28. Daphne Graveyard
twenty-eight
Daphne: Graveyard
We were a tangled mess of limbs and sweat when Thay pulled me closer, as if the idea of space still rang true. As if there was anything left of my skin that didn’t belong to him. I felt enmeshed, completely folded, and breathing violet in my newfound existence.
His, I wrote in the back of my mind.
The prettiest sonnet.
The saddest raincloud.
My most profound truth.
All. His.
And more than that. He kissed me. Like, really fucking kissed me!
I had spent so much time wondering why he chose not to, that I never let myself enjoy the fantasy of his surrender.
To be fully realized, instead of always slipping through his hands.
I can’t explain the feeling in my mouth.
All I knew was that when he took me under, he was everywhere, kissing my bruises all better.
And I didn’t mind that I felt him shatter.
Tasted the monster that tumbled into me like a knife to the heart. I’d be his ruin. The ancient elegy of his lost city. A love letter under museum glass.
I’d be his gunshot.
I’d be it all.
“Is she asleep?” Wolfe asked, climbing to the right side of the mattress, his dark, steady voice anchoring the space into a dreamy lull.
“Wavering between worlds,” Thay responded, pushing his still-hard cock further inside me, shifting over me like a blanket. We had knocked the comforter to the floor, and whatever was left of the sheets sat crumpled under my hip.
“Are you…” Wolfe exhaled, rolling his neck before resting it on the wall. “Okay?”
It was sexy the way Thay never apologized or felt shame.
Wolfe had just witnessed his monster cry-fuck the woman he loves, kissing her in a fever and surrendering everything.
But it didn’t seem to bother Thay that he saw.
For most, there would be a sense of vulnerability, but it only gave him more power.
He wanted Wolfe to know exactly who he was to me, and it made me feel bright.
“I should ask you that question,” Thay growled, pressing a kiss into my hair.
Wolfe snickered, lighting a cigarette that bled into the dark. I did not smoke, but I was a secondhand junkie. I often missed the flavor of tobacco or leaned into the perfume whenever it entered the room.
“Whatever you may think of me, Thayor Milo Gavros, I love Daphne,” Wolfe paused, and my ears shifted to the shaky breath behind me. “I didn’t want to, but from the moment she shuffled into my bedroom to escape your mid-afternoon fucks, I was hers.”
Thay uttered a low, bellied sound that would have made me smile if I weren’t so far away.
“But I could never provide her with what you just did. Because that part of me doesn’t exist. They removed it from me at birth, so you can stop measuring our dicks. I know yours is bigger. But also know, I will always be a little more broken than you because you have all of her and I don’t.”
Thay’s breath shifted, his arms pulling taut along my skin.
“I meant Lyla,” he groaned, and even I could feel his icy stare pierce the air. “I saw the flash.”
“Why would I give a fuck about that?” Wolfe’s voice fell away. “That traitorous cunt deserved the wall. She got out easy, and you know it.”
“If she got out at all.” Thay’s lips curved around whatever flesh he could find in a sweet kiss.
“Yeah, well, the worst part is now I have to go back to Seattle and pretend to mourn her. I am leaving tonight, but I extended your stay for another day. Consider it a wedding present.”
Mourn her?
There was a ruffle in the silence before Nathem picked up on the other line.
“Hey, boss,” my Irish devil crooned from the other end.
“How’s Blade?” Wolfe asked, shifting on the mattress.
“Oh, you know. He is back to whining like a little bitch,” he laughed. “So I think he will make it.”
“Good,” Wolfe swallowed. “Jessie nearby?”
“Yeah, we are all here.”
“Any news on Rinley?”
I snickered, listening to the checklist that occupied this man’s mind.
“Yeah. Some. You’re not going to like it, though. We’d better take this conversation offline and fill you in when you get back. We have him till then.”
“Fucking hell,” Thay groaned, shaking his head somewhere above me. “I’d better be a part of that conversation.”
Shit. Rinley. I’d forgotten about him.
“Where is the body?” Wolfe asked, and I stilled, Thay’s eyes dropping to find mine cracked wide open. He smiled, but at what I did not know. What could possibly be funny?
Wait! Was Lyla dead?
As in dead… dead? As in never coming back.
“Downstairs. They dropped it off on the front porch.” Nathem clicked his teeth, and my whole body flatlined. “The club is up in arms about it, waiting to see what you will do. Not that they were loyal to her, but you don’t fuck with our king.”
Thay rolled his eyes, peering up at Wolfe as if he were anything but.
“I am sorry. We knew you liked her.”
Wolfe’s lips curled.
“But at least it wasn’t Daphne!”
Thay’s forearms tensed when Wolfe cleared his throat, sending the stench of metal into the cancerous smoke.
Was that it? Was there a target on my head that moved to Lyla? Is that why they insisted I get on that goddamn plane?
I tried to peer up at Thay for confirmation, but he only tightened his grip.
“If it were, this would be a different conversation.” Everything left from his voice. “I am leaving tonight. Make sure someone is there to pick me up.”
“Sounds good. How is she, by the way?” Nathem asked. “Was our little Daphne Duck happy to see you?”
I despised that nickname and snarled under my breath.
“Don’t fucking call her that,” Wolfe sighed. “But she is good. Naked, but good.” The news about Lyla faded away, and my throat clenched. “Right now, she is half asleep under a bare ass Threx.”
“About fucking time!” Nathem cheered, and I swear others did, too.
“He claimed her,” Wolfe declared, etching everything into stone. He wouldn’t let Thay keep this between us. That isn’t how he worked.
Thay’s eyes popped up in warning, but Wolfe swatted it away.
“Have the boys figure out how to convert my room and office into two, with a shared door in the center. Also, tell them she is moving back in. That should boost morale.”
“She might not want that,” Thay threw a punch, while Wolfe only laughed.
“She doesn’t get a choice. Your name is on her skin now. Between us is the only way she stays safe.”
I waited for Thay to argue, but he didn’t. At least not with his mouth.
“Ouch, you fucker!” Wolfe gritted out when another blow struck him between the legs.
“Holy fucking shit! Daphne is coming home?” Blade cheered in the background. “We will need to replace the towels. You know how she hates the shitty ones.”
Wolfe let out a dark laugh.
“And more toaster waffles. Because she is sneaky as fuck!”
Even I smiled at that one, despite feeling hollowed out by Lyla and their ability to talk home goods while she was dead in the basement.
“Also, reinstate the History Channel,” Wolfe groaned. “Jessie will be pleased.”
“He is!” Jessie confirmed. “Tell Daph, we love her,” he added from the back of the room before Wolfe smiled and ended the call.
Before I could react, scream, or die on my bed… Thay shifted his weight like an anchor.
“Wait,” his hand went over my mouth as he rolled onto me, pinning me to the mattress. I stared up at him, examining his calm in a dead panic. “Because this is the part where binding your soul to the bad guy becomes real.”
I blinked, metallic fury and guilt surging through my veins.
There was no world where I did not love Threx, Thay, or his beast. There, I said it. You don’t have to like it, or even understand it, but it was true. However, it didn’t mean that Lyla had to die.
“Lyla snapped a picture of us fucking in the alley at the naked party,” Wolfe began, playing with the end of his cigarette.
“Which she later sold to the exchange. Little did she know, earlier that day, Karsten’s son got shot in the ankle during crossfire on a recovery job.
So naturally, killing my queen was the answer because the Underworld is run by fucking idiots.
” Wolfe rolled his eyes. “Not that Lyla knew, because she was too busy breaking our contract and playing her own game. One that ended with you dead.”
I swallowed, not trusting my voice yet. Not that it mattered, because Thay’s hand sat still on my mouth.
“Karsten bought the info and put a hit on Wolfe’s new queen. 50k for your pretty head.”
My heart pounded, sending black and pink splotches into my lungs.
“But Wolfe and I intercepted,” Thay explained, “before they had time to figure out it was you, and redirected their attention to the correct queen before anyone linked a name to your face.”
“You used her as a pawn?” I mouthed between his fingers. “You put the hit on her to get it off of me?”
“Shhh,” Thay whispered into my ear to keep me from dying.
“No, he didn’t,” Wolfe turned to his side, sweeping the hair from my cheek. “I did. They were already hunting my queen; I just made sure they knew who that was.”
I killed her. She begged me to stay, and I said yes. This was my fault. I fucking killed her!
“And I am not sorry. She sold us out to my enemy, and I couldn’t give a fuck. Traitors don’t get to live in our world, and she was the worst kind.”
“Wolfe!” I gulped, attempting to breathe through the sensation of my head exploding.
Lyla was a sad, discarded, lonely woman who grew up in the Underworld, without so much as a pot to piss in.
Then, suddenly, she had a home, a man, and something to hold on to.
That wasn’t treacherous behavior. That was desperation.
“She was scared,” I screamed into Thay’s fingers, catching my taste on his skin. “She didn’t want to lose you.”
“You can’t do that,” Thay warned, lowering his lips against the cage that held me. “Because down here, we all live and die by the same rules, and they do not give a fuck about your backstory. Or messy emotions. And neither can you. Traitors die. And she knew better.”
I winced, letting my tears fall.
“You didn’t kill her!” he said, in a small attempt to calm me down.
“Yes, I did!” I cried out.