Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins
A check of the clock showed I still had half an hour. I walked to the window and opened the curtains. Melbourne was beautiful. It was strange to see Christmas decorations lining the streets on a sunny summer day. After a few minutes my eyes landed on a familiar face among the people walking.
Kope. Sweet Kope. I wanted him to be happy.
He pulled out his cell phone, and unease curled inside me. I wondered who he was calling. He glanced up toward my window and I quickly backed away to stay hidden. Then, in a moment of nosiness and paranoia, I pushed my hearing and sight through the glass, down to where Kope had stopped in a small pavilion.
I could make out the crackle and ring through the receiver and Kopano’s features—the worried pinch of his full lips. And then a male voice with an English accent answered, and I froze.
Why was he calling Kaidan?
“Brother Kaidan,” Kope greeted.
“Kope.” He sounded slightly edgy, worried. “Is everyone all right?”
“Yes. Everyone is fine.”
“Then to what do I owe this pleasure?” Kai’s tone changed to something firmer, rougher, lined with sarcasm.
Kopano was quiet and his eyebrows went together as if he was regretting his decision to call. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it.
“Anna says you will not speak with her.”
I stopped breathing.
“What is your point?” Kai asked.
“My point . . .” Kope paced a few steps and then stopped, putting his palm to his forehead. “She still cares for you. I wish to know how you feel for her.”
“That’s none of your concern.”
I took a jaggedy breath in. This could not be happening.
“I am concerned because she hurts. If you care, you should let her know. And if you do not care you should release her.”
“So you can have a go at her?”
“I will not pursue her if you do not wish me to. But you must tell me.”
“It’s not my permission you need, Kope. Talk to her father.”
“Please, Kaidan. I do not wish to quarrel.”
“Of course you don’t. Tell me: Does she know about you yet?”
Know what about him?
Kope went very still. “No,” he whispered in a low rumble.
“Be careful,” Kaidan warned, no hint of humor.
“I am ever aware, brother. And now I need your honesty. What are your feelings for her?”
My body was motionless but for the bulging heartbeat in my throat. Tell him I’m not available. Tell him you still care—that I’m yours.
Kaidan’s angry chuckle, a breathy, cold sound, gave me goose bumps. And then he finally answered. “I’ve made it clear to her there’s no future for us, mate. So have at it. Best of luck to you.”
And with those last stony words my stomach turned and Kaidan hung up. Kope sighed and dropped his head. I slid to the floor in shock.
No. No, no, no. I wanted to scream and punch and kick and shatter things.
He didn’t mean it—he couldn’t.
Right?
In fifteen minutes I was supposed to leave with Kope to meet Flynn, but my mind was an absolute mess. I took deep breaths. I could not think about this—about the sound of Kaidan’s cold voice and . . . and . . . no. It was too much. I had to clear my mind and concentrate on my task. The drama of my personal life would have to wait until I had time for an emotional breakdown, because that’s exactly what I was in for when this mission was complete.
CHAPTER TEN
THE GHOST
Kope and I silently climbed the stairs inside the arena. Our seats were halfway up the stadium, far enough back so Flynn wouldn’t spot us. The first fight had already taken place and the second was underway. Fans were rowdy as we passed. I was thankful for all the distractions giving me excuses not to make eye contact with Kope.
Energy surged through the air during intermission as the crowd geared up for the championship fight. Everyone was buzzing about “the Ghost,” Flynn Frazer.
“The Ghost?” I whispered to Kope, not able to look at him yet.
“He moves so quickly, his opponents never see him coming,” he explained.
I sat back and watched, finding the emotional climate of the room very interesting. I suppose I’d been expecting a lot of bloodthirsty negative energy at a fight, but I was way off. It was a happy crowd. Sure, there were some dark auras among the bright oranges, but the overall vibe was one of respectful excitement. Out of habit I kept my eyes peeled for demon spirits.
The lights dimmed and music began to blare from the overhead speakers—a thumping, tribal beat mixed with hard rock guitar chords. I stood up with everyone else, eager to get a look at Flynn.
His opponent came out first, wearing blue, bouncing on his heels and pumping a fist in the air. He bounced his way to the caged octagon, where he climbed in and did a series of air punches before making his way to the side where a man waited with a towel around his neck. The crowd booed. No love for blue.
A hush fell, and the music seemed to get louder. When Flynn slowly stalked his way into the arena, wearing all red with his eyes ablaze, the place erupted. I found myself clapping and leaning forward to get a better view. Nervousness clawed at me as I watched the Ghost take his time getting to the octagon, his crazed eyes on his opponent and an eerie smile on his wide lips. As far as scary taunts went, I’d say his was way up there. Gone was any sign of the big smile from his pictures.
The announcer came to the middle of the octagon and presented the first fighter, whose name I didn’t even catch. But when he announced Flynn “the Ghost” Frazer, I added my voice to the sea of cheers.
Everyone stayed on their feet when the match began. Flynn had a natural charisma. He paced around his opponent like a sleek red panther on a hunt, while the guy in blue bounced and hopped from side to side like a rabbit. Flynn’s opponent didn’t seem scared, but anyone could see that he should be. I was scared for him.
Flynn toyed with his prey, allowing the guy to make a few shots, but it was obvious even to me, who knew nothing about the sport, that the Ghost was biding his time. Otherwise the show would end too quickly. They parried for the duration of the first round, minor hits and blocks made. By the middle of round two, the crowd was growing restless, hollering jeers, wanting action.
Flynn was not one to disappoint. Like a whirlwind, he spun and kicked out his opponent’s feet, then slammed him to the mat, bringing forth a roar from the crowd. At one point the other guy gave a surprise knee to Flynn’s side. Flynn, now ticked off, swiftly flipped the other fighter over his shoulder, landed on top of him with an elbow to the sternum, and began to pummel his face. As the crowd worked into a frenzy, cheering him on for the knock out, I felt my anxiety rise. Flynn didn’t appear ready to stop anytime soon. The greed was kicking in. Get your win and get out of there, Flynn. When his opponent’s face oozed a substantial amount of blood, the ref finally pulled Flynn off and I breathed again.
Kope and I looked at each other at the same time. This match was over. Time to go. By the time we made it to the doors and showed our backstage passes, Flynn was being announced as the winner and still undefeated champion of his weight class.
We rounded the corner and looked back. Nobody else was in the hall, so we slipped through the door with Flynn’s name on front. We surveyed the space inside—a combination between a locker room and dressing room. Two wooden benches sat parallel in the middle.
A sudden flashback of Zania with a knife at my throat brought on a sick wave. How would Flynn react to the surprise arrival of two Neph? His hands and feet were weapons. And why didn’t Kope ever seem nervous? He eyed me as I gnawed my thumbnail.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I yanked it out. A text from Dad.
Get hidden NOW.
I almost dropped the thing like a hot coal. Who was coming? How close were they? Should we try to leave the building or just hide? I showed the text to Kope. We both spun, sea
We pushed our way into the small cleaning closet that smelled of sweat and bleach. It was pitch-dark and cramped as I pulled the knob behind me. When I turned around to face the closed door, I must have nudged a bucket because there was a clanking sound of a mop hitting the wall and my heart hammered. Kope stood right behind me, and I could feel his fast heartbeat against my shoulder. There was no crack in the doorframe to peek through. We’d have to rely on listening.
I imagined the hallway we’d come down from the arena. I flexed my hearing that way until I found a group congratulating Flynn. Nothing sounded out of the ordinary. A short time passed before Flynn told everyone that he needed to hit the shower.
We were both utterly still, listening while Flynn came into the room. His bare feet slapped against the floor tiles as he moved to the corner for a shower. He cleaned up incredibly fast, then there were sounds of clothing rustling as he got dressed. I was beginning to think this was all a false alarm, until the pungent stink of cigar wafted underneath the closet door.
“Father!” Flynn exclaimed. My heart sank. A freaking Duke was right on the other side of the door. I started to sweat. How had this happened? Thank God Duke Mammon wouldn’t be able to sense me like Pharzuph with his annoying virginity-sniffing nose.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Flynn said. “You missed a bloody awesome fight. It went off!”
He recalled the best of the gory details to his appreciative father. I heard a hoarse laugh.
“I was listening as I drove up, but it’s just not the same. The car show was a snore. I’ve already owned half the ones they showed at some point or another. And you’ve never seen such fugly gold-digging women in your life. You know I can enjoy a greedy woman with the best of ’em but only if she’s a looker, eh?”
Flynn laughed, a jovial burst that would have matched the smile from his pictures, and his father joined in. I didn’t like how chummy they seemed to be.
“Let me take you out for lunch and drinks this arvo, m’boy. Grab a few of your mates. Nothing like a pack of young hooligans to stir up the females!”
They joked a bit more while Flynn got his things together, and they exited the room. I extended my hearing to listen as the friends were invited and rounded up, then as they got in the car, hollering over one another, closing doors, and driving away. Kope and I stood frozen, waiting for them to drive at least five miles—out of the Duke’s hearing range. I flopped my head back on Kope’s chest, and allowed my heart rate to decelerate.
That had been close. Too close. How had Dad known? If one of his whisperers had caught sight of Mammon coming, wouldn’t the whisperer have warned me directly instead of going back to Dad first? Or was Dad here in Australia right now, too? Well, I guessed it didn’t matter—crisis averted. I’d figure out those details later. Now we just had to sneak out of this place without drawing any atten—What is that smell?
My rambling thoughts were interrupted by the aroma of a rich, caramely sweetness in the air that weakened my bones. I recognized that smell. It was the same one I’d sensed when Kope had tackled me to the ground the day we’d met.
My body tensed with awareness. I became conscious of his broad chest and abs against my back and his warm breath brushing my ear and face. He smelled and felt so good.
I was shocked into inaction.
Open the door and step away from him, Anna. Pretend you didn’t notice. He didn’t know my olfactory sense always got away from me when my emotions ran high, allowing me to smell lustful pheromones.
But then Kope’s conversation with Kai came back to me, and a sudden torrent of emotions racked my system. I hated the horrible feeling that I was holding on to something I never really had to begin with.
He’ll never let you love him.
Hurt coursed through my system. I wanted to let go of it all. A sudden blast of angry rebellion pounded inside me. With my body still touching Kope’s, I slowly turned my head and tilted it up toward him. We stayed like that for a moment, faces close in the darkness, very still.
“Hey,” I whispered.
He did not answer. Instead, another blast of intoxicating richness filled the space, prompting my body to turn and face him. Urged on by adrenaline and a speeding pulse, I reached up and ran my fingers along the back of his neck. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but a shadow of darkness was expanding inside me. Kopano’s whole body was still, like a rock.
Too much tumbled through my mind, emotions pinging off my heart and sloshing through my stomach. Wants, needs, confusions, affections, heartaches . . . they all ran together like colliding trains, wrecking me. Or making me reckless.
I half expected him to stop me—to turn his head away as he’d done to the flight attendant, or reach around me and fling open the door. But he didn’t. So I gently tugged his neck.
Like an exploding rocket, Kope was crushing his full lips against mine and pressing my back hard against the closed door. A stunned breath escaped my mouth before I responded, fingers feeling his thick hair, marveling at his body against mine. I let myself get lost in the moment.
It felt so good to be kissed—really kissed, by someone who wasn’t holding back an ounce of passion—someone who was letting go just as much as me.
I didn’t stop him when he grabbed my leg, hiking it around his hip. His smooth hand pushed up the skirt and roamed the back of my thigh.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Whoa.
I pulled my face away from him as the weight of our predicament came crashing down.
“Kope?” My breaths were fast and raspy.
With a firm grip on my neck, he brought my face back to his for another kiss, then grabbed my other leg and lifted me clear off the ground, holding me up with both hands. Um . . . wow.
“W-wait,” I said, discombobulated.
He broke away from my mouth, only to devour the length of my neck with his hot, soft lips. I let out a small moan. His hands and mouth were wild on me, and it was so un-Kopano-ish.
“Hold on, Kope.” I tried to push him, but he was working the path of my collarbone, and he was so strong. I shoved again, but he was like a giant boulder in motion.
“Kope! Stop!” I shouted and pushed away hard with my arms, squirming until he dropped me and jumped away, panting. My back was already against the door, so my feet caught underneath me and I didn’t fall. Mops and brooms clattered. I tried to use my night vision, but there was barely any light coming from under the door, so I couldn’t see his expression.
“Anna . . .” His voice was stricken.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” My heart still pounded too hard.
“Forgive me, Anna. Please.”
I instinctively reached for his hands, my heart breaking as regret flooded through me.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Kope. I started it. Please don’t feel bad.”
But he still hung his head. “I wanted this for so long, and I knew . . . I knew I would not be in control of myself.”
I didn’t quite understand why the king of self-control would be worried about losing control from a kiss. But he had. Something else was going on here.
“You know you can tell me anything, right, Kope?”
“It’s too shameful,” he whispered.
“No.” I rubbed my thumbs across his.
“I . . . Anna . . . Wrath is not the only sin that plagues me. It’s not even my primary sin.”
What? My hands stilled. He had more than one vice? How was that possible?
Things began clicking into place. Like the way he reacted every time a woman flirted or touched him, with the exception of Marna who was like a sister. He’d always been so careful not to make contact or even look if he could avoid it.
Lust. And wrath. A dangerous combination.
As much as I wanted to comfort him, I didn’t dare hug him. Instead I held his hands tighter.
“Who else
“My father and two blood brothers . . . and Kaidan.”
Oh.
“He is very observant. He asked me the second day we met. He was young at the time, but somehow he knew.”
I swallowed hard.
“I promise not to tell anyone, Kope. Let’s just go back to the hotel and try to figure out all this stuff about Flynn. ’Kay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
I did a quick check to make sure my skirt was adjusted properly before opening the closet door. We didn’t so much as glance in the other’s direction the entire walk back to our hotel.
Clearly this was going to be more than just a minor hurdle for us to get past. As we went in silence to our own rooms, it became clear that I had ruined any friendship we’d built. So much for trying to figure things out about Flynn. We couldn’t even bring ourselves to talk.
I let myself into my room and went straight to the bed, falling facedown. What had I done? Lying there, I replayed the entire scene, starting with the surprise of passion we’d unleashed. In that moment when I’d shut off all thought, the physical intimacy had been more than welcome. And yet, there had been something missing. It was nothing physical, because Kope was the total package, and the boy could definitely kiss.
But there’d been no spark in my heart to ignite me. No fluttery feeling of triumph had bloomed in my belly. Only one person had ever made me feel that way. I reached up and touched the necklace Kai had given me.
A sick sensation filled my stomach. This was not fair to Kope. I saw now that love could not be stopped, forgotten, or transferred, no matter what schemes the mind and body devised.
I rolled over and climbed down from the bed, thinking a shower might help. When I closed the bathroom door and caught sight of myself in the mirror, my eye was drawn to two spots on my neck. I leaned toward the mirror and gasped. Hickeys! This had to be some cosmic joke. Had Kope seen them when we were walking back? No way. He hadn’t even blinked in my direction. Kope would die if he saw them.
I squatted down, feeling dizzy. Guilt surged up at the thought of Kai finding out. But why should I feel guilty? Kai had given Kope the green light. Regardless, he would never find out about this kiss because I wasn’t telling a soul, and I knew Kope wouldn’t either.