High Voltage (Fever #10)(111)

“Then we need to make sure Mac has enough time.”

He growls assent.

“Any news of Christian?”

“Same. Kat’s been spending time at Draoidheacht Keep, working on Sean. Still no progress there. He destroys every living thing he touches.”

“People?” I gasp. I know the horror of that.

“No. As Famine, it’s only living plants and crops. People and animals are exempt. Those are Christian’s specialty.”

“Any trouble from other gods?”

“Not yet. But I suspect we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg there. Humans and gods will have to unite to have a chance against the Fae.”

Somehow, I vow silently, we’ll make that happen. “Bright side, we now have a Hunter on our side. And who knows, maybe I can rustle up reinforcements.”

He laughs. “If anyone can persuade the unpersuadable entities, it’s you.”

Then he’s on me again and we’re battling for dominance because we always will, that’s the way we’re wired and I lose myself in passion and think no longer of this world or anything in it.

He’s my ground zero, my mecca, beast to my dragon. Always.



* * *





π

When I was fourteen years old, I watched Ryodan having sex on level four at Chester’s; the subclub devoted to providing the carnal excess necessary to keep the Nine’s beasts under control.

I smile faintly. I’m Ryodan’s carnal excess now.

That day, so long ago, I marked him as mine.

There it is. The truth.

Crucify me for it, if you want. I don’t care.

I was never a normal fourteen-year-old.

I’ve never been a normal anything.

At fourteen, I’d vowed, one day, I’d be the woman making him laugh, making joy blaze from his face, so tangible it seemed I might catch it in my hands. I would trace the imperious, regal, stubble-shadowed planes of his face, close my hand around his cock and take him inside me. I’d be the one responsible for the firestorm of lust in his heavy-lidded gaze, for the savage rumble deep in his chest, the guttural, raw sounds he made when he came, half roar, half laughing, erotic purr.

Not with my fourteen-year-old body. I wasn’t ready for sex then.

But one day.

With a woman’s body.

The man was mine.

It wasn’t just lust I’d felt the afternoon I’d watched him fuck. And yes, I’d been capable of lust at that age—for life, for the sex I would one day have, for chocolate, for being alive. I’m made of lust. We all are. Savor it. Burn with it. Never apologize for it.

It’s what makes life worth living.

I know a truth: We fuck like we live. Timid people fuck timidly. Uninhibited people fuck uninhibitedly.



He’d fucked with one thousand percent focus, with savage devotion and lust. Staggeringly alive, elated to be.

It’s the way I’ve always lived. Fully engaged, all senses ablaze.

I recognized, that day, that he and I were the same kind of people. I hadn’t thought to ever find someone else in the world like me.

I’d been wandering the city, on my own, for six years by then. I’d seen and done far more than any child should. (When I think of Rae, I know how wrong my life was and I’ll do everything in my power to keep her childhood pure, not that Kat needs my help, but I’ll be there. Watching over her. Always.) I’d paid prices few adults ever have to pay. I’d carried sins that cut me to the core of that soul I used to pretend I didn’t have. Sins that had forced me to find creative ways of rearranging myself so I wouldn’t self-destruct.

Ancient eyes had stared out of my fourteen-year-old face at Ryodan, and I’d thought: This man will understand me. This man can withstand me.

That’s something for a woman of my complicated ilk.

He’s a pain in the ass. Stubborn, controlled, controlling. So am I.

He’s done unspeakable things. So have I. And I suspect we’ll easily speak about them with each other.

He’s fascinating, brilliant, hungry for more life all the time.

So am I.

He’s life and death, joy and grief, mercy and ruthlessness. So. Am. I.

It was hard for me to move through those years between us.

I resisted what I knew I wasn’t ready for. I resented every woman he took to his bed in a dark, possessive corner of my mind, including Jo. Even though I understood.



Then life unexpectedly gave me a man I was ready for.

And Ryodan had understood.

But…always, endlessly, I’d been pointed at this man like a beast-seeking missile, waiting for the day I was—not merely locked and loaded—but fully ready to take him on, woman to man.

That’s what Dancer had always sensed in me.

And loved me anyway.

I think both my loves are better men than I. I can’t share. I can’t be second best. I don’t know how to play that role.

“You’ll never have to,” Ryodan assures me, as he closes his arms around me from behind and grinds, hard and hungry against my ass.

“You should know I’m possessive.”

His arms tighten around me. “As am I. You and me. No one else. If you’re not okay with that, get the fuck out of my bed,” he says, as he begins pushing slowly inside me.