“You do understand becoming Velma means you have to have friends?” Ryder warned with a note too close to serious for me.

“I have friends,” I grumbled. I leaned back into Chase, inhaling his warm comfort.

“Boyfriends,” one of Kenna’s friends snorted.

“Boyfriend,” Chase corrected and then looked down at me to make sure it was Ok to say that. I waggled my eyebrows at him flirtatiously, but felt my heart turn five shades darker with the knowledge he wouldn’t be for long.

Kenna cleared her throat and tried to cover for her rude friends. “Ivy, do you know Blair and Reagan?”

“Nice to meet you both.” I tried to be charming and friendly and…. nonthreatening, but there was no way a friendship with any of these girls stood a chance.

“Whatever,” Reagan, a girl with rich chocolate shoulder length layers and a spattering of freckles underneath artsy, green glasses sighed. She didn’t even seem like the snotty type. She totally came off as the nose-in-a-book-wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly type. It was me. I brought out the worst in all of humanity. “Ready, Ken?”

“Where are you ladies off to?” Ryder asked looking Kenna directly in the eye. A weird kind of tension filled the room and it made me wonder if the happy couple had been fighting earlier.

“The backyard,” Kenna replied sweetly, kissing Ryder’s jaw line.

“Are you kidding me?” Ryder did not even try to conceal his irritation and I had to assume the backyard was generally the worst of the partying.

“Relax, Ryder,” Kenna whispered sharply. “Blair just wants to find Hayden and then I’ll come back in.”

“Whatever, Ken,” Ryder wiggled out of Kenna’s arms. Kenna’s pretty face scrunched irritably and she turned her back on him in a gesture of dismissal. Ryder turned away from her too, but straight to me. The tension in the air grew thick and ugly and settled a heavy silence over us until Ryder broke it. “Ready?” he asked, his gaze holding mine fiercely.

“F-for what?” I was afraid of the answer, his eyes had melted into gunmetal pools of intensity and I didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire of whatever was going on with him and Kenna. I hated that he put me between them, like he was using me to get back at his girlfriend. At the same time this was the first time I had been used against another female. I mean, guys had left girls for me, sure, but never with the intention of going back to the relationship. And even now I knew Ryder had no intention of leaving Kenna for me. This was innocent.

Well as innocent as trifling manipulation went.

I was used to way worse behavior than this.

“Austin Powers? Remember? We have to make sure your sins against humanity are absolved?” The teasing tone was back in his voice but he was studiously ignoring Kenna and her friends like they weren’t even there. Kenna rolled her eyes and pushed her friend Reagan through the kitchen and to the back door. Her silky black hair floated in waves around her slender shoulders. She was somehow prettier when she was mad, her green eyes alive with a fire that was usually dimmed and subtle.

“Uh, sure,” I answered inarticulately. “Ryder thinks my life isn’t complete until I watch this dumb movie,” I explained to Chase who was watching me with mild amusement. “Up for it?”

“First of all, Ryder’s right. You need to watch this movie, it’s absolutely essential to your present and future happiness. And I am up for it, but first I need to find Nick Barrett and rip him a new asshole.” Chase kind of mumbled his last sentence while staring out the window over the kitchen sink. Something had apparently caught his attention because he was letting me go and almost sprinting out the back door before I could ask him any questions.

I gave a curious glance to Phoenix but his attention was on the backyard too. “That little shit,” he mumbled and flew off after Chase.

“What in the world?” I turned to Ryder.

“Nick Barrett’s the only good keeper we have and he’s missed the last three indoor games. Chase is one of the captains and it looks like he’s about to find out why.” Ryder explained. He hardly glanced in the backyard. I would have loved to turn around to find out what was going on, but Ryder had hypnotized me with one of his paralyzing looks again and I was helpless against his power.

“Soccer stuff?” I clarified since I kind of felt like Ryder was speaking a foreign language.

“Yep. Let’s go,” Ryder commanded and then turned his back on me. “They’ll come up and find us when they’re done.”

“Up?” Somehow Ryder had reduced me to one word replies. I was turning into a caveman.

“To Phoenix’s room.”

And then he was gone, through the kitchen, the dining room and to the staircase in the living room that led to the bedrooms. I gulped loudly but no one was left to hear me. Released from Ryder’s hold I glanced in the backyard to take note of the heated argument between Chase, Phoenix and a scruffy Jesus-impersonator with long hair and barely filled in facial hair, who I could only assume was Nick Barrett.

“Let’s go Pierce,” Ryder called from halfway up the stairs.

I gulped again but obeyed. Shouldn’t someone besides me be concerned that I was going to a quiet bedroom with Ryder alone? I mean, right? I could not be trusted. Not at all.

A million different excuses ran around in my head, all vying to be the first one spoken out loud. But instead of doing the right thing, the smart thing, I snapped my mouth closed and followed Ryder up the stairs and said a quick prayer that Chase would follow soon.

Chapter Sixteen

Phoenix’s room was the last room down of four, just past a bathroom and linen closet and completely overstuffed with furniture. A single bed, two dressers, a tattered love seat, an old school plywood TV stand and box TV set that I wasn’t even sure was in color and then a battered oak desk with swiveling computer chair. The door to the walk in closet hung open, revealing a space a quarter the size of his bedroom, an enormous amount of clothing for a guy or really anyone hung haphazardly on plastic hangers and a full and obviously well-used drum set. Posters of bands from the eighties till now were tacked up around the fake wood paneling and the door frame was decorated with ticket stubs I went ahead and assumed were from concerts.

I pressed my lips together, trying to hide my equal disgust and intrigue in the space. My first instinct was that the room was filthy, but spinning around so I could take it all in I got the feeling it was cluttered but clean. Ryder bent down to fiddle with the DVD player and I walked into the closet to better inspect Phoenix’s drum set.

I was a musician of sorts. Not like Ryder and Phoenix, not like in a band kind of musician. But my mother had followed the traditions of our circle and I had taken piano and singing lessons since I could walk and talk. Nix firmly believed music was in inherent part of what made us and so I had been classically trained in both.

I wanted to hate my lessons, hate my skill…. my talent another reminder of what my life dissolved into. I was a showpiece, a trophy wife, a worker bee if gender roles were reversed, sent out into the world to make money and bring it home to our king. I shuddered at the analogy.

But I decided a long time ago that I couldn’t hate music. Even though it represented every ancient curse I wanted to run from, it was as much ingrained in my soul as the desire to live was. And it had become an escape. When I played the world disappeared behind me, melted into the recesses of my mind and I existed in a way that I normally didn’t.

Music felt like something I could control, my fingers went where I wanted them to, commanded the keys and created something beautiful. When everything else in my life felt out of my control, this was the one thing I owned. And something I needed to keep breathing. I had to be careful that I never used it along with the curse, but that wasn’t a problem for me since I despised the curse more than anything. More than even Nix.

“Is this where you guys practice?” I teased when I felt Ryder behind me. I stood just inside the doorway to the closet; the space was big but cramped with the drum set taking up so much room. Ryder’s heat was on my back, his breath floated over the nape of my neck.

“Just Phoenix,” Ryder answered softly.

I ran my forefinger over the cold, sharp metal of the high hat. I stepped forward a little to separate myself from Ryder and then tapped my fingers on the underside of the instrument so that the dull tinkling sound of the cymbals made that brassy sound I kind of loved.

I felt Ryder completely still behind me, as if he were coming to some kind of incredible revelation. He suddenly reached forward and grabbed my forearm, spinning me around to face him. Crippling fear and anxious hope sprung up inside me simultaneously and I lifted my gaze slowly to his, hoping… well, I didn’t know what I was hoping for.

His eyes weren’t on my face though. They were staring down at my upturned wrist. With the hand that held me in place, his thumb moved back and forth across the inside of my wrist, rubbing gently at the skin. His expression was so fiercely intimate, so intensely determined that even though I knew what he was doing, what he was trying to see I couldn’t stop him.

I needed to stop him, and now. But I couldn’t make myself move away from him, I couldn’t make myself hide the dangerous truth that would ruin everything for me if Nix found out. And out of all the dangerous reasons to snatch my hand out of his grasp, I was also partly stunned. After being so very careful to conceal the hidden word, I couldn’t even fathom how Ryder saw through the thick concealer or how I missed even the smallest piece to cover.

Just under the base of my thumb, the black ink had been left exposed. How Ryder knew there would be more, I had no idea. The revealed marking could just have easily been a pen scratch or dirt smudge. Maybe it was the delicate scrawl or the greenish tint that gave the tattoo away, but either way it reinforced the idea that if you wanted to keep a tattoo hidden, the wrist was a really stupid place to put it.

The pressure of his thumb increased as he worked to rub away the cover up. Slowly the thick cream distorted so more of the full piece revealed itself. Ryder paused for a moment, transferring my hand to his other while he wiped his thumb against the collar of his black t-shirt. The cover up left a pale smudge where his collarbone was hidden under the fabric of his shirt and a shot of lust pushed through me. His eyes met mine as he transferred my hand back and continued to rub at the tattoo, exposing pieces of it with every swipe of his thumb.

His eyes were liquid silver, depthless and raw with perception. He was seeing a part of me no one had seen before, save for the poor tattoo artist I manipulated into marking a minor. Ryder discovered a piece of me that was intended only for me, a piece I never planned on sharing with anyone.

Finally, Ryder released me from his stare and his gaze traveled slowly, so slowly, from mine to my wrist. “Blackheart,” he mumbled the word like a curse. Or a caress.

The word hung in the charged air between us. The small, fancy script looped around itself and created a pretty effect to the terribly ugly word.

“Blackheart,” I concurred quietly.

“What are you, a pirate?” he tried to joke, but even he couldn’t crack a smile. His voice strained over his words, his expression tight with some knowledgeable instinct that should have terrified me.

“Something like that,” I answered without meaning.

“What else do you have?” he took a step closer to me. My breathing hitched in my lungs until it stopped completely and I instinctively took a step back until my back was balanced on the corner of the door frame.

“Why do you think I have anything else?” I gasped.

“You didn’t want anyone to see this,” He reached down without looking and took my wrist back in his strong grasp. His entire hand circled around the bone there and his fingers easily overlapped each other. I felt fragile and small with his hand so possessively on me, covering the hideous word now that it was exposed. “And it means something, even if you’re not going to tell me what it is. Instinct tells me this is not your only secret, Ivy.”

His words were like pin pricks in my carefully armored skin and I felt myself pull my wrist from his grasp, even reluctantly. I could have used my other, free hand, but the severity of the moment demanded I use this hand, some symbol of confession I didn’t even fully understand myself.

I gripped at the hem of my shirt as if it weighed a thousand pounds instead of the delicate silk it actually was. Ryder’s gaze fell immediately to the action and slowly, ever so slowly, arguing with myself the entire time, I pulled my shirt to just below the underwire of my bra. My stomach was completely exposed to Ryder’s full stare, but, even though I was still trying to talk myself out of it, I trusted him. I trusted him to see this.

I trusted him to see more of me than anyone ever had, both physically and figuratively.

I looked down at my exposed stomach and quickly licked three of my fingers and rubbed at the second tattoo that ran across the ribs on my left side. I had to wet my fingers several more times to remove the concealer completely but eventually the words were revealed.

Ryder’s own hand came up deliberately as if he were afraid to frighten me, as if I were a wounded animal he was trying to sooth. He brushed his fingers across the identical cursive script almost reverently. His brow furrowed deeply and I wondered what emotion was playing out in his head. Confusion? Pity? Lust?

Only it wasn’t lust. Not by a long shot.

“My soul is free,” he whispered into the silence with the reverence the phrase was meant to hold. “My soul is free.”

He repeated the words and my heart expanded at the incantation. The words I had chosen so carefully held the deepest meaning of my existence. I loved the way they sounded out loud, how they fell out of his lips and off his tongue with care.

“What do they mean Ivy?” he asked while his hand fell back to my wrist and his thumb rubbed once more along the word that was inked there.