The Cage King (10 page)

They were both breathing hard. He turned to look out the window, watching the evening sun shining over the tops of the trees. “And then you were gone. Nothing. No one knew shit. You left me without a whisper, and all I had was a dead best friend and my woman missing. Do you know how scared I was? Do you have any fucking clue how scared-” and for the first time his voice broke, choked up, and he gritted his teeth hard, pushed air down through the constricted muscles of his chest and back so he could take a deep breath, because fuck if this was going to control him.

“It wasn’t on purpose.” Her voice was soft, tentative, all edges gone and pure sorrow throughout. “It wasn’t to hurt you. I wasn’t myself, and I couldn’t think or consider anything, not even what you might be going through.”

He swallowed the rough emotion, the swell behind his eyes. “Letting me know you weren’t dead? That would’ve been too much?”

“At the time? Yes.”

A short snap of humorless laughter escaped him. “And yet I’m the asshole.”

“When I came to myself later, I was going to tell you.” An unsteady hand brushed his shoulder, the touch unsure of its welcome, while the voice that accompanied it pleaded to be heard. “I really was. I would never have left you like that. But when I said I wanted to contact you, Laire told me she’d taken care of it and let you know I was alive and taken care of. Maybe it was the coward’s way, but I didn’t press after that.”

“Three days after you disappeared, I got a note. At the time, I thought it was from you. It made it clear you weren’t coming back.”

Her hand left him and her voice grew faint, a note of begging twirling around her words. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry I put you through that.”

Esh pushed away from the window, not looking at her as he set for the bedroom. “How’s that closure working for you?”

‡

T
he first fights
were starting, and Nalah wasn’t there to watch Esh.

It had been by mutual, unspoken decision, come to as they’d worked around the apartment with awkward jerks and split-second stops so to not touch each other. For the first time, her presence would be more hindrance than help, and Esh couldn’t lose in these first rounds. Beyond the toll it would take on his reputation, it was only after today’s fights that the real festivities would begin, where Nalah would have access to Beylor’s home and Tiffany would start wearing the brag-worthy pieces of her collection.

Once again, she was with the other women, a surprising number of whom weren’t going to watch their men.

Tiffany snorted. “Why would they? It’s boring. I only go on the last day because it’s expected.”

They were alone for the moment, Tiffany wanting girl time with Nalah. Nalah picked up the drink Tiffany had brought for her, the smell of alcohol strong even this early in the morning. “I love watching Esh fight.”

Tiffany near purred before she took a big gulp from her own glass. “I’d definitely make an exception if I was cheering him. But if that’s the way it is, why aren’t you there today?”

“He told me not to bother, the real fights don’t begin until round two anyway.”

“He’s right. Most of the guests don’t go until second round either. I asked Bey why he doesn’t cut it in half, but he said day one is good for the bloodlust crowd and he makes a fair amount in bets.”

Tiffany rattled off the explanation like it was no big deal. Why hadn’t Nalah realized in asking Esh to fight, she was asking him to put himself in the way of people who wanted not just to fight, but to kill him? Or that he might have to kill in order to keep himself protected? He was a fighter, and she had no doubt he’d kill if he had to, but that wasn’t his nature. It was one of the reasons he was so careful in choosing his own fights, to prevent that. How could she have been that stupid?

Because Esh always kept you away from the worst. You might talk big, but you still have this almost romantic version of the fights.
Fucking traitorous inner voice, making her feel smaller than she had last night and so young. She’d always felt old, starting even before her mom died when she was seven. But these last few days, she felt young and stripped, facing all her poor decisions and coming away shamed.

A chill wind of magic blew through, a hint of power, subtle, amorphous. Nalah pulled herself from her thoughts, looking around in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion to find the source.

Through the room came a being more porcelain doll than flesh-and-blood woman. Her silvery-white hair was pinned up in the front but the near knee-length mass flowed down her back in perfect curls, falling over shoulders bared by her red corseted gown, her skin almost the same color as her hair. Refined features, a little rosebud mouth, an aristocratic, pouty slant to her cheekbones and jaw, and her eyes…

Pure midnight black, save a pinprick of white in the center. They didn’t reflect the surrounding light; they absorbed it, turning all to darkness within them.

Tiffany shivered and Nalah fought to prevent herself from joining in. The newcomer was touched with the same magic the albino had been. Whatever evil was present here, she was part of it. The magic was building at the base of her head, pounding into her shields like waves rolling into breakers.

The woman didn’t look around, but Nalah had the gut deep certainty she was being studied. No one spoke or moved until the woman left the room.

Conversation began after several minutes, low and halting, as if everyone were waiting to see if the doll-woman came back. Nalah leaned over and spoke to Tiffany in similar low tones. “Who is that?”

“Everyone calls her The Pale Lady.” Tiffany spoke the name with reverential terror, and Nalah could hear the capitalization of the words. “Bey says he doesn’t know why she’s here, that she’s never come to any of the Tours before. I don’t think he’s happy she’s here, but he never says anything out loud.”

She wasn’t vampire. The magic was close, but not quite.

More worrying was the fact that this was her first Tour. Even as Esh put forward the theory last night that maybe the dark magic was here to satiate bloodlust with the Tour, she could tell by his tone he was doubtful about it. But with Tiffany’s info, doubtful became not applicable, and that meant this Pale Lady was after the magic ring.

Nalah was about to make an excuse to leave when one of the Tiffany clones bounced in, excitement in every overexaggerated feature. “Omigods, you’ll never believe it! Nalah, you missed your man!”

Nalah began to say “What did I miss?” but excitement girl began talking in rushed sentences before Nalah was even half-finished. “Esh’s turn, right? And he looks at the three other fighters in his block, and he goes and says, ‘I’ll fight them all at once. They aren’t worth any more of my time.’
Like
, he really says that, he’s just going to fight them all! And everyone’s yelling, and those other fighters were so pissed, and they said sure.”

Tiffany put a hand on the woman. “Sweetie, sweetie, slow down. Esh fought three other fighters at the same time?”

“
Gods
yes! And they all ganged up on him, because of course they would, he so insulted them by doing that,
and. Esh. Won!
Can you believe that? Three fighters at once, and then he just left without saying anything.”

Nalah was out the door and down the stairs and across the uneven pavement and back in her apartment before thought caught up to her. Only when she saw Esh sitting in the chair, his head leaning back across the top and his eyes closed, did she remember last night and why he might not be happy to see her.

Esh’s eyes opened and he moved his head to the side to see her, though he didn’t lift it from where it rested. “News travels.”

“You’re the talk of the women.” She stepped in front of him, his gaze and head following her. “Everyone is very impressed. I’m sure you’re going to be stalked tonight.”

“You know me, I live for the limelight.”

Each of her twenty-two years mocked her for her inexperience right now. As she stood before him, Nalah catalogued the lines and scars and the bone-deep
something
each plane of his body displayed, all of which told how he lived on the front lines.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but it was time to take steps forward, make experiences, no matter if they were ultimately mistakes.

Her body trembling, Nalah moved forward, one step, then two, until she was before him, until she climbed onto the chair with her legs straddling his, until her face was close enough that mouths could meet and tongues could tangle together.

His skin bordered on fever-hot, kindling a matching fire in her, a desire to burrow into that warmth and let it engulf her. Strong, calloused fingers stroked over her jaw and throat, turning her head so he could deepen the kiss, meet her eager mouth in the longer strokes she craved.

Nalah may have been on top, but Esh controlled, only letting her move where he allowed, deepen the kisses and touches to where he desired them. She growled, and in defiance twisted her hips, the movement grinding her ass against his rock-hard cock.

“Fuck!”
The exclamation was torn from him in a pained outburst and his hands shot out around her hips, halting the movement.

Not that it stopped her. She changed from twisting to a rolling motion, and his stuttered groan told he might even like that one more.

“
Don’t do that.
You are not making me a minute-man.”

A giggle burst from her, because right now his hair was in disarray and he looked both horny and pissed with a good bit of amused thrown in, and this man right here was the one she thought she’d spend all her life with, and it was
so good
to see him again.

He grumbled, but his own lips turned up in a smile before he leaned up and began attacking her neck, pressing against her those open-mouthed kisses that got her going but had everyone snickering around her the next day. She pulled his head back. “Nuh-uh, no marking.”

“But I like you marked.” As if to support his words, he made for her neck, only her hold keeping him back.

“Then mark me in other ways.” Nalah meant it to come out sexy, but her voice still had that breathless laughing quality, and Esh’s eyes lit up.

“That’s a challenge I’ll take any day,” he said, a wide grin, the first she had seen since they reunited, giving his face a near-boyish quality. Her heart stuttered to see that look on him again. “Let’s see, where to begin…”

He worked the buttons of her shirt, ignoring her slapping hand and her, “Hey! I didn’t say you could do that!” To distract her – the cheating bastard – he stretched up to capture her mouth in another kiss, and what a happy discovery to learn you could still kiss reasonably well through giggles.

In retaliation she went for his chest, which didn’t have a shirt covering it, but instead was left bare, and wasn’t it great that Esh had sensitive nipples? With a firm stroke she rubbed her thumbs over the hard brown points, eliciting another growl and the loss of a few buttons as her shirt was torn from her.

He tangled her arms in the sleeves of her shirt, the fabric trapping her and not…letting…her…touch, damn him. His grin was unmistakable against her skin, where he currently was enjoying the swell of her breast above her bra.

“Think that’s funny?” If his hands were trapping her arms, that meant they weren’t on her hips any longer, and Nalah always loved to dance, to move her hips in abandon. Today’s music was the growls and groans and sighs and laughs of the man beneath her, and she was going to take full advantage of the concert.

And what a sound spectacular it was. With each grind he answered with a groan, with each hitch of her breath a corresponding growl emitted from his own throat, the sounds scaling from a high, surprised gasp to the lowest rumble from the center of his chest.

“Nalah,” he said in a deep, desperate groan, and that was the sound she would take with her if she was allowed to remember only one sound from her life. His voice, saying her name as if the word contained every good and wanted and desired thing in this life.

Her hands now free, she encircled his neck with her arms, and his own answered by clamping around her waist. He rose, and as he did her legs came around his waist.

With quick movements he placed her on the bed, pulling off her jeans and shoes until she lay before him in her underwear. He rid himself of his own pants, and unlike her, he was naked, his cock hard. He didn’t shield himself, let himself be studied as she wished, but his eyes lost the mirth from before as he waited for her next move.

Strange. When she approached him, she expected to have a moment’s hesitation sometime during their play, a voice that would tell her this wasn’t a good idea. Right now was a perfect time for that voice to show up, but her body only thrummed. She leaned up on her elbows, giving him an exaggerated once-over. “That thing looks more dangerous than what you show in the cage.”

And with that, the mirth was back, and all hardness in him was due to desire. “Wait until you see it in action.”

“Well, for that, I think you need to come closer.” And she wanted him closer. They’d never gotten this far before, and this was the reality of what had only before been fantasies she’d spent years creating in her mind.