Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights 1)

“It’s kind of cute when she blushes like that,” Gray said from the other side of the elevator. “I mean, who blushes these days?”

“Kas,” Jace supplied for him around his mouthful of pastry.

“That’s because Kassa is a little caterpillar. No way in hell are we letting her become a butterfly and fly away into the real world.” Gray scarfed down his own doughnut.

“Dude, she’s already a butterfly,” Cash told him. “A pretty hot one, too. You want to keep her blushing, you might want to clip her wing or something.”

“Fuck off, Graves.”

The guys arguing kept me entertained as we picked up the moving truck and drove to my old apartment. Seeing Wade’s car in the parking lot had dread roiling in my stomach, but Kale giving me a smile and a kiss before leading the other guys into the building made me feel better.

I had my key out, ready to put it in the door, when Sin pounded his fist on the door so hard two of the neighbors stuck their heads out of their apartments.

It took a few minutes for Sage to open the door, dressed in her usual pajamas with messy hair. She blinked her sleepy eyes at the six hot as sin guys standing in front of her before finally focusing on me.

“

Wh-What’s going on?”

I shrugged, pretending like I wasn’t the least bit upset about seeing her right then. “I came to get my stuff.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “O-Okay.” Stepping back, she let the guys in, and I followed after them.

We all stopped in the living room, and I told Harris, Jace, Sin, and Cash what things were mine. Once they got started, I took Kale and Gray to my bedroom. While I had a few things throughout the apartment, it was going to be this room that would take the most time.

My bedroom door was open, which surprised me. Frowning, I walked in and immediately felt like something was off. My closet was slightly open, and I could feel anger start to simmer low in my gut.

Crossing to it, I pulled it back and saw that my camera case had been moved.

No fucking way.

Sage knew that my camera was my way of life. It was the single most important thing I needed to survive. It was everything to me.

Everything.

And she had messed with it?

Taking the case out of my closet, I set it and the rest of my gear on the bed. Then I carefully unzipped it, checking to make sure nothing was missing or damaged. All my lenses were in their usual places, although they had clumsily been shifted. Nothing looked like it was missing.

Turning the camera on, I went through the pictures I had taken the day before. Everything looked to be there …

Then I got to the end and nearly dropped the camera on the floor when I saw the picture that was waiting for me.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Kale said with a menacing growl from right behind me.

“Holy micro dick.” Gray laughed, moving to see what Kale was looking at. “Dude, that’s just sad.”

He wasn’t kidding. If that was Wade, and from the socks that he couldn’t completely get out of the shot, I was pretty confident it was, then he was seriously lacking in the man part’s department. I could totally understand why he was the way he was now. He had a lot to compensate for.

“He’s dead,” Kale snarled, turning to leave my room.

Quickly putting my camera on the bed, I jumped in front of him. Pressing my hands against his chest, I tried to stop him.

“Don’t. Please, Kale. He’s not worth it.”

Kale stopped at the first touch of my hands on him, but I could feel him shaking with unleashed anger.

“He defiled your camera. That little pussy touched your stuff, and then disrespected you by taking a picture of his fucking dick. He desecrated something special.”