Sin of Fury

Chapter 12





“World?” Jamie asked numbly.

The way Lucian’s eyes were looking at her, the tension in Talon’s shoulders, and the silence in the room almost got to her. One little word floated around the room, in her head, and all it did was confuse her.

Don’t confirm my fears, she prayed mentally, looking up at Talon, pleading with her eyes. Don’t tell her what she had suspected, what she had been warned of but had refused to let herself believe. Her mind was racing, heart pounding.

She tried telling herself that Lucian was crazy – hell, a man that crack-happy about ruining her appetite should be in a mental ward. Was that what they were in right now? She thought, panicking. Talon looked away from her, across the room to Lucian.

“It would be so much easier if we had a handbook,” he sighed. A large hand tunneled through his dark hair. Thick patches stood up in places, at odds with his demeanor. He didn’t seem at all crazy or even disorderly. In fact, he seemed like he could be the most controlled and capable man – so why did she feel like he really should be locked up?

“Well, we don’t,” Talon said, blasé.

Jamie shook her head, hating that her balance was so unsteady as she stood. The room didn’t seem all that inviting – well, it hadn’t from the beginning, but now it was just downright repugnant, almost worse than the cage thing that Talon had been kept in.

“You should work on getting one put together,” he said, adding a laugh. It only had her shoulders tensing even more. The guy was a complete dick, she decided. Right then, Jamie knew she would never be able to stop strangling – when she got the chance.

Talon raised his brow at her darkly, as if he understood what she was thinking yet he didn’t care.

“Where do you think you’re going, darling girl?” Lucian said deeply from behind her. Jamie had slowly moved to the door and now had her hand on the knob. She swore she wasn’t pretending his neck was the cold metal.

“I have to pee.”

The statement was met with silence, then a sigh. She heard Talon’s annoyed grunt and then Lucian said with a murmur, “Take her to the restroom, then. When you get back, I would like you to meet me at Sinclair’s. Since your female is too weak,” he said with emphasis, grating on her nerves, “I will have Manny give her a ‘crash course’.” It will take you no more than twenty minutes to get there. And Jamie?” he inquired sweetly.

She turned slowly, hating him more with each second. “Yes?” she replied demurely, trying to hide how much she wanted to rip his throat out.

“Have fun on the bike.”

And then he was gone.

Before she had time to gawk at his disappearance, Talon was opening the door over her shoulder and pushing her out of the room. The smell of stale cigarette smoke wafted up her nose.

“Talon – he… What?” she asked dumbly. Her feet didn’t move. Lucian had been there just a second before!

“You’ll learn about it later,” he said indifferently. Talon sounded too arrogant for her liking, she thought dimly, grabbing onto his arms.

“Tell me I’m not going insane, please? He was just there! You saw him – and then he was just – poof.” Her wide eyes connected with his. She didn’t notice the annoyance, nor did she notice the fire that kindled in his eyes as he dropped them to look at her hands on his arms.

“Jamie, calm down –” he growled, trying to push himself away from her. She held on tighter, shaking her head. Never had she seen anything like it – was he trying to mark her as insane? She would learn what? Nothing was making sense!

Her stomach started to turn.

“That man –“

Her words were cut off when his lips crushed hers, replacing the panicked rant with a lustful sigh. Instantly, her mind cleared of anything except Talon. His arms came around her shoulders, holding her body against his while his tongue traced her lower lip before his teeth bit down, catching her off guard.

Jamie pressed her hands against his chest and leaned up, trying to kiss him harder. He was so hot, so totally consuming. Her body melted against his as large hands slid down her back to cup her ass. The fire from last night returned, and she wanted nothing more than to take him to bed, naked and ready for her.

She rubbed her hips against his, relishing the low heat that settled in her stomach and the soft hiss of his breath against his lips. Jamie wrapped her arms around his neck, forgetting the world around them.

There was no fear. No demand for safety. No crazy, disappearing men.

Nothing but the fire that was between them and the heat in her thighs.

Jamie moaned when he grabbed her ass roughly, jerking her lower body harder against his. The command to stop teasing him was clear in the dominant action. She took his lip between hers, clawing her nails down the back of his neck.

His large body shuddered against hers.

A large hand left her ass and then came back with a low slap. She gasped, arousal flaring even higher than before. It didn’t help how wet she was when his deep, rough voice grated into her ear. “Don’t tease me, Jamie. You may be gorgeous as f*ck, but that won’t stop me from punishing you.”

Boy, did she want to be punished. A flush came over her face as she stared into his heat-filled eyes.

“Teasing means there won’t be more for you later,” she moaned, threading her hands in his hair as his head fell to her neck. Hot breath, and then a soft, demanding bite. Her toes curled. “I plan on taking you as soon as we have a bed, no clothes, and…”

Her voice trailed off as he kissed his way lower, lips feathering over her skin.

His hands wrapped around her waist, gently pressing his fingers into her even as he pulled away. The haze covering her eyes drifted away, replaced by the fact that Talon was pushing her away. Hot lips no longer touched her skin, no longer caressed her as if he wanted her. She looked up at him, catching her breath.

A dark flush had come over his cheeks, and his breathing was as ragged as hers, if not more. He pulled himself away from her completely, and pointed to the door. She stared at him, almost devastated.

“The restroom is that way,” he told her quietly. Giving her a lingering look, he turned on his heel and walked away. She was just to the bathroom door when she looked back to see him watching her, in the process of running a confused hand through his hair.

Jamie closed the door, heart fluttering like a bee on crack.

~*~

Devlin leaned against the wall, a cat’s smile on her graceful lips. He gave her an arch stare before turning to the door. It would be some time before Talon and Jamie showed up, and it seemed like Devlin was all too ready to make use of the extra time.

“So, this girl,” she started, getting up from the wall. “She is going to be here often?”

“Whatever Talon chooses to do with her.” He shrugged, picking up some papers from his desk and putting them in the large filing cabinet behind him. The metal box was locked soon afterward, and the keys clanked on the table. “I like her, though.” A little smile lifted his lips.

Her face screwed up. “You like her?”

Lucian looked over at her, noticing the venom in her eyes and the doubt in her voice. He almost chuckled. “She has spunk. Maybe a little too world-weary, but she would fit Talon good.”

A look of understanding came over her face. “Oh, I see.”

There was a silence. After that night in her rooms, he had been avoiding her. She came after him like a rabbit looking for a f*ck buddy, but Lucian had managed to get out of her way. He could have just sent her away, but he couldn’t take the chance of something coming after them and one of his seconds gone.

Devlin stood to her feet. The air shifted around them as she glided to his side, soft hands touching his shoulder and chest. The movement had his body warming, but the desire wasn’t as intense as it used to be. He looked down at her.

With her long hair pulled back from her face, strands sliding around her face, she looked like a French duchess besides the cat-suit she had on. The thought had him realizing what was happening and he pulled back, recoiling just as the door of the closed-off room open.

“The life of the part has arrived!” said a man dressed in a ti-dye shirt, suspenders, and white capris.

Lucian breathed a sigh of relief as Devlin all but hissed at the guy.

“Vladimir,” he greeted, dipping his head. The man had hair as white as snow, yet his face was young and puckered from wind. Bright blue eyes twinkled up at him before they landed on Devlin.

His face dropped from flamboyant to disdainful.

“Drama Queen,” Devlin spat, moving to the back wall again. She pressed herself into the shadows as if the action would make the Vladimir disappear.

“Someday, woman, you will be working for me,” he said with a flick of his wrist, his own action of flipping her off. Lucian held in a smile.

“What did you need?” he asked, ignoring their banter. Everyone knew that Devlin and Vladimir hated each other, so their insults and arguments were nothing new.

“I was just going to report that a beautiful black haired woman and a strapping man arrived at this disappointment of a building. They will be back shortly, the man said. He wanted to give the lovely woman a tour – that may be the new slang for ‘f*ck’ though,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and standing straight.

Vladimir was the kind of man that could direct a movie and get off on being called gay. He looked down on half of the population, resented almost everyone, and loved to talk in big sentences.

He was also very blunt.

Lucian moved to the door. “Why would you say that?”

Vladimir gave him an arch look, taking a hankie out of his back pocket and twirling it around in his hands. He did that enough that it didn’t bother Lucian anymore. “Oh, you should have seen the way they were looking at each other! I was scared my booty was going to get singed off because of the flames of heat and desire that radiated from…”

“Alright. We get it.” Lucian rubbed his face with his hand and opened the door, looking out. The room was empty, the normal clicks and taps of the room absent. He had sent everyone home for a break. Reconstruction was going on in the front, and they were getting ready to sell the gas station. Vladimir had unfavorably agreed to let Lucian use his bar as the new headquarters, so they had no use of the gas station.

Lucian had many settlements across the nation to last his organization a lifetime—and more.

“Gay boys should just shut up in general,” Devlin muttered from the back, the insult aimed at only Vladimir.

He gave her a sweet smile and waved the hankie at her. “At least I can get the big ones, my dear.” With that, he flounced out of the room with a skip. The action was only to piss off Devlin, and it had done its job. The second he was out of the room, a paper weight came flying at Lucian’s head.

He caught it, glaring at her. “Be grateful, at least you get to work with us still. He could have easily said that you couldn’t work at the Alley Cat and I wouldn’t have cared enough to convince him to let you stay with the group. So instead of acting like a child, get your priorities straight and not piss off the gay man.”

Devlin was silent. He could tell that she was debating about throwing another paper weight at his head or sulking out of the room. She chose the latter, and he followed after her. It wouldn’t do to have Talon and Jamie making out like sex-crazed teenagers in his store when there was business to do.





Talon grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket. He didn’t bother to look at the caller ID.

Jamie was standing next to him, looking at the walls with a dazed look on her face. They were silvery, metallic, and apparently something that she had never seen before. The whole station was at odds with the work space that lay behind it.

The look of distaste on her face when they had walked into Sinclairs had had him chuckling, and now that they were behind the store and she was getting a little taste of what Talon put up with, it was almost comical. What would she think if she knew he didn’t live anywhere near here?

She would love his condo, he thought, watching her. The empty, one-point five million dollar a month room didn’t have the touch of a woman, nor a man. He had got the room in impulse, and since then he hadn’t had time to actually settle in. Lucian had needed him in Omaha, and soon after Talon had taken his first vacation, all but forgetting about the condo.

He would have to take her shopping, or at the very least go to her house to get her clothes. He finished the call with an affiliate from Texas and slipped the phone into his pocket. Lucian had been considerate enough to put it on the seat of his cycle.

“Where is that man?” she asked. He almost laughed when he realized she might not have heard the way she said “that man”, as if saying Lucian’s name was calling the devil.

He hid his mirth and put a hand on her shoulder, steering her away from the back rooms and toward the office. Down the hall, he heard the thump of Lucian’s boots and looked down at her with a humored smile. Jamie didn’t have the same enhancements he did, so she didn’t hear him until he was right around the corner.

A look of disgust came over her face the second Lucian came into view. “Vladimir said he would do the honors of explaining everything to her,” Lucian said. Talon looked at him with almost shocked eyes, and he burst into laughter.

Jamie backed away, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Maybe I should just do that…” he said, unsure. Vladimir would, for sure, go overboard. He could just see the two of them, sitting in a dark room, Vladimir acting like he was telling horror stories at a campfire and Jamie looking like she was about to cry.

“He already said he would.” Lucian laughed, looking at Jamie, then back at Talon. “Sign her up for therapy the first chance you get.” He burst into laughter again.

“What room is he in?” Talon sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Jamie was staring between them like they shared a head or something. He felt bad for her.





Jamie was put into a small, dark, clean room. There was a fluffy chair in the corner, a wooden table in the center, and a swivel chair set in front of it. She was in the fluffy chair, waiting for a “Vladimir” person, wondering if that by the end of this interlude she would be a sparkly vampire.

Most likely.

The door opened with a groan. Jamie sat still while a looming shadow entered the doorway. It spread into the room like a blanket of fear. She swore she almost puked right then and there.

Except, the first thing she saw was a sandel. A bedazzled sandal. On a slim foot. A tan slim foot.

And then she saw a hairless leg. A male, hairless leg, yet slim and short.

She stared with a deadpan look as a small man strode into the room like he owned the place. It was hard not to laugh at the strut he pulled off, along with his spiky white hair, pink eyeshadow, and colorful shirt that went completely at odds with his demeanor.

The door closed with a thump and the lights flickered on like a broken light struggling to work. Jamie bit her lip against giggling.

“My name is Vladimir,” he said haughtily as he came around the table. In front of her, he started to sit on empty air when the swivel chair appeared under his butt. She barely held in her gasp of surprise. “Tell me your name, raven haired beauty.”

She told him, all the while trying not to cry with laughter. He seemed to know that she was struggling and smiled, folding his hands on his lap. Sparkles caught in the light as his eyes crinkled, the eye shadow starting to glow.

“It is my understanding that you do not know of us, or even Talon’s curse,” he started with a smile in his voice, like he was telling a bedtime story. “Well, I am here to inform you. As you will soon be under my power, I wish to keep all people informed and aware.”

She coughed. “Under your power?”

“Yes, cher. Now, listen to what I tell you and do not give any outward reactions till I am done. I will console you afterwards.” Jamie couldn’t help the small laugh that came from her before she nodded, biting her lip at his chiding glare.

“Let us start with The Beginning. Now, there are things such as powers and witches. It is all natural, mind you. It is not the people that are powerful, but the earth. Witches are just vessels in which the earth releases its powers.” He paused and looked at her, waiting for her nod to continue.

It wasn’t like she could tell him to stop. While she was engrossed in what he was saying, nothing was making sense to her. Her head hurt like hell, and it felt like everything was a dream. But there wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t believe any of it...

God, she thought, closing her eyes. Make up your damn mind!

The mental shouting didn’t help any.

“The earth does not let those who do not belong know of its powers. You are connected to Talon in such a way that even the earth cannot hold you two apart. Why is this, you might ask? Well, without permission, you cannot be together. Yet you are. There are no such things as Fates. As Gods. As superhumans. Nothing like that, minion.

“Instead? We have witches, demons. Angels –“

“You said there aren’t any gods, though,” she said, face scrunching up. What he said made sense – probably because her subconscious was trying to tell her that she had known this all her life.

“There are none, dear. Others may tell you there are, but anyone like us should know that there is not. Angels are the counterpart of demons. I do not mean like an angel of god, or the good to the evil,” he tittered, laughing delicately. Vladimir reached behind and pulled out a hankie, twirling it between his hands.

“Then what do you mean?”

“Demons and angels are counterparts. They must come together, but only when they know they have found the right one. Think of you and Talon. You care for him, are probably coming to love him. These feelings are natural, and even though you may not believe in true love, or even love at first site… I can see that you are in love with him,” he said softly, like he was remembering something sad, or something…painful. Jamie flushed and looked away.

But she didn’t deny anything he said.

“Demons are evil. To a point. The earth needs grace and purity to survive, and it would not start its own death by tainting the very things it needs to survive. So the witches made demons. Created them. Yet, they controlled them.”

A smile flitted around the edge of his pink-with-lip-gloss lips. “Until a law was passed by the king.”

“King?” she asked. Like, King Arthur? Jamie wondered if the rules of the world she knew still applied to the rules of the world she was learning. Would she have to live under a monarchy now? Her stomach turned. It hadn’t hit her until now how much her life was really going to change.

“Yes, we have a king. But he is missing,” he said sadly. “Lucian and Talon have taken over for the time being, but it has been so long… Jamie, our people are broken. We may seem like working people, high-tech people, modern people, but we are still as old-fashioned as we used to be. The warriors that protect us – Talon is one of them, or used to be. Such high powering people are not meant to be fighting. He gave up so much for our world.”

Jamie swallowed, biting her lip. Talon was the equivalent of a king, then. Her stomach turned.

“How did he get taken, then? He was put through so much!” she said angrily, fisting her hands in her lap. “Why did no one go after him?”

“No one knew that he had been taken. It had been his vacation, and he had requested that no one hound him or bother him.”

Jamie barely kept her tongue as she stared across the room in a stony silence.

“It is good that you are angry on his behalf,” he commented, looking at her with a faraway look. She clenched her hands in her lap and forced herself to stay calm.

“What was the king like?” she asked as a distraction.

Sorrow flashed through his sparkling eyes. “The king was...great. Mighty. Magnificent. Have you ever heard of that series, Narnia?” he asked, twisting the hankie even more.

Jamie nodded, thinking of the giant lion that the movie had so revolved around. Her head hurt from all the thinking it was doing. She couldn’t honestly believe all of this, could she? Jamie rubbed her shoulder slowly, struggling to get her head around everything.

“Well, our king is much like that lion. But not an animal,” he said, tittering. “I don’t know about you, but when I think ‘king’, I think England, or monarchy. Either way, though, our king is nothing like those frilly wearing kinds that we see in old-time movies. He wore leathers, weapons, had hair that I would die to possess --”

“You knew him personally?” Jamie interrupted, not wanting to listen to him rave over another man. The guy sounded...other-worldly. A king who wore leathers? She tried picturing Talon in a leather jacket and pants, and the image was too implausible for her.

Vladimir nodded, a proud look entering his eyes. “I was his personal consultant,” he said. The condescending tone wasn’t lost on her.

“I was not there when the kidnapping happened -- well, we are not too sure that he just didn’t disappear. As king, he was put under much stress and I think he could feel, much as I could, that our earth was dying. Still is, in fact.”

“So the 2012 stuff is real?” she asked dubiously, face screwing up. Jamie had never personally believed in the Mayan prediction, but now that she knew for sure that there were things other than humans... Her skin crawled.

“Silly human, of course it isn’t. That calendar was made to instill fear into the minds of the lessers and plus, with all of the leap years, their predictions are inaccurate. Do not believe in things you see in the movies.”

“Vampires,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What about those?”

“My, my, you are a curious one. Vampires, unfortunately, do exist. Yet they are close to extinct,” he said sadly, hands stilling their twisting. When he spoke, the grief in his voice reached her. “I am but the last of our once proud and thriving race.”

Awkward and shifting her legs so that one crossed over the other, Jamie rubbed a hand over her cheek. “I’m so sorry...you never know, though. What about Talon? He showed me how...strong he was. It isn’t possible for a...a human to survive what he did and still have enough sanity to go through the day. And his eyes...” Her voice trailed off.

“Talon is an anomaly. He does not know what is within him, yet Lucian and I knew from the beginning. I cannot tell you anything except that he is an Immortal.”

“Why can’t you tell me what he is? Don’t you think he has a right to know?” she demanded angrily on his behalf.

“Jamie, if I were to tell you what he is, what he was made for, you would die tomorrow. There is a reason that he has had such a rough time. Meeting you was just the catalytic push he needed to awaken into his powers. Sooner or later, he’s going to start feeling it.”

Fury flashed through her and she barely stopped from jumping to her feet and slapping him. “This morning...” She struggled to talk calmly. Vladimir acted like he knew everything, and while she might want to tear every sparkle from his skin piece by piece, she had to get answers. “Before this morning, he didn’t remember a thing. I don’t even think he knew what color his eyes were.”

He nodded, urging her to continue. “This morning, well.... Something weird happened. Like he got possessed or something,” she said thinly, rubbing a hand over her eyes, remembering how black it had gotten. She explained the glaring light, the complete darkness, and the way he had spoken to her -- how demonic his voice had been. Jamie also told him of the time Talon had almost killed her at Auro’s mansion.

The whole time she spoke, it got harder and harder for her to keep from crying. Just thinking of Talon in a situation, remembering it, was horrible. He had been put through so much, yet he still kept her with him.

By the time she was done talking, a pondering silence had entered the room.

“I will talk this over with Lucian,” he finally said, once again twisting the hankie.

Jamie took a shaky breath and nodded, relaxing back into the chair. She hadn’t realized that she was almost at the edge, about to fall off.

“Now, back to our earlier conversation. We have shifters -- you might think of them as werewolves, but they can turn into so much more than that. I once knew a man who

could turn into a spider. Creepy thing, but he was amazingly flexible...” A smirk came over his face as he talked.

“A couple of rules you might want to consider. If you ever seen one of our kind fighting? I would request, for the sake of Talon not going apeshit on everyone, that you do not enter it or try to interfere. We have a council for that.”

“A council?”

“Surely you did not think our world has survived without advisors,” he laughed, waving the hankie as he did so. “You will meet the council soon enough. Our oldest living creatures consist of the council, and they are rarely considerate in their decisions. If they want to behead you, they will. But, without the king’s okay -- and since Lucian and Talon are the rulers right now, I doubt he would go along with any of it -- they cannot touch you.

“When you meet with them, you must not speak directly to any of them. It is the greatest insult you could ever show them, and even Talon won’t be able to help you if you do such a grave misdoing. I am wondering why you are even welcomed to this world,” he commented slowly, stroking the hankie like he would a cat. Her chest tightened, offended. He shot her a look and laughed softly. “Not like that. I’m just saying that you and Talon are so different, and you have no becoming qualities besides your beauty. I cannot sense anything other than human within you.”

Jamie thought back to the men in black, when she was just a kid. Her mother taking her away, trying to hide her from things. That near miss when everything had fallen around her. As she mulled over what he had said, she couldn’t help the errant, horrible thought that she had used to force out of her mind.

It was too painful. To dangerous. It was something she had never thought about, as bad as things had gotten.

He had said that she would die the next day if she knew anything about Talon.

What would it matter if she died a second time?

“I must warn you, Jamie. The witches...they are after Talon. They want him dead, but more than anything they want him to suffer. They are going to use you to do it.”

Her blood froze in her veins, becoming icy as fear coursed through her. “How do I know when I’ve...seen a witch?” she asked, hands turning numb.

“You will know. Their eyes are soulless. Centuries of being connected to the earth, living the horrors and damage that had come to it, has made them heartless and emotionless. They have as much warmth as a serial killer.”

“And they are...after Talon. Why?” she demanded.

“You might want to ask him about an ‘Amena’,” he said, standing to his feet and putting the hanky in his back pocket with a grace it seemed only he could perfect.

“Why? I have more questions...”

“I have introduced you into our world. Talon will do the rest for you. If you need anything from me, you may ask Talon or Lucian for my cell.

With that, he left the room in a whisper of sound. Jamie stared at the empty space, not even surprised. Jamie leaned into the chair, mind whirling.

“Jamie?”

The voice had her startling, jerking to her feet. Talon was in the doorway, watching her and waiting. She cleared her throat awkwardly, then wiped her hands on her pants.

She was going to ask him about this “Amena” person as soon as they were alone.