Marked By Masks and Secrets (Everlasting Possession #1)

48

KYLO

E vie was so fucking adorable right now that I could hardly handle it. I didn’t trust her to stand at the present, so I ran her a warm bath.

Under the thin layer of bubbles, she lay with her head resting on the back of the tub on a cloth. She stared at me dreamily as I gently ran a soapy washrag along her body.

I fucking loved seeing my bite marks on her fair skin. The one on her neck was the most red and angry looking. I’d been more careful with the ones around her nipples.

If I’d had it my way, she’d have them fucking everywhere. Or, rather, if I was indulging my most primal, vampiric self. My higher self cared more about stopping before I caused Evie any harm, before I lost my precious control.

I hadn’t fed like that, straight from the veins of a mortal, in years. It was too intimate, too distracting. I preferred to live a life of discipline, lest anything divert my obsessive focus from my clan and my city.

Evie clearly had other plans for me.

But as I took care of her now, there was nothing sexual about my intentions. My only focus was making sure she felt comfortable and safe.

How sweet and vulnerable she was right now was exactly why I’d taken her virginity before she’d experienced vampire venom for the first time. I would never have robbed her of so much agency at that moment.

“How are we doing, baby?” I asked her, laughing softly at the way her small hand was grabbing at my arm every time it was near her.

“Do you have any chocolate?” Her features were a mixture of soft concern and blissful relaxation. “It’s okay if not,” she added, as if she’d asked for me to cut off one of my arms for her.

I grinned. “Craving anything specific?”

She shook her head, the level of thoughtful concern in her features making it seem like I’d given her a complex mathematical equation.

“I’ll get you every type of chocolate in the city.”

She narrowed those pretty gray eyes. “That’s excessive.”

I lifted a shoulder. “Don’t care.” I kissed her knuckles. “If it makes you feel better, you can frame it as entirely self-serving on my end. Because nothing makes me happier than taking care of you.” I smirked. “Or maybe I just desperately want to taste all that decadent indulgence in your blood.”

Evie’s eyes widened slightly before fluttering. “Okay.”

I chuckled. She was far too agreeable for her own good right now. And on the one hand, it did something dark to my desire for her. On the other, it made me rather feral. Because the thought of her like this in front of anyone else?

I feared that her useless, whiny ex Jarod was merely one of many murders to come.

My heart physically ached in my chest as Evie fell asleep in my arms. She had no idea the effect she had on me, now more than ever. We were bonded in a way that could never be broken, in too many ways to count.

The emotions that flooded me were so human, so vulnerable. And I welcomed them, in a secret sort of way—these rich, deep yearnings I would feel for her and only her. Feelings my broader clan and Ravenia would never know about, would never glean from my ruthless, impassive mask.

Tonight, when I’d brushed her hair, I’d known for sure she was crying softly. She felt just as deeply and vastly as I did for her. And I understood now why she both loved and hated the way I doted on her.

Because the last time she’d been promised care and protection, she’d been traumatized instead.

My caregiving cracked her wide-open; it dug into her deepest, most hidden wounds.

I’d put her in one of my shirts, forced her to eat something and drink a glass of water, and now she was endearingly warm and sweet in my arms.

She’d fallen asleep nearly instantly.

I could hardly remember who I was before I’d met her. Before this soft, wounded girl was my most cherished responsibility.

Perhaps that was why I couldn’t fall asleep yet. Why I needed to spend this time with her while she was angelic and lost in her dreamworld. Because I wanted to fully immerse myself in the aftermath of everything that had happened tonight.

I lay in a contented state of gratitude for another hour, merely listening to her heart slowly beat.

I’d claimed so many of Evie’s firsts. But being the only man to have earned her love was the most special of all.

I woke in the middle of the night to Evie whimpering.

“Idris. Look! Just a child. Please .”

The pain in her quivering voice shattered me. She sounded heartbreakingly desperate, like she was pleading for someone—anyone to listen.

She was on her side in my arms, turned away from me. Her whole body jerked.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

This time when she flinched, it was accompanied by a wail that really did split my chest down the middle.

I heard her heart and breathing quicken as she woke up to the sound of her own scream.

“Shhh, baby,” I whispered in her ear as I pulled her closer. “You’re safe. You’re in Etherdale. You’re safe.”

The words instantly calmed her, and she twisted in my arms to bury her head into my chest. I felt slick tears dampen my skin.

I continued to run my hands through her hair soothingly, down her shoulders and back until she calmed down.

She peeled herself away to look into my eyes. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Don’t be.”

She smiled sadly. “I have fewer nightmares when you’re with me. But the closer we get to the end of summer, the worse they become. Happens every year.”

I stayed perfectly silent, as if any sudden move might make her stop talking and wall herself back up again.

“That woman at the party—Wendy—she made Idris and me uncomfortable because she’s a retired psychology professor and part-time emotional healer. I didn’t want her anywhere near us, back then…” She trailed off. “Well, anyway, she says the nightmares are because trauma is stored in the body, and the body remembers the exact time when bad things happened to us in the past.”

Between states of consciousness, she wasn’t being entirely clear. I could also hear the nervousness in her voice, the erratic beats of her heart.

“I was born into a cult.”

I stopped my gentle caresses. In the darkness, I could see Evie’s lip tremble.

She’d finally said it.

Even if I’d already suspected the reality of Evie’s past, I still had never heard her confirm it so plainly.

“You know the one,” she murmured. “We were lambs being raised for sacrificial tithing. My father was human. My witch mother was elated to have birthed a human son and a half-witch daughter whose blood smelled human but even stronger. Even more…” Evie hissed out her next words. “ Unique . Delicious. Perfect. ”

I needed to know more. I needed Evie to tell me these truths, so I could better protect her heart. Not to mention better destroy our mutual fucking enemies.

But gods, if each admission of her past didn’t kill me inside. My throat tightened as I listened.

“I took Idris and ran. The spirits of the realm aided me every step of the way. They helped me find people who harbored us on our journey. A woman who let us ride with her on her firebird. A man who told me I needed to get to Etherdale, the safest mortal-run city in the realm. A city surrounded by mountains. And whatever forces were on my side led me to Mena. She took us in. I don’t know why the universe was so gracious with me when I hardly deserved it. Maybe to protect Idris. But that’s what happened. That’s why I ran.”

Gods, there was so much to unpack I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t want to push her, either.

“How old were you when you ran, angel?”

“Thirteen,” she said, wiping at the fresh tears that had pooled in her eyes. “Idris was seven.”

“Why in the world would you think you didn’t deserve grace and protection?” I asked, incredulous as I stared at this strong, beautifully fucking resilient girl.

She clamped her mouth shut. She shook her head. I worried I’d said the wrong thing, and she was done talking about it.

She finally spoke. “It doesn’t matter.”

I kissed her forehead. “You are one of the bravest, most impressive people I’ve ever met, Evie. I am honored you felt safe enough to tell me about your past. You were so young, and you still managed to do something most would consider impossible. You deprogrammed yourself. You rescued your brother. You found refuge and made a whole new life for yourself. And you did it all when you were only a child .” I stared deep into her gray depths with awe, with reverence. “I can assure you that no harm will ever again befall you or your brother. This city will always be safe for you. I vow it.”

“How can you vow such a thing?” Evie whispered. “When you want to go to war with King Earle ?”

“Because it’s true,” I said, unwaveringly. “Don’t worry about that right now. We can talk more about the future later, okay?”

She was clearly unconvinced, but she nodded anyway. “Will you tell me about yours now, please?”

“Of course. A deal is a deal.”

She wanted to move on, for me to stop asking questions. It was more than clear she was concealing parts of her story from me, and that was okay. Evie required patience, and I was more than happy to give her as much as she needed.

Even if my mind ran in circles, parsing through all of her little slips and fears and behaviors. The way she was terrified, disgusted by her own magick. The way she escaped all praise for her courageous actions.

Something didn’t add up, and we both knew it.

“I grew up a long distance from Etherdale, in Morha.” I paused, realizing Evie had never actually said where she was from. I put a pin in that for later. “We didn’t have nearly as many protections from vampires, but like the rest of the realm, peace was kept between mortals and immortals through intricate negotiations and balances of power. Any misbehaving born were labeled bad apples. Violence was mostly random and self-contained. This was the narrative we were fed. That there was no alternative, that we needed to accept what small protections we were given with gratitude. After all, who would dare oppose King Earle?”

Evie didn’t show her typical disdain for revolutionary rhetoric. It was as though her mind had opened a crack, just enough to listen to what I had to say.

“Even in the North, near King Earle’s blessed city of Prospyrus, there were whispers of an underground slave trade. A way for the born to enjoy the same wealth and special treatment as Earle and his famed court, or his legion of gluttonous nobility. And of course we had Servants of Lillian in the rural areas, grooming mortals for the elite.”

Evie flinched slightly, and I was quick to run my fingers down her temple and through her hair.

“They were swept under the rug and rationalized as a product of rural living and religiosity, or worse, as a social norm and concession to keep the born happy and preoccupied with the cult’s children rather than regular mortals.” That low tremble of rage was back, imagining Evie groomed to marry some ancient, wealthy born. “It’s all bullshit, of course. All the excuses. All the attempts to reason with demons without any concern for mortal life.”

I let myself travel backward, to the memory I’d worked on with Princeton only yesterday. The root of immeasurable turmoil, the reason for why I was extraordinarily harsh with myself for any conceivable failure or moral misstep. It was no doubt the reason I was so obsessively protective of Evie, too.

“As I said before, I was a lonely child,” I said, softer now. “I’d always felt different from the other children, from my own family. Obsessive, intense, passionate. A little too much for people. I cared a great deal about injustices, the unfairness of born violence. I remember clearly the day my mother and father sat me down, telling me exactly how to behave around the born. What to do if I was ever attacked, how to best save my life as a human with no magick, no defenses. It made me immensely sad, scared, and confused. I did a lot of reading after that, learning about how to weaken and kill vampires. I would later worry that my preoccupation with the born at such a young age attracted the event that followed. Manifested it, even.”

Evie mirrored my fallen features, her small hand reaching up to trace my jaw. I leaned into her touch gratefully.

“My reprieve from loneliness growing up was my best friend and partner in crime, Aisling. We were drawn to each other from the moment we met in primary lessons, both more lost in our own imagined realities than the physical world around us. We hung out in libraries, practiced fighting out in the forest with weapons we’d looted from parents or created with sticks and other materials lying around.” My smile fell almost as soon as it was formed. “We were still kids—teenagers—when the born found us doing what we did best one night, out on some old farmer’s property on the edge of town. We’d finished up annihilating a poor scarecrow with these throwing knives we’d bought after saving money for months. We were lying in the grass, talking about how we were going to see the whole world, study at Etherdale University, marry pretty girls who would be totally cool with us still being roguish adventurers and vampire hunters.”

My lips couldn’t help but curve again, for a brief moment, even as my throat tightened and heart clenched. Evie mirrored my smile, hanging on my every word as those stormy gray eyes pierced right through me.

“A group of born stumbled upon us, and I knew they’d heard what I’d said about vampire hunting. I knew it was because of what I’d said that they did what they did next.” My voice was harsher now, quivering with anger and heartbreak and deep, bottomless guilt. “One of them held me still and made me watch the other two slowly torture and kill Aisling. They fed from her recklessly. They tormented her. Degraded her. Assaulted her. Every horrible thing you could think of. They did it, and they made me watch every second of it. And cruelest of all, they didn’t harm a hair on my head. They left me with her drained, lifeless, brutalized body, while I was agonizingly alive and physically untouched.”

Evie’s face crumpled. I hated watching her cry like this, knowing I was the one to have caused her pain. I’d tried not to give too many details, because she didn’t deserve to hear the true depths of the violence I witnessed. But even the bare facts were brutal, unconscionable.

Evie shook her head, tears staining her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Kylo. I’m just so sorry.” She clung to me, her hand finding the back of my head as she sweetly kissed my cheek.

“That event made me who I was,” I said, stronger now—because I wanted to be strong for her. “I had two choices. Kill myself like Aisling’s attackers assumed I would. Or do everything we’d dreamed together. Study at Etherdale. Hunt and kill vampires. Stop at nothing until I was the most powerful being in the realm, respected and surrounded by allies. The exact opposite of what I was that day I watched her die: helpless, weak, and alone.”

Evie’s eyes flickered, her mind churning, just as mine had when she’d told me of her past. She understood now—why I was so protective, why it tore me to shreds when she’d run from me, and she’d been cornered by those filthy fucking born.

I let out a slow, deep exhale. “In a way, they got what they wanted. A version of myself did die. And a better version took his place.”

Evie folded herself into my arms, her head resting on my chest. “I’m sorry for being so mean to you.”

I laughed with shocked amusement. “Angel, we have work to do if you think your prickly, bratty antics were in any way shape or form mean. It was like getting batted by an angry kitten.”

“Rude!”

I kissed the top of her head.

“I am sorry, though,” she said softly. “For assuming the worst about you for so long. For never even considering what you might’ve gone through as a human. Or really trying to understand you at all, at first.”

“Thank you for saying that, Evie,” I said. “I assure you I more than accept your apology. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that you would want to avoid any amount of violence. That you would worry so greatly for your brother and this city in which you sought refuge.”

“And you were stalking me,” she added with a halfhearted huff.

“I prefer admiring from a distance. ”

Evie made that cute little growling noise, even as she hugged me tighter.

“That’s why my clan means so much to me,” I said softly. “Especially my closest inner circle, like Blade, Harmony, and Princeton. They understand me and see me for who I am. We all helped each other heal, through our relationships and our shared vision. Through transmuting our pain into creation, into dedication and loyalty to something higher than ourselves. We protect mortals because we were once human, utterly powerless to save the people we loved.”

“I see it now,” Evie said. “I understand why you all adore each other. It must be so comforting to have built a family that actually looks out for each other. A big, violent family.”

I smiled. “It’s the best.”