“Good question,” I shrugged. “The last I saw him, five women had his dick in their mouths. So…”
Nathem choked, but Wolfe shot him a look that told him to play it cool.
“What a motherfucking idiot,” he said, trying to make me feel better. “I mean, look how bigyourmouth is.”
“You’re such a dick!” I laughed, kissing him on the shoulder, missing the way these men wrapped around me.
“Wolfe said you need a ride?” Nathem asked, kissing me on the top of the head.
“Yes, she does,” Wolfe answered, taking a slow drag before eyeing the car door. “But come back after. We’ve got things to discuss.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” Nathem nodded, turning to the driver’s seat.
I turned to say goodbye when Wolfe came at me, pressing my shoulders against the metal. My mouth clamped shut while he rested his forehead against mine, searching my eyes in quiet circles before opening the door to tuck me in. I suppose he was right; there were no words that did not have holes in them.
I placed my palm against the window, watching the way the lines of our hands melded together, but never fully touching, forever separated by glass and drops of falling rain.
“So, what did he do?” My good friend smiled, hitting each station until a flurry of guitars beat through the car.
I blinked through the noise.
“What do you mean?” I asked when he pulled away slowly, leaving Wolfe in the blur. But I kept my hand on the window. “Thay?”
“No. I know what he did,” Nathem said with a laugh. “Rinley. Word is he wants you dead.”
A dark chuckle welled in my throat.
Of course he did.
five
Threx: Black Threads
I remember the first night my arms were no longer her home, the way my sheets felt crumpled and disoriented as they pressed into the center of my back. For fourteen years, I’d fallen asleep to the pattern of her heart. The pretty way it moved blood in and out in even, safe hums against my chest was my favorite sound in the universe.
It was the only thing that mattered.
And the one thing my body could not forget.
I was picturing her on her stomach, watching the shadows glide across her naked spine, when I smelled her across the room. It did not matter that the club was pumping with sex and adrenaline. I always knew when she was close. Because of course I did. My entire sensory system had developed around her, forming a strange cage of sinewy lines and unforgiving impulses.
Fuck.
I told her not to come tonight. But, she didn’t listen. She is so fucking stubborn, and that little side piece she’s been living with treats her key to the Underworld like it’s a goddamn magic wand.
Asshole.
If Kandy only knew what we had to do to unlock all these damn doors, she would never ask Daphne to use it. But people don’t venture that deep without wanting something. All they do is use you for your resources, emotional energy, and your dick until they’re off to feed on their next victim.
My vision had parted just in time to see her shimmering in the blinking lights, looking at me with sick in her eyes. She couldn’t possibly think that these faceless, sucking things on my body were even real, could she?
A growl broke free inside me.
I told her not to come tonight!
I knew enough to know she’d stand there and watch like the dark little angel of death she was, had this been about me. But of course, it wasn’t. She had to go and save the fucking day instead, landing on the unhinged piece of shit list that is Rinley. As if I did not have enough to deal with, without having to play dick smash with that punk fuck, dead body scraper.
“Where have you been?” I side-eyed Wolfe, whose particular shade of Daphne made me want to punch it off his goddamn face. He shot a half-smirk at me, but kept his mouth shut.