Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Dahlia
The comfort of his warmth is unparalleled. The heavy drum of his heart against my cheek is grounding, a reminder that I am alive and that there is another caring for me.
A resting smile moves to my lips as a sense of security bundles me up. I understand sleep better than I ever have before. I am never the one awake while another person sleeps beside me.
I see now that the embrace of slumber is when we are most vulnerable, quietly existing inside our bodies, not outwardly living in them.
Lagos is stunning when he is asleep, and even though I can feel him inside me—inside my heart and a pulse between my thighs—right now feels even more personal.
Deeply personal.
I reach up and coil his chest hair around my finger, following the thick black patterns of a tattoo.
Spero fusses from the room opposite this one, and so I try to lift the heavy arm embracing me, but to no avail. “Lagos…”
“No,” he murmurs, voice gravelly and hoarse.
I smile, and a little ease passes over me. He doesn’t want to pretend that last night didn’t happen.
“I have to go to Spero,” I whisper, nudging him again.
A sleepy groan of annoyance rumbles from him, but he lifts the weighty arm, allowing me to slide out.
I go straight to the bathroom, pee, and quickly wash my hands. There is a rectangular bar of soap on the basin, which is already wet. Lagos has used it. So, I feel quite comfortable that it’s not old or last used by a stranger. I wash between my thighs with cold water from the faucet and the bar of soap.
Within a few minutes, I’m a tiny bit cleaner, have changed Spero’s cloth nappy, and am walking into the dusty old kitchen with him in my arms.
My breath catches when I see Tomar’s hunched back bent over, his head in the cupboard, hands sorting through cans and items.
Did he hear? Yes. I heard Spero, so he definitely heard me last night. The conversation between us, the one I rammed down and said I would forget, comes crashing back on waves of discomfort.
“Tomar?”
He bashes his head in the cupboard, trying to pull it out. “Fuck.” Rubbing the back of his skull, he stands and faces me.
“Hi,” I manage to say.
Unspoken words ride the tension between us as we stare at each other.
My eyes drop to a container in his hand, and even though I cannot read, I know what it is from the picture on the side. “Is that?”
“Not formula.” His voice pulses, blue eyes deeply sad—betrayed. “No. But it is powdered milk.”
I take a step forward through what feels like an invisible wall of resistance. “Thank you, Tomar. You have saved us. I will never forget that.”
“So…” He clears his throat, deflecting. “How is your rib feeling?”
I shrug a little. “It’s okay. It doesn’t really hurt that much anymore. It’s not like I’m doing anything strenuous?—”
Tomar’s eyes drop to the container in his hand, fingers idly turning it. “You should have come to me… last night.” His gaze meets mine. “You should have come to my room. I wouldn’t have touched you.”
I inhale hard, the bite of tears behind my eyes. I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t feel that way. I almost wish I did; it seems to make more sense.
I chew my bottom lip. “But?—”
“She didn’t.” Lagos finishes, suddenly a furnace at my spine, his intimidating presence boring through me.
“Oh, Hell.” Tomar shakes his head, glaring over the top of mine. “Put some damn clothes on.”
A warm hand slides across my chest and up to my throat, possessive and authoritarian. “Get the milk and go back to my room, little flower,” the dark voice behind me orders.
Tomar’s brows weave with utter repulsion. “You touched her.”
Lagos presses against me from behind, his hard erection bruising my back as his free hand slides over my hip and down between my legs.
I want to swat his hand away, but I can’t, both arms bundled with my tiny assassin.
“I didn't just touch her, Tomar,” Lagos booms. The heavy weight of his tone knocks the air from my lungs.
I swallow in his tight palm. “Please, please don’t do this?—"
“I split open this virgin cunt with my fingers last week,” he growls. “Jealous, brother?”
Wait… I blink.
“She was— She'd never... Her Ward didn’t touch her?” Tomar’s tone rises and cuts the air, severs it.
“My what?” I whimper. I watch his lips move, blinking at them. Hear his words and tone. But the meaning eludes me until…
The blood.
Virgin…
Clarity breaks through.
“And looking at her face, she didn’t know.” Tomar turns bright red with fury. “You took her virginity without telling her, Lagos!”
“ Little flower .” Lagos releases me and turns me to face him. His hands come up to cup my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I gaze up into his near-black eyes set below weaved brows. Soft. Concerned. “What do you mean, Lagos?”
“Lagos!” Tomar barks. “Damn you!”
“I was a… I was a virgin?” The word echoes in my mind. “No, no, no. That's not— That can't be.”
“She had a choice!” Tomar is yelling at my back, my eyes lost in the depth of hot-steel grey. Gravity eyes. Eyes that lock me in place. Capture me. “It was her choice! It could've been?—"
“You?” Lagos snaps those eyes up to Tomar, set ablaze with anger.
“No,” Tomar deflects quickly. “That’s not… That’s not?—"
“It'll never be you!”
I hear Tomar swallow. “I didn't?—"
“Don't fucking lie!” Lagos roars, his palms still on my cheeks vibrating with restraint and burning my skin with rage. “At least I don’t hide my depravities. You're just like everyone else. You want to sink inside her, and?—
“Don't, Lagos,” Tomar warns.
“Tell her what you want to do to her,” Lagos hisses. “What you dream about doing to her sweet, young body. Tell her what you do with her knickers at night. Do they smell like her pussy?”
“Stop,” I whisper, feeling choked, but Lagos can’t hear me over the craze rushing between his ears, the thump of his pulse is a tangible threat in the air. “If I didn’t owe you my life, I would have ripped out your guts the moment you looked at her like?—”
“I am a fucking animal!” Tomar barks, defeated. “Dammit! But I am trying to be better.”
I sniffle. “ Lagos...”
His eyes, tunnels of relentless grey fury, drop to my face. They soften in an instant as he says, “Little flower?”
I’m so confused. “I don't want to be here.” I shake my head through hiccups, feeling the walls press in and the room shrink. “Let me go back to my room.”
“My room.”
A cloud of confusion sits around me as I walk to the room. I hear Lagos say something to Tomar, and then he is behind me, shutting the door.
Feeling like I may collapse, I lay Spero on the blankets and place my hand on the wall, steadying myself.
I’m hungry. Dizzy.
Clues crumble my composure. The blood on Lagos’ fingers that day at the waterfall. Words from the girl at the roadhouse. “—fucked, and his cum is leaking from between your thighs. Do you feel pure and wholesome then?" I was never sore the next first-light.
Why?
No. Please, no.
“He never touched me… there? Why?” I murmur to myself. A tear rushes a cool path down my cheek. “I never soothed him. I never relieved him.”
“Good.”
I turn my muddied ire to Lagos. “You knew! You have known since the waterfall. What have I been doing for the past five years? Why didn’t he… want me?”
“Perhaps he was a good man. Perhaps he wanted a daughter. Not a fuck thing.”
“A daughter?” I swallow but feel like I am choking on jagged rocks. “My Trade is a health-care initiative. I know you have no respect for it, but I grew up believing in it, Lagos. I truly believed in the good we were doing.”
He stands completely naked before me, long, thick, and muscular—every inch of him. And his dick, half-hard, I’ve never seen it another way.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” he says, his voice otherworldly deep. “But I am certain that you did your duty to that man.”
Duty…
No. My lower lip bunches and wobbles as I try not to sob. “I didn’t. It was my Meaningful Purpose.”
He is in front of me, his hand sliding between my hair and neck, gripping the nape. “To accompany, relieve, and soothe? Correct?” His thumb slides under my jaw, pushing my chin up. My eyes meet his, and I try to blink the tears away. “Your presence is soothing; your silly awe is a great relief in this fucking dire land. I’m certain you meant everything to that man.”
The vision of Lagos clears as I continue to bat the tears away. Gazing up at him, I feel weak with confusion.
“It pains me to see…” His eyes follow a cool tear as it rolls over my lips. “Tears. But I am pleased he didn’t touch you. You’re mine.”
Every cell in my body wars—I’m glad it was Lagos’, but I’m deeply lost. “You were so… so vulgar about it.”
“I shouldn’t have been.” His dark eyes map a course across my face, soft.
“Was it vulgar?” I ask.
“No.” His jaw pulses. “No, it wasn’t. I will hold that memory forever. I told you it wasn’t your fault, what I took from you. I don’t regret it. I’d do it again.”
Blinking, I let all the information settle in my mind. I nod slowly, half-accepting his words while burying the unease. This isn’t a fairytale. This is life in The Cradle, and he isn’t human. He won’t always act the same as me or think the same as me. “I have to feed Spero,” I say.
“Fine.” He gazes at me for a moment longer than usual, and I almost see the affection pour from him. The same kind I feel when I look at him. Not just animal instinct, nor pleasure and possession, but wholesome, selfless affection.
He sighs hard before shifting his eyes to the door and striding toward it.
“Don’t hurt him!” I blurt out.
He stops with his back to me, shoulders bunching, tension stalking across them.
“ Please .” I swallow. “Tomar cares for Spero and me… and you . Please.”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” he says, reaching for the door handle.
“Where are you going, then?”
He edges around to face me, a slight grin touching his mouth. And that somehow makes him appear a decade younger. “Is this how it goes now?” he asks, his tone deep and gravelly. “Do you have my balls? Do I need to inform you of my comings and goings, little flower? Have I made my obsession too obvious?”
Obsessed.
With… with me?
Warmth moves through me. “No. Sorry.”
His dark gaze drips the length of my body, before he huffs an amused sound. Almost to himself. “Because I am. Obsessed .” His eyes meet mine. “So, if that’s what you want… I’m going to shower, then take apart the cars out there and salvage the pieces. Is that acceptable to you, little flower ?”
I hiccup a short giggle, my cheeks full-blown furnaces, and a little piece of unease drops into oblivion. “Very acceptable, brute .”
He nods toward Spero and says, “Don’t just feed the Shadow baby?—”
“ Spero .”
“Feed yourself,” he finishes curt. “Properly. There is fish, and it looks like Tomar found cans. Could be spaghetti. Eat, or I will force-feed you.”