Chapter 22 #2
“Move in? To your club?” So I’d been right…“You all live there.”
“Yeah. Now you do too.”
“No shot.”
I’m about to keep running, but Deacon’s hand circles the width of my wrist, yanking me back. His palm is warm on my chilled skin, and I shiver at the contrast. “I’m serious,” he says. Low and growled. I hate when he talks like that.
I yank free of his grasp. “My friends will keep me safe.”
Deacon’s jaw grows rigid and tight. “It’s not about manpower.
Fever Dream is a neutral ground between Brood, mortals, and Elders.
You put that together the first night we met.
Blood is not spilled on my property unless I will it.
Those who stay with me are…mine. And those who are mine go untouched. ”
“I have no desire to be yours.”
Deacon makes a face, like Sure you don’t. “I could knock you out and keep you in my basement like I tried to do months ago. Tie you to the radiator. Feed you crackers when you whine real loud.”
The mental image makes my heart speed. What is wrong with me? “Please try. I’d love to stab you again.”
The firm line of his lips doesn’t budge. “They’ll be on us any minute. You know there is nowhere else that makes sense.”
Warning cries are sounding in my mind as I consider his words.
It would be better than running for the rest of my life.
Anywhere I went, the Brood or the Elders could find me.
And as branches crack in the distance, I know we are low on time.
But the one thing that stands out is the strangeness of his behavior.
All night he’s shown unusual concern for my well-being.
Checking up on me at Harker. Not wanting me to fall out that window.
Allowing himself to be kidnapped and tossed into a magic lagoon.
Killing hunters to save my life. It’s all been too altruistic. There’s something he’s not telling me.
“Okay,” I sigh.
His features smooth. “Good.”
“But Penny comes too. I can’t leave her at Harker without me.”
“Fine.”
“And Hound. My dog.”
Deacon grimaces. “No.” I glare at him until his brow twitches. “Fuck. Fine.”
“And—”
“What, you want a pony too?”
“You tell me what’s in it for you.”
“In it for me?”
I nod, more sure of my question now than I was before.
Deacon is not a question repeater. It’s a sign of nervousness: Who, me?
He’s stalling. “Maybe you can’t kill me, but there’s no reason for you to fight so hard to keep me alive.
You’ve been clear that you’re no longer worried about Reid, and that you don’t need my help even if you were.
Yet you’re handing me protection on a silver platter.
Tell me why—the truth—or I’m getting a one-way ticket to some far-off land and taking my chances on the run. ”
Deacon’s eyes find the dark branches above, and I note that the blue of his eyes is the same color as the pale blue dawn creeping in.
When he brings his gaze back down to me they’re resolute.
He’s come to some kind of decision within himself, and for some reason, it sends a shiver up my scarred spine.
“Caspar has someone important to me imprisoned.”
“Someone…besides Reid?” With Deacon’s nod, fragmented pieces sift together.
I’d realized a while ago that there was something Deacon feared from Finn and the High Thane that wasn’t their army of Brood demons.
“That’s why you couldn’t have him or Finn knowing you were going against them to save Reid.
Not because Caspar would retaliate against you or your club, but because he might hurt this person. ”
“Yes.” There’s a pain in Deacon’s eyes I’ve never seen. A depth to them I’d missed before. “He holds her to…keep me in line.” Her. “But your handy-dandy little ability…”
The way his face had lit up when he’d asked how I knew he’d arrived at the broken-down Cineplex. How he’d never tried to keep me locked up after that. “You want me to…find her for you?”
“Aren’t you a little super sleuth?” But his voice carries almost no humor.
“Deacon, it doesn’t work that way. I can sense a demon I already know if I’m near them, but without ever having met this woman, without having any inkling where she could be…”
“It’ll come with time,” Deacon says. “I’ll show you pictures of her.
Tell you about her. The longer the syrabraxa’s in you, the more the ability will sharpen.
She’ll crystalize in your dreams soon if you think of her enough.
That’s what Baz told me, at least.” He’d asked me about my dreams. Back at Fever Dream.
“And how hard can it be to keep you alive until then?”
We both turn at the sound of footsteps pounding through the forest. Hunters, coming for us.
“Well,” Deacon says with a sigh. “I like a challenge.”
“You sound like me.”
He makes a face. “Don’t be disgusting.”
With that, we take off once more, racing through the thicket into Harker’s campus as the hunters hurtle toward the now-empty lagoon.
When we reach the gateway under the rotunda, panting and out of breath, I say, “Thanks for being honest.”
Deacon could have lied about why he wanted me to stay with him.
Why it benefitted him to keep me breathing.
For a man with so many secrets, he made himself surprisingly vulnerable, admitting what it was Caspar had over him.
And while the curiosity of who could be so important to him gnaws at me, as does the realization that soon I may be able to dream of Reid and where he is, all I feel right now is a strange appreciation.
Not at being used—that, I expected—but that he didn’t bullshit me about it. And that I have somewhere safe to go.