Three Trials (The Dark Side Book 2)(4)

Kai snorts out a laugh.

I continue on with my story, since I never told them the details of my beginning. “Finally, sound came. It was overwhelming at first. Smells were just behind it. Sight. Sound. Smell. Touch took the longest to appear. The last was taste that followed quickly,” I say, adding the last part a little quietly.

Ezekiel steps a little closer, then makes a conscious effort to put immediate space between us. He was my first taste.

“You got all pissy about us keeping you around just to boost our powers, yet you admit you stuck around with us to power yourself. Double standard much?” Jude drawls, being his typical asshole self.

My usual response would be witty and catty with equal parts menace and humor. Today, it’s honest. Might as well be brutally honest and rip the veins open. Death could come by nightfall for all of them, then me by proxy.

“You four were there for every step of my growth, even seemed to aide in it. I grew attached to all of you—infallibly loyal, viciously protective, savagely lustful, and tragically devoted. I genuinely believed I’d seamlessly slide into your lives and fulfill your need for a woman to share. Pathetic and short-sighted as it may sound to you, it was that fantasy that kept me coming back. And because the four of you unknowingly saved me for years, I became indebted to you on a scale that I can never repay. That is why I stick around. I could give in and just fade out—could go back when life would have been so much easier and less lonely. I finally get to be the one saving you, giving back to you all you gave to me, despite your rather extreme protests, so I stay.”

No one says anything for a while. It’s not the first time I’ve attempted to bare my heart and soul, then have the pieces of it get thrown in my face directly after by them.

It’s odd that I’m thankful for the next bird-snake that emerges to break up the awkward tension surrounding us. It shoots out, passing through me again, just like the last one.

“Why do they keep shooting out at me?” I snap as that sickly tail slashes through me, the bird-snake soaring out and away from us.

I think that other one must have somehow warned him I’d kick his scaly ass.

“I’m a badass,” I state primly as I walk a little taller in my sexy phantom heels.

“You could at least give us something pretty to look at while we’re off to face death,” Ezekiel states flatly.

“My outfit is badass and hot.”

“It’s…not our thing, really,” Kai drawls.

A sexy little red Devil Halloween costume appears on me, along with red fishnet stockings hooked to the garter belts. The cliché pitchfork, red horns, and little red heels complete the look for hell’s belly’s deadly excursion.

At first there’s silence, then suddenly there’s boisterous laughter, and I grin to myself while swishing my ass that is clad with red lace panties.

“May be just a little too distracting,” Gage groans.

“You wanted pretty. My ass in lace is as pretty as it can get.”

“I think it’s her vanity that always catches me off guard the most,” Ezekiel says on a rumble of laughter.

“I prefer to hear it called confidence,” I once again point out.

“I think it’s her greed that surprises me. Wanting all the jewelry and fancy dinners we bought the other women,” Kai muses.

“Not greed. I’m not really all that greedy, to be honest. I spent five years coveting the gifts you gave these women as tokens of your brief but passionate affection. They didn’t even know you, yet you showered them with such things. I still want all that,” I go on. “Even if you do deny me the rest of the fantasy, I still want all the sweet stuff. You might have saved my life, but you did it without effort. I’ve certainly had to exert effort to return the favor. I feel like the tokens of affection could be accepted as tokens of gratitude, and then there could be balance in the debts.”

It grows immediately silent, and I turn to look behind me to see they’ve also stilled.

“It’s not like you don’t have the money,” I say on an exasperated sigh.

“It’s just the choice of words you used,” Jude says, not giving anything away with his tone or expression.

A screech from below sounds before the earth starts shaking hard, and Kai is pitched to the side. The others shout for him as he falls toward a lava stream below us.

I zap down, landing on the last ledge before the cliff, and I turn whole just in time to grab his hand as he falls by me. His hand immediately clasps mine as my hair falls around my face.

Light beams around me, almost blinding the both of us, and I jerk him onto the ledge before the light disappears and I tumble to the ground in my phantom form, my heart racing so fiercely that I almost can’t stand, even without gravity hindering me.

Kai is panting heavily as he drops beside me, and he says, “You’re a lot stronger than you look.”

I laugh humorlessly, staring up but not able to see anything.

“What the fuck happened?! All we saw was a blast of light!” Gage shouts.

“I’m alive,” Kai calls out. “The rest can wait,” he adds, though it sounds as though he’s just talking to me as he pushes up to his feet.

He groans as he stares at all the lost progress.

“I’ll meet you at the top. Don’t linger. I don’t want to know what just shook the earth that hard,” he calls out.