Escaping Death

Ace

Five people in a house with one bathroom is like being in the middle of the line at a black friday sale — everyone wants the same thing and angry words escalate into pushing, shoving, and, in our case, broken doors. Which is why we have a schedule for morning routines, it keeps everyone happy, but tonight is out of the ordinary and we’ve also added an additional person to our mix.

I let Solana use my room to get ready, opting to get dressed in one of the other bedrooms with the guys.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to just stay home with her? Gods only know who is going to be at this party, we could be bringing her straight to the people who are after her for all we know.” Dean voices his concern once more about bringing Solana along tonight.

“Tate remind me, how long did it take Solana to escape last night after you came home?” I ask, focused on tying my bow tie. I’d sooner make a noose of it but unfortunately that’s not part of the dress code.

“Two minutes, fifteen seconds.” He says coolly from where he’s seated on his bed. The bastard has already gotten dressed and tied his bow tie in the time it’s taken me to even button up my shirt.

“She has more reason to stay by our sides at the party than she does here. Four of you couldn’t keep her in the house, there’s no way you could keep her here all on your own.” I look back to find Dean rolling his eyes and I try to lighten the mood with a smile, “no offense, D.”

“Again, I am more than willing to tie her up.” Tate offers.

“You’d have to catch me first,” Solana’s voice turns all of our heads towards the door where she stands, stunning us all into silence.

The Goddess herself isn’t as beautiful as the woman in front of me. She’s dressed in an all black gown with a deep, plunging neckline, and a slit on one side of the skirt that ends at her hip. The top is made of lace, only lace, and has only one sleeve on the right arm leaving her other shoulder and arm completely bare.

Her lips are painted a deep, matte red. Thoughts of how that color would look smeared along my cock from her bobbing up and down on me enter my mind unbidden. She’s left her hair down, waves billowing around her face and shoulders making her emerald green eyes look even brighter.

And my Gods, her scent. That earthy-sweet vetiver scent is driving me wild, making me want to lick it off of her, to consume it, to consume her.

She’s lucky I didn’t see her try that on at the store…I probably would have ripped it off of her and fucked her against the mirror in the fitting room.

“If I caught you, would I find you wearing one of my gifts?” Tate taunts her with a salacious grin.

“You mean these heels weren’t from you?” She almost looks disappointed.

“I think letting you guess who gave you each gift will be almost as much fun as picking them out for you,” Tate takes her hand and brings it to his lips, planting a tender kiss on the back before leaving the room and heading downstairs with Dean.

Once they’ve left I can feel her anxiety rising again, it happens every time we’re left alone together. I ignore it by reattempting my bow tie, cursing at it when I struggle to breathe and tie the damn thing. Her fucking scent is replacing the air in my lungs.

“Can I help you with that?” She asks, lifting her hands to my neck and folding the bow tie before I can tell her not to bother. Her hands are warm when they graze my neck as she works, sparks radiating out from where she makes contact.

When she’s satisfied with her work she straightens out my jacket and runs her hands down my chest, hesitating to pull away when she reaches my abdomen.

“I got you something as well.” I say to her softly and hand her a small box that I asked Hunter to get before he and the guys left the mall.

“You didn’t need to do that, I was just fucking with Eli.” Her cheeks flush a lovely shade of pink with embarrassment.

“Yeah, well, blame it on my wolf. He’s exceptionally competitive.”

She opens the black, velvet box releasing a small gasp as she does. “Ace…” she breathes, “I can’t. It’s way too much. First the clothes, and the dress…”

There it is again. My name on her tongue. I’m using every ounce of restraint to keep myself from tossing her onto one of the beds behind me. I’m just hoping it’s not obvious to her that that’s what I’m doing. I don’t need her to know how much I want her.

“Do you like them?”

“I mean, of course I do, they’re gorgeous. But—”

I put a finger to her lips to silence her, I don’t want to hear any more of her protesting. This shit is immaterial to me, but winning at her game…now that’s a prize.

“Put them on, Solana.” I command her with a deep rumble from my chest. My wolf is still salivating at the sight of her in this dress.

She takes the box, sets it on the dresser, and begins her task. She removes the eight earrings that decorate her two ears, along with her nose ring and eye-brow ring. One by one she replaces her piercings with the diamonds I bought her. Eight diamond studs for her ears, decreasing in size as they ascend her ears, a diamond stud for her nose, and another diamond-ended bar for her brow.

It looks like someone took the very stars of the sky and scattered them on her instead, her body decorated in a constellation of jewels.

“Thank you,” she says softly while looking at me through the mirror.

I step up behind her, careful not to touch her lest I truly lose all control. “Thank you, what?” I tease her with a lifted brow.

She puts her hands flat on my chest, lifts up onto her toes despite the heels, and whispers in my ear, “Thank you, asshole.” Then she nips my ear lobe with her teeth, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, and walks out of the room leaving me standing there, mouth agape, sporting a raging hard-on.

— — —

Solana

I used to love going to parties like this, I loved to have fun without a care in the world. It used to be a blessing not to have the responsibilities my siblings have, but after what happened four years ago it’s been hard to find true joy in anything.

Everything seemed meaningless, empty. So I filled my time with training, taking on odd hit jobs and working my way up in the ranks of hunters. I flirted with and kissed meaningless people. The only things I really enjoyed were helping out at Caligo and slowly making repairs to the Shadowmoon packhouse.

I certainly didn’t expect to find myself on a 300 foot yacht on the arm of my mate flanked by his pack, the Dogs of War.

We slipped onto the ship past security easily. I suspect one of them had something to do with it because one minute the guards were skeptical and the next they relaxed and waved us through.

“Alright, let’s get this done. Tate find our mark, D stick with Hunter and be ready. I’ll be around.”

Tate disappears in a flash while Dean and Hunter head to the upper deck.

“Eli,” Ace growls his name but apparently that’s enough for Eli to understand his message. Ace’s eyes sweep across my body, scanning me from head to toe igniting a dark heat within me like his wolf is calling out to mine.

Eli throws his hands up in surrender, “I know, I know. Work, manners, blah blah blah.”

Ace grunts, placated by Eli’s words, and then stalks off towards the bar. I watch him disappear into the crowd, but the heat I felt doesn’t dissipate with distance.

“You’d rather stay with our Alpha?” Eli leers at me, his smile knowing.

“I’d rather not be here at all,” I say unconvincingly.

“Para com isso, menina.” Eli slides a hand along my cheek, the chill of his hand soothes the flames ever burning beneath my skin and instinctively I lean into his hand.

“Let’s just have fun. What would you like to do first? I could get you a drink, or we could just skip right to dancing.” He grins at me with hunger evident in his eyes.

“I’ve seen what you call dancing,” I smirk at him remembering the feeling of his hands traveling down my body and as if reading my mind his face splits into a brilliant, boyish grin.

“Can you blame me?” He bites down on his bottom lip and I nearly mirror the action. “You should always wear diamonds.” He says throwing me off guard, my hands flying to my ears which are decorated in Ace’s ridiculous gift.

I lean into him, brushing my lips against his ear so I can whisper, “If you think these are nice, you should see the ones he bought for my nipples.”

The shock that ripples through him is worth everything, and for the first time in years I throw my head back and laugh with abandon, delighting in his expression. “Pick your jaw up off the floor, I’m kidding!”

He growls at me playfully, snaking an arm around my waist and pulling me towards him so our mouths are but a breath apart. “I really wish you weren’t. Such a fiery little thing you are.” He purrs at me and I’m so struck by how intimate the gesture is that I scramble to put some distance between us.

We begin walking around the yacht together, acting as ordinary party-goers, talking about mundane everyday things.

“Can I ask you something?” I say and he nods with a smile. “How did you end up with the Dogs of War, with Death?”

Eli takes another sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving mine. “Hmm, well, we were Dogs of War before we were Death. It started as a small group of us with mutual interests and developed into a real pack, with us accepting Ace as our Alpha.”

He takes my glass from my hands and places both of our drinks down on a table before taking my hand and leading me to a small dance floor where many couples have gathered to dance as the evening darkens into night.

“They picked me up in Brazil. Ace, Dean, and Tate were down there on business when they found me at a bar at the bottom of my tenth bottle.”

Eli holds my right hand in his left, using his other arm to hold me around my waist and guide me to the slow melody of the music, swaying in time with the waves of the water.

“I had just turned 20 and had been traveling around the country in search of my mate.”

“Did you find her?” I don’t know why I ask that, the question just flies off my tongue before I can think better of it.

He nods, his expression somber. “I did. I found her mated to someone else, pregnant with his pup. I guess I wasn’t worth waiting for.” He tries to lighten those words with a laugh but I can feel his ice growing colder beneath his skin. I warm myself to counteract the chill hoping to break him of the memory.

“Rather than fight for her, I rejected her on the spot, then fucked my way through a pack or two until I ended up at some bar doing anything I could to keep from freezing over. I was furious, broken, girls could warm my bed but they couldn’t warm my heart. That’s when Ace and them found me. I had nothing else to stay for so I left with them and never looked back.”

He spins me around and twirls me back into him, this time tucking our arms into our chests so we’re pressed even closer together. I move the hand that had been resting on his shoulder to the back of his neck and I pull him towards me until our lips press together.

Neither of us attempt to escalate the kiss, we just sway to the music joined at the lips for a long moment before I pull away. “I’m sorry that happened to you. Something similar happened to me.”

“Oh?” He cocks an eyebrow. “If you tell me your mate rejected you I won’t believe it. You’re aptly named, Sol.” He whispers so softly in my ear I have to rely on my wolf to hear him. “You’re like the sun. Warm and bright, and it’s impossible to resist your gravitational pull.”

His mouth descends on my bare shoulder and he begins planting kisses inch by inch up my neck, along my jaw, and down to the corner of my mouth. Before he can capture my lips, however, his pocket vibrates with a text on his phone.

He curses under his breath, retrieving the phone to read the message, then curses again and pockets his cell. “Show time, sunshine.”