"Tell me that I'm not dreaming." Mala whispered shakily. "Tell me that I won't suddenly wake up under some random old politician that Draefin commanded me to sleep with." She searched his eyes. "Tell me this is real."
Kaeron held her stare and said softly. "This is real. You are mine, and I am yours, and I refuse to share you, even if I have to face off against Draefin himself."
A ghost of a smile shown across her face before she rested her forehead against his. "Do you mean it?"
He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, and nodded. "Yeah. I do."
******
Lex watched Whitney, as determination warred with disappointment in those blueish eyes the green seeming to have vanished, no doubt from dragging Lex into her problems. She hadn't known Whitney for long, but she had come to learn almost immediately that she was a very independent woman, so Lex knew that admitting she needed help was not easy for the witch.
Lily sat at Lex's side. She had been silent so far about the entire thing, but Lex had come to know Lillian well enough to know that she didn't trust Whitney. For as much as Lily and Kaeron were different, their distrust in others were eerily similar.
It doesn't matter, though. She just didn't know Whitney like Lex did.
Whitney laughed sadly. "We had a plan, you know." Their eyes met for a second, and the pain there was unmistakable. "We were discreet with our recruitment, and we almost had half of the women on board. Maybe in another two or three years, we would've gotten the numbers that we needed, but we got cocky, and we foolishly thought that he had just stopped looking for her, but we were wrong. So wrong..."
Lex interjected. "You keep saying we. Who is we? Also, what were you recruiting for? And who was looking for this mysterious partner?"
Whitney shook her head as if reminding herself that she wasn't talking to herself.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you. Let me start from the beginning. We were spearheading a major movement of the women owned by Draefin in this city, which would have crippled his organization, at least his prostitution business." She shrugged and laughed more to herself than to them. "Better than nothing, we thought."
"Who?" Lex pushed.
"It was a three woman operation. Each of us played a specific role, and each of those roles was vital to us coming out of the movement, as we called it, alive. I have... had unique access to every girl under Draefins control within the city thanks to my position within the organization. My dear friend Bonnie Quasar." She swallowed before continuing, "she.. she was the brains of the operation, and when it eventually went into action, she would be the face of it... even knowing the risks." She sobbed, and this time Lex didn't push, just waited for her to continue.
"She went missing a few weeks ago before we could put the plan into action, and... and just a couple of days ago... I was told that she was found dead in the fae city of Sagio during a freak fire."
Lex blinked as a memory of the firestorm of buildings she and Lillian had found Kaeron in the middle of struck her like a bat. She had a sneaking suspicion that he knew something about this... scratch that. She was certain of it. The favor he had to do for Ratford, his sudden interest in visiting their mother, it all had to be related somehow.
Bonnie. That name sounded familiar. "Was Bonnie... was she a dragon shifter?"
Whitney blinked. "Yeah. How did you know that?"
That confirmed it. It was definitely not a coincidence.
"My brother used to talk about her, back when he was still new to Hells Mob."
An understatement. Back in those days, Kaeron would go on and on about the young, naive girl who didn't belong in the organization. "She wasn't like the other heartless monsters that I work with," he would say. If he knew that she was dead, then knowing him, he got pissed and is now trying to figure out what happened. Why hadn't he talked to her about it? She filed that away with the list of the questions that she had for her brother. A list that had begun to have more questions on it than she liked.
She was going to kill the stubborn asshole for not being here so that she could interrogate him.
Whitney nodded, bringing Lex back to the problem at hand. "That's right. The two would know each other, both rare specimens, as Draefin would say." She batted a stray tear that rolled down her cheek, cleared her throat, and continued. "The last of our trio, I never actually met. Bonnie only said that she was very important because she held a lot of influence over the girls. I had tried to meet her, but she didn't trust anybody but Bonnie with her identity, so all I ever got was a name. Mala."
"What?" Lily whispered next to Lex. Lex turned to face her, and the horror that warped her features... Lex had only ever seen whenever she was having nightmares. The color had completely drained from her, and the look she was giving no one in particular was pain incarnate. It was as if she were being struck by an invisible force, over and over.
She started to shake and claw at the air, but her arms didn't move from where they hovered in the air beside her, as if they were bound.
"Lily!? What's happening!? Lily!?" Lex tried.
Lillian cried as her head snapped to the right and then to the left, as if she had been hit. Hard.
"Please! I can't! Please!" The plea broke Lex's heart. What the hell was going on, and how could she make it stop?
Lillian screamed as she recoiled and almost fell off the bed, but Lex grabbed her shoulders and yanked her into her arms.
"Please, Lillian! I don't know what to do! Tell me what I can do to help! Please." The last word came out a whisper as she hugged her shaking friend with all the love she could muster.
Lillian froze, her breathing slowing returning to normal, and her shaking calmed significantly, and Lex slowly pulled back her head.
Lillian was as pale as a ghost.
"You're ok." Lex said more to herself than Lillian. She could have sworn that even the sheen of Lillians' auburn brown hair had dulled, but that didn't stop her from brushing back the wild strands that were hiding her face. Her normally beautiful green eyes were dull and haunted, but a shimmer of recognition shown in their depths, and Lex smiled reassuringly. "I promise."
The sound of wood exploding and glass shattering had Lex whipping her head to the door.. or where the door had been. A group of heavily armed soldiers filed into the small space followed by a very angry looking man in a purple suit.
The man quickly eyed the space before he turned his acidic stare on her and growled. "Where is Firebreather!?"
******
Mala watched Kaerons massive back expand and then shrink as he slept in the light blue sheets they had found in a box in the basement and couldn't help herself. She gently plopped a kiss to it. He was so warm.
She held her breath as he stirred, but let out a sigh of relief when he didn't wake. He was hiding something from her. He had earned the nap. How they had made it to the abandoned safe house outside of town, when she hadn't left his lap while he drove, and hadn't stopped kissing him the entire way here was beyond her. They couldn't keep their hands off each other, and had fucked twice in the car when they had finally arrived, and twice on the lawn before finally making it inside only to continue ravaging each other like a bunch of succubi, so much so that she lost count after... 8.. maybe 10.
He was her other half.
The thought terrified her. He had known her body almost, if not better than herself. She had never allowed herself to get so close to another being. Draefin had made sure of that.
Kaeron was different, however. He was not afraid of the Dragon Shifter, and he had his own darkness that blanketed his aura. One that matched hers.
Even so, she couldn't help but hold herself back. He still did not know everything she had done for Draefin, and no matter how many times she told herself that, he'd understand. She didn't fully believe it.
"You are mine, and I am yours, and I refuse to share you, even if I have to face off against Draefin himself." Kaerons declaration echoed throughout her.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her forehead into his back, clinging onto him and the hope that he meant those words.
******
Lex shot up from the bed drawing the pistol she had holstered at her hip, and the one Lily had holstered too her own, in an instant cocking them both before pointing them at the intruders.
"I have a better question. Who wants the first bullet to the head?" Lex purred, doing her best to keep the panic from out her voice.
The man didn't even acknowledge her threat as his eyes landed on Whitney. When he spoke, it was like a cold, cruel, calculated poison that he had spent years honing.
"You will be coming with us, witch." He demanded, and Lex could feel her friends fear as if it were a physical thing.
"She's not going anywhere." Lex growled, not daring to take her pistols off of the men in front of her, not even for the second it would take to swat away the bead of sweat sliding down her forehead.
He snapped his cold gaze onto her, his eyes appraising her, assessing whether she was a threat or not, a battle in which she planned to win.
Lily was in no condition to fight right now, and Whitney didn't have a stave or a wand, the weapons of the witches. Maybe she knew a spell that could distract the mercenaries, but Lex had no way to ask discreetly, not with so many guns being pointed at them. She was on her own.
She calmed her racing heart, falling back into Kaerons teachings when it came to facing off against multiple opponents by herself.
Her smile was beastly, and she let all of her contempt for the bastards show keeping all seven of them in her line of sight.
"If you want her or my brother, you are going to have to go through me first."
The man's eyes danced with amusement at the threat. "Is that..."
She needed to strike first. The taste of strawberries flooded her mouth as she quickly chanted, rallying her magic.
"Shoot.." The man started, but he was too late.
"Illuminate!" A golden light exploded in the small room as bullets began to fly.
She knew the idiots would close their eyes, assuming that she was trying to blind them, not knowing that the spell wasn't meant for that, she didn't even know a blinding spell, she just needed a distraction.
She holstered her pistol and grabbed Whitney's hand with her now free one by time the first bullet whizzed by, and she had to calm herself. That was way too close for comfort. She and Whitney had made it over to Lily as the rest began firing at random, and Lex had to let go of Whitney and tackle Lily to the floor just in time to save her life, as a bullet flew by where her head would have been, and again Lex had to calm herself.
Whitney joined them on the floor seconds later and hissed. "What now? They won't be fooled by your trick forever."
"Now we run." Lex answered, pulling out the pistol she had just holstered. She rose as high as she dared, aimed both of her pistols at the wall in front of them and fired. She unloaded both clips into the wall, adding onto what had already been done.
She reholstered the pistol, grabbed hold of Lily's hand, and squeezed. "When it's time. Don't let go of my hand." She said firmly, trying to bring her friend back, but the fog in Lily's eyes did not waiver.
She sighed and pulled her attention away from her and looked at Whitney. "Stay close."
Whitney nodded, and Lex inhaled a deep breath. The rain of bullets had stopped, and she knew if they had seen through her plan, they would have rushed the three of them already, but nothing happened. She peaked over the bed the same time the leader spoke from outside the room in the hallway hidden by the wall.
"That spell will only last so long, halfbreed." He seethed, "and as soon as it wears off, we're coming in. Face it, girl. There is no escape..."
Lex breathed in and out, gathering her strength, and let go of Lex's hand, before throwing herself into the wall that she had layered with bullets, slamming into it, and bursting out into the alley on the side of the building.
"Go. Now!"