Chapter 46 #2
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed my creamy, luxe Fever Dream bedroom.
After my heavenly shower, I pad over to the windows and draw the curtains wide open.
Astera sparkles in the night—every window and lamppost and pane of glass reflecting the stars above.
I watch taxis speed by and couples stroll and allow the weight of tomorrow to settle on my shoulders.
This is my city. This was my father’s city.
And his mother’s before him. We take care of people. All of them, in fact.
I can even see the Chasm from way up here.
That ragged, rocky cliff at the edge of STC, bisected by the mighty, industrial Erebos Bridge.
My heart thuds against my lungs. Caspar will not crack open that scar.
He will not turn my city into bedlam, blood running in the streets, flames engulfing Babylon.
I’d say I’ll die before I let that happen, but in this instance, my death would probably mean he succeeded, so I go with alternate phrasing. I’ll kill him before I let that happen.
My eyes sweep over the townhomes and billboards below, and I think of the deviants out there too.
How many of them are like my friends? Loyal and thoughtful and loving.
How many of them have families or children or lives they would fight tooth and nail for if they could?
I can’t let Reid succeed, either. We are not judge, jury, and executioner.
Sophia’s words have become my truest mantra.
Like that day in the coliseum with the werewolf I tried to spare.
We take care of people—we don’t hurt them unprovoked.
If Reid thought I’d be by his side as he took out an entire species of people and creatures, he never really knew me at all.
When I can’t stare at the city any longer, eyelids fluttering closed, I crawl between all the fluffy sheets of my bed, cool cotton soothing the tension throughout my body.
Like a nightly ritual, I reach for the yellowed sketch of Odette.
This could be my last shot. Whether I succeed in finding the ring tomorrow and get this syrabraxa out of me, or Caspar succeeds in killing me instead of Ada to open his chasm, or my sanity finally slips away…
I owe it to Deacon, after everything he’s done for me, to find his mother for him.
Or at least to try.
I stare at the antique paper. Fox-like eyes.
Pursed lips. Heart-shaped jaw. She looks wily.
Crafty. Unspeakably beautiful. The kind of woman who could steal from a man and get him to thank her for it.
But there’s also a warmth to her delicate features.
Like maybe she’d leave those stolen goods on the doorstep of a friend in need.
The practice feels different tonight. Instead of a thorny jealousy I never wanted to name, something new blooms in me. I think of all the warmth that spills through Deacon—his sense of humor, his fierce loyalty, the way he approaches everything in life with unfettered, uncomplicated joy.
I think of how that warmth must have been instilled in him by someone, and it sure as hell wasn’t his father.
I try to imagine a sunny, whip-smart woman with an infectious laugh and a constant smile in those fox eyes.
I try to imagine her singing to him. Showing him a garden of asphodels. Gazing lovingly into those frosty eyes.
But as I drift off, the images shift and darken. A mother ripped away from her son. Banished by his father, the very man she once loved. Trusted. And a young Deacon, sobbing for his mom. Willing her to return. Looking for her every day since, year after year, decade after decade…
Deacon doesn’t even know why he’s lying in bed.
He’s come to terms with the situation. Slept one time in hundreds of years and knows it’s not going to happen again.
But he doesn’t like the feeling of wanting something he can’t have.
Doesn’t like how pathetic he felt after their night in the Harker archives, coming back home only to toss and turn.
He’d made peace with sleeplessness years ago. He doesn’t like wishing for rest again.
But she’s here now. Perhaps that could have some kind of effect on him.
She’s not in his bed, but…in the next room. One wall over. Her head—her glossy, night-colored hair that smells like her shampoo—lying just feet away from his.
He thinks of how they’re close enough that she’s heard him make other women come. She’d been so angry about that.
The thought sends blood pumping through his veins. Makes him hard, as thinking too much about her often does. Deacon rubs an aggravated hand down his face. He doesn’t want for much. Almost a thousand years alive, and he’s figured out how to have anything that even remotely intrigues him.
But not sleep.
And not her.
And he does not like wanting.
When he reaches his hand below the waistband of his sweats, there is no shame. He’s not a man who feels shame in the first place, but even if he was, the feelings he has for Vivienne—the ferocity of them, the gentleness—it’s not something he has ever tried to hide.
In fact, Deacon is almost certain that the way he feels about Vivienne Abbot should, if anything, make him feel ashamed about every other woman he’s ever fucked.
In comparison, nine hundred and twenty five years of extraordinary sex feels like a consolation prize.
A participation trophy. And he’ll never taste the gold. More fucking wanting.
It’s that frustration that sends his hand around his brutally hard cock.
He spreads his legs a bit wider and tries to imagine what she’d be like on top of him.
Powerful is the first word that comes to mind.
Playful. Wicked. The dark curtain of her hair falling around them.
Roses. Vanilla. Sweat. Breath. Just the two of them, in that moment, where she is his.
He groans as he bucks his hips into his fist. She feels so perfect.
So warm. Made for him, he’s sure of it. She kisses his mouth, draws her long, black-polished nails across his chest. Her tits bounce with each movement, his cock sliding sloppily in and out of her, and yet Deacon Graveheart—a man she has called a pervert more than once—can only stare up at her face.
He wants this to feel good for her. He just wants her to be happy.
The curve of his thumb brushing the head of his cock nearly sends him over the edge, but he squeezes himself until he can wind down. He doesn’t want it to be over yet. He wants more time with her. This is all he’s ever going to get. Stolen, imagined moments with a girl he might—
This time, when my eyes snap open in my luxurious bedroom, it’s not bloodlust chewing through me. It’s something else. My face is buried in my pillow. Damp. Warm. A heap of duvet thrust between my legs. My clit pulsing as I teeter on the edge.
I’m soaking wet. And hunter-still. I can’t bring myself to keep moving. Not as I replay what I dreamed, over and over. A normal dream? Imagined? Fiction? Or…
I climb up to stand on the bed, shaking knees and wobbly feet finding balance on the plush mattress.
My ear nearly presses into the wall we share.
I’d only hear silence, I’m sure. Not even snoring, because Deacon doesn’t sleep.
I bet he’s in the gym, or in his office.
I ignore the heat pooling low in my stomach at even those thoughts.
Deacon, shirtless, dining table hefted overhead, beads of sweat slipping over his taut muscles and tattoos.
Deacon at his desk, brows furrowed, typing away, cigarette behind his ear.
All of them make my chest flush. My sex pulses again, begging for the climax I abandoned.
Or maybe I’d hear what I dreamed of. Muted, choked groans. Tense, low breaths. Deacon, getting himself off. To thoughts of me.
I scramble away from the wall before I can find out.
I don’t want to know.
Not tonight. Not when we stand to lose everything tomorrow.
I tuck myself back into bed and try to breathe. Cool down.
Like Peter and my deal—When all of this is over.
When my syrabraxa is out of me and Caspar and Reid are thwarted and we wake up the next day to find the world still turning.
Then Peter will tell Sophia he loves her, and my mother will learn what I am, and I’ll ask Deacon Graveheart if he ever dreams of me.