Page 6 of Sustaining
“Sinister was helping her,” Kain says as calmly as possible.
My father’s big hands clench closed at his sides, preparing to act on whatever hostile things are flashing through his mind. He matches Kain’s height, his body broad but not the same. Not built for strength like Kain’s is.
“Does he look like someone who just devoured a soul as delicious as your daughter’s?” Chaos lifts his hands in explanation, but it only makes my father’s disgusted gaze turn toward the shifter lounging a little too comfortably on my bed.
“You’re not helping right now,” Rime whispers to his friend.
Sinister curls up on his side, uncontrollable shivers storming through his body. One hand lifts him a few small inches off the floor, his back hunches, and then he vomits. He spews an inky substance all over that pretty lime rug my mother loved so much.
Seconds pass as my father stares down on the demon crumbled and in pain on the floor. He looks from me to Sinister and then back again. His shoulders straighten, and he meets Kain’s gaze. Eye to eye, they study one another with so much protectiveness it’s hard to even breathe with all the aggression in the room.
“Bellamix gets off work in one hour. Clean this shit up before she gets home, and if you fuck up one time with my daughter—one time—while you’re under this roof, I’ll bury your bodies at sea.”
Kain nods an understanding.
My father’s features soften as he lowers himself down. His gaze trails across my tear-streaked cheeks and the way I’m clutching my hands together, my fingers moving in a way that I haven’t felt in nearly twenty-four hours.
There’s so much in his gaze. There’s so much he wants to say, but it seems he’s afraid to ask.
“I just don’t want to lose you again, Arrie.” He whispers my name with so much protectiveness, he doesn’t realize how similar he and Sinister really are.
Slowly, he brings me close, and I hug him hard, my fingers digging into his shirt, inhaling the scent of timber clinging to his clothes. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes. “You’re all right, though?”
There’s a moment where I feel small again. I feel like that little girl who just needed her father’s attention to make the world good again.
But I haven’t been that little girl for a long, long time.
“I’m better than I have been in years, Dad,” I whisper on a shaking breath.
Dark Seduction is definitely not as sexy as Sinister’s accent made it sound. But I’m healed inside and out because of it.
Because of Sinister.
Four
Wickedly Sinful
I watchhim closely while he pushes cold water across his face from the basin. He drinks handfuls of it down repeatedly. His hands no longer shake, but the tension in his body is like nothing I’ve ever seen from him. He was right, though; I’m exhausted.
That didn’t stop me from following after him down the hall and into my parents’ small bathroom. Clear water streaks down the sharp angle of his jaw, saturating the black shirt collar. His eyes stay closed for several seconds before he finally looks up at me in the doorway.
“It hurt you, didn’t it?”
“I’m fine, Arrie.” He wipes his face on a bright-teal towel, seemingly brushing off my question and my concern that’s still etching my face.
My arms fold, my fingers still opening and closing every few seconds just to make sure they still can. It’s a weak grip of my fingers, my arm stinging with pain, but at least I can actually feel things now.
“Please tell me. Don’t keep secrets from me, Sin. Tell me if it’s hurting you, please.”
“It hurts me just to look at you, Arlow. Is that what you want to hear? It hurts. Everything hurts inside me when you’re near, but I’m not touching you. That shit in your room, that didn’t hurt. Not even close in comparison to the last five years.” His jaw snaps closed as his Adam’s apple works to swallow down the rise of his voice. “I’m sorry.”
The whisper is a rasping sound that sinks right through me.
All that easy composure he holds together so well is cracking away right before my eyes. The pressure he puts into pressing his hands against his hips makes his knuckles turn white, his gaze pinned to a place on the floor between us.
On slow steps, I cross that space. His attention follows each step I take, his hands gripping harder onto his narrow hips like he’s forcing himself not to reach out to me. When I’m near enough, my hands push up the etching lines of his chest. He feels so good. He feels like everything I’ve wanted for so long. I was afraid he and I were too different now. Life had changed us too much. But it hasn’t. It has and it hasn’t. We’re different, sure. But what we have together isn’t. The way he and I fit together is exactly the same.
I take my time, drifting and exploring along his chest before threading my fingers through his soft black hair. The smallest movement has my chin tipped up to him, letting his height tower over me as he stares down on me.
