Chapter Eleven

Vivi chose a seat on the plane far away from the cockpit. When Flynn moved to sit near her, she glared her scariest evil eye. “You get any closer, and I’ll scalp you.”

“Staying away. Got it.” He parked himself close to the front but yelled back, “You hungry?”

Yes.

Would she admit it?

No.

She could survive days without eating.

Flynn might be attractive in a way that signaled an easy time with lots of thrills, and the full moon might still be high in the sky, but nothing about him stirred her interest. Not even a tingle. In fact, no one sparked much—or no one had until Ky got thrown into her cell. Something about Ky… Your core will throb harder than this before I give it to you hard and deep. And then I’ll do it again.

The kiss had been a revelation. Her heart wobbled, and her whole body stilled. If she counted every minute they’d been together, it barely added up to a day. Yet, the thought that, when they deplaned, she’d go her way and he his, hurt deeply. Whatever it was between them had been short-lived. Had to remain that way. She needed to remember that.

Flynn opened a mini refrigerator. “We’ve got two turkey sandwiches, some cheese, and…” He rifled around. “Half a cheesecake and a few sodas. We need to restock.”

“I’ll take a sandwich. Thanks.”

“Kind of thought you’d be a sweets girl, but turkey it is.” He walked it to her along with a bottle of water, not that she moved to eat it. Her stomach grumbled, but she hid it by shifting positions. She rose and pointed at the bathroom at the back with a raised eyebrow.

Flynn nodded.

The restroom wasn’t spacious, but it was comfortable. The toilet was serviceable. But the toilet paper was a miracle. Two-, possibly three-ply paper? She took off a few pieces and rubbed them between her fingers.

At her reflection in the mirror, she traced an invisible ring around her neck. No more collar, even though it felt embedded in her skin.

A few tears leaked. She covered her face to suppress the sobs that erupted from her. Emotion leached out, starting as a small crack in a glass that fractured and then exploded into a zillion pieces.

She was on a plane about to take her far away from the prison and the life of constant pain and drugs.

Freedom.

Because Ky had been thrown into her life. Because he refused to leave her. She owed him so much. Everything.

You are safe.

His reassurance played over and over in her head.

She leaned on the edge of the counter and stared at herself in the mirror while she fought to suppress the crying. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror in ages. The planes of her cheeks and chin were more prominent, but beyond weight loss, her eyes surprised her. They weren’t filled with lightness any longer but a steady darkness, the color of grief.

Parents dead. Sister executed. It was just her. Alone in a hostile world where she’d always be looking over her shoulder.

A few swipes removed a couple of renegade tears. She had to be better than tears. Stronger than loneliness.

Emerging from the restroom, she saw that Ky still wasn’t back.

“What are they talking about for so long?” she asked, looking out the window toward the small office and resuming her seat.

“Debrief on what happened while incarcerated, I’m sure.” There was an edge to Flynn’s tone that she couldn’t decipher. Her gut told her whatever was going on in there had a huge part to do with her.

Roman didn’t trust her, not that she’d done much to fix that.

Minutes later, Roman and Ky came up the stairs. Roman yanked the hatch closed behind him. He shot her a curious look she couldn’t interpret before stepping into the cockpit. “Buckle up. Weather guarantees some turbulence.”

“Grab me a water, Flynn.” Ky walked back and settled in next to her.

She slumped against the seat as tension ran out of her.

“So you’re okay with him and not me, huh?” Flynn handed a bottle to Ky.

Ky rolled his head against the headrest to stare at her. His lips ticked up in a small smile. “Got prickly with him, did you?”

“I don’t know him.” She went back to looking out the window, scared to admit how relieved she was that he sat next to her. Her need for his presence disturbed her.

“You threaten to cut off his dick too?” Ky asked.

“Said I’d scalp him. Figured he valued that gelled fluff on his head more than his dick.”

A laugh escaped Ky, deep and short.

Her lips formed a shaky smile. “There’s three-ply in the bathroom. Three. Ply.”

She was tearing up again. Quickly, she looked out the window as the plane taxied down the runway.

“We’re out, Vivi. They can’t get you now. No one gets through the three of us.” His hand fell to her knee and squeezed, sending a lightning bolt of lust straight to her inner thighs. “You’re safe. I promise.”

Still full moon. Not forgetting that.

Everything in her focused on the pressure of his large hand on her leg and the way his thumb rubbed her kneecap. Instinct pushed her to tempt him, maybe tackle him into doing something more than a benign knee massage.

No tackling. That was the crazy, moon-affected part of her brain talking. Yet she wanted something fantastic to happen again, like getting his mouth down to her chest.

She hadn’t realized she’d put her hand on top of his and moved his up her body. Ky stared at her, his mouth parted in stunned surprise. His eyebrows jumped upward and widened at her forward gesture.

She whispered, “I still want you.”

“Oh, God…” he breathed, lifting his hand off her before it made it to her breast. “If we were alone… But we’re not.”

Low, so no one else could overhear, she said, “You feel it, too. I’m a girl who knows what she wants.”

A shaky breath left him as he opened the water Flynn tossed his way and took a huge chug.

Flynn also handed him a sandwich. “Eat, man. Please.”

He unwrapped the plastic from half of his and stared at the sandwich with what looked like low interest. “I’ll eat it if you do,” he said to Vivi.

She unwrapped hers and sniffed. Real food. So foreign. She worried her gut might rebel. One bite and she fell back in the seat. “The flavors. It’s incredible.” Another bite. She moaned.

He bit into his and sighed.

“Your mutual food-gasm is a bit disturbing. Did they never feed you?” Flynn asked.

“Liquid food only for what I think was a few years,” she said. “No real food.”

“Flynn, sit with me up front,” Roman ordered. “Bring your computer. We’re going to need an appointment with the mage. And we have to check in with Gerard. Be quiet back there. Let’s not let our handler know what’s going on.”

…

“Who’s Gerard?” she asked.

How much did he tell her? He should come clean about their being the Crown’s Wolves, but then it’d bring up questions about Nova, which he couldn’t answer. She was Roman’s mate, which meant he’d protect Nova against the world. Nova was family. Family came first, which meant he might be forced to fight Vivi. He hated this.

He said, “You may be almost free, but I’m not. We’re not. We may never be. He’s our handler, the person who gives us marching orders, ones we have to follow.”

She squeezed his hand, then reached over to trace the curse tattoo band around his wrist. “I swear I’ll help you. You deserve to be free. To live your life as you want.”

“It’s a kind thought. Appreciated, but impossible. For now, it is what it is.”

He’d known her so little time but recognized deep in his bones what she said came straight from the heart. He glanced down into the sincerity of her eyes. Guilt powered through him. Come clean. Tell her about the Crown’s Wolves.

She would help him, even though there was no easy way to resolve the curse.

The heat between them felt good and special. He didn’t want to sour it.

What if she’d been programmed to seduce him? Maybe all of this was an elaborate lie, and the person he thought he knew wasn’t the real her. It could still be about producing a next generation that the humans could raise and brainwash from day one.

Could he fight her if she attacked him or his brothers or his mother with intent to kill? Or the monarch?

Fight Vivi? Hurt her? He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But she might force him to make a choice he wasn’t sure he could make. If she hurt his family, even if unintentionally, because he brought her into their world, then that was on him. It was his problem to end.

His head throbbed.

His stomach revolted. Whether it was his body rejecting the real food or the onset of a legit migraine didn’t matter as he lunged for the restroom.

He stood above the toilet swallowing hard. Sweat formed on his forehead. Don’t vomit. Please, don’t vomit.

His stomach had other plans. He heaved twice so hard he was surprised he didn’t turn inside out. Now with his back against the wall, he didn’t dare move for fear it’d spark a new round. He felt the plane lift off and become airborne. Good. Distance between himself and the prison was necessary for his sanity.

The gliding sensation moved along his back and down his right shoulder. A sleeve lift revealed the angel tattoo’s realignment. Now upright, the angel propped itself on its sword in an inelegant pose.

“This sucks,” he whispered to the tattoo.

Felt as if the ink understood. Might all be in his head, though.

A small knock and Flynn entered, making the tight space even smaller. They stared at each other across the divide before Ky lowered his head and covered his face.

“They’ll pay for what they’ve done to you,” Flynn said with soft menace. The uncharacteristic deviation from his lackadaisical laissez-faire tone made him a hundred times scarier. “We didn’t know you were in one of those facilities until I tracked the computer and did some satellite image checking on the location. I’ve never been more pissed in my life.”

“Which they are you referring to making pay? Pretty sure Roman killed everyone inside the prison. You talking about the one who now has the disc or maybe the one who’s in control of those facilities? Or perhaps the one who sold me out?”

“Every human who hurt you. You in the bathroom like this… I’m suspecting the food wasn’t the reason.” He stepped forward, offering a pill on his open palm. “Is it a migraine?”

With a nod, he accepted the oblong white tablet and swallowed it. It’d take a while before it kicked in. But at least the head pain might dull. “They didn’t cause the migraine.”

The headaches started long before he’d been incarcerated and controlled with heavy drugs; they’d actually started when he’d been possessed. He’d even gotten an MRI once to see if the spirit had caused an aneurysm or tumor or something his body couldn’t heal. It hadn’t. Human doctors couldn’t explain why he got the migraines, but they offered drugs, which sometimes worked.

Flynn shrugged. “It’s more fun to blame those bastards.”

“What’d you talk to Gerard about?” Ky asked.

“Check in. Told him we’d reacquired you and would report back as soon as we could. That we had to get you some medical care. He asked for you to report. Roman informed him in rather colorful language he could go fuck himself, since he’d been the one to send you into that hell alone to begin with. Oddly, Gerard didn’t seem to care.”

“Do we trust him? Gerard, I mean.”

Flynn glanced skyward. “He’s been with us since the beginning. He’s steered us straight many times and gives us good information, but he’s human. He’s susceptible to bribes and pressure, not that I even know if he has a family. I’ll research it. But you being sent inside by yourself? It makes no sense. That was on him. He knows that rule number one with us is we work together. Most things we do can’t be handled alone. I don’t think the new monarch cares much for the logistics of our missions. So he probably didn’t have anything to do with the order that you go in alone. Gerard had to know the chance of something going south—”

“My orders started out as surveillance and then changed to get caught. It wasn’t my idea. I was ordered not to tell either of you that I had to get captured in order to get inside and it had to be done alone.”

“That’s a setup from a mile away.”

“I know. I should’ve called before I followed the order, but what choice did I have?” They stared at each other, lost in mutual desire to be free of their tie to a monarch they didn’t believe in and who considered them expendable. Their cause to fight inhuman terrorists was important, they agreed, but if this had been a true betrayal by Gerard or the king, it was the first time.

“Gerard renegade?” Flynn cringed. “He’s so uptight that for him to go solo like this means it was a long time in the planning. Have I ever entirely believed or trusted him? Not with his low-key contempt for us. I think he was disappointed his career has been spent babysitting us instead of glorying it up in MI6 where he’d been on a trajectory for a high position.”

“You’d think working one-on-one with the monarch would be about as high as you can get.”

“The monarch is little more than a figurehead these days, outside of the operations he sends us on—which no one else knows about. I also think Gerard has gotten a little bit overinflated with the power of controlling us.” Flynn leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, did Roman tell you about Shane? Just wanted your thoughts on that situation.”

“What about him?” Simply hearing their youngest brother’s name hurt. Shane had given his life in order to rid the world of a monster, but his death hadn’t been simple. Prior to his suicide moment, Shane got demon-possessed, which was different than Ky’s spirit possession. Shane’s situation was far worse, and he’d gone a little crazy from his daily mental battle to fight for control of his head. Nothing they tried would get it out of his mind.

“He didn’t tell you?” Flynn groaned. “I assume he told you about Nova, which would of course be his priority. That girl’s got his nuts in a twist. She’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But she was sent to find Roman. She remembered nothing of her past. She had Roman’s name tattooed on her, and she was given Shane’s lighter. She was told to flick the lighter like he did so that he and I wouldn’t kill her.”

“What? Is he alive?” He sat up straighter; the move was too fast and shot bolts of pain through his eyeballs.

“Someone wants us to think so. I don’t know for sure. There was the video we found of Nova before she erased her mind. A male voice at the end of the recording sounded just like Shane.”

“That means he got free of the curse?”

“If he’s alive, I hope so.”

“We have to find him. Why wouldn’t he tell us if he lived?”

“I don’t know. I guess we have to hope the demon possession didn’t drive him insane or fry his memories.” Flynn held out a hand to help him up. “Let’s get you back to a seat.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Even as he said it, Flynn hefted him to a stand and almost carried him out of the bathroom. Ky didn’t want Vivi to see him like this, not that he had a choice.

“You’re not good.” As Flynn deposited him into a seat near, but not next to Vivi, he whispered, “We’re going to figure out who sold you out.”