17. Phoenix
Phoenix
I am genuinely confused by what’s happening as Storm takes my hand and leads me below deck.
“That’s going to keep Con busy for a while, and I would hate for you to be bored,” he explains with a cocky smirk that I haven’t seen before.
Storm is never lacking in confidence. He isn’t shy, that I can tell, but he is usually quiet.
. or pensive. He always seems like he is on guard, ready for some kind of assault. But here, he seems more…relaxed.
Lighter.
A salty breeze slides through the corridor as we descend. Somewhere above, I hear waves slapping the hull and the low thrum of the engine beneath our feet. The movement of the boat rocks just enough to make balance a game of its own.
“So, what do you do down here?”
“I have my own little game,” he says, holding up five flat-looking black blades with an intricate silver pattern in the metal.
“What kind of game?” I ask, trying to ignore the way my heart is thundering in my chest with a mix of adrenaline and fear.
“The dangerous kind.” The look in his eyes sends a thread of fear skimming along my nerves.
He sets the smaller knives down on the table, lining them up in a perfect row, then brings out the knife that he usually carries. The large folded knife is so beautiful with its gleaming silver blade swirled with black, the blue and silver handle providing a bright counterpoint.
He holds it up, letting the light glance off of the metal. “I don’t usually tell people about this blade. I might mention that my father gave it to me, but I don’t talk about why I carry it.” His gaze rests heavy on me. “For some reason, I’m compelled to tell you. ”
“Okay,” I say, my voice trembling.
He’s standing so close to me, I can feel his breath on my face and smell the intoxicating scent of his cologne. He moves the blade, running the tip over my skin, just barely dragging it across my flesh. It doesn’t cut, but the threat is implied.
Adrenaline floods my veins while my breathing gets shallow, and a bead of sweat runs down my spine.
“My father gave me this knife one night when we went on a camping trip, just the two of us. He and my mother had gotten into a fight, and he told me this long, elaborate story about how it was all her fault, about how she was destroying our family and how people will always try to use you. He explained that the only reason they had ever gotten married was because of the money, and that people would always try to use me for my money, my power, and my influence. The only way I could protect myself was to make sure that those I surrounded myself with were the same type of person I am.”
It feels like an icy fist has my heart and its grip and it’s squeezing. That’s what this was about. Money.
“You’re telling me this so I know you think I’m out to get your money? You want to put me in my place and remind me I have nothing, that I am nothing? I don’t need the reminder, but thanks, I guess.”
I whip around to leave but his hand on my bicep pulls me back to face him.
“No, angel. I’m telling you this so you’ll understand that I know that we’re the same.”
Something inside me stills and settles. “What do you mean?”
“That trip was supposed to be for me and my father alone. He had the PR team come out and turn it into a photo op, though, and then he spent the rest of the trip in the cabin with his secretary. I was left in the care of an intern. That, more than his little speech, helped clarify how easily we can be used. My own father used me to make himself look good.”
That hollow ache in his voice cracks something open inside me. I think of my own father—how easily he traded my affection for a few hands of poker. It’s like we were born in different worlds, but came out of the same fire.
Storm stops for a moment to take a breath, and I say nothing, letting him process whatever he is feeling. In his eyes, I can see the pain and anger swirling like the complex patterns of the blade that’s never far.
He closes his eyes for a moment and then steps closer, pressing his forehead against mine.
“You may not have the money that I have, but that’s superficial as fuck, anyway.
You and I have the same damage. The same trust issues, and the same need to protect ourselves from the vultures who would pick us clean.
I see you, Phoenix, and I know you see me, too. ”
My breath catches in my throat. The way he’s looking at me, his eyes so close to mine, is making my knees weak.
I want to fall into his touch. I want to press up against him and wrap my arms around him, and I want to protect him from all the shit that has him so damaged he feels the need to carry a blade wherever he goes.
I know the basics about his family. His parents were never very subtle about hiding their fights.
I would occasionally see them having tense, clipped arguments in the resort's lobby. I saw the welts that his mother left on his arms. And I saw the way his father distanced himself from him. When Storm was very young, his father was always smiling when he was around. I got the impression he wasn’t around often, but when he was, he was happy.
Something changed as Storm grew older, and the last time I saw Storm’s father, he looked dead inside.
“So there’s one thing I need to know, sweet angel,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I protect myself with the knife. I’ve wielded it against my enemies and even my lovers to keep those who would harm me again at a distance. It’s always with me. I also protect myself by surrounding myself with my real family—my brothers—who understand me.”
“What’s your question?” I ask, an uneasy feeling in my gut.
“How do you protect yourself, angel? How do you keep the monsters who would use you, abuse you…take everything they can from you…at bay?”
“I…” I stare up into his brilliant blue eyes, wondering just how much he really sees. Did he know I was in trouble? Did he know the same surface stuff about my life that I knew about his ?
I want to tell Storm everything. I want to lay everything out and beg him to help me. But I’m not a Titan. He’s not bound to protect me.
He said he surrounded himself with his family, and I don’t blame him for that.
If I had that option, I would, too…but the Titans are not my family.
If I tell Storm what I want to tell him, if I unveil the secrets that I have been holding back, I will force him to choose between me or them.
That is not an ultimatum I would win. It’s not something I’d even want to win.
“I don’t,” I finally answer. “There’s no way for me to protect myself from the monsters. I just…make myself so small that they don’t see me.”
“There’s not a man alive who wouldn’t see you the second you walk into any room,” Storm says, his tone matter-of-fact.
“I don’t know how to protect myself.”
“We need to get you a weapon. You and I are going to spend a lot of time together this year, and I’m going to show you how to protect yourself.
” He turns me around in his arm so my back is pressed against his chest, and he holds the blade out in front of me, the tip of the knife pointed straight at the floor.
“Take the blade.”
“I don’t—” I really don’t want to take the blade.
“I’m not going to have you cut anything. I just want you to feel it, get an idea of the balance and the weight of it.”
I nod and reach out, placing my hands just beneath his on the handle.
“Good, but you want to hold it just a little further down.” He adjusts my grip and then tightens his hand over mine. He guides my arm back and forth, tilting the blade this way and that so I can get a feel for how it cuts through the air.
It should terrify me—how easily it moves, how quickly I adapt. But it doesn’t. It feels good. Natural. Like it belongs in my hand. Maybe that’s the scariest part.
It’s so smooth, but it’s also so hard to focus on how it feels to wield the knife with his body pressed against my mine the way it is. He smells like spicy pink peppercorns and something silky and vanilla under it. It’s addictive. Everything about him is addictive.
“You’ve got to find your family, sweet angel. Most people will tell you they love you, they will show affection just to get you to let your guard down, and then?—”
“They will use that affection against you,” I interrupt him.
“Anytime someone says they love you, it’s because they want something from you.
They want to take from you. All they do is demand your attention, affection, your money, your body…
anything they can take. They only want you to feel obligated to give and give until there is nothing left, and then they will leave you empty and broken. ”
Something about moving the blade in and out of the air, twisting and turning it with each swipe, makes the anger and resentment I’ve felt toward my mother and my father and every other man in my life bubble to the surface.
“You’re angry,” he whispers into my ear. “You should be.”
“How do I let go of the anger?” I ask. I need to know that my entire life will not feel like this .
“Why would you let go of something so damn useful?” The way he purrs those words into my ear sends liquid desire straight to my core. His lips brush the outer shell of my ear as his hand wraps around my waist, holding me tighter to him.
I drop the knife, and he pulls me away from the blade as it tumbles to the floor.
“Careful, sweet angel. That blade is wicked sharp,” he says, giving me a hungry look that makes my breath stall and my lips part. I wonder if he tastes as good as he smells. Is his kiss as dangerous as everything else about him?
I know I should run from the dark web of seduction he’s weaving…but I can’t. I don’t want to.
Storm reaches out and cups my chin, running his thumb over my lips, for all the world like he means to lean in and kiss me.
Instead, he rolls his eyes.
“What do you want, Atticus?”
I jerk, my gaze flashing up to the top of the stairs, where Atticus stands .