Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
SHOCK
Between Kimba and Mary, she has a doctor’s appointment scheduled for two hours later.
We can’t all go with her.
We never take the same day off… and if we all disappeared at once, someone would come investigating.
It would be Trench. I don’t need to see the future to know that much. Since he found out about Arc’s actual mutation, he’s been more wary of all three of us. And Trench and Richter are the last of the brothers we want poking around today.
And, as with most decisions, we don’t have to discuss anything. Risk already knows the outcome, I see how it plays out, and Arc hears it in our thoughts.
So Chrys and I are alone in the car as we drive into Ilidi City.
“I’ve seen a lot of pictures and, I mean, it’s always outside the window behind Mary, but I don’t think I really understood how big the city was until right this second.”
“It’s tall. But it’s one of the smaller cities on this continent by footprint at least. Kaveter takes up about twice the amount of land. Gongii is even bigger.”
“Do the others at least know what color is?” she asks, looking up and wincing. “It’s so white and boring.”
“The buildings are made of a self-cleaning composite. No one has to get up there to clean them.”
“Oh. I guess I can give them a pass if it’s a safety issue.”
I don’t know that that’s exactly why, but I’ve never really thought about the city’s color—there’s plenty of color hidden inside and between the buildings. From the highest floors, the ground is a patchwork of art… but at a distance, it’s just white pillars glittering against the dark sky.
That’s what makes me take her on a quick detour.
She murmurs approvingly when we pause at one of the windows on the seventy-third floor of the medical building to look down.
Then, I sit in the waiting room while she disappears inside. There are several other men sitting with me. They have bonds… they can feel that their mates are safe, even if they’re out of sight. Resentment pokes at my chest and squeezes my gut.
Even though I can see that she’ll return to me, every moment that passes while she’s inside prickles at my skin.
When she comes out, she’s rubbing at her jaw, and I tense my muscles. I know no one hurt her in there, but still.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, better than? I’ve had this weird thing with a tooth for years and they just… fixed it? It was kind of amazing.”
I wait until we’re in the elevator before I ask. “And there’s nothing else wrong?”
She frowns. “There’s something wonky with my bloodwork, but they think it’s just the lingering stuff from whatever I was drugged with.”
I don’t like that.
“She told me to come back in a week to get another draw and see if they’re still there and whatnot.”
When the door opens again, we’re not on the ground floor. A cheery tune plays overhead and Chrys looks around like the small room we step into needs more than a cursory glance.
The place seems empty, until a woman pops up from behind the only opening in the wall, clutching a pen like it’s a trophy. She sees us and sets it quickly aside.
“Hello, hello! My name’s Kari. How can I—Oh my god. I love the tattoos. They are so cute!”
“Thank you. I am my own personal sticker book.” Chrys laughs and laces her inked fingers together, placing her arms on the counter and leaning across. “I need to know where you got those earrings.”
Kari reaches up and touches the fuzzy pink creatures dangling from her ears. “My friend makes them. I’ll give you her info once I get your script.”
“Perfect!”
Kari takes Chrys’ information and then scowls at the screen. “I show you in here, but… I already know it’s not where it says it is.” She slips from her seat and pats the counter top. “Wait right here. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
When she’s gone, I watch Chrys for a moment—a soft smile on her face, dancing to the music—and say, “It feels like you came here on purpose.”
“What?” she asks, a little laugh preceding the word.
“Just… Nothing seems to… phase you. I think that’s the way they say it on Earth.”
“Oh.” She laughs again, smiling up at me. “I tend to live by some simple rules that make things like this… easier than I think they might be for other people?”
“What kind of rules?”
“I don’t focus on the things I can’t control, for one.” She holds up a finger and then lifts a second. “And… if the universe wants me to have something, I don’t argue.”
“What does the universe want you to have?”
She leans close. “You can see the future. You tell me.”
“Found it!” Kari waggles a bag at us. “I don’t know how it got caught up in the system… but, nothing’s lost for long back here. Not even pens that try to roll into the trickiest places.”
She sits back on her stool, types through a few commands, scanning a barcode before saying, “Oo. You get the good stuff.”
She checks the computer one more time to be sure everything matches up and then hands over the bag.
“And here,” she writes something down on a piece of paper, “is Arabella’s information. Definitely look into it. If she has it pre-made, she can get it to you in an hour by drone delivery.”
“Thanks!” Chrys looks at the information and sighs. “Honestly, it’s a travesty that I don’t already own worm on a string earrings.”
“Yes, it is.” Kari looks at the bag and asks, “Are you familiar with the medication?”
“Yep!”
“You and your bondmate have fun then.” She winks, and I don’t understand it, but I also don’t plan to correct her misapprehension.
Kari waves goodbye to us and goes into the back as we turn for the elevator.
When we’re out of hearing, Chrys asks, “Do I get worm on a string earrings?”
Laughing, I reply, “Yes… in three colors.”
She beams, and when she slips her hand in mine, I do too.
The rest of the trip to the car is spent with her explaining the silly toys and something called memes.
Her smile doesn’t fade until she pulls the prescription bottle from the bag.
“Oh…” She looks at it oddly. “These aren’t what I usually take.”
“Do we need to go back?”
“No, no… I’ll read the sheet and it should be fine.”
The “sheet” is a glowing block of text that scrolls across the tube of the pill bottle and when she’s done, she shrugs. “It seems the same.”
I hand her a water bottle and she tips back a pair of round orange pills.
“It usually takes about an hour to kick in. I really should have taken it with food.” But she shrugs again.
“And what does it do?”
“Helps me focus, that’s all.”
“Okay.” I start the car with a thought, the neural link doing all the work. “Is there anything else you need before we head home?”
Chrys’ lips quirk in a little smile I hope is for the word home… and she shakes her head, hair brushing at her face. “I am pretty sure Arc has me covered.”
“I’m pretty sure he does too.”
She tosses the bottle into the brightly stitched together animal-shaped bag Risk found in the wreckage, and I turn the car back toward the Zone.
“When did you start working for the Agency?”
“Like… five years ago? It’s part of the reason I was mad I didn’t know Laurel had signed up. I had the hook ups and she went through a third party? So rude.” She laughs and stretches her arms out, twisting her wrists.
“I think your sisters only ever mention the acrobatics.”
“I wish I could make a living teaching classes… I mean, I guess I could. It just wouldn’t have afforded my need for bright dance gear and my meds are way too expensive to not have insurance. I’d have to work five times as long just to cover all that. And there aren’t that many hours in the day.”
Her smile falters a moment later, and I glance at her as we hit the long empty stretch between the outer city limits and the foothills.
She exhales a long and steady breath, shifting in her seat.
“You okay?”
“I just got warm all of a sudden.” She takes off her cardigan and then sits back, eyes closed, squirming. “Not going to lie. I’m glad Arc’s not here.”
“Why?”
“Because he does not need to be subjected to my thoughts right now.”
Her legs press together and she continues to shift in her seat.
“Shit.” Chrys mutters the word under her breath and then laughs, but it’s a pained sound. “I don’t remember the side effects listing extreme and sudden horniness.”
“How can I help?”
She looks at me and bites her lip, her expression pained. “It would be horrifically rude of me to ask.”
“Then be rude.”
Her breath shudders as she sighs. “Pull over.”
I ease the car to a stop on the side of the road. There’s nowhere to go. We are in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
There is nothing between us and the city behind us, or the mountains ahead of us.
This is the only option. “What do you need?”
She whimpers. “I know I can’t… but fuck I want to fuck you, right now.”
“I can get out and let you take care of it on your own if that’s what you’d prefer, but I’m here. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”
I’m glad Arc isn’t here, too. He’d have to hear my thoughts as well. I want to lay her down in the back seat and fuck her until her frustration eases, but she’s right. We can’t.
Eyes closed, brows pinched, she sighs and drops her head back and to the side. “Will you help me?”
As soon as I say, “Yes,” what’s about to happen flashes through my mind in bits and pieces.
It holds me immobile for a moment, and when I snap back to full awareness of the present, Chrys has lifted her hips and wiggled her leggings down to her ankles.
The road is empty. It’s going to stay empty, but for the first time in a long time, I question if my foreknowledge is accurate.
Chrys’ fingers press between her legs and her knees ease open, and I am not being a very good helper.
This car has an unhelpful console in between the front seats, but I ignore the way it digs into my stomach as I lean over to her.
“One more time, Chrys.” It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen the answer, I still need to hear it. “Do you want me to help you come?”
“Yes.” She makes a sound that’s soft and yet it stabs straight through me. A strangled little sound—maybe a laugh—precedes her next words. “God, I haven’t even kissed you yet and I’m asking you to get me off.”
“We can fix that.” My fingers twist in her hair and she leans into me, eyes heavy with desire.
Need coils in my stomach and my cock presses hard against my pants.
I kiss her to ease that ache, but it reaches deep into me and yanks at an instinct I didn’t think I had.
I want her to be ours.
Not mine.
Ours.
Something else has to happen before my mutation will show me if that’s possible.
So, for right now, I plan to ease this pain she’s in, even if it means my suffering.
Cupping her mound, I stroke the wet seam of her body and slide along her so easily.
Drawing back, it’s my turn to shiver. “Saints.”
“Right?” She angles her hips, and when my fingers slide into her, it’s pure heaven.
“I also took some Vitamin S pills, but there’s no way this is the result of just two of those.” She pants and bites her lips as I stroke into her, fucking her with my finger in long, slow movements.
It’s not enough. I can see it in the furrow of her brow and the tremble of her lips. She needs more, and I will give it to her.
But when I pull my hand back so that I can add a second finger to my rhythm, she gasps, and we both look down. A dark cord wraps around my finger, caught and tangled… a metal t-shaped device dangling from the other end.
I didn’t see that coming.
Is it a tracker put in her by her kidnappers? A dispenser for whatever they drugged her with?
Chrys doesn’t seem concerned by its existence.
She knew it was there. “What is it?”
“Birth control,” she says airily, head tipping to the side, eyes narrowed. “That should have hurt.”
She takes the t-shaped thing from me. “It wouldn’t have worked here anyway.”
Tossing it toward her bag on the floor, she drags me back down for another kiss.
And I follow her lead, pushing two fingers back into her now.
It’s not enough. She moans and squirms and pants, and I know that she needs something else.
“Ride me.”
“What?” Her breathy question comes as she looks up at me with eyes wide and fingers dug into my arm.
“You’re going to come over here and you’re going to ride my fingers the way you want to ride my cock.”
I spread my fingers inside of her, stretching her, and her eyes cross.
She whimpers when I take them away, frowning and making me wish I could leave them in. But I can’t. Not if I want to make sure she gets what she needs.
Sitting back in my seat, I take a deep breath and look her over. “Take off your right boot, and slide that pant leg down.”
Leaning down, she unzips said boot and shoves her sock off with the bunched blue legging.
When she reaches for the left, I say, “No. Just that one.” Just in case.
She looks out the window like she’s just remembered where we are and then nods. It’s all I need to help her move.
I pull her over the console and into my lap, and my cock strains against my pants.
“You’re going to get messy,” she says, but she doesn’t object as I press my fingers back into her
She rocks and rides my fingers like they’re my cock, and I groan against her hair as heat pulses through my cock. My cockhead is heavy and tight with the pressure of my need for her.
Holding my hand like this is going to fuck up my wrist, but I don’t care. She needs to come. I can ice it when we get home.
Three fingers deep in her, with her hands on my shoulders and my other on her neck, my fingers tangled in her hair, my thumb stroking her jaw… I watch the perfection of her face as it shifts through pain and pleasure.
Arc called her “koah”… she thought he mispronounced koala… she doesn’t know it means “gift.”
I hope to all the saints he’s right.
“Come for me. Take what you need.” Gripping the back of her neck, I draw her face to mine. I kiss her the way I’ve wanted to from the start.
I kiss her like she is ours. I kiss her like there’s no possible future where she leaves us. And I kiss her like I love her… because I already know that I do. That is an unavoidable future.
Her body moves on me like her orgasm is her only hope for survival and when it hits… it holds every possibility of killing me.
I watch in awe as it courses through her.
She cries out, squirming as she keens, until her whole body tenses and twitches and she drops forward, pressing against me like she can’t hold herself up anymore.
“Holy shit.”
When I slip my fingers from her, there are no surprises attached this time.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers the words against my neck, and I pull back from her, meeting her eyes as I suck her orgasm from my fingers.
“Don’t be.”
When her gaze drops to my groin and the bulge I know is there, I say, “I’ll be fine. I promise.”