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“For fuck’s sake, Kai, come on. Don’t be an idiot. Look, you’re scaring the poor girl behind the bar.” Jayce gestured subtly at the girl.
The stubborn man didn’t move, so I tried something else. “Well, that isn’t going to help, Jayce. Kai’s a vampire. He likes scaring girls.”
Xero froze beside me, and Jayce winced. Kingston snickered along with me. Kai growled, actually growled, then shoved away from the table and stormed out the door.
I watched him leave, an uncomfortable feeling twisting in my gut. What the fuck? I’d meant to poke him hard enough to get him to move to the other side of the table, not to make him leave entirely. And I’d just been kidding. Kai was a grumpy fucker, but I thought we’d all gotten comfortable enough with each other to withstand a little gentle teasing.
Xero put a hand on mine. “That wasn’t very nice,” he murmured.
I turned to him and frowned, confused. “What? Why? It was just a joke.”
Kingston shook his head, as confused as I was. Jayce sighed and leaned onto the table.
“Okay, rumor is that Kai was in love with some beautiful woman before he became a vampire. He had to leave her behind or kill her or something… I don’t know, hazy details, you know how rumors get. Anyway, that’s why he doesn’t like coming here. That girl behind the counter reminds him of his girl.”
“And you pointed her out.” Xero shot him a look across the table. “Good job, man.”
“I was just trying to snap him out of it,” Jayce said with a sigh. “Guess that didn’t work the way I thought.”
His words floated at the top of my brain like oil on water, refusing to dissipate or fully sink in. I felt sick. The half-drunk beer in front of me had lost all appeal, and it was a little hard to breathe.
Competing against Kai’s defiance was one thing, but I’d never thought I would have to compete with a sacred memory. How could I even try without coming off as heartless? It would be cruel. But he couldn’t live an immortal life carrying that kind of heartache around, could he? It would weigh him down. It would break him eventually.
I wanted to help him, but I had no idea what to do. How do you tell a person that they have to forget the love of their lives so they can take their rightful place in a pack of lovers? You can’t. Not without being a complete dick. I sighed heavily and killed off the last of my beer, forcing it down past the lump in my throat.
“Guess I’ll apologize to him later,” I muttered. All I really wanted to do was chase after Kai and find him before he made it all the way back to FU, but I knew he wouldn’t want to talk to me. In all the different versions I could imagine of how that might play out, none of them ended well. I sighed. “Sorry to kill the mood.”
“You didn’t know.” Jayce’s bright blue eyes shone with sympathy. “Besides, you didn’t kill the mood. Listen, they put that crazy music on. Let’s dance!”
His infectious grin was impossible to resist. I’d become way more empathetic since being turned into a succubus, and like most things having to do with my four, that effect was compounded around any of them. Jayce’s optimism and easy good mood slipped under my skin, banishing a little of the cold that had taken root in my chest.
Nobody else was dancing, but I was more of a leader than a follower anyway. I let him pull me out of my chair and started to dance. Power swirled around my toes and floated up my body like incense as we moved together to the beat. It called to my men like a beacon, and before I knew it, Xero and Kingston were dan
cing with us, pinning me in the center of a gyrating triangle.
Hands rested on my hips, my shoulders. Heat flickered between us through touches and eye contact.
Our heartbeats synchronized.
I looked from one to the other, watching the rhythm pulse in their irises. Blue, green, gold.
Maybe it was just Kingston’s influence, but I felt like a dragon hoarding her treasure, surrounded by her jewels.
We danced for a while longer, but with every moment, the space between our bodies grew smaller and smaller, and the heat licking through my veins burned hotter and hotter. We could only keep things decent in public for so long before we were forced by magic and biology to make our way back to my room.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hannah stayed behind at the pub, winking at me as I moved to the doorway with my trio. Owen waved goodbye with a bit of a sad puppy look, and the rest of Hannah’s crowd grinned at each other. The way I’d been projecting pure lust, there was no way people didn’t know what was coming. Or who.
The bitterly freezing wind cut right through my coat, taming a little of the heat rampaging through my body, but as soon as we were back inside the school, I grabbed fistfuls of the two nearest men’s shirts and practically yanked them up the stairs, trusting the third to follow close behind.
It was an easy transition from dancing to making out once the four of us made it back to my room. While I kissed Kingston, Xero kissed my neck, Jayce nibbled my earlobe, and six hands ran over my body. Gasping, groaning, and grinding, I wove my magic around them, giving as much as I took.
When we tumbled to the bed, I landed on my back on the mattress. Xero and Jayce were on either side of me, and Kingston hovered over me, his body pressed hard against mine as he teased my mouth. The atmosphere was thick with desire, completely isolated from any outside influence. I was in total control.
And then suddenly, I wasn’t.
Kingston broke away from me and pushed off the bed, then turned away from me to face the wall.
