Chapter 24
BONES
W e all have our secrets. Things we keep inside our minds, things that are so dark, so inexcusable, that we’re afraid to tell anybody. We also tell little white lies, holding back from each other out of fear of changing our dynamic. But after the fucking bomb that Draven just dropped… It’s time we all bring our forbidden shadows out into the light.
The terrace at Blackwell Manor is illuminated by torches and flickering candles. We sit around a glass table that’s covered in various bottles of booze, vials of poison, and ashtrays full of cigarette butts and half-smoked joints. The tension is as thick as the morning fog, heavy as it swirls in between us.
We haven’t slept since leaving Aries’s father’s house. We drove all night from the top of the mountains of Ever Graves just to get back here before sunrise. It’s in these twilight hours where we’re most at ease. When the devil’s hold on us is at its weakest.
“I can’t believe you waited this long to tell us. You know we never would have judged you.” I stir the ice cube in my whiskey with my finger before sucking it off.
Draven lights another cigarette. “I know. It wasn’t about that. I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud… until last night.”
Aries runs a hand through his blond locks, tousling them. His tie is off, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down. It’s the most unkempt I’ve seen him look in a long time.
“You told her before us. Why?” he asks.
The lines on Draven’s forehead crease as if he’s wincing from pain. “Because of what she is. The nightmare world is familiar to her. It wasn’t planned. I wanted to be inside her. But I couldn’t do it with this secret between us. I looked into her eyes, and it just came out.”
Aries nods, satisfied with his answer. “The Harkers have had a hold on this town for a long time.”
“And everyone in it,” I add. They were the original sin. The family that started the curse. The reason why every woman born in Ever Graves is saddled with her own nightmare man. But they are just fragments of a greater whole, extensions of the devil himself.
Aries throws me an expectant look. My pulse races. I take a deep drag of my joint. His eyes tell me what his mouth isn’t. No more secrets or holding back. I exhale a huge puff of smoke and blow it slowly in his direction.
Draven raises an eyebrow. “What was that?”
Aries leans forward and places his hand on my knee. “Me and Bones are more than friends. We’ve kind of had this thing between us since we were kids.”
Draven smirks. “I think it’s adorable that you thought I didn’t know.”
Fuck. I blow out a deep breath. “You’ve known?”
He chuckles. “You’re not as discreet as you think. Of course, I know.”
“But you never said anything,” Aries quips.
Draven shrugs. “It wasn’t my place to. That’s between you two. I hoped that it would never fuck up the friendship for all our sakes, but it’s never been my business to meddle in.”
Relief fills me. The last thing I want is for Draven to think we would ever put our friendship in jeopardy. Aries and I promised each other a long time ago that love and sex were a bonus but the bonds between us are forever. Nothing can break them.
“Cool,” I say on a breath.
Draven bursts out laughing. “And you say I’m the serious one. Both of you, relax. We’re the sons of Ever Graves. Us against the world. Remember?”
I nod. “By the Wishing Tree.” When we were just twelve years old, we made a blood sacrifice together in the forest, pledging our loyalty to each other for life.
“So we’re all half-nightmare then, I guess. Thanks for disclosing that now. I might not have gone through with it if I had known back then,” Aries teases.
Draven snorts. “It doesn’t work like that, Ries. I’m still the only one with ties to the devil.”
‘I know but I enjoy riling you up.” He flashes a grin before downing his third vial of nightshade.
“You and Mia,” I add. “The devil haunts her every night.”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. The mere mention of her name, does something wild to all of us. “That’s why we need to keep her close. The curse was created out of spite. The devil wanted to make sure that no woman in Ever Graves would ever know peace. That they would never receive love from another. Not without a nightmare hanging over them.”
That dark tone returns to his voice. I didn’t realize he knew so much about the curse. I guess I’d learn everything I could, too, if I was half-nightmare though.
I take a swig from a bottle of Blackwell gin. “Are you saying we can break the curse? ”
Draven shakes his head. “No, it’s too late for that. But maybe there’s a way to release her from his hold. If that’s what she wants.”
Aries nods. “According to the old legends, a Bishop witch gave a blood sacrifice at the Wishing Tree. She let the devil out of hell in exchange for immortality. But he saw Willa Harker in the nearby field and became obsessed. When she rejected him, he created the curse. But he also cursed the Bishop woman and all her future descendants. He made sure they can’t ever get into the After. So when they die, they become ghosts, stuck in between worlds.”
What the fuck? I must’ve missed that class in school. “How the fuck do you know all this?”
He grins, proud of himself. “I’m a Thorn. We keep excellent records.”
The threads on these hallowed grounds keep burrowing deeper. “I used to think that’s all they were, legends.”
Draven shakes his head. “My grandmother kept records as well. If she knew what I was, she never let on. But my father knew I was definitely not his. He suspected my mother of cheating, but not with a nightmare man. That never crossed his mind. Rodrick guessed it early on. It was unspoken.”
There are so many memories that make more sense to me now. All of that weight was on Draven’s shoulders, this secret he had to hide so his family wouldn’t send him away like they did with his cousin Maureen. I only wish he hadn’t shouldered it alone.
I take another puff of the joint. “We are from some fucked up families.”
“And a fucked up town,” Aries adds as he rolls a fresh joint for himself.
Draven holds up his glass of gin. “But now we control the poison. I’m surprised that your father relinquished his hold so easily though. I thought Gemini Thorn would’ve put up more of a fight. What did you say to him when I left the room?”
Aries’s eyes darken as he licks the rolling paper. “The truth. That he’s lucky I haven’t murdered him for what he did to Lib. And that I still might. I told him to sign everything over to us or sleep with both eyes open instead of one.”
My cock twitches in my pants. I love when he gets like this. Threats of murder and mayhem are my fucking foreplay. I hold his gaze, revealing all of my ache and pain and hunger for him with just a look. A look that only he and Mia understand.
“Should I give you two a minute?” Draven snorts.
And apparently Draven understands it too.
I give him a wink. “Nah, we can wait. Besides, we’ll need more than a minute.”
“Thatta boy,” Aries quips back.
I am hard as a rock now. “Careful, Ries, I might change my mind and bend you over this table right now.”
He leans back in his chair, his cock tenting his pants. “I want our little lamb between us.”
Draven’s eyes glaze with lust too. “I’d like to see that… I’m not done punishing her for what she did. Let’s make it another game.”
I lick my lips, my glands salivating for another taste of her. “She is fun to play with.”
Aries stares at my crotch. “Show me how hot she makes you.”
Now I’m going to fucking burst. I glance over at Draven.
He pours another glass of gin and leans back. “I don’t mind watching if you don’t.”
Fucking hell these two are going to give me a fucking heart attack. I look back to Aries as I unzip my jeans and free my swollen cock. I wrap a hand around it and squeeze.
Aries spreads his legs open and palms his own cock. “Slide your hand up and down, nice and slow for me. ”
Having Draven watch is somehow making me hotter. More unhinged. I want to fuck Aries so bad. I do as he says, taking my time as I finger every ridge on the way down to my tip. I squeeze and a little dribble of pre cum spurts out. “Mmm, I want to fill all her fucking holes.”
“We’ll fill them together,” Draven confirms.
“A little faster now,” Aries orders, his voice breathy.
I let out a soft whimper as the blood flows down, pulsing with need.
“Yeah, just like that,” Aries praises. “You look so fucking good.”
My balls tingle as my blood pumps faster in a race against my heartbeat. I roll my hips up as I squeeze and pull on my cock. “I want to scare the fuck out of her. Her fear feeds me.”
Draven stalks over to my chair and stands behind me. He rests his hands on my shoulders. “Close your eyes and cum to the vision of her screaming in fear.”
Oh, fuck.
Aries sucks in a sharp breath. “Fuck. Now I’m gonna cum.” He pulls his cock out of his pants and fists it. “We should have invited you a long time ago, Dray.”
“Aw, fuck. You’ve done it now…” My cum bursts out, coating my hand in thick, hot ropes.
Knowing how much I love pain, Draven pinches the tissue between my shoulder blades hard. “There you go. Let it all out.”
I open my eyes just as another orgasm rips through me, a wave of flutters that zaps every nerve in my body. I pump harder and faster, milking myself while Draven digs his fingers into my back.
Aries growls and moans as he watches me, a sopping mess of white cream soaking his swollen cock. “Mmm, fuck. The things we’re going to do to her… ”
Draven releases his hold on me but smooths his hands softly over my back one last time. “I’ll be right back.”
Aries and I stare hard into each other’s eyes, our chests heaving as we both struggle to regain control of our breath and our heartbeats. We’ve never done anything like that before. Not with anyone watching. But it was especially hot because it was Dray. Fuck, he’s intense, and having his eyes, then his hands, on me was what gave me the final push over the edge.
He comes back out a few minutes later with a towel for each of us. “Thank you for letting me watch.”
“Anytime you want,” Aries rasps.
As I clean myself off, I spot something else in Draven’s hand. He tosses three black ski masks on the table. The eyes and mouths are covered with a thin mesh lining so we can still see and breathe, but she won’t recognize us. Plus, I texted her earlier that we wouldn’t be back in town until tomorrow.
A rush of adrenaline races through my veins.
“You say you want to scare her. These will help.”
“Tonight?” Aries asks.
Draven smirks. “Right fucking now.”
Sunrise is still at least two hours away, but we know Mia isn’t sleeping. All three of us have been watching her long enough to know that she makes herself stay up for days in between nightmares. She’ll be delirious, exhausted, and easy to trap. Especially since she still doesn’t even know the way around her own house.
I put on one of the masks, the snug fabric already making me feel like an unhinged predator. “Let’s go hunting.”
It takes me less than five minutes to flip all the breakers to Harker Mansion, enshrouding it in darkness. Masked and dressed in all black, the three of us slip in the back door off the kitchen .
I almost laugh out loud when I hear Mia cursing and stumbling around in the dark. But as soon as I get a whiff of jasmine, my primal instinct kicks in. My belly flutters knowing she’s so close. So vulnerable. We are the monsters tonight. Awake or asleep, there’s no escaping us. But I prefer her awake. I want to see the look of fear mixed with lust in those pretty mismatched eyes.
Draven points to the ceiling, and I nod. We’re going to herd her upstairs. We could grab her now, but where’s the fun in that? No, I want my little lamb to run. To feel the beasts at her back, breathing down her neck.
We split up and take various dark corners to hide in on the first floor. My heart races as I wait. After a few minutes, I hear her scream from down the hallway. Bare feet slap against the marble floors as she rounds the corner in a full sprint. She’s coming right toward me. I step out, blocking her path to the wine cellar.
Gotcha.
She smacks into me and stumbles back. Her eyes widen as I walk her back against the wall. “Get out of my house!”
I don’t touch her. I don’t speak. I just box her in and tower over her. The anticipation has me hard as fuck.
Wearing nothing but a thin, white cotton T-shirt that barely covers her ass, her body trembles. “I-I have three psychos who are about to walk in here any moment,” she lies. “They’re gonna kill you.”
My adrenaline spikes. That’s right, baby girl. We will kill anyone who dares to touch you. But it’s us that you should be more afraid of tonight.
I step to the side and let her put space between us before stalking toward her again, flanking her on the right so she’s forced to go up the stairs.
“Please, I have money. I’ll fucking pay you to leave me alone.” She still hasn’t realized there are three predators in her home tonight .
Sweat soaks through her shirt, plastering it to her body, showing me the outline of her pink nipples and that sweet fucking pussy. She walks backward up the stairs, keeping her eyes trained on me the whole time.
Good girl. No sudden movements, or I might attack.
I slow my pace, trailing behind her by at least four steps. When she reaches the second floor, she makes a run for it again. And I let her. Aries is up next. And soon, we’ll have her right where we want her—bound, naked, and at our mercy.