Stryker snorts and nudges Zayd’s shoulder. “Why don’t you tell him to fuck off?”
Zayd rolls his eyes. “Because he’d do it. Word of warning? That demon doesn’t understand sarcasm, and is crazy enough to actually take a long walk off a short pier if you tell him to, just to see if it’s possible.”
Chest tight, I soak up the moment and commit it to memory. It’s rare that all three of them have been around at the same time, and to see them interact with each other like this? It’s everything I never thought I’d have. If any of them were to walk away? They’d take a piece of me with them.
“I’ve never done this with more than one person before, so hold on tight. Otherwise you might get left behind to suffocate in a wall or something,” Devlin says, adjusting his hold to tightly band his arm across the back of my thighs.
“Wait, no,” I panic, fisting the back of his shirt. “Let’s take Stryker’s truck-” but my protests are cut off with a strangled yelp as he steps straight into the clinic wall, Stryker and Zayd lunging to grab the back of his shirt before he disappears and leaves them behind.
I thought misting with Havoc sucked, but whatever the hell it’s called that Devlin does takes the cake. I simultaneously wantto throw up, can’t breathe, and feel like I’m on the world’s fastest, wildest roller coaster. By the time we land, I’ve already prayed to any and every higher being for the sweet mercy of death.
Sucking down ragged gasps, I smack his back. “Put,” I pant, “me,” I gasp, “down.”
Reluctantly, he slowly swings me upright and slides me to my feet. Instantly, my knees give out, but he’s there to keep me from collapsing with a sheepish, guilty look on his face. “Was it that bad?”
I glance over his shoulder to see Stryker throwing up in some bushes and Z sprawled out on the grass, chest heaving. As awful as it makes me sound, I’m glad it’s not only me suffering, and a little smug that I fared better than Stryker. For a while, I thought I had an especially weak stomach for magical modes of transportation, because Havoc, Arson, and Devlin make it look as easy as breathing. But nope. Turns out psychopaths are just built differently.
“Being upside down probably didn’t help,” I concede, and he grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Sorry about that, I was excited.”
As soon as I’ve caught my breath and am confident that my legs aren’t going to give out, my stomach has settled and I’m feeling mostly like myself again. “Excited about what, exactly? You didn’t really explain before you brought us here.”
“To bring you home,” he says, practically bouncing on his toes.
Butterflies explode in my stomach. “You want me to move in with you?”
Confusion has him cocking his head, searching my face. “Of course I do, you’re mine. I’d have brought you here sooner, but I wanted it to be perfect first.”
“Perfect?”
“Well yeah, you’re mymate.I needed to make sure once you stepped foot inside, you’d never leave,” he says.
Stryker scratches his jaw. “That sounds pretty creepy when you phrase it like that.”
Devlin shrugs, not even attempting to reword his sentiment. “Shall we?”
Zayd and Stryker share a loaded look, but pick up the bags and follow us up the rickety wooden steps to the door of a dilapidated cabin. Admittedly, I pause in surprise when he uses his thumb to move a discreet panel beside the handle and inputs a code. It beeps twice before the sound of a series of locks slide back and he pushes the door open.
As I get a good look around, I match the grimace on Stryker’s face. It’s… bad. Likebad,bad. Barely big enough for one person, let alone four. I’d be impressed if the toilet actually flushes, let alone if the wiring won’t burn the place down if I plug something in.
“You know, the clinic really isn’t that bad,” Stryker says slowly, backpedalling while trying to spare Devlin’s feelings. ”Plenty of room for all of us, and we’dhateto impose…”
Devlin waves him off. “As if I’d let my mate sleep in her office when I have a perfectly good home waiting for us.”
As uneasy as I am looking at the place, my heart warms. Devlin may be chaotic, but he’s always shamelessly himself, no matter what anyone says. And I think that’s a big part of his appeal. He doesn’t think about consequences or what people expect of him, he simply does what feels right in the heat of the moment.
What would the world look like if more people didn’t care about what other people thought about them?
Shaking off my thoughts, I catch sight of his wrist, a small smile curling my lips. I cleared up the infection from his homemade tattoo, and sure, that got rid of the ink, but he hasn’tlet that deter him. Every day he has a new replica of the mark on my wrist drawn on his own. Sometimes slightly smudged, but it’s always freshly touched up the next morning.
“I’ve never let anyone into one of my home bases before,” Devlin says, avoiding eye contact. “But then again, I’ve never let anyone close enough to want them in my space.”
Well, it definitely has that ‘fuck off, I live alone,’ vibe. Rusty nails, drafty windows, and this shack was clearly built for one person. If we dragged a couple of mattresses in here, it’d cover the entire main room and we could cook dinner without getting out of bed. It’s obnoxiously cold to boot, but the thought of starting a fire in the fireplace feels like a death sentence.
Zayd grimaces. “And I thoughtIwas used to roughing it. Fuck, dude, we can’t make Kiara sleep here. That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
Devlin stares at him for a long, drawn out moment before turning to me in confusion. “He talks?
