Page 8 of Frayed Trust

The sheets clung to me with sweat and Caspian had rolled away from me in his sleep, taking the main comforter with him. My nose was clogged with a heavy ash scent and when I quietly cleared my throat, there was a phantom burn. I wasn’t Aric, so the burn would fade as my memory of the dream did.

Well, I wasn’t Aricanymore.

When the dreams had started three hundred years ago, I’d thought that the recurring nightmare was the result of stress. Try as I may, it hadn’t gone away. Ever. And eventually, I’d researched my predicament. Angels didn’t get to keep their memories from their past lives. Reincarnating as an angel was a fresh slate, and the last time a soul would be recycled. But sometimes, for reasons unknown, angels remembered. Whether it was snippets through dreams or if it hit all at once.

The book I’d read had advised me to seek council from the leader of Virsphere (Heaven, as I’d grown accustomed to calling it here on Earth). I hadn’t. Executive Director Bataar was a stickler for the rules, and the Archangel Board kept angels separate from their previous identities for a reason. They went as far as forbidding newly reincarnated souls from leaving Virsphere for the first two hundred and fifty years, on the off chance that they had adopted the appearance they had in their most recent life and ran into someone they’d met.

If I told anyone about my situation, they would steal the memories away. I wanted to keep them. My weakness in that life had left my wife and children in dire straights, and I would never know what happened to them after my demise. There were sparse records from Viking times, none of them relating to tiny farming villages or the farmers who lived there. I’d checked.

Caspian groaned into his pillow, hips shifting to rut against the mattress and pulling me out of my dire thoughts. My sweat had dried to a tacky dampness, and I peeled the sheet from my bare chest, moving until I was propped on one elbow, hovering over Cas. His tanned cheeks were flushed pink under the trace of stubble he kept on his strong jawline. Dark chocolate brown hair splayed on the pillow, the sides shaved down while the top had grown out longer than he often kept it. The pointed tips of his ears were flushed the same colour as his cheeks.

He had the white hotel comforter tucked up under his arm, covering his bare chest and the rest of him, which was also bare. Cas never slept clothed. As an incubus, even a half-fae incubus like he was, he’d often wake up in the middle of the night like this. Cock leaking and needy.

Sliding my hand underneath the blanket, I wrapped my hand around his length and stroked it. He groaned again, moving to thrust into my palm. The precum he leaked made my grip slick, and I hardly had to do any work. All I did was hold him as he fucked my hand, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to his shoulder when he came with a shudder.

His eyes blinked open slowly and his blush deepened, teeth biting into his lower lip. “Oh gods, sorry. I thought that was a dream. You don’t have to do that, Shan. My body would’ve gotten itself off either way.”

I was tempted to roll my eyes, but kept my expression impassive. I couldn’t imagine why he assumed I didn’twantto help him. Releasing his cock, I lifted my fingers to my lips and licked off the traces of his release. Green eyes watched me, pupils wide with arousal, until I flashed him a smirk and rolled away. Housekeeping at this hotel would hate us by the time we were done with our job. We tipped well, so hopefully the money would make up for it. “Isn’t it more fun when it’s my hand making you come?” I asked.

He was momentarily distracted by my ass as I got out of bed and walked over to the tiny wardrobe to retrieve clothes for the day. When I pulled a pair of black jeans over my hips, his ability to speak returned. “Yes, but it happens so often,” he said. “And I barely get any energy from orgasms like that one. Making me come is a lot of work when you’re not doing it to feed me.”

Gods above, he was impossible.

With a sigh, I let the conversation go. This time. Only because I didn’t have time to fuck the insecurity out of him if we wanted to start our new job tonight. And because sex drunk Caspian was relaxed, but that languid, sensual creature wasn’t what we needed for work. Both of us had to be on high alert, because when our team member Emmett went to Club Chaos to investigate a series of murders, he’d been found two days later lacking twenty-four hours of integral memories that our magical tech team was trying fruitlessly to retrieve.

Whoever was killing Alphas on the streets of the city was skilled in more than just chopping off body parts, making them more dangerous than anyone in the Next Life Company had suspected.

And we were down a team member, because Emmett wasn’t cleared to go into the field until he’d been thoroughly assessed for underlying curses. If he died by stepping foot in the club again, without a chance to remember anything about what happened to him the first time, that wouldn’t help any of us.

“Not a hardship, Cas. Get dressed. We’ve got to head out.”

The digital clock in the corner of the dark, curtained room glowed with the time. Three in the afternoon, an hour before Club Chaos opened its doors at four. An early start for a club, but according to our information — garnered from the internet and not from Em, who couldn’t remember a single second spent in the building — it functioned more like a bar from four to nine, with limited kitchen service and more low key music. At nine, it changed gears to cater to the clubbing crowd, serving exclusively drinks and bringing in popular DJs from across the realm.

We’d shifted our sleeping schedule to match its hours, so we didn’t have to deal with being tired. I didn’t get tired often, but Caspian did and he would have insisted he was fine if I hadn’t strong armed him into changing his schedule.

Our company-rented SUV was terrible to drive downtown, parking almost non-existent near Club Chaos. Instead, we hailed a cab, sliding through the front doors and past a bored bouncer to find a seat in the corner. We didn’t have the greatest view from our small lounge area beneath the upstairs VIP lounge, but tonight there were benefits to being inconspicuous. Hard to notice. If the person who’d wiped Emmett’s memory also had the power to view the memories, they would know what we looked like.

“I like this place,” Cas said, sitting on the leather loveseat a respectable distance from me. I wanted our legs to press together, to feel his heat, but that was unprofessional.

“The vibe is welcoming,” I agreed, shaking my head at the waitress making her way in our direction.

Her expression fell when she turned away, but we weren’t here for the pub fare. Getting our own drinks from the bar would allow us a better opportunity to stake the place out. “You grab a drink from the bar first,” I said, waving around the corner. “Better I don’t piss anyone off until you’ve buttered them up.”

He laughed, his fingers brushing over my thigh as he stood up. “Want anything?”

“I’ll check it out after you.”

I watched his ass until he was around the corner, and the distraction was out of sight. Then I took in our surroundings some more. This corner, hidden behind the bar and out of view from the main club floor, was filled with plush lounges and chairs. Low coffee tables held coloured lights to give patrons a better view, and I imagined the music was quieter than the other areas when it transformed into a club. Above us was the VIP balcony lounge, with its reserved tables, bottle service, and dedicated servers who kept the drinks coming through the entire night.

On the other side of the bar, not visible from here, was the main dance floor and DJ booth, rimmed with tiny tables and stools around the edges so people had a place to leave empty drink glasses. The ceilings were higher and held all sorts of lighting equipment, from spotlights to a glittering disco ball.

“Gods, Shan, you’re going to love her.”

Caspian appeared in front of me with a dopey smile on his face and a bulge pressing against the fly of his jeans. He landed on the loveseat closer than was appropriate for a work trip, but I was too curious to call him out on it. Who was he talking about? “I’m going to need an explanation.”

“The bartender,” he said, adjusting his pants so they were less tight around him. “She’s gorgeous.”

“There are a lot of gorgeous women going to clubs, Cas.”

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