Bound by Shadows (Kissed by Shadows Series, Book 2) Read online

  My chest tightens when he says her name, but I force my face to remain neutral.

  “Maybe she’s not going to be as easy to kill off as we thought. She seems to be pretty good at playing the game,” Talon adds.

  If only it were that simple. I could make my peace with outplaying her much easier than I can with breaking her.

  “She’s not going to be a problem anymore,” I say.

  I drain my glass. Drinking is doing nothing to ease the pain inside of me, and sitting here gloating about what I’ve done with Talon isn’t going to help me.

  “See you around, bro,” I say, and I get up and leave Talon sitting alone, a frown on his face as he watches me leave.

  I stagger out into the street. My legs feel like rubber. I’m not sure if it’s the drink or if it’s a reaction to the last few hours, but I know I can’t keep wandering the streets like this.

  There’s only one place I can go. Pest’s place.

  Pest ushers me inside and leads me to the couch. I allow him to push me gently onto the couch, but I draw the line when he tries to lift my feet up and place them on the couch beside me. I shove him away and lift my own feet up.

  “You’re welcome,” he huffs as he disappears.

  He returns with a cup of strong black coffee. I prop my head up on my hand and take small sips of the liquid. I can feel it sobering me up, but that only makes the pain rush in faster.

  “What happened?” Pest asks.

  He sits down opposite me.

  “I happened,” I slur.

  He waits for me to go on. I don’t want to tell him.

  Pest is as irritating as hell, just as his name suggests. He has all these moral codes that I keep breaking, and he never gets to the point of anything. I know more useless bits of trivia than anyone could ever want to know because of the conversations I have with him. He’s frustrating and arrogant in an academic kind of way.

  But he’s also loyal, and I respect him more than I would ever admit. He has never once turned me away, even when I deserve it.

  “I killed Atlas’s father,” I say with a wince.

  I wait for him to blow up, but he surprises me.

  “So now she hates you. And that was always your end goal, wasn’t it?” he says gently.

  I forgot to mention that Pest seems to just get me in a way no one else does. I mean he looks for the good in me, even when there’s none there, but he gets me.

  I nod.

  “And now you regret it?” he asks.

  I go to shake my head, but what’s the point? He wouldn’t believe me.

  “Oh, shut the fuck up,” I snap instead.

  He doesn’t even flinch. In fact, he laughs.

  “So, that’s a yes then. Did you know that people often lash out at those closest to them when they regret their actions? They want to make the other person angry at them for their immediate actions rather than be judged on the bigger, usually much worse thing that they’ve done.”

  “You’re such a fucking bore,” I mutter.

  “And yet you keep on coming back. See, with me you get friendship and knowledge.”

  I roll my eyes. Fucking Pest.

  I lean forward and put the cup down on the coffee table that sits between Pest and me. I lie back on the couch and stretch out.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Pest asks.

  “I’m not going to do anything. She hates me. I’m good with that. I’m a demon. That’s the way these things are supposed to work.”

  I’m not good with it. I’m not good with it at all, but I have to convince myself that I am.

  I can feel my eyes starting to close, and I decide I’ll feel better about this whole thing in the morning.

  That’s not going to happen. The thought of Atlas hating me sickens me, and suddenly, I need Pest to know that I’m not proud of what I’ve done.

  “I had it; for a while there, I really had it.”

  “Had what?” Pest frowns.

  “Love. I always thought it was bullshit. Or if it was real, it wasn’t for sick fucks like me. But for a few weeks, I felt it.”

  “And now?” Pest probes.

  “Now it’s gone. I killed it. That’s what I do.”

  I turn away from Pest and drift into a restless sleep.

  “Huh?” I say as Pest’s words break through my haze and pull me back to the present.

  “I said you need to find her and make it right with her,” Pest says.

  “And how do you suggest I do that? I don’t think a simple sorry for killing your father would work, do you? How about flowers? Chocolates? Oh, I know, a teddy bear holding a stuffed heart that says ‘I’m beary sowwy.’”

  Pest rolls his eyes.

  “If you want something bad enough, there’s always a way to get it,” he says.

  “Yeah, well not this time. You’re crazy if you think there’s any way Atlas would ever come back to me. And I can’t waste my time focusing on that. She and the team are dangerously close to finding Dax, and I have to stop that from happening.”

  Pest stands up and heads for the door.

  “I’ll leave you alone. Get some rest,” he says as he goes out.

  I know I can make sure Atlas fails this mission without having to kill her. I just have to kill her team. It’ll hurt her, but it’s better than the alternative.

  I’m sitting at the table brainstorming inventive ways to kill the team off when I hear a knock at the door.

  I stand up and cross the room. The knocking gets louder as I start down the stairs. It’s becoming a hammering.

  “Alright, I’m fucking coming,” I snap.

  I slam the door open.

  “Pest, don’t you ever think to take a fucking key when you go out? I’m… ” I start ranting.

  The words die in my throat when I see who’s standing on the doorstep.

  “Disney.”

  Her face looks broken. She is shaking and worried. I want to reach out and hold her. I should just slam the door in her face right now, reject her before she can reject me, but we both know that’s not going to happen. I’d go to the ends of the earth for that girl if I had to. Hell, I’d do it just to see her smile.

  “What’s wrong?” I demand.

  If someone hurt her, I swear I’ll rip their fucking heart out and feed it to them.

  “I can’t get it off,” Atlas says.

  Her voice is shrill, edging on hysteria. She holds her hands out towards me, palms up as she speaks.

  They’re clean.

  “Um, there’s nothing there,” I say.

  I want to help her, take away the pain she’s obviously feeling, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about or what she needs.

  “The blood,” she says, shaking her hands towards me. “Help me get the blood off. I’ve washed them and washed them, and it’s still there.”

  Her voice is breaking on every word, her tone rising. Her face is a mask of panic. I still don’t know how to help her, but I know I have to try.

  I reach out and clasp her outstretched hands in mine and gently pull her inside. I kick the door closed and lead her up the stairs. She doesn’t resist my touch.

  “It’s going to be on you, too, now,” she says.

  “Shh,” I tell her. “I don’t care about that. What happened?”

  She paces the room. Her breathing quickens.

  “What happened is I can’t get it off me. I don’t think I ever will.”

  Is she under an enchantment? Trapped in a hallucination?

  “It’s down my nails, between my fingers. It’s embedded in every line of my palms, in the creases of my knuckles, and no matter what I do it won’t come off. I can feel it, smell it. I can almost taste it. Oh God, Kane, help me, please,” she whispers frantically, stopping in front of me.

  I gently take her by the shoulders and press her down onto the couch.

  “What can I do to help?” I ask.

  “Get it off me,” she shrieks. />
  She stays seated, but she thrusts her hands forward with such force that for a moment, I think she’ll tumble off the couch.

  “Please. Just get it off me. I need… bleach. Or something. Anything. Please.”

  Tears form in the corners of her eyes. I want so badly to help her, but there’s nothing on her hands. I could get a cloth, rub her hands, but something tells me it won’t work. And, it might push her over the edge.

  I sit down beside her. She goes to stand back up, but I reach out and hold her in place. I turn her head so she’s facing me.

  “Listen to me, Disney. I need you to take a breath, calm down, and tell me what happened.”

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky sigh.

  “I… I killed him, Kane. I killed him. And now I can’t get his blood off of me.”

  She seems calmer now, and I take a chance.

  “Talk to me, baby. Who did you kill?”

  “Drew. Langston’s boyfriend,” she says.

  Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I’m not sure what to say next, but I don’t have to say anything. I’ve opened a flood gate, and it all comes pouring out of her.

  “We went to see Valerie. We had to get her three objects for her to give us Dax’s location.”

  She pauses for a moment and snorts with derision.

  “But you already knew that,” she says sarcastically.

  That’s my girl.

  “Before we could find the second object, Langston stole a mixture from Quinn. It allowed her to switch her life force with Drew’s. So, he woke up from his coma, and she slipped into one. We found the second object, and Valerie told us the third thing she wanted from us was Langston. Awake.”

  She looks down at her hands, which are now locked tightly in her lap, the knuckles standing out bright white. She doesn’t freak out at the sight of them, which I’m taking as a good sign.

  “We had ten hours to wake her up. Sadie was calling people. We were calling people. We looked through every book we could find. We even tried to find fault with Drew to motivate Langston to value her life above his. Nothing worked. It got to 11:30 p.m. and I knew we would fail unless I… ”

  I know where this is going, but she needs to get it all out, so I don’t interrupt her.

  “I went to the hospital. I stabbed him. I stabbed him twice because I had to be sure he was dead. It was the only way to wake Langston back up. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I knelt beside his body, my hands covered in his blood, and I cried. What right do I have to cry over him?”

  She pauses for a second.

  “You know the worst part? I didn’t even have the balls to look him in the eye when I killed him. I waited until his back was turned, and I literally stabbed him in the back. I murdered him in cold blood, and I didn’t even give him a chance to defend himself.”

  “Did it work?” I ask.

  Her face clouds over with barely concealed anger. It was the wrong question.

  “Yes, it worked. But that’s hardly the point. What kind of a person does that to someone? I killed an innocent person, Kane. What does that make me?”

  “It makes you a leader. You knew it was the only chance you had of finding Dax and getting to the Hand of Glory. You did what you had to do.”

  “If that’s what it takes to be a leader, then I’m not cut out for it. I should have found another way. Oh God, what have I done? How can I ever look Langston, or any of the team, in the eye again?”

  I take her hand in mine. I’m aware of how small it is, how delicate. She shouldn’t be doing this. Not because she isn’t cut out for it, but because she’s too good of a person to be forced to do shit like this.

  “It was the only way. The team will see that.”

  “Will they? Because I’m damn sure if it was the other way around, I wouldn’t see it that way.”

  I feel a moment of hope. Is she talking about me? If one of the team came after me, would she think it was unforgivable?

  “I don’t want their forgiveness. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Yes, you do. It was the only way.”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “That can’t have been the only way. There had to be another way, but I couldn’t find it in time. And now I’ve done the unforgivable.”

  “You weighed the situation, and you had a choice to make. You chose to sacrifice one person to give you a shot at saving the world. That’s not a bad thing.”

  She snorts.

  “Is that really what you think? Because it’s not what I think, and the last thing I want to do is turn out like you.”

  The spark of hope I felt earlier extinguishes. She didn’t come here because she needed my help. She came here because she knows that whatever she does, I’ll always be a worse person than she is.

  I have to hear her say it.

  “Why did you come here if that’s how you feel?” I ask.

  My question takes her by surprise, and she thinks for a second.

  “I thought you would understand,” she says finally. “But you don’t. You have no regard for human life, so how could you understand?”

  “This is what I understand. You’re a leader. You have to make tough choices. Ones you won’t always like. You’ve done that. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of? Aren’t you listening to me? I killed someone for no reason other than my own gain,” she shouts.

  I reach out to touch her face, and she jumps up.

  “Just don’t. Don’t touch me, don’t try to condone what I’ve done,” she says as she stands up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake.”

  She heads for the stairs, and I follow her. I can’t let her leave like this. Pest was right. I have to make things right with her. Even if they can’t go back to how they were, I have to at least try.

  She’s halfway down the stairs when I catch up to her and grab her elbow. She spins to face me, anger flashing in her eyes.

  “Let go of me, Kane. I absolutely hate you and everything you stand for.”

  I let go of her arm, and it drops to her side, but she makes no move to walk away. Her words drip with venom, but it’s not hatred I see in her eyes. It’s something else. Desire. The same desire I feel for her is mirrored in her eyes when she looks at me.

  I reach out and push her roughly against the wall.

  “What the hell are you… ” she starts.

  (MATURE CONTENT AHEAD. READERS CAN SKIP THIS SECTION WITHOUT MISSING ANY MAJOR PLOT POINTS.)

  I don’t let her finish. I press my mouth hard to hers, pinning her wrists to the wall with one hand, the other hand wrapped around her waist.

  She doesn’t resist. She kisses me back hungrily, her tongue thrusting into my mouth, probing me, tasting me.

  She arches her back, pressing her body against mine. I release her wrists, putting my hands on her thighs, lifting her. She locks her legs around my waist and wrestles my T-shirt off.

  She trails her nails along my bare back, pressing them in hard enough to make me moan.

  She moves her hands around to the front of me, fumbling, opening my jeans and pushing them down. She clumsily reaches into my boxers, but when she grasps me there, there’s nothing clumsy about her touch.

  I push my hands underneath her top, feeling the smoothness of her bare skin against my fingers. I bring one hand around to the front, pushing her bra up. I circle her nipple with one finger, and then I lightly pinch it between my finger and thumb, pulling on it, stretching it, caressing it. I feel it harden beneath my touch.

  She makes an ahh sound that’s part pain, part pleasure, and I feel myself throbbing in response to her.

  I take a step back, still holding her tightly to me, our lips never leaving each other’s. I lay her on her back on the stairs and drag her jeans off. I kneel between her legs, pushing them roughly apart. I hold eye contact with her as I reach out and snap her panties off her. I watch her face contort as I rub my thumb through her silky wetne
ss. I push my fingers into her, moaning with pleasure as I feel how wet she is, how ready for me.

  Her breathing quickens as I caress her, pushing my fingers in and out of her. Her stomach muscles tighten. Her back arches as her head rocks back. Her hips thrust in time with my hand, and I reach up with my thumb, pressing on her pleasure center as my fingers move in and out of her. She comes in a spasm of clenching muscles and wetness. She calls out my name as she hits her climax, and something in her voice is so raw, so animalistic, that I can’t wait another second. I move my hand, replacing it with the center of my arousal. As I push into her, I’m gripped with a wave of pleasure.

  She lifts herself up, wrapping her arms and legs around me as we rock back and forth on the stairs. I grasp at her flesh, my hands exploring her back, her butt, and her thighs. I want to touch every part of her. I want to hold her against me so tightly that we merge into one.

  Her hands are all over me, rubbing up and down my back, pushing into my hair, scratching and clawing at me as she rides on wave after wave of pleasure. We exchange frantic kisses, our tongues urgently meeting.

  She climaxes again, and as she does, she digs her nails hard into my back. Her mouth forms a silent O as she goes rigid for a moment. She coasts down from her orgasm, her muscles clenching around me in tight bursts that push me closer and closer to the edge.

  I push my hand into her hair, bringing our lips together again. She bites down on my bottom lip, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to interrupt my flow.

  With one final deep thrust, I am encased in an orgasm so intense that I forget who I am, where I am. All I know is pleasure. And her. She fills every pore of me—every nook and cranny is filled with her scent, her taste, her touch; the warmth of my orgasm spasms into her and we collapse beside each other on the stairs. I close my eyes and savor the bliss that’s destined to end all too soon.

  I was right; my happiness is short lived as I catch sight of her expression. Her face is twisted with regret as she glances over at me. A frown passes over her forehead, replaced with a forced expression of neutrality.