Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
LEVIATHAN
Aiden hasn’t woken up.
As I kneel by his bedside, sobbing, I wonder if he ever will.
The conduit who acts as our doctor said he might have internal bleeding, but without testing, we can’t know. I demanded for the conduit to wake him up, just so I could see his blue eyes again, just so he could hear my voice, but she couldn’t. I asked when he would wake up, and she said he might not.
I lost control. I let the monster within me come out and hurt my precious lamb. I can’t remember if he cried or screamed out for me, can’t remember beating half his face in, can’t remember fracturing his ribs, can’t remember any of it.
But the evidence is right in front of me. His angelic face is broken, parts of him so disfigured that I don’t think I could recognize him if he weren’t the other half of my soul. His beautiful body is a tattered dark purple and deep blue, every inch of him almost swollen.
His soul was always meant to be taken by me but not like this. It was supposed to be tender and intimate, our eyes connected, and with deep-consuming obsession as I took his life. It wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of a complex, surrounded by my screaming brothers, all while I couldn’t tell what I was doing.
I drop my head on the bed, gently reaching for his broken fingers, kissing the tips as I rest my hand on his chest to feel the shallow rise and fall of each strained breath he takes. I eye the knife on the nightstand, wondering for once what the word kindness means. He must be in a tremendous amount of pain. Wouldn’t the kind thing to do be to put him out of his misery? Slit his throat while he sleeps? Say fuck it to traditions and rules and give him peace?
I don’t recognize these thoughts in my head. Bloodshed has never made me so… sad before. Like it hurts to see him hurt. A true physical pain that makes my bones ache. I didn’t think his pain would slice through me like this, tear me in half, and make me wish I was in his place.
“Aiden,” I whisper, kissing his swollen cheek, gliding down until I reach his split lip. “Wake up.”
I just want to hold him. I want to crawl into bed with him and wrap myself around his body until everything is calm, but I’m scared. I’m scared I’ll injure him even more and that’s such an unusual thought to have. All I’ve wanted since I met him was to be the one that brings him pain, that brings him death, that all of those things would belong to me.
Now I don’t know what I want anymore.
But I don’t dwell on that thought, not when there are more important things to worry about.
“We should schedule the ceremony soon before he passes.”
I shut my eyes, a toxic tear dripping down my cheek at Mammon’s words. “No. He’ll wake up.”
Mammon sighs, sitting down beside me on the floor, his back propped up against the bed. “Why bother with it, Leviathan? If he wakes up or if he doesn’t, it won’t change anything.”
Yes, it will.
My nostrils flare at the voice in my head. It’s like I can’t think straight. Gore once had me help him disconnect two necklaces that were twined together. I was able to see each distinct necklace, but my fingers were too big to separate them. That’s what it feels like now. Thoughts and feelings—some foreign, some loud, some a whisper—all curled around each other, and I’m growing frustrated that I’m incapable of untangling them.
“If he wakes up, you’ll still do what you need to do, right?” he presses when I don’t answer him.
I nod. “Yes.”
NO!
Mammon hums, inquisitive stare boring into the side of my head. “Okay. You can continue to have your fun if he does. Just remember what the end goal is, Leviathan.”
Aiden’s death. That’s the end goal.
But it can’t happen now. Not right now. Not when he has to wake up and I have to tell him… I don’t know.
Mammon leaves me, closing the door behind him, and I hear the hushed whispers he shares with my brothers. Even knowing it might hurt him, I do crawl into bed beside Aiden. I don’t wrap myself around him but rest my head on his uninjured shoulder.
“Little lamb,” I mumble, letting the slow beating of his heart soothe me. “There’s so much more for us to say. So much more for us to do. Your death doesn’t belong to you. I choose when you go and it’s not now.”
I wet his shoulder with my tears, unabashed with this newfound wave of understanding that crashes over me. I’m sad. I miss him. I want him to wake up and know what it feels like for him to smile at me. I want to feel his warmth, not just physically, but everywhere.
He’s the one .
The one to kill. The one to sacrifice. The one that’s mine.
The one you don’t want taken away.