“I am the one who put laughter in manslaughter.”
—Fox, keeper of Distrust
SEX IN THE SHOWER, sex on the floor, and all I want...is more, more, more.
Katarina snickered as she snuggled deeper into Baden’s side. She couldn’t get enough of the man, and he obviously felt the same about her. He couldn’t go a few minutes without touching her, and she loved it. Just like she loved—
Whoa. Slow down.
“I’m never letting you go, Katarina.”
His startling confession left her shivering with delight. “Maybe I’ll consider thinking about the possibility of maybe becoming immortal.”
Once upon a time...
A new story. A new chance for happily ever after. But—argh!—she still couldn’t get past the fact that this particular story would last for-freaking-ever. More time, more room for error.
“That isn’t good enough. You will become immortal. One way or another.”
An-n-nd goodbye happy mood.
“Ask nicely,” she said, her nerves razed.
“Not this time. I’d rather deal with your anger than your death.”
“I’m a grown-ass woman, Baden, and you don’t get to make my decisions for me. My opinions matter. My wants matter. Whether you agree with me or not.”
He wasn’t deterred. “One day, you’ll thank me for my insistence.”
“I won’t.” I won’t reinforce his domineering tendencies. “Now back off before you push me too far.”
“I won’t back off. I can’t. This is too important. You’re too young and too human to understand the—”
An animalistic growl sprang from deep inside her—a sound she’d never before made—and he went quiet. Not because of her, she realized, but because of the pups, who’d risen from their mound of pillows, the hair on their backs standing up.
Fury, a mirror to her own, pulsed off them.
The dogs dove for the bed—for Baden. Their teeth were bared, as if they planned to rip out his throat.
“No,” she rushed out, and they twisted midair, soaring past Baden as he threw his body over hers.
“No?” He anchored his weight on his palms to loom above her, his beautiful features dark with anger and determination. “Do you hope to protect me? Or them?”
“Both. Though I can’t fathom why I’d save you right now.”
“Because I’m willing to do anything to see to your safety. Even go against your wishes. You might not like it, but some part of you must appreciate it.”
Was that what she’d reinforced?
As the pups prowled around the bed, waiting for her signal this time, Katarina forced herself to calm through every means possible. Deep breathing, counting to ten, imagining herself in a happy place—a field of wildflowers where her former pups could play with her new pups.
“How did we go from making love and cuddling to this?”
“Very easily. Making love, cuddling...you showed me the desires of a heart I’d thought long dead. And one day you might decide to take that away from me? One day someone might kill you or old age might get the better of you? No.”
The romance of his words was ruined by the harshness of his tone. “Might? One day? Oh, no, kretén. I’m taking the desires of your heart away from you today. You’re so hardheaded, my warning wasn’t able to get through. Action is needed.” He would learn a lesson, and she would calm down. “We’re going to spend some time apart.”
She stood and nuzzled the dogs to assure them all was well before dressing in a T-shirt and jeans. “When you deny my right to choose, you don’t deserve me.” She strode to the closet, grabbed an empty duffel and began to fill it with her clothing. “So I’m leaving. Going somewhere far, far away from you.”
“No.” He spat the denial as if it were poison. “You’re staying here.”
“Another command.” She tsk-tsked. “You can’t stop me without harming me. Because I will fight you.”
He jumped up, copper eyes hot on her, and ripped the bag from her grip. A bag he tossed across the room. He backed her into the wall, a mix of carnality and acrimony as he flattened his palms beside her temples, caging her in.
She wasn’t afraid...but might have been a little turned on. Stay strong! The long-term outcome was more important than the short-term pleasure.
To her surprise, the dogs remained quiet. Sensed no threat this time?
“Stay.” Taking a page from her training manual, he began to pet her. “We’re so good together.”
He stroked her hair...down her arm...up her stomach and between her breasts... Only when she had gone taut with anticipation, the very air she breathed burning her with awareness only this man could elicit, did he circle her beaded nipple.
“If we’re parted, I won’t be able to touch you like this, and I desperately want to touch you. Stay,” he repeated. “Please.”
His resolve was a tantalizing throb against her skin. The problem? He’d couched the words as a request this time, and yet they were still a demand.
“Your plea is too little too late, warrior.”
The gentleness evaporated from his expression. “You’re a human. You don’t know what’s good for you.”
“So you keep telling me.” She pushed him away. “Well, I know beyond a doubt you aren’t good for me. Now move!”
He moved, but only of his own volition, the bastard.
“What do you want from me?” he snapped.
“From you? Nothing.” Head high, she bent to pick up the bag. She stuffed her belongings inside. “I want a man who sees me as his equal.”
“That,” he said, his voice now devoid of emotion, “is something I’ll never do. I can’t. Not when I could break you.”
Just. Like. That. Hope that their relationship could survive this withered. Disappointment and sorrow welled up and bubbled over. Won’t beg him to reconsider.
She wasn’t leaving to teach him a lesson and calm herself down, she decided. She was leaving, period. Their story was over. The end. She’d thought she could prove her worth. He’d just admitted he would never see it.
“We’re done,” she told him, and she meant it.
“We aren’t done.” He reached for her but let his arms drop before contact was made. “We will never be done.”
Stay. Strong! The very strength he thought she didn’t have. “When you start to miss me, and you will, don’t come looking for me. This—” she waved a hand to indicate her body “—is now off-limits to you.”
“No. No! I won’t let you—”
“Katarina is still talking.” She stomped her foot. “I’m done trying to train you. You failed my class. F plus plus.”
His nostrils flared as he bared his teeth. “You were training me? Like one of your dogs?”
“Of course.” She fluffed her hair. “You’re a beast, are you not? Beautiful but deadly.”
“I am. And now you’ll see my worst.” With a roar, his eyes glinting with red, he toppled the dresser. The drawers split down the middle, the contents spilling out. At the bed, he yanked the iron headboard until a bar came loose. A bar he hurled into the wall.
What had brought on this fit? Certainly not her admission to training him. It had made him angry, but not enraged.
The fact that she’d called him a beast?
Ignoring him as if she hadn’t a care, she finished packing in silence, picking her garments off the floor.
Once upon a time...
Today, a new story began. One of her own making. She would use this heartbreak as an opportunity to patch herself up into a new and better person.
When she had everything she needed, she called, “Galen!”
Baden stopped his tantrum and glared at her. “He won’t dare take you from me.”
“He will. And you’re going to give him the order or I swear to you now, I won’t just fight you, I’ll run every time your back is turned. I’ll provoke this beastly side of you at every opportunity, and—”
“Enough.” He was panting, his hands fisted. “You want to go? Very well. We’ll let you go.”
We, he’d said.
Relief battled with sorrow. Don’t want to lose another loved one. But she didn’t love him. She couldn’t. “When my brother is well, you’ll have Galen bring him to me, wherever I am.”
Silence stretched between them. He nodded stiffly.
Galen soared into the room without knocking, irritation painting his features. “You rang, doodlepop?” He saw the naked Baden and covered his eyes. “Seriously, dude? Come on! If I’d wanted to be part of a sausage fest, I’d have visited my butcher.”
The dogs moved to her side and licked at her hands. Chin trembling, she slung the bag over her shoulder and hooked leashes to the collars. “I’m ready to go.”
“Uh, ready to go where?” Galen asked, confused.
Baden turned away, the muscles in his back knotted. “Take her somewhere else.” He paused and gritted, “Somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere of my choosing,” she corrected. “And you won’t tell Baden where I am. You won’t ever tell him, even upon threat of death.” There would be no sequel. She would make sure of it.
A sob brewed in the back of her throat.
Tears? For him? No!
Galen blinked, as if certain he’d misheard. “Are mommy and daddy getting a divorce?”
“Yes, and mommy has full custody of the fur children.” She pasted a bright smile on her face, ignoring the thick veil of tension in the air. “Now let’s go before I divorce your ass, too.”
* * *
Baden battled an unholy rage. Katarina was gone. But even if she’d stayed, he would have lost her. She, like so many others, thought him beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside. Despite her boast to the contrary!
His one bright light in a world of darkness now flamed out of reach.
He drove a fist into the wall again and again, creating new holes, tearing skin and cracking his knuckles.
Destruction prowled through his mind. I want my woman back. Get her back!
I will.
He must.
A hand came to rest on his bare shoulder. No pain. He whipped around, expecting to see Katarina. She’d realized her mistake! He came face-to-face with Fox instead.
“What?” he snarled, hating his desensitized skin.
Her gaze swept over his nakedness. “How about you get dressed? You’re hot and all, but I prefer my men with a little less obsession for another woman.”
He wasn’t bashful or shy by any means, but he didn’t like another woman’s eyes on Katarina’s property. He strode to the closet and tugged on a pair of pants. He would give Katarina time to calm. Then he would mount a charge to win her back.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have ordered her to do his bidding, but damn it, remaining human wasn’t an option for her. But he definitely should have waited to force the issue until he had a way to change her.
“What?” he repeated with just as much heat.
“I heard yelling, and thought I could help you out. I didn’t realize offering aid would be such a terrible crime. My mistake.”
“I don’t need your help. Also, what happens in my life isn’t your business.” Cultivating a friendship with the keeper of Distrust? Not ever going to happen. He may have given her advice, but that had been at Katarina’s request. Now he just wanted to kill someone.
“I’m not your enemy, Baden.”
“You’re right. You’re worse. You’re a reminder of a past I cannot change.”
“Yes, and you should be grateful! You’re stronger now. You’re wiser. And I’m a fucking mess.”
“Through fault all your own. You welcomed the demon. You wanted it.”
“I wanted power. You have no idea what life was like for me, an immortal born without—” She sucked in a breath, quieted. What had she stopped herself from revealing?
She was an immortal of indeterminate origin. She’d never shifted into an animal form that he’d seen. Her voice wasn’t a weapon, like a siren, and she didn’t have wings like a Harpy, Sent One or angel. She had no fangs to mark her as vampire, or whatever Pandora had become, and no aura of power, like a witch.
“I wanted power,” she repeated.
“You acquired an illusion of power. And a new weakness.”
“I know that. Now.”
True power was friendship—strength in numbers. True power was love—a willingness to sacrifice for others.
Love often ran red.
True power was hope for a better tomorrow—which he no longer had. True power didn’t have to spring from violence, he realized. It could be as gentle as a woman’s touch.
Perhaps he was wiser now. And yet, he’d still allowed his determination to possess Katarina to drive her away. To keep her safe, yes, but also to care for her on his own terms.
He yanked a shirt from a hanger and pulled the material over his head. “You need to go.”
“Look. Whether you want my aid or not, you’re going to get it. I know something about Hades’s sons.” She rubbed the back of her neck, shifted from one booted foot to the other. “William and Lucifer used to wear the bands, too.”
How could she know that? And William would never keep such a secret—
No, not true. William was a selfish prick, easily amused by the ignorance of others. Even his friends.
William had even warned Baden away from Fox. Because she knew his secret.
“You should have told me sooner,” he said.
“I didn’t want you asking questions about my past.”
“Oh, I won’t. I’ll be too busy killing the man I thought was my friend.” Baden grabbed two daggers and made an adjustment in his mind.
Home—wherever William is. He ended up in a spacious bedroom. The walls were covered in claw marks, the furniture busted into jagged pieces, shards of glass littering the floor.
Maddox, Paris and Sabin were doing their best to pin William as he raged, while Strider and Lucien guarded the door to prevent an escape. Did they not remember the male could flash? Or could William not flash while his emotions were in such turmoil?
He fought with a skill beyond lethal, his every movement precise and methodical despite his volatility.
By some miracle, Maddox was able to latch onto one arm while Strider was able to latch onto the other, allowing Paris to come in from behind to perform a headlock. They wouldn’t be able to restrain the male for long. Already William was close to gaining his freedom.
Baden closed the distance in a hurry and slammed one of his daggers deep into William’s heart. Finally, the male stilled, glaring at Baden as literal flames flickered in his eyes.
“Mistake, Red. Big mistake.”
Baden slammed the other dagger into William’s gut.
William laughed with manic glee while the others gaped in astonishment. “I’ve been meaning to come to you. To collect the favor you owe me.”
Baden sensed the opposite was true. “You want your favor? Tell me to release you, and I will.”
Eyes of crystalline blue darkened until jet black. Black that spread to his cheekbones, reminding Baden of one of the kings he’d seen in Hades’s chamber.
I’m staring into the abyss.
“No,” William said. “I think I’d rather wait.”
“Very well.” Baden twisted the daggers deeper. “Then let’s discuss the reason for my visit. Were you or were you not once bound by Hades’s bands?”
In a shocking move, William surged forward, pushing both daggers deeper. One more step, and Baden’s hands would come out the other side.
“Does this feel like a sharing moment to you?” the warrior demanded, deceptively calm, even as bolts of lightning flashed underneath his skin.
“Answer me, anyway,” Baden said.
“Or what? You’ll stick me with a third dagger?”
Bastard. Was there nothing he feared? “You think you’re the only one with problems?” A question the male had once asked him.
“I’m the only one with a problem I care about.”
“Tell me what I want to know or—”
“Or what?” The words were whispered, more lethal than the blades. “Tell me. I’m figuratively dying of curiosity.”
This was Hades’s son. Threats wouldn’t work, as proven. Appeals to a softer side wouldn’t work, either. He had no softer side. Or rather he’d had a softer side, but she’d been taken away from him.
Baden yanked out the daggers, one at a time, removing bits of heart and liver, too. Oops. “Do you know if Gilly and Puck registered? Want to make sure I buy the right toaster.”
William narrowed his eyes, and it was clear he struggled to retain his composure. “Yes, Red. I wore the bands, just like you. They made me Hades’s son, and if you live long enough, they’ll do the same to you—brother.”