Lords & Thieves: Chapter Seven
The prequel arc of ✨The White City✨ — a weekly serialized urban fantasy series
Previously in The White City:
They managed to successfully break into the top secret archives beneath the lake
So did someone—or rather, something—else
“Elena.”
The cool night air filled her lungs and made tears of relief spring to her eyes. They were out. They made it out.
No thanks to whatever, whoever, the hell that was.
“Here.” She shrugged off her sweater and wrapped it around the astrolabe before thrusting it at the man trying to keep up with her furious pace away from him. “Take it. I did my job. I’m done.”
“Elena.”
She spun around to yell at him, scream at him, maybe even kick him in the shins.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
In the darkness of the quiet lake shore, where they’d managed to slip out of the facility undetected and dodge the security lights of both museums, it was easier to see who Cade really was.
No.
What he really was.
If she even had a name for it.
Those strange tattoos still glowed with the same silvery light as his eyes. They were dimmer now, thrumming softer with each passing heartbeat. Even through his shirt she could see them, swirls and darts and geometric patterns that must have meant something significant to whoever etched them onto his body.
Especially the largest one in the center of his chest.
“Who are—” Elena quickly shook her head. “No. Who was that guy?”
Cade spread his hands. “As I said—”
“No, yeah, no. I heard what you said. I saw what you—what he—” She hiccuped. Pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
The hand that should have been bleeding, but wasn’t.
Elena slowly pulled her hand back down and turned it over. Where there should have been a jagged gash from the obsidian blade was only the faintest of scars, and even that began to disappear. She couldn’t see it clearly, only by the light of the city’s skyline, but it was there.
Doing…that.
“At least let me take you home.” His voice sounded different. Not as sure of himself or as guarded. Almost like he felt…vulnerable?
No. Not vulnerable.
Dejected.
“Tell me your name.”
Cade rubbed the back of his neck and stared out at the dark water. It was a long, heavy silence before he sighed and dropped his arm. “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“There are rules. Even now, even though I’m not…” He slowly shook his head. “I can’t.”
Elena looked down at the cloth-wrapped compass still in her hands. “Because of who you are? Or,” she paused to swallow hard before the words touched her tongue, “what you are?”
“Both.”
She chewed her bottom lip while she considered her options. She could—should—just call it a night, go back home to her microscopic apartment, and sleep it all off until the only way it remained in her mind was as a dream.
“Is that what you want?” Cade stepped closer, still careful not to startle her. Gone was his facade of ruthlessness and control. Right here, right now, he was just a man. Sort of.
“What I want?”
He nodded. Took another step toward her. “To forget. To feel like this was all just a dream. I can do that, if that’s what you want.” His mouth tugged into a lopsided smile. “It’s a pretty common ask. I won’t take it personally.”
Elena paused. “Hold on.” She pointed at him with the compass. “You do this with all your dates? Go on heists and kill demon-possessed crazy people and make your tattoos glow and walk through walls?”
That made Cade pause as well. “Honestly? No. This would be a first.” He shrugged a shoulder, then self-consciously tugged on his lobe. “It’s usually the ears.”
“The ears.” She leaned in for a closer look. “Oh, my—your ears. Your freaking ears!” She burst into a giggle. “How did I not notice?!”
In all the wild, crazy, confusion of the day this man led her through, not once did she ever truly notice the way the tips of his ears came to a point. But now, looking at him in this light and from this angle, with the mental focus to really look, she saw them clearly. They weren’t too obvious in the illustrated fantasy pictures way, but now it was hard not to see the curvature lift up and pinch into points just sharp enough to be undeniably there.
She couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and touch one, so she did. Without even thinking about it, Elena brushed her fingertips along the shell of his ear just to convince herself this was real. That everything was real.
When he shivered, she drew her hand back and instantly felt her face grow hot. “Sorry.”
He grabbed her wrist, stopping her hand where it brushed along his jawline. Then pressed her palm to his face. “I’m real. I promise.”
“I know.” Elena sighed the words more than said them. “It’s just…I…”
“You’re afraid.” He said it like he’d heard it a thousand times before. Which, to be fair, he probably did.
“Not of you.” She mustered a genuine, reassuring smile. “I promise.”
That piqued his interest, and he closed the distance between them without letting go of her hand. “Oh? Even though I’m a big, bad, criminal overlord?”
“And a thief. Officially,” she added with a nudge of the still-covered compass. “Although it sounds like you’ve been at it for quite some time, yeah?”
Cade snorted, smiled, and nodded. “Yeah. Quite some time. So, tell me.” He turned his head to press a warm, sensual kiss to her palm that sent waves of heat and desire straight to her core. His glowing eyes never left hers. “If not me, what are you afraid of?”
Us. This. “What it all means.” She slowly, reluctantly eased her hand from his grasp, and he let her. “If you’re something not…human…and you’re real. And that was real. And this is real.” She looked down at the bundle. “Then that means there’s so much more to this world than anyone knows. Than anyone will ever know! And that’s what’s so terrifying.”
The corners of his eyes tightened. In that brief moment she saw the pain and heartache he must have endured over a lifespan she could only now guess extended far beyond the late twenty-something, maybe early-thirties he appeared to be. The kind that gets buried over time beneath a carefully crafted veneer of power, influence, and meticulous control.
“Have you ever ridden a roller coaster?”
Cade furrowed his brow. “Yeah.”
“You know how you’re strapped in, all the safety belts are on, and you know you’re going to be totally fine no matter what? But again, no matter what, your stomach still drops the closer you get to the top of that first hill because you know you’re about to go careening into a spinning vortex of chaos and there’s nothing you can do about it except just ride it through to the end?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. And for some reason, we still get on.”
“Exactly.” Elena took a chance, an internal dare, and rested her hand on his chest. “This feels like that.” She looked back up into his eyes, praying to God that he could see the acceptance in her own. “I want to get on. I want to see what’s out there. What’s in your world. I just know it’s gotta be something wild and insane and probably hella dangerous—”
She lost all train of thought when his lips collided with hers.
The compass dropped to the grass with a dull thud. Neither of them cared. Cade’s fingers threaded through her hair and held her right where he wanted her, and when she let out a soft whimper it made him deepen the kiss with a low growl.
He tasted like everything forbidden she’d ever want in her life. Like wine and smoke and whispered promises of endless nights beneath a starlit sky painted just for her. Elena parted her lips to taste him and he fed her exactly what she wanted, sliding his tongue along hers until they tangled.
She didn’t feel the world tip on its side. Only the cool, soft grass suddenly cradling her body and caressing her skin where his wandering hands pushed her shirt up high enough to stroke the bare skin of her waist. Now it was her turn to cup his face in her hands, at first to ease him away and catch her breath…but she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop.
A siren in the far distance, its whine carried over the lake water, reminded her that they weren’t exactly somewhere private.
“Cade…” She stole another slow, sensual kiss before prying him away enough to let her speak. “Someone will see us.”
His sinful mouth curved into a wickedly playful grin. “No, they won’t.”
“Yes, they will. We’re outside, and—”
“No,” he emphasized with a hungry kiss to the curve of her neck that made her toes curl, “they won’t.” Another kiss, followed with a languid swirl of his tongue.
She wanted him. Needed him. The way his body nestled between her thighs felt so perfect, so right…the way the stars overhead seemed to glitter and glow even brighter with every silken caress of his mouth along her collarbone…and when his thumbs grazed the undersides of her bra, she wanted to moan out loud a plead, a command, for him to take it off and take her right there.
However.
“Cade?” Elena tangled her hands in his hair that felt so wonderfully soft and thick and oh, did she want to hold him like this while he did wicked things with his tongue. “Cade…”
“I love the way you moan my name.” His teeth grazed the sweet spot just below her ear and made her whole body shiver. “Shall I make you scream it?”
Oh, God…
Elena swallowed hard. She did not look forward to this next part. “I can’t.”
She was met with a skeptical-yet-sexy smirk. “Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Either.” The sigh felt like her soul was leaving her body and not in the good way. “I’m a virgin.”
That made him prop himself up on his elbows. “Come again?”
I wish. “Virgin. I’m a virgin. I’ve never, ah…” She waved her hand in a little circle. “I’ve never done this. Before, I mean.”
“You. Seriously?”
“Hey! Don’t judge me!”
“I’m not judging you!” He wasn’t getting up, either. Not that she minded. “I’m just surprised, is all.” The lights of the skyline danced with the mirth in his molten eyes as he slowly examined her body, lingering especially long around her breasts. “Never. Ever? I mean, you’ve fooled around a bit—”
“Never ever, and no.” Elena pursed her lips in a frown. “I’m a good Catholic girl. I’m waiting for marriage.”
“Marriage.”
Cade rolled off her like she’d just gut-punched him in the gonads, the wretched word wheezed as he sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. It was only once she had the ability to sit up herself and get her bearings straight that Elena noticed they were on a grassy hill facing the skyline, a stretch of Lake Michigan the only thing separating them from the illuminated city.
She didn’t know what to say. Or if she should have said anything at all. But more than emotions and hormones and exchanging fluids with a stranger, there was the part where she’d made a vow long ago, back when she was bright-eyed and bushy tailed, to save herself for the man who vowed to love her and cherish her for the rest of his life.
It didn’t feel right to break that vow. Not even after someone else nearly broke it for her, and she wasn’t thinking about Cade when that memory surfaced. She’d managed to escape, then, and the part of her that wanted to make those scars count for something was the same part that whispered a reminder now.
Now, when she was too damn close to giving it to Cade Whateverhisnamewas.
“I’m sorry.”
Cade didn’t tear his eyes from the cityscape, but he did reach out to her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her onto his lap. “Don’t be. Just sit here with me.”
That she could do. Easily. This night and for a thousand nights ahead, if only this was something that could last beyond the here and now. His warmth enveloped her as he wrapped his arms around hers, tucking her head under his chin until she felt perfectly cocooned by his solid strength.
“Cade?”
“Mhm.”
Elena closed her eyes. Let herself rest in the safety of his arms. “I like your ears.”
The tiniest laugh huffed in his chest. “Yeah. Me, too.”
This episode of Lords & Thieves may be over, but the story continues.
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