Queen of Death
Chapter 23

Solana

After my mom left my intention was to go downstairs to the main bar and help serve. Something to busy myself with so I could think.

The last several weeks have been filled with many nights thinking over things. At first I thought about how to get out of the deal my dads made with Death, how to make their lives miserable so they’d renege on their agreement. When that proved fruitless, and it was obvious I had met my match with Ace, I thought a lot about how I felt about him and Hunter and admittedly the rest of their pack.

Loving Hunter isn’t a choice, it’s written on my soul. As is my love for Ace. It may have taken longer to manifest, for me to accept that my feelings for him matched my feelings for Hunter, making the thought of leaving unbearable.

Besides them, I thought Tate would be the hardest one to get to know. The hardest to love. Turns out it was easier than I thought. Once I recognized in him what I myself was struggling with everything fell into place and our hearts clicked like puzzle pieces. Oddly enough the same is true about Dean. We balance each other’s need to take care of the other.

I don’t know if what they feel for me is love, but I know I’m inexplicably drawn to them nearly as much as I am to Ace and Hunter. My matebond with Ace may always supersede any other bond but it doesn’t make the others any less real or intense.

I just need to figure out what my bonds with Tate and Dean are. Is it just physical for them? Or do they feel it, too?

I’m standing in the middle of the club when I give up on the idea of working the bar. Taking drink orders is hard enough without adding the mental gymnastics my thoughts are currently engaged in. So I stay put. In the middle of the floor surrounded by bodies who are saying “fuck thinking,” and allowing the heavy beats of the music to sweep the intrusive thoughts away.

Songs come and go, but I remain fixed where I am. That is at least until the bumping of bodies around me starts to feel a little more intentional. No one accidentally cups an ass. Brushes against it? Sure. But I know an ass grab when I feel one.

I step away from the owner of the hand that grabbed me. If his unsolicited physical contact wasn’t enough of a deterrent then his foul scent certainly would be. He reeks of perspiration and cheap cologne. Not even close to the scents of comfort and home that Ace and the guys all carry. And judging by this asshole’s relentless determination to piss me the fuck off, he may very well end up being the second guy I kill on this floor.

Mom will be pissed if I get blood on the floor again, so I’ll have to make it discreet or lure him outside. Which, admittedly, is not an appealing option tonight. Not only am I simply not in the mood to exert that minimal level of effort, Ace or Tate would follow me and do their whole “don’t touch my woman” routine and steal my kill. If he’s smart, he’d piss himself and accept a quick death. If he’s not… well, he’s in for a painfully long night.

His breath is hot on my neck, making me cringe and recoil away from him. I ready myself to turn around and punch him in the kidney — no blood that way — when Eli pushes himself between me and the clearly-not-smart-guy.

The guy takes a step back, having to look up to meet Eli’s eyes from the three inches of height Eli has on him. As he goes to take another step back he inexplicably slips as if on ice, reflexively sprawling his arms wide but snagging on another girl’s dress and ripping it down to her waist on his way down to the ground.

The girl’s boyfriend is so mad he lays into the guy right there on the floor. Screaming at him like a wild dog frothing at the mouth while the girl and her friends scurry away to salvage her dress.

When Eli turns to me with his chocolate brown eyes I don’t feel the chill of his ice. All I feel is molten warmth like a hot fudge drizzle trailing in the wake of his eyes as they roam everywhere over my body.

He’s the last of the guys I expected to come down here to needlessly stand up for me, so I blame my dumb-stricken brain for what I say next.

“You got blood on my mom’s floor.”

“I’ll apologize to the Queen later. Though, technically it wasn’t me who drew blood.” The seriousness in his tone matches mine but his facial expression is the first to break into a shy, unsure smile. I reciprocate with one of my own.

“Do you want to leave?” He asks, bending to speak closer to my ear so he doesn’t have to compete with the music.

I shake my head no, brows pinching together expressing my confusion by his actions. “What are you doing down here?”

“I thought that was obvious,” he nods over his shoulder to the guy being scraped off the floor by security. When I don’t respond he continues. “I saw him getting close to you from upstairs. I — I didn’t like it.”

“Didn’t like what?” I’m not trying to be intentionally thick but he’s given me the cold shoulder for days and I’m just supposed to accept this for a random act of kindness? No. It’s time we air this out.

“I didn’t like watching him wanting you, trying to get his hands on you.”

“I appreciate the concern but you’re no longer under any obligation to protect me.” Not like I needed it to begin with.

“Sol,” he puts a heavy hand on my shoulder when I turn to leave. His hand glides down my arm and slips onto my waist. Then his other hand joins by caressing the opposite side, pulling us together slightly. His warm eyes shine with a certain vulnerability I haven’t seen before. Like he knows what he wants to say or do but he’s too afraid to commit to actually saying or doing it.

— — —

Eli

I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing.

Never has there been a more apt caption for the movie poster of my life. I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing.

Sol’s arrival in our lives has only made everything that much more difficult to parse out. I don’t even realize how close she draws me in until I’m already thawing from her warmth. That’s when I need to back off, that’s when I’ve gotten too close.

Like right now, for example. I’ve got her in my grip. I know I should walk away but it’s getting harder to stay away leaving me more and more confused about how she can turn me inside out like this. I shouldn’t feel what I do for her. She was a job. She lied. She’s not my mate. She can’t be mine.

She braces her hands on my biceps. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I begin to move us on autopilot to the rhythm of the music.

“The hot and cold routine. You’re in just as easily as you are out. As soon as things hit too close to the chest you go from warm to cold and you freeze everyone out.”

“I think I had every right to be upset that you had been lying to us about who you are.”

She stiffens in my hold, eyes hardening with anger. “I didn’t owe any of you an explanation.”

“You don’t think we needed to know? That we deserved to know?”

“I’m not in the habit of giving all of myself to every stranger I pass by.”

“Apparently you weren’t even willing to do that for your mate.” I spit the words at her in a heated moment of anger.

I wish I could take the words back immediately. Solana distances herself from me, holding her palm up to me as if I’m a physical threat to her. Her expression looks stricken.

“So that’s what this is about. I fucking knew it.” Her jaw clenches and her lips curl up in a snarl as she pokes an accusatory finger to the center of my chest. “You don’t get to punish me for what your mate did to you.”

Ice crystallizes at my fingertips traveling slowly upwards. “Don’t bring her into this.”

“I didn’t bring her into this. You did. When you decided that she and I were cut from the same cloth.”

I close the distance she put between us and capture her chin between my fingers. “I told you once before that you are nothing like her and I meant it. Voce se lembra? You’re the fire and she’s nothing but smoke.”

“Then why are you still so cold to me?” Her eyes search mine in earnest.

Because you’re not just a job. I used your lie as an excuse to be mad. You’re Ace’s mate. You can’t be mine.

I rest my forehead against hers and whisper against her lips, “Porque eu tenho medo que você quebre o que sobrou do meu coração.”

She may not understand everything I said, but the way her right hand slips up my chest and settles above my heart tells me she understood some of it. That I’m afraid. That she has the ability to break my heart…what’s left of it anyway.

Warmth floods my chest. It’s unlike the warmth from Dean’s empathic meddling, or Ace’s alpha comfort. This warmth is that of the sun. Of Solana. “I’m sorry if it felt like I was giving you pieces of myself. For a long time I’ve felt like a cup half empty, like so much of me was missing.” Her voice is gentle and consoling.

I nod in agreement because she’s hit the nail on the head. That’s how I’ve felt for a long time too.

“Then life led me to you guys and I’ve gotten a glimpse of what it felt like to be whole again. You’re a part of that, though, Eli.”

My lips part to respond but she puts a finger to my lips to silence me. “I’m scared, too. But if I’ve learned anything from my time with Death it’s that if you jump all in, if you commit – no plan b, no break-in-case-of-emergency plan – these guys will fill up your heart beyond comparison. They can make us whole.”

“You’re asking me to commit to jumping out of a plane without a parachute.” I mutter sheepishly.

“Well it’s a good thing four of us have wings,” her hands snake around my neck.

I respond by wrapping my arms around her waist and burying my nose in her hair. She smells so fucking good. Her scent is like an instant high, an electric shock firing through my veins.

“I’m beginning to think that you’re the only one who can keep me from freezing over,” I whisper in her ear, giving her playful nips on her lobes and working my way down to her neck.

“Give us your all, give us your heart, and we will.”

Well, fuck. What am I supposed to say to that?

Our bodies fuse together as our lips clash and tongues tangle. Steam emanates from between us where her fire blends with my frost.

“I need you,” I suck and lick at her jawline while grinding her against my leg as we half-dance, half-fuck. But I’ve just promised her no more half measures. And I’m done dancing.

“Take me to The Den,” she moans above the noise of the music.

“Not tonight, Sunshine. I’ve got a better idea.”

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