Chapter 9

Nine

Viper

W e speed down a dimly lit entrance to a private hangar in the dead of night.

I cast a suspicious glance in Mirsha's direction, but his lips are sealed tight.

"Why are we here?" I check my weapons one at a time and push the clips back in. I take comfort in knowing I'm fully stocked for whatever shitstorm is about to hit us. I look out the window for a clue, but all I get back is a bunch of nothing. Clouds have rolled over the full moon and the lightning tearing across the sky is the exact mirror of my mood—electric and unpredictable.

I thump him on the chest and I get snarled at. My friend's eyes glitter with anger. He's been this way ever since we walked away from Aster. I can tolerate a lot, but I have my limits. I get he's hurting. We all are, but he made the choice not to fight for her. And being the dumbass loyal friend, I backed him up. Luther wouldn't make a move without the both of us, so here we are. All three dumbasses and suffering from some mafia blood moral code about not touching their best friend's daughters.

I did a lot of touching the one night we all stole for ourselves and the devil can have my soul when my time is up. She is worth every flame of damnation I'm lined up to endure.

Beside me Mirsha remains silent and gawks out the window like he suddenly has night vision.

"Never've known you to not have something to say." I roll my shoulder and push my weight his way. Eventually he'll break.

Frustration fills his voice as he glares back at me like I should be sacred. What I am is tired, and he's stomping all over my last nerve.

"Fuck off, Viper."

"Take a swing, man. I'm ready anytime you are." If he needs to work out some pent-up frustrations, I'm more than willing to play.

"Shut the hell up, Viper. And just sit in silence. Learn a new trick for once. You always have to be talking."

"That's right, motherfucker. I like words and letting those around me know what is going on. I will follow you into hell, but I need to know what weapons to bring. You can't just shuffle us into a car and say, ‘trust me'."

"What he said." Luther is in the front at the wheel while Sourpuss and I ride in the back.

Luther looks at us through the rearview. "What the hell is going on and why did I break every speed limit there is getting us here? Who are we picking up?"

Mirsha's features harden. "Stop the car and look for yourselves."

Luther slows the car to a stop, and I am the first one out. A private jet is positioned at the mouth of a darkened private hangar. Not ours, I notice.

Luther and Mirsha come up beside me and we watch as the door opens and a set of airstairs extend to the tarmac.

"Who's on the plane?"

There's a breeze coming up from the south. God as my witness, it holds hints of magic or fairy dust or…fuck, I don't know. But I swear the electricity climbing over my skin and burrowing into my bloodstream is otherworldly.

Maybe I need to see a voodoo priestess and cut this shit out of me because I feel like I am losing my mind. It's faint at first and has that damn ache in my chest returning in full force.

It lures part of me back to the Society. I know she won't be there, but I can feel her energy and if that is all I can have, I want it. Mirsha and Luther think I've gone off the deep end, but that's it. That is why we have to buy The Gilded Key Society.

But the other half of me says I am fated to be in this fucking for something more. Something beyond just a connection with my soulmate. Frustration has me stabbing my fingers through my hair. Long sheets of black fall from the knot I keep it in and for a second the pain of fisting my hair helps me ground myself.

"Easy, brother." Luther's hand on my chest helps me draw a deep lungful of air in. I hold the warm Louisiana summer air, count to five, and release it all.

"Yeah, I'm good now."

Moving shadows inside the cabin have my hands dropping my weapons.

"Mirsha. Time to talk, brother."

We all three take a step toward the stairs.

And then the shadow becomes a single silhouette with dark hair and vivid eyes. My heart stops mid-beat. Briefly, ever so briefly, I think I've died. Or my mind has finally clicked off and I've lost my ability to reason.

Those pretty, unmistakable blue eyes linger over Mirsha first, then Luther. But when they hit me, my feet move and I don't stop until I have my hands on her. I want to pull her head back and devour her lips until we both scream for air.

"Oh, hell no!" I hear her say, but the way those hands crush my shirt and pull me in has my heart lurching back to life.

"Aster." I can't believe all my dreams of holding her again finally came true.

Because nothing is ever free in our world, no matter how right it feels, I turn a hard look at Mirsha. "Why is she here? What are you not telling us?"