Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
LAYDEN
Phoenix slams the door shut to our newlywed suite and leans back against it, eyes closed. My new wife is so beautiful in her wedding dress—long black hair pinned back in an elaborate style that must be killing her scalp. Her full lips are still painted pink from the ceremony.
But she looked nothing like a blushing bride as her Grandfather Vlad spoke the ancient words binding us, her blue eyes flashing daggers at her grandfather’s cronies all through the ceremony and reception.
“Thank fuck that’s done with.” She expels a loud breath.
Not exactly the reaction I might have hoped for on my wedding night. Then again, what the hell do I know? I’ve never done this before. My brothers’ back slaps, winks, and bawdy jokes about not breaking the bed on the first night weren’t exactly helpful either.
It’s ridiculous. We’re grown men, thousands of years old, but just because I was last born, they’ve always treated me like I’m a perpetual schoolboy.
Even though I was the only one of us courageous enough to stand up to our tyrant of a father two hundred years ago.
An act I still pay for every single day.
There’s not an hour that goes by when the wounds on my shoulders don’t ache—right where my father cut off my wings with his burning sword.
The molten hell-metal he poured over the stumps ensured they’d never grow back still feels like it’s burning.
None of my brothers lifted a finger to stop it. They buried me alive instead. But they still have the gall to try to play the “big brother” act with me? It pisses me off even on a supposed day of unity like today.
My wedding day.
I watch Phoenix yank pins out of her hair, wincing as each one pulls. Her beauty makes me ache the way I always do when I’m around her—deep in my empty belly, the constant hunger gnaws. I want to walk closer and help her with those pins. But mainly, I just want to touch her.
But my hunger has always been dangerous, so I stay back. I still ask, “Can I help?”
She pauses mid-pin extraction, glances at me in the mirror. For a second, something softens in her expression. Then it’s gone. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now.”
I’ll take that as a no.
Today’s “celebration” wasn’t anything like an ordinary wedding day.
More like a merger between two powerful families, solidifying the blood oath that Phoenix’s vampire grandfather tricked one of my monstrous angel brothers into.
The terms won’t be contractually fulfilled until Phoenix has a baby by me.
She’s not a vampire, but she’s still a powerful being.
Any progeny we produce would be highly coveted by Vlad.
My mouth goes dry and my gaze shoots toward the central piece of furniture in the newlywed suite Vlad had set up in a north room of the compound—a giant four-poster bed with silk sheets and too many decorative pillows.
“So.” I swallow hard, trying to keep the craving edge out of my voice.
Phoenix’s head comes up. She stares at me for a long moment, reading something in my face. Then her lips purse. “We might as well get it over with.”
She walks toward the bed, movements deliberate. She looks small, sitting on the edge of that suddenly looming mattress and leaning over to unbuckle the strap of her white high heels.
The line of her neck is exposed, along with the curve of her back in that dress.
“Um.” I blink hard. Stay calm. Don’t be a ravenous beast. “Right.”
I shrug off my suit coat, and start undoing buttons at the top of my shirt. Then I just tug the whole thing off over my head. Except I didn’t undo enough buttons, so it catches on my shoulders and I have to wrestle with the fabric before finally yanking it free.
When I emerge from the shirt, Phoenix is staring at me with wide eyes. I’m standing there holding my shirt awkwardly in front of me like an idiot. Her gaze dances down to my abs before snapping back to my face.
“What are you doing?” Her voice comes out breathy.
“I—” Heat creeps up my neck. My fist clenches in the fabric. “Do you want some champagne first? To get in the mood?” I glance back at the setup near the mini-fridge—expensive bottles, crystal glasses, strawberries.
She reaches over and slaps my shoulder, but there’s no real force behind it. Almost... playful? “Now is not the time for jokes, angel boy.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Come on, we’ve got to make this believable. They’ll be listening, the creeps.”
My shoulder tingles where she touched me.
But it’s nothing compared to the low swoop in my groin when she suddenly lets out a loud, theatrical moan. At the same time, she grabs the bed’s top frame and bangs it against the wall.
“Oh.” Her groan fills the room, loud enough to carry through the door. “Layden, yes. Just like that.”
My brain short-circuits even though I’m quick to catch on. It’s just that her moans sound very convincing—a little too convincing—and I shift so I’m standing with my hips pressed firmly against the tall mattress to hide the front of my suddenly tightening pants.
“Oh god, yes,” Phoenix continues, really committing to the performance. “Right there. Touch me right there!”
She waves a hand at me impatiently, eyebrows raised. Right. My turn.
Time to pretend I’m not the big bad wolf I know I am. That I don’t devour cities. That I’m just your friendly neighborhood Devourer.
“Baby,” I try, and she mouths ‘seriously?’ with an almost-smile tugging at her lips.
So I deepen my voice. Honestly, it’s not difficult to make my voice low and lust-filled when I’m staring into those blue eyes. “You like it when I touch you there?”
She blinks. For a second, I think I see her pupils dilate. Then she seems to get her wits back, nodding along with another breathy moan. “Yes, just like that.” She catches my eyes, holds them. “You make me so wet.”
Christ.
“I can feel it.” The words come out rougher than I intended. Her breath hitches in response. “Are you ready for me, Phoenix?”
“I’m ready.” She’s still holding my gaze. “You’re so big. So hard.”
It’s not what I imagined tonight would be like.
Because yes, I imagined tonight. Over and over again, ever since her grandfather announced we had to wed and produce an heir.
With all my brothers going off and getting consorts and wives, I thought maybe fate had finally intervened for me.
Yes, I’ve craved Phoenix since the first time I met her in that forest ten years ago.
But craving is nothing new to me.
I’d thought about getting close to women in the past. I knew I had a handsome enough face.
Back before my wings were cut off, women were ready to see me as an angelic being or a god, so they wanted me for various reasons—to worship, to partake in what they thought was some otherworldly power, or hell, just for the novelty of it.
But all it took was barely making skin-to-skin contact once and watching a human woman’s cheeks begin to cave in with starvation before I leaped away from her in horror. Turns out you can’t lie down with the Horseman of Famine without consequences.
So I never dared try again. I rarely even let myself be around humans. Hence me the running off to a forest in the middle of nowhere after I healed and crawled out of the grave where my brothers buried me and… stopped to stay awhile. Awhile that turned out to be two hundred years.
As for Phoenix and me, well, it was never like that between us. I never let it get there. At first because I didn’t know who or what she was. Plus, I was such a broken shell of a monster when we met in that forest, barely able to string thoughts together, much less words.
In later years, it seemed too foolhardy to wonder that she might be the one woman I could actually touch, just because of her unique heritage. There was also the fact that after she left me at her grandfather’s compound, we weren’t exactly speaking.
For almost two hundred years before I met her, I’d had no one in the world.
I’d suppressed every craving for company and disciplined myself against every desire for touch.
After our first meeting, when she helped bring me back to life in that cabin, I convinced myself she didn’t need me ruining her already complicated existence.
Until fate—or at least a homicidal angelic AI—brought us back together.
When her grandfather decreed the blood oath could only be satisfied by us mating, for a few brilliant days I’d felt a wild joy that maybe, just maybe, this could be real. That I could have this. With her.
I look into her eyes now.
For once, I tell her the truth—and myself. “Making love to you is all I’ve been able to dream about.” My voice is rough. Honest. “Night after night, Phoenix. All I’ve dreamed of is you.”
“Louder,” she mouths, gesturing with her hands. But something flickers across her face first. Surprise?
Then it’s gone, and I’m reminded that this is all a farce. She’s not really my wife, not in truth. She doesn’t actually want this.
She doesn’t want me.
“Oh god,” she cries out, bringing me back to the performance. “Layden!”
She bangs the headboard harder.
I get it. I really do. Phoenix knows me better than anyone—better than my brothers, better than myself sometimes. I like to think I’d give her the world and more if she’d let me.
But maybe I’d only fill her with an endless void so big she’d never feel full or content again. Maybe I’d consume her exactly like her grandfather consumes his victims.
And maybe she knows it.
So I climb up on the bed, still angled away from her. I bounce the mattress with my knees so the bedsprings squeak loudly.
“Phoenix,” I groan her name like a prayer, helping her bang the headboard into the wall in a steady rhythm.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Her voice rises higher with each exclamation. She’s really selling it, head thrown back, that long neck exposed.
Then she screams out my name—”Laydeeeeeeeeen!”—and we both collapse on the bed.
Breathing hard from the exertion of the performance.
Both of us completely unsatisfied.
The silence that follows is deafening. I can hear her breath evening out beside me. And smell her perfume mixed with champagne from the reception. We’re lying on this massive bed in our wedding night suite, and I’ve never felt more alone.
After a long moment, Phoenix turns her head toward me. “Well. That was...” She trails off.
“Convincing?” I offer.
A small laugh escapes her. “I was going to say absurd.”
“That too.” I risk a glance at her. She’s still in that wedding dress, hair half-pinned, makeup smudged slightly from the exertion. She’s never looked more beautiful. “You’re a good actress.”
“Years of practice pretending everything’s fine.” The words come out more bitter than I think she intends.
The honesty surprises me. “Phoenix—”
“We should probably stay in here for a while longer.” She sits up and starts pulling out the rest of her hair pins with methodical precision. “To make it believable.”
I sit up too, keeping a careful distance between us on the bed. “What do you want to do?”
She glances at me sideways. “What do people usually do after sex?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
That makes her pause. “Right. Sorry, I forgot that you—” She stops herself.
“That I’ve never done this before?” I finish for her. “It’s fine, Phoenix. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me.”
“I don’t walk on eggshells around anyone.” But there’s less bite in her voice than usual.
“I know. It’s one of the things I like about you.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then shakes her head, goes back to pulling out pins. “You’re strange, you know that?”
“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Another small laugh. “Yeah, well. Don’t let it go to your head, angel boy.”
But when she says it this time, it almost sounds... affectionate.
I lean back against the headboard, watching her. “For what it’s worth, I think you were magnificent today.”
“Magnificent?” She snorts. “I barely made it through the ceremony without using compulsion on half the guests.”
“But you didn’t. You endured it. For your friend Sabra. You do whatever it takes to protect the people you care about.” I pause. “That takes strength.”
She’s quiet for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. “You weren’t so bad yourself. You managed not to accidentally curse anyone.”
“Sabra’s training has paid off.”
“Yeah.” She pulls out the last pin, and her dark hair tumbles down around her shoulders. “She’s good at what she does.”
I want to reach out and touch those dark waves. Are they as soft as they look? It takes all my self-discipline to keep my hands to myself.
“So,” Phoenix says eventually, still not looking at me. “This is our life now. Fake marriage. Fake... everything.”
“Maybe not everything,” I say quietly.
Her eyes snap to mine. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this more complicated than it has to be.” But her voice wavers slightly.
“Phoenix—”
“I mean it, Layden.” She stands up abruptly, putting distance between us. “This is a business arrangement. That’s all it can be.”
I watch her retreat to the bathroom, the door closing firmly behind her. Not quite a slam, but close enough.
And I’m left alone on our wedding bed, still fully clothed.
Still hungry.