16
KYLO
“ T his is the new hobby?” Harmony squealed. She stared down at the blonde mystery in my arms.
My hand was buried in her hair, slowly combing through her impossibly soft tresses. I’d wanted to do this for a very long time. Pity she was unconscious for it, but it did make for easy access and pliability.
I was sitting up against a tree in a nearby university park. My clan had made quick work of the born in the library. I’d snapped the neck of the vampire leading the charge—the one who’d managed to burn a handful of witch texts.
Chaos witch texts. The books that Evie had been perusing. I’d already tried to open the book in her bag, and it had shocked the fuck out of me as if charged with lightning.
“She’s… very pretty,” Harmony said. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “They’re after witches like her now, aren’t they?”
“It would appear so,” I said through a clenched jaw. I’d already filled Harmony in on the basics of the situation. I didn’t like that more people knew about Evie, regardless of if I trusted Harmony absolutely.
That was how ruthlessly protective I’d become.
Had Princeton detected that Evie was a chaos witch at first glance? Was that why he’d asked me if I knew what I was in for ? If so, that meant my maker had placed loyalty to a fellow chaos witch above informing me of pertinent information. And I wasn’t sure how to feel about that possibility.
“They’re looking for makers,” I said. “They know chaos witches had to be involved in our turning rituals. And I’m not sure the born will care whether individual witches are actually guilty. Any powerful, solitary chaos practitioner is now in grave danger.”
“I hate to say this,” Harmony said with a sigh.
I nodded. “I know. This is good for us.”
“They’re only going to radicalize more beings capable of destroying them. You don’t fuck with powerful chaos witches. Anyone with half a brain knows that.”
I looked down at my perfect angel. Her features were deliciously vulnerable. She’d clearly channeled her power out of fear, and that loss of control had cost her. She was terrified of her own power, her own darkness—and that was hurting her.
I, on the other hand, wanted to lap up every last drop of her buried violence.
“Attacking a university library does not bode well for their public image in a mortal-run city,” I said. “They are blatantly spitting in the face of the codes of conduct that have maintained peace for centuries.”
Harmony rubbed her mouth. The orange hues of the falling sun made her light brown skin glow with warmth. “The loyalists will still find a way to blame us.”
I shrugged. “Let them. This is a pivotal moment for mortals on the fence, not those with hands over their eyes and ears.”
Harmony glanced at Evie again, and I had to squash the primal possessiveness it spiked in my blood.
“Are you… what are your plans with her?”
I must’ve been glaring, because Harmony immediately raised her hands.
“Sheesh, Kylo, gods. It’s me .”
I brushed my broad hand over Evie’s cheek. I listened carefully for any change in her heart rate or breathing.
I sighed and met Harmony’s concerned dark eyes. “My interest in her is not clan-related.”
Harmony beamed, and I rolled my eyes.
“You really did listen to me about work-life balance!” She pushed her long, glossy black waves behind her shoulders. “Good, you deserve it. You’ve been working for the clan without a single break in focus for decades. You deserve a bit of fun and relaxation.”
I shook my head, slowly starting to untense. At least Harmony knowing about Evie meant more protection for her.
I snorted. “I wouldn’t call my new hobby relaxing . Though it has indeed been fun . ”
And it would only get better from here. Once I earned her trust, I would claim her. Evie had no idea the depths of pleasure that were about to torment her every waking moment.
Harmony was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement. “Can I meet her? In my human glamour, of course.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Soon,” I promised.
She looked off into the distance for a moment, her forehead creasing. “You need to be careful, Kylo. You know what it means if you bring someone into our world. As soon as she knows more than she should, it’s going to change her life forever.”
My muscles tightened, my lips turning down.
“And, well, if she’s a chaos witch… I just hope you’re thinking about all potential dangers and consequences, that’s all. Especially for the clan.”
“Always.”
We held each other’s gazes for a moment, an unspoken push and pull of power, loyalty, and a shared vision melding in the space between us.
Harmony knew me. She knew I was already staring into the future, weighing all considerations.
She also knew that once I set my sights on something, you could only pull that obsession out of my cold, lifeless hands.
“I’m going to head to the debrief. Anything else you want me to say that we haven’t already discussed?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be in later tonight.”
Harmony nodded, all business again as she gave me a lazy, half-serious salute and jogged off.
After fifteen minutes of staring into the sunset, clutching Evie to my chest and resisting my shadows’ urge to crawl all over her, she finally stirred.
Her heart picked up speed. Her usual dose of fear spiked in her blood. Her breathing became shallower.
When she opened her eyes, they found mine and widened.
She made a startled yelp and wiggled in my hold.
“Settle down,” I whispered with a smirk. “You’re safe.”
“Let go of me.”
“No.”
My arms flexed around her shoulders and legs where they held her.
“If I let you go, you’re going to stand too quickly and fall right back down.”
She glowered. Slowly, her neurons started firing again one by one. She went from survival mode to deeper thinking. Remembering .
Her fair skin paled to a sickly pallor. Tears pricked her eyes. She went utterly limp in my arms yet remained keenly awake.
“I don’t understand what happened,” she said. She searched my eyes, her heart slamming against her ribs in a distracting cacophony.
I gave her nothing but resounding certainty and authority—something to anchor herself to amid her ocean of fear and panic.
“The library was attacked, and the Masked Order came to our aid,” I explained. “The room was pitch-black, but based on what I heard, that witch attacked you. A turned vampire came to your rescue and helped you to safety. I found you unconscious outside the library in the garden just a few moments later.”
She blinked. Those concerned brows furrowed deep.
She knew she’d killed the witch. She’d repeated it over and over when I was carrying her. It broke my damn heart to see her so horrified.
Evie hated who she was.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
She shook her head, beginning to squirm again. I let her escape my hold, watching her slowly move to sit across from me in the bright green grass.
“You—you took me here? Did you see the masked man who’d been carrying me?”
I cocked my head. “Yes, and I don’t think so. No one was with you when I found you. Why? Did he make you uncomfortable?”
Her eyes snapped to mine, her cheeks flushing. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”
My cock twitched in my dark pants. I loved tormenting her like this. I could just barely make out the hardened peaks of her nipples beneath her corset.
I wanted to torment those, too.
“Evie? Are you okay, angel?” I showed her only concern, and she stared at me as if she were working through a puzzle.
She still suspected the masked man was me. Maybe even more than ever before. But she couldn’t prove it. She didn’t want to believe it.
Even if both versions of me made her panties slick.
At that mental image, I nearly cracked my teeth grinding them together. My hands were glued to the ground, so I wouldn’t do something regrettable. Not for my sake, but for hers. She needed slow. She needed to trust.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Why did you take me here?”
“Where else was I supposed to take you? You weren’t conscious to tell me where home was,” I said, tactically evading a lie. Because of course I knew where her princess palace was. “I wanted to get you away from the fighting.”
She got up suddenly, and I followed her just as quick. She reached a hand to her forehead, but she didn’t sway.
“There’s still fighting? I need to go find my brother.”
“No, the fighting is over.”
For now.
“Were any mortals harmed?”
“A few librarians were injured, but only one student was killed. She was a first year,” I said bitterly.
I knew what her brother looked like, of course, and I’d already ensured that he hadn’t been involved in the violence.
A powerful chaos witch with a human brother was a perplexing anomaly indeed.
She sighed in relief, but her lips trembled. I wanted to pull her back to my chest. I wanted her tears to fall so I could kiss them away, syphon her sadness from her soul and hide it within my churning darkness.
“I hate vampires,” she said, venom on her tongue.
Her little fists clenched at her side.
I watched her with a perfect mask of control, not letting a single emotion slip. “Even the one who saved your life?”
“Especially him,” she mumbled under her breath.
She stared into my eyes so deeply that it was nearly terrifying—if such an adorable little creature was capable of frightening me.
“I know you all think that the turned are protecting us,” she said, an accusatory tone in her steadily climbing voice. “But it was only because of the turned that the born infiltrated the library in the first place. The masked criminals are provoking powerful forces like Lord Conrad. He is who rules over this region, on behalf of the king. If the lords decide to crack down and make our lives a living hell, regardless of this being a mortal-run city, then they will do so. And there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
Her anger was turning, the fear in her blood reaching new heights. “They’re ruining everything. The turned—they are ruining a city that was once a safe haven.”
Evie’s voice cracked on the word safe , once again inadvertently revealing all of her cards. I was the snake in her garden, the monster infiltrating all the hidden, locked away corners and crevices of her mind.
I understood her more and more every day. I got high off it—off knowing her, deeply knowing her, more than any man before me. Any being. One day, I would know her better than she even knew herself.
And I would cherish that responsibility just as I cherished this city I would one day claim as my own.
“What do you need right now to feel safe, Evie?” I asked her.
She crossed her arms, making herself smaller as she looked away. She wanted to hide from me. But she couldn’t. She would never be able to hide from me again.
Those soft pink lips trembled, as if the question had rocked her to her very core. “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Let me take care of you.”
I approached her slowly, as if she were a skittish firebird. She frowned, still refusing to meet my eyes.
Every single piece of her body language told the exact same message.
Evie wanted to run.
“You deserve to be taken care of,” I said.
She tilted her head up with a sudden swiftness, inhaling sharply. Those words shocked her most of all.
I could see the deep sense of unworthiness embedded in her soul, something she’d been taught over and over since birth. It was something I understood more than she knew.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said softly. “You don’t even have to think.”
I gently took her small hand and placed it on my arm, guiding her to walk with me without another word.
Startled and deeply, heartbreakingly triggered, Evie was slow to relax beside me. When she finally released her stiffness and fell into a normal pace, her hand relaxing around my arm, I exhaled deeply.
Her obedience was as deeply satisfying as it was maddeningly erotic. Evie wanted to be my good girl. She wanted to listen and submit. She just didn’t feel safe enough yet to fully let go.
I was a patient man.
Or, rather, a patient monster.