Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Dahlia
First-light comes and goes.
And goes.
And goes.
Three days pass by.
Lagos moves around the farmhouse like a phantom—while he is awake, I can’t seem to catch him, and when he sleeps, I’m hesitant to wake him again.
Not after the taser…
He is disconnected and angry. His torment and disassociation cling to him like a second skin.
On the ground floor, I stand by the kitchen window, with Spero on my hip, looking out and seeing a half-built stonewall and the haze of the Redwind.
I set the taser down on the counter. In case he asks me where it is, I usually have it within reach.
My swelling belly stretches my white slip-dress. Admittedly, I wear it to showcase my body, every curve, and the tight, round shape of his unborn child at my hips.
If he is going to avoid me.
I will not make it easy.
As certain as the Redwind, I watch Lagos' huge foreboding figure part the dense crimson haze, loose strands of dark-blonde hair whipping around his face, heavy stones grasped in his arms.
Each stone has a purpose, each one contributing to the protective perimeter around our home.
A stone at a time.
The silence between us sometimes feels like a tear in The Crust, gasping and drawing us in. But there is peace in his solitude, even if mine is filled with angst and yearning.
Don’t push him, Dahlia.
To pass the time, I clean and organise the farmhouse. Spero has a playroom now, and we have a nice, clean, organised bedroom in the bunker, though Lagos has been sleeping at the door every night.
I sigh as he drops to his haunches, stacking the stones, hands and forearms bloodied from his toil of madness.
Worry washes over me.
I can see the weight of the Shadow on his shoulders. He carries that part of his personality as though it is a feasting animal, claws in deep, mouth at his jugular.
My stomach clenches and my lungs squeeze, knowing he wrestles with memories that haunt, terrorise him, and confuse him.
Each first-light, each stone, he fights, and I wish I could reach into his beautiful and gruesome mind to pull him out of the darkness, but I know he needs time.
Is he out there because he likes the Redwind? The drone of it?
Is it comforting? So he cannot hear the echoes of his own screaming torture.
Did he scream?
Probably not…
I imagine he snarled and bit back agony in those moments when they cut and tormented him.
When he forced me to shoot him with the taser, he mentioned something about my scent and mind games—I can only imagine what that means…
Don’t imagine it.
Oh, how I want to hold him, to remind him that he is safe now, that we are building a future together.
Through the window, he straightens, glaring at the wall he is building, scrutinising each stone as if searching for something beyond its physical form.
Then our eyes meet.
Locking in a moment.
I mouth, "Brute."
And he sighs, mouthing, "Flower."
There’s a flicker of something in his gaze—gratitude that makes my heart squeeze. Like he is silently saying thank you for waiting or understanding or maybe it is saying nothing at all. Maybe there is no flicker, only my need for hope.
I smile softly, letting him know that I am here, ready to stand alongside him.
Silent, like he needs.
I wince when his child kicks me, reminding me what we made, what our love made.
He is trying, each day, a small step forward—a stone laid down, another stone added to the growing foundation of our future. This is his way of telling me that we are no longer pretending.
I smile at that.
I stroll through the farmhouse, the floorboards shiny from a recent clean and the walls and trimmings dusted.
Spero drools along my shoulder and chest. His teeth are poking through, so he is grabby and fussy.
Scooping up Spero’s fluffy bear, I hand it to him, and he bites down on the ear, gnawing and humming around the fabric.
I sit him down on the floor in our room and walk to the mirror. Gazing at my reflection, I brush my fingers over the healing bruises on my throat.
Soon, they will be gone.
A tear glides down my cheek.
I swallow. Last time we were here, I created a pretty picture in my mind—a romantic, old-world picture of us, happy and raising our babies—but this… I lift my chin and drop my hand from my neck.
This will change nothing.
Am I afraid of him?
Deep down, I know that I should be, but the beating organ in my chest won’t allow me to dwell on it.
I love him.
But it’s more than that. When I look at him, my body comes alive, and when he is gone, I feel everything wilting.
And I’m not just a Common girl, either. I am—was—a Lace Girl. My Trade is a mental health initiative, one that I once believed in. In many ways, I still do.
While it is far from perfect, it holds an air of fact. Dopamine is released when we have sex and hold another. I know it’s true now. Having felt it myself. I am never more settled, hopeful, and weightless than when I am smothered in his thick arms of protection.
Can I offer him the same? To accompany, relieve, and soothe my man in his time of despair.
A real smile slides across my lips.
What would be sweeter than being his Lace Girl? Being what he needs now, while he struggles his way back to reality, claws at the conditioned darkness and peels it back to reveal his own intent.
You can take the girl out of The Trade, but you can’t take The Trade out of the girl.
* * *
“I know what your Ward did while you slept.” Gruff words pull me from the dark.
Sleep holds me, but I slowly blink, the bunker ceiling illuminated by dim lighting. Strange; I don’t remember seeing it in the dark before.
“Lagos…” I inhale that scent. Metallic, sweet, man, and safety—it’s him.
He is here…
Realisation throws me into wakefulness. I sit and rub my eyes, gazing across the room to where Lagos is, eyes set on me.
Unwavering.
Intense.
He is in what I like to call his comfort clothing, bare-chested and in only grey pants that do very little to hide his usually hard or half-masted dick. Being in a state of arousal seems to be part of the Shadow DNA, harder, thicker, fiercer blood that is all too eager to pump and fill.
Confused, I frown at him. “What’s happening? Is everything okay?”
Without looking away from me, he reaches for the free-standing lamp beside him and switches it on…
He switches it on.
It switches on!
I beam. “How?”
“I fixed it.” His voice is that deep, gruff tone capable of rattling bones. “The people who lived here had their own windmill, a small one, hidden just behind the mountain. It’s not remarkable or big, little flower, but it’s enough for the farmhouse.”
My heart races.
“Enough for us ,” I breathe.
“ Yes .”
Finally.
I place my hand over my chest, feeling the heavy thumping inside. He is here. In the bunker. In the room. In our room.
“What did he do?” I ask.
He just stares at me. “Who?”
“My Ward?” I yawn. “Didn’t you say you know what he did while I slept?”
“Watched you.” Lagos stands, and I arch my neck to hold his gaze. “I have a great experience for you— watching someone you love sleep.”
My lower lip wobbles. “So, you love me, brute?”
“Oh, fuck yeah.” He sighs. “And I could watch you sleep all night, little flower.”
He turns toward the door, and panic rolls up my throat, and desperate words burst out. “Then do it!”
He stops midstride.
“Watch me all night,” I add.
Without turning around, his gravelly voice wraps around me as he says, “I want to, little flower. I really do. I fantasise about you all day. You’re in every stone I place. Every motivation. Every erection. I fantasise about you in that little lace dress you wear to get my attention, with your hair loose and free and your stomach swollen.”
“Stop fantasising about it,” I whisper to the dim room. “And be with me.”
He stands there, breathing heavy considerations that expand his torso with each inhale. “Fine,” he agrees, voice rough and deep. Turning around to face me, he says, “I’ll watch you all night.”
“Here.” I pat the spot beside me on the bed. “Right here. Please, Lagos.”
“There you go again.” As he walks to the bed, he slides his pants down, leaving only his briefs that hug his thighs and waist and form around his engorged dick like a second layer of skin. “Saying my name with that pleading tone…” He almost purrs, prowling onto the bed. “Getting your way.”
He lies down beside me, and I feel as though my heart might explode.
We face each other again, close, intimate—it feels like years ago even though it was only months—but this time, my swollen belly brushes his torso.
“Things I like…” He gently brushes a red tendril over my shoulder. “The way you say my name.”
“Lagos…”
“Yeah.” His lips curve, offering me the smallest of smiles. Not a grin or a smirk. It’s the right shape for a real smile. “Like that.”
All the things he likes are to do with me. It makes me feel wonderful and sad at the same time. He spent decades with Tomar, a rogue in the waste, and has no beauty to speak of. At the thought of Tomar, my stomach knots.
I can’t resist the urge to ask about him. “Lagos…” My tone causes his brows to furrow, reading me easily. “Will you ever see Tomar again?”
He grumbles. “Hm.”
“You know nothing happened.” I place my hand on his hard chest, fingers fanning out to touch more. “Right?”
“I know…” He chooses his words carefully, using a pause to consider them. “That you didn’t fuck him.”
“What about the catamaran and the people at The Bite, and Sweets?”
“Tomar will return,” he states. “It is his Purpose. Rescuing people from the Half-tower. He’ll find his way back there. I’m almost certain of it.”
“Wasn’t it yours?”
“I was lost. He found me. Showed me how draining my blood can help me move around with less pain. Had a doctor from his faith take the coil out. I had nothing else. Just him. I thought I was fine.” He chuckles coldly. “Sixteen and full of myself. I was wrong. I followed him.”
“And I followed Maple?—"
“And we end up here.”
“Wait”—I frown— “What about draining the iron when it gets too high? Are you in agony here? I can’t bear that.”
“No, little flower. There is no pull here. It’s only if I move around and come in contact with beacons. Everything inside me is…” He sighs roughly. “Calmer here .”
My bottom lip quivers for a moment, so I press it between my teeth and chew.
Lagos moves in and steals my lower lip away, sucking it into his mouth and drawing long moans from my throat. With firm, slow strokes, he slides his tongue in and out of my mouth.
My restraint unravels while his control strains. I flex my fingers on his chest, pulling. His hand grips my hip, palming, needing. Yearning.
He breaks our kiss, panting hard already. “No more questions. Sleep.”
I sulk but accept.
So, for the following few moments, long ones that roll by like a lazy pet, I gaze at him, and he watches me.
What does he see in me? When I see such virile beauty, dark and thundering energy, and I am just… Dahlia. A little Lace Girl from the Half-tower.
Easily forgotten.
I sigh… Without noticing, exhaustion blankets me. Slumber stings at the edges of my eyes so I slowly bat the vision of him, in and out, slower and slower, until my eyelids win.
And I close my eyes.
But I feel his—I feel him watching me fall asleep in our bed, in our room, in our farmhouse, where we will build stone walls around and raise our children inside.
I fall asleep.
* * *
The room is quiet when I wake up, and Lagos is asleep opposite me, in the exact position he was when I closed my eyes. It takes me a moment to realise that time has passed and it’s probably first-light.
I lift to my backside and check the cot Lagos made the very first day we arrived here for the second time. Spero is on his back, fists by his head on the blanket, chest rising and falling, deep in sleep.
I sigh, a smile greeting my lips. Lagos stirs and rolls to his back. There is movement in the corner of my eye. When I gaze over, the sight of Lagos’ stiff dick tenting his pants snatches my breath. My belly swirls with anticipation, and pressure builds in my core. I squirm and shuffle with the need to quell the restlessness between my thighs.
He is so powerful, so utterly huge. Longer than the bed and thick across the chest and waist, with big arms and huge hands. The thought of them carrying me—holding me down—as he takes me… I moan, unable to stop myself.
Hesitantly, I slide my hand over his thigh, barely touching him, but feel his heat, nevertheless. I should stop. I am practically violating him in his sleep, but… My fingers brush his erection, and I gasp. I thought it would be soft on the outside, have a supple layer, and then a harder one, but—it’s not supple.
I look at his face to check to see if he is still asleep and lift to my knees, hovering over him to get a better look. I grip the top of his briefs, pulling them down. The muscles deep inside me clench with excitement when his huge dick springs free, waving in the air like it’s saying hi.
“Hi,” I giggle.
A deep, gruff voice curls my toes. “Why don’t you give my cock a kiss, little flower,” he rumbles.
I feel colour rising up my neck, smouldering across my cheeks, warm and glowing embarrassment.
“Please pretend that you’re asleep, Lagos,” I whisper. “I want to be alone with your body.”
“That’s going to be?—”
“ Shh ,” I hush him.
I lick my lips, looking at it , and slide closer until my knees brush his sides. “Just… don’t open your eyes yet. Promise?”
“You have my word.”
My hands glide over his thigh; the contrast of my pale, freckled skin against his tanned, tattooed flesh makes us appear as opposite as we are—He's a massive Xin De monster, and I’m a Common girl born for lace.
My fingertips feather the long, protruding vein that follows his dick upward to a V-shaped bunch of skin just below the curving head. Instantly, a bead of clear fluid collects on the slit.
He hums.
“Quiet, brute.”
A deep sound, like a laugh, rumbles in his chest, and I smile. That is the best sound in The Cradle. My Lagos with no smiles, my big, bad Xin De assassin, my brute, chuckling in the dark with me.
I lean down and lick the bead, overwhelmed with the urge to know what it tastes like.
Salty. Metallic.
His dick jerks. “Careful playing with your new toy while I’m half-asleep. You’ll end up stuffed with that toy before you can catch your next breath.”
“You’re asleep,” I scold.
“Then stop answering back.”
I beam—is this us?
Can we be… playful?
Is this the man he is beneath the Shadow, apart from the Rogue? The one that only rears up when he is alone with me, in the dark, where he can be himself, open and vulnerable.
I’ll protect your heart, Lagos.
His fingers slide into my hair, cupping the back of my head and curling around red strands, gentle but dominant.
“Careful, little flower,” he warns, stroking my scalp while I lick again and again, my tongue tracing the slit over the bulbous crown. “ Mm. Fuck. Your silly, little tongue does things to me.”
A big hand palms the back of my head, not controlling me but still an authority in the moment.
In every moment.
With my lips and mouth, I explore his smooth skin, the way it stretches around his blood-filled dick, almost like elastic.
Nervously, I flutter my tongue over a throbbing vein. I’m so gentle; I wonder if he can even feel what I’m doing.
“Do you like that?” I breathe.
“Thought I was asleep.”
“ Brute ,” I complain.
“How could I not like you licking my cock as if you’re afraid of it, little flower?”
His fingers continue to circle restlessly in my hair, sending shivers down my spine and lifting hairs across my skin. Sliding over him more, I mouth the warm head, sucking it in and popping it out again.
“Things you like…” I giggle, gaining more confidence from his heavy breathing, and lap all the way, slowly from base to slit, along the lengthy, throbbing underside. When I get to the base again, curiosity draws my tongue down over his heavy balls.
“ Fuck…” he groans, free hand grabbing the root of his dick as I mouth his balls, tasting skin and salt and something so deeply… male.
Licking, too eager to be methodical, I enjoy him. The way his body responds, tastes, the instinctive contracting of his thighs, and pulsing of his veins.
Jerking his hand up and down, he squeezes, the head flushing as he strokes himself, seeming to draw blood from the root to the crown.
Groaning, he shudders and palms the back of my head. His breaths become heavier. Abdominals crunch together, and thighs tighten.
He is close, hand flying over his dick. More fluid leaks from the tip. His big balls respond to my tongue, the smooth skin bunching and shrinking against my soft, warm attention.
I try not to smile, feeling pride swell in my chest. I make him feel good. Soothe him. Relieve him.
The deep weeping place between my legs clenches, and my pelvis lifts, just waiting for him to explode.
Then he does.
Deep, inhuman growls seem to start low in his abdomen, then crawl up his throat, rumbling the entire way until white fluid projects upward, lashing my cheeks, lips, and his thighs.
“Fuck, yes . Such a—” He groans. “Such a good little flower.”
My eyes roll back, pleasure a hazy blanket over my vision. When he comes apart—body so thick and powerful, bulking and throbbing in such a way—every female muscle inside me squeezes.
No more than a few laboured breaths later, Lagos sits up and takes hold of me, twisting me until my back meets the mattress.
My belly protrudes, and I giggle, nervousness playing in the sound.
“Spread your legs,” Lagos’ dark demand curls inside me like a coiling snake. He gets on all-fours over me, prowling down, skating his lips across my skin. He lingers over his unborn child, rubbing his face over the warm, swollen mound. “Mine.” Then he drops lower. “I’m going to need to eat my little flower out.”