PHOENIX (Revelations Book 1), page 21
Neither one of them seemed to believe me but they weren’t fighting it as Slash groaned, pacing toward the door before turning around and walking back toward us. A pacing Slash was never a good sign. “This is terrible fucking timing. First the body and now this? I wasn’t even sure why he walked out on me.”
I guess we’re not ignoring the elephants in the room after all.
Had they been attentive to the little details we had spilled about our relationships, Samael and Slash would have known that this was a common thing with Killian. But alas, they had been wrapped in their own lives, and they hadn’t stopped to connect the dots.
This part of the situation amused me, the moment when they started to realize just how much we had fallen for this kid. I decided to continue explaining, still unsure that Slash wouldn’t find his way to Killian’s place, and slice the kid's throat open to keep him from saying anything.
If Killian wasn’t a threat, I knew Slash would be all in. I just needed to make sure Slash saw that. “Accepting that different part of him was hard. It seems that Dark was the kid we fell in love with in our beds, but Killian was the one we shared our time with.”
That dark, mischievous glint in Killian’s eyes when we fucked was wildly different from the doe–eyed innocence that followed me around during the day. It was almost glaringly obvious looking back that I wasn’t sure how I had missed it.
Samael choked out a laugh, his eyes shuttering closed as he took a seat beside me and leaned back against the lounge. “It was all Killian until like five minutes ago.” His massive thighs spread across the leather, my eyes dipping between them and I had to resist the urge to start something. It wasn’t my fault I was horny as shit.
Between wanting to fuck Killian in my trailer and bursting in here to see Killian looking freshly fucked, I needed an outlet. Add in the fact that Killian had been the one getting fucked by Samael and yeah, I was hard all over again.
Slash stomped back over and slapped the back of my head again, attention focused on Samael, “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Samael breathed out.
Killian rarely joined me in the bedroom. He wasn’t a fan of the rough, kinky sex we got up to. I could only imagine that it had been the same with Slash and Samael. The fact that Killian had been in control during this last encounter begged a lot of questions.
My gaze switched between Slash and Samael, satisfied that no one was going to try and off my lover yet. However, the next part of this plan wasn’t something I saw getting by as smoothly. “We have to wait for them to come back.”
Slash drew his hand back but I wasn’t going to get hit again as I scrambled to my feet, daring him to try that shit again. His eyes narrowed in my direction, but he didn’t advance. “The kid’s not coming back.” His voice wavered as his shoulders sagged in something that looked very similar to defeat.
Of us three, Slash was the craziest, most volatile son of a bitch, but he was also the most fragile. He was easy to break, and I feared that this development might be just enough to push him over the edge.
A broken serial killer was a terrible sign.
I shot him a soft smile but I’m not sure Slash saw it, “Yeah, he will. He wants answers just as much as we do.”
“He doesn’t need answers.” Slash spit back at me. These emotions were temporary, something that Samael would soften either tonight or tomorrow but they were scary as fuck right now.
“Unfortunately, he does.” Killian was always curious. He needed facts to make a decision and without them, he’d never jump into our arms or grace our beds again. He was also coming to terms with that new contender, one that I’m not even sure he knew about. “I hate to say this, but I don’t think Dark and Killian are the only ones we’re going to have a problem with.”
“The fuck?” They exclaimed simultaneously. Samael’s eyes were wide open now, both of them staring at me, waiting for me to explain myself. Gone was the desire to kill, replaced with the burning need to understand Killian and who he was.
“You said it yourself that you’d never seen his eyes that dark. Definitely not Dark’s MO. It wasn’t Killian’s either.” The history Killian and I shared was my saving grace at this point. I had met Killian’s mother once or twice and as nice as she was, there had been more than two people in her head I had met during those short visits. Her tells were subtle, unlike Killian’s but I still caught the switches between the personalities.
I knew the number of voices in his mother’s head wasn’t hereditary, but I could only assume that Killian wasn’t comprised of only two. He was too wonderfully complex for that.
“Are you saying there’s someone else?” Slash’s breathing slowed, the same way it did before he locked eyes on a target, the lethal stare of a killer facing me. I didn’t know what it meant but I wasn’t excited about it.
“Yes. Dark’s hot–headed and likes to push back, but there’s a cap on his confidence. The kid we just saw? He just connected all the dots, found out we kill people in our spare time, and just demanded his own terms before leaving the room.”
Samael remained quiet; it wasn’t that he didn’t have questions, it was just that we both knew Slash would ask them, “What are you saying?”
This was the hard part, voicing my conclusion without any evidence. Killian knowing who we were was bad enough. The fact that we had essentially fallen in love with two broken parts of the same man made this complicated. The possibility of another personality intruding into our complex circle might very well rip us apart, especially with the chaos he had just unleashed in this room.
“I’m saying there’s a chance that there is someone else and we should be a little more uneasy around him. Forget innocence, that kid might be a devil in his own right.” I hope they understood that Killian had at least one more personality lurking around. That personality was the reason he stayed, I just needed to know why.
“Fuck.” That came from Samael.
Yeah, fuck was about right.
KILLIAN
Rocking myself back and forth, as I rested against the back wall of my closet, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees and Lucy tucked against my chest, I tried to sift through everything that had just happened. I chose to ignore the fact that I had run right back into Merchant’s life and shut out Dark’s warnings as he fucked me against that table.
Instead, I chose to focus on moments after the fact where I had been fully present beside Dark, watching through his eyes as not just Merchant but Phoenix and Ryker showed up, revealing their true personalities and bringing up memories I wished had stayed hidden.
I couldn’t even blame this reaction on the disorder that had been plaguing me for years. No, this was just a mixture of shock and despair as I tried to make sense of the past three years of my life. But falling into bed with not one but three evil men who were also Primrose’s Three Terrors? It couldn’t be a fucking coincidence.
No amount of words or jokes that Dark had thrown at me had soothed the panic, emotions bubbling over until the only thing I could do was rock myself to sleep in the corner of my closet after throwing up what little food I had eaten in the past 24 hours, the remnants of bile on my tongue.
I didn’t know how to face the outside world after this and not because I thought those men would kill me but because deep down, they were still my men and it fucking terrified me that I wanted them.
They were killers for fuck’s sake.
My chef, my first love, ate people. His eyes had been so easy to trust. He had been Dark’s first love too. We had fallen hard and fast.
My surgeon, my best friend, skinned people. He had been so easy to talk to, to discuss my future with while indulging Dark’s wildest kinks. He had played out every last one of my fantasies.
My detective, my heart, my passion, fucked people up for fun, for power. He gave me the space to submit while heightening my desires and brought everything I knew to a whole new level. Waiting in his bed had felt like a privilege.
I had left every single one of them because I was scared of how they brought Dark forth, how they satisfied him, and how they were able to love both of us as one person.
But now, I was torn because Dark seemed on the edge, hopping a line between terror and love. He wanted everything to work out, but the darkness was a little too much to handle for the both of us.
When Dark had learned the truth, he stuffed those memories so far down I couldn’t find them and ran. If he was uncertain about them, how the fuck was I going to handle them? A slow whine escaped my lips as my head fell back to the wall with a loud thud.
I’m sorry. I had to…I don’t know why I’m drawn to them.
I do.
Dark and I froze, the panic pausing its rampant destruction. I blinked a few times, peering into the darkness, practically strangling Lucy in my arms. She squealed and I released her as I waited for what I hoped wasn’t true.
Lucy scratched unsuccessfully at the closet door, an awful cooing sound gurgling in her throat before she stopped and curled up at the opposite end of the closet. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to escape the cage I had stuffed us into.
Dark, you’re not the only one that likes the darkness. In fact, you pale by comparison to me.
You’re the reason we stayed with them, aren’t you?
Dark didn’t seem as surprised about this new presence but I didn’t want to find out that he’d been keeping more secrets. There had been all sorts of surprises today, none of which I was particularly fond of but this one took the cake. “Who are you?” I whispered, feeling more unsettled than I had in the bathroom earlier in the evening.
You poor delicate flower of human frailty. You don’t think you would have gotten by without me, do you?
What are you talking about? We’re doing just fine.
Really? Where do you think you hid those memories?
I had heard my mother’s doctors talk about her diagnosis and how the alters formed in different ways, one of which included protecting oneself from memories that the host didn’t want to handle. It made sense in my case, but I didn’t like the idea that every time something I didn’t like happened, I just shoved it into the void of my mind and hoped it would go away. All that was doing was creating more problems, as was clearly evident.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
I’m the one you should be scared of. Dark is a fucking wimp, going on and on about getting fucked all the time. Perv.
At least I didn’t keep Killian in bed with a killer.
The weight of Dark’s words hit me like a truck. He said ‘keep’ as if he had been forced to stay with our men as if he hadn’t truly wanted to give into them the way I had thought. I’d ask him about that later after I dealt with the new guy. “Answer me!” I pleaded, wondering how much more I could handle tonight before I passed out from stress.
I’m the third one, completing this freak circle of ours. You should thank me for shielding you from all the fucking shit that you would have had to deal with on your own.
You’re kind of full of yourself, you know?
As I should be, Dark. You’re just an ass wipe.
“What kind of shit? What are you talking about?” I sifted through my memories, coming up blank. My mother had died and I had walked out on three relationships that meant everything to me. My father and I had a strained relationship and there had been a childhood friend or two from the wrong side of the tracks, but there hadn’t been any trauma that I could associate with this new guy’s claims.
How far back do you want to go? Or should we just cut to the chase? You were there when your mother died and she didn’t go peacefully Killian, and deep down, you always knew that.
Memories of my mother’s horrific death flashed through my head as I swallowed, choking on my spit. I buried my head in between my knees, clamping my legs against my ears to ease the pain but it wasn’t helping. It wouldn’t help drown out the voices in my head.
You’re a dick. You’re going to break him.
He’ll be fine. Don’t baby him. Regardless, you should thank me for helping you walk out of that room.
That was you?
Fuck yeah, it was. Now, when are we going back?
Dark and I tensed, wondering what the new guy was on. I was conflicted, leaning on the side of never returning. I could keep my mouth shut and go on about my life, pretending that I was none the wiser. I wasn’t happy about looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, but I’d figure something out.
Dark was torn between agreeing with me and trying to make it work with our men. I could tell he still wanted them, that he loved them, that he knew some part of me loved them too.
But the new guy? He was all in, 100%. I had seen the moment where Dark seemed unable to control himself, spouting shit that should have gotten us killed. It made sense that this new one was the cause of it. He also needed a name, but I wasn’t sure anything would be fitting for the demon living in my head. Fuck it—his name would be Daemon. “We’re not going back, Daemon.”
Fitting for a monster.
We’re going back, my little flower.
“Don’t call me that.” Going back to three murderous men—no matter how much they claimed to love me—wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be. They were eventually going to track me down and kill me. I didn’t need to make it easier for them. I’d let them have my body, but I would never let them have my heart, not again.
But just as I was about to say as much, I realized I didn’t really feel that way. Warmth wrapped around me like a glove, kudos to Daemon.
You’ll go back. You’re in love with them, maybe not the same way as Dark and I are, but you love them. I mean, what would you call letting Merchant fuck you like that? Raw and dirty in that dimly lit room, where he
I let him drone on in the background, refusing to hear him replay a moment in time I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. Love was a foreign concept in my life but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that those three men had been everything to me once upon a time.
My heart ached every time I thought about them and yet, they were the ones ruining Primrose. I didn’t even care that they were making my dad’s job a living hell. I just didn’t know if I could see them as the men I loved anymore without thinking about the gruesome acts they committed.
Daemon tried a different tactic, one that was more of a threat rather than a plea to my conscience.
If you want to pacify me, you’ll go back.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
You pacify Dark with depraved, kinky sex. You pacify me with evil. You’re unnaturally drawn to the lawless world, the more deplorable and condemned the shit is, the better. We all have that desire—but it comes from me. Unless there’s someone to silence it, it grows. It festers. Until the worst happens, and I take over.
You’re not taking over.
Not yet.
Never.
If you feed me with what I need, I’ll never need to fully come out, but Kill, you haven’t been feeding me.
I knew that was not how things worked but Daemon didn’t know that and he seemed kind of… dominant. Taking over wouldn’t be as hard as when Dark tried to roam around. Dark usually had to get me drunk first. Thinking about Daemon running around my body left me with all sorts of images I didn’t want to imagine. I’d be fucked. We all would be.
“Fine, we’ll go back, but I’m fucking driving this meat suit.” After all, it was mine.
Fair enough.
“Great, now let me finish panicking, and then we can all go to bed.”
Daemon’s chilly laughter shot down my spine, effectively silencing Dark and me. I didn’t like this development, not one bit. It answered questions, but I almost wished I didn’t know the truth. This was one of those instances where the truth was worse because Daemon didn’t seem like he played nicely.
SLASH
I twirled my machete in my hand again—the one I always played with when I was out of my mind—pacing aimlessly through the middle of Aeron’s living room. I was feeling a little stabby, a fact that I’m sure Samael hadn’t missed, which is why we had ended up back at Aeron’s place less than fifteen minutes after Killian walked out.
My eyes drifted to the wall across from the couch that I usually ended up sleeping on after any interaction with my ex–girlfriend, a fact that Aeron had figured out just recently. She hadn’t been on my list but she had been annoying and demanded more of my time than I could give her. Without her finding out about some of my darker indulgences, I had to sacrifice her, and then I dropped her off as a treat for Aeron, none the wiser at the time.
Since then, I hadn’t really been able to stay in my apartment without thinking of the gruesome acts I had committed in my kitchen. Not much left me unsettled but that kill hadn’t felt right. It was rushed, much like the last one and home sweet home now felt like anything but.
My chest fell as I blew out a deep breath, staring at a collection of my knives decorating the drywall. I had no more knives to throw so I had resorted to playing with my favorite, a vintage machete I had collected at 17, just under a foot long. Unfortunately, there were no people to stab here.
Correction, there were no people to stab here that I could get away with.
A crunch to my right had me glaring at Aeron as he chomped on whatever fried body part was the snack of the week. I shouldn’t have been surprised that it smelled delicious. If I had been any more out of my mind, I might have snatched it without thinking and indulged in the decadent aromas wafting from it, but I’d never forgive myself for that.
He gave me a cheeky grin and reached into his bowl for another piece, wiggling in his perch on the couch, eyes closing as he moaned out his appreciation for his own masterpiece. My hand drew back of its own accord, knife poised to strike as I wondered how the fuck Aeron could be so nonchalant in this situation. A kid we loved was out there with all our secrets and access to channels that would get us locked up for life.
It wasn’t that I was scared of a jail cell. It was the fact that when our demons weren’t fed, we were anything but the calm, collected bachelors that roamed Primrose. People thought The Skinner was a terrifying force to reckon with but they didn’t know a thing.
