Sin of Fury (24 page)

There was too much
happening at once, he thought, picking up the phone. He sat on the
edge of the bed, dialing the number that he hadn’t even known only
several minutes ago. He hadn’t let Jamie see, but his body
was
still
on fire.
Now that he remembered everything, his mind was filled with things
that he had been happier not knowing about.

“
Hello, this is 4th Street
Ally Cat bar. Our times are from four pm to three pm on Monday
through Thursday...”

“
Put me on the phone with
Lucian.” He would have called his partners cell, but it was blocked
to any number that wasn’t on the list. A local hotel sure as hell
wasn’t going to be on the list, so calling his bar was the easiest
thing he could do.

“
May I ask who is calling?”
came a pleasant reply. Still, though, Talon could hear the fear in
it. Not many people knew of Lucian, it wasn’t something that people
exploited. Talon was the face of the man, and he was okay with
that.

“
Talon. Now let me speak to
my partner, please,” he said, forcing out the “please”.

There was a pause, and then, “Please
hold for one second, sir.” It was more respectful now, as if the
woman who answered knew who she was talking to. He scrubbed a hand
over his face and listened as water rushed in the bathroom. He
could hear every single thing that Jamie was doing, and he had to
actually force himself to ignore her.

As J-Cole’s “Work Out”
played through the phone, images of her body, naked and glistening,
came to his mind. He grabbed the blanket and covered himself,
hating the hard-on that was forming. Her breasts were so perfect,
so clear in his mind, he could almost
taste
them as he pictured running his
tongue over them, biting and leaving small marks, claiming her as
his own.

There was not a doubt in his mind that
she wasn’t his. But to keep her?

That was a different story
altogether.

J-Cole stopped singing about doing
some girl and the sound of his partner's voice, shocked and almost
relieved, came through the line. “Talon?”

“
Get us a ride, will you?
Track the call and find out where I am. We need to leave in less
than an hour.” He didn’t bother greeting the man, instead getting
straight to business.

“
Got it. Alishia...” Lucian
trailed off as he talked to someone in the background. Talon
waited, rubbing his forehead with one hand, holding his hard-on
down with the other, and cupping the phone between his shoulder and
ear. It was a minute before he heard his friend come back on the
line. “God, man, do you know how long it’s been?”

“
About six months.” He
sighed, then cursed. “How long till you found out? I knew you were
keeping track of me,” he said, skipping the preliminaries once
again. “Why didn’t someone come get me sooner?” A growl rose in his
throat, infuriated. He had been trapped in that fucking hell hole,
and no one had come to get him? His mind refused to wrap around the
knowledge.

“
We only learned last night
that you had been...taken. It was those bastards, wasn’t
it?”

Before, as a human, he hadn’t known of
his past or even what he was. It was why he had been willing to go
with Lucian several years back when he had been approached by the
man. At the time, Talon had been going to therapy. For years, his
mother had been convinced that the devil was within him. He had
often woken up in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of
his lungs, the pain of fire licking along his flesh so fresh it had
been almost real. On good nights, he would dream of other times,
when a woman with pale blue eyes would come to him, dressed in
medieval garb.

But it had always ended the
same.

The two of them in flames.

Now, though, he knew exactly what
Lucian was talking about and wondered how he knew of Auro and
Lyne.

“
Yeah. Want to know what
they did to me, Lucian?” he said, fighting the urge to rip the
phone from the wall. He would have told him, would have made him
feel like absolute
shit
for not finding Talon before they could begin
their major fuck-dandy-hand games on him, but it was too
shameful.

“
Not...really. Listen, man,
I’m so sorry. You aren’t too far from where you had been before. I
called the maids in the flat last night and they didn’t say much,
only that you hadn’t been there. I hope you don’t mind, but they
got fired quick.” A ring of irritation resonated through his deep
baritone.

“
Good. You knew about
Jamie, didn’t you?” he asked, more pissed than betrayed. Why hadn’t
Lucian said anything to him? If he had, then he would have found
her and he might not have been taken by the Immortal bastards that
lived for pain.

“
I did,” Lucian said,
sighing into the phone. There was a staticy sound, and then he came
back online.

“
Listen, we’ll talk more
when you get here. Keep her safe, and don’t let Auro get a hold of
her. He shouldn’t have a chance, because your ride should be there
soon. You’re only a couple miles away from the Ally Cat, but I have
your bike at Sinclair.”

“
Got two helmets?” he
asked, hating that he was concerned for Jamie’s safety.

“
Yep. I hope she doesn’t
have a problem with the bike, she doesn’t know how you
ride.”

Talon actually smirked as he hung up
the phone.

“
Houston? We have a
problem...”

Jamie stared at the black piece of
metal that was going to be her ultimate death. It was large, but
didn’t seem big enough to hold two people. There were two helmets
hanging off of the handles, and the large moving truck that was
driving away had been her last chance at life.

Sun rays beamed down on them, and the
wind was messing with her hair. Talon cast her a look before
grabbing the large black ball of death and handing it to her. He
took the keys out of the other one and jingled them in his hand.
“Get on the bike, princess. It isn’t going to kill you.”

“
Did you not
hear
me? We have a
problem
,” she said, fear
underlying her voice.

“
Which is?” he asked,
almost arrogantly. She watched with horror as he swung a leg over
the the large metal contraption and proceeded to look at her
expectantly.

“
My imminent death,” she
said thinly, getting light headed. She had only been on a
motorcycle once, and it had been with Chris. He had been too
reckless, swerved, and she still had the scar to prove the crash.
Her stomach turned at the thought of actually going on one of those
things again.

“
You aren’t going to die,”
he said drolly, holding out the helmet again. She took it with
shaking hands, staring at him doubtfully.

“
Why do I have a hard time
believing that?” she asked out loud, talking to herself more than
him. He gave a chuckle and turned the ignition. The thing purred to
life and she swore it stared at her with death hungry headlights.
Her knees knocked together as she came forward, closer than she
wanted to be.

“
Because you’re a chicken,”
he said, right before yanking on her shoulder and, in one
shockingly fluid motion, setting her in front of him. His arms came
around her from behind, settling on the handle bars.

“
This isn’t...safe,” she
stammered, hating the heat that came from him. It made her feel
warm, made her remember last night. She wanted nothing more than to
turn in her spot and kiss him full on -- hell, it might be a better
distraction than anything else.

Jamie licked her lips, remembering the
hot press of his mouth on hers. She clenched her legs as best she
could, fighting the feeling in her stomach. He took the helmet from
her and slipped it over her head.

“
I know, but now I won’t
think of you jumping off the back for the safety of the ground,” he
said, a deep chuckle in his voice before he put his foot under hers
and did one of the most frightening things ever.

Jamie squeaked when they
shot off. Her eyes closed tightly and she turned her face into his
neck, trying to think of something else,
anything
else. Actually, take that
back.

She didn’t think it would be good to
think of them together at a time like this, although she wouldn’t
mind dying like that. Wind rushed through her hair, whipping it
back against his face. Flashbacks of flying into a tree after
skidding over mud and twigs, crawled through her mind.

Bile rose in her throat.

She almost started screaming at him to
stop, to make her walk, but then, despite the chaos in her mind,
his hand came around, off of the handles, and threaded into her
hair, right at the edge of her helmet.. The touch was soft and
light, but it held her frozen. She didn’t notice the trees flashing
by them, the cars they sped around, or even the young couple that
they cut off at a crosswalk.

God, his hand was like magic. It was
hard and calloused, and as his fingers threaded into her hair to
massage her frantic nerves, her body turned boneless. She didn’t
notice that they had stopped until his hand left her hair. He took
the helmet off of her and for what seemed like the first time, he
smiled down at her.

“
That wasn’t so bad, was
it?” he asked, the smile in his eyes reflecting in his
voice.

A warm blush came over her as she
looked back up at him. “It was horrible.”

Her blunt tone of voice only made his
smile widen. “Oh, I just bet. Poor little Jamie, scared of a
motorcycle...”

“
I was in a crash once,”
she said, feeling her chest tighten. With what, she had no idea.
His teasing felt so natural, as if he were meant to be with her and
they had been together for years. The familiarity was a small shock
to her, but it made her smile softly.

“
How did that happen?” he
asked, sounding as if he didn’t really care that much. He helped
himself off, then her. Her foot left the small brace at the bottom
of the back and she took in her surroundings as she
explained.

“
My ex-boyfriend wanted to
take me on a ride,” she started, eyeing the flat building that sat
in front of her. In bold serif letters, it says “The Ally Cat. Bar
and Gaming.” Under it, the silhouette of a woman was shown in a
seductive pose with long curls falling to the bottom of the
sign.

She looked back at him, noticing his
look. He was silent as he waited for her to talk, a new awareness
in her eyes. “I was all for it at first, then he got reckless.”
Images of the past flashed in her mind, of her laughing with pure
joy and then the fear that she wasn’t safe. “I had asked him to
slow down, or to at least stop and let me off. He had taken the
only helmet for himself and I hadn’t cared, I didn’t think it would
be that big of a deal.”

A low, dangerous sound came from
Talon, but she didn’t hear it. A young woman walked past them,
walking even quicker when she saw the look on Talon’s face as he
stared at Jamie. Her eyes were far away, lost as she remembered.
“The crash hadn’t been that bad. But seeing your life flash before
your eyes -- it’s life changing,” she said softly, turning to look
at him again. The sun was out, but barely. Clouds surrounded it,
shadows covering them as they stood in front of the imposing
building.

“
So he didn’t even consider
you?” he snarled, looming over her.

Jamie backed up, eyes widening. He
looked pissed, but in a different way than when he was possessed.
The demonic voice was long gone, and so far he hadn’t been looking
at her as if he wanted to kill her -- right now, he looked like he
wanted to kill Chris.

It made her smile.

“
Even I wasn’t thinking
about myself --”

“
That doesn’t matter.” His
eyes hard, body tense, he turned from her and stormed to the door,
taking out his motorcycle keys and shoving them into the lock.
Twisting it open with an angry motion, he pulled the door open and
watched her enter, his body radiating with fury.

Anxiously, she walked into the
building and looked around, trying to ignore how angry he was. It
hadn’t been that big of a deal, but the fact that
he...cared.

Her heart turned over.

“
Lucian?” Talon asked from
behind her, into the dark. She looked at him like he was crazy.
What were they doing? Meeting up with a vampire in a sex-rotten
bar? The name that came from him left a hollow feeling in her
--

“
Here. Man, I am so sorry
about what happened. Do you need me to call a thera--”

“
Shut the hell up and don’t
even finish that sentence. I don’t need a therapist,” he said
bluntly, walking forward to slap backs with a man that came from
the shadows. Her eyes widened when she saw him.

He had been leaning casually against
the bar, farther in the back so the darkness covered him. Stools
were flipped upside down on the counter, just as the rest of the
bar was. Chairs were on top of the tables and a broom was against
the wall. Only three lights were on, illuminating the wooden floors
and the steel poles in the corner. A shadow covered the room, and
it really seemed as if they were going to meet a vampire or some
other dark creature of the night.