Page 16 of Kiss the Dawn (Order of Helsing #4)

ORINA

A fter the Ministry days, when Nyx, Quinn, and I had been out in the big world, running our own little business, trying to make it work, we’d gone out drinking. A lot. The morning-afters had always been awful, but they’d never deterred us from doing the same thing a few nights later.

Waking up now felt like one of those morning-afters. My head felt like it was twice the size it should be, and I could barely open my eyes without it throbbing.

“Drink this,” Lorenzo said from somewhere close by.

The bed dipped as the jigsaw puzzle that was my memory attempted to organize itself, and the cool rim of a glass touched my lip. I drank, then gagged as a bitter taste filled my mouth.

“Don’t spit it out,” he ordered. “Swallow.”

I did so with a giggle that sounded slightly manic even to my ears.

“Really, Orina?”

“I’m sorry.” My voice was a croak. “What happened?” I should be more panicked at the fact I couldn’t remember, but Lorenzo was here, so I was safe.

“Give it a moment or two,” he said. “Drink some more.”

He fed me the awful concoction, and after a little while, my head started to feel like less of a lead balloon, the incessant throb behind my eyes died, and…Oh. My. God. “They tried to kill me?” My eyes flew wide, and I took in his unshaven face and bloodshot eye whites and…What the fuck? We were back in the RV? “How…when?”

“Late last night, and I carried you.”

“Down the mountain?” My voice rose an octave.

“Yes,” he said.

I had no words. No. That was a lie. I had plenty of words, but they were all jumbled up like my thoughts.

I was strapped to the table. Helpless. Vulnerable. Faced by people who cared nothing for my life. “They injected me with something, and then I saw you, but it wasn’t real. I was dying then…then you came for real.”

Dying .

Helpless.

Trapped.

A fist closed around my heart and squeezed.

“Breathe, Orina. Breathe.” He took the glass from me and rubbed circles on my back, leaning in and enveloping me in his scent. I used it to ground me and stop myself from spiraling into horror. “It’s over. You’re safe. You’re fine. You’re with me.”

This wasn’t me. I didn’t fall apart. I was used to danger. The possibility of death was a given for an Order operative, but being strapped to that table…totally vulnerable with no hope of escape…That moment when I’d known it was over…

I exhaled and pressed back the memory. It was over.

I was safe. “How? How did you do it? They injected me with something.”

“Yes. I was successful in purging the poison from your body. The Circle arrested the witches, and I demanded they open a door for me to bring you home.”

He’d found me in time, and God, I was grateful for that. I wouldn’t think about what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten to me. No. I refused to do that. “Daphne just agreed to let us leave?”

“She had no choice. The attempt on your life broke the contract the Circle had with the consortium. Daphne knew she was on thin ice.”

A shiver raced over my skin, and I pulled the covers up, desperate for heat. “I can’t go back there. I won’t mate with those bastards. Ever.” My stomach trembled, and my teeth threatened to chatter because they still needed me. They needed my immunity because we’d failed in finding a loophole but… “Please don’t make me go back.”

His gaze was hard as stone and as cold as ice, and for a moment, I thought he was going to say that I had no choice, but instead he said, “I will never let them have you. They lost that right when they tried to take you from me.”

Lorenzo never made empty promises, but the conviction in his words failed to temper my anxiety. “They’ll keep coming after me. They’ll send hunters.”

“And I’ll make sure they all die.” His lip curled. “I swear I’ll keep you safe. You trust me, don’t you, Orina?”

If Lorenzo Crescent, one of the most powerful mageri in the city, was telling me that he would kill anyone who tried to take me from him, then I had nothing to fear. This man who’d been at the periphery of my life for almost a year had never let me down when I needed him.

He smiled and asked me again, his tone soft, “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes I do.” But there was something more. Something I was forgetting. It came to me in a flash. “You had a plan, though, didn’t you? A solution? You went to see them about it? ”

“I did. And they agreed to it, and then I found you almost dead.” His jaw flexed. “Now they can rot for all I care.”

My equilibrium somewhat restored, I could think with a little more clarity, and yes, the witches who’d done this to me deserved to rot, but what about the others…so many others… “They won’t be able to fight the virus without the immunity being passed on.”

“They’ll have to make do until another seventh daughter is born.” He shrugged. “We can fight them off until then. We’ll find a way.”

I believed him. Believed that he’d shield me. Knew that the others back in Dracul would too, but…He’d had a solution ready.

“What was it?”

“What was what?”

“The solution.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me.” I waited as he debated whether to tell me, his attention on the window where afternoon sunlight poured through the gaps in the blinds to paint stripes over his skin. “Lorenzo. I need to know.”

He tipped his head to the side with a sigh. “I suggested that we stop your heart long enough for the contract to think you were dead, but not too long as to be unable to revive you. I would have assembled the best team to do it. Magic and science working together. But we’re no longer going to do that. ”

He’d suggested killing me, but in a controlled environment with the intention of bringing me back.

People had tried to kill me lots of times, but usually those people were monsters, and the killing attempts happened during a fight where I too was trying to kill them, but what had happened with the witches had been terrifying because of how cold it had been. How easily they’d decided my life wasn’t worth anything. The memory of that moment when I’d known there was no way out would stay with me forever.

There was a big part of me that agreed with the sentiment ‘let them rot,’ but an even bigger part, the part that was built by the Order, couldn’t stand by and allow innocent people to suffer if I could help in some way.

But I needed time before I willingly brushed shoulders with death in such a vulnerable way, so I kept quiet and ducked my head. But just as I was about to give myself permission to relax, an awful thought occurred.

“My mother? I didn’t get to see her. Oh God, she’s dead now, isn’t she? It’s gone dawn and?—”

He gripped my shoulders and squeezed gently. “She’s fine. I negotiated a stay of execution for her until the end of this year. Daphne has promised to allow a hallomeet between the two of you soon.”

I sagged in his grip, but my relief was tainted because if they’d agreed to hold her for a year, that meant… “They still think I’m going back, don’t they? ”

“Yes.” He squeezed me again before letting go. “But you don’t have to. We will figure something out by then.”

But if we didn’t, then I’d have to consider his heart stopper plan.

“No, you don’t,” Lorenzo said, somehow reading the thoughts on my face. “You don’t owe them a damn thing.”

I appreciated the sentiment, and the fire in his eyes warmed that part of me that had been cold for so long. The part that had been taken from again and again.

All my life, people had asked me to do things for them. To do my duty. Even Hemlock and Ordell had wanted something from me at the start. To save their brother. To stop Loviator. To protect the world, and even though I knew they would never give me up to the Isle, that they’d fight to keep me now, I couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different if I wasn’t the curse breaker.

With Lorenzo, and with Kaster for that matter, those doubts were absent. With those two males, it was just us. Except Kaster had taken a step back, and Lorenzo, it seemed, was taking a step forward.

Forward…the way that our bodies were leaning. Angling toward each other as the air thickened with anticipation and a need that had simmered between us for months.

“I’d forgotten what true fear feels like,” he said softly. “But when I saw you lying on that table, gray and lifeless, I was afraid for the first time in a long time.” He brushed a tendril of hair back off my face, his gaze falling to my lips. “I’ve lived too long and lost too much to play the courtship game of ifs and maybes. I want you to know that I’ve guarded my heart for the longest time, but you’ve found your way past my barriers. I want to let you in, Orina. I want to explore this…whatever it might be that’s been growing between us all these months. But I understand if you need time to focus on Ezekiel and?—”

I pressed my lips to his, cutting off his words and the reasoning and logic that I knew would come with them. He gasped into my mouth, momentarily stunned, then he smiled against my lips. His hand closed on my nape, taking control and angling me to deepen the kiss into something hungry, primal, and heart-stoppingly beautiful.

We’d waited too long. Yearned too long, and oh God, he felt good, firm, and hard and powerful as he pressed me into the mattress. He tasted like cinnamon and coffee, and a shiver of pleasure raced over my skin as the slightly rough pads of his fingers grazed over my cheek to grip my jaw and own me.

I kicked at the blankets, wanting to feel him against me, and tugged at his shirt to slip beneath where his skin waited for my touch, hot and silken just as I’d imagined. He inhaled me between kisses, his fingers tangling in my hair as he devoured me.

I was lost in the storm that was Lorenzo Crescent, food for the magic that beat off his body to skate over mine.

I wanted him.

I needed him.

The slam of a door froze us both, and a few moments later there was a knock on the bedroom door.

“Yes!” Lorenzo called out, his tone ragged and breathless just like my heartbeat.

“Food’s up, boss,” Rodney called back.

“We’ll be out in a moment,” Lorenzo said.

Rodney’s footsteps retreated, and Lorenzo sat up, taking his tantalizing heat with him. His lips were swollen, his eyes dark with desire.

I reached up to touch his jaw, and he grasped my wrist and pressed a kiss to my pulse. “We will continue this, Orina. And soon.”

“After food?”

The silver ring around his irises glowed a little then died. “I would like nothing more than to have you for dessert, but I’m running a little low on power. A sound muting barrier on this room would be impossible to maintain.”

“You think I’ll be noisy?” I arched a brow and smiled.

His expression remained serious, but his eyes lit up. “I know you will.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it? ”

He slid a hand up my leg and gripped high up, thumb pressing into the inside of my upper thigh.

I moaned, the sound purely involuntary, then slapped a hand over my mouth.

He chuckled. “This is an experience best saved for private chambers.” He leaned in and placed a light kiss on my mouth. “I want to hear you scream my name when you come.” His lips moved against mine as he spoke, his cinnamon breath mingling with mine.

And there was the throb between my legs again. I closed my eyes and let out a growl of frustration. “Now that was uncalled for.”

He laughed softly against my lips. “I’ll bring you a tray, and once you’ve eaten, we’ll start the drive back to Dracul.”

I was tempted to argue, but my stomach rumbled, silencing my protests. So I nodded obediently, accepted another kiss, and watched him leave.

I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A few weeks ago, the thought of going to Dracul would have made my stomach hurt, but now there was nothing I’d like more than to go back.

To go…home.