Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Olline tried to wrench her hands free, but it was no use. She dug her heels into the slick concrete and pulled every ounce of her magic from her core, reckless in how quickly she coiled the ethereal tendrils around the raw materials at her disposal. With a wordless yell, she flung her magic outward, commanding it to bind her assailant and pin them to a wall.
Air whooshed out of Olline as if she had been punched in the stomach with an iron fist.
Sputtering, she twisted her wrists, called to the power she could feel bubbling and earnest deep inside her. But as it boiled to the surface, like hitting an invisible lid, something blocked it once again.
Then she saw it. A quick blink of purple light, nearly lost to the gloom, coming from the fleshy part between her assailant’s thumb and pointer finger. Seeing that, she knew. She knew . They were equipped with a piece of magitech specifically used to block a caster’s magic.
Only qualified security and police were equipped with such magitech, in order to apprehend casters before they could pose a threat to public safety. The person who held her now was in no discernable uniform and even if they had been, they had zero reason to be treating her this way. They were clad in a smoky grey coat, covering them from head to toe, making it impossible to see who they were.
Olline opened her mouth to scream, only to have the goon violently pull her forward and twist her around. They slammed a hand over her mouth and face with such force she was surprised hot blood didn’t spurt from her nose.
Horror settled in, and Olline fought to suck in enough air to stay conscious. The massive figure moved, dragging her out of the alley. She knew with a sinking certainty where she was being taken: to Etzel. To be implanted and enslaved for the rest of her life. Only the hand over her mouth kept her from spewing on her attacker’s feet in terror.
She was choking, kicking wildly. Desperately she stared at the darkened doorways around her, silently screaming, praying for anyone, just one fucking person, to come outside and help her.
They were almost out of the alley now, almost to wherever the figure had come from. She lurched and struggled for all her worth. The person holding her was too massive, too strong for her to break their hold on her hands. Her magic kept far away.
Then they stopped moving altogether.
There was a wet gurgle, the trickle of something hot that smelled metallic dripping onto her shoulder. Her attacker stumbled a step, and then she was falling. Her assailant still held her in a vise, and was falling forward, so she would be the one to cushion their fall.
Perfect. Just perfect.
The filthy street rushed up to meet her before she was savagely pulled free. Her magic returned to her in a rush, and she was crushed against someone else’s very solid chest. She gripped the magic in her fingertips, had it rip the metal piercings free from her skin, and took a deep breath, ready to unload on yet another person who wanted to abduct her. Then she recognized a familiar scent.
Eucalyptus and lavender .
Not even the metallic musk of blood could mask it completely. Olline pulled her head back and stared into panicked crimson eyes. “Casimir?”
“Ollie,” he said, breathing her name out like it had consumed all his oxygen. Her skin prickled, and she tried to pull back, to truly look at him, but he held her tightly, crushing her to him.
“I’m all right, Casimir. I’m okay,” she reassured him. It was a lie, but she couldn’t handle his fear and him being here and what it all meant. Not right now. She focused on returning the piercings back to their original form, putting them back in her ears and eyebrow, and hoped they didn’t look like a mess. It was frivolous, but it was a safe task to distract herself with.
Yet he still held her, cradled her to his body, buried his nose in the top of her hair.
It took him a minute before he finally seemed to accept that she was here with him. That she was safe-ish. That it was really her he held in his arms. “What were you thinking?” Casimir said at last, his voice shaky.
“I was looking for you.” Olline tried to yell, but as the adrenaline bled from her system, she could manage nothing louder than a heated whisper. “I was thinking that I had to find you and warn you about your chip. It’s still possible for Etzel to reactivate if he ever catches you.” She took a choked breath that burned all the way down and said, “I was thinking I still had to help you.”
She was shaking now, her teeth clacking as shock settled in. His hands supported her, kept her steady. She tried to turn, to see what Casimir had done to Etzel’s thrall, but he stopped her. “You don’t want that image in your head, my sweet,” he murmured, gently leading her away.
His hands were sticky, the metallic scent suddenly overpowering as she realized there was blood on them. And now on her, too.
“Did you kill them?” she whispered, her steps uncertain as he supported her.
“Yes,” he answered sharply. Then hissed out a breath. “No. They would need aid right now . They’re as good as dead, which is better than they deserve for touching you.”
A calming warmth blossomed in her chest. Still, they couldn’t leave them there. The person had been following Etzel’s command, no better than a puppet. They didn’t deserve to die for that. Despite her vision going fuzzy at the edges, the nausea returning as the blood dried on her skin, Olline sent an anonymous request for immediate medical attention from her wrist-comm like they had done for Bode.
Casimir huffed as he noticed what she was doing, but he didn’t stop her. “Your kind heart will be the death of us.” But there was no heat or reprimand in his words.
Us.
Quickly, but still careful of her unsteady steps, Casimir led her out of the alley. To distract herself from the shock, she asked, “What were you doing here?”
He gave her a sidelong glance and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. His eyes trailed over her, lingering on the tender bruises slowly emerging on her wrists. His jaw clenched, the muscle in his neck feathering, but his grip on her remained gentle. “Let’s get you somewhere safe first. We don’t have much time before Etzel sends another one of my colleagues after you. Best we’re far from here when that happens.”
Olline nearly tripped over her feet at his words. Her steps were already sluggish, but the terror of her close encounter rushed back all too eagerly at the idea that there could be—no, were more people out there that would come after her.
Casimir, seeing her stumble, wrapped an arm around her waist and practically carried her. “I have to ask,” he said, and Olline was positive it was simply to get her mind to think about something beyond what had almost happened. “How did you crack my file? Was it another clever decryption program of yours?”
“No,” she croaked. “I figured out the password like you, the old-fashioned way.”
She may have imagined it, but she swore his steps faltered. “Dare I ask,” he murmured, “ how you figured it out?”
“Like it was hard?” Olline responded, trying to be playful, but her shrug, her words, everything felt stiff and forced. She sighed; her limbs were still shaky as they moved through the city. “I didn’t have to think like Etzel. I just . . . thought like me and what I knew of the elements, and then it was kind of obvious. You’re Uranium.”
He huffed. “Radioactive?”
“Not . . . exactly.” As she spoke, the panic bled from her. “Purified Uranium isn’t the natural state it wants to be in, it’s the state we want it to be in, the state we find most useful. Well, not we, but you know, scientists who like bombs and pustulant dickheads like Etzel.” She paused; her explanation was about to get more technical than she intended. “Point is, Etzel made you into something you weren’t, something radioactive because it suited him. So, Uranium.” A chill settled over her as the hot fear left her cold, her skin prickling. Rubbing her arms, she said, “I don’t think Etzel intended for the double meaning with purified Uranium but that’s how I like to look at it.”
He was quiet, thoughtful for a moment. “You figured all that out, and it was correct? How?”
“Because I know you— knew you, better than either of us thought,” she whispered mournfully.
Casimir let the matter go. Instead, he idly chatted with her to keep her thoughts far away from the attack. He asked about how her half-brothers and her father were doing, to tell him funny stories of growing up with seerani brothers. He seemed to enjoy the fond snippets she shared more than he wanted to admit, and even chuckled when she told him Darrin owed him a throttling for hurting her. Casimir shared a bit of his life before Etzel ever came into the picture; the scant memories he had of Kullen before addiction transformed him, and even where that delicious coffee cart was located that provided real coffee beans. It was . . . pleasant, all things considered.
She was sure getting to her place must have taken a while. Neither of them could risk taking any automated transportation for fear of being tracked. She was certain that people noticed the blood on both of them, but they continued to whisper to one another as if in a dream. They were never stopped, and while Olline didn’t exactly like how all of this came about, she wouldn’t have traded that meandering conversation for anything. They arrived at her place without further incident, and Olline wanted to believe it meant their luck was turning around.
He helped her inside and only once Olline inhaled the clean, earthy scent of her apartment and all her plants did she risk asking, “Are we safe here?”
Casimir locked the door and lifted a shoulder in a shrug before gently nudging her toward the couch. “Safer than anywhere else I can think of. For as ostentatious as this place is, my dear, it works in our favor this time. Etzel would have to be very, very careful with getting to you in such a well-to-do mega complex, not to mention on a floor so high up.”
Olline’s hands trembled with mini earthquakes as she worked on releasing the anxiety still pumping in her veins. Casimir grasped her hands in his, his long elegant fingers still encased in flaky, muddy blood, but Olline didn’t mind. In the warmth of his hands, she felt safe.
After another moment of breathing deeply, letting his presence comfort her, she asked again, “How?”
Casimir swallowed, and he shifted on the couch next to her so he was facing her. Their knees brushed, and even now Olline could feel the electric heat sparking from such casual contact, sending tingles down her calves to curl her toes.
“I was looking for you. I came here. Your doorman recognized me and let me back in, but you never answered. I didn’t know where you could’ve gone, and I feared Etzel had completed the job he’d programmed me to do from the onset. That’s how I found you. I figured that, if Etzel was impatient with me, he would send Wolfe.” His lip twitched into a slight sneer, but he shook the expression away. “That’s who grabbed you. Wolfe is . . . they’re the hammer Etzel sends when his more finessed tools aren’t working at the speed he desires.”
Casimir sighed, dropping his head slightly. But was that regret she saw in his gaze? “Wolfe is never hard to find. After so many years working together, I can track pretty much any of my colleagues without issue, but Wolfe’s always been particularly easy. It would’ve been better if I’d gotten to you first, but, well, at least I wasn’t too late.”
He freed one of his hands so he could cup her cheek, gently running his hand over the tender flesh of her jawline. “Why would you ever come looking for me after I betrayed you? You had no reason to.”
Olline’s shoulders slumped, exhaustion catching up with her in a rush. “Your chip. It could still be reactivated if Etzel got to you again. It’s why I even needed access to your file to begin with, to get the schematics. Your chip is so old that I couldn’t risk tampering with it until I had those outlines, and once I got them,” she left the rest unsaid, clearing her throat. “For as much as you . . . as it hurt me, you don’t deserve to be enslaved again. I’d have messaged you but, well, I removed all digital traces of you a bit too well. So, when I got to your place and found it unlocked, I figured you took your freedom and ran. Which would’ve been the smart thing to do, you dick!” She tried to joke, but her grin was shaky and Casimir looked pained. Swallowing with difficulty, she said, “I thought maybe someone at your club would know how to contact you so I could at least warn you. I just overestimated my ability to find the place again.”
“Oh, my precious Ollie,” Casimir’s voice was rough and husky, his eyes round and shimmering with emotion.
Olline tensed. “Don’t call me Ollie,” she growled. It hurt her heart too much to have him call her Ollie now.
She shook her head, but couldn’t quite force herself to move out of his gentle grasp. “You have your freedom, Casimir,” she said, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. “Why didn’t you take it and run?”
“Because of you, Olline.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like she should have known. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he smiled sadly at her in return.
“I spent all night wallowing in my home thinking of what I could do, what I could say to beg your forgiveness. Or if giving you space was the better option. It was driving me mad,” he said with a heavy exhale. “I knew, even before you gave me my file, that I could never leave your side. I can explain better this time, I promise.”
He took a deep breath and waited for her to meet his sincere gaze before continuing. “All I had to do was get you to like me. All I had to do was not fall for you in return. So blissfully simple, until I saw you at The Pit. My simple plan was undone the moment I saw you enjoying life . It was entrancing. But you,” he cut himself off with a gruff noise Olline thought may be a growl. “You Olline,” he began again, his voice softening on her name, “ you are enchanting. You were the complication I could never have accounted for. Falling for you wasn’t part of my plan. No matter how hard I tried to fight these feelings, I lost every single battle each time you smiled.”
He sighed again, more wistfully this time, his breath tickling her face as he lowered his forehead to hers. Olline’s heart was fluttering, hope rising like a wave. She was too afraid that if she blinked, if she moved, Casimir would evaporate and everything he said would be only a dream.
“It was you, Ollie,” he murmured, his nose brushing the tip of hers in a gentle nuzzle. “It will always be you that undoes me . This freedom you’ve given me, it tastes like ashes without you here, with me.”
Her breath caught in her chest as tears clouded her vision. Every inch of her skin was tingling, too sensitive by half. She was too aware of him, of where their knees touched, where his hands held her, his nose brushed hers, how and when his brow crinkled as he waited for her to respond.
Words, for once, and at the worst time, failed her.
Casimir tightened his grip on her hand, his fingers trembling on her cheek as he whispered, “If I could take it all back, hiding the truth from you. Hurting you. I would. A million times over, I would take it back. I am sorry, Olline. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I beg it all the same.”
“Casimir,” his name caught in her throat, and his hand moved from her jaw to cup the back of her neck as he breathed her in. She shouldn’t forgive him, right? How could she believe him now, after everything he hid from her? But he also risked his freedom to stay, to find her, when he didn’t have to.
She wasn’t sure what to think, what to believe. Olline’s heart thundered, clinging to the idea that this gorgeous man wanted her . She couldn’t stop the comforting warmth that perfect dream brought with it from spreading through her, nor did she want to.
“For the first time in a century,” he whispered against her cheek, “I was given a choice. And I choose you, Ollie. For the longest time, wanting anything was a death sentence because of what Etzel could make me do. But now . . . I want you to be mine. Selfishly, thoughtlessly, all mine .”
Olline’s chest constricted, her heart swelling, about to burst. This couldn’t be real. Her only value to men like Achan and Casimir was what they could take from her and her work. Yet Casimir hadn’t taken her work, his file, and run. He had stayed. He had saved her life. The words were still lost to her and her disbelief. All that escaped her slightly parted lips was a tiny, sharp gasp of breath.
“I would face down every single one of Etzel’s thralls for you, Olline, if that’s what you wanted,” Casimir said, his words an urgent plea. “Or you can say goodbye to me right now and I’ll let you go. My heart will continue to beat, singing your name for the rest of my life if you walk away. I wouldn’t blame you. I’m no better than Etzel for trying to manipulate you the way I did. But I’m hoping that I haven’t fucked this up beyond repair. I swear, you aren’t some mark. You never truly were. You’re everything, ” his voice caught on the word, his grip tightening a fraction before relaxing again.
“Say you choose me, Ollie,” his voice was as rough as sandpaper, as deep as the night, her name a prayer on his tongue. “Choose me,” he practically begged. “Or I will go and you never have to see me again. Your want, your desire, is mine to fulfill.”
Olline could take no more. She removed her hands from his lap, and Casimir shuddered, his breath ragged as if his heart was cracking, believing she was going to push him away. The thought of him walking back out of her door, out of her life . . . the mere suggestion was soul crushing. Instead, she grasped the sides of his head and tilted his face up ever so slightly so he was looking into her eyes.
He looked scared, his brows furrowed in pain. Afraid . To hope, to love. Just like her. This was the Casimir she had fallen for. He was there still, deep inside, and he was real .
“I would like to kiss you now.” Her own voice was a smoky whisper.
He blinked in confusion, before his expression changed, shifting to such a pure joy that it threatened to suffocate her. “I would like that.”
His lips brushed hers, a feather-light touch that was hesitant.
Olline closed the distance, pressing her lips to his more firmly, marveling at how soft they were. A thrill went through her, finally claiming that coy smile all for herself. Casimir stilled for a heartbeat, his body tense, his hands gripping her like she was in danger of floating away, but his mouth remained kind and soft on hers.
Casimir pulled away. The kiss was so gentle and sweet, so at odds with him and his confession that Olline was light-headed. He rested his forehead against hers again, a slight chuckle rumbling through his hard chest. “You’re the first person I’ve wanted to kiss in a century, my dear. I worry . . . I’m a bit out of practice.”
Olline giggled, running her tongue along her top lip, savoring his taste. “We could practice together. If you want.”
He watched her mouth, his eyes darkening with desire, his breaths coming in short bursts, but his gaze slid away, locking on the flecks of blood still on her, on his hands. He grinned, but pulled away a fraction. “I would love nothing more, but first,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “We should clean this blood off.”