawl onto the bed.
I don’t know what it is with this girl. She stirs an uncontrollable havoc inside me that can’t be contained.
“Lie on your back and open your legs for me.” My voice is low and hoarse.
She lies on her back and opens her legs.
“Now move the thong aside and show me your pussy.”
Her cheeks color, reminding me of roses. It’s fascinating that she can look like an erotic goddess yet still capture the innocence of an angel.
She shifts the thong aside and I gaze at her little pink pussy with the lips parted. Then, like a feral animal, I lower my body and lick her gorgeous slit, worshiping the taste of her.
I move my gaze back to hers. My poor little deer is doing her best not to like what I’m doing to her.
“Wider. Open your legs wider for me and touch yourself.” My voice is raw and filled with lust.
Ivy obeys and my dick becomes instantly harder at the sight of her fingers rubbing her clit.
I don’t speak. I just watch.
Watch her body beneath mine coming undone at my command.
She watches me watching her touching herself, and her nipples turn into hard points pushing against the thin fabric of the bra. Her pussy grows wet and I push my finger inside, stroking too.
She moans.
“You like that.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I stroke harder.
“I’m not lying.”
“You fucking are.” I bring my mouth to her clit and circle it, then I suck hard, making her cry out in pleasure.
I eat her pussy like it truly is the very last meal I will taste in the world of the living. Greed takes me and I slide my tongue to her asshole, licking that, too, around and around in a circle.
“Oh, my God.”
“See, liar. You like what I do to you, how I corrupt you, how I make you want me.”
Sliding my thumb to her asshole, I push into that tight little hole, and she comes. Ivy comes so hard, her body bucks and thrashes, shuddering with pleasure.
But most of all, she’s shocked at herself.
I keep my finger at her back hole and play with it. “I will fuck your ass someday. Someday soon.”
I draw back and strip off my clothes. She looks at my hard cock.
I’m wearing my piercing today. I opted not to wear it since we started having sex because I knew she was worried about it. I thought I’d ease her in gently. Now I want to give her more pleasure.
Her eyes grow and I rub the tip of my dick over her wet folds. Then I get on the bed and pick her up so she can straddle me. “I want you to ride me.”
Ivy’s eyes widen even more. I’ve never given her any control before.
Taking a little breath she slides down onto my cock. We’ve been fucking for days, but she’s still so tight. My length stretches her pretty cunt and soon I’m buried to the hilt.
I can see the sweet pleasure spreading over her beautiful face. The pleasure is different from how she normally looks. That’s because of my piercing— mission accomplished.
She closes her eyes like she’s savoring every ounce of it but I hold her face again. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
She opens her eyes.
“Good girl.”
I kiss her and guide her to move her hips over me.
She kisses me back, and then we’re fucking. I’m starved for her and I can’t stop kissing her, or pounding into her. My fingers tangle in her hair and hers in mine. Her touch is like balm on my soul. Something I never knew I needed until her.
I lied to myself when I thought I could ever be done with her.
Now I can’t see that happening.
And that’s a problem for me.
Music fills the empty auditorium, touching every corner with the possession of a forbidden lover.
When you first hear the melody it sounds like something composed by Debussy, but when you listen carefully you realize it’s something else. Something different. Something from someone with the same sort of talent that is yet to leave their mark on the world.
Ivy comes in here to practice sometimes, late at night when she’s not with me, or the early hours of the morning.
I got used to her patterns long before I owned her.
I’m in my usual spot on the second-floor balcony, absorbed by the shadows like the Phantom of the Opera.
Ivy has never been aware of me watching her. I’m good at being stealthy, but it's easy when she’s always so caught up in her music that she loses herself.
I’m almost jealous. I want her to lose herself like that when she’s with me. I want her to touch me the way she caresses the keys of her piano, and I want her to obsess over me the way she does when she creates music.
I could go down there and talk to her but I wanted to observe her from afar and watch her in her element. I wanted to see her in a state where she can be herself.
During these moments she’s not Ivy Yegorov or my little deer. She’s Annika Bershov.
She plays the piano like her father did. I’m sure it was he who taught her to play.
When he came to Raventhorn he also studied music, but as a minor. He majored in cyber security intelligence because his family had always served the elite unit of the Knights.
His skills made him perfect to betray those who trusted him. I always wondered if my father ever knew him. I’m sure their paths would have crossed.
Ivy and I have the night off from each other because I had to train the guys. We have tomorrow night off, too.
Tonight I took the guys to the forest for the rough terrain. It will be similar to where they’ll be for the Reckoning.
My Reckoning took place in Russia. It was arranged by three Pakhans in our alliance along with Aleksander. We had to complete one hell of a survival mission, so I more than earned my stripes as a Knight.
Sometimes I wonder how I keep my humanity.
Moments like these help.
Listening to Ivy’s music reminds me of days gone by and memories of the past with my family. Our world was always dark, but our home had love.
That’s how it started, with love, and how I remember it until everything ended in disaster.
I know my father did something to cause it, and I wish I knew what that something was. I guess I take after him in those ways because no one knows my secrets.
The girl I’m watching right now is another secret of mine. One that’s fast becoming something else.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, believing it’s a text from Caspian or Lucian, but it’s not. It’s a notification.
Last year when I was trying to find dirt on my uncle I set up alerts on all the phone numbers linked to him.
He uses a lot of burners and what we call ghost lines. Those are numbers that are untraceable. Unless the person tracking you is me.
The notification is coming from one of those numbers. It’s a text.
I open the message and click on the link, hacking into his phone within nanoseconds.
The message says:
I got the stuff ordered for you and bypassed the registration. It will take three months to create but after that you’re good to go.
Aleksander messages back instantly:
Well done, Claudio, I’ll send payment right away.
I keep my tracker on his phone and witness five million dollars being wired to an offshore account. Because it’s quicker, I then track where the phone message came from to find out which Claudio my uncle is speaking to.
My search comes up with none other than Claudio Hernandez, a black-market dealer who is banned from association with the Knights.
This again, Uncle.
This isn’t the first time I’ve found him liaising with people he’s not supposed to have any relations with. It was only last year that I found out he was trying to get a seat on the Camorra’s high council.
The Camorra is the only group that the Knights don’t ally themselves with. That’s because of a long-standing feud, an unresolved murder we blame them for, and the clash of power.
I used the intel I found on Aleksander to help Caspian. Aleksander never knew it was me who found it because Caspian kept my name out of it, but I’m sure he had his suspicions. He would have known that Caspian wouldn’t have been able to find out that sort of dirt without the help of someone like me.
Now there’s this. Fresh dirt.
This text is good enough shit to get Aleksander in trouble, but I don’t want to simply get him in trouble. I want him gone.
So I need the whole story.
What did he order from Claudio?
What’s going to take three months to create?
What is worth five million dollars?
A wicked smile stretches across my face and Ivy’s music drops to her signature death notes, perfectly in tandem with my thoughts.
Finally, I have something to work with that will enable me to play my uncle’s game.
Am I crazy to think that if I win I might still get to keep the girl?
My malen'kiy olen'.