Chapter 16 #2
“What? Oh.” Mace and a few other DART colleagues had joined Blade, and they were waving her over. Well, Blade wasn’t. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
Scotty knew the feeling.
She turned back to Amber. “Let’s talk later, okay?”
Amber grabbed Scotty’s arm as she stood. “Don’t tell Talon what I said to you. Swear it.”
Screw that. Talon needed to know that his psycho girlfriend had messed with Amber. But Scotty had broken enough vows this week, so she’d keep her word. Besides, there were always workarounds.
Fallen angels disappeared all the time.
“I swear, I will not say a word to Talon.” Evil Barbie, however, was another story. Scotty jerked her thumb over at her friends. “Gotta go.”
Leaving Amber to her sketchbook, she crossed the yard. Lyiah Zee, DART’s Media Manager, ushered her into a gap between Mace and Blade. “Stand here,” she said. “I want to get a picture of you guys for the company newsletter. We’re highlighting the wendigo mission.”
Scotty held in a groan. She didn’t want to think about the wendigo mission ever again.
Doing so made her think about a lot more than cannibalistic monsters.
It made her think of sitting in Mace’s lap while his fangs were buried in her throat.
It made her think of being beneath Blade while his powerful body surged against hers.
It made her wonder if any male could ever make her feel the way Mace and Blade had.
Lyiah made an impatient scooting gesture, and Scotty gingerly wedged herself closer between the two males, flinching when her hip brushed against Blade’s hand.
Chill. He touched you a million times before you had sex, and you never reacted like that.
Gods, she needed to get control of herself.
Step back from the situation and look at it with logic. Not emotion.
Her father used to tell her that during training, back when she’d been a lot wilder and more impulsive. But he hadn’t said it to her in years. He hadn’t needed to.
The problem here was that she couldn’t set aside her feelings, because she didn’t even know what they were.
The party was rocking. The Horsemen had gone all out for Amber’s birthday, including booking one of the most popular bands in the world.
Well, Stryke had called in that favor, but it was still cool.
They’d be starting any minute now. Maybe then, Blade would stop scowling at Stryke, who would leave as soon as the music started.
Stryke had always been sensitive to sounds, but music was especially irritating because he could literally taste it, and for some reason, it always tasted bad.
That would suck.
“Can you guys scoot closer?” Lyiah gestured to Blade and Mace, urging them to move in on Scotty.
“Sure.” Mace threw his arm around Scotty’s shoulders and pulled her in with a playful tug as she wrapped her arm around his waist. He glanced over at his buddy, who had stiffly inched closer but still held himself half a foot apart. “Yo. Blade. Get in here.”
Blade offered a brief, contrite smile and pressed up against Scotty, arm to arm, hip to hip. The whole thing was awkward as hell.
“Come on, Blade.” Lyiah gave him an exasperated look. “Put your arm around them. You know, like you’re buddies and not strangers on the street. The story is going to highlight your unit’s camaraderie and teamwork.”
Blade seemed bizarrely flustered as he nodded and gingerly brought his arm to rest just beneath Mace’s on Scotty’s back.
Maybe Blade had a thing for Lyiah? She was cute, smart, and, as a species of blood-drinking demon that took their nourishment during sex, she was probably a lot of fun in bed.
But it wasn’t like Blade to get weird around females.
If he wanted one, he went after her with the self-confidence of a male who rarely faced rejection.
That was the awesome thing about being a Seminus demon. Females wanted you. Resistance was futile and all that. As lust demons, they’d been gifted with unnaturally good looks, powerful, seductive pheromones, and the ability to pleasure a female unconscious.
The tradeoff was that as much as females loved them, males hated them.
Mace could deal with the jealous or pissed-off randos, but he had to watch out for the greedy fucking mercenaries.
Bastards made a fortune selling abducted Sems to sickos—sickos who made black-market aphrodisiacs from enslaved Seminus demons.
Mace shuddered. Most of those poor males died a slow, torturous death, wrung so dry they were basically just husks at the end.
Not cool, especially when the aphrodisiacs could be bought legally.
Made by StryTech, of course.
Mace had never been to the facility where Sems could pleasantly donate semen for the legal creams, tinctures, and pills created and marketed by StryTech. Still, he’d heard they employed extremely talented females who coaxed every drop from a wrung-out male.
Sadly, and infuriatingly, there would always be a segment of the population who would believe the black-market stuff was better because of how it was harvested.
Some people believed that the more the male suffered, the more potent the results would be.
Fuckers. They were the same ignorant assholes who believed that fear and pain made the meat of animals tastier, when it was the exact opposite.
“Okay, smile! Gimme some fang, Mace.” Lyiah brushed her finger over her wrist comms, and a holographic camera popped up.
Mace grinned into the subtle flashes, tilting his head a hair to the right. His left was his good side.
“Now look serious, but a little cocky.” Lyiah sounded like she was trying to hype up a kids’ soccer team. “You guys just identified a new species that was once believed to be mythical. You’re rock stars!”
“We’re doing Bigfoot and Nessie next.” Mace grinned, then coughed out a half-baked apology. “Right. Serious. Got it.”
He folded his arms across his chest and put on his second-most stern face. Steely, with a hint of mischief. He’d practiced it a lot in the mirror as a kid. There were only so many times people could tell you to be calmer, or quieter, or more serious before you got good at putting up a front.
He glanced over at Blade. Blade had the calm thing down, but he liked to mess around as much as Mace did.
“What do you think, Blade? Should we ask Ky to develop a new Cryptid department? We could start with Bigfoot. Then do like the Yeti. Or chupacabras—”
“I’ve had enough of the fucking wilderness.” Blade’s tone could best be described as mood killer. “I just want to get back to normal.”
Now was the point where Scotty usually chimed in, steering things back to cheery.
But she didn’t. She posed for the next photos, achieving the serious-but-cocky thing, but her gaze was distant.
“Blade,” Lyiah huffed. “You keep inching away from Scotty. Close the gap.”
Scotty tugged Blade back and gave him a knock-it-off glare.
What the hell was going on? Between this, the vibe between those two last night, and Scotty’s bizarre behavior…yeah, they were keeping something from him. And it wasn’t that Scotty was going to date Skoll.
“Dude.” He tapped Blade’s shoulder. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re being weird. You both are. Did I do something to piss you off?”
Scotty looked up at him, startled, but Blade only shook his head.
“Come on, guys.” Lyiah’s tone was pleading. “I just need one picture.”
Woodenly, Mace found his stern face again, but he couldn’t muster the quirk of mischief. Something awful was stabbing at the fringes of his mind, a suspicion he was afraid to let develop.
“Finally,” Lyiah said, looking pleased.
Guess she got her shot. Mace wasn’t sure he cared at this point. The suspicion grew darker, penetrating his thoughts like a nightmare demon’s long, spindly fingers.
No. Don’t go there. Don’t you fucking go there.
“Thanks, guys.” Lyiah’s camera winked out. “I’m hoping Ky will approve the story going public. Fantastic PR for DART. And you guys, of course. Congratulations!” She gave them a brief wave and took off to join her buddies.
Scotty and Blade sprang apart like lightning had struck the ground between them, their expressions masks of guilt.
No.
A sinking sensation in his gut nearly drove Mace to his knees.
No!
It couldn’t be. They didn’t sleep together. They didn’t.
But what if they did?
Hot, searing rage boiled up, the fire stoking even hotter as he watched Scotty and Blade exchange more fleeting, guilt-ridden looks. The awkward kind that happened the morning after a shameful hookup.
Not that Mace had experienced it. But he’d seen it. And it looked just…like…that.
Nooooo.
His ribs tightened, squeezing the air out of his lungs as the truth sank in.
The three of them had seen each other in every kind of situation, in nearly every state of undress, and they’d been tangled tighter together than a skein of yarn over the years, but they had never been this uncomfortable with each other.
Only one thing could cause that.
The image of Blade and Scotty together in a cabin scorched his mind. He could picture them rolling around in front of a fire, maybe on a bearskin rug or some romantic shit. He knew how Blade fucked—the guy liked it rough and intense. He’d tear Scotty up.
Mace reconsidered that last thought. Scotty was a wildcat who could hold her own. She wouldn’t wilt under Blade’s sexual assault.
She’d thrive.
The image of her flipping Blade so she was on top played like an erotic movie in his head.
She was naked, her pale skin glowing in the light of the fire, contrasting with Blade’s hard-cut, tanned body.
Sweat glistened between her breasts as she rocked her hips against his, riding him, demanding more of him, her hair flowing down her slender back in a cascade of lava.
His rage hit a new level, so hot he could practically smell smoke.