Chapter Eighteen

He swallowed hard to push down the base instinct to cave to the seduction in her tone. He wished he could give her everything she was begging for. But some human might’ve told her she had to do this. He couldn’t know. She wouldn’t know. That was unfair to both of them.

It hurt that this might not be as real for her as it was for him.

She leaned in to touch her mouth to his chin. Her hand was in his hair, pulling him down to her. He wanted his mouth on her lips again. He wanted her naked on this counter and then in a bedroom all night.

“We’re about to get company,” he whispered. The mishmash of disappointment and relief twisted his stomach. But a few more kisses and he’d cave. Given how much he liked her, no way he’d be able to resist much longer.

She pulled away and wrapped the blanket tighter to herself. “Damn that brother of yours.”

“Smelled the waffles.” There was all kinds of knowing in Flynn’s judgmental gaze. The kind that said Ky and Vivi had been doing a lot more than waffles. “That’s why I’m down here, for clarification.”

“So good of you to explain,” Ky said acerbically. He was here to ensure Ky didn’t do what he’d almost done.

“Thanks for the tea.” Vivi took her cup.

His hands shook with need to resume what they’d started.

As if picking up his thoughts, she said hoarsely, “I guess I should try to get some rest.”

“Why don’t I walk you to your room?” He shouldn’t, but he had to. Needed to. Damn it, he just wanted to kiss her. Screw worries over brain programming.

No, that was moon madness talking. But full moon was last night.

Flynn caught his arm as he rounded the counter. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Ky stifled a growl.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said.

He watched her disappear out the door. It was the right thing to let her go, even though it hurt like hell.

Flynn scooted the plate from which he’d given Vivi a bite closer to him. He devoured the waffle in seconds. “These are amazing, not that I expected anything less.” Softly he added, “You needed to let her leave.”

To distract himself Ky poured the fruit reduction into a storage container.

“Not going to eat?” Flynn asked.

“Lost my appetite.”

“I expected you to be sleeping, rebuilding your energy. You going to eat this one?” Flynn lifted the waffle Ky had made as a first test off the plate.

He shook his head. “I slept for weeks. Thinking I might never sleep again.”

“That thing you have going on with her…” Flynn said with his mouth full. He pointed his fork at the door again. “That’s so far beyond complicated that it’s entered the category of what I’d call a heart killer. You can’t, Ky. You have to see that.”

“What is a heart killer?”

“You lose your heart, and then she goes crazy assassin and kills you.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Came up with that all by myself. Good one, huh?”

“It’s not a complication you have to stress about.”

Flynn’s head tilted and his eyebrows rose. “The last time you were like this and told me not to worry, we almost died resisting an order to kill your girlfriend who ended up dead anyway. Then you lost your bloody mind for…” A deep sigh escaped him. “A long time. You love too fast and too hard.” He shrugged. “It’s the way you are.”

“Not true. Love has nothing to do with Vivi and me.” A tangle of emotion clogged his brain and sat heavy in his chest, feelings he couldn’t sort. He was in trouble.

“Maybe it’s not love as in gooey lovey-dovey shit, but you’ve got strong feelings.”

“Shared torture does something to mess up your mind.”

Flynn slowly blinked and stared at him. “I’m all about you getting laid. God knows it’d mellow you for a while, but she’s about way more than straight-up sex. I’ll follow you to the end of the earth, Ky, but if you get killed when she goes Winter Soldier on you in the bedroom, I’ll be the first to say, ‘Told you so.’ I won’t be following you to hell to try to free your soul from the devil, though.”

“You’d follow me to hell to get your ‘told you so’ moment and bring the devil pizza. You two would probably get along.”

“Yeah, I probably would. The difference is I could kill her if I had to. To protect myself and you. I don’t think you could.”

Roman stalked in before he was forced to answer. “She’s in her room. I followed her to be sure.”

“You’re talking about Vivi?” Ky asked.

Roman nodded.

“To be sure she’s in her room because…?” Ky scowled.

“We need to talk about the game plan.”

“What’s this warrior-for-God business that Mom mentioned?” Ky asked Roman.

“It turns out God likes what we do and wants me—us—to continue to fight paranormal threats even after we get free of the curse.”

“The angel told you this? Zadkiel? If God wants you, maybe us, to fight for him, why doesn’t he nix his curse on all of us?” Ky rubbed his wrist.

“I’m not sure he controls magic, which is a different religion with different gods. Or, maybe things have to play out a certain way for some future bullshit to happen that’ll change our lives.” Roman rolled his eyes. “I hate gods and fates and their games. We have to figure out the curse for ourselves. The angel hinted there’s a way out.”

“It’d be super helpful if they simply told us the answer,” Flynn muttered.

Ky cleared his throat and touched over his left shoulder. “Do you have a weird tattoo of an angel? One that moves on its own?” He lifted his sleeve to expose his left shoulder. The intricate ink angel rendering no longer knelt but stood, still brandishing a broadsword. “I thought they’d done something to me in that prison, but it’s too magical for them. The thing has its own energy. It changes position all the time.”

Roman nodded. “I have one on my back. It’s Zadkiel.”

“Yeah, I got one too a few months ago,” Flynn said. “Freaky. It’s like it looks at me when I try to see it in the mirror.”

Roman said. “I think they’re our guardian angels.”

“As in it’s actually on us and watching?” Ky asked.

Roman shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Are we all fated to serve God in protecting his chosen species against paranormals?” After Roman’s stiff nod, Ky said, “From one master to another. How’s God any better than the monarch? Another magical mark.” He held up his wrist with the curse band and rubbed it. “Another person telling us what to do and how to live our lives.”

“It’s not our reality to have a deity as the person we report to right now. When it is, I’ll tell you how I feel about it. He did arrange for me to have Nova. He brought her back from death to be in my life to keep me from losing my mind. That’s a boss who comes off a bit more benevolent in my book.”

“Sure he does if he’s your ticket to getting laid,” Flynn said.

“If he gives even a small shit about what we need and lets us have some normalcy where we can value family, even have one, then I’ll be his warrior.” Roman scrolled through his burner cell phone. “We have two priorities. One, narrow down who sent you in, Ky, which will be the person involved with these facilities, and then we can research that person. Two, we have to relocate all the relics stored in England immediately. As in, we need to move them from London to somewhere else.”

The relics. The items they’d retrieved off deranged otherworldly creatures over the past few decades since the brothers had been cursed. They housed hundreds of items deep below London in a locked room called the depository, where no one touched them. The fact someone got to the Curmsun Disc, which had been under heavy lockdown, meant someone with access rifled through a boatload of dangerous items to find it. Only the three of them, Gerard, and—if he wanted—the king, could have access. If Ky, Roman, and Flynn could, they’d destroy every one of the terrifying items, but no one on the planet knew how. Therefore, they needed to remain locked away.

“We’ve already relocated twenty-five percent of the collection,” Flynn said. “Another delight you missed. I despise being close to most of those items. Imagine having them in a bag and then close by in transport. But it’s crucial, since someone is poaching them.”

“Looks bad for Gerard,” Ky muttered.

Roman was still glancing at his phone. “Gerard is still up my ass to get a full report on your rescue, but I delayed again by saying you were in rough shape. He wants us in England for a debrief meeting in forty-eight hours. Seems this meeting can’t be done over the computer. I told him we also rescued Vivi. He didn’t seem that interested in her, but let’s see how it plays out. I have a feeling he’s going to want us to bring her with us for the debrief meeting. I have received no new message about the location of the meeting.”

“Why would you tell him we have her?” He rubbed his eyebrow even though he didn’t have a headache.

“She’s bait, remember? We have to figure out who was behind you giving yourself up to end up in there and who made the decision to order you not to tell us what was going on.”

Flynn tapped his lips. “Has to be either the monarch or Gerard or someone with power over Gerard.”

“No shit,” Ky snapped.

Roman crossed his arms. “If it’s Gerard, then he’s got a whole side business that we need to figure out. The man is smart and reasonably motivated, but for him to single-handedly set up a covert organization that trains and breeds lycans probably to sell to rich people or governments?” He wrinkled his nose like he sensed a putrid smell. “That’s a stretch.”

“What if it’s both of them?” Flynn asked.

Roman said, “There’s a high chance Gerard is in on it. If the king leads this, then there’s little we can do to stop him so long as the curse binds us, but… Can he order us not to fight one of the biggest international paranormal terrorist threats we’ve encountered, when policing paranormals is our whole purpose? We still don’t even know the extent of this network. Now we know FenCor is involved.” Roman waited until Ky looked at him to continue. “While you were in there, I got recalled to a meeting with the new monarch. He openly wears the FenCor insignia ring on his pinky and doesn’t deny involvement with them.”

Historically, FenCor wasn’t a terrorist group and definitely didn’t dabble in the paranormal. The international consortium consisted of power-hungry and narcissistic humans who accumulated influence and wealth to the point they owned governments and big corporations.

“I’d say if she gets triggered to kill us, but I think it’s a foregone conclusion she will. It’s the one surefire way for them to ensure she dies. She’s a loose end.” The conclusion that in a showdown she’d die wasn’t said egoistically. Roman stated simple fact. They were apex predators with extensive battle experience. One lone female, no matter how much magic she used or how many skills she’d acquired while incarcerated, was no match for the three of them. “To them, she’s no longer an asset. She’s a liability. Whoever runs the facilities probably won’t want her free. When she gets triggered, Ky, can you kill her? Can you at least defend yourself?”

Kill Vivi?

Hell, no.

He might have to defend against her attack? No, no, no.

He couldn’t hurt her.

“Are you saying we need to kill her?” Ky asked carefully.

“I’m asking if you can fight her. Or will you roll over like a submissive dog and let her eviscerate you?”

His mind raced through possibilities. He could shut her down without hurting her. That would be his priority, but the concept of hurting her, even knowing she might not be in her right mind? His brain rebelled. This confusion meant he’d freeze when confronted with the question of strike, defend, or kill when and if Vivi tried to attack him. “Assume I’m toast. I’m sorry. Flynn’s right, I’m in over my head with her. Being in there… I got all kinds of messed up.” He ran a hand over his face. “The isolation and drugs mixed with the things they did put me in a weird place. The only high points were the few hours I got to spend talking to her. Talking. I swear nothing happened in there. The humans wanted us to do more, at least I think so, but no one gets to manipulate me into being a stud horse.”

Roman squeezed his shoulder. “You did what you needed to in order to survive. No one’s judging you. Still, it might be easier for you to get through this if you distance yourself from her. Tell her who we are. She thinks the Crown’s Wolves killed her sister.”

“It’s safer if I don’t tell her. I have a hard time lying to her. I know you don’t want her to know about Nova, but if she asks…” He swallowed hard and stared at the marble countertop. He could feel his brother’s stare boring into him.

Roman assessed him as if wrestling with an undesirable discovery. “You’re going to stay with her tomorrow night in the Bexley safe house. Flynn is going to set up remote operations to monitor our meeting with whomever, since he won’t be attending even if they ask him.”

“Where will you be?” Alone with her in the safe house was the most unsafe thing possible. For him.

Roman compressed his lips. “I’m going to France. I’ll fly back to England in the morning in time for the meeting.”

“Makes more sense for all of us to stay together.” He hated the pleading in his tone. He needed to not be alone with her. It wouldn’t go well.

A flush crept across Roman’s cheeks. “I’ve put off Nova for almost a week. It was a bloody miracle I got her to agree to not go with us into China to get you. I had to point out the dangers of her being near those who thought her dead and knew the signals that could program her brain, even though she erased herself. If I go to London right now, so will she. It’s the one city she can’t go to. She has to stay dead to those who wanted her dead. I also don’t want her anywhere near her sister. At least, not yet. That means I’m going to her tomorrow to persuade her to stay put.”

“And get laid,” Flynn muttered.

“You’re going to get it on while I have to behave?” Ky asked.

“Exactly.”

“Why would you trust me to behave?”

“Because you’re you. You were locked in a room with her repeatedly on full-moon night without suppression serum, and you did nothing. You can handle one night that’s not full moon. Look, you handled tonight, right? I believe in you.”

Could he keep his head tight?

The chances of them ending up naked?

Better not to think about it.