10. Hook
Dread slithered through me, leaving a trail of ice in its wake. Where I’d been on the verge of nearly combusting when Never had pulled me into that dark closet that smelled of chemicals and sex, now a freezing realization was setting in.
I’d hurt her. That was the only explanation for the tears I was seeing. Those wet streaks on her cheeks sliced me open inside in the worst possible way.
“Love, talk to me.” My previous fury was drowned by the flood of worry filling my mind. Had I really found the woman of my dreams, after so many long months, only to hurt her when I lost control?
What kind of monster did that make me?
An image of Leo dancing with her, his hands touching flesh that didn’t belong to him, reignited that searing flame of jealousy in the space of a heartbeat. I pulled her in tighter, desperate to hang onto her now that she was in my arms, and stroked a hand through her hair, smoothing some of the tangles I’d put there.
“Nev—” The apology that burned on the tip of my tongue was cut short when a heavy knock rattled the door.
She flinched at the sound. When she looked up at me, tears gleaming in the dying glow of the pendant, I wanted to tear out what was left of my shriveled heart and offer it to her as penance. My throat worked, but try as I might, my words were nowhere to be found.
An unreadable look flashed across her face, and she shrugged out of my arms. Her back straightened. Her shoulders rolled. She transformed right in front of me, from the soft, needing soul I would burn the world for, back into the woman I’d met that very first morning on the beach.
Strong. Defiant. Challenging in a way that still called to me.
But whatever softness or injury she’d just felt raw enough to share with me was once again buried beneath her armor.
“Are you okay?” I asked, fighting the urge to reach out and brush the tears from her cheeks.
She blinked at me, her ocean blue eyes dancing across my face, before she gave her head one little shake.
Gods be damned. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She bent, dragging her pants back up her delicious thighs. She seemed to weigh the confession as she shimmied them over her hips. “You didn’t,” she said, deliberately avoiding my gaze.
That wasn’t remotely true, but her response revealed the truth all the same. Whatever I’d done to draw those cursed tears from her, it wasn’t physical.
A fact that made me feel even worse.
Another booming knock echoed through the room. “We need to go,” Leo called through the door. “Security is on their way back here.”
Never swiped the tears away, straightened her clothes, and gave me one last heart-wrenching look before she turned and opened the door.
Leo’s expression was glacial when he glared at me over her head, but none of us said a word as we moved through the club. He gathered their things from a small closet manned by a petite woman who wore a seductive smile, while Never ducked into a restroom. It was all I could do not to follow her in there. Now that I’d found her, I didn’t want her out of my sight for even a second.
The image of her tears and the wounded look on her face replayed in my mind, and I forced myself to give her space. I reclaimed my cutlass at the door, tipping a nod to the guard on my way out.
The night air was thick with humidity, but blessedly cool compared to the heat of the club.
“I have so many questions,” Never said, pulling her jacket tight around. “But before we get into anything, I want to check the site of the attack earlier.” She said the last part more to Leo than to me.
“Attack?” I asked.
“Walk and talk.” She headed down the wide sidewalk. “I’m guessing you already know this, but the bitch demon’s shadow hitched a ride when Matty and I zapped ourselves home.”
She reached up and fiddled with the pendant hanging from her neck as she spoke. The way she rolled it between her fingers made me think she did it often, and that maybe she wasn’t entirely aware of what she was doing.
Had that piece of me become a sort of worry stone for her? The thought made my bruised heart swell.
“Only, instead of showing up like Leo did, as himself, or herself, the shadow somehow took over my brother.” Never cast a quick look my way before turning her attention back to the concrete path she was leading us down. “We’ve been tracking him as best we can. Earlier today, we finally caught up with him, but he’d killed at least three people before we got there.”
I shot a sideways glance at Leo. It was hard to look at the man without rage bubbling to the surface, especially when he met my gaze with a challenge glittering in his own.
“I’m assuming the shadow escaped,” I said.
Leo’s eyes rolled back, and he shifted his attention forward without answering.
Never, on the other hand, let out a bitter chuckle. “Yeah, they got away.”
“They?”
She nodded. “Matty’s still in there. I’ve seen him. Twice now, actually, and both times he’s fought his way forward to keep that evil bastard from killing me.” Her hand dropped from the necklace as she drew to a stop. “I’ve got to find a way to get that thing out of him, and I need to do it before it kills more people.”
That was easier said than done. Exorcising a demon required an enormous amount of power and a very specific spell.
Not to mention another demon.
That was the key thing god-fearing humans often got wrong about exorcisms. For thousands of years, they’d believed their own holy men and women could drive a demon out. Maybe they could, with the weaker demons. Petra wasn’t weak, and her shadow possessed far more power than most of the other damned creatures that called the human realm home.
Never filled me in on what she knew of the shadow and what it had been up to as we made our way down one street after another. The site of the attack was cordoned off with brilliant yellow tape, and even now, hours after the event, the area was bustling with activity.
She wasn’t exaggerating; it was a bloodbath. Even from a distance, it was clear the demon had torn its victims to shreds.
“What I can’t figure out is what the hell it’s looking for,” she said, keeping her voice low.
Power. It was always about power with Petra. Maybe it was only obvious to me because I’d shared the creature’s prison for so long.
I should have shared that thought, but I didn’t trust myself to speak without inflicting more harm on her.
Then there was Leo. If he looks at me like that one more time...
I let the thought die.
Millennia. That was how long I’d been around. Plenty long enough to learn how to keep my emotions in check. Yet, when I was in Never’s orbit, her mere presence chipped away at my control.
We left not long after, making our way past the park I’d arrived in just a few hours earlier. At least now I understood where I was. What I didn’t know was how I’d gotten here in the first place.
Does it matter?My mission, my sentence, was the same as it had been for the bulk of my long life: imprison the demon.
I wanted Never. Inside, I was fighting a powerful need to bundle her up in my arms and steal her away from everything. The problem was, I wasn’t supposed to be in the human world. Even now, just a few short hours after my arrival, I could feel the pull of the Nassa.
There had been a time when I’d wanted nothing to do with this realm. Now, my brain was hard at work figuring out how I could handle the demon and eventually make my way back to Never.
Unless I could convince her to come with me and leave her world behind?
She had a piece of me, after all. Infecting a human the way the shadow had done with Matty required a great deal of power, and it was that part of me that had allowed the transfer as they were making their escape.
The shadow would know that. In fact, it should have been trying like hell to take it from Never, at any cost.
She led us to a rundown apartment building and up several flights of filthy stairs. Fishing a small set of keys out of her jacket pocket, she glanced over her shoulder. “Lily is probably sleeping, so try to keep it down, okay?”
Lily? Her dog? Why would we need to worry about not waking a mongrel? Rather than ask aloud, I offered her a nod. Leo grunted something unintelligible, but she took it as an agreement.
The door creaked on its hinges, and as I stepped through, a surreal feeling settled over me. I was standing in Never’s home. Sure, it was tainted with the scent of a traitorous shifter, but his animalistic musk couldn’t mask the scent that infused the air. Even if it could, the place felt like Never.
“It’s a shithole. Believe me, I know,” she whispered.
I wanted to say it wasn’t, but she turned, her eyes settling first on me, then Leo, and back. “I need to take a shower.” Something vulnerable slipped through her tough facade. “Don’t...” She wet her lips and let out a little huff. “Don’t leave, okay?”
Dipping my head, I took a risk and stepped forward. There was so much I wanted to say and do, but I settled for taking her hand and bringing it to my lips. I brushed a soft kiss over her knuckles. “I’ll be here.”
She blinked up at me. Her lips parted, but then she pressed them together before even a whisper escaped.
What was she going to say?
She pulled her hand gently from my grip and turned to Leo. “Thanks for tonight.” She gave him a quick hug that made my blood pressure spike.
When she was tucked safely behind the flimsy door in the hallway with the water running, I finally let some of my anger rise to the surface. “She’s mine.”
He grunted out a defiant laugh. “That woman doesn’t belong to anyone.”
She might not have realized it yet, but she did. She’d been mine since the moment I’d set eyes on her that morning on the beach. I’d cemented that claim when she’d given herself to me. Another not-so-small detail she might not fully grasp.
That was something I needed to remedy. Soon.
Dealing with Leo, however, came first.
“This isn’t up for debate,” I said, turning slowly to face him. The wild possessiveness coursing through me grew stronger when he shook his head.
“You can’t just claim her, Atlas. You haven’t been here. You don’t know what it’s been like.”
“And you have been here, haven’t you? Helping her. Comforting her.” The words became more acidic as I spoke. “Tell me, would she claim you?”
He flinched. It was barely perceptible, but I’d struck a nerve.
“She’s a complicated woman,” he finally confessed.
But was she? I might have thought the same thing in the beginning, but deep down, she wasn’t.
Thinking back to the club and our rough reunion, I wanted to run myself through with my cutlass. Then vision of her asking me not to leave, and the vulnerability that had glittered in her eyes, played through my mind, making me feel even worse.
She wasn’t sure about me or my intentions. How could she be? I’d said a half dozen words to her before I’d manhandled her.
Shame burned up my neck. I’m supposed to be better than this.
“You’re both idiots.”
I turned to face the source of that feminine voice; a voice that registered as distantly familiar before I got a look at the long-lost princess of Leo’s clan. “Lilith?”
She was looking at me with an expression so cutting it would have made a lesser man wither. “Captain.”
A few more puzzle pieces clicked together, and I wheeled on Leo. “She’s the reason you came through.”
He dipped his head. “Do you remember Never talking about her hellhound back in the war room? Well, since she was on her way home, and I’d burned through every lead I could find in our world, I figured I would give it a shot.”
Swiveling back to Lily, I couldn’t help scratching my head. “You’ve been here this whole time? Pretending to be a family pet?”
Disgust washed over her face. “The pet thing was Wendy’s dirty little trick. She had a mean sense of humor. But that doesn’t matter right now.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the bathroom door.
I hadn’t even noticed, but the water didn’t sound like it was running anymore.
“I’m going to do you both a favor here and give you a little insight into Never. And keep in mind this is coming from someone who’s known the girl her entire life.” She pinned me with a glare, before shifting her gaze to Leo. “If either of you thinks you’ll win her over by arguing or fighting over her, you don’t know her at all. She’s not a prize to be won, and if you treat her like that’s all she is, you’ll lose her long before you ever have a real chance with her.”
It stung that I needed someone else to say that aloud before the tangle of covetous emotions roiling inside me would subside. I knew she wasn’t a trophy—a trinket to be owned and put on display. Never Darling was far, far more than that, but all I’d shown her was that I believed she belonged to me.
I stood by that. She was mine. Period.
But it had to be her choice to be with me, no matter my claim.
Lily let out a huff, giving her head a little shake. “Does she know the truth about you, Captain? Or that thing she wears around her neck?”