Risen Lovers: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 4)

  “That’s a good boy,” Reveca said with a cool smile.

  Chalice held a hard look on his face as he stared at her. “Be gone, demon,” he said finally.

  “Who raised Talley?” Reveca asked, knowing it wasn’t him or Latour, but that they knew who was behind it all.

  Chalice narrowed his eyes on her. “Salvation will be born once again. You are here for a sacrifice that will not be given to your evil, but to people of God.”

  “And what man of God are we speaking of? What man of God do you know?” Reveca asked, looking over him. He was different. Something was off in his energy. Reveca couldn’t figure out if time had done that to him or something else—if he had just played this role too long.

  “He knows me,” Latour said.

  Reveca let her gaze move around the swamp, knowing it would not take much for any of these men to believe the paranormal, to take it as something it wasn’t.

  “I want to know who raised Talley. I want to know who Black is.”

  No one said a word.

  “I have always been one to barter, fair is fair,” Reveca said. As she spoke she focused her energy on one of the trailer windows, the one she sensed blood coming from. She whispered a spell that was meant to pull all metal from a body, and in this case it pulled a bullet from a young boy. It also closed said wound, because the spell’s purpose was also to protect the flesh from infection. If that was all that was wrong with the boy then he was now given life.

  The scream from a woman inside told Reveca that more than likely it was. It was joyous, and voices from inside called out to Chalice.

  Latour placed both hands inside of his overalls. Reveca knew there was a gun strapped to his waist, heard him flip the safety, but made no move to disarm him. She was playing her cards close to her.

  In this world an eye for eye was the law. Striking Latour on his own land before his people would give his people every reason to seek justifiable redemption that would exceed the initial crime that was committed. In theory, karma would reside on their side. Reveca was waiting for the scale to tip.

  Thus far she had done nothing but ask questions and healed a wounded person. She was still in the right.

  “They’re giving you credit,” Reveca said, eyeing Chalice, hearing the praises come from within, seeing a small boy run from behind the trailer, wanting to spread the good news. He was now in the line of fire, and none of Latour’s men thought to tell him to retreat.

  “When I reverse my words once more will they give you credit for his death, too?” It was an empty threat. Reveca would never use innocents to get her way. Chalice knew so but what he didn’t know was what she deemed innocent.

  Reveca knew it was better just then for those people to assume Chalice had healed the young soul inside. If they assumed she had, they would surely kill him just the same to save him from the demons inside.

  “Those that know your demand have been slaughtered by your hand,” Chalice said with a cold stare, hating that he was bending to her will. The young and innocent believers were his weakness. “You made a pact with evil, and the evil holds the answers to your damnation.”

  The fact that he knew anything about Crass could only mean that Chalice had been lingering near Zale. That was not good on any day of the week.

  “Who raised Talley?”

  “How can an immortal demon die,” Chalice said with a lifted chin.

  “I can think of a few ways,” Reveca said, looking him up and down—the threat in her stare.

  Right then she heard a shotgun cock then heard it fire. She stepped forward in the blink of an eye, passing the ring of salt and fire. Now she was but a breath away from both Latour and Chalice. The shot, however, did hit a target, another man who was across the way. The scattered round only missed the child in the yard, who was frozen with fear, by a hair. The child did move a second later, but he didn’t run. Instead, he stepped inside the ring of salt and was just behind Reveca.

  Every one of the ignorant men assumed that Reveca had fired the shot and went to aim at her. Her energy reached out for each gun in the brush around her and raised it above the men’s heads.

  “This just got interesting,” Reveca said, looking up at Chalice as Latour glared at her, sure she was evil. “Who is Black? Who raised Talley?” Reveca asked again.

  “The righteous will be born again,” Chalice said, glaring down at her. “You want answers? Go to the bowels of hell and ask the souls you sent there.”

  “I just might, but let me assure you, you won’t be here to see any righteous rise,” Reveca promised.

  “You don’t be treaten an angel before me likes dat,” Latour said, and he stepped between Reveca and Chalice and fired his pistol.

  If Reveca had moved the child behind her would have been struck—there wasn’t a doubt in her mind, so she let him fire, over and over into her.

  Four rounds hit Reveca dead center in her gut.

  She felt the agonizing burn, felt her flesh rip open, the warm blood oozing out, but she didn’t so much as move or let an expression come to her.

  Latour stepped back in shock.

  Reveca looked up at Chalice. “You must be yearning for the end of your days, for you know what this means.”

  There was a residual fear in Chalice’s eyes. He was surely thinking Reveca would not only tell Judge where the immortal that slaughtered his family was, but each Son would come after him for the pain Reveca was feeling then. The fact that the fear faded quickly told Reveca he knew something, and he wasn’t sharing.

  “I want Black, before the next full moon,” she said to Chalice.

  She looked at Latour who was gaping at her in shock as his beady eyes stared at her stomach which was stained red by the blood now rushing down her legs.

  “An eye for an eye,” Reveca said smoothly.

  With those words, four of the men on Crass’s list, four that were in the field around her, all perished at once. Reveca’s energy had seized them so quickly, so fiercely, that every bone in their body had shattered and their vital organs had collapsed.

  Karma was balanced—but only for a moment. Out of nowhere King appeared, looking deadly.

  He took one look at Reveca then tracked the scent of gunpowder and lunged forward at Latour.

  “Not yet,” Reveca rasped.

  King’s hand was on Latour’s throat. He barely stopped himself from ripping his head off. Instead, he thrust him backward crashing his body into the side of the trailer. Screams were heard everywhere.

  Chalice stepped forward to attack King—the wrong thing to do. King grasped his neck and turned. A loud crack was heard then Chalice went down, not dead, but halted.

  If Reveca wasn’t fighting the burn in her gut, the dizzy feeling, she would have been furious at King, for not only stepping into her business but unbalancing the scales. Now Latour had yet another reason to start trouble with the mortals around them. He’d go after any member of the MC and their family that he could.

  King casually laced his fingers through Reveca’s and strolled her to her bike. He put her in front of him, then roared the bike to life.

  Gunshots rang out through the air. Before King could shield Reveca another bullet hit her chest. King retaliated and one thrust of his energy killed every man in the direction the bullet came from.

  Right as they passed the metal bins on the muddy path, right as the pain stole her breath and Reveca nearly passed out, her head fell back on King’s shoulder.

  King felt every ounce of her pain as if it were his own, and he knew this ride before them was too long. He had no choice—he moved her, him, and the bike all the way back to the Boneyard, to the garage in Evanthe’s home.

  Reveca’s blood-soaked hands reached for her phone.

  “What are you doing?” King scolded as he cradled her in his arms and moved her once again

  “Lock down. We have to warn them.” She squinted her eyes, trying to focus through the pain so she could word her mass text. If she told the Sons
she had been hit and Chalice was in town, it wouldn’t matter what scale of Karma she was trying to balance, they would attack.

  King had manifested them in the large bath attached to the room he knew had Reveca’s scent all over it. He took the phone from her and sent a text.

  “What did you say?” Reveca demanded.

  “What you said: Lock down.”

  Reveca was leaned against the sink with her eyes squinted closed. “They can’t know,” she rasped.

  “Know what?” King said in a hard tone as he ripped her shirt off, then her bra. His hand went against her chest and his energy pulled.

  Reveca screamed as she felt the pain of the bullets being pulled forward.

  “That you’ve lost your damn mind.”

  “Fuck you. I had my reasons. They couldn’t hurt me.”

  “No, they could just put bullet after bullet into you, make you suffer the pain of death without relief,” he said as he ripped her shorts off and went to his knees.

  Reveca’s hands were his shoulders. Her nails were digging into him as she felt him pull each bullet out one by one. She cursed him—called him every name in the book.

  In her agony her heavy-lidded eyes shifted to the threshold of the bathroom. She could have sworn she saw a light, a page moving in the thin air.

  “You see that,” she slurred.

  King glanced to the door. He did. He had been dealing with it for hours, chasing the ghost in this home. He was sure that Evanthe wasn’t as far away as Reveca assumed. His energy slammed the door shut, telling the haunt he had this.

  King ignored Reveca when she asked again what it was. He ripped her panties off, then pulled her boots off. She was nude before him but most of her flesh was stained in blood. He wasn’t positive he had gotten every bullet out, and only knew one way to stop all of her pain and heal her at once.

  Reveca gave up on understanding what she saw, thinking it was a hallucination of the pain. She had her eyes closed, her head back. She was taking in slow breaths, glad the burn was fading but hating the feeling of her flesh healing ever so slowly, hating that she couldn’t focus just then on her battle plans, what she needed to do, what she’d learned.

  All at once she felt a wave of erotic energy swaying through her, deeper than it ever had been before. A moan laced with a scream came from her chest.

  When she opened her eyes in protest, King was nude. He unceremoniously lifted her right then and stepped into the shower with her, slamming the glass door behind them. He didn’t even bother to adjust the water before he put her beneath it. Reveca squalled and charged forward, loathing the cold, but that only landed her against King’s chest. At the same time he sent another wave of energy through her. It was too much for her body to take in just then. Her knees went weak, but he caught her, pulled her flesh against his chest.

  “Your bedside service sucks,” Reveca said once she caught her breath.

  “I’m just getting started, love,” he said as he dumped half a bottle of shampoo on top of her head. “Don’t move. Don’t say a word. Let me work.”

  And with that his energy held her in place and his humming hands started at the crown of her head, lathering her soaked hair before moving down.

  Reveca knew she was done for. No willpower in the universe could resist giving in to this temptation.

  Chapter Four

  Reveca was use to sexual fasts, had willingly been on one from time to time over the last few years. She used sex as a source of food, a way to clasp power she needed. And when needed as a way to prove to Talon she still cared.

  This fast was different. Every single second since she and King surrendered to each other in the woods had haunted her. At times her memories were so strong she would feel the hint of the rush once more, and she would have to command her body to be still, to not seek him out, give in to what her heart and soul wanted, needed.

  Her need was half the reason she argued with King so much. Anger was the only shield she had against desire. It was a weak one that had threatened to falter more than once.

  If there was one thing she had learned to do over her lifetime it was read a man’s eyes. She knew King wanted her just as bad, but he had the same anger—frustration. He wanted her to admit she was wrong for spelling him, for ruining their first time, a night they had waited ages on, and she was too stubborn to do so.

  She still didn’t understand why Windsome told her to release him and he went nowhere. The fact that he knew why Windsome did so and wouldn’t tell her made her all the more furious.

  Reveca knew this situation right here was tempting them both. Mad or not, hurt or not, there was no getting out of this position without scorching, erotic satisfaction.

  His hands had moved down her chest, thick lather was the only barrier between them. He was washing away the blood that was stained there, but every other sway the palm of his hands would ease over the hard buds of her nipples. Each time he did so she’d suck in a breath, and through her half-closed eyes she would see him smirk.

  His reaction should have been enough to make her furious but she didn’t have the energy to focus on anything else.

  When he went to his knees before her she felt anticipation strike her core. As if he sensed that, he met her eyes as his hands tenderly swayed over the wounds on her stomach which were all but closed. He knew the damage was still present on the inside, and that’s why he kept sending wave after wave of energy through her.

  “I’m still mad at you,” he rasped as he moved her back into the spray, letting the water wash away the red lather before leaning her against the glass door of the shower once more.

  Reveca glanced down at him, at how erect he was. “Not all of you is,” she said with a sinful leer. Her eyes were glazed over with the relief she was starting to feel. The fading rush of adrenaline always left her dazed. That coupled with his touch, his energy, was intoxicating.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, his hand moved down her stomach and without caress or warning his fingers slipped inside of her, feeling how wet she was, the want that had all but reached out and grabbed his senses moments before.

  Reveca shrieked, reached for his shoulders, knowing the way she was feeling now that any touch would send her over the edge.

  “Just responding to you, love,” King said as he slid his fingers out and purposely brushed against her clit which was aching with raw need.

  His hand moved back to her stomach, moving over the now closed wounds, trying to focus on the pain she felt to know how healed she was.

  “Hurt?” his deep whisper asked.

  “Yes,” Reveca answered with her eyes closed. But she wasn’t talking about the wounds—they were forgotten. She didn’t mean to admit aloud he was the only thing she wanted in this world.

  “Tell me to make it better,” King demanded in a dark, baritone voice.

  Reveca was never one to take orders from anyone and apparently that standpoint held strong when she was buzzed off her ass.

  “No.”

  She never saw the sinful smile that was dripping from his lips, or the glint in his ice blue eyes, the one that said he was accepting her challenge and come hell or high water, this woman was going to ask him to make her feel better, if not outright beg him.

  His hand moved down her stomach once more. As his lips connected with the flesh above her wounds, his fingertips slid over her throbbing core but refused to enter, refused to do more.

  “Ask,” he said just before his tongue moved across her navel.

  Reveca had her hands in his hair, holding him against her stomach and loving the feel of his lips on her flesh, daring to push him farther down.

  “No.”

  King moved his fingertips across her core once more, this time lingering where she wanted him the most. He focused all his energy on that one tiny point on her body then pushed a powerful, heated, vibrating, rush of energy through his touch.

  Reveca screamed and bent forward, gasping for breath. Not once had an orgasm ever stru
ck her without warning, without build, without seduction, and she felt robbed.

  She needed him inside, right then.

  “Ask,” King demanded again.

  Reveca reached down determined to give herself the relief she wanted—stubborn as ever she wasn’t asking for anything. As far as she was concerned he could watch, then he’d be the one bending to her will, begging for her to let him in.

  King clasped her hands, pinned them behind her back. “Last chance, love. You’re clean and you’re nearly healed. My work is done. You want more, ask.”

  Reveca squinted her eyes closed, fighting with the desire her body was feeling and her mind, the one that never bent, the one that never bowed, the one that had to be in control.

  King went to rise but she braced her hands on his shoulders. She never opened her eyes as she pulled him closer. He didn’t budge; he was too strong,

  “Speak,” King grated.

  “I want you.”

  “To do what?”

  Reveca’s eyes flew open—anger was there. “You need me to explain this to you?”

  “Apparently I need to explain this to you.”

  Reveca lifted a brow, doing her best to look disconnected as she felt the want grow deep inside.

  “You never let go, you fear it,” King said quietly.

  “Is that not what we’re fighting about, me letting go?”

  King’s hands moved all over her waist, her ass, dipping between her legs, but never entering.

  “You didn’t let go, love. If you did, then you would have known that no spell you lay on me is going to hold—you wouldn’t have had the energy to conjure one. I went easy on you. I wanted to savor you, and apparently I was too kind.”

  “Clearly,” she said as she arched her chest forward, not only because she felt downright wicked then, but also because she was trying to seduce this man.

  “Ask. Me,” he demanded.

  “Ask you what?”