Chapter Thirty-Three #2
Warmth blooms in my chest like fresh-baked bread, and I cannot help the smile that overtakes me at his quiet words. His cheeks are pink and his shoulders hunched, but his eyes are clear. Honest.
I hug him, because I know I will not see him again after this. I will go back to my haunted lovers atop the cliff, and he will go off into the world to find a love I hope suits him better than I ever could. Still, I will miss him.
"I hope you find happiness, Louis," I mutter into his neck when he hugs me back. "I have, and it is a wonderful thing."
The sun has finally set by the time I reach the chateau, and I find my feet more steady than ever when I march my way through the door.
Father Thompson's words still poke and prod at my mind, as I fear they always will, but Louis' happiness and apology soothes something in my heart that I didn't know I needed.
His pseudo-confession, his hope for a future—I find myself praying that he is able to find it like I have. That we are both able to keep it.
"Hello darling." Azizi smiles at me from her stool as I slip into her studio and set the packages on the chaise nearby. She tilts her face up for a kiss, and I grant her one, warmth blooming in my chest with the knowledge that I am allowed this so easily. "I take it your father is well?"
"He is. He told me to thank you for making me so disgustingly happy and demands he be allowed to come for dinner sometime.
" I don't mention Louis or Father Thompson, and if Azizi can smell them on me, she does not ask, instead turning her focus back to the sketch pad on the easel before her.
Curious, I circle around to see what she is working on.
I am not surprised to see my own face staring back at me from the parchment.
Azizi often finds herself painting me and Kolfina when her muse escapes her or her other pieces are growing too irksome.
She still has not finished any, but they are the only pieces she allows herself to let go with recently, the only ones she does not fight back against when her darker tendencies try to wiggle their way into her artwork.
The scene in this work is a familiar one, though it still makes a swirl of anxiety bubble in my stomach.
In her vision of me, I sit on the forest floor in nothing but my dirty sleep clothes, my bare feet tucked under my legs.
Charcoal blood pools around me, seeps into my trousers and my sleeves, coats my fingers and hands and wrists.
There is no dead body here like there was on that night.
Instead, a ring of mushrooms wind around me in a spiral, and in my hands rests a large human heart.
My mouth waters at the memory of it. The way it weighed heavy on my tongue, the sweet metallic taste as I bit into it and it burst between my teeth. The look in Azizi's eyes as she fed it to me.
I am sure I didn't look half as angelic then as she draws me now.
That night had been everything I'd fought so hard against, everything I buried and beat down my entire life.
Everything Father Thompson beat down. Yet as I stare at the memory of it frozen in charcoal and lead, I see only beauty and serenity and peace.
In the end, I suppose that is what I found. Amongst the blood and the death and the fear, Azizi and Kolfina had been there at my side. And what are they, if not beauty, serenity, and peace?
"It is beautiful," I tell her, because it is, but her frown tells me that once again she is unhappy with it. "You do not think so?"
She never does. Azizi is an artist in the truest sense of the word, and with that comes the melancholy and dissatisfaction with all things she creates.
It has been easier since Lord Macabre’s party.
Jonas had introduced her to many people who were fascinated with her particular brand of unusual art, and Azizi thrived beneath their attentions.
Yet still, she struggles. Nothing is ever finished, never appreciated or sold.
She claims each piece a lost cause and rolls it up to hide in the shadows of her cabinet.
Never good enough, never displayed with the pride they deserve.
Azizi sighs, running a hand through her hair despite the penknife pinched between her fingers. "There is something missing. There is always something missing, and yet I cannot discern what it is. It is well enough now, but I know when I put paint to it…"
She trails off, but I know the direction she is headed. I wish I knew how to help. I wish I had advice to give her to soothe the turmoil I can see in her eyes.
"Perhaps a break, then," I suggest, plucking the whittled pencil from one hand and the penknife from the other before she does something drastic to my sketched twin.
She tries to reach for them, but I dance away, slipping the tools into my pocket with a grin.
She watches me closely, raising an eyebrow when I pause in the doorway.
"My father used to tell me that a snack always helps a struggling mind. Food for the soul, they say.”
"A snack?" she asks as she stands and sets her apron aside. "And what, pray tell, shall we be snacking on?"
My smile widens, and I spread my arms. "A little beast."
And then I run.
I slam the door behind me and bolt through the main foyer for the kitchens, my bare feet slapping across the wood floors in accompaniment to my laughter.
I have no hope of outrunning Azizi, of course. She moves as if she is made of shadow itself. As if she is a leaf riding the winter wind from place to place. It's how I know she is playing my game when I make it all the way to the kitchens before she descends upon me.
Her hands grasp at my hips, and I let out a breathless cry when she presses me against the wall, her lips brushing mine when she smiles. "Caught you, beastie. You are hardly a challenge."
"Rude," I scold her, but there is a smile on my face as I kiss her. My hands find her hair; my tongue finds her teeth. For a moment, I lose myself in her completely. Lose myself in the coolness of her skin and the drag of her fangs on my lip.
But my game is not finished. Rather, it has just begun.
"Wait," I gasp out, drawing away and pressing a hand to her shoulder. "Wait, I forgot I needed to tell you something first—"
Azizi lets herself be manhandled back a step, and I take a moment to observe her. To take in her kiss-bruised lips and the scarlet hunger in her eyes. God, she is beautiful. What a blessing it is that she is mine.
"Theodore?"
I hum and kiss her again, just because I can. And when she is suitably soft and her guard has lowered once more, I step back again. "Sorry, yes. Just give me a moment to—"
I take a deep breath, and then I am gone again.
Azizi's laughter trails after me like the echoing of church bells, and I allow it to mingle with my own as I run. It is a game of catch and release after that. Me running and escaping from Azizi's grasp, her riding the shadows to chase after me again and again.
A few times, I manage to truly evade her—hiding within a wardrobe to mask my scent or circling through the same rooms over and over—but she always finds me eventually.
"I can smell you, little beastie," she calls out as I sneak through the bedroom hall and back toward the main stairs. "I can hear your heart pounding from here."
Her voice echoes from the floor above me.
If I am quick and quiet, I can make it to the kitchens once more before she manages to track me down.
I pass Kolfina by the railing, and there is something soft and content in her expression as she watches me, a bit of mischief in her eyes and a fond smile on her lips, like she is trying to hold back a laugh.
We've not found her a new body yet since she returned to us, but she looks much better than she has in the past. More solid, in a way. Her hair brighter, her eyes filled with more colour.
She looks happy.
I pause to brush my lips across hers, unable to truly touch, but smiling at the cold chill that spreads over my tongue. When I pull away, she is blushing, her fingers pressed to the place I kissed like she is surprised to have received one.
"Theodore," Azizi calls, her voice drawing closer.
"Quick, stall her," I plead, a manic sort of excitement bubbling off my tongue like laughter.
I do not wait for her agreement before I sprint the rest of the way down the hall and all but skid to a stop at the top of the stairs.
I barely manage to catch myself on the railing, laughing too loud and too bright when I catch sight of Azizi at the end of the hall.
I don't linger on her, instead taking the stairs two at a time in the hopes of beating her down.
I don't, of course. I have my gaze set solely on my feet so as not to trip down the steps, so when I make it to the bottom and slam right into Azizi's plush chest, I cannot help the cry of surprise that leaves me.
Azizi's arms wrap around my waist to stay my next escape attempt, my back to her chest and her grip like iron as she holds me still. Laughter spills from my chest as I kick out, the sound careless and unfamiliar.
"I am finished playing with my food," Azizi says, low and rumbling in my ear as she presses her lips to the column of my throat. "You are mine now, beastie."
I cannot remember the last time I'd felt so free, so full with happiness that I could not contain it. Have I ever? Is that laugh even mine? I don’t recognize it, not completely. It’s like a sound from a dream. A memory I know belongs to me, but anytime I reach for it, it grows fuzzier and fuzzier.
Is this what happiness, true happiness, is supposed to look like? Feel like? This warmth glowing so bright in my chest that I am sure I could outshine the sun if someone meant to compare us?
As Azizi digs her fangs into the scars she's already left on the juncture of my neck and shoulder, I know that I would not give this up for anything. None of it. Azizi. Kolfina. The pain mixed with pleasure. The warmth and the chill.
They are mine. To have and to hold. To consume and devour. I am whole with them, and them with me.
I imagine sinking my teeth into Azizi's breast and marking her as she has marked me. Imagine settling between Kolfina's legs and leaving the shape of my teeth scarred into her thigh where only the three of us could see it.
I imagine my name etched into their skin by the shape of my hunger—my devotion.
I reach back to slip my hand into Azizi's hair, holding her to me as she drinks her fill.
Her fingers dip beneath the waistband of my trousers and press against my wet core, unforgiving and starving.
I cannot help the moan that bursts from my throat at the dual sensations—the pleasure between my legs and the pain in my throat.
My knees tremble, and I toss my head back to rest on her shoulder, my eyes fluttering closed.
Azizi is a predator, a monster, just like I am. And yet I bare myself for her so easily. I show her my vulnerability and trust that she won't tear me to pieces with her claws and teeth.
There are times I think I would let her. Times I think I could die here and still be happy.
Something cold brushes the other side of my throat, and I know without looking that Kolfina is here as well. I can feel the vague shape of her, like a wall of wind holding me back from tumbling off the edge of a cliff. Cold. Not quite solid. But real.
I do not hear the front door open until it is too late, the quiet "Dear God in Heaven," almost like an afterthought as I open my eyes to see Father Thompson standing in the doorway.
My heart plummets to my feet.