Chapter 21 Thane #2
The ease of our earlier conversation is replaced by the familiar drone of meaningless chatter and fake peals of laughter.
Cynthia worms her way in between Luther and Killian while Lyra pulls up her skirt to drape her feet over Killian’s legs, flashing the emerald green lace between her thighs.
Calanthe feigns a false sense of arrogance as she cozies up to Roth.
The moment his body tenses at her touch, I knock my knee into his under the table.
Even if I cant do it sober, I can help ground him while he’s forced to play along with this sham betrothal.
A hazy curtain of smoke from my vape descends, shielding me from the rest of the club.
When I tilt my head back and close my eyes, time falls away as my brothers do what they do best: Roth’s deep, measured voice responding to whatever bullshit Calanthe is spewing, Luther grunting at whatever story Killian is spinning to his adoring worshippers.
Luther finally reaches his limit and stalks off for a breather, but when he doesn’t return, I emerge from my cocoon of smoke to look for him in the crowded club.
When the strobing lights illuminate the farthest corner of the dance floor, however, my world tilts.
Fuck.
Oh fuck.
She’s here.
My demon rushes to the surface of my mind to peer out of my eye despite everything I’ve just smoked to keep him subdued.
Roth brushes his leg against mine under the table as a reminder of where we are, but my demon isn’t trying to escape, for once.
He merely observes, fixated on the swing of her hips as she dances.
The same hips I pinned to the exam table as I stroked her tight, hot, wet cunt—
The sudden tug of her shirt stops me short.
She’s alone, dancing by herself, lost in her own little world...
There. Again. This time her shirt drifts up slowly, revealing the pale expanse of her stomach.
It’s not until her head tilts back that it clicks.
So that’s where that fucking bastard snuck off to.
I want to kill him.
I want to take his place.
I want to keep watching as she surrenders herself in the darkness to Luther’s touch.
Because he’s the only one on this side of the world who can wield his air affinity with enough precision and control to warp the motherfucking electromagnetic spectrum.
No one would ever guess he’s the one pulling her hips back as she reaches for him, because no one knows he can disappear with a single thought.
It’s one of the many secrets we’ve killed to keep—Fate only knows what lengths our families would go to if they ever found out the true extent of our abilities, how much damage we could really do.
And he’s using them to touch the girl I was knuckle-deep inside of two days ago. The Nyx I know—so far, at least—would rather cut his fingers off than let them trail down her stomach, between her legs where she’s—
Oh my fucking Fate.
She’s so close. Now that I know what she looks like when she cums, I’ll never fucking forget.
Her eyes close, lips parting in a cry that echos in my memory even as the music screams in my ears.
My demon surges forth and I grasp Roth’s thigh under the table as I struggle to rein him in, to smother the vicious, riotous hunger in my chest for just one more taste.
He moves silently, gripping my wrist until my bones scream from the pressure.
If I can focus on the pain rather than the cataclysmic need to feel her again, then maybe we’ll all make it out of here alive.
Just as my body begins to tremble with the effort to keep my demon from bursting through my skin, she opens her eyes.
Time stills and the world quiets as she ensnares me.
Her cheeks are flushed, eyes dilated.
She sees me, and still, she doesn’t blink.
“Thane.” My eyes snap to Roth’s when his commanding tone breaks whatever this hold is she has over me.
“Get me another drink, will you?” I nod and swallow thickly, disentangling myself from the throng of bodies around us.
I can feel Roth’s eyes boring into my back and Killian clasps my shoulder with a firm grip before putting his trademark grin back to work, distracting everyone from my abrupt departure.
As soon as I’m out of sight of those hungry, prying eyes, I scramble through the dark hallway that leads to the mens room.
The agony in my head increases with every step as my demon tries to tear his way out of my mind, overwhelming the shreds of my control keeping him ruthlessly contained.
Pain stabs my eye from the overhead light when I burst through the door and rush to the last empty stall, crashing into the wall and sliding down until my ass hits the cold tile.
The door bangs shut as whoever else was in here escapes, but if I can’t contain the power inside of me, it won’t matter how far they run.
Unlike the other Heirs, my demon doesn’t whisper in my mind.
Azrael’s bloodline is older than any language long-since erased by time and memory.
Instead, it speaks the only way a monster of the depths can: alien warbling loud enough to shatter bone.
Ear drum-rupturing whistles and shrieks.
Unending, crushing pressure that traps the breath in my lungs until I’m drowning from lack of oxygen.
The temptation of relief from the agony of keeping it contained is almost enough to convince me that the swath of destruction following his awakening is worth it.
“Yo Thane! You in here? Open up!” A voice shouts as the stall door rattles on its shitty hinges. “Saw you come in man, you good? You need something to take the edge off?” Those magic words are the only things that give me enough strength to wrench open the door.
“Who the fuck are you?” I grit out as my eyes try to focus.
“Pax, man. Pax Whitman,” the rat-faced weakling backs away with his hands up. “I hooked you up with Apex last year, remember?”
No.
“The fuck you want, Whitman?”
“Got some Apex—you look like you could use it.” He offers, pulling out a thin metal case and opening it to reveal several full vials. “Fresh batch, too.”
God, yes.
“How much?”
“Take as much as you need man, I’ll hit you up later to settle up.” I swipe the entire case, groaning as my demon rages in my head at the prospect of being drugged into submission once more.
“Out,” I growl, the timber of my power bleeding into my voice.
“Anytime man, you know you can always—”
“OUT.”
“Shit—” he scrambles backwards like his ass is on fire, door crashing closed behind him. I don’t even blink before unstoppering half of the little glass tubes and pouring the burning liquid down my throat.
The effect is immediate. Heat courses through my chest as the drug seeps into my bloodstream, and when I open my eyes again I’m looking in the mirror, watching as my demon’s presence retreats from my blue eye, brightness dimming until I recognize myself once more.
The first breath after the magical concoction drowns him is bone-deep relief. The absence of pain and pressure in my head is its own kind of ache, and the delirium that follows is a rare taste of freedom.
It won’t last.
I can only hope it lasts long enough.
Light begins to waver and blur.
Sound floats through the air.
And the scent of ambrosia beckons me from beyond this piss-soaked bathroom.
It bores into my brain, invading my blood.
I can’t tell if it’s the drugs or the promise of absolution that propels me through the door in search of paradise.
Without the threat of my demon bursting through my skin and flattening the town, I’m merely a man, desperate to find my way home.
I’ve never had a home.
I’ve never been safe.
I don’t know what that feels like.
But I know I miss it.
How can you miss something you’ve never had?
I want to go home.
She smelled like home.
She tasted like I’d never starve again.
She felt like I’d never be alone in the cold again.
Maybe she knows where home is.
If I can find her, maybe she’ll help me.
My brothers try to help me.
But they don’t know where home is, either.
We’re all lost in the dark, hiding from the monsters waiting to scavenge whatever’s left of us.
She’s not a monster.
She’s angry.
And alone.
Maybe she’s lost too.
Maybe we could be lost together.
Maybe she would let me touch her again.
Maybe she’d show me what it means to be soft.
Show me how to be gentle.
How to hold her without hurting her.
How to be kind.
If I could be kind… maybe she would want me back.
I could try.
There.
There she is.
Dancing in the dark, right where Luther left her, drawing me closer with every sway of her hips.
She’s not scared of the dark.
She’s not scared of anything.
Not even me.
Not when I graze my lips against her sweat-soaked hair.
Not when I gather her in my arms, pulling her body into mine.
My power delves under her heated skin, feeling the rush of blood flowing through her veins. The pounding of her heartbeat drowns out the music, until she’s all I can hear, all I can feel, see, smell, taste.
I want more.
I want it all.
Soon, our bodies move as one.
My lips are on her neck.
My hands drift from her waist to the curves of her breasts.
My fingers graze the tight peaks of her nipples.
Her lips part in a moan that I feel in my chest.
“Thane?” She turns in my embrace, looking up at me with those dark, red-brown eyes. Her damp, curly hair is stuck to her flushed cheeks, and her chest heaves with the exertion of dancing, mine with the effort to stop myself from devouring her.
Then my lips are on hers.
Her taste is on my tongue.
Her body sags in my arms, and then I’m picking her up and pressing my cock into the cradle of her thighs as I pin her against the wall, making her gasp.
“Thane—”
“Why do you taste so good?” I nearly beg before taking her lips with mine once more.
She’s panting when I finally come up for air. “Thane, wait—what are you doing?”
I shake my head in response and thrust into her with increasing ardor as I trail down her neck, inhaling her scent.
“I don’t want to stop. Please don’t make me stop,” I plead.
“Fuck—are you high?”
No no no no no—
“Are you okay?” She pulls back, and I know the moment she really sees me. The piece of shit that left her alone in that goddamn exam room who’s nothing more than a drugged up trust fund baby. The drunk asshole throwing himself at her in the back corner of a shitty bar.
She’ll never let me touch her again.
She’ll never be my home.
“Thane, hey, hey it’s okay—”
Lost.
I want to go home.
“It’s okay, we’ll get you home.”
I want to go home home home home—
A strong hand wrenches me off of her, despite desperately clinging to her body. If I can keep her in my arms, then maybe I can still—
“Thane, you have to let her go.”
“Killian?”
“I’m here, I have you.”