Chapter 10
Consume His Suffering
Raven
Present Day – Catastro Sea
Slipping out of Griffin’s door, I was grateful to find Julian and Levi still waiting for me. But they both appeared on edge, Levi immediately taking up my guard.
“Are you okay?” Levi asked, raising an eyebrow and clocking my wet hair and new attire.
I had forced Griffin to let me use his bathroom, the shower a necessary decompression after dealing with him, and he had given me clothes to wear.
His clothes. The sweatpants were held up by a drawstring and the long sleeve shirt was bunched up on my wrists, but I felt cozy.
“Yes. You know Ivan is most likely on this ship?” I whispered softly to him. Just mentioning his name out loud caused a scattering of pin-pricks across my skin.
The feeling of being watched magnified past the point of discomfort. Ivan was a Skinwalker. He could be anyone. It was what he did best.
He was the creator of the Retrieval Faction, the driving force behind their art of disguise.
Levi flinched before inclining his head. “It wouldn’t be like him to act now, but we can’t be too careful. Everyone has been on guard, and we will continue to be when we make it to Grypheem.”
When we make it to Grypheem.
Then Ivan would be free to become whoever he wanted. And I wouldn’t know any better in a country of strangers. He had been the originator of the Retrieval Faction, a master of disguises, before he went rogue and joined forces with the Government.
Another thought circulated. “What about 32… Amelia?”
“She’s not his target. You are,” Julian replied, grabbing hold of me and tangling his fingers with mine.
His hand swallowing mine whole. “But Felix is watching over her nonetheless. And before you ask, Maverick, Enzo, and Oleks are all on alert. We all are. But I don’t think he will act while we’re all at sea. ”
Unease and another unexpected feeling percolated throughout my body. “Can you both take me back to my room? I’m afraid once we get there, everything is going to go sideways. We won’t know any peace.”
Griffin had filled me with a variety of emotions. He had plucked and peeled away my second skin, forcing me to face my feelings straight on and now Julian was igniting an entirely different array.
He squeezed my hand, tugging me back towards the room I had woken up in on the other side of the ship, and the wind whipped around us as we moved. The new attire offered a better reprieve against the unexpected chill. Made me almost feel comfortable.
While I was still forcing the numb to wrap around me, to push down the fact that Sparrow and Jayce were in Violencia with Nightingale, I could allow myself to open up to my surroundings.
To Levi.
My protector, my strength, my anchor. I knew he would remain by my side and help with whatever was going to be thrown our way. I knew I would not be nearly as okay if it weren’t for him.
To Julian.
Julian and I had been best friends growing up. He had always been a source of light in the darkest hours back in the Facility. He had saved my life. Protected my daughter.
How does he not hate me for what our promise put him through?
Julian continued tugging us along, through a door, back down the passageway until we stopped outside of my room.
“I’ll keep watch outside,” Levi offered, bending over and kissing me on the cheek, leaving a trail of fire as he spoke softly into my ear. “Talk to him.”
Straightening back up, Levi inclined his head to Julian.
Julian quirked his lips, pulling us back into my room.
The bed took up most of the space, and unlike Griffin’s room, it didn’t have a desk or bathroom.
“You need to get some rest.” Julian wasn’t able to close the door back until I got on the bed. But once he had, he didn’t move, simply standing at the foot watching me with a pensive gaze.
“Julie, what is it?” I asked in concern, moving to the end of the mattress and reaching for him.
He gulped in air at the question, his eyes glazing over, his body shaking.
It was clear there was trauma laced into his reaction, that he was in a trance-like state.
Concern propelled me into action, grabbing hold of his hands, I physically tugged him to me. I guided him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed in front of me. On my knees behind him, I wrapped my arms around him, my hands landing on his chest, my fingers digging into his cotton shirt.
“It’s okay. Just breathe. You’re here,” I hummed, breathing long and deep behind him as guidance.
“Raven.” He fell against me, choking out a sob. “Who am I? Who am I?” His voice broke and my heart with it.
“You’re Julie. Julian. My best friend. A kind man who would do anything to keep those he loved safe.”
“I’m a prisoner. I’m a player. I’m a game warden. I’m the host,” he panted.
He jumped to his feet, the shock causing me to fall back on the mattress. He twisted and then he was on top of me.
His hands landing on each side of my shoulders, his knees on the outside of my thighs, trapping me in place.
His eyes met mine. They were unfocused, swirling in a thousand past lives of agony.
My hands came up, cupping his cheeks. “It’s okay, Julian.
You’re safe now. You don’t have to be anybody else.
Just be you.” Closing my eyes, I felt as he slowly relaxed above me, his hard body turning soft against mine.
“As the Shadow, I was always forced into a different persona. I couldn’t exist as myself either, and if I did, I would be killed. ”
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have been made to go through that. Anadil… She… She told me as it was happening. I felt helpless.”
My eyes whipped open. “She was with you?”
Julian inclined his head, his nose brushing mine. My pulse sped up as the air between us cycled.
“She was nearby the entire time. So was…” Julian fell down just a bit more, his lips grazing mine as he spoke. A thick electricity filled the air with angry static. “Sparrow.”
The shock split open the moment. “Can you… Can you tell me about her? Please?” The question was loaded, it left me weak. I was not sure if I could handle it, but I desperately wanted to know anything he could tell me.
Julian rolled over, landing next to me, readjusting to wrap me in a cocoon.
The ebb and flow between us was familiar. Our energy was synchronic. Just as it had always been.
Turning into him, I listened to his heart beat.
It was much calmer now than it had been under my hands.
His lean frame, rippled with a subtle strength as he squeezed me tighter.
In our youth, we often laid on the floor, staring up at ceilings, and in the silence between our heart beats, the nostalgia crept in tangling its way inside my chest.
“Of course. She is a lot like you. A sweet spitfire who knows her worth. She calls me Unkie Julie.”
He chuckled, the vibrations stirring across my skin.
“Was she happy? Safe?” I asked sadly. My heart throbbed in agony, each second of silence weighing me further down. Compressing all of my anxieties into a singular stamp. I knew practically nothing of my own child. I had never even searched for her.
Shouldn’t I have instinctively known she was alive? How could I let Julian shoulder this weight alone? How could I let Sparrow live without her mother?
“She was as happy as she could be. She knew you were coming, that you and Jayce were out there. And I kept her safe.” Julian’s voice cracked.
“But not any longer. I miss her. She was my family. I was with her every step of the way, holding her when she cried the very first time. When she babbled and walked. When she learned the word ‘no.’”
Raw. In this moment, all of our sorrow and grief were laid bare. Julian was suffering in more ways than I expected. I never thought how close he must have grown to my daughter.
“Tell me your favorite memories?” I needed to hear it. To live vicariously through him. To understand what it meant to be a parent, because I didn’t have any idea, but I suspected Julian knew.
“Of course.”
Nestling closer together, he filled me in on the missing pieces of my daughter’s life. On her first words, her first steps, on every piece. On her favorite foods, her quirks.
We stayed like that for hours, well past the time we should be asleep. I listened to him draw a picture for me of my daughter. And I could only hope that one day I would be able to make my own memories. That Sparrow would forgive me.
Eventually he moved on to his journey, how he became the Host, every step he had to take. To keep me safe. To keep her safe.
But never himself.
I don’t think he meant to, but every word Julian spoke twisted an electric prod in my belly, a shocking heat that unfurled painfully as I realized for the first time.
Julian has always been in love with me.
It was in the way every single part of him was devoted to me. For me. Because of me.
And that was the thought that cycled through me as I fell asleep in his arms.
“Mmmmm,” I moaned, heat wrapping me up in its warm embrace. A cocoon of tenderness and comfort.
A naked man above me pressed me into the bed. Each piece of skin he touched alight in desire and need. He was everything I wanted. He was all that I needed.
Staring up, I recognized him.
“Julian!” I gasped.
My eyes shot open, landing on obsidian.
The port hole in the room allowed just enough moonlight to slip through it for me to see them.
“Raven?” Julian’s voice was soft as he reached out, brushing my hair back from my sweat soaked skin. “What is it? You started tossing and turning and then—”
Surging forward, my lips met his. There was a single moment of surprise, but then Julian’s hand tangled into my hair, the other tugging me to him, guiding me to roll onto him. Our lips never separated.
We were one. A harmonious beat that continued past the point of comfort. Until it was too loud. Too much. Too raw.
An orchestra without a conductor.
There was passion. Need. Anger.
I was angry at him. For sacrificing everything for me.