Her eyes left the pages she was immersed in and rose to him, then fluttered over him nice and slow. “That’s what you have to say to me?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked with a cold stare, as he let the smoke glide from his lips.
“I want you to tell me how you went from holding me in your lap, telling me to fight, that we had this, to fucking Tisk within the same day.”
He looked down at the smoke coming from his lips, watched it move out into the fresh air, glide through the rain. “Had time to think.”
“About what?”
“About how your coven is never going to leave you be, and because it’s not, we both have a clock above our heads. We’re both puppets.”
Reveca bit her lip before she spoke. She slowly closed the grimoire across her lap.
“You gonna ask me why I didn’t tell you about the limit on your immortality?”
Talon let out a dark chuckle, then his eyes moved across their yard, the gardens, the Boneyard. “You didn’t tell me because you knew I would have never come back. I would have left a long time ago.”
“Very cowardly of you to say,” Reveca said, as coldly as she could. Standing in one fluent motion, she dared him to approach.
“Coward,” Talon growled as he threw his cigarette out and stepped inside. “I fight for my life, every day. I go out and do the shit we planned. I take care of us. I live. And all this while you knew—you fucking knew that it didn’t matter how hard I fought. If I sat on my ass and drank all day or if I built this empire. You were humoring me, knowing that at any moment your family could pull the plug.” He pointed at her. “You fought that war on your own, left me out of it, and now here we are in this hell.”
Reveca stared before she spoke. She noticed how he struggled to remain cold toward her. It didn’t matter that it was a struggle, he still had the intent to hurt her, and intent is always worse than the action. It means they thought about it—they meant to, had every chance to change their mind but still did so.
“When you hold a man's life in your hands it’s hard to know if his affection is true,” she finally said.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that yeah, I knew you were a stubborn asshole that would see having to depend on someone to restore you every so often as a chain, as a bow, a surrender to your all powerful male ego.” He smirked, but she went on. “But if you didn’t know, you’d live your life as you wanted. You’d hold the woman you wanted. You’d be where you wanted.”
“You’re trying to tell me this was some fucking test?” he bit out. “You wanted to know if I gave a damn about you? If I kept you around because you had something I needed? Because you were a good fuck?”
She flipped him off.
“You want to go there, sweetheart? Is that what you want? Some angry fuck, so when we're done you can throw some more shit in your cleanse pile and pretend it’s gone, that what pissed us off is forgotten.”
“You ain’t touching this,” she said with a bow to her body.
“Right,” Talon said, looking away again.
“Tisk was a hard limit, Talon. You knew that before you did it.”
In their breaks they had both been with others. But when they were together there was no fucking others. They may tease someone else, use their lure to get what they needed, but they didn’t cross the sacred line. Not even with Zale. No, Talon was well on his way out of town before Reveca gave in to his lust spell.
It was their hard limit. It was easy to follow. You wanted out, wanted to go hit something else, say so. But never humiliate the other. Talon not only crossed a hard limit, he did so with an enemy, in their bedroom. Sacred ground.
“I sure did,” he said with a hard glint in his stare.
“Why?”
He paused, looked somewhere deep in her eyes, he even flinched his stare as if something had stabbed him, then spoke. “Because this is over.”
Reveca felt the words jar her core, a sick feeling deep inside that built on top of the way his sin had already made her feel. He’d never said those words before. It was always, ‘Until next time,’ or ‘I’m done,’ even ‘We need a break.’ Never an absolute statement that offered no room for argument.
“This is not over!”
She didn’t mean she was forgiving him. She wasn’t some weak girl who felt bad for her big bad warrior who ‘accidently’ fucked another girl. She meant them, the team—they were not over.
She meant she wasn’t going to give her sister the satisfaction of thinking she had some control. That she could pull a string and watch the house of cards fall, send Talon on his way. Losing Talon would be a defeat that Reveca refused to accept—even if it meant they had to play a role in front of others.
They could rip each other’s hearts out in this room, under this shield where no one could hear them, but they were not over.
Her train of thought, how she saw this, it wasn’t clicking with Talon. She could see so, see it in his eyes. A pain and anger that had never been there before, not to this degree.
“It is, Reveca. It was the moment you started loving me out of fear.”
“I don’t fear you,” Reveca said with a lifted chin.
Not anymore. At first she did. He was dangerous. He was brutal. He was every dare she wanted to take but couldn’t find the courage. She was afraid of going too far, losing too much of herself. Instead, she figured out who she really was. Found a place where she fit.
“No, you don’t,” Talon said with a gentle sway of his head. “You don’t because you know in some way, somehow, you’re in control. You know the well-worn path we’re on and feel safe. With him…you’re not in control. You have no fucking clue what that life opens up for you. You feel vulnerable. It terrifies you, so out of fear you stay with me. Stay with what makes you feel safe. This is over. That part of this is over.”
“King. This is about him? Time to think, my ass. You and him and Zale had some macho conversation where you let Zale get into your head. Then you sat in that meeting, which was about our business, the shit we have to handle, and stewed on it. You listened to him taunt you more. You thought about it, you coupled it with the distrust you have for my coven, the witch in me, that unknown part you can’t understand—then you figured you’d hurt me before I hurt you. King has barely been here for a month. This is not about him.”
“He’s always been here, Reveca,” he said with a sneer. “In that place you don’t let me go. And no, I don’t trust your fucking coven or the witch in you. The part of you that sees this mortal world as some game.”
“Game,” she spat back.
“Yeah. A game. It holds no weight. If anything it’s amusing to you, how you’re always one step ahead. How you can play with people.”
“I never played you.”
“No, you betrayed me. Let your coven put a collar on me.”
“As if fucking a whore is not worse than that,” she roared, watching the dagger of her words slice him, the disgust he had for his actions flash across his dark stare.
He glared as he spoke again. “You’re right. King didn’t start this. He was the match falling into a pit of gasoline. This has been going on for years, longer than I can remember.” He jutted his chin up and looked down at her with those opaque eyes. “It was your fall that brought us back.”
Reveca looked away, not wanting to deal with this truth right then.
“It was. We said no more breaks because the next would be final and we didn’t want to deal with that. So we fought back to back, you going your way, me mine. We plotted and planned, let the rush of those victories swell in us until we lost ourselves in a fit of lust and seduction then we’d do it all over again.” He paused. “It was your fall. It was when you lost the luster for the fight, when we all settled close to here, lived out this mortal life, did our thing. That fall of yours, it put us side by side. It had me thinking of every way to reach you, to make you smile. It had me wondering if all those ages of wars
, of us being separate but united, had been the wrong way to be with you.”
He lit another cigarette, took in a long breath as he walked back to the porch. “We’ve been waiting for an excuse. We have one now,” he said as his deep voice nearly cracked.
Nothing he said was a lie and it wasn’t exaggerated. She was there, felt it all with him. He was right, but that wasn’t the point just then. Something triggered this. You just don’t decide in afternoon to lose your cool, to throw it all way.
Not without reason.
“You’re lying to me,” she said as she stared at his back. Those crow wings, every feather representing a life the pair of them had forevermore changed. A life that unveiled her, helped her understand her purpose.
No one’s purpose was not to fit in—it was to stand out. Stand for what you have passion for.
He bowed his head, then shook it. “I’m not passing you off, Reveca. I’m serious. This deal is about us—we’ve both ignored it for too long.”
Her ass it wasn’t about King. It was about him and her coven pulling the strings. “It sure as fuck sounds like that’s what you’re doing. What was your goal with this? You fuck her, I get pissed, thrash out, then go fuck him, get it out of my system and come back to you?”
A murderous look was tossed her way from over his shoulder.
“Jealously,” she said as she saw the emotion in his eyes. He wasn’t over shit.
“No,” he said with the same glint in his cold gaze. “I meant it. This is over.”
“What the fuck, Talon? Tell me what you’re not saying!”
“Why? You won’t listen to what I am saying.”
“I haven’t heard anything that makes any damn sense.”
He stalked back toward her, too many emotions in his expression for her to count.
“We share every passion and not love, not the kind you want. Not the kind I see in your eyes when you’re in your garden, or walking the banks of the river. We’re meant to be together but not this way.”
Son of a bitch, he knew.
He knew this whole time she’d been grieving. Those short months she’d spent with King somehow always trumped the years and years of life with Talon—she couldn’t let King go. Her grief never made sense to her. Ever. How one person could mark you so deeply that you couldn’t get past it.
She had convinced herself that she had inflated Kenson’s memory, added more of the good and took away any sign of bad. That he was just that, a memory, a man whose exit changed the course of her life and pointed her in a direction she never saw coming.
But then King arrived. Even though every time she spoke to him they argued, she knew her memory wasn’t inflated. There was something about him, something that was bigger than her, and it made her feel weak.
“Now. Of all the fucking times it makes sense to you to have this revelation.”
“Why not now? Why wait for it? Why put you or me through it? Our Club. Would you rather let it build? Let the others grow to hate him because he’s stepping up on my woman, let them all turn on each other and take sides—ultimately killing Cashton or King in the middle of it all?”
“This is personal, between you and me. It doesn’t have anything to do with this Club.”
When they left this room, when they stood on stage before the Club it would, but right now, alone, this was between them.
“We are this Club, Reveca. Every thing we do and say, is for them.”
“How is this a fucking solution, Talon? How does humiliating your Ol’ Lady solve all those issues you just laid out? You think they’re not going to wonder if King has something to do with it? You think they’re not going to notice that King was charging up on Cash every chance he got—is this your plan? You’re not going to kill King because I’d never forgive you, but you laid out a reason for him to be put down. All that bullshit, your cat and mouse game—very witchy of you—and pointless. He already wants to die; he’s ready to lie down. Hell, he’d let me take him back to Crass tomorrow night and not bat an eye about it.”
Talon lifted his brow. A cold sternness that he never used with Reveca was there. “King is not leaving here.”
All Reveca could do was smirk. He was. She was going to barter for his freedom the next night, then set him free. Talon would know that now, would know her reasons why. What Windsome had said, he’d know about Dagen, he’d know about all the lore she had been reading. He’d know it all if she had not walked in and saw him ass deep in Tisk.
Hell, she might have told him anyways if he chose to be honest with her, too, but she knew he was hiding something. Something pushed him to let her go.
“Sure,” she said with squint of her eyes.
In an instant, he came across the room and was in her face, his hands on her arms. “He’s not leaving here. You hear me?”
“Fuck off,” she said, jerking away from him.
“You are not a coward.”
She glared in response. “No, I’m not.”
“Then quit fucking running from this.”
“From what? I’m figuring this shit out, doing my part—what the fuck did you do? Get pissed about all that shit Zale said then go kill Devil’s Den people? Oh, and then you just decided, yeah I’ll fuck that.”
“Don’t twist this back ‘round. I fucked her. I made sure you saw it because nothing short of that would prove to you how serious I am about us. That part is over. If I have to fuck every single girl I pass—in front of you—I will. I will push every button you have until you’re forced to despise me.”
His eyes raced over hers—the fury he saw there, her breaking. Everything he needed to happen right then. This was the hardest war he’d ever fought but he’d be damned if he lost it. Too much was on the line.
“You’re afraid of him,” Talon said to push her on.
“I’m not,” she said, failing to hide the emotion in her tone.
“You are. He understands you. The biggest part of you. He gets this power that bore you. He knows how it feels, how to manage it. He respects the unexplained.” Talon hesitated, feeling some ache in his chest that had never surfaced with all their breakups before. “He sees you. The part I have never seen. You can’t hide. You can’t linger behind your mystery, behind your wit and choose what he sees—because he sees it all and that fucking terrifies you. It rips you and makes you feel weak. Makes you realize that you’re just playing house in this mortal world, that you were created for another plane, another awareness.”
“I’m not going to him, Talon.”
“Today, no. Tomorrow, I doubt it. Eventually you will. Eventually you’re going to want out of that prison you’re in. You’re going to want to live.”
“I am living. I left my prison long ago.”
“I’m not talking about the fucking Edge, the prison your coven sprung you from, but not until they needed you. Needed your power to get all their asses out of Dodge. I’m talking about the prison you put yourself in. He hurt you when he left. Ripped your fucking heart out. He was the only one in that fucked up life you had that told you to be who you are—then he left you and you were in pieces. You refused to be hurt so you locked yourself down.”
“Are you calling me a cold hearted bitch? You think I don’t care about anyone?”
“No. I’m telling you that you never let anyone see it all—that witch in you—because you don’t want any one to see the real you. Don’t want them to be able to break you again. You can’t hide it from him and that terrifies you.”
There was some truth to his words. Hell, it was all true and she had known it for years. But knowing now that her actions were obvious humiliated her.
“Now is not the time for this. You want to fight about it I’ll see you at the end of the war.”
“Reveca, are you daring me to prove that I’m serious?” He lifted his brow. “Don’t make me force you to hate me. Because I will. You know I will.”
She looked at him like he was insane, for he surely was.
“I wi
ll be here for this Club. I will be here for this war. I will stand up and defend you until whatever clock above my head runs out. But we can’t do this anymore. It’s adding too much to the pair of us.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “You said you’d always do what’s best for me.”
He reached to cradle her face. She flinched so he never touched her, he just let his hand hover close enough to feel the heat of her flesh. “That’s a promise I’m never going to break.”
She was seconds from tears. She knew she was. She didn’t need this now. She may not have been perfect or innocent, and would never claim to be, but she knew karma had no right to deliver this day to her. To him.
“Get out,” she said, in the hardest voice she could manage.
She let the wall of energy around them fall.
Talon hesitated for a second, then got his shirt, his kut, armed himself, and was gone without even a look over his shoulder.
Chapter Two
Talon charged out of his room before his loyalty to Reveca forced him to tell her exactly why he had to do what he did. Why he had put a dagger in both their hearts. He came far too close to telling her more than once. There were points when he was sure she was reading the answers she wanted on his face, just the way she always had.
If she had, it would have doomed them. It would have made the sacrifice pointless. According to King it would anyway. According to him she couldn’t know she, along with the rest of them, were just biding their time, playing these mortal games, and somewhere, down the long, dark road they were on there was a demise—an end to it all.
All the time he spent musing, staring at her going over every word in those ancient books, he kept waiting for her to look up, for there to be some light of hope. An exaltation in her stare that told him once again she had found a way to outsmart her coven, a way out of the tangled web they’d woven around them.
The look never came. Instead her gray eyes grew dimmer. She saw an end, too. It may not be the one Jamison had all but promised, the end King said would occur, but she saw something she didn’t want to see.
Reveca falling for King and going to him, not out of obligation, but because that’s where she belonged, where she knew without question she belonged, gave every one of her immortals a chance. It gave all of Talon’s boys a chance.