Disloyal Souls: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 8)

  For the Sons, as they watched the retreating lawmen, none of them were sure the sun would rise the next day. Their doubt wasn’t because any defeat had been promised to them, they’d been there, and proved defeat wrong too many times to even wince at its threats anymore. Their doubt was for a far more mind-bending reason.

  Talon, their fearless leader, was not only whole—stronger than anyone could recall in recent memory, but he was holding a woman he despised like she was the most precious being he had ever encountered. As each of them stared down the unlikely couple, they noted the differences and the likeness between Reveca and Saige.

  Even though Saige had always been a rip-roaring, cold-hearted bitch to the Sons, sometimes to the degree of sport, next to Talon she seemed girlish. There wasn’t a move he could make that did not solicit some reaction from her. A hinted blush, a rush of her heart, a smile she failed to hide in her eyes, one that settled right next to fear.

  The fear wasn’t a weakness to the Sons. It was what Reveca had lacked when it came to Talon. Reveca looked at Talon as if he was her creation. Saige looked at him like he was the reason for hers. Today she did at least, leaving half the Sons to assume she was one hell of an actress, either that or they had all been bewitched by her.

  To save face and ease the new tensions on the lot, Talon didn’t retreat with Saige or Scorpio for that matter. He lingered in the lot until it was cleared of unwanted guests, then took Saige’s hand and led her into the lounge.

  The awkward stares didn’t stop there, Star’s hands shook as she poured them both a drink. Others far and close had conflicting expressions. Those who were relieved and not halfway sure they were staring at Reveca would glance at the high mounted perches King had often been seen on.

  The ones who were sure they were staring at Saige did their best to keep their disgust from showing. If there was one thing you knew at the Boneyard, it was that Reveca hated her sister and her sister hated them all. “You are trash to her, a mistake I made. Never forget this. Her power is never to be questioned or doubted. The quiet ones are the most dangerous,” Reveca had warned like a comforting mother.

  None of Reveca’s old warnings were adding up to what they were looking at, then again they were. Saige was remarkably quiet. Every now and again it looked as if she were whispering to Talon, the sly smirk on his face clearly stated she was. She was also insanely timid at Talon’s side. Just like any other female brought here for the first time.

  It’s never easy walking into a room as an outsider full of people who are bonded with hard and good times, years of life. It’s worse when you step into a new culture, or rather a very old one. Saige, like all the newbies before her, stayed within arms reach of the one who escorted her into their world. There was no safer place than at Talon’s side on any given day.

  Any day but this one.

  Yesterday, they were sure Talon was dying. Months back they were sure Reveca and Talon had mad love for each other. Now no matter how many appearances they made side by side the chill between Talon and Reveca blanketed the Boneyard like a northern snow. Now Talon was side by side with her twin, an even more powerful witch, looking all the better for it.

  What kind of deal did Talon make? Worse, what was Reveca going to do about it once she showed again? The Club wasn’t on the mend—it had turned into an inevitable battleground. The kind immortals didn’t walk away from.

  Of the constant twists of the last few days, getting Thrash and Shade back was at the top of the news wheel in Talon’s thoughts. There wasn’t a single Son who didn’t bring something to the table, true enough. As the oldest Son, Thrash’s contributions were hard to sum up with a simple number. He showed up and he showed up on the right side of reason every time.

  If Thrash were there now, he would have already read the tension and dropped a few whispers in the crowd, rumors to spread like a wildfire. “Talon’s known Saige longer than Reveca.” Or something like, “This one time, I was sure Talon was a goner. That witch right there brought him back ‘round.”

  Two little rumors, Thrash would add his own twist to would have washed away at least half the apprehension Saige’s appearance had brought to the Boneyard.

  Shade would have been a gift too. As the youngest in the patched group, his impressions were just as valuable as the oldest. Granted he may not have said a word, but he would’ve pulled a stool up next to Saige and had a drink with her. If the mood struck, he might have even given a halfhearted grin, an action that would only add to Thrash’s lead on the topic.

  Talon was by no means undermanned now, but none here trusted him as deeply as Thrash or innocently as Shade. When Judge strolled through the lounge doors determined to see if the rumors flying around the lot were true, Talon met his curious stare and then began pushing as many orders as he could to the forefront of his mind for Judge to pick up.

  After only the slightest hesitation, Judge shifted his stare to Saige. “I heard you were here,” he said like he was greeting an old friend. “Is it Reveca’s turn to be on hiatus?”

  Following his lead, Echo spoke up. “Now, come on, you know this city can not handle this double or nothin’ of fineness. They have to take turns breaking our hearts and busting balls.”

  “Aye,” Rush said lifting his shot glass.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Knight said hitting his in the air with Rush’s.

  “Can never have a shortage of witches in war times. Bring it fuckers, we’re packin’,” Thames said crashing his glass so hard it broke.

  A broken glass in the lounge was a major ‘bar foul.’ Subject to consequences, of course. Everyone close enough to see what had happened stood and poured their drink on Thames shouting. “Need another, here ya go. Thirsty are you? Next round on him!”

  Talon had barely moved Saige out of the way fast enough. Once he had her in his grips, being fast was the least of his problems. One second they were at the bar, the next, they were just outside the door to Church.

  Having her against the wall twice in one day? Unheard of. Who was he to complain? Especially when her heaving chest was crashing into his and the scent of her desire had never been richer. He should’ve crashed his lips onto hers and let the cards fall where they would.

  Instead, he stepped back, gripped her arm then pulled her into Church slamming the door so hard the entire building shook.

  “W-we need to be out there,” Saige said eyeing the door that was only inches from her.

  The rumble of laughter and taunts boomed even louder right then pointing out that the last thing the bar noticed was their exit. His boy’s enthusiasm and the fresh round of drinks had taken away the apprehension. Patched inner circle Sons kicking it gave permission for all Sons to do so.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, giving her a once over that clearly displayed the disgust he had for her transformation.

  Her haughty ‘how dare you’ expression that gave Talon all kinds of wet dreams over the eras morphed into place on Saige’s angelic face.

  “There she is,” Talon said coldly.

  “Of all the things we can argue about, how short my shorts are topped your list?”

  He stepped forward, looming over her. “What is this? Some kind of fucked test? You tryna see how over your sister I am? Or are you just tryna to get me bothered enough to step up and save her from herself again?” He pinned her chin between his thumb and fingers. “I got news for you, sweetheart, if you’re tryna to get me hard, the last thing you need to do is dress like her.”

  “As if,” Saige said a beat before she manifested on the other side of the table.

  “As if what? You think I don’t know how much you want me now? How much you always have. You’ve tortured us both.” He ticked his head to the sound of the Sons partying down the hall. “Because of you they exist, because of Reveca they hate you. One outfit will not change this.”

  “I don’t sense hate,” Saige said crossing her arms in the dainty way she was known to do.

  “Hat
e comes in many forms, its most popular is fear. They fear the confusion this Club is under. No one knows who to back or why they should back ‘em.”

  “I’m not taking her place.”

  “In my past or my future,” he spat. If she stood by him, if she were herself, in time all would see it was how it should’ve been. Most would see it was how it always had been. If she appeared and left as she always did in the past, the boys would see her as nothing but a pacifier until Reveca ‘came to her senses’ and reappeared. No real future there.

  Saige blushed and looked away.

  “That right there is what I’m talking about.”

  “Why does it have to be absolute to you?” Saige snapped. “Why do I have to openly declare anything if you are so sure of where I stand?”

  “I don’t give a fuck about openly doing shit. I just wanted you to be real with me. From day one that is all I wanted.”

  Pain sliced into her emotion, a new kind of pain Talon had not witnessed coming from her before. “That’s what you wanted when you were rutting Reveca from night one?”

  Now Talon was the one who was speechless. Everything he had done in the beginning was done to spark a response in Saige. One flare of anger or jealously and he would’ve known he was not crazy to feel the way he did about her. What did she give him? Nothing. Not even the slightest fucking glance. When she was forced to be in the same room with him, she looked at him like every other noblewoman did, as a man beneath her, unworthy of her attention.

  Now this.

  “I thought she was you,” he raged before he realized it was a secret worth keeping to himself. If anything, it dishonored both women.

  His knuckles bit into the table as he leaned forward. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Don’t explain,” Saige said as the agony in her emotions slammed into Talon.

  Stubbornness kept him where he was when all he wanted to do was throw her down on the table and show her what she had missed all these years, show her the passion he kept hidden from her sister.

  “No, I didn’t know you had a sister. Yes, I knew she felt different. When she spoke, I knew for sure she was.”

  “Her words not her body told you as much.”

  Talon growled. “I was a fucking mortal, drunk off my ass, doing my best to sleep away the madness you put in my head when she showed. I nearly cut her head off, when I focused on who was looming over me I wasn’t there, I was in the garden with you. I finished what we started.”

  Saige’s eyes watered over as she drew her trembling hand to her mouth, trying to stop the sickness he felt flooding her. “You did as was written.”

  “Fuck that. No one writes shit about me. I’m not a puppet to this life. I live it. I decide.”

  “My people recorded your decisions, they did not make them for you.”

  There was no reasoning with Saige when it came to her people. God knew Talon had tried. She told him once, “It is not my sister or Rapture that stands between us. It is you not sharing the same faith.”

  “Fuck your faith,” Talon said as he walked to his throne at the head of the table. “What kind of faith would allow you to send me to her over and over.”

  Saige kept her strong, polite poise that clashed with her clothes as she spoke. “I sent you to protect her, the rest was your choice.”

  Talon fell into his seat unable to stand as her heartache slammed into him wave after wave. He liked it better when he could see it in her eyes and not feel it.

  His dark stare raked over her. “Am I to believe you have been faithful to this, us, whatever your people called us.”

  When her stare that was as bright as moonbeams hit his, he knew it was a foolish question. Only one man had touched her, one night, one conception. She’d saved the rest for Talon, stolen touches, gazes drenched in seduction, whispers and prayers of protection were all his.

  Talon wanted more. He wanted all of it.

  What was worse? An unfaithful woman, or a faithful woman to an unfaithful man? Talon would bet his soul it was the latter. He could forgive Reveca for the secrets she kept of her past, in time he could at least. He could even forgive her for going to King so quickly after him, hell for all he knew, before he left her.

  But he could not forgive himself for all he had done to Saige.

  “I loved you the only way I knew how,” he rasped. “I dealt with your rejection the same way.”

  A single tear drizzled down her cheek but it didn’t stop him.

  “I walked into a Noble’s party with a heart, with the chance at having a normal life. A woman, kids. Later, I walked out of the garden with a shattered heart and no chance at any normalcy.”

  He leaned forward when she tried to look away. Saige drew in a deep breath waiting for him to appear before her but he kept his space.

  “You may have saved us for some future only you know of, but you ruined me from the gate.”

  “You had no trouble doing that yourself. Of all the men Reveca called away from me, you came the easiest and stayed the longest.”

  He chuckled; a nervous tick he had that gave him seconds to gather the right words. They had to be right. If he and Saige were to stick to their never-ending script they’d leave this conversation with him feeling guilty as hell and willing to do anything to appease the gnawing feeling, including going back to Reveca and bringing her in close. Until the next time Reveca lost herself, Saige and he would play the villains in each other’s lives, never really trusting the other, openly stating why to themselves and anyone who bothered to listen.

  The words had to be right, something she would think about day in and out, words that would remind her how badly she had destroyed him.

  Who the fuck was he kidding? If he hadn’t found such words at this point in the game, he never would.

  “You think I don’t give a damn about your faith...”

  Saige lifted her eyes to his.

  “How can I not care about something you love so deeply?”

  Saige’s lip trembled, but she held her poise as she stared at him in disbelief.

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t. That’s between my maker and me. Not the witches that brought me back with ashes of an entity that lurks within me. I have a right to not trust this given fate.”

  When Saige started to argue, one cold stare from him stopped her.

  “You claim it is unchanging, that my choices are recorded. If this is the truth, then why have you kept the secrets of it? Why have you ensured so many people will be hurt when the charade of Reveca and I are said and done?” He tilted his head. “Why did you try to force me to love her when you knew she loved King? When you knew one day you would deliver him and every enemy attached to him to my doorstep?” He clenched his fist. “You are not leaving this room until you tell me what is next.”

  Saige dropped her stare from his then closed her eyes. “This is the end.”

  “End of what? Are King’s dark gods going to swoop down here? Is that it? Should I waste time playing mortal games for control over the streets?” His hungry stare drank her in. “Or should I make the most of the moments I have left.”

  Talon drew in a breath when her desire and anticipation thickened in the air.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Know what?” he pushed.

  “Don’t you see,” she shouted. The out of character tone stilled Talon’s anger. “I am not to know my ending and neither are you. Now I can see nothing. Written or not, I cannot see it and no one can speak it to me. I’ve tried, endlessly.”

  “You saw before,” he said as fear grazed his emotions, he was reflecting the emotion swelling inside of her.

  “I saw that my sister could end us all before we ever began. I saw that she needed protection and sensibility and it would only come from my sacrifice, my heartache.” She shook her head. “Do you think we ever stopped looking for King? Do you know how impossible it was? Even when he was right before us, trying to kill Jamison’s daughters
we didn’t see him for who he was until it was almost too late.”

  Talon raised his hand. “He did what?”

  Saige waved him off. “This is the issue, you like to get lost in the details.” She wiped her eyes gracefully. “You act as if there are volumes of our lives recorded. As if the great minds of the past recorded every conversation. It is poetry, and it is short and sweet. I knew I was the sacrifice my sister needed, and I knew you were the one to protect her. I knew King had to be found, and my daughter saved. I knew all of this, but I had no time scale to lean on.”

  “And now there is nothing left to read,” Talon surmised. “Your sister has her man and all his baggage. Your daughter is not only alive and well but hooked up with a man who ticked Reveca off without even trying. What could possibly be left, Saige? What hoop do you need me to jump through?”

  Silence reigned. Talon turned the ring with the Sons emblem on his forefinger. “I do love her, Saige. I love her as I love every warrior I have bled with, changed the world with. But I cannot go back to her. We’ve burned our bridge, twice over. If you are begging for her protection, you are beseeching the wrong male.”

  Saige bowed her head. “I only ask that you protect her when it is in your realm of power.”

  “You demand. The emotion in your eyes alone tells me it will not be an easy choice. There is more written, you can not tell me there isn’t.”

  “I told you, there is. I can not read what has my choices and life course written in it.” She grimaced. “I can assume, but I refuse.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I do not speak my demons into life,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Talon appeared before her, and as he did those Godforsaken words moved across her lips. He took her face in his hands. “Spell me, curse me, do whatever the fuck you want. If there is anything I know, it is there is nothing in the universe that can stop me from wanting you, needing you. I gave you everything the first time our eyes met.” His thumb caressed her cheek as her eyes fluttered closed.

  He felt it too, a steady pulse of energy between them in perfect sync. “I may have given her my body. But I never gave her this,” he said as his vim surrounded her. “This is me, Saige. I’m not going anywhere.” He leaned closer. “So tell your demons to go fuck themselves. We’re runnin’ this show.”