again, turning on the water. Her shoulder stung, but not as much as her wounded heart did.
Hopefully, the rush of the faucets would drown out her sobs.
Talon moved away from the window, closing the curtains. It was time to call Lucian and get a plane sent for them. By the look of the weather outside, it had been close to six months or so and winter was just ending. So much was supposed to be done, and now he had to worry about Auro coming after them.
There was too much happening at once, he thought, picking up the phone. He sat on the edge of the bed, dialing the number that he hadn’t even known only several minutes ago. He hadn’t let Jamie see, but his body was still on fire. Now that he remembered everything, his mind was filled with things that he had been happier not knowing about.
“Hello, this is 4th Street Ally Cat bar. Our times are from four pm to three pm on Monday through Thursday...”
“Put me on the phone with Lucian.” He would have called his partners cell, but it was blocked to any number that wasn’t on the list. A local hotel sure as hell wasn’t going to be on the list, so calling his bar was the easiest thing he could do.
“May I ask who is calling?” came a pleasant reply. Still, though, Talon could hear the fear in it. Not many people knew of Lucian, it wasn’t something that people exploited. Talon was the face of the man, and he was okay with that.
“Talon. Now let me speak to my partner, please,” he said, forcing out the “please”.
There was a pause, and then, “Please hold for one second, sir.” It was more respectful now, as if the woman who answered knew who she was talking to. He scrubbed a hand over his face and listened as water rushed in the bathroom. He could hear every single thing that Jamie was doing, and he had to actually force himself to ignore her.
As J-Cole’s “Work Out” played through the phone, images of her body, naked and glistening, came to his mind. He grabbed the blanket and covered himself, hating the hard-on that was forming. Her breasts were so perfect, so clear in his mind, he could almost taste them as he pictured running his tongue over them, biting and leaving small marks, claiming her as his own.
There was not a doubt in his mind that she wasn’t his. But to keep her?
That was a different story altogether.
J-Cole stopped singing about doing some girl and the sound of his partner's voice, shocked and almost relieved, came through the line. “Talon?”
“Get us a ride, will you? Track the call and find out where I am. We need to leave in less than an hour.” He didn’t bother greeting the man, instead getting straight to business.
“Got it. Alishia...” Lucian trailed off as he talked to someone in the background. Talon waited, rubbing his forehead with one hand, holding his hard-on down with the other, and cupping the phone between his shoulder and ear. It was a minute before he heard his friend come back on the line. “God, man, do you know how long it’s been?”
“About six months.” He sighed, then cursed. “How long till you found out? I knew you were keeping track of me,” he said, skipping the preliminaries once again. “Why didn’t someone come get me sooner?” A growl rose in his throat, infuriated. He had been trapped in that fucking hell hole, and no one had come to get him? His mind refused to wrap around the knowledge.
“We only learned last night that you had been...taken. It was those bastards, wasn’t it?”
Before, as a human, he hadn’t known of his past or even what he was. It was why he had been willing to go with Lucian several years back when he had been approached by the man. At the time, Talon had been going to therapy. For years, his mother had been convinced that the devil was within him. He had often woken up in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of his lungs, the pain of fire licking along his flesh so fresh it had been almost real. On good nights, he would dream of other times, when a woman with pale blue eyes would come to him, dressed in medieval garb.