Dark Lure: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 2)

  “Mortal?”

  “On his last fucking leg mortal. I think that’s what was up. The old bastard may be making drugs, but he was looking for life, didn’t care how many junkies he had to use as lab rats to get it.”

  “He came and got the book?”

  “Yep, maybe two, three days before you came. I really don’t know, there was no light in there. I just counted the times the assholes who were taking my blood ate and such.”

  “Did you hear him say anything about the book, about where he was going?”

  “No, I don’t think.”

  “Your mother was in those pages and you don’t think you heard where the book was going?”

  “It’s spelled to remain within fifty miles of the core of the coven. If it’s moved outside of that radius, it burns. Someone tried that already. The pages were singed. If it burns then we’re halfway there. To get my mom out we just hunt down all those that know about this and kill them or wait for nature to take its course. She’s safer than we are right now.”

  There was a truth to those words. All Evanthe had done was put herself in a prison and ensured it opened once certain points were met.

  She wasn’t going to bust the kid’s bubble, but the spell Evanthe used was written in a time where cameras and computers were not heard of. That could be a loophole they would have to contend with. It might mean the words could be impossible to find if they were copied.

  If Reveca could find the book, though, she could bring her out even if there were copies of it somewhere. She could pull her essence from the pages.

  Hopefully this Black guy was smart enough not to leave the boundaries around the coven. Reveca’s gut told her he was, that he needed the book as much as they did, for his survival.

  Her gut also told her Evanthe was exactly where she wanted to be right now. Though on the surface it would seem vital to rescue one of her own, that was not the case. It was vital to stop this drug and the people behind it.

  Reveca still planned to do her own research, though, to go to the family library and read up on the spell Evanthe had used and the history of her coven. The thing was, she was either going to have to deal with Saige to get to it, or break in when she wasn’t there. The latter of the two sounded like a better plan any day of the week.

  Chapter Four

  Normally, on his bike, especially when he passed eighty, Thrash didn’t think about much. If he did, if that beast, that rumble of power inside tried to erupt, he’d do something crazy on his bike, test his limits to the point where he would be suicidal if he wasn’t immortal. Sometimes he’d let the beast come out anyway, or would feel it coming and hit the road so it would run its course, so when he got back he could be around people and control himself.

  As a warrior he was always ready to fight, but the beast made him downright territorial. It would take next to nothing to set him off if someone was crossing a clear line he had drawn. He hated that. Hated the fear or defense he saw in the eyes of his brothers. So he controlled it, grew with it.

  This ride right here wasn’t doing shit for him.

  The kid.

  Thrash hadn’t been at the Boneyard much with Reveca being locked up, but he was in and out, and each time he saw the kid he didn’t know what to say to him. No words would come.

  The damnedest thing was, the beast in him settled at the sight of that kid, calmed down, at least thought before it acted. Away from him, it showed its ass, like it was now.

  Right as Thrash was sure the speed of this ride was calming the power in him, right as he started to slip into the rush of it, he and Talon had to slow down. They were edging close to downtown. Fucking traffic lights were the worst invention ever in Thrash’s mind.

  Finally they stopped on a curb, both searching their surroundings, making sure they were on point.

  Talon was in a pissy mood but that was expected. His woman was taken and no one would let him blow up the cop shop to get her out. Now he had to deal with this other shit, shit Tisk stirred up, obviously.

  Down the street Thrash saw Amber jogging their way, headphones in, short yoga pants and a shirt that was too big for her, but it still clung to her in the wind, highlighting her ample rack. She was no doubt turning a head or two as she jogged by. So much for keeping a low profile.

  “You got this?” Talon asked as he got off his bike.

  It took Thrash a second to answer; actually he didn’t until Talon leaned in his line of sight. “Hey, what the fuck man, focus.”

  “Do your shit, I’m watching,” Thrash nearly growled.

  Talon nodded once and made his way to an alleyway that Amber would be passing soon enough.

  Thrash looked from car to car, building to building, person to person. He was there doing his job, but he wasn’t all there. His mind was with Evanthe.

  He didn’t know what to call what they were. She was always around right when he became an immortal, when he had no control at all. No matter how brutal he became, what she saw him do to others, she never looked at him with fear. Even if he lost control, slipped and yelled at her, or threw something just because hitting her would destroy him, she never feared him.

  She approached him like a wounded animal, and maybe he was. At the very least his pride was wounded. He didn’t like to have this chain, this beast to share his life with; he was mean enough before.

  When he finally did get control he was shamed that he was brutal in front of her. He needed space and he got it. Talon and Reveca broke away from Zale. Evanthe did too, but when she settled in New Orleans it wasn’t at the Boneyard. She didn’t even visit for the longest time. When she did, she kept her distance. She and Reveca did their girl witch thing, and Thrash would just stare at her.

  All at once Thrash started to struggle with his beast again, fought harder than he should, killed more than he should. Evanthe saved him, showed up with that tea, that touch. Never said a fucking word.

  About twenty years ago, or rather seventeen, the Club was at war with Zale, or they were preparing for another wave of war. Evanthe had warned them he was returning to the city and he wasn’t alone.

  Talon ordered Thrash to stay with Evanthe, that way he could catch him if he emerged there, and there was a damn good chance he would.

  The first few days, nothing, at least not with Zale. It was tense between Thrash and Evanthe. She made all these nice dinners, would talk but not so much that it drove him mad or pulled him out of his comfortable stance of watching instead of engaging. He liked to watch her, and he rarely let a chance pass to do just that.

  She was made like a Deity, sharp curves, long blonde hair that curled as the day wore on. Her gray eyes would speak a thousand words to him with one glance.

  For days she had brushed past him, made sure her chest lingered against him, even pressed into him. She’d leave the door to the shower open each morning; even let her leg rub against his at dinner.

  All of that turned him on—nothing about her didn’t turn him on—but he kept himself at bay, told himself not to cross that line.

  Then one night, a vicious storm approached. Thrash had heard a bang from her room and was there in an instant. When he made it there he saw her nude, closing the windows that had blown open. The wind was making the drapes dance around her, slide against her body. He was mesmerized with the way the lightning was flashing across her.

  He should have left then, once he knew she was safe, but he didn’t.

  His chest rose and fell steadily as she held her gaze on him and moved forward. He was cursing his beast right then—there were times when he was harder to tame, something with the way the stars above shifted about, at least that was what Evanthe had said to him before. That entire night he had struggled with it, looking at that woman right then was making it harder to be in control.

  Claim.

  The beast kept breathing that word deep inside of Thrash.

  When she reached him she arched her neck up and her gaze touched deep inside him. It was all he could do to stand
still, to not move, not claim what his beast had always thought was his.

  “My fighter,” she whispered as she let her hands rest on his bare chest. The beast rumbled, but it was more of a purr.

  “I can’t be gentle,” he said in a harsh, deep rasp. And he meant that. He was all for having a woman beneath him. He put more thought into his one night stands than his brothers at the Club. The ones that had no meat on their bones he wouldn’t even attempt. Didn’t trust his strength not to hurt them. The ones that did, that were built like a woman, he still had to hold himself back.

  He knew with Evanthe, it would be worse. She was strong, immortal, but he had wanted her for too long, thought about it too much. She did something to him; saw something he couldn’t even see.

  Evanthe slowly moved her hands up his chest as he closed his eyes. “You can be…you don’t have to think right now…unleash him Thrash…he is one with you…and so am I.”

  The rumble in his chest, that dominance he held back—he had no way of controlling it right then—not when she called it out so blatantly.

  He gripped the back of her neck and pulled her to his lips. He thought the force of his touch, how his lips had surely bruised hers, would have made her cower, regret taunting, but her lips were just as hungry. Before he knew it he was the one surrendering to the power of her kiss, the one shivering when she bit his lip, teased him to give her more.

  His hands had pulled her against him. The heat of her bare chest against his was a fire he wanted to bask in. With more ease than he thought he could manage, his hands slid down her back feeling the curves his eyes had devoured for ages. When he reached her ass his fingers slid down. Right as he slipped his fingers inside, she hissed and bit his lip.

  Slick and hot, the feel of her was ripping at him. His energy took over and in that breath he had her against the drapes covering the windows. His lips broke from hers and slid down her neck. As he tasted her sweet ivory skin for the first time, every sense he had flamed to life. Her hands were moving across his chest, dipping lower. She was making her move to claim him, but he knew if she touched him now, touched him before the beast inside had a chance to devour her, that he would be too rough.

  His strong arms lifted her. Her head fell back as his lips glided over each of her breasts, teasing her nipples with his teeth. Her groan, those gasps of breath, it was utterly intoxicating to him, emboldening him. He kept going lower and when he reached his knees, when his lips kissed the heat of her flesh, he spread her legs around his shoulders and as he reached up to her hips he stood. The sweet agony came then, when he tortured her with slow glides of his tongue grazing across that tight ball of nerves.

  Her back bowed against the covered windows and she gripped them for balance, but he wasn’t going to let her go anywhere. His long arms had reached her chest. Nothing was going to take that woman from his arms.

  The touch...the taste of her was not taunting his beast as he feared, but taming it. For once, the beast didn’t care about its own primal instinct. Right then its only instinct was to have this woman, to satisfy her.

  She breathed his name, her hands clenched in his hair as her legs tightened around him. He grinned against the heat of her as his hands braced her and he pulled her from the window and then, with one force of his energy, had her laying across the bed, him prowling up her long legs.

  His fingertips reaching the core of her long before he did, right as he slid them inside he felt her begin to come apart. “No, I want you,” she said just as his fingertips taunted that release she was fighting to hold back.

  Evanthe used her own strength then, rolled him over and sat astride him. Her hands slid down his chest as her lips fell to his neck. She rocked her body against him as her kiss went lower and lower, and she did it at such a slow, agonizing pace that he was in pain long before he felt her reach his belt. She stared at him as she pulled it apart and freed his aching erection. It was too much, the feel of her delicate hand on him. A growl broke from his chest as he reached for her. He wanted inside her.

  Her hand braced on his chest, and he felt the force of her energy pinning him, showing its own dominance. That royal witch power within her. “It’s a balance, fighter. You get what you give. Yours,” she said rocking her body against his. “Mine,” she said as her gaze moved down every ridged muscle of his chest.

  He held her stare as she slowly lowered her head. Her lips teased, whispered kisses across the length of him. When she took him, he bowed his back, a hiss left his lips, his beast roared. Her hand never left his chest, the strength there, how she controlled him, broke him free for the first time ever. That power—the challenge—in her touch, it was exactly want he wanted, needed. There were no boundaries with her.

  As he felt himself begin to build, dare to fall apart, he took control. He grasped her arms then rolled her to her back. His knees were between her legs, his arms braced on each side of her. He leaned up, let his eyes graze slowly across her, then with one deep swoop he thrust into her. His hands slid up her chest claiming her arms and pinning them above her head as she bowed her back. He adjusted how deep, what angle his next thrust would be, and as he did he let one hand slide down her body, stole kisses, biting her lip as he pulled away and leaned up on his knees again, taking her hips with him. With her back arched off the bed, he was given the freedom to go deeper, harder, and he did, so much so that she let out a scream. As her body reached forward, he pulled her up and her arms clasped his shoulders as she fell on him again, as the speed, the rhythm became electric.

  Grasping, pulling, biting, clenching. It was raw, it was hard, it was every way.

  Then all at once, she slowed her pace, and he did too. Their eyes connected. That gaze, it was unexplainable, more than words, it reached past all meaning. It was that slow pace, the gentle glide of their bodies which were slick with sweat, and the gaze that finally sent Evanthe over her edge. He felt her legs quiver, heard her gasp of breath, felt the core of her squeezing around him in what was the most mind blowing—star-seeing—orgasm of his mortal and immortal life.

  That was their first time but not their last. For the next few weeks, they never really left the bed. Right after, the war with Zale did begin, and it was a long one. It took Thrash across the globe ten times over.

  Nearly a year later, when it settled, when the threat was over, he went to see her, but she wouldn’t let him in. They fought at the door, said a lot of mean things, then he left. It was another year before she emerged at the Boneyard and they began their ritual where she would bring him tea, and every now and again, let her hand run down his arm and send that burn through him again.

  Right now he felt used. Hurt. And mad that she would keep his kid from him. It was his right to know even if he was nothing but a puppet to her.

  What boiled his skin, drove him fucking mad, was that as furious as he was, he couldn’t find a way not to love her. To not think there was a chance this was just another one of her longsighted plots that are supposed to be best for them.

  That’s what sucked about dating an immortal witch—they knew too much or at least saw shit you couldn’t see, and they would just tell you to trust. His issue, that trust he gave her landed him with a kid he didn’t know how to talk to and a missing lover.

  Thrash’s wandering mind came into focus when random cars honked at each other. He stared them down for a second then glanced to the alley where Talon was, wanting him to hurry up. Talon may like to play games like this, but Thrash couldn’t stand that it meant he had be out in the open.

  ***

  Talon was leaning behind a brick ledge, which extended out from the building. He watched as Amber dared to make her way down the alley looking wide-eyed through the shadows as she crept closer. It was amusing to him. How she could be so brave and terrified at the same time.

  When she took a step past where he was, his arm reached out for her. She nearly screamed, but he had her against that wall too fast for it to come out.

  “Fuck, Talon,
” she hissed as her chest rose and fell rapidly. She slapped his chest with her palms. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Talon playfully narrowed his eyes. “You’re too naughty to be that scared,” he said as his hands reached for her hips, as his eyes dipped to her chest then rose to her eyes.

  “What the hell is going on? The guys ran us out of the clinic. There’s a fucking unmarked car outside of my apartment, follows me everywhere, and it’s not alone. Cracked out Goth wannabe witches are glaring at me at every turn, saying shit like I’m hexed.”

  “Popular girl.”

  Amber’s eyes were glazed over as she looked up at him. “I’m going to die.”

  “I heard that we all do at some point,” Talon said with wink. “My ingredients? The effects?”

  “Rim of my pants,” she said with a bite to her tone.

  Talon lifted his brow as if someone had laid a steak before him and he hadn’t eaten in days.

  “You told me to leave, to go for a run. I did. Where else was I suppose to put it?” she said as she went to get the tiny piece of paper she had tucked just below her navel.

  “Na uh,” he said as his hands braced against the brick wall on either side of her, so that his kut opened around her, shielding her. “Now, tuck it in my jeans.”

  Amber took the sheet of paper from against her body and reached for his stomach, lifted his shirt, and tucked the paper below the rim of his jeans as she glared up at his sinful stare raining down on her. “This seems safer to you? You think you leaning up on me in some alley is wise? Reveca knows everyone, they’re loyal to her. Someone could see us.” When she went to pull her hand away he leaned in further, made sure her fingers grazed the tip of his cock, let her feel that rush of knowing that she had an effect on him.

  “What have I told you before? What do we do when people are watching?”

  Amber could feel her heart thundering, her core shivering as the dare of him loomed ever closer. “Give them something to see.”