Blood Enchantment (39 page)

~ 12 ~

Thorn

I can't quit. I need one more lap gig to make that last ten thousand. One more horrible, soul-sucking dive into the abyss of loss.

Of who I am.

I don't have a penny. I've paid every dime to my mom's debt, and the balance stands at only ten thousand. Only. I sigh. My thinking about money has become so skewed. This last gig will tip the scales, and she won't be moved to the state facility. I breathe through my nervousness as Thorn stares holes through me.

His chair creaks as he tips it backward, his muscular weight forcing it to accept his movements. He ignores its protests and taps an elegantly appointed lighter on his desk. “Faren... you know how much I enjoy you.” He tips the lighter upside down. Tap. Flips it right side up. Tap.

I cringe.
Yeah, I know.

He smiles at my obvious discomfort.

I nod but say nothing.

Flip. Tap. My eyes key in on that lighter, the silver winking as he flips it. I hate it. Hate him.

He tosses it to the desk with a final resounding tap.

Thorn swivels to the side and stands. He walks around the desk, sets an ass cheek at the edge, and folds his huge arms in front of him. “We can't have a repeat performance of what happened with Jay.”

My hands twist in my lap. “I... I wasn't expecting...” Heat bites my skin like a colony of fire ants.

“Your little starfish to get a tap?”

Thorn's so vulgar. I think I hate that about him the most.

I glare at him, letting all the loathing I feel fill my expression.

He barks out a laugh. “I should make you give me another lap dance because I know you hate it. Hate me.”

I stay silent. I can't speak because I can't contain myself. I keep looking down, trying not to out myself.

“Look at me.”

I raise my eyes to his. His dark face is perfectly sculpted, every feature beautiful separately, even better together. Thorn works hard on his physique. The tattoo sleeves that cover both arms are mere shadows against his dark brown skin. But his eyes are vacant of understanding, compassion... feelings.

“You have one chance to redeem yourself, or it'll be off with your head,” he says, laughing manically.

I seethe but nod. “You looked green at the last venue, and that can’t happen again.”

“Even with your behavior, you're a favorite.” Thorn's eyes bore into mine.

I lift my chin. This big, beautiful man with a black heart will not cow me. I can't allow even the finest crack in my composure. I need this.

Tannin Mitchell needs it.

So I wait, my breath held as he lets me stew.

“An associate of mine has thrown his hat in the ring, so to speak,” he says, letting out another dark chuckle. But his amusement overrides everything.

“Who?” I ask, hoping for Jay. Gross as our dance was, I'd rather have the evil I know than one I don't.
One more time
.

“Ron.”

I feel my mouth open and close like a fish out of water.

Thorn nods, spreading his hands apart. “You should be happy. He paid the big bucks and the cops came. He didn't get his piece of the pie.”

My eyes flip to his. I wish I'm wrong, but I know I'm not.

“The Faren pie.”

When I stand, my handbag falls to the floor and the contents spill out. My hands fist as I hiss, “I am not food.”

“You're what and who I tell you to be. If you want to suck up the cash, you need to do the deed. Period.”

Thorn makes me sick. But sicker still is being forced into dancing for my assailant. “Does your boss know how you get girls to participate in your pathetic merry-go-around?”

Thorn jerks his chin back. “McKenna? You think Mr. Bleeding Heart is aware of this?”

I stumble back. I think over my interactions with Mick, how certain things didn't fit.

Thorn's perfect inky brows pull together, and he laughs. “What? You thought that McKenna...”

I nod, and he scrubs the short black nap on his skull. Thorn shakes his head, palming his chin. “No. Jared McKenna plays everything above-board. He does not have a bead on this... game.”

“It's not a game. We're people, Thorn.”

He shakes his head. “You're a bunch of girls who give rich dudes what they need. You can't play innocent when you rub your kitty against the pony.”

I kick up my chin. “I could tell him.” I lay my fingertips over the lips he'd kissed. If I tell Mick, then he'll oust Thorn and I can come clean.

“I know,” Thorn says with a smirk.

“What? What do you know?” My eyes become slits as I glare at him.

“I know you're McKenna's new plaything. Why do you think I don't force you for personal laps?”

His words are a slap in the face. My thoughts scatter like dandelion seed on the wind.

I stare, my hands loosening, and dizziness seizes me again. I grip the chair behind me with my right hand. I fight against it, hoping I won't get a headache to remind me of my short path.

Thorn sees me sway, and his arm reaches out to steady me. I jerk back unsteadily.

His eyes are on me, his hand encircling my arm with bruising force. “You tell him about the laps, and I'll tell him you work it.” He's collecting money behind Mick's back.

Blackmail in its purest form. My vision narrows to a pinpoint of light. Thorn's face fills it.

“Test me,” he provokes.

I don't.

Instead, I feel my right orbital region explode with pain so acute, it staggers me, and I fold where I stand.

It's the only time I’ve seen Thorn have an expression other than contempt, greed, or lust.

That emotion surprises me as consciousness departs, and it follows me down the spiral of darkness.

Fear.

#

THE TOKEN

A Token Series Novella

New York Times
Bestselling author

MARATA EROS

All Rights are Reserved.

Copyright © 2014 Marata Eros

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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~ 1 ~

Light. Searing and complete.

My eyes remain shut, but I feel a deep burning behind my heavy eyelids.

A sharp click like a pen closing. Then, “When did this happen?”

I think I know that voice.

“I don't know, a couple of hours ago.” A pause. “We were talking and then”—I hear the shrug in his voice—“she just folded like a deck of cards.”

I know that voice.

Thorn.

My eyes open slowly. The bright light is gone, and Doctor Clive Matthews’s compassionate gaze comes into focus.

“Hi there, Miss Mitchell.”

I say nothing. Thorn is here.

Where
is
here?

I look around, my neck stiff and see that I'm in another hospital room.

Great.

“Your boyfriend said you fainted.”

Oh, my God.
My head swivels to Thorn, and he grins back. His hands are jammed in his designer denims, his sleeve tats in full relief.

“Ah...” I croak.

The good doctor gets a cup of water and bends the straw to my mouth.

I sip, leveling a death stare at Thorn.

I finish and open my mouth to deny Thorn's claim of any attachment to me.

Before I can speak, Thorn says, “Doctor Matthews said that you shouldn’t be working so hard in your condition.”

My head turns to Matthews, and I narrow my eyes to slits of condemnation.
Had he told Thorn?

His brows rise. “I thought we talked about management, Miss Mitchell.” His brows fall as his head cocks to the side. “You agreed you would minimize your activity as part of that plan.”

Thorn looks on with keen interest, his eyes ping ponging from Matthews to me.

I have to take this in hand, but I'm not sure how.

I mentally recap. Matthews believes Thorn is my boyfriend. I don't know if Thorn knows I'm terminally ill, but he knows something is up. Mick doesn't know about the lap venues, but Thorn holds that over my head.

It's a circle of madness and deception I can't decipher.

I close my eyes against the chaos that my life has become.

Just then, my cell sounds a text chime, and all eyes move to my purse.

“Want me to get that, babe?” Thorn asks, his tone light and his eyes dark.

“No,” I answer through gritted teeth, “let it go to voice mail.”

Doctor Matthews pats my knee through the hospital gown. “I'd like to keep you here for twenty-four hours.” He sees my face and chuckles.

“But I know you won't stay for that.”

I nod.

Damn straight I'm not going to stay here.

“You're free to go, but remember what we agreed on.”

Matthews looks at me before his eyes slide to Thorn.

I nod quickly, hoping that Thorn doesn't know everything.

He already knows too much.

*

“Get out of my room,” I tell Thorn the instant Matthews leaves as I hike the blankets to my chin.

“No,” he says.

I scowl, and he waits.

An exhale rushes out of me.

“I don't owe you an explanation.”

His chin kicks back, and a large hand scrubs his short hair. “Uh, yeah, ya do.” His dark eyes peg me to the bed.

I stubbornly say nothing.

“Listen, Faren, I've got a good thing going with these lap gigs. McKenna runs his uppity-whitey shit—”

“Whitey shit?” I ask, my fingers coming up in airquotes.

He gives a stiff nod. “Yeah. McKenna and I go way back, same hood.”

My brows meet above my eyes. I didn’t expect that revelation.

Mick had told me he was self-made. His intellect isn’t in doubt. But that edge that he wears—his dark, gritty side?

Here's the proof. Thorn isn't an accident as an employee. There's a real man hidden inside the suave shell of the billionaire that everyone else sees.

“So you're a charity hire?” I confront.

Thorn steps forward, his expression flashing from neutral to angry. “You don't know jack shit, girl.”

We stare at each other.

“I know you're skimming money with the revolving lap venue,” I say. “That McKenna remains unaware.”

Thorn scowls, rubbing his face then putting his large hands on his hips. I watch his tats undulate with the movement and swallow.

I can't deny Thorn scares me on a primitive level.

Or maybe any level.

“And I know that you like boss man,” he says.

I shake my head, but my expression gives me away.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding and palming his chin. “You dig my man Mick.”

“How did you know I was... seeing him?”

Am I seeing him?

Oh yes.

“I know it's real because my bro doesn't dish on the cracks unless he's serious.”

“Cracks?” I ask miserably.

Thorn nods.

“Y'know, chicks?”

Oh my god.

His vulgarity knows no bounds.

“Please leave so I can dress,” I ask as politely as possible.

“Yeah, fine.” Thorn nails me with a hard stare and pops his thumb into his chest. “Then we're gonna chat, you and me.”

I nod. Anything to get rid of him.

I wait until the door clicks behind him, then I swing my legs around and wait for the dizziness. When none comes, I let the breath I've been holding leave me.

The floor leeches the heat from my feet as I walk to the bathroom and lock myself inside.

Some wonderful nurse has hung my things on the back hook, and I smile, tearing off the offending hospital gown.

I look in the mirror and see a pale, pinched face. I stuff myself back into my clothes, slide my feet into my shoes, and walk back into the room.

“What took all that time?” Thorn asks, lounging against the door jamb.

“Let's go,” I say.

He moves to take my elbow, and I wrench it away from him. “Don't touch me.”

Thorn wags a finger. “It'll look suspicious if I don't act like the concerned boyfriend.” He leans in, his grip on my elbow a painful circle. “Besides, we've done a lot more than this.”

Shame engulfs me. A flush of anger mixed with embarrassment slides up my face, and he chuckles.

“Good girl.”

Or bad, from my perspective.

His brand new, fire-engine red Porsche 911 turbo Carerra hugs the curb like a screaming jewel. The color yells
nouveau riche
to all who stroll by.

Mick probably has ten of these tucked away somewhere, though I've only seen him ride the Harley. I swallow hard at that memory.

“Hey?” Thorn says, and I realize I've allowed him to drag me to his car. “Get in.”

Right. So we can
chat.

Accepting help from Thorn isn't smart. He's probably keeping a mental score card of favors, and mine is adding up. I don't need any more debt.

But I have to get home.

I sigh and dig at the handle from the top and clamp my good hand inside it like a claw, jerking it open. The heavy door swings across the curb, inching over the sidewalk with a whisper of space between the shiny red metal and the cement.

I breathe through the look Thorn gives me when he sees the door hovering a fraction of an inch above the sidewalk.

“Good thing you didn't damage the goods.” His eyes bore into mine. “I'd have to reconsider taking it out of your hide.”

Wonderful.
The prick.

I lower myself into his car. It's like lying down in a bed, it's so low to the ground. I scoop my hand into the handle and shut the door as Thorn smoothly pulls away.

We travel silently for a few minutes, and I watch his hands shift and maneuver in traffic.

I wonder what Thorn could have been if he wasn't a rich thug.

He's somehow a boyhood friend of Mick’s. That fills me with unease because I can't reconcile the two.

His hands clench the wheel, and I know I can't get out of our
chat.

“So… what made you face plant? Believe me, if you're some sickie, I can't have you passing out all over the laps.”

Thanks for the compassion, asshole.

The laps.

It always comes full circle to that.

His eyes land on me for a beat then slide away. “I have a business, Faren. I know you think I'm a cold prick.”

I laugh—I can't help it. He's so right.

He frowns, tightening his grip on the steering wheel, taking me down familiar streets.

There's no way I'm telling him. “A business that's behind Mick's back,” I say instead.

He pulls over at a curb. The meter clicks to a glaring red
expired
as I look. The engine rumbles, causing our bodies to tremble.

“And the first girl I've ever heard Mick talk about is a cum-sponge for old pervs.” His eyebrows cock, and my face flames.

My hands twist in my lap, and I don't reply.

“Not so high and mighty now, are we?” Thorn asks softly.

I don't move when he snatches my left hand off my lap.

I can't. He's that strong, that fast.

He flips my palm over, and my fingers helplessly clutch against his hand.

Thorn's eyes meet mine. “What the fuck is this?”

I shake my head and hope he'll let it drop. I know he won't.

“I... I had an accident... about four years ago.”

“Bullshit.” His black eyes blaze into mine, his hand tightens, and a little whimper breaks the seal of my lips.

“Please.” I breathe through the pain.

His eyes flash to mine before he drops my hand.

It twitches between us. I won't be able to use it for a few minutes.

My eyes meet his.

“I know accidents,” Thorn says slowly. “This isn't no accident.”

I swallow, clearing my throat. “How do you know?” My voice is quiet inside the purring car, my body tense.

Our gazes lock.

“Because.” His hand gently lifts my palm as it spasms between us and runs a finger over the scar at the center. “I know knives.”

Of course he does.