Chapter Sixteen – Millie
Chapter Sixteen
Millie
I didn’t know what to do with myself. Grim had been gone all day, it was late now, the sun had set an hour ago, and I was haunting the halls of Asterhaven like a ghost who got lost on her way to the afterlife. Elysia was in her room. She hadn’t set foot out of it all day, still mad at me after I’d dragged her inside and scolded her for having gone out into the garden without my permission. I left her dinner on a tray, at the door, and a few minutes later it was gone, which was a good sign. She was a good kid. She would never punish me by starving herself, especially not after months when she couldn’t eat because of her illness.
She wanted an explanation, but I couldn’t give it to her. I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I supposed I was going to have to live with the pain caused by the fact that I’d upset her. With the hurt that I was lying to her, and when she grew up and realized, she was going to hate me for the rest of her life.
But at least she would have the rest of her life to hate me.
I moved around the ground floor, walking into each room and checking the windows, drawing the curtains closed to make sure the Poppets couldn’t peer inside. I kept my gaze lowered as I did that, not wanting to fall for their tricks again. I wanted to believe that if one of them took my mother’s shape again and whispered to me in her voice, I wouldn’t follow it outside like I’d done the last time, but it was better to be safe than sorry. These creatures had a way of getting under my skin. Just a few more days until I could bring Lady Mews home, then, if I was lucky and Ma-Vasha didn’t lose her patience and came to collect what was due to her – namely, my soul – one more week to enjoy my sister’s company, to kiss her and hug her tight, before I abandoned her like my parents abandoned us.
To think about all of it... What had happened these past few days and what was to come... It was too much. I felt my chest constricting and my breath coming out in pained gasps. I paced around the living room, then moved to the kitchen, where I paced some more, feeling like I was going mad. My fight or flight instinct was kicking in, and I was starting to feel claustrophobic. I rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the door to the sunroom.
The two times I’d summoned the soul-eating creature, I’d done it in the sunroom, at night. Since the moment Ma-Vasha materialized in there for the first time, the room had felt tainted with her dark, malevolent power, so I’d locked the door and told Elysia the room needed to be cleaned, and it was better to not play in there because of all the dust. Elysia didn’t question me, especially since she wasn’t necessarily a fan of the sunroom. It was mostly my place, where I went to read and paint. I loved the natural light; Elysia, not so much. She spent a lot of her time either on her phone or her tablet, and she claimed all the sun made it impossible to see the screen.
Grim wasn’t back yet. It was shocking to realize how much I needed him. He’d only been gone for a few hours, and I could even say that... I missed him. I’d gotten used to his presence in the house, to him following me around like a shadow. A protective shadow. I knew it was his job and I’d paid him to do it, but I couldn’t help but think it had become more than that. Earlier, before he left, I’d done something that was so unlike me – I’d sat on his lap and kissed him. It had been a chaste kiss, on the cheek, but who was I kidding? I’d had to stop myself from kissing him right on the mouth. It would’ve been inappropriate, seeing how he was my bodyguard and nothing more, but at the same time... I didn’t think it would’ve been completely wrong. He liked me, I could tell.
The way Grim looked at me... No man had looked at me like that before. Not even...
No. I wasn’t going to go there. I would not think about him. Not tonight, when I had so many other things to worry about.
Like Grim. Where was Grim? Why wasn’t he back?
Did I hope he would return with good news? That he’d found a way for me to get out of the terrible deal I’d made? Sure, but also... no. That wasn’t it. I wanted him to come back already because I needed him here. His presence soothed me, and when we touched, when I sat beside him on the couch and pressed my body to his, my entire being became alive with things I hadn’t felt in ages. In eight years, to be exact, and come to think about it, eight years of being with no man was a lot. But how could I be with a man when I didn’t trust any of them? Grim was different. I could trust him with my life, and not just because I’d paid a small fortune to Monster Security Agency to secure him as my bodyguard.
He was like no man I’d ever met before. He cared. He truly cared about me and Elysia, and he didn’t even spare a second glance at the mansion or thought about the fortune attached to the Aster name. When he looked at me, he didn’t see heaps of money. He saw me. And that made me feel so safe, so wanted and appreciated that I couldn’t help falling for him. Hard. I didn’t care that underneath his magical cloak he was a skeleton covered in patches of melted skin and darkness. The two times I’d slept pressed against his side, he’d felt real, solid, carnal. I didn’t care what his body looked like. I didn’t care he had a skull for a head, and no eyes in his eye sockets. He stirred things within me that had been dormant for eight years.
With nothing else to do, I found myself standing in front of the door to the sunroom. Before I knew it, I was digging in my pocket for the key and unlocking the door, stepping inside. The room smelled musty. There was a twinge of decay in the air, and I realized it was coming from the flowerpots. I hadn’t watered the plants in here for days, and they were dying. I wrapped my arms around myself and advanced to the center of the room. The tall windows let in the soft glow of the moonlight and stars. There were no drapes, as the whole point of a sunroom was to let in the sun.
Something shifted outside, in the dark, and I instantly shifted my gaze to the floor. I knew the Poppets were out there, watching me, hoping they could get to me now that I was standing in plain view. But I knew to ignore them. They could slither their way into my mind when I was asleep, but they couldn’t enter the house. In fact, they’d lost access to my mind, too, seeing how I wasn’t going to fall asleep unless I was protected by Grim’s cloak. We’d made it into an unspoken rule.
“Millie?” Grim’s voice pulled me out of my trance.
I turned to see him standing in the doorway. He must’ve teleported a few seconds ago, so silently that I hadn’t heard him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
That was when I looked around me and saw the sheer number of Poppets gathered outside, at the windows. They were everywhere, maybe a dozen of them or more, their straw hands pressed to the glass, their dark eyes staring at me. When I made eye contact with one of them, they started whispering all at once.
I closed my eyes and pressed my hands to my ears. Grim was at my side in an instant.
“Millie, you can’t be in here. You keep this room locked for a reason.”
“Can you hear them too?”
“No. They don’t speak to me, only to you. Don’t listen to them. Come on.”
He tried to pull me towards the door, but my legs refused to move. I was stuck in place, and when he saw his efforts were pointless, he lifted me into his arms. I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my head in his chest.
“Take me to my room,” I whispered.
I thought he was going to walk out of the sunroom and up the stairs, but he chose to fulfill my wish in a different way. One moment, we were in the sunroom, surrounded by Poppets tapping on the windows, the next, we were in the middle of my bedroom. I opened my eyes and blinked in confusion. Whisps of dark fog danced around us, only to disappear seconds later like dust chased by a draft.
“What...? How did you do that?”
“I figured it was much easier to teleport,” he said, gently placing me down on my feet.
I clung to him, though, not wanting to let go. “I thought teleporting was much more complicated than this. That I’d feel… dizzy.”
Grim smiled, his teeth showing in a creepy, yet such a familiar way. His smile warmed my heart.
“I’m a smooth teleporter,” he said.
“I guess you are”. I lifted myself on my toes and reached for his face. He had one arm around my waist, and he was holding his scythe with his other hand. “Grim,” I whispered, my gaze falling to his lips. “What took you so long? You’ve been gone all day.”
“I went to see a friend,” he said. “Then I tried to find answers to your problem, but... We have to wait.”
I nodded, biting my lower lip. My face was inches from his. His lips were thin and pale. Seeing him from up close, I realized that there was some substance to him, even where it seemed like there was just bone, shiny and exposed. I couldn’t begin to understand how he was made, how he was held together by the magic that had revived him and recreated him a century ago.
“I’m sorry I don’t have better news,” he said.
“Shh...” I closed the space between us, pressed myself to him, and kissed him right on the mouth.
I felt him tense up. His hand, which had been resting on my lower back, gripped my shirt. For a moment, I thought he was going to pull away. He didn’t. He stood there, stunned, not knowing what to do. When I started moving my lips against his bony ones, he slowly responded. It was as if I had to coax him, assure him this was okay, show him that I wanted it.
In the end, he did pull away and looked deep into my eyes. I wondered what he saw when he stared into my blue irises like that. Did he see my soul? Because I could see nothing when I stared into his endless sockets, and it bothered me a little, to be fair. It was as if he was a mystery that I was never going to solve.
“Millie,” he whispered my name like a prayer. “Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“You could have any man... Why me?”
“Because you see me,” I said, clinging to him once more, pulling his face to mine.
“This can’t end well.”
“I don’t care.” I pressed my mouth to his again, kissing him hard. “I have less than two weeks to live.” I took his hand and led him to my four-poster bed. “I’ve been so sad for so long, and I’m tired of feeling sad and lonely. Will you help me feel happy for the little while I have left on this earth?”
He followed me, and when we reached the bed, I gently touched his hand that was holding his scythe. I could swear... he never seemed to let go of that thing. I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it, so with a brush of my fingers on his wrist, I signaled I wanted him to leave it somewhere for once. I needed to feel both his hands on me. He understood, because he stepped away and left it leaning against the wall, next to the nightstand.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I sat on the edge of the bed and slowly removed my shirt. “Yes.”
He looked at me with such intensity that I felt naked before him, even if I wasn’t. Yet.
“You know I can’t...” He ran his fingers over his cloak, where it was well secured over his chest.
“I don’t care. With or without it, I want you.” I removed my bra, then, letting him see my round, heavy breasts. It was annoying that I couldn’t read his face – because there was nothing to read; bones didn’t exactly have... features – but the low growl that escaped him told me all I needed to know.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he said in a low, husky voice. He moved closer, until he was standing between my knees. His hand reached out, and the tips of his fingers traced the curve of my breast.
“I think I have an idea...” My breath hitched when his fingers brushed my nipple.
“You shouldn’t want to do this with me,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Aside from the fact that we come from entirely different worlds, you’re alive and I’m not.”
“I won’t be alive for much longer.”
He didn’t say anything. I could tell he really didn’t like it when I reminded him – and myself – that fate was coming for me. Fate in the form of Ma-Vasha’s hunger for my soul. It was ruining the mood, so I made a mental note to stop talking about it, at least when we were intimate. I fisted his cloak and pulled him towards me. He fell on top of me, and I scooted up on the bed. He followed me, his body incapable of resisting mine.
“Touch me,” I said.
“Millie...”
I fumbled with his cloak where it hung heavy around his hips, and finally, I managed to slip my hands underneath it and find his belt. I pulled at it, undid it, and next were the buttons. I could feel his hard cock tenting in his pants, and a rush of excitement overtook me. I wanted to feel it, see what it was like. Considering that Grim was dead – or so he said, though I was more inclined to call him undead – he could sure produce an erection.
Finally, my fingers wrapped around his cock, and to my surprise, the skin was smooth and slightly warm to the touch. The rest of him was cold, though... Was it my imagination, or was his body starting to warm up?
“How?” I asked, stroking him firmly, enjoying the way he filled my hand.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice choked up. “I... I’ve never done this before... As a reaper, I mean. I didn’t know my body was capable of it.”
I continued to stroke his cock as my other hand sneaked under his shirt to touch his stomach. The skin there wasn’t smooth. It was scarred and rough, but I didn’t mind it one bit.
“You’re warming up,” I said. Now I knew it wasn’t my imagination. The more I touched him, the warmer he became.
“You’re doing this to me...”
I grinned as I gently squeezed the head of his cock. “What am I doing to you?”
He gasped, moaned... “Everything... It’s you. It’s all you. Only you.”