Page 121 of Awry
He moves with me like our souls have danced in the aether before, as if they will dance again and again.And I don’t bother questioning that sense.I don’t bother analyzing it.
Maybe this moment — though moments are always doomed to end — is a gift from the universe.
Who am I to deny such a thing?
Rought’s breath stirs the hair on my neck, and I suddenly wish I’d worn it up.His hand closes gently on my hip.But it’s me who takes that step back, closing the space between us.
My heart is pounding, skin prickling.The energy that usually disconcerts … well, everyone … must be pouring off me, but Rought doesn’t pull away.His hand tightens on my hip as he runs his fingers down my other arm.I helpfully stretch that arm out to the side, then up around his head.I thread my own fingers through his hair and brush my ass against his groin, barely managing to hold in a groan when I feel his hard, ready cock against my lower back.
No one pays any attention to the two of us, as if all the essence entwining us has created a shield of sorts.Everyone is dancing and laughing.Nobody gives a shit that I’m actually considering twisting around in Rought’s arms, somehow getting out of my pants while simultaneously releasing his woefully compressed cock from his own, then climbing him like he’s a tree.
My nipples harden, almost painfully.
I’ve never been so turned on in my life.
The dancers part around us for a moment, and I catch sight of Rath.He’s still seated at the table, and his gaze on me, on us, is intensely focused.I can practically see steam rising off him.He deliberately slides one hand off the table, reaches underneath it, and adjusts himself.Leaving his hand out of sight, seemingly on his cock.His other hand is fisted tightly on the table.
Rought laughs.I can see the grin he levels at his brother from the corner of my eye.The rumble of that deep, husky chuckle emanates from his chest across my back.
Heat blooms between my legs.And muscles I’m not sure I’ve ever properly used clench.Clench!I’m aware that I’ve been slowly and steadily getting wet, even slick, but this is … I’ve never felt —
The front doors — both of them — crash open, hard enough that the crack of the hinges, maybe even the door jambs, can be heard over the music.
Chains, backed by two enforcers who are bigger than Rath, maybe even as big as Breaker was, strides into the clubhouse as if he owns it.I see no sign of the two bouncers who were posted at the doors.The interlopers are wearing Cataclysm leathers and literally bristling with weapons.
The kinds of weapons that writhe with dark-tinted essence.Energy presumably designed to take down other shifters.
I know not because I’m usually sensitive to such things, but because I’m supposed toknow.
Someone pulls the plug on the jukebox.
For a brief moment, as a manically grinning Chains surveys the room with deliberate intent, silence reigns.He has the attention of every shifter in the clubhouse, including Doc and Cayley flanking me, and Rought at my back.
It takes me only a moment to understand that no matter the dark miasma surrounding their weapons, there is no way Chains has stepped so boldly into the literal heart of Outcast territory with only two shifters to back him.
Rath is up from the table and moving past our grouping before I’ve even sensed him standing.Maybe he doesn’t tweak my senses because he means me no harm.Maybe he can just move that quickly.
The moment Rath’s broad back blocks Presh from Chains’s view, Rought reaches around and tugs her behind me, placing his baby sister between me and him.Doc does the same with Kris.DeVille is statue-still by the bar.But then there’s a ripple of movement through every single other biker shifter in the bar, and he moves through them all to get to us, tucked up against Presh and Rought.
“Chains.”Rath’s voice rumbles out of the depths of his chest.“You better have a good reason for showing up here.”
“Don’t worry, junior,” Chains says.His Southern-tinted accent is thicker than I remember, likely deliberately so.“I’m not here for baby sis.Though she’d be a bonus.”Chains shifts deliberately to his right so he can look around Rath.A wide grin swamps his face as he makes eye contact with me.“Hello, twist.”He uses the derogatory term like it’s actually an endearment.
Rath briefly glances over his shoulder, eyeing me.Then he flicks his gaze to the side and over my shoulder, taking in the guard now surrounding me.Me and Presh.
“Come with us, and we’ll be all gentle-like,” Chains continues coaxingly.“The Cataclysm is a little pissed at me, you see, for what you did to Breaker.But we can make it up to him.Together.”
Rath chuckles.“I’m tempted to let you have Zaya, just to watch her utterly annihilate you and your … friends.”He sniffs the air, then exhales harshly as if he’s smelled something disgusting.
I presume it’s the weapons or the dire-wrought essence that I’m certain is what fuels those weapons.But maybe it’s the two shifters backing Chains.Now that I’ve spent some up-close and personal time with a berserker, I’m absolutely sure Chains has gone and collected two more before wandering into the club.
“Ah,” Chains croons.“Don’t worry about us, junior.We’re warded for awry.”He shoves back one side of his jacket, displaying a cracked black stone set in a metal brooch pinned to his belt or through one of his belt loops.Pewter, maybe?
It’s a dire-wrought construct.More specifically — because dire mages manipulate or destroy everything they touch themselves — it’s a protection artifact crafted by a fabricator, then infected with dire essence.The blackened, cracked gemstone makes that obvious.
I don’t know exactly what it does.But what it doesn’t do is ward anyone against the likes of me.Because despite how many lives would have been sacrificed to darkly twist that artifact, whatever dire mage the Cataclysm Motorcycle Club has in its ranks can’t possibly contend with the Conduit for all life force, all essence.Even if she — me — hasn’t fully settled into that position yet.
Before more words can be bandied about, aknowingseizes me.I actually freeze in place, the sensation wiping out my regular senses long enough that I miss a few bits of the mounting aggression between Chains and Rath.
