When the Wolves Cry (Twin Flames Duet #1)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TALA

Slamming my back against the door, I awkwardly bend my arm up and lock the deadbolt. The thump of my heart is beating in my lips, pulsing my eyes from how wide they’re growing.

“Oh. My. God.”

The console table is covered with dead bouquets.

I push off the door and walk into the living room, gaping at the peonies, roses, dahlias, and pansies with pampas grass and bunny tails to break up the clusters of darkness.

They’re everywhere. And I mean everywhere .

In goddamn La-La-Land, I walk past the dead flowers lining the staircase and the hallway, turning into my bedroom for a sight that hitches my breath.

I think I’m Satan’s soft spot.

I approach my bed, smiling like an idiot at the bouquets spelling out “little wolf.” I pick the note up, reading his handwriting.

My smile stretches painfully, spotting the book on the end of my bed. I lean over and grab it, straightening my spine to look at it. “ Handbook for the Recently Deceased ,” I read off quietly.

He’s too perfect to be true. I have no idea where he would have even gotten this.

The rumbles growing quiet down the driveway make my smile fall. I frown glumly, ambling around my bed and over to my nightstand. I set the note and book next to the dog tag hanging from my moon lamp, wanting to whip my phone out and tell him to get his behemoth ass back here.

But I let him go. And I clear off my bed, stacking the bouquets on top of my dresser.

Which reminds me that he’s stolen at least ten pairs of my panties. I can only imagine what he does with them. And that makes fighting the urge to call him extremely difficult.

I got my test results back. My pussy is not poisonous.

Which is why I got a little feral back there.

It’s hard not to mount the Dark Stallion and take him for a ride. But that ride will break my back and replace my vertebrae with the carnal fire of Hell.

“I can make whatever changes your heart desires,” Paxton says gently.

I smile, looking over the stencil he drew up. “No, it’s perfect,” I insist.

I hand it back, noting the gleam of contentment in his glossy eyes. He knows his art never fails to amaze anyone. He’s just incredibly humble and acts like sparks fly anytime someone praises him with honeyed words.

He flashes a dimpled grin and rolls back to his station. “Your spine won’t be as bad as your sternum was. But it will be a tad bit more uncomfortable than the back of your neck or your fingers.”

“I think I want angel wings on my middle finger,” Nadia chimes.

I start pulling my shirt off, looking over to her wide smile. “And why is that?” I laugh, knowing exactly why. I just want to hear her say it.

She pops her lips. “So, when Maverick pulls the whole angel card, I can show him what an angel I can be.”

I laugh, throwing my shirt over to her. It’s so damn obvious that she and Maverick have something between them. Their red and white auras radiate around them, they swirl and reach out but stop before blending into pink.

Running my hand over my wrist and patting at my pockets like it will randomly appear, I curse under my breath, realizing I forgot a hair tie.

“Do you have a rubber band, Paxton?” I ask, snooping around his room in my bra.

He curls his lips to his teeth and awkwardly starts filling an ink cup.

Intense tingles radiate like flames down my back.

I gulp, and grow the ovaries to turn around, getting eye level with a rock-hard chest that smells like whiskey. I hesitantly scan up to the hunter eyes that are glaring down at me.

The room has fallen silent aside from the rock music filtering throughPaxton’sspeaker and my heart beating loudly in my ears.

Without saying a word, he wraps my hair around his hand and holds it up. His rough palm slides over my back, leaving sizzling embers over the tingles that still vibrate, and he unclasps my bra in one swift motion.

The weight of my boobs drops, and I scurry to hold my bra in place so I don’t give everyone in the goddamn room a free show. “Jax,” I snip under my breath.

He cocks his head, straight brows pinched tight. “Do you honestly believe I’d let him see your pretty tits?” he asks, not giving a single fuck that Paxton is right behind me. “Put your arms down, Tala.”

He must see the temerity in my eyes.

He shakes his head, and before I have the chance to rip it off, his massive hand covers both of my boobs. And they’renot small.

“Cold alert,” Paxton chimes behind me.

Not fazed by the cold liquid on my scorching back, I keep my hard stare aimed at Jax’s annoyingly perfect face. “I’m sorry, Paxton. This is Jax by the way.”

“Oh, I know,” he draws out, concentrating on not slicing my back open with the razor. “He was in here earlier.”

A devilish smirk rises on Jax’s face, and I snap my glare over to Nadia, the only other person besides Paxton that knew I’d be coming here today.

Her face drops, and she scrambles off the couch with her bag. “A client’s calling, gotta go!” Her honey brown hair whizzes by in a flash and out the door.

Bring Me to Life starts playing through my headphones.

It pulls me out of the stare down I was having with a nick in the wall. I was staring at it for so long it started evolving and changing shape. I kind of got concerned it was going to overtake the wall, chew a hole out, and send me into a different dimension.

All because I refuse to look at Jax.

I’ve felt his heated glare penetrating me more than I’ve felt the needle blasting my spine. That’s how intense and powerful his eyes are.

He honestly probably hasn’t blinked, making sure I don’t get too excited over another man touching me.

Psycho .

My brows knit, my breathing coming to a halt. Unless Paxton just randomly grew massive hands, I’m almost certain Jax is back there tattooing me now.

Keeping my torso as still as possible, I go full Exorcist and swivel my head to look over my shoulder.

His messy hair is falling unintentionally perfect around his fixated eyes, and there’s one little swoop in the center I want to twirl my fingers around. He’s biting his bottom lip in concentration, forming a little indent in the fullness.

I bite my own at the delicious sight. I don’t care if it’s messed up. He can tattoo me all he wants if he’s going to look that sexy doing it.

Seeing him inflict the stings has an aggravating pulse throbbing in between my thighs.

As if he has a sixth sense for the way my pussy reacts to him, the stinging stops, and he looks over at me with knowing eyes. He says something, but I still have music playing and I don’t have my masters in lip reading.

I slide my headphones down, and he smiles a little too sharply to just be happy that he got to participate.

“What did you do?” I ask, tone accusatory.

His smile sticks as he wipes me down, and the raging sunburn feeling sends a sharp breath through my teeth.

His brows snap together. “Oof,” he taunts, ripping his gloves off. “You took that so well, baby. Are you ready to see?”

My brain short circuits from the praise. All I can do is lazily nod, my arms wobbling while trying to push myself up to my knees. I cringe, watching my bra fall down my arms, but not even a second goes by before he’s picking me up like a child.

The skin on my back stretches from the motion, instituting the feeling of being flayed alive. “Oh, fuck,” I whimper in agony.

Ignoring the sexual desire that sparks on his face from my pain, I wrap my arms around his neck and circle my legs around his waist.

The throbbing in between my thighs returns heavily. Amplifying as he runs his hands down to my ass, gripping like I might slip away.

My tits are out and pressed into him, and I don’t know where Paxton is. He could be lurking around or not even in here. I haven’t noticed him since the switch off in hands touching me.

What I do notice… is Jax’s lips parting and his starving eyes. He’s not watching where he’s walking. Guess you don’t really need to when you’ve been formed in Hell and have demons guiding you.

“Happy birthday, little wolf,” he whispers.

“Thank you,” I murmur, worried my volume might make him spring into action.

He stops, and slightly tilts his head to the left, barely brushing his parted lips against mine. Not doing anything, only progressively breathing heavier while the tension pushes us closer to the edge. It makes me dizzy, wanting to push into it. But I decide to take the first step back from the cliff and look over my shoulder, into the mirror.

A dagger scale runs down my spine, taking up half of my back. In the left scale sits a human heart and, in the right, sits a skull.

The balance of life and death.

I squint, reading the cursive in between my dimples of Venus, and my jaw drops in shock. “I’m going to make a wild guess that Scythe is your last name.”

He meets my eyes in the mirror, looking overly satisfied with himself. “Yes, ma’am. It’ll be yours too,” he says proudly.

This asshole branded me.

I rip the rubber band out of my hair, not giving a shit about the strands breaking from my scalp, and I shake it around to cover my stinging back. “I’m not paying for that.”

“I already did,” he smiles.

My eyes narrow. “Now, your sexy ass needs to crawl onto that table and let me tattoo my name on you.”

He hikes a brow, inching too close to my face. “Hmm, so the saddle does impress you. You can say it, baby.”

I latch a hand into his hair, the other grabbing under his jaw and turning his ear to my lips. “Let’s see how it performs when I ride it,” I purr.

His brows pinch tighter, lips parting for a husky groan, and he turns his face back, sliding the fullness of his lips across mine. “I need you to tell me no. ‘Cause, baby, I’m about to fuckin’ take it.”

I want it. I want him to do whatever he wants to me. But I tilt my head, breaking the seal that almost locked our lips together. “No.”