Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3) (12 page)

I nodded, and Poison pushed him out of the way, her expression shocked. “But—”

“And then I’m going to disappear,” I cut across her, “so nobody will get hurt.”

They immediately started arguing, as I knew they would. I reached up to my collar, running my finger lightly along the length of the leather. I knew that the LED lights had lit up again, because Poison and Clarin immediately fell silent. I pulled the note out of my pocket and handed it over, watching as the shock settled over them like a wet blanket, washing away the fight from their limbs and the opinions from their tongues.

When they were finished, they looked to me, lost. I knew the dreaded hopelessness that curled within them; it was my familiar friend—but a friend from the past. I would never be hopeless again. That wasn’t to say that I had a whole lot of hope inside me either… but I had other things instead. The messenger wasn’t going to make me cry anymore, he was only going to incite my anger and stoke my fight.

“It’ll be okay,” I said to them both. “I know what we need to do.”

I explained the plan to them, making sure that they were confident in their roles before I left. I didn’t tell them when or how I was going to disappear, but that was the only unpredictable part of my plan, so it was better that they didn’t know. I walked toward the indoor sports complex, since that was where Clarin had informed me that Noah and Cabe spent their Tuesday afternoons now. I planted my back against the gym doors, watching the time on my phone until exactly fifteen minutes had passed. I had given Poison that long to sabotage the power supply for the complex. Clarin appeared just as I was pushing through the doors, and we both ran toward the gym, pushing inside at the same time.

The messenger had eyes everywhere. He was in my bedroom, in my classroom and in my shower. He had been frustrated when I had disappeared into the janitor’s closet with Noah the year before, because he hadn’t been able to
see
. We had been cast into darkness—something that he remedied by quickly planting a phone where we had been on the off-chance that we went back.

If I was going to form the bond without the messenger knowing about it, I needed to be spontaneous and I needed to take away his eyes. I needed to cut the lights.

My eyes locked onto Cabe and I nudged Clarin, indicating the direction I was heading in with a tilt of my chin. Clarin nodded and spun on his heel, heading in the other direction. I wove through the equipment toward Cabe, who sat up on the bench that he had been using to lift weights. He had a confused expression on his face and he turned in my direction, his eyes colliding with mine just as the room was thrown into blackness. The fans on the walls stopped spinning, and all around us people ceased their activity. For just a moment, there was complete silence in the room, and then people started using their phones for light, muttering and grumbling to each other.

Over the other side of the room, someone shouted, “Fight!”

I hoped Clarin didn’t hurt himself in the dark, but I couldn’t spare him another thought as the people all started moving toward the commotion, turning their lights that way. Cabe appeared in front of me, tugging on my hand, using it to draw me against him. His hands curled either side of my face, as though he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“You’re looking determined,” he whispered. “Did you cut the electricity?”

I didn’t answer out loud, but nodded my head slightly against his hands. He pulled in a deep breath and when he exhaled, I found that he had drawn closer.

“The generator will kick in soon,” he said, “but until it does, I’ll be honest with you, because I can’t keep it in any longer, and because the darkness might swallow up my words the way I can’t seem to. I’ve watched you kill men twice your size with nothing more than your bare hands and the death in your eyes. I’ve watched you suffer and suffer and suffer even more… but never once did you break as much as you did when Silas traded himself for you. I don’t know if you really are theirs, but I know that you’re important. You’re important, and you couldn’t care less. You wouldn’t have killed those people unless they were threatening you or someone you loved. I know that much about you: you protect the people you love, and you don’t like hurting anybody, even when they’re hurting you. I’ve been watching you for a long time now, trying to keep my distance, trying to figure you out. You haven’t used your valcrick since the accident, have you?”

I was trying to catch up on everything that had just spilled out of his mouth, quietly landing across my lips. I had intended to simply march into the gym and kiss them both while Clarin was causing a distraction and the lights were out, but now Cabe was distracting me, and I was too mesmerized to stop him.

“You haven’t,” he repeated, even quieter now, his lips almost brushing mine, “have you?”

Faintly, I realised that a person had moved into our secret little circle of darkness. I froze in fear, until the brush of knuckles against my spine pushed the thrill of fear from my limbs, replacing it with a pleasant shiver.
Noah
.

And he wasn’t shouting at me
.

“No,” I whispered.

Cabe stayed silent, and though he didn’t look at Noah, he seemed to be aware that the other was behind me because he stepped suddenly forward, forcing me between them. I felt a sharp pang in my chest, and my throat worked painfully around the dryness that spread from my mouth to my throat, sending all of the moisture in my body to prickle at my eyes. I had told Cabe the night before that I would go against the bond if I wanted to, and maybe a large part of that statement was the truth, but sometimes truth and reality weren’t the same thing. Truthfully, I was sure that I
could
go against the bond. I had successfully kept them at a distance until now, and I might have successfully kept them at a distance for the rest of our lives, but it would also mean carving out a substantial part of myself.

I would have left them behind to guard a part of my dying heart… because that part belonged to them, and them alone. I had also told Cabe that nobody would ever own me, but even that truth was a slave to the larger reality, because I was no longer a whole and wholesome person. There were as many facets and faces to my person as there were hairs on my head, and many of them had grown in retaliation to each of the four guys in my life. Silas had fed the beast inside me, bringing it out from the darkness; Quillan had calmed the broken child inside me, raising me up from the mundane world; Noah had pulled the tenderness right from my chest with his gruff, caveman loyalty; and Cabe… Cabe had taught me to let go.

Perhaps that was the most important lesson of all.

I caught his face and lifted up, swallowing the air that separated his mouth from mine. He grunted in surprise, pulling his head back even as the familiar spark ignited somewhere deep in my chest. It was too dark to see his face, but I could tell that he was staring at me in shock. Noah had frozen behind me.

“T-turn,” Cabe stuttered.

I could have rolled my eyes as Noah spun me around to face him. We had been in this situation before, except that the roles had now been reversed. Now
they
were trying to keep their distance from
me
. Apparently Cabe thought that I wouldn’t kiss Noah, and while Noah and I certainly hadn’t made the same progress as Cabe and I… I happened to know that Noah was the weaker link. There was a reason he had never stolen the quick kisses that Cabe had.

There would be no stopping Noah once he started.

His eyes were tempestuous: bright and cloudy all at once, swirling with intelligence and tempter. It was always so hard to meet Noah’s eyes when he was feeling any kind of strong emotion, but it was equally as difficult to look away. His mouth was tight in the darkness, halfway to frowning. His attention flicked from one of my eyes to the other before he drew his breath in and allowed his examination to drop to my lips.

“Go ahead,” I goaded him softly. “Get a reaction out of me.”

A warning flashed in his darkening eyes, but he didn’t tear his attention from my mouth. I laid both of my hands against his chest and felt the rumble that vibrated from his throat more than heard it. I curled my fingers into his shirt and drew myself up, wondering if he even realised that his fingers were digging into my hips, helping me to get closer.

“This is going to happen.” I issued the challenge, knowing exactly how to force him to do what I wanted. “So you can either wait around for me to do it or—”

With a growl, he took my lips, cutting off my words. His grip on me tightened, dragging me against his body as he forced my mouth open, the kiss more demanding, more invading, than I had expected or experienced. It made something hot uncurl from my stomach, and a breathless sound of surprise rose from my lips. I held onto his shoulders as he wordlessly commanded more from the kiss, urging me to relinquish everything I had. The light burst within my chest as he groaned, stumbling back a step with me still clutched to him. Cabe caught the back of my shirt, pulling us both upright. I tore my mouth away, feeling dizzy and gasping for breath. I wanted to check that the valcrick hadn’t made an appearance because I didn’t want to take any chances with the collar around my neck. Noah seemed to be in pain, his hands falling away from my hips to clutch at his head. The ball of energy and light in my chest spluttered, forcing my knees to wobble and my arms to shoot out, catching onto Noah. It wasn’t done… and I knew that we were running out of time.

“W-we need to hide,” I gasped, the wretched anguish beginning to build up against the cage of my ribs, splintering out to my limbs.

I wasn’t sure who had heard me or who had dragged me away, but suddenly there was a shelf at my back and a bottle of something smacking into my foot. Noah grabbed my face again just as electricity returned to the building, spilling light underneath the door of the dark little storage closet that we huddled in. I saw the emotion carved into his handsome face before his lips took mine again. He kissed me with all of the pain, confusion, and longing that I had seen in his eyes, and I accepted it willingly, needing the intensity of the emotions that gradually trickled into me to convince myself that this was
real
.

His grip on me didn’t gentle until the bond was complete, tying us together with invisible cords that pulled taut on our lingering feelings. When he drew back, it was to stare at me with disbelief in his eyes and a word pressed to my lips with one last kiss.

“
Mine.
”

His stare was too intense, his heartbeat overwhelming inside my chest. There was something dragging between us, some kind of horrible, drugging guilt. I turned from him so that I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore, and I found myself face-to-face with Cabe. Just like with Miro after Silas had formed the bond with me, I felt an overwhelming pull in his direction. He looked down at me gravely, his fingers reaching as I stumbled into him. He lifted me, ignoring whatever pain he must have been in to hug me against his chest. He was trembling, and I knew that he was torn between Jayden’s memory block and the bond that called for him. His arms were crushing me as I wrapped my legs around his waist and tucked my head into his neck. He needed the closeness of my body and wasn’t able to admit to himself why.

“Kiss me,” I whispered against his neck.

He groaned, one of his hands burrowing into my now-tangled hair to pull my head back. “Say that again,” he demanded.

“Kiss me,” I repeated.

His forehead lowered to mine, his eyes closing, a heavy breath escaping. “Why does it feel like I’ve been waiting a lifetime for you to say that?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but tightened his hand in my hair and pulled my mouth to his. The world shifted again: yet another life plucked from the mayhem of existence and tied to mine.

“Christ… Seph…” Cabe buckled, falling to his knees and taking me with him.

I felt powerful, even as my knees hit the ground and Cabe pulled my mouth back to his, demanding from me just as Noah had. I felt more powerful than I had ever felt before, and the hairs along my arms and legs started to prickle with anticipation. Cabe used his grip of my hair to keep my mouth fused to his as his other hand slid down my back, pressing against a spot low on my spine. I was drowning in feeling, having completely forgotten about the plan, about the messenger and the bomb. I was in awe that I could kiss them without blacking out or feeling the uncomfortable itching. I was in awe of the weight of their feelings as the fragile thrum of their heartbeats kicked up inside my chest. I was full… complete. For the first time in my life.

Cabe inhaled raggedly, tilting his head back and breaking our kiss. His hand flexed in my hair, and when he opened his eyes again, the look on his face was somewhere between frustrated desire and undiluted reverence. I saw a flicker of light out of the corner of my eye and I quickly scrambled away from Cabe, falling back against the floor.

The valcrick was back
!

Noah pulled me to my feet, and I started madly tugging my hair into a braid over my shoulder, anything to make it look like I hadn’t just been hiding in the closet, doing exactly what I had been doing. Knowing the guys as I did, it was only a matter of seconds before they recovered from their shock, pressed in on me from all sides, and demanded answers.

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for the door, my voice weak. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner. I’m sorry I pushed you away and didn’t give you a chance. And… and I’m sorry for… for… well, you’ll find out soon.”

I pushed out of the cupboard and ran toward the front of the gym, catching sight of Clarin as he moved past me and dove into the closet that I had just vacated, slamming the door behind him. He was on a mission, and I appreciated that he was running interference… but I wished I could have said goodbye. Instead, I ran towards the parking lot and straight into Poison’s arms, holding my friend as tightly as I could.

“Everything will be fine,” she soothed me, her hands patting down the hair that I had unsuccessfully tamed.