Mutiny's Rebellion Read online

  He lifts his hand into the air, the tiniest bit of light flying from the overhead streetlamp, just enough to make his fingers glow. “We won’t need one.”

  Before I can say another word, his hand slides between my ass cheeks, stopping to rub warm, warm fingers over the wrinkled skin there, then past my pussy down to my clit.

  My arm buckles and I moan, falling back to the bench, my cheek flush against the plush quilt.

  He retreats from my slit for a moment to grab hold of both thighs, spreading them apart slowly, the stretching sending an aching jolt down both legs that turns into a buzzing, raging fire at my apex. He massages my buttocks, squeezing them.

  His head lowers, his breath hot on my skin. “I’ve missed this,” he says softly. “I’ve missed this perfect pussy, this freckled skin.”

  Before I can say another word, I cry out and bite my inner cheek. His breath on my skin has turned to his tongue, which moves in soft, gentle circles across one butt cheek and then the other. A flush of excitement buds at my clit and I grind deeper into the bench seat beneath me, trying to stimulate it, but then his tongue is over my pussy, trailing back down my slit, trading a lapping movement for soft, sucking kisses over my clitoris that make me grind my forehead harder against the soft surface of the quilt. “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, please!”

  Damn condoms and safe sex and all that. I really want him inside me.

  I shift slightly to tell him just that, but his hand comes down hard on my thighs, pinning me back in place. “Stay put,” he barks.

  I do.

  His tongue is now swapped for his fingers, which slide up my thighs and between the butt cheeks as he crouches to reach it all.

  His finger slides up inside my soaking wet pussy. Writhing, it’s all I do to keep still, to not accidentally kick him, but he’s holding me apart, stretching my insides, pushing forward inside me. After a beat, his fingers retreat so it’s just his hand massaging my apex, my whole slit coated and swimming in his saliva and my juices.

  He wiggles inside me and I’m breathing shallowly, faster, moaning with each movement. He pulls out with a sleek, suction-like move, and then his fingers are back—one, two, three inside me, stretching me, the thumb circling my tender labia as he moves back and forth inside me, standing straight and leaning closer and closer to me.

  He kisses the small of my back. “Mutiny.”

  I want to tell him not to call me that name, but I can’t think. All I know is he’s exploring inside me and I want him to claim every single inch.

  Deeper and retreating. Harder and pulling back. His digits mimic the feel of his cock inside me and though I need the actual thing there, I can’t think for all the electricity coursing through my tingling skin right now.

  I scream, the orgasm reaching its climax, my legs shuddering behind me.

  My breaths shallow, something like a cold snap of realization takes over me as I hear beyond just the two of us to the sirens in the distance. There’s something more, too. Vim’s hand slips out.

  The pattering of high heels against the echoing, winding alleyway drowns out even the sound of faint sirens and snaps me out of the ecstasy of the moment.

  “Vim!” an increasingly-familiar woman’s voice shrieks. “You were supposed to have my back! Instead, you’re here fucking.” If Needle’s lizard-like eyes could boil with rage, I would definitely be looking at some boiled eyeballs right now.

  Twice in the space of an hour she’s walked in on me in flagrante delicto. I shake my head, clarifying it—what was I doing fucking like this a second time in such a short amount of time—in the middle of one of Vim’s showy, public assaults?

  Vim steps back as I let go of the van’s seat and quickly pull up my skirt.

  “So this is what this was all about for you?” Needle yells, an actual lizard-like tongue now flicking out of her mouth. “Some slutty piece of ass you can’t shake?”

  Vim stands taller, having collected himself, his dark cloak billowing as he sucks up what little light energy there’s to be found in this dim alley. “Say what you wish about me, woman, but do not insult Mutiny.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.” I couldn’t care less what she thinks of me.

  My heart sinks with a sudden realization. She’s here, which means… “Where’s Clive?” I ask.

  Needle the lizard laughs. “Two not enough for you?”

  Vim’s hand is gathering a small ball of light as the dim alleyway light flickers more and dies out. “You’ve beaten the cop,” he says. Dare I detect a hint of pleasure in his voice?

  Of course. Vim kidnapped him just a few days ago. My heart wrenches at the thought of the two at odds. The lawyer in me knows Clive is right—beyond right—but there’s that small part of me, the runaway who’s still Mutiny, that digs her fingers tighter into Vim’s arms and isn’t ready to let him go.

  Needle rips another scale off her arm and pouts. “He was too cute to take down permanently,” she says. “But I think he won’t be getting up anytime soon.” She sneers. “At least I can prioritize my mission over my sex drive, unlike you. You’re such a disappointment. The great and scary Vim and his stupid light shows.” She straightens up, lifting her hand in the air and aiming one long, sharp scale. “You’ll never be ready for the big time, buster. You’re just an emo kid playing games.”

  The scale flies from her hand and Vim raises up to meet it with his orb of light, bringing the scale crashing to the ground. However, before we can blink and Vim can have time to find some new light to create more orbs, she’s projecting another scale at us.

  Vim grabs me and flaps his cloak outward, crouching and bringing us both low to the ground. The scale hits the side of the van with a sharp thunk.

  Needle laughs. “You know, I may not have my nightclub full of hostages, but given the way the police react to one of their own being in danger, I think having one cop will suit my mission to get The Vipers free just fine.” She flicks another scale toward us and this time Vim yanks me around the other side of the car. “But I think putting down the two of you first will prove an entertaining dance until the cops get here.”

  So Clive’s a hostage again—a damsel in distress even though it turned out he has powers. I dig my fingernails into my palm. This isn’t like when Vim took him. Clive could be in real danger this time.

  “Why did you ever agree to work with this psycho?” I hiss to Vim beside me.

  His eyes darken. “Since you and Torynt left me, I haven’t had any help. I thought her friends might have been imprisoned unjustly—”

  “They’re the freaking Vipers,” I hiss. “They rob and hurt people.”

  “But they were detained for a little breaking and entering,” Vim says darkly. “And they got the book thrown at them. That’s nothing worse than what we used to do.”

  “That’s only because they didn’t have enough evidence of the other crimes,” I try to explain. With a whistling sound, another scale-knife hits the van—at the front of it this time, and Vim grabs me by the elbow and we run around to the back of the van as Needle’s clip-clopping heels draw nearer.

  I growl. Where’s the artificial light when you need it? We’re trapped out here.

  “Stay here,” he says, and though he’s about to go, he turns back and grabs my face in both hands, planting a long, possessive kiss on my lips. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have never aligned myself with her. I should never have followed you like that, breaking up all your relationships—”

  “It’s fine,” I say, even if a woman in her right mind wouldn’t think it was. But I was a former “supervillain” of sorts, too, even if of a lighter variety than Needle and The Vipers. It’s time I own up to that. And the fact that I will always love this indomitable man who disregards all the rules.

  “Vim, I love you,” I say, just barely audible above Needle’s laughter and the thunk of each scale-knife, the slow and taunting clomp of her heels. “I’ll always love you—but there’s more to me tha
n Mutiny. There’s a justice-seeking part of me that works in a different way than yours does—”

  Vim raises an eyebrow. “And there’s a cop, apparently, in your heart who shares those views.”

  I open my mouth and shut it. He’s not wrong, but there’s no way Clive and I have a future together after this. I won’t make him forget me and try again without him knowing—it wouldn’t be right.

  I sigh. There probably won’t be any more law school for me after this if Clive turns me in, if he’s figured out my connection to Vim. Maybe that was why he even approached me in the first place, pretending to be a fellow grad school student.

  He probably never loved me. He just acted all angry about the “damsel in distress” business to try to entrap me into a confession.

  The police never did figure out what Mutiny could do—they’d even suspected I was a Typical tagging along with the Natch big boys. Clive couldn’t have known the risk he was taking in pushing me to the point where I made him forget it all.

  “I can share you,” says Vim softly. It’s the last thing I expect.

  I’m almost at a loss for words, but the shadow of Needle’s form on the wall drops me back into the moment. “I appreciate it, but let’s discuss this later.”

  Vim twirls around, his cloak billowing outward, just as Needle rounds the corner and tears loose another of her scales.

  Only I’ve slipped around Vim’s cloak and run for her knees, ready to tackle her.

  She sees me coming and the spike of her heels kicks out with a twist of her leg, aiming for my skull. I scream, rolling back as best I can.

  Vim calls out my code name, but there’s something more—someone else is calling my real name. “Jo!”

  Clive pops into existence beside Needle before she can blink and her leg stumbles, just missing my head. Who knows how long he’s been there, invisible, though there’s a gash on the top of his head and a dried trail of blood down his temple to his cheek, a pair of handcuffs dangling from one wrist.

  “You’re under arrest!” he says, grunting as he holds Needle from behind.

  She shrieks and writhes, her beady eyes glaring at me on the ground, at Vim behind me. “You will never be safe!” she says. “I will get out of this and hunt you down and—”

  That’s my cue. I jump up and aim both hands at her head. With an intense focus, I will all the memories of me, of Vim, of Clive from her head, leaving her only with the knowledge that her little hostage-pulling stunt this evening had gone totally wrong.

  When I finish, she goes limp in Clive’s arms and he leans her against the wall.

  Vim wraps an arm around me, his cloak billowing around us. “Are you all right?”

  Nodding, I push gently on his chest. This isn’t the time for that.

  “All units,” says Clive into a small device he pulls out of his pocket, “suspect on seventh and twenty-fourth, several blocks from the nightclub. Subdued. Over.”

  Vim tugs on my arm. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Go,” I whisper back. “I’m staying here. I’m facing whatever Clive thinks I need to.”

  “Then I stay, too,” says Vim. He kisses the top of my head.

  “No, Vim, you don’t understand, you—”

  “Copy,” says Clive, finishing whatever he’s said to his coworkers. “Over and out.” He takes two steps forward and looks at me—really studies me, as if seeing me for the first time.

  “You are Mutiny,” he says.

  “I was Mutiny,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you ever got caught up in—”

  Clive’s brow narrows and he holds up a finger. “Wait. Just let me speak. Okay?”

  I nod.

  Clive winces as he runs a hand through his hair, lingering on the blood at his temple. “My unit suspected you might be—there was a DNA analysis course you did where all the students participated. The records matched up with samples at some of Vim’s crime scenes.”

  I swallow. That was dumb of me. But I didn’t think giving a blood sample would lead to trouble, and I’d thought it would be weirder if I was the only student to opt out. It’d be like admitting I didn’t want the police to have my DNA because I’d done something wrong.

  “Nothing was conclusive, though,” Clive continues. “You could have just been a customer at multiple Typical-owned businesses targeted by Vim and his little crew.”

  “You mean multiple bigot-owned businesses?” sneers Vim.

  The two men exchange a look and I pat Vim’s chest to let him know to be quiet.

  “I’m young enough to be a grad student, so they sent me in,” says Clive. “Your hair and body type matched Mutiny’s too, and I thought for sure we had our girl—”

  “Woman,” I correct.

  Clive clears his throat. “Right. Woman.”

  “You do that often?” I ask, my heart sinking. “Seducing suspects, like that bartender?”

  He licks his lips, visibly swallowing. “Not often. With her, it was business. With you… I messed up with you. I fell for you. Hard.”

  Vim holds me tighter as I shudder at the realization that his grip isn’t possessive so much as supportive, like he knows I need to stay steady on my feet.

  “And then this asshole kidnaps me and confirms the whole thing,” says Clive.

  “You walked away in one piece,” says Vim flatly. “If I’d wanted to hurt you, I would have.”

  “If you’d tried to hurt me, I would have kicked your ass,” says Clive, crossing his arms across his chest and offering a placating smile. “But then I would have had to out myself as a Natch operative, so thanks for that.”

  “So you were trying to entrap me,” I say. “Get me to admit who I was. What I’d done—”

  “But I didn’t expect you to wipe my memory of the whole thing,” he says. He sighs and lets his hands fall to his sides. “The guys were as confused as I was. They figured some kind of Natch ability had to be involved.”

  “And now you know the truth,” I say. Letting out a deep breath, I take Vim’s hand in mine. “So… Your friends are on their way. Will you be the one to arrest us?” A faltering smile flickers on and off my face. “Please? Be gentle.”

  Clive lets out a deep, sigh-like breath as he studies Vim and me, a single hand on his hip.

  “Go,” he says, drawing out a set of keys from his pocket and tossing them to Vim. “I have a condo on Braga Avenue, 4057. Unit 309.”

  Vim stares at the keys in his hand and then back at Clive.

  “Go,” he reiterates, then he takes two steps forward, sliding his arms around me and pulling me away from Vim and into his arms. His kiss is hungry, quick, but deep, and promising so much more. “You and I—we have some things to discuss. But right now, I just want you safe. You and your supervillain boyfriend.”

  I feel like I’m about to cry, and Clive wipes away the single tear that falls down my cheek. “I love you, Joey.”

  “I love you,” I say back.

  Then Vim’s hand is on mine and we’re running in the opposite direction of the sirens, far from Moonslicer, far from the scene of the crime.

  And to our own strange, unexpected freedom.

  Part Three

  I barely take a step out of class before Camille is flagging me down, sliding her backpack over her shoulder as she gets up from one of the plush chairs in a nearby lounge area.

  “Hey.” She nudges her shoulder against mine, her lips curling into a wicked grin. “Have any plans tonight, Mutiny?” Her voice lowers when she calls me by my old code name.

  I check to see if anyone overheard us. “Maybe…” A lock of my red hair falls over my shoulder and I flip it back. “Nothing special, but don’t wait up for me or anything.”

  “Sweet,” says Camille, then her smile falls. “I mean, I love ya, but I was going to ask if I could have some privacy tonight, you know what I mean? Dan is coming over.”

  Dan is the Natch who never left her side that night at Moonslicer. Sparks flew between them pretty quic
kly thereafter—and I don’t mean literal ones, though those may have happened, too.

  “Gotcha.” I nudge her back. “Love ya, too.”

  “Have fun,” she says. “With your little cop boyfriend and—”

  I whip a hand out to cover her mouth, my eyes flitting back and forth. Fortunately, no one seems to be paying attention.

  “My cop boyfriend,” I reiterate. “One’s enough, isn’t it?”

  I lower my hand and she giggles. She knows all about my whole… situation.

  “Okay, Dragon-tamer,” she says. A little nickname she won’t let go of since I told her about how I took Needle down and now have “supervillain” Vim on a leash, so to speak—figuratively, of course. There’s no taming that man inside the bedroom.

  Waving goodbye, I pick up the pace, heading the few blocks to the refurbished factory-turned-condo-complex that Clive calls home.

  No wonder he never wanted to show me his place when we were first dating. I’d have asked how a grad school student could afford such digs. Of course, I would have eaten up any lie he’d served me to keep his cover, like he was a trust-fund kid or a lottery winner or… I really am a sucker for his pretty face, aren’t I?

  My phone buzzes as I head inside the building and I check to make sure it’s not a warning of some kind, but it’s just a text from Torynt. Even without “T” flashing across the screen, I’d be able to tell immediately because he sprinkles his messages with so many hearts and lips.

  My heart thunders as I read the message: Have some Renegade business this evening. Might be able to stop by the place tonight. I love you, Red.

  I write back as I ride up the elevator. Okay. Love you, too. I’ll be waiting. I add some hearts and lips and an eggplant emoji, along with a squiggle we’ve decided sort of looks like a whip.

  He sends something much more explicit back.

  Chuckling, I tuck the phone away in my purse as the elevator opens to the third floor. As I approach Clive’s door, I fish out his key and insert it, being sure to look both ways to verify I wasn’t followed or joined by any of the other neighbors before I step inside.