Page 42 of Snag
“Step back,” I growl. “Even better, go double-check your inventory for tonight. In the stockroom.”
The pledge stumbles back from the bar, from me. Then he takes off like I’ve just threatened to murder him. It’s possible that the steady presence of the cu-sith is making me come off even more unhinged than usual.
Zaya smirks at me, totally fucking delighted at my unintentionally aggressive display. “Nasty boy, Reck.”
“I asked you what the fuck you’re doing here, Zaya.”
“You didn’t, actually.”
I lean closer, trying to intimidate her. I can’t scent her at all or feel the energy that usually pours off her. She’s masking both somehow, even though she didn’t at the motel. More lies. More fucking games. “Take off your sunglasses.”
Zaya giggles. Then she plucks her straw out of her empty glass, pushes that glass away, and stabs the straw into the newer slushy drink.
The sound of that laugh creeps up my spine.
The cu-sith presses forward, just for a moment, and sloughs that sensation off as it would a malignant spell. Why would the beast react to—
Zaya’s grin widens. “When was the last time we fucked?”
I rear back from her, completely thrown and weirdly disconcerted. My stomach sours. And unlike my response to her mere presence in the clubhouse last night, I swear my dick shrivels at the question.
Zaya and I never fucked. We fooled around those last couple of months together. But the three-year age gap between us had previously, and firmly, kept our friendship purely platonic. I was such a simp for her that anything else wasn’t even a thought in my mind when she was underage. Not until she climbed into my lap, in full view of my brothers, and kissed me. A switch flicked then. All the desire I’d been channeling elsewhere homed in on …
I kill the thought. It’s all just more concrete evidence of Zaya’s manipulative abilities.
She continues undeterred. “We should fuck. You’re completely on edge. And I think this conversation will go better if we fuck.”
It’s not unlike Zaya to initiate. I would have happily continued in my older-best-friend role until we were both in our twenties, even knowing that she and Rought had consummated their relationship, and that she and Rath had been fooling around for a couple of years as well. I was perfectly fine fucking other people. Just using any warm and willing body to get off, not even remotely serious about any of it.
Though … only when Zaya wasn’t in town, and never with any of the locals or Outcast members. Not until after … after Zaya died.
Supposedly died.
Maybe even faked her death to get away from all of us.
To get away from me.
Zaya giggles again.
And again, the sound is irksome. I’ve never found anything about Zaya remotely displeasing before —
Pure, unfettered relief floods my system. The cu-sith retreats even further back in my mind, as if in denial.
I’ve been released. Or I’ve overcome the terrifyingly intense attraction, the desperate need to belong to Zaya.
I’m free of her. Free of the obligation of the bond.
I have no idea what happened last night to trigger that disintegration. But I’m fucking free. Free to just sink into the darkness, to wallow within the depravity that I confront every day in my job. Even free of the retribution, the revenge, I’ve worked toward for the last thirteen years.
Zaya Gage didn’t die.
I’m not responsible for the death of my soul-bound mate.
I don’t need to avenge that death.
No bond lingers between us. No obligation.
I’m fucking free.
