Page 5

THE SCENT OF LAVENDER and crushed rosemary plumes through the air with every twist of my wrist. I’m trying to keep busy crushing roots and filling jars, but my lips won’t stop tingling. I still feel the heat and pressure of Aiden’s mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, his toned frame between my thighs.

Aiden kissed me.

The dried roots are forgotten in the mortar as my fingers drift over my bottom lip.

My head swims deliciously, sending the butterflies in my belly wild with an excitement I know I shouldn’t feel, but...

Aiden kissed me.

And I kissed him back.

The aching muscle in my chest collides against my ribs, a giddy dance that is both thrilling and frantic with panic.

I shouldn’t have let it happen. Obviously. I know it was wrong. There was a lot happening between waking up to the feel of him flush against me and Mama catching us. I’m not stupid enough not to understand why I shouldn’t be in bed with Aiden. That morning, straddling him in nothing but my panties was inappropriate. Feeling the hot, thick length of him pulsing along my center was definitely wrong.

But his eyes have a way of making me forget. The way they watch me with such ... everything, like I am solely responsible for his every breath.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it, or the things Warrick did to me with his tail.

It seems strangely hilarious because they are the same body with two souls and it shouldn’t be this hard, but Aiden and Warrick loathe each other. Neither want me with the other and it’s all so confusing. The line isn’t even blurred anymore. I can’t find it. I’m sure there should be one when it comes to getting kissed by my brother in front of our mother, or allowing Warrick to take me in my sleep, but I’m fine with both.

Honestly, I always suspected that Warrick wasn’t getting enough. Before last night in the storage tent, our time was always short. He’d hold me and graze his hands along my back. He’d get me aroused but nothing would ever come of it. He’d carry me to bed, and I’d wake up with Aiden.

But the dreams ... the vivid details of getting owned and claimed would chase me into dawn with a sweet ache between my thighs. I always assumed it was from going to bed horny. I never thought he was finishing the job.

It did make me wonder why. Why not just take everything when he had me in his arms? Why wait? I’ve read about incubi. I know they usually feed on sleeping humans so maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

I make a mental note to ask tonight. It’s such a tiny thing in the grand scheme of things, like the fact that he let Aiden watch last night. Let him watch me get filled by Warrick’s tail and cum. He saw me naked, saw my pussy open and...

I jump when the curtains snap open and the object of my torment strides in. He stands just inside the doorway, tall and impossibly handsome in the sinking afternoon light. His dark eyes bore into me with a need that mirrors mine.

My heart squeezes in my chest with a longing so deep, it echoes through me.

“Hey.” His voice is a low rasp, and I feel it vibrate through me, a tremor that makes everything in me tighten.

He steps closer, his footsteps slow, deliberate, as if he’s approaching a wounded rabbit. The air between us is thick with unspoken words and every second hits like a whip.

As a man, Aiden is a looming force of strength and silent warning. He’s a wall of toned muscles, long legs, narrow hips, and a chest made for a woman’s head. With his warm, brown eyes and choppy, dark strands, he could have anyone, but I want him to only want me.

“Hey,” I whisper.

His long fingers bump mine as we both reach for the empty vial next to the mortar. Mine glide over his. His warmth soaks into my skin. Up my arm. Pools in my chest. Neither of us let go.

His eyes never leave my face. They trace and roam like he’s filing every inch to memory.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Guilt sends my gaze to the table between us. “I’m sorry.”

But I have been. After that wild display, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I could only grab my things and hurry from the trailer with Mama’s incoherent shriek pounding between my ears. The apothecary was the only place I could think to hide. Not a great place, but the task of crushing herbs and brewing elixirs has always provided a sense of calm, and calm was what I needed.

“Why are you sorry?”

“For everything?” I finally manage, my voice quieter than I intended. My heart pounds, but I force myself to look at him.

Aiden’s gaze is sharp and hot with something I’ve never seen before. The air between us shifts and I feel the weight settle on my chest. The unbearable tension. Like we’re standing on the edge of a cliff, and one wrong move could send us plummeting.

“What if I don’t want you to be sorry?” His voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through me.

My breath catches as his words hang in the air like a challenge.

“I have to be,” I whisper, but even I don’t believe it.

“Have you eaten?”

I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”

I know he doesn’t believe me, and he shouldn’t. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day, but the thought of running into him kept me locked up in my little shop.

“Come on.”

I blink at the large, scarred palm extended to me. My hesitation is brief, but I take it like I have my entire life. I lock up the shop and let him guide me out into the bustle of the midday crowd.

The late afternoon chill has me scuttling closer into Aiden’s side. Unlike me — who wears a jacket in the middle of July — Aiden always runs hot. His body temperature is perfect in the winter when Mama refuses to turn the heat on because — like Aiden — she also runs hot. Burrowing into him is like getting enveloped by an open flame.

Wordlessly, he shrugs out of his black flannel and drags it around my shoulders. The residual heat from his body clings to the threads, and I greedily snatch it closer.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

Aiden’s response is the light kiss he presses into the side of my head.

We arrive at the big, yellow tent with the blue water barrels outside the flaps. The chatter immediately dies as all heads pivot in our direction with varying degrees of surprise.

“Hey there you two. Didn’t see you at lunch,” Eugene — Cook — calls out. “Hungry?”

For a man twice the size of any other, and twice as strong, I’m always startled by his grace as he pushes out of his seat and hurries to the fryer.

“Come sit!” Nakusha waves her long slender arm over her head. The tiny, razor blades sewn into her velvet cuffs glint with every motion.

Aiden propels me forward and only stops when we reach the single, empty seat across from the beautiful knife thrower.

Mags — our resident doctor — sits on Nakusha’s other side, her face a road map of age and kindness as she peers across the table at me with eyes the murky gray of dish water.

“I was wondering if you would be joining us tonight.” Her voice is the gravely rasp of sandpaper over granite, yet oddly soothing.

Aiden nudges me into the vacant seat and takes his familiar place at my back. It’s a habit he’s had since we were children and a group of townie kids dumped their sticky drink over my head in a dare. Aiden punched the kid in the mouth, busting his lip and sending him wailing to his mother. Since then, he always puts himself at my back. I should tell him he doesn’t need to anymore, but I like it.

“We were just talking about the townies,” Nakusha says, flipping a butter knife over the backs of her slender knuckles. “They sure are a loud bunch.”

A lot of the attendees the last two days of opening have been teenagers with high opinions and a hatred for everything. They have been flooding the apothecary, buying out all the love potions and beauty elixirs.

“I’m going to stab the next one who shoves their phone in my face,” Nakusha mutters, driving her point home by burying her knife into the table. “It’s so rude.”

Mags sets a withered hand on the younger girl’s arm. “They’re young. Let them enjoy their time.”

Nakusha yanks the blade free, leaving a new notch in the wood to match all the other scuffs and scratches. “Only two more days and we can leave this shit hole for a new shit hole.”

“It’s not so bad here,” Landon speaks up from my right. “The girls are certainly friendly.”

Nakusha grunts in disgust but her response fades with the first brush of Aiden’s fingers across the back of my neck. The heat of his caress sends ripples of warmth showering down my spine, tightening my nipples. It pools in my belly. I’m acutely aware of the rough skin of his fingertips scratching my pulse as they drift across my jugular to cup the underside of my chin and force my head back.

My breath catches as Aiden’s face dips over mine. Upside down so his lips are all I can see.

“All of it,” he threatens with his words. With the subtle tightening of his fingers. With the way his darkened gaze lifts to my parted lips in warning, or maybe he, too, is remembering our kiss.

My body tries to swallow. I know he feels the rapid flex under his palm when his hold tightens and I moan without thinking.

My eyes widen as currents of heat snap through me to ignite the place between my legs with a familiar ache.

Aiden smirks in a way he never has before, a quirk of his lips that is more Warrick than Aiden, and I would have done anything he asks.

“Nod,” he commands, and I nod obediently.

With clear reluctance, Aiden unfurls his long fingers and frees me to lower my gaze to the table, to the fresh plate of burger and fries, and the eight sets of eyes staring at my hot complexion. But no one comments as I take a fry and bring it to my lips with shaky fingers.

I squeeze my thighs together and shift to ease the pressure. The hand that had closed around my throat rests on my shoulder, digs into my skin when my seat creaks. They force me to be still, which is torture in itself.

Between the lingering phantom sensation of his fingers cutting my air and the pulse between my thighs I’m so close to the edge, I don’t taste anything on my plate. I barely realize it’s empty until Aiden is taking my dishes to the makeshift washing station. He washes and dries them and sets them away. I stand to meet him when he returns and let him take my hand.

“No more skipping meals,” he says as we leave the kitchen.

“I wasn’t trying to. It just got away from me.”

He pauses to face me. His features are bathed in the soft blue of settling dusk, but I can feel him studying me. I can feel Warrick. It’s close enough to nightfall that he should be getting ready for his act soon.

“Don’t do it again.” The fingers on his free hand brush a lock of dark hair off my cheek. “I’ll be very upset if you do. Promise me.”

Heart thumping wildly in my chest, I nod. “I promise.”

The touch drifts down to capture my chin. To tip it back like he had earlier and I can no longer catch my breath.

“I love you.”

I shiver at the gentle sincerity. “I love you, too.”

The hand breaks away to slide behind my head, to tuck beneath my hair and cradle my skull. His breath caresses my cheeks, warms my offered lips. He’s so close the sliver of air between us flutters.

“You mean everything to me. I don’t want to live without you.”

I tremble at his guttural vow. At the pressure of his fingers fisting in my hair. I’m shaking when I have to swallow and lick my lips to speak.

“You’re my everything.”

I’m dragged tighter into him. My front aligns with his. My arms find their own way around his neck and I lift myself up onto my toes to close the distance between us.

“I need to get ready,” he says with his lips against the corner of mine, so close we’re practically kissing. “But I’ll see you in the morning.”

In the morning, when I wake to him curled possessively around me.

“I miss you,” I tell him.

His kiss travels to my chin. I plant one on his nose.

“If it were up to me, I would never leave your side.”

My arms tighten around him. His nose bumps mine. That’s all the time we have before he has to break away.

But rather than part ways and return to the shop, I take his fingers when he starts to leave.

“Can I come with you?”

His answer is to drag my hand to his lips before tugging me along.

It’s chaos in the Big Top, a whirlwind of activity as performers rush around grabbing their props, stretching for their acts and zipping on and off the stage.

Selene — the fire-eater — storms past yelling about her sticks and if anyone has seen them. From the other side of the space, someone yells back a response, but Aiden turns me to face him and I miss it.

“Find a spot in the audience. It’s too crowded back here. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I touch his chest lightly. Not too long. A graze of my fingertips as I peer up into his warm gaze. Already the brown has a hint of red in them and his lips are a little too wide at the corners. Like this, the two are as close to being one without full transformation.

“Good luck.”

A coil of hair is caught off my shoulder and wound around his finger. He gives a gentle tug.

“Love you.”

I smile. “Love you.”

With a final tug, he releases my hair, and I step away. I hurry out through the side entrance and loop around to where the last of the crowd floods in.

I make eye contact with Nakusha taking people’s tickets and she waves me through.

The corner I pick is at the bottom bench, straight in front of center stage. All the overhead lights are off, but there is faint movement in the shadows as Warrick’s mirror is wheeled out and put into place.

I’ve watched Aiden’s act a million times. Ever since he and Warrick could shift, I’ve held front row attendance most nights. It never fails to amaze me how beautiful they are. How feral and dangerous. Watching them turns me on in a way that only makes my time with Warrick all the harder because I have wanted him to take advantage of me for years. If I had known all it would take was being late, I would have done so ages ago. Granted, I was worried he would hurt Aiden as punishment, not finally give me what I wanted.

The crowd falls silent and all attention pivots to the familiar silhouette moving with slow, measured strides to stand before us. His jeans and T-shirt have been replaced by a pair of loose, satin trousers that hang low on his hips. Low enough that the V is deep and every square is chiseled to perfection across his toned stomach.

The stage lights kiss his olive skin to a warm gold and tease the highlights in his black hair to an almost metallic blue.

He looks so calm. So controlled and human.

He exhales, slow and steady, and closes his eyes.

The surge of power that floods the arena is something, apparently, only I can feel. None of the other performers or audience have ever mentioned it, but it scatters across my skin and tingles at my fingertips. The hum fills my ears with the low ping of a metal fork.

I could be anywhere in the world and I would know the moment Warrick stepped into Aiden’s skin or vice versa. I am so intertwined with both of them it’s hard to determine where they start and I end.

In the arena, Aiden sucks in a breath, expanding the broad width of his chest. The muscles of his shoulders flex and roll. His neck follows the motion. The crowd may not notice it, but the tips of his hair have a light trimming of frost. His skin is darker. They only notice when his eyes open and crimson orbs glare back.

Their collective gasps usually amuse me, but I’m captured in the fiery infernos. They pin me to my seat, hot with hunger. It’s like getting cornered by a starving wolf. A predator shedding all his humanity.

His skin ripples as his frame stretches. Bones shift beneath the surface. White hair spills over his forehead, cascading in stark contrast to the abyss of his skin. His hands flex, fingers lengthening, black talons curving from the tips.

And then his mouth.

The skin pulls, reshaping, parting at the corners until there is nothing left but rows of gleaming fangs in a jagged line to his ears. His tongue flicks out, already split at the center before fusing together and slipping back into his maw.

Around me, the room holds its breath. The silence is so expansive, the only sound is Warrick’s low grumbling and my heart thundering in my chest.

His tail snaps behind him, barbed coil unfurling. Reminding me that I came all over it last night.

The place it invaded thrums. It pangs with a longing to feel it again. To be in Warrick’s arms again.

The creature in question hasn’t taken his eyes off me. Even as he stands fully formed, he’s not doing his act. Instead, he’s stalking across the arena. Long legs taking wide strides straight in my direction.

It should be terrifying, but I have to stop myself from lifting my arms like a child and letting him scoop me up.

I don’t have to. His tail lashes out and twists around my throat. I’m dragged out of my seat straight into his hold, into his chest, and locked in place by his claws around my waist.

“Warrick.”

My whimper is ignored as he buries his face into my neck and inhales deep. My hands slide up his neck into the downy strands of hair at the back of his head, holding him in place against me.

“Your little pussy is so wet. So ready. You’re making my cock ache. I want to claim you right here in front of all these people and let them watch me breed your greedy hole. But your cunt is for my eyes only. The thought of anyone else seeing you like that makes me want to gouge out their eyes and make them eat it.”

I don’t think I’m supposed to giggle, but he smirks down at me when I do.

“You’re supposed to be doing your act.”

His tongue snakes out and flicks over my lips. “I’d rather be doing you.”

I snort and give him a gentle nudge. Yet, I’m disappointed when his tail unravels and he takes a step back, but not before brushing my cheek with a knuckle.

“Don’t be late tonight, little human. Your pussy will be severely punished.”

My pussy does not take the threat for what it is. It soaks my panties with anticipation.

Warrick must have sensed it because his smirk is triumphant as he pivots on his heels and makes his way back to the arena.

“My goodness,” the woman on the bench next to me gasps. “If that’s part of the act, me next.”

The brunette next to her nods, cheeks pink as she watches Warrick’s muscular back flex under the harsh lights.

“He can do anything he wants to me,” she breathes, hands flat to her chest like she’s having heart palpitations.

I refrain from telling them he’s mine. Despite the prickling rise of possessive jealousy, I have no reason to stake my claim; they will never have him. In a few hours, as they drive back to their lives, he’ll be here with me. In my arms.

I just have to make sure I’m not late.