34. Gabe
Alexa play: Run Away to Mars by TALK
I wasn’t sure how long I roamed the streets of Salem after Shem ruined my orgasm in that Satan-forsaken club. My mind was in shambles. The anger in my chest gathered and pulsed through my veins with each beat of my black heart, and I couldn’t get a handle on it.
I spent hours going back and forth on whether or not I should hunt that witch down and fucking kill him. At one point, I manifested the scepter, spinning it in my hand as I stood in an empty cemetery. I didn’t even know which one I had wandered into.
It didn’t matter.
No matter where I went, I couldn’t escape the haunting image of Shemhazai kissing another man.
Kissing him.
It was somehow worse than fucking. It was something I had foolishly assumed he’d only reserved for me.
I considered finding a drink somewhere.
I considered leaving Shem here and returning to Hell.
I considered disappearing for good .
But finally, I went back to the dead man’s house because as much as I hated it, the truth was—Shemhazai had my heart… whether he deserved it or not.
I didn’t know what to do with him or what to do with this toxic, bleating need in my chest to be close to him. It was like he was a part of me, and I think, in some way, he always had been.
I still remember the first time I saw him. Yahweh had sent me to Hell as Ramel’s replacement, and I had found Shemhazai alone and morose in the House of the Fallen, staring into the viridian flames of the main fireplace like they could fix whatever was broken inside of him.
His hair—black as the feathers on my wings—had fallen in limp tufts over dull green eyes, and I’d felt a click in my chest. I knew immediately that this demon would mean something to me, I just hadn’t understood what.
I knew now.
We had been crafted of similar materials, and we fed off the same darkness born from abuse and trauma. Though I knew on some level, whatever Shem had suffered was much worse than what I’d suffered. On top of that, he’d been left for millennia to deal with that pain alone.
But still.
It was no excuse.
Even I had a breaking point.
I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t stay if he refused to give me any real pieces of himself.
It wasn’t fair to either of us.
I walked into the house, my scepter hanging from limp fingers and my bones so tired I felt mortal.
The lights were on, but that wasn’t unusual. It’s not like we’d been worried about saving electricity.
So, I didn’t think anything of it as I kicked the door shut behind me and made my way to the stairs with plans to take a hot shower and go to bed.
“I told you not to walk away from me.”
I glanced up, surprised to find Shemhazai waiting for me in the kitchen, his hands in his pockets and an unreadable expression on his face.
The part of me that still thought of him as mine let out a sigh of relief. I’d expected him to disappear again. Maybe fuck his way through every witch in Salem to punish me. But he hadn’t. He’d come here—to find me—it would seem.
But I was too tired to play his twisted games.
My anger wasn’t gone, but it was cold now, instead of the white-hot thing that had turned me into a rabid animal hours before.
My resolve solidified into an icy shell of armor around my heart, and I no longer looked at Shemhazai as someone I wanted to chase and protect but as someone I needed protection from.
Because if I continued down this path with him, he would destroy me.
I knew that now.
“Leave me alone, Shemhazai. I’m going to bed.”
“You left,” he hissed, prowling toward me and grabbing my arm, much the same way I’d done to him on the dance floor earlier.
Mimicking him, I stared at his hand for a long beat, hoping he would get the hint and let me go.
When he didn’t, I sighed and met his eyes. They were shimmering in the warm light from the kitchen, and I couldn’t work out the expression on his face.
“I did.”
“We weren’t finished.”
“I was. I am.”
“What the fuck does that mean!?”
I frowned, surprised at the edge of desperation in his voice. His hand quivered on my arm, and for once, I didn’t think it was from anger.
“It means things are going to need to change if you want this to continue, Shemhazai.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I watched as he struggled to beat back his true nature.
I knew him. He wanted to dominate me and tell me I didn’t have a choice. He wanted to tell me that I had to bend to him and obey.
Yeah.
Well.
That wasn’t going to happen.
I wasn’t naturally submissive. I submitted to Shemhazai because he needed me to and because I… I almost chuckled sadly as I realized that Skoll and Fenrir had be en right.
I loved him.
I must, right? Why would someone put up with the shit I did if they didn’t love the person that was so hellbent on hurting them?
When he couldn’t seem to be able to conjure a response, I gently untangled my arm from his grip and moved to turn back to the stairs.
“Goodnight, Shemhazai.”
“Wait!”
He grabbed me again, and I paused, my eyebrows raising at how vulnerable he looked.
“What?”
“... Change… How?” he bit out, clearly forcing himself to try and meet me halfway.
It was something, at least. It was more than he had ever given me before, so I rewarded the effort with an answer.
“I need more from you.”
He scowled, and his lip curled in a snarl. I nearly sighed in frustration.
Rolling my eyes, I pulled away from him again, but he jerked me back, desperately trying to keep me with him.
“Why do you have to be like this?” he snapped. “Why can’t you just leave well enough alone? You pick, and you pick, and it’s fucking exhausting, Gabriel.”
A complex flurry of emotions flickered across his expression. I tried to track and identify them as they flowed through the perfect lines of his face, but some of them came and went too quickly to catalog.
Anger.
Fear.
Desperation.
Sorrow.
Pain.
Loneliness.
Need.
Not one of the feelings I identified was good or positive. He was a mess inside, and if he was feeling even an ounce of what he was showing me right now, my heart ached for him.
But it wasn’t enough .
I reached out and cupped his face, gently running my thumb over his jaw, and he shuddered. His eyes closed briefly, and he visibly struggled to get himself under control as I gently stroked him.
“Because, Shemhazai. You treat me like shit.” I didn’t say it with anger.
The words came out softly. They were just a statement of fact.
An undeniable truth, and when he opened his eyes to look at me, I knew he agreed.
“I know that a lot of what you do stems from some horrible trauma you’ve suffered.
I’m not blind. But… I can’t continue to allow you to break me like this without something in return.
You have to give me something, anything, to help me understand why you treat me the way that you do. ”
“I – I –” he stuttered.
I watched him battle with himself in silence and willed him to come out of his internal battle on the side that would save us. He was strong. I knew he could fight his demons and win. If I could, I would fight them for him, but that wasn’t possible. This was something he needed to do on his own.
“Come on, Shemhazai. Give me something. Anything,” I encouraged him softly. His heart was beating so hard I could see his pulse leaping in his throat.
He opened his mouth, and for one hopeful moment, I thought he might do it.
But then, his mouth shut with a snap, and his eyes hardened.
“I can’t,” he hissed, and all the hope bled out of my body. I felt myself visibly deflate, and I spun my scepter absently in my hand at my side.
“Can’t or won’t?”
He pursed his lips, and that was all the answer I needed.
“Goodnight, Shemhazai,” I said again, and he snapped.
“No. You don’t get to dismiss me! You promised yourself to me; you are mine. I own you,” he snarled.
Suddenly, his fists were in my shirt, and he spun me away from the stairs and slammed me against the wall so hard several frames tumbled to the ground and shattered.
He crushed his mouth into mine and desperately tried to kiss me, but I didn’t open for him. His lips moved against mine, but I just stood there, silently rejecting him .
“Kiss me back,” he snarled, attempting to shove his tongue into my mouth, but I growled and shoved him away with a firm hand on his chest.
“No. You taste like that fucking whore, ” I growled, but he batted my hand away and bit down on my neck instead.
It did nothing for me.
The memory of that witch exploring Shemhazai’s willing mouth right in front of me was too fresh. I was still too hurt and angry to indulge him.
Shemhazai’s hands fell to my belt, and he fumbled with the buckle, causing me to snarl.
“Shem, stop,” I ordered, but he ignored me, desperately attempting to get my belt undone.
“I said fucking stop!” I snapped, pushing him away again. He hissed in rage and snatched up my hand, slamming it into the wall by my head.
“You’re mine.”
“No, I’m fucking not. I’m not your property. ” I tore my hand out of his grip and shoved him back further. “I don’t belong to you. I’m your fucking partner! Until you can get that through your head, I don’t have anything more to say to you.”
Then, to my complete shock, he dropped to his knees before me and reached for the buckle of my belt again.
Shemhazai didn’t give head.
The closest he’d ever come was wrapping his lips around my tip to swallow my release as I came. I suspected it had something to do with whatever had been done to him.
Similar to why he never undressed during sex.
I was never allowed to properly touch him, and he never bottomed.
He got me off with his hands, and he had fucked me only once before, over Yule, after I had given him the Yule tree he’d wanted so badly. Even then, he’d stayed almost fully clothed.
So, for him to be so desperate that he was willing to give me his mouth was significant.
I looked down at him, and his hands were shaking. His green eyes were swimming with a wetness I’d never seen in them before, and the tremble of his lip broke my heart.
“Shemhazai. ”
“You can take from me,” he said, his voice quivering. “Let me… let me give you this.”
It took a moment for me to realize he was begging me, and I softened further.
I wrapped my hand around his jaw and tilted his head up to face me.
His eyes were impossibly large right now. He looked young and small on his knees before me.
“No. Shemhazai. I won’t take something from you that you don’t want to give me.”
“I do want it.”
I sighed.
“No, you don’t. You’re giving this to me because it’s the lesser of two evils for you. This isn’t what I want. I told you what I want from you. Until you can give me that, then this is a waste of time.”
I brushed my thumb over his lips, and he stared at me with so much raw pain in his eyes, and my heart cracked further.
“Are you going to leave me?” he asked, his voice so tiny, I couldn’t believe it was him speaking.
“That’s up to you.”
The blood drained from his face, and for a moment, I worried I’d gone too far, but then, he hardened again and snarled. He jerked his chin out of my hand and went for my belt again.
“You’re going to take what I’m offering, and then we’re putting this night behind us.” He hissed, and I finally snapped.
I brought my foot up and planted it in his chest, firmly kicking him away from me hard enough that he went tumbling backward.
He leapt to his feet—hissing and spitting in fury—but I drew my scepter back over my shoulder in a clear threat of what would happen if he tried to touch me again.
“I said no. Shemhazai. You’re going to need to learn how to take no for a fucking answer.”
His gaze flicked to my scepter in disbelief, as if he couldn’t truly process the fact that I had just threatened to use it against him.
Betrayal and anger warred across his features, and his mouth opened and closed twice as we stood there. The air around us was so tight with tension, one more pull and it would snap.
“So… it’s like that?” He gaped, glancing away from the scepter to meet my gaze.
“Yeah, Shemhazai. It’s like that.”
“You’re pathetic,” he hissed, and I rolled my eyes, brushing past him and making my way to the stairs for the final time that night.
“Good night, Shemhazai. I’m sleeping in the spare room. In case it wasn’t clear, you’re not welcome to join me. Go wash that whore’s stench off of you. You reek.”
And for the second time that night, I left him.
And this time, he let me.