Cruel Seduction (Underground Kings 2)

I gasp.

I jolt out of bed and wipe my brow. My entire body is drenched in sweat, and my heart races a hundred miles an hour. I look out the window. It’s the middle of the night. My head is killing me. I reach to the other side of the bed, the cold, empty sheets mocking the hope I’ve carried for far too long.

“Gabby?” I call out for her into the massive room, hoping she is in the bathroom. “Gabby, baby, you okay?” I don’t hear her voice. “No, it couldn’t have been a dream. It felt too real. It couldn’t have been. She was with me. She had to be. I felt her in my arms, the tears on her face; I fucking felt it.

My feet land on the cold floor, waking my entire body up with the sudden jolt of frost. My head hangs, and the space between my shoulders burn, a deep ache in my spine. I hold my hand in my hands and rock, thinking about what has happened over the last few days. We went to the market.

It felt too real for the dream to be fake.

I stand and run out of my bedroom door into the hallway. “Gabby!” I shout, refusing to believe my mind would play a horrible trick on me. The corridor feels like it is closing in. “Gabriella! Are you here? Please tell me you are here,” I cry out, my chest constricting as the truth shines brighter and more evident.

“Gabby!” I roar one final time until I stop in the kitchen.

The light above the stove is on, casting a faint glow toward the living room. Darkness incases everything along with silence. I can’t even hear the waves crashing against the shore. My body drips with sweat, anger, disappointment, and sorrow.

A dream.

A fucked-up dream. My subconscious is a guilty motherfucker. I hate myself for not being able to find her. I open the cabinet and grab a bottle of whiskey, and then I take a down a shot glass. I pour the amber fire until it hits the rim then down it, feeling the burn all the way down my throat until it settles into a warm pool in my belly.

“What the hell is all the racket, Sebastian?” Owen scratches his stomach as he walks into the kitchen and takes a seat at the bar. His hair is a mess, and he still looks half asleep.

“Seriously, it’s two in the morning,” Jaxon speaks next, stretching his good arm over his head while the other one cradles against his chest. “What are you doing?”

“Oh my god, people are trying to fucking sleep,” Grayson bitches, clutching his side as he waddled into the kitchen next and takes a seat. Heaven is the only one who isn’t here, which is good, because I’m not in the mood for his bright and cherry bullshit.

“Whatever is happening, I want in!” Heaven shouts from the hallway, the crutches thumping against the floor with every hop he takes.

Damn it, I spoke too soon.

I pour myself another shot and ignore all of them.

“You going to share?” Owen asks, crooking a brow at me.

“No.” They don’t understand, well, Jaxon could. I can’t put it into words with how strongly I feel about this.

“Well, then, it’s a good thing we keep so many extra bottles.” Owen stands and his knees pop as he walks around the kitchen island and opens the cabinet to grab a bottle. He takes down a few shot glasses and lines them up in front of each man.

I down the next one, then grip the edge of the counter as they stare at me, questioning in their eyes. I glare into the bottom of the shot glass, a bit of whiskey dripping down the rim and pooling at the base, leaving nothing but a drop.

That is how I feel now. There is nothing but a drop left of sanity in my mind before I lose myself completely.

“What happened yesterday, Owen?”

The clink of his glass tells me he just drank his shot. “What do you mean? You don’t remember?”

I shake my head and think as hard as I can, but the dream mixes with reality, and I can’t decipher it. “I think something i

s wrong with me. I can’t … I can’t tell the difference between my dreams and what is real.”

“That must have been one hell of a dream,” Grayson says, tilting a shot of whiskey to his lips, sipping it like some fancy fucker instead of taking it all the way down. “Shit is nasty. I don’t know how you guys drink this shit.”

“Only real men can handle it.” Heaven sticks out his chest, and his glasses are empty in the next second. He sticks his tongue out, then gags. “I guess that makes me a bitch because my god, that shit is gross.”

“Told you,” Grayson grumbles.

“I like it,” Owen says. “Makes the hair on my chest tingle.”

“Guys, we are losing focus,” Jaxon says tiredly, reminding everyone to focus. “What was your dream, Sebastian? Talk to us.”