Chapter 37 #2
I’m hit so hard with the unfairness of it all that my eyes burn.
I want that life more than I can articulate.
I’m not sure how much longer I can take feeling like a disappointment.
When Reid angles me gently to face him, his gaze brims with empathy.
Not pity, but a deep understanding. And I know he gets it.
“Why can’t we be them?” I ask quietly.
“Not our destiny, I’m afraid.”
“You believe in destiny?” The moment is too charged to mock. And maybe I wouldn’t even if it wasn’t. Not with that look in his eyes.
“You live as long as I do, it’s hard not to feel like it’s all got to be for something.”
And though my limbs are heavy with a bone-deep grief over all the life I’ll likely never get to live, there’s also an expanse blooming in my chest. A feeling of not being so alone.
Even more than Sophia and Peter and Elliot make me feel—my friends may understand my struggles as a hunter, but all three of them grew up with accepting families.
Reid knows exactly what it feels like to be homesick for a life you never lived.
“Reid…” I start. But I’m not sure where to go.
His eyes darken. “I love the sound of my name on your lips.” His fingers go still under my chin, then brush down my throat. My whimper is a noise of pure need. I’m intent on something but too scared to admit what, even to myself. But Reid knows.
He brings his hand around the back of my neck, and every muscle in my body tenses in anticipation. But all he does is pull my hair from its bun. The strands cascade down my back and into my face, and the scent of my vanilla-and-rose shampoo blooms over us both.
“That’s better,” he says, nearly hoarse.
My lips press to his in a rush. It’s a little sloppy, a little quick.
But he kisses me back with the same desperation, and we fall onto the floor.
A vision of us in that other life plays out in my mind: Reid the planetarium expert is kissing my mouth.
He’s coaxing it open with his tongue, soft and yet demanding.
His hands are molding to my hands, my sides, my neck.
His breath in my mouth is drugging, and I’m slipping into something darker and hungrier.
He is no longer human. And neither am I—
No, this kiss is pure creature. Two predators used to getting what they want. I’m clawing at him and he’s letting me. He spreads my knees apart and hikes my skirt up, settling himself between my legs.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” he breathes against the shell of my ear. “I was going insane thinking of you. I was this close to knocking down your door and dragging you to my bed like a caveman.”
“Demonic,” I breathe out. I’m not sure which of us I’m talking about. His hands are everywhere. I can’t think straight.
“No kidding.”
I roll my hips, trying to gain the friction I know we both crave. Reid’s mouth slides down my chest as he shoves my shirt up.
“I wish you had,” I tell him.
He squeezes my body beneath those beautiful hands. My ribs, my hips. Long fingers slide over the outsides of my thighs. His teeth find the lacy band of my bra and he groans into my skin. A guttural noise that makes me shiver.
I pull his face back up to mine. His eyes are hazy and blown out as if he’s done the finest poppy in Astera. “Fuck, Viv—”
My nipples are aching against the lace of my bra. My body twitches and jolts with every touch. His hands cradle my face as he drives his cock against me through our clothes.
“Please,” I beg, knowing what that word does to him.
A sigh of near agony. His hair is a mess when he lifts his face. His mouth swollen and pink like he’s been using it to make me come. “We shouldn’t.”
Adrenaline courses through me. “Let me suck you off.”
Every muscle in his body tenses. “What?”
The ravenous look in his eyes makes me whimper. “You heard me.” I’m hot everywhere and I need to be on my knees.
He shakes his head, fingers stroking softly over my breast and pinching faintly as if he’s forgotten what I’ve asked him. “It’s been…” His cock is so hard against his jeans, I worry for the integrity of his zipper. “Some time. For me.”
I’m surprised someone as gorgeous and charming as Reid hasn’t been fucking half of Harker—or Astera, for that matter—for the last hundred years. The thought of why he’s been celibate so long only serves to remind me of the pain he’s endured. The self-hatred and the loss.
We’re both breathing so hard I wonder if we’ve fogged the room. “I don’t care. Unless…Do you want to stop?”
But he doesn’t answer. Only flips me over onto my stomach and pulls me back until I’m on my knees and elbows.
The new position allows me to shove my face down into my arm, and I manage not to moan like a porn star when he pushes my skirt up and pulls my panties to the side. Thank god for little favors.
The room isn’t that well lit—one or two bulbs on the wall are dead, and the rest are coated in a thin film of dust. But I am still keenly aware that Reid can see the full extent of my want.
I’m surely dripping and slick and ripe as a peach.
I’d be ashamed if I didn’t know he’s just as turned-on as I am.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You need it badly, huh?”
I whine like an animal and push myself closer to him.
But Reid takes his time, caressing my thighs, allowing his thumb to barely brush over my slit and the wetness pooling there.
I hear his jeans unzip and wonder briefly if he’s going to ask to fuck me.
But I only hear the sound of him stroking himself as he spreads me and plays with my lips.
He groans and sighs, and I do too. When he finally circles my clit, I can’t help myself.
I shove myself toward him to get more friction—closer, more—
Reid staggers back, knocking into the console behind us.
With a mighty groan, the ceiling opens up like a giant’s eye blinking awake. The noise startles us enough to shake us from our lust. I allow my panties to slide back over me and pull my skirt down as I come up off my knees. Reid’s hand grazes my lower back as we watch the ceiling breathlessly.
The lights wink out, and a breathtaking vision of the cosmos projects high above our heads.
The pink of a summer sunset and purple like the punch at Cobwebs on Halloween.
And vivid, stormy shipwreck blue. The blue of Reid’s eyes.
Reid falls back so he’s sitting and pulls me into his lap, both of us in awe, silent save for our heavy breathing.
Unable to do anything but stare at the psychedelic ballet of stars above us.
The nebula cascading across the ceiling.
The entire room swimming in softly moving colors.
It’s like we’ve been sucked into a black hole and spit out somewhere mid universe.
“What is that?” I murmur in awe. It’s daytime. How can we see the stars?
Reid’s voice is barely a whisper. “A projection of the lymantrian plane.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He doesn’t respond. When I glance up to find his eyes, he’s studying me intently. There’s an emotion there I can’t place. Or maybe one I just don’t want to.
Reid kisses me again. Slower, softer. His hands curving over my shoulder and cupping my face. He kisses my cheek. My eyelids. My temples. Pulls me in close to him as we watch a celestial kaleidoscope cast dappled violet shadows over us both.
I want to stay in this moment for eternity. I don’t want to squash the static that’s fizzing in my chest. I don’t want to be reminded of the reason we’re both here.
And yet—
“What were you going to do?” I ask him quietly. “When you headed for that wall over there?” Before we began our pretend date. And got carried away…
Reid pulls back, dazed-looking. As if our intimacy, our closeness, has left him spellbound. “Right,” he breathes, voice tight. “Follow me.”
Reid stands, and I remember that my chin barely grazes his collarbone. I have to physically shake off thoughts of him bowing over me, surrounding me from every angle, as he takes my hand in his and guides me toward the back of the room.
“I had the idea as soon as you said insulation,” he says, brandishing one gothic black claw and slicing it through the dark foam covering the wall. “The flowers are sensitive to light and sound.”
Before I can say anything, he rips back the thick layers. A whirring sounds in my ears. The noise of an electrical closet. Before us lies the outline of a door. Reid pulls out his key card and unlocks it.
Inside, we’re met with a galaxy of blinking lights. Buttons, screens, sleek black keyboards, high-quality equipment, and—
At the center of the room is a small iron planter of glowing white flowers beneath a wide skylight, drenching their dainty petals in afternoon light.
The barrier of intricately woven metal is illuminated by twinkling yellow bulbs.
It’s humid like a greenhouse, so the walls sweat condensation, and moisture already dots my brow.
“I know they have to be kept as high as possible, but…why in here?”
“It’s not a room most students even know exists. And it’s accessible by staff but draws no attention…” Reid studies the blooms, wiping the humidity from his chin. “Perhaps they like the ambient sound of the equipment.”
My eyes crawl over the asphodels. They gently illuminate the buttons around them, their pointed petals stretching up to the skylight as if yawning under a hot morning sun.
And there’s a patch of them—just four or five stems—missing.
Yanked from the earth. The soil dry and cracked where they were stolen.
Reid curses, following my eyeline. “We need to go to the dean. This is…” His jaw has gone to rigid steel. “You were right. The school isn’t safe anymore.”
The buzzing tickles my ears as I turn around in the small closet-size space.
There’s not much room between the monitors, the garden, the dimly lit lanterns, and Reid and me.
No evidence of anything out of the ordinary.
If a deviant broke in, wouldn’t even one knob be out of place?
I’m studying the stone walls and rough floor, looking for any kind of evidence that someone was in here who shouldn’t have been, when Reid’s phone buzzes.
“What’s that?” I say, pointing to a small plastic baggie filled with red powder.
Reid leans over and picks it up. He opens the bag and sniffs. “Poppy.”
But my stomach has plummeted. There’s something on the other side of the bag. A set of white antlers. “I’ve seen that design before.”
With the second buzz of his phone, I nearly jump, anxiety trickling through my bloodstream. “You want to get that?”
But Reid’s eyes are unmoving on me. “Where? Where have you seen it?”
I can’t remember. My heart is slamming and the room is humming and my mind is a blank and Reid’s phone buzzes again and—
“Check it,” I snap. I have a bad feeling that I pray is fake-first-date, stolen-asphodel, illegal-drug jitters and not my damn hunter instinct.
Reid frowns. “What are you worried about? We’re the ones with the bad news.”
“What if the school’s been attacked again? Or another student has mysteriously disappeared?”
Reid hands me the bag of poppy to search his pockets. “We solved the Kitty thing, remember? Nobody else is going to disappear, I promise.”
He digs his phone out and reads the incoming texts. Even under the soft glow of the machinery and the filtered skylight, I can see the color drain from his face.
My heart stills. “What is it?”
“Lyra Roth. She’s…gone missing.”
And then I remember where I’ve seen the symbol.