Wicked Harmony

Chapter 18 | Cal

Chapter 18

Cal

S in’s in the kitchen, downing a glass of water when Micah and I finally get our asses in gear and go after her. She eyes the two of us warily as we charge in.

“Do you want to go for a walk outside? The forest is really beautiful around here,” I tell her, feeling like a prize dolt as the words spill out. All I know is, we need to fix things and being outside always clears my head. Thankfully, she nods and I blow out a relieved breath.

At least we haven’t fucked up so badly she’s stopped speaking to us.

A few minutes later, we’re out in the fresh air, surrounded by trees which shift gently in the breeze. It’s so much easier to breathe out here and all the panicked thoughts shooting through my mind settle for a moment.

“Your ideas and designs are incredible,” I tell her gruffly.

She smiles, but it’s strained and I wish we could go back ten minutes and redo the entire conversation. Dorian was right, she opened up more today than she has in all the time we’ve been here and we didn’t react right.

I’ve never felt worse about having shitty communication skills than I do right now. Maybe if I was smoother, I’d have the right words to say, so that she didn’t look like she was two seconds from bursting into tears.

My gut twists and my skin itches. Fuck. My inadequacy is making my tongue thick and my mind is blanking with what to say to comfort her.

“Have you ever heard of Nephilim?” Micah asks, pulling me out of my own spiraling thoughts to shoot him a bewildered look.

Sin shakes her head, glancing from him to me, as if I can help her. Too bad I don’t know what he’s talking about either.

“They used to call us fallen angels. Dropped from heaven to mix with the humans. I, er, I’ve been around a long time and I came from a different place, originally.” The words are stilted and slow, like he’s unsure how to say them aloud.

I’ve never heard this part of Micah’s story and wonder if anyone has.

He shifts from foot to foot, smoothing his hand over the bark of a nearby tree like he’s using the sensation to ground himself.

“A different place? Like how there weren’t originally demons in this world until they found their way through the portals?” Sin asks, before glancing at me. “I’m not too sure if Orcs are the same or—”

“Nah, we’ve always been here,” I rasp through a dry throat. “We just used to keep to ourselves in the mountains until the demons and the shifters first appeared.”

But Micah nods. “Before I wound up here, I was in another realm. It was... calmer there. Quiet.” His voice is soft, and he stares off into the distance, mesmerized by the movement of the trees. “When I first arrived, I was lost and alone in the middle of what felt like this endless forest. I remember there were wolves and that it was the first time in my life I’d ever been cold or hungry. Before I arrived there, I... well, we didn’t eat meat back home. But after weeks of walking and trying to eat whatever I could find on bushes, I was so painfully hungry, I—”

His voice breaks, and I think we both get the picture about what happened next .

“That was the point I discovered my empathy doesn’t just extend to other people. Sometimes, under the right conditions, I can feel animals’ emotions too.”

“Micah, this isn’t—” Sin cuts herself off, rubbing her face with her hands and letting out a deep sigh. “—you don’t have to do a tit for tat. Just because I shared something shitty with you, you don’t have to bare your soul to me.”

Micah meets my eyes and I see the panic in them. That’s exactly what Dorian suggested we do, and he seemed to know what he was talking about.

“I, er, want to. I want you to know me better, Sin,” Micah says. “And I’d like to get to know you too, if you let me. I like you, Sin. And I’m pretty sure we both suck at lowering our guards enough to let people in, but I want us to try. Together.”

Sin just stares at him for a moment before nodding hesitantly. “Okay.”

“That was what I thought would be the worst thing I ever did, but it got a lot worse in the months and years—” Micah continues.

“Micah.” Sin halts him with a hand on his chest. “You were alone, and you had to survive. No one’s going to judge you for that.”

They share a long look and I feel like a tool, watching and not contributing during this intimate moment. My arms feel overly long and I’ve forgotten how to hold them like a normal person. I’m no gentle prince like Micah. I’m a tongue-tied fool who knocks shit over and has broken more chairs with my heavy ass than I can count.

For once, though, I find my tongue untangling when I need it to. “And how old were you when you first met that guy... Cedar Orlog? You lived with him, right?” I ask Sin. I know there has to be a story there, a reason she wound up in that situation.

She turns to look at me and my gut clenches with her attention focused on me. “I was fifteen. But that doesn’t excuse anything. You know how old I was when I finally left Cedar Orlog and his stupid cult? I was an adult, Cal. Even if we’re being generous, the excuse that I was young and impressionable stopped being valid as soon as I hit twenty. That’s seven whole years where I was manipulating people and messing with their heads and the Herald—Cedar Orlog—was profiting from it.”

Micah links their fingers together and I take a hesitant step forward, reaching out as if to cup Sin’s cheek with my enormous paw. I don’t quite make contact before drawing my hand back to my side.

“If you’re trying to convince us you’re a bad person, you’re not gonna succeed,” I tell her.

I knew from our second interaction that Sin has a good heart, one she keeps hidden a lot of the time.

“None of us are perfect, Sinjin.”

“I’ve met plenty of people with darkness in their hearts, Sin,” Micah says. “And I can feel how you react to things. How you feel a lot of things, even when that’s not shown on your face.”

I take a step closer. “You spent all night creating that cuff for Micah when you’d just met the guy. Why’d you do that, Sin?”

“Don’t forget all those badges you made for Dorian to give to his mom at the trauma center.”

“Okay, okay, enough with the chorus singing my praises.” She waves off our words with a snort, cupping her flaming cheek with the hand not linked with Micah’s.

“I know it might seem too soon for you to trust us, Sin, but we’d like it if you let us get to know you better,” Micah says. “That means knowing the bits that aren’t all sunshine and rainbows, too.”

“All right.” She glances between the two of us and swallows hard. “I did promise myself I was going to stop hiding when I left Grizz’s.”

Micah and I both take a step closer to her. Close enough that every breath is like a shot of sweet scented air into my lungs .

I don’t know about Micah, but I can’t seem to help myself. I’ve been drawn to her from the moment I first caught her scent in that little shop.

She always smells so damn good.

We’ve spent hours together over the past week and a bit. Hours just sitting and talking and I’ve struggled to take my eyes off her. Something deep within me calls out to pull her into my lap and hold her close.

And then she looks up at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and I’m lost. Her hand reaches up and her thumb strokes over my cheek and along my jaw. I shift impossibly closer until there’s no room between us, pressing my big body up against hers.

The three of us stand there for a moment, breathing shared breaths.

“Sin,” I whisper her name, and her eyelids flutter closed.

“You have a beautiful voice, Cal,” she murmurs back. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“I need to kiss you,” I tell her, my eyes are locked on her lips and I can’t think of anything else right now.

It’s an entirely new feeling, something I’ve never experienced in relation to another person before. But I need to feel her lips on mine. I need to taste her again.

I don’t say any of that, too scared that I’ll scare the shit out of her with the intensity of my feelings when we haven’t even known each other for two full weeks.

Her answer is physical rather than verbal. She goes up on her toes and grips my collar, pulling me down further. I bend my knees, squatting until we’re eye level.

And then she presses her lips to mine.

Her taste explodes in my mouth as she runs her tongue along my lips and twines her tongue with mine. My hand is in her hair, the other skimming over her hip as I hold her close to me before I caress her back, the swell of her ass, heading up to her gorgeous breasts which beg to be released from her top and sucked into my mouth.

These wanton thoughts streak through my mind as I greedily swallow her soft moans. The sounds of Sin’s pleasure don’t belong to the forest or the air. No, they’re mine and I’m going to take each and every one of them inside me.

Eventually, we have to separate for us to both take a heaving breath. She looks up at me with heavy-lidded eyes, panting.

“Holy shit, Cal.”

But we’re not done here. Micah is practically whimpering beside me.

“Fuck. I can feel your need and it’s mixing with mine. It’s so intense,” he murmurs, eyes darting from Sin’s face to mine. “You look so beautiful right now, Sin. You always manage to take my breath away.”

Her face breaks into a smile, and I know exactly what he means. My own breath hitches slightly and Sin glances at me before her eyes dart to Micah and back again.

“You need to touch her, man,” I rumble.

Despite my more bestial side coming to the forefront, I don’t feel threatened by Micah’s attention. We’ve shared too many moments lamenting our own lack of experience to not understand that we both want her.

More than that. We need her.

Sin presses her lips to Micah’s and lets out another sweet moan that goes straight to my cock. Surprisingly, though, I don’t feel jealousy writhing inside me. Nor do I step back. Instead, I grow somewhat light-headed as she clutches my cock through my pants even while she’s lost in Micah’s kiss.

Fuck. I want nothing more than to tear off her clothes and rut her against one of the nearby trees .

But that would be a step too far. I don’t want to fuck this up by moving too quickly. Even if I’m already gone for this woman.

Micah pulls back and his eyes are bright as he stares at Sin. His lips slightly swollen from the kiss.

He’s softer than I am, able to be gentle in a way my body isn’t built for.

I remember two of my dads—Gritt and Ostin—sitting me down when I started to notice that not every other kid had four dads who circled a single female like she was their sun.

“Once you find your mate, you’ll understand how you want nothing more than to make her happy. Your reason for being will click one day out of nowhere and you’ll know it’s them that causes everything else to make sense.”

All the years of frustration. Of never being able to connect with another person. Feeling like my body didn’t work right because it didn’t react in the way others did. It all slots into place.

I was waiting. For this moment. This connection.

For Sin.

And I’m not letting her go now that I’ve found her.