Edge of Humanity (Only Human Book 5) Read online

  I know you were in his head and heard everything, but no one else knows, right?

  Correct. Not even Kendra.

  Someone brought a tray with various meats, cheeses, and crackers, and Cora loaded turkey and cheese onto several crackers and downed them. Her wolf had wanted to tear into Gavin a few times, and now Cora was trying to feed the animal inside her.

  “This is an appetizer,” said Kendra. “Cora will have some hamburgers soon, and you’ll have a veggie burger.”

  “And potatoes,” Abbott said with a smile. I heard the door to the playroom open and close behind me, but I didn’t want to assume anything.

  “You sent someone in to feed Gavin?”

  “I did.”

  “Thank you. I was about to, but it’s good you knew when to.”

  The world went silent — no air conditioner, no hum of a refrigerator, no ambient noises at all, and I figured Abbott had put a sound dampener around us.

  “You still feel as if you need revenge on me, for my part in your abduction and… subsequent activities?” he asked.

  “I do, but I don’t intend to act upon it.”

  “I have a proposition.”

  I tilted my head but didn’t respond.

  “Kendra should be punished for choosing to place her friendship to you over her loyalty to me. In retrospect, I understand she felt she was being loyal to me by holding you as her friend, but she disobeyed two direct orders and there must be consequences.”

  I didn’t look at Kendra, but held Abbott’s gaze. He hadn’t reached the proposition yet, so I didn’t say anything.

  “What you saw me do to Piers was for a light transgression, and this would be punishment for not one, but two serious transgressions against me.”

  He was taking his sweet time getting to the point, so I finished for him. “You’ll forego punishing her if I’ll call it even between us?”

  A sigh. I’d taken the air out of his sails. “Yes.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So easy?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at Cora, and she said, “I won’t be so easy.”

  “I’m aware. To you, I offer my blessing for you and Kendra to speak as friends and not merely as the Seconds of your respective organizations. I give her permission to drop the formal notes I’d usually require of her when speaking to the Second in the Pack.”

  Cora looked to me and back to Abbott. Cora didn’t think it was even close to enough.

  I telepathed Abbott so Cora could hear. You’ll keep her threat to Gavin to yourself.

  Randall would be most displeased if he knew she was contemplating under what circumstances she’ll take power from him. I will not tell him.

  “I accept your offer,” Cora said aloud. “Kendra respects you as a leader, as I respect Randall.”

  Abbott lifted a brow but didn’t comment.

  “Gavin should’ve fed and come out by now. How badly did you hurt him?” asked Kendra.

  “He’s fine,” Abbott told her. “Taking his pleasures with his meal while we wait. Perhaps it will put him in a better mood.”

  Kendra relaxed and smiled. “Well then, I assume he’s intact.”

  I resisted the urge to look at the clock. “If Gavin wants you to know what happened, he’ll have to tell you.”

  Gavin stepped out in leather pants with no shirt, and I turned to meet his gaze.

  “You were conflicted.” His face was stone. Granite. No emotions. His walls were back intact.

  “Not enough to stop.” I said it with the conviction I felt, and I was certain every supernatural in the room would know my statement was the raw truth.

  Gavin looked at Kendra. “She held my heart in her hands while I watched. She’s as bloody ruthless as you.” His hard, emotionless eyes focused on me again. “You enjoyed parts of it, despite the conflict.”

  “I did. Nothing you say out here is subject to the confidentiality I assured you of in the playroom.”

  He sat beside Abbott, and the Master Vampire held his hand as if they were lovers. My instinct was to reach out for Cora, but I fortified my shield and launched us into our next conversation.

  “You attacked Nathan,” I told Abbott. “You were going to kill him.”

  “I did, and I was.”

  “What happened to the importance of everyone getting along? And don’t say this was a fit of rage. He killed the Pride leader you’d taken over in Mexico, but he found out all the details first. You found a Pride between protective land masses, in another country, specifically to hide the fact you owned one of Nathan’s Prides. You’ve owned it for decades. Long before you met me. This was part of a long-term strategy.”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  Abbott was fully in arrogant bastard mode, but I ignored the attitude.

  “The assumption is you were trying to kill him because I was fucking him.”

  “The werewolf known as Dawg is still alive.”

  “Everyone knows you’re stronger than Dawg. There’s nothing to prove. Whether you’d come out on top in a fair fight with the Amakhosi? I’m not sure even the Vegas bookies would venture to guess. You want to make the rumors about you being head-over-heels for me go away? Don’t try to kill the people I’m fucking.”

  Abbott sighed. “First, the idea of a fair fight is ludicrous. By definition, fighting means using every means at your disposal to win. I have back-up plans to my back-up plans, last-resort plans if those fail, and escape plans if those fail.” He gave us a cocky look. “I went to the meeting expecting to negotiate. He wanted a fight, so I gave it to him.”

  He looked back to Cora. “You’re here as support for Kirsten, but you’re also Second to the Wolf Alpha. I’m aware nothing said in this room is given in confidence.”

  Cora shrugged. “I’m sure you’re aware Randall’s already doing an inventory to be sure you haven’t been drinking from any of the alphas under him. My guess is you’ve used different methods for each animal group. Doing the same thing would be too obvious.”

  As badly as I wanted to tell Abbott that if he killed Nathan, I’d kill him, I knew it was the wrong move. This was a giant chess game and it was time to wrap things up and leave. Besides, I was exhausted and quickly fading. It had to be four or five in the morning and my bed was calling.

  “Are we at a truce? All of us?” I asked.

  “I believe everyone in this room is,” Abbott said after a good fifteen seconds, which told me he’d telepathed with Gavin to be certain.

  I stood, and Cora was only a half-second behind me. I reached for her hand and breathed easier from the physical contact.

  “I’ll only be working for Drake Security as a therapist for employees who need my services. Should we end up in some big battle for good and evil, I’ll step back in, but otherwise I’m going to attempt to live a boring human life.” I focused on Abbott and held his gaze. “Let me know where and when you want us to be seen in public, and I’ll be there. Otherwise, it’d be nice if everyone could forget about me.”

  “Will you keep fucking the Lion King?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  He waited for me to keep talking, but I honestly didn’t know where Nathan and I were. I’d hurt him by not standing by his side, and now he wanted to punish me in front of his lionesses. I had no idea what that meant for us.

  “I don’t owe you an answer, but I’m giving it to you anyway. I have no idea.”

  Cora and I made it upstairs and to my car, and I gave her my keys. My feet were killing me after standing in heels so long, but I’d instinctively known it would give me an edge with Gavin, and I’d needed every last bit of edge I could find.

  3

  RaeLynn was already seated at the picnic table when I arrived. This wasn’t a social visit. There was no food.

  “I understand Nathan’s okay physically, and he’s putting things back into order?”

  “His Majesty is fine.”

  She was all business, so I jump
ed straight into what I needed to say. “His offer to me, in order to make things right, was to put me in stocks, give me forty-eight strikes from a variety of implements, and allow you one strike with his belt. No sex. I agreed, but he said I should get with you to see if there was a better option.”

  “There’s more. It isn’t just the strikes, but the positioning. Large anal plug, tied off to an anchor in the ceiling, to hold your ass in place. Needles through your clit and nipples, with weights hanging from the needles.” She sighed. “You understand, it’s as much about being on display as it is about the beating? Lionesses are fucked afterwards. It’s both a confirmation of the fact we’re owned, and a welcome back. A show of ownership. We belong; therefore we’re fucked.”

  “I’ve been whipped in public before, but I don’t do the sex thing in public. If we have sex, it’ll be in private.”

  “Because you’re human, or because you think you’re special?”

  “Because it’s the way I’m wired.”

  “I have another option for you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You do nothing. No punishment, and you’re out of his life unless Drake Security requires the two of you work together, and then there are no hugs, no dinners, no holding you while you cry, no aftercare when someone else hurts you. You say you’re pulling away from the supernatural world, so this shouldn’t be difficult.”

  I shook my head. “Nathan’s my friend and I want to stay in his life. I want him in mine. I won’t agree to pulling away from him.”

  She sat back and looked at me a few seconds. “To be sure you understand — the forty-eight strikes are going to bruise you. Mark you. You’ll be crying and begging him to stop after the first one, but he won’t. Once punishment starts, it doesn’t stop.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. He’d gotten pissed at Xaephan for not respecting my safeword. If I said it, he’d stop and check in with me. I’d have to let him give me all forty-eight without safewording — that’d be the trick. No way could I tell her that, though.

  “I know the difference between a fun spanking scene and a true punishment. I know there’ll be no pleasure, no orgasms. Punishment is supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be more than you can handle. I’m aware.”

  “And you’ll bend over for it when you have the option of skipping it?”

  “I won’t excise Nathan from my life. He’s important to me. I fucked up; I’ll pay the price. If his deal is the only one on the table that keeps him in my life, so be it.”

  She rested her hands on the tabletop and looked at them a good three minutes. I didn’t interrupt, didn’t move, didn’t in any way draw her out of her thoughts.

  Finally, she looked at me. “He doesn’t have to punish you for our benefit. Just be there for him when he needs you, from now on. Even if it’ll create a political nightmare, promise me you’ll be there for him.”

  “My daughter’s safety comes before Nathan’s. Beyond that, I’ll do everything in my power to be where he needs me when the shit hits the fan.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “You’ll have to do whatever Nathan needs from you in private to make things right. He may still want to belt you. I don’t know. I’m just saying it isn’t necessary for him to do it for our benefit. The deal he gave you was to make things right with us.” She looked away a second before meeting my gaze again. “With me.”

  “You’re good? It’s just between Nathan and me, now?”

  “You understand… you aren’t one of us, and yet, you are?”

  “I have friends in poly groups, and I provide therapy for individuals in poly groups, as well as for a few groups as a whole. When someone comes in who doesn’t understand the group dynamics, it can fuck things up. That isn’t my intention, and yet…” I shrugged. “He’s yours. He can’t be mine. I get it.”

  “I feel your grief. You love him.”

  “As do you.”

  “He tells me you’re pulling away from everyone and everything supernatural for a year? Until your daughter leaves for college?”

  “Everything, not necessarily everyone. Cora will probably be moving into my guest bedroom, and I hope to keep involved in the non-supernatural bits of Nathan’s life. I’m friends with Aaron and Sophia, and I can’t imagine not seeing them for a year. Assuming we can figure out a few things, I intend to spend time with Kendra here and there, too. The ol’ladies of the RTMC invite me on their Girls’ Night Out barhopping sprees, and I’ll go with them when it fits into my schedule.”

  “Dawg?”

  “I haven’t promised monogamy or exclusivity to anyone.”

  “When your daughter goes away to college and you have more time, I’d like you to come to our home for dinner. I’d like you to get to know us better, and give us an opportunity to get to know you. I’d like you to come watch if there’s a public punishment.”

  I nodded. “I can’t obligate myself to anything specific so far in the future, but you and I will figure things out once my daughter’s settled in and I’m ready to put my empty nest syndrome behind me. One of my patients adopted nine dogs within a year of her only child leaving for college. I don’t want to do that.”

  4

  The following Sunday, I was checking the things off I had to do before I could say I’d pulled back. Next on the list was the full-moon run with the wolves, but it was still ten days away.

  The one I most dreaded involved fixing public perception so the community knew Abbott and Gavin were no longer my enemies.

  I called Abbott.

  “We still need to make a public appearance. Any chance I can get that marked off my list in the near future?”

  “The RTMC is having a party Friday night. I’d like you to arrive and leave with Gavin and me. You’ll kiss us. You’ll hug us. We’ll all be cozy. The three of us will go to the Coterie house when we leave. We’ll spend a minimum of four hours in the playroom. Either Gavin or I will take you home sometime before sunrise. Or possibly both of us. We can play Scrabble in the playroom, we can fuck, we can flog you until you orgasm — I care not. We will, however, spend the time doing something together.”

  Leave it to Abbott to pick the one place I’d be uncomfortable. “Assuming I can tell Dawg I’ve already been invited to come as your guest if he texts me an invitation, I’ll agree to those stipulations.”

  “No one can know you did it to fulfill an obligation. Not even your little wolven fuckbuddy.”

  “Understood. I’ll bring a naughty card game for the playroom after the party. I think I’d like to be heavily buzzed for my time with the two of you.”

  His chuckle went straight to my clit. Abbott and I’d been good together, but there was no danger of me wanting him back in my life. Still, if I could mend our friendship, I would.

  I didn’t wait for Dawg to text me an invitation. I stopped by the RTMC bar after work Monday, in the hopes I could talk to him. He wasn’t working, so I asked Gonzo to have Dawg call me with the Drake app. A few hours later, Dawg called.

  “Abbott and Gavin have invited me to the MC’s party Friday night. I’ll be there with them, and I know you and I aren’t an item, but it feels rude to show up with someone else when I’m usually there to see you.”

  “If it feels rude, why are you doing it?” He shrugged on the screen. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

  “It’s something I need to do.”

  “Need? Not want?”

  I chose my words carefully. “I want to make things right with them, and I need to do it publicly.”

  “Okay. It’s a bit of a slam on the MC, you understand?”

  It was Abbott showing he could walk in with me at his side. It was most certainly a slam, and an in-your-face-she’s-mine-and-not-yours-tonight statement, but I’d agreed to go wherever Abbott chose.

  “I can’t refuse the invitation.”

  “Can’t? Are you under duress?”

  I owed Dawg an explanation, but per Abbott’s rules, I couldn’t just lay it out for him. How to t
read the line between? I sighed. “No duress. You know Abbott and I used to date, right? And Gavin recently abducted me?”

  “And you’ve cut the top of Abbott’s head off twice, and his arms off? And you were given a night to torture Gavin as part of the recompense for your abduction? Yeah. I know.”

  “If there was more to the negotiations, I wouldn’t be at liberty to talk about the terms.”

  He crossed his arms, took a few moments to consider, and uncrossed them. “Can you spend the night here Saturday night? Stick around for breakfast Sunday? Leave just before church?”

  Church was the MC’s weekly meeting, so every member of the MC would see me there.

  I grinned. “If Mother Nature cooperates, I’ll be out of service for certain activities this weekend.”

  He chuckled. “Does Abbott know this?”

  I shook my head, and he laughed out loud. His laugh was a caress on my skin, even when he wasn’t in the room.

  “Okay. Let’s see how things are when we get closer. I’m not upset with you. You okay if I have fun with it?”

  “While I’m tempted to say I’m good with it, I think I need more information.”

  This time, his chuckle seemed to vibrate my clit, but I ignored my body’s response to the sexy biker.

  “I won’t fuck with the political stuff,” he promised.

  I grinned. “Okay. I know the MC needs to save face. I trust you not to make the situation worse.”

  He sobered and his smile faded. “You know they want everyone to think you have a threesome going, right?”

  “I’m aware. Everyone already seems to think I’m fucking half of Chattanooga, but I’ve never worried too much about what others think.”

  “Okay. Have fun with it then. See you Friday.”

  Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out what to do with the four million dollars I’d ended up with once we finished all negotiations.

  I wasn’t exactly rich before, but I’d been comfortably well off — six months’ salary in savings, Lauren’s college fund, and a decent retirement account in the hopes I’d live long enough to see old age.