Page 33

HARVEY

Time was slipping away, and that used to mean nothing to me. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have given a shit, but now we were five days away from the curse's deadline. Five days until some mystical bullshit would make me kill my mate. The only woman I'd ever loved. Hell, the only woman I'd everliked.Before her, I'd been a dick and a user, only sticking around long enough to get my dick wet. Haley would have cut my dick off if I'd tried that with her in the beginning.

But it had always been more. With a bond in the mix and Wane's feelings obvious, his attachment to her instantaneous, there was no way I could use her like I used everyone else. I'd never believed in fairy tale romance shit, but everything about meeting Halwen was fate. Not thebump into each other in the street and instant lovekind of fate. The kind that was forceful and gritty and undeniable.

If she hadn't been sent to hunt Wane, we'd never have met her. I didn't give a shit that Cronus was pulling Locke's strings. Higher beings were the ones who measured and cut the strings of our lives. They were the ones who sent Haley to us, who made her every bit as sarcastic as me, as serious as Em, as sweet as Wane, and as volatile as Kai. She fit with every one of us, and she was the best damn part of all of us.

Now, I remembered every day we'd lived together, the thought of losing her, of killing her myself made me physically sick. Bile rose into my throat, but I pushed it back down, stroking my fingers over Haley's knuckles and wondering if we were idiots for leaving the house.

But we couldn't sit in the safe house and wait to murder each other. It had been agonising enough doing that yesterday after Typhon melted through the wall and left us.1We'd spent yesterday planning how to trap Cronus, and while we had a decent plan, it would be completely pointless if we killed each other before we could put it into action.

Which brought us to now, walking down the dubious, criminal Ulrich Crescent to meet an alchemist who was also dubious and criminal. But weren't we all? Fuck knows how many people I'd killed to protect my family. It had to be over twenty. Maybe over fifty. Haley's body count was higher; so was Kai's. I was in no position to judge.

"What are you thinking about?" Haley asked, squeezing my hand and peering up at me. Her stormy grey eyes sliced through my flesh and bone and right to my heart, making it skip.

"How goddamn sexy you are when you kill people," I replied, giving her a long, searing look from head to toe. Her boots were covered in dirt from trekking from the nearest rift, her black jeans so tight they were practically sprayed onto her thighs, and there was a slash in her distressed grey shirt that gave me a perfect glimpse of cleavage.

Noticing my attention, she dropped my hand so she could press her boobs together, making my mouth water with more than a little glimpse. My cock hardened as I imagined sinking it between those perfect tits.

She laughed, mischievous and smug, but I grabbed her arm and dragged her against me, kissing the smile off her face so roughly, I tasted blood. Fuck. The taste made me almost feral, and I tilted her head with a grip on her chin so I could kiss her deeper, turning her into a gasping, moaning puddle. My beast was close enough that I could smell the arousal dripping from her pussy, and I wanted a taste of that, too.

"Harvey," Emlyn barked, straightening his new beanie hat—a silver that matched his wings and purchased from the same shop my gloves and Kai’s scarf came from. I didn’t know what gift she’d got Wane; he’d been secretive about it.

Haley let out a soft sound, her fingers curling in my jacket, and there wasn't a single word anyone could say to stop me kissing my mate.

"Now isn't the fucking time," Kai hissed. "Or did you forget we're on a deadline?"

"Emphasis on the dead," Wane murmured. He wasn't cursed to kill Haley like us, but it felt like a curse for him to watch us all die, leaving him alone. If Haley's curse mark didn't take him, too.

"They're right," Haley panted, drawing back from me.

But her pupils were dilated, so big they almost swallowed the bluish grey, and her hips rolled against mine.

"People will see," Emlyn pointed out as I bent and picked up Haley, her muscular thighs like fucking heaven in my hands.Mine. All mine.

No one would take her from me again. Not fucking ever. And if we were all going to die in five days, I was going to take every damn shot as happiness and pleasure I got.

"Then cover me," I replied to Emlyn.

I pressed a long kiss to my mate's forehead and searched the dingy street, finding a dark alleyway a few feet away. I headed right for it, loosing a deadly growl to send whatever critters hid within it running. Two rats and a demon woman with a rhino horn fled, the whites of their eyes showing.

"Hard," Haley breathed, sinking vicious fingers into my hair and gripping tight at the roots. I groaned, slamming my lips back into hers and pushing her against the wall. "I need it hard."

"Anything you want, Sugarplum," I replied, a little breathy, a little bestial.

It took two seconds to get her trousers and underwear dragged off—I had enough thought to not actually rip them—and to shove down my own, sinking into her before she could brace herself. I would never get tired of that little shudder she made when I first thrust into her. Or the sharp gasps or breathy cries she let out when I gave her what she asked for and made it hard and fast, rutting into her against the wall.

"We're all hard now, you bastard," Kai muttered.

I shot him an arrogant smile, sinking all the way inside our made and grinding deep until her eyes flew wide and her hands fluttered across my body.

"Gods," she cried. "Harvey, that's—too deep."

I kissed her, softly this time, and circled my hips again, tormenting her deep, deep inside. The others might have more girth, but my cock was the longest. Only I could make her body jerk and her breathing jump like this.

"It's just deep enough," I replied, holding her gaze and delighted when a deep ripple went through her inner walls.

I stopped torturing her and made the rest of my thrusts fast, hard enough to make her eyes roll back when I adjusted the angle so I hit a new spot.