Page 53 of Failed State

Oh, gross! No fucking way.

“You’re mental if you think I’m ever going to?—”

Before I can finish the sentence, Rory’s face darts forward and his lips are on mine. I make a muffled, half-hearted sound of protest that even I don’t believe. He doesn’t stop, though; he just slips his tongue past my lips and dominates the kiss without pause. Lifting my hands to his shoulder, I tell my brain to push him away, but it ignores me completely in favor of grabbing onto his shirt. A small growl rumbles in the mage’s chest, and his hands land on my waist, yanking me into his arms.

Our lips break when we have to breathe, and I pant softly as I look at him. This isn’t me, and I never do this kind of thing. In fact, I’ve never donethisbefore. My entire body is filled with tingling sensations that make me want to ask him to show me what he can do. But I can’t do that—this situation is too fucking tenuous as it is. I sure as fuck can’t let a nice kiss and somestupid hormones convince me to make a shitty decision that will change everything.

“We can’t do this, Rory. Not because of your past, but because… this isn’t me. I’m not… This isn’t right.”

He bites his lower lip and I have to grit my teeth so I don’t take back what I said. That expression is hot and the heat rising in my frame wants me to give into it. Finally, he pulls back, sitting against the headboard again as he lets out a long, frustrated snarl. My eyes roam over his tense form and I see why he sounds like he’s going to lose his shit.

Damn. Now I know why he was so popular… that thing is freaking huge and I have no idea how it fits inside anyone.

“Stop that.”

I tear my eyes away from his sweats, a guilty expression on my face. “Stop what?”

“You’re not even fooling yourself, Vicious, but I’ll let it go because I’m trying like hell to respect your boundaries. But if you think I believe that this isn’t you? That you aren’t curious about what we could do together? You’re full on delusional, woman.”

He’s got me there, and that terrifies the shit out of me.

YOU’RE A DAISY IF YOU DO

HUCKLEBERRY

Somethingabout the story the vampire told is tickling my senses. I know our leaders don’t tell us shit at my level, despite the fact that I’m older than a good deal of demons living on the surface. They used to communicate more than they have since the fucking sweeps, but I figured it was because they’d managed to peace out to the homeland in time to avoid that shit.

But what if they didn’t make it?

I can’t imagine the kind of power and continual supply one would need to not only imprison, butkeepthe elder supernaturals from multiple species for years. It would require a strenuous, difficult to maintain kind of magic and power, plus beings who can withstand the effects of being around that for a lengthy amount of time. They’d need day-to-day sustenance and care, which means a lot of black market shit is being funneled to the location without anyone being the wiser. The operation has to be massive, very secret, and overseen by knowledgeable supes—humans wouldn’t know the details we keep from public knowledge and those things could kill ancients like the leaders.

Digging my fingers into my hair, I pace back and forth in the room as I consider how I can find out more about what’sgoing on in the Underworld. We don’t have the ability to contact one another in the camps because the necessary materials for summoning a messenger are hard to come by, and therefore, expensive. I’ve relied on incoming demons and gossip along the criminal grapevine to get what I need for a while, but that may not be enough. I’m going to have to figure out some way to contact demons who aren’t constrained by the humans’ dominance on this continent.

It will have to be hidden in the social media or TV shit—that will be tricky.

“Some days, I wish I’d fucking skedaddled like a lot of the other old guys. Others, I realize that would have prevented me from finding the person who will eventually make my long-assed life bearable.” I pause in my pacing, blowing out a breath slowly. I haven’t told Thad, much less Sydney, what I know about her and me. We both have a thing for her and that’s about the extent of what we’ve discussed—and not much about it, either. He’ll be pissed when he finds out, especially since he’s mentioned his own thoughts on the matter and I stayed quiet.

This sort of thing for shifters isn’t the same as it for demons, though. Besides theverydifferent things that will happen in the acceptance of that—physically, magically, and biologically—his claim won’t involve immortality. It won’t require the sacrifices mine would, and I’m not ready to talk about that with our girl a’tall.She’snot ready to hear it, either, which is why I’ve kept my interest through flirting a bit.

But Sydney Jolie is most certainly my mate—even if she truly is Thad’s as well.

My brows furrow as I consider the belly-ups I’ve seen from the other supes in our new clique. I don’t get why any of them are complying with her demands other than wanting to survive this shit. However, they could easily have stayed clammed up and made underhanded deals to fuck the three of us over during theteam-wide events. They didn’t and that makes me wonder why—have they, too, figured out something about my sweet pea that would benefit them? Is that why they’re accepting this far more easily than I would ever have expected?

“Thad and I need to get them alone and try to ferret out their intentions, especially the vampire. His stories have rocked my world, too, and I didn’t think that was possible anymore.”

I’m not going to solve this without some help, but I don’t want to involve people I don’t trust yet. Frowning, I walk out of my room, heading to the living area to pour myself a hefty drink. Once I’ve got mine and a second for Thad, I walk back to the rooms and knock softly on Thad’s door. We’ve had a secret pattern for years so we could visit one another at night if we felt we needed to chat without our girl in the middle. He opens the door in sweats, his big frame taking up most of the doorway as he tilts his head curiously.

“Huck? What the hell, man? It’s getting late and those alarms are fucking brutal here.”

I roll my eyes at his whining, handing him his whiskey as I push inside of his room. “We need to talk about the shit that’s gone down without the new faces and Sydney clouding the discussion, friend.”

Thad closes the door, sighing heavily as I walk in and flop on one side of his bed. “How did I know that was why you came tapping at my door at this time of night?”

“Don’t be such a grumpy old bear, Thaddy. You love when I come tip-toeing to your room.” I wink at him playfully and he looks up again as if I’m the most trying thing in the universe.

“Huck,” he says as he joins me on the bed with his glass. “You’re being ridiculous. Just tell me what the hell you want.”

My lips quirk as I eye the big guy. I know he’sa littleinterested in my flirting, but has no idea what to do with it. As a demon, I’m as pansexual as they come, and he’s definitely onehuge hunk of beefcake, so I’d happily teach him a few things if he responded. Based on his responses, though, Thad isn’t ready for that conversation any more than he is when I bring up Sydney.

---