Chapter 41

“He held the iron there for longer than was necessary just to watch me writhe in pain. But I didn’t scream. I never let them hear me scream. When he finally pulled it away, he was ready for the reason he had come by. He dropped to the ground and moved on top of me. He hadn’t been paying attention though because Billy wasn’t passed out in the house. She snuck up behind him and used the branding iron to club him in the head.” I still remembered the satisfaction of seeing his blood dot the air and feeling his body jerk off mine as he was knocked unconscious.

“Regory got home seconds after that. Together the three of us dragged Tendon out of the stables and to the fire pit that my aunt and uncle had built before Billy and I were born. Billy tied him down, putting knives through his hands so that he wouldn’t be able to move immediately. Regory doused him in gasoline. And I lit the match,” I said. “It felt like it took him forever to die, but all three of us stood there watching him burn without helping him. Because Grandfather finally succeeded. We had broken.

“As he died, Grandfather arrived with an entourage. They didn’t realize how dangerous we’d become, though. We were done with it all. We were done fighting and we were ready for the battle to draw to its conclusion. All three of us had been fighting to survive, but at that point?” I asked as the memories of how hopeless it all seemed flooded me. “At that point we just wanted to see them suffer.

“He came in to beat us and we began to fight back, like we always had, but this time we weren’t doing it with the hope of getting out alive. We were doing it with the hope of watching him die. Our uncles, who had come with Grandfather, jumped into the fray. I have no idea how many died before I saw the solution. Before I saw freedom.

“My grandmother had come with Grandfather, you see. Because her son was dying and she couldn’t stay away. She was outside the melee and that was all I needed. I grabbed her and hauled her to my front and pressed a blade to her throat.”

I remembered how the fight had ground to a halt. Everyone staring at me. Billy and Regory had quickly disengaged and were by my side. Supporting me in whatever I did.

“I made a deal with Grandfather,” I said. “Let us go and your mate will live. We’ll take a blood oath.”

Loki breathed in sharply. No one knew how we got away from the infamous Morlyn Thomas. He hadn’t shared and we certainly kept a lid on it. So I was giving him the same thing he did me. Something no one else was allowed to know.

A blood oath is serious amongst our kind. It’s not just a symbolic thing. It invokes the demon who created our family line. At this point, it’s all extremely muddled, but a demon will still answer the call of the blood. It is their job to make sure both parties stick to the deal made. If someone breaks? The demon is notified by magic and they come and deal out the consequences agreed upon.

“He agreed because he couldn’t lose his mate. We each cut our hands and let the blood mix on the ground. He agreed to never touch me or mine once we left his territory or his mate would die. I agreed not to touch him or his once I left his territory or Billy would die. The magic washed over all of us, letting us know that a demon had seen the oath and agreed to uphold it.

“Grandfather left. We grabbed everything we could, piled into Regory’s car and took off. It’s the last time any of us ever saw a member of the Thomas Family. The rest, you know. His car and what little money we had could only get us to New Orleans. After you came and got them, I just stuck around because I had nowhere else to go.

“I was homeless for the year and a half before getting Orphaned. I spent most of my time just walking the streets. It’s safest to keep moving at all times. When the weather was bad, I stayed with a couple of prostitutes who went by Coco and Chanel. They were nice and appreciated that I took care of their pimp. They got a new one eventually and he wasn’t nearly so… Vicious.

“I wasn’t surprised when I was Orphaned. At least that it had happened. What did surprise me was…how alone it made me realize I was.”

Neither of us said anything for a while after that. We didn’t have any more secrets to tell and we were absorbing what we learned about the other. The sorrow that the other had to suffer through.

When the silence became too long, I got off the bed, taking my plate with me. Loki rose to his feet with his plate as well. “Asire?” he said, looking down at the empty dish like it might give him some answers.

“Yeah?” I asked. I was standing at the foot of the bed now, but stopped when he said my name.

He dropped his plate onto the bed and took one step toward me. His hands cupped my face and before I could figure out what was happening, his lips were on mine. And my brain shut down. The very last thought I had was, Yep. He’s turning me into a chick.

After that everything became about Loki. His lips were soft on mine and I found that mine were moving with his. I was vaguely aware of dropping my plate onto the carpet so that my hands were free. One fisted into his sweater and the other gripped his back so that he couldn’t get away.

He overflowed my senses and it was magnificent. His scent in my nose, his taste in my mouth. The only thing my skin could feel was him. His hands on my face, keeping me close to him. Those soft lips moving against mine.

It was almost overwhelming, feeling all those things. My body ignited and if I’d had more experience, I think I would have thrown him on the bed and crawled on top of him. There wasn’t a single part of me that felt capable of that though. I was only capable of letting him do what he would.

He used his lips to gently pry mine open and then his tongue was in my mouth. I pressed my body against his, feeling the heat through that well defined chest. My breasts were nearly flatted with how close we were standing together.

He moved one of his hands from my face and set it on my waist, urging me closer to still. My body was already molded to his, but somehow I managed to inch even nearer. His head was bent down at what had to be an uncomfortable angle, but if he didn’t care, then neither did I.

Nothing had ever felt like this for me. The entire house disappeared around me and his hard body was everything.

His other hand moved down to my hips. Those fingers biting into my body. It wasn’t painful, though I suspect he was gripping me pretty hard. All I felt was him. And because it was him, nothing was scary. His scent in my nose and his body against mine. All of it felt right and natural.

We started shifting and it took me a second to figure out we were moving toward the bed. Somehow, everything in me grew even more desperate for him. I could see him walking out of the bathroom naked and I felt like it would be better if I was also—

“Ella! What the hell are you doing!” someone shrieked from downstairs.

Loki and I leapt apart, as if an electrical current zapped the fuck out of both of us.

We stared at each other for several seconds. His eyes were so dark and hungry and his mouth was slightly open. I have little doubt that I looked half crazed for what he had been offering.

The look in his honey colored eyes changed. Just slightly. Just enough for me to crash back into my body and my senses like I had been dropped from a plane. He looked mortified.

“Ella!” that person downstairs shrieked again. Now that I was plugged back into the world, I realized that it was Lixa. She didn’t sound angry, like one would expect from her. She sounded scared and surprised.

For a second more I was confused but then… Ella.

“Shit,” I said, rushing for the door. I was out and halfway down the stairs before I realized that Loki was right behind me. Again. Eventually, we’d have to deal with what just happened, but right now, we had bigger things to worry about. It was surprisingly easy to turn all that lust into adrenaline when I needed it.

I rounded the corner and didn’t see anyone, but there was a commotion coming from the kitchen. And not the kind that someone makes while cooking or cleaning. Without slowing down, I tore off for the room. In my peripheral, I saw the children crowded around the dining room door. There were plates on the table and the oldest of them was blocking the others in. Smart boy.

I bust through the dining room and into the kitchen, skidding to halt in my socks when I arrived.

Lixa was down for the count. Her body was sprawled across the floor, all spindly limbs tangled into a heap. It looked like she had gotten nailed in the head with something. Based on the pot sitting on the floor beside her, I believe I had a culprit.

Henrik was standing on the far side of the room. He had his arms held out and was talking as soothingly as he could. “Ella,” he said. “You need to stop and think. Your daughter is still alive and well. We’ll get her back and she’ll want to see you.”

Ella made a sound between a sob and a scream. “You don’t understand! You can’t understand!”

He edged backward. In that moment, he glanced up and noticed me and Loki in the doorway to the dining room. His glance alerted Ella and she jerked around uncoordinatedly. There were tear tracks down her face and her eyes were bloodshot and wild, hair a mess on top of her head. It was almost worse how neat and clean her clothes looked.

The second her eyes landed on us, her whole body jerked and she scrambled to find a place to stand where she could watch all of us. It was doomed to fail from the beginning. Anywhere she put her body meant she was cornering herself.

“All of you stay away,” she warned. She decided that I was the most worrisome and whirled around so that she was facing me. Since I was the fastest person in the room, her assessment wasn’t far off. “You don’t understand,” she implored me. “It’s gone. I’m so empty. What am I supposed to be without him when I’m so empty now?” She hit herself in the chest, between her breasts, as if to illustrate her point. Then she began to claw at her skin. “There’s nothing there!” she shouted.

“Ella,” I said, calmly. “It’ll be okay. Let’s just get you upstairs.” The lie came easily. It wasn’t going to be okay. Nothing in this was okay.

Her eyes shifted over to Loki. “You understand,” she almost begged. “You know what it’s like. I’m so empty. Don’t make me stay empty.”

Loki shifted on his feet. “It’ll get better,” he said. “It doesn’t stay this bad forever. I promise.”

I glanced at his face. His eyes were honest and his face sincere. If he couldn’t get through to her, I wasn’t sure if anything would.

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want it to get better,” Ella moaned. “If it’s better, then he’s really gone.”

“He’s gone anyway,” Loki told her.

She sobbed and covered her face with her hands.

“Ella,” Henrik tried. “Let’s get you upstairs so you can rest.”

Her sobbing and moaning was tearing at my heart. The two of us had never gotten along, but I wouldn’t wish this kind of suffering on anybody. She looked so breakable while being so broken. I’d never seen Ella look this soft before. It was wrong. She was tough, she had always been tough.

She clutched at her shirt, just above her heart. “I can’t sleep without him,” she said. “I can’t keep going without him. What am I supposed to do when Millie asks where her daddy is?” She shook her head. “How am I supposed to raise her without him around to help me? Why can’t he come home?” she begged. Her knees were starting to shake and I thought we were almost home free.

Then she proved me wrong. She shook her head violently and snatched something off the counter. When it gleamed with the overhead light, I realized it was a knife. She pointed it at me and said, “I won’t go on.”

“Ella!” both men shouted, trying to get her attention. I didn’t bother with anything like that. Her despair had too good a hold on her for words to work. The only thing that could help her was time and I needed to buy some.

I launched forward and snatched her wrist that was holding the knife. She moaned and screamed when she couldn’t move it. Recognizing the defeat, she dropped the knife and began to struggle to get free of me.

He legs and arms kicked wildly. She threw her weight back and then forth, but I held on tightly. If I let her go, then that would be the end of it. She’d find a way to kill herself before we could stop her.

There was a metallic ring and Ella dropped to the ground. I backed up and breathed a sigh of relief. Reggie was standing behind her with the pot that had knocked Lixa out. “That ought do it,” Reggie said.

“Reggie!” Henrik barked.

“What, you rather I let her die?” my best friend asked. She set the pot aside and dusted her hands off. “Don’t be absurd. We’ll set two people on her this time and we need to get Lixa up to bed.” She hid behind efficiency, but I could see the sadness in her. The wish to make everything better.

At that moment, my eyes met Loki’s.