“Tonight is the last night of Scream Town, and she will be there, and so will we.”

“You son of a bitch.”  Rayne started to walk away, knowing if he stood there one more moment, that he was going to have to hit Ryden.

“Rayne, we will never have any peace with her if the Swartska is still after us.  We need to stand and fight for what is ours.  I am tired of hiding and the constant moving.  I want a home with her.  I want our seed in her stomach.  Family.  And the only way we are going to have that is to stand up and fight back.”

Feeling his fist close up tight of its own volition, Rayne considered the way it would feel knocking some sense into his brother’s thick skull.  “But using her as bait?”

“She will never be harmed.  We will never allow it.”

“You are a bastard; we can stand and fight without laying her out on a silver platter for those creeps.  It’s wrong.  All wrong.”

“Have I ever led us wrong before?”  Ryden stepped closer to his brother, the concern heavily etched into the lines around his eyes.  Damn, his brother looked as though he had aged twenty years overnight.

“We’ve never had this much at stake, Ryden.  I won’t live another thousand years without the succor we can find in her arms.”

“I won’t let it get that far.  Wewon’t let it get that far.”

****

When Karli awoke hours later, in her own bed, alone, had it not been for the tenderness of her own body, she would have assumed she was going insane.  Sitting up, she moved her legs to the side of the bed slowly, the tenderness inside her thighs screaming.  She moved to her feet and her knees nearly buckled from the soreness, and she shuffled her way into her bathroom, turning on the shower.

Slipping under the spray, she fought tears as they sprung to her eyes.  After the night she had with Ryden and Rayne, she had at least expected the two men to be there when she opened her eyes the following morning.  How anything that had could feel so right when it happened, feel so wrong the next morning in the light of day?

Karli turned off the shower and grasped a towel to dry her body.  Slipping out, she stood before the large mirror over the sink and dropped the cloth.  Looking at herself, she was changed from their touches.  Her nipples were bright pink, swollen from their mouths and caresses.  She reached up to feel the weight of one breast and it felt heavier and tender.

Small bite marks crossed her shoulders and neck, nothing serious, just the rough lovemaking scars from her two men. Karli hoped that they wouldn’t heal completely, and she would wear them as a reminder of one incredible night.  Apparently that was all it was to be, and she should have realized it when she first saw them in the park.

The perfect predators.

Reaching a hand down, she cupped her sex, which was abraded and tender, and bright pink from their use.  One lone finger slid through her labia to caress her engorged clit, and her sigh of pleasure had her grasping for the edge of the sink with her free hand.  At least she had gotten one amazing night out of it, and instead of dwelling on it, she should just take it for what it was and move on.

Karli turned on the sink, splashing cold water over her face.  She went through the motions of brushing her hair and teeth, feeling like she was disembodied somehow.  The daily rituals seemed so urbane now, after what Rayne and Ryden had done to her body.  And the thought of going to work this evening was not something she looked forward to at all.

Considering a few days ago it was her life, she suddenly realized that Ryden was correct; she was one of the park’s caged beasts.  It had been her first and only job.  Comfortable.  Instead of branching out into the world and using the education she had worked long and hard for, she had stayed where it was easy.  She had been going through the motions all this time, and now that she had seen another life, new potential, the thought of spending one more day there was sickening.

But what else could she do?

Karli had felt alive in the twins’ arms, for the first time in her life.  But the two of them had brought her home, deposited her in her bed, alone.  Instead of waking up with her in the light of day, showing her that they truly wanted her in their lives, they had left her in their haste to run away.  She had no idea how to find them if they did not come tonight.

Last night was going to be the one and only time she would spend with the twins, and that thought paralyzed her.

But they had said tonight her body would take over, her need would propel her to do things she did not necessarily want to do.  Was it all bullshit?  A way to coax her into their bed?  Instinctively, Karli knew there would be more to this.  Part of her wanted to seek the men out, another part of her wanted to shield her heart away from the potential hurt their abandonment would cause.

She grabbed her work clothes and took her time putting them on, hoping tonight they would come for her.

Chapter Six

Eryck walked beside his brother Erulf along the pathways of the park, checking the wards they had placed throughout.  The pair made sure they were holding and had not been found, and tracing a few new ones in spots that felt weaker.  Both of their heads were well above those around them, and they captured attention as they moved. As they did everywhere they went.  Not too many men were six foot ten with shoulders nearly half as wide.

“I don’t like this whole plan, Rulf.”  Eryck was the older of the two, his magic much stronger than his twin’s.  All day he had sensed something off, something that just wasn’t right with the world around them, but none of the wards so far had erupted and so far they were all in place and holding.  There was no way Gyda or her Swartska were anywhere on the property.

“Nose twitching again, Eryck?”  Erulf’s snarky laugh ruffled Eryck’s feathers.  Erulf had never really taken life all that seriously, nor their magic.  But then, Erulf was the younger twin.  Younger twins usually had lesser powers.

Except in the case of Jakob and Joran.

“Don’t you feel it?”  Eryck would have chuckled at his brother’s nose twitching comments, because it was pretty much on point.  Except the stakes were too high and the situation too serious for him to find much humor in anything.

“No, I don’t feel anything, except the anticipation of potentially getting to kick some Swartska butt.  It has been far, far too long.”

Eryck eyed his younger brother.  “Promise me you will be careful tonight, Rulf.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“No, you are a cocky asshole who needs to keep his eyes on the prize.  I will not lose you tonight, brother.”

Erulf placed a hand over his chest, feigning pain.  “You wound me with your assumptions, dear Eryck.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

Erulf stopped in the pathway, pulling brother by the arm into a copse of trees.  He looked at Eryck with all seriousness, his playful glibness receding. “If there is something you are not telling me about tonight, Eryck, then spill.  I don’t have time to get my panties in a wad over some gloom and doom feeling you have.”

Eryck looked into his mirror image, not able to voice the true issue.  His magic was growing.  Exponentially.  As the elder brother, he was created to be the stronger one, the prime of the pair.  But in the last months, his manipulation of the craft was growing stronger, and his sixth sense was shooting out some serious mojo.  He had even begun to have visions.

He sensed no growth to his brother’s magical prowess, and although Erulf tended to be happy-go-lucky for the most part pretending not to care about his magical abilities, Eryck sensed his brother’s frustration at being the lesser of the two, in regards to their magic.  For him to know the gap was growing, it could drive a wedge between them.  After the loss of Jakob, and seeing how it devastated Joran, Eryck refused to let that happen.