Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rocco
I held tight to Selena. I could still taste the demon's presence — sulfur, thick and rancid, coating my tongue.
But worse than that, so much worse, was Lucien's blood.
Still on my lips. Still in my mouth. It should have surged through me like fire, given me strength the way a vampire's feed always did.
Instead it sat in my gut like poison. Every swallow tasted like what I'd done.
He was my friend. And I would have killed him if it hadn't been for Selena.
Another nightmare to live down. Another face I'd see when I closed my eyes.
Selena pulled back and stared into my eyes. "We need to leave. Stay here." She ran across the chamber, scooped up the shard, and slipped it into her back pocket.
I nodded. Couldn't speak. Couldn't look at her for too long either, because the way she looked at me—like I was still worth something—made it worse.
How was I going to face the others?
I was a monster.
Again.
She came back and helped me to my feet. I put my arm around her shoulders, leaning into her more than I wanted to admit.
Across the chamber, Lucien staggered to his feet, one hand pressed to his torn throat. He grabbed the other stone—the one Vex claimed held the black magic cursing the Keep—and tucked it under his arm.
Lucien and Raven hobbled up the stairs, her arm wrapped around his waist, his hand still pressed to his throat.
We weren't far behind, though every step cost me more than I'd ever admit.
Selena's shoulder dug into my ribs and she never once complained.
She just kept moving, kept holding me up, kept breathing like that was enough to keep us both alive.
The night air hit my face when we reached the courtyard and I nearly buckled. Clean air. No sulfur. No smoke. No screaming.
We made it out. We actually made it out.
A flap of wings echoed above us. My head snapped up, fangs baring on instinct. Vex.
But the wings that caught the light were gold, not black. Darius landed in the courtyard, folding them behind him—and stopped dead.
His face changed. I watched it happen—the easy confidence draining out of him like someone had pulled a plug.
His eyes moved over Raven first, then Lucien's torn throat, the blood saturating his shirt, the way he could barely stand.
Then they locked on me. On the blood smeared across my mouth and chin.
Accusation. Instant and sharp.
"Fuck—what happened?" His voice cracked on the last word. He moved toward Raven, hands reaching for her, then stopped himself, fists clenching at his sides like he didn't know who to go to first.
"He was possessed," Selena said before I could speak. Her voice was steady. Mine wouldn't have been.
Lucien lifted his head. He looked like death—gray-skinned, swaying on his feet, Raven the only thing keeping him vertical. But his voice was firm. "It wasn't his fault. Vex called upon a demon."
Darius stared at me for a long beat. I held his gaze even though everything in me wanted to look away. Go ahead. Say it. Say what I already know.
He didn't. He just exhaled—slow, ragged—and ran a hand over his face.
A large bat glided into the courtyard, shifting into Valentin. He took one look at us and his jaw tightened. "What happened?"
"Vex is back in hell," Selena said. "But we need to get out. We have the shard." She looked up at me, searching my face. "Can you shift?"
Every bone in my body screamed no. "Yeah. I can."
I forced the shift. It came slower than it should have, my body resisting, muscles trembling through the change.
In the air, I couldn't hold a straight line — drifting, dipping, correcting.
Selena stayed in front of me the whole way, glancing back every few seconds like she was afraid I'd drop out of the sky.
I wouldn't. Not yet. Not until we were clear of this place.
We had the damn shard. Costin and Angelo would get their prize.
I just wasn't sure any of us would be the same after what it cost.
Rose and Alice waited outside the Keep, slumped against a tree. Their faces were white, drawn, hollowed out — like something inside that place had reached through the walls and fed on them too.
We landed next to them. The sun was beginning to rise, pale light bleeding through the trees, chasing away the darkness.
But not the nightmare. That part, we'd carry with us.
I shifted back into my human form, but I stumbled and placed my hand against a tree to keep from falling down. I hated looking weak.
Darius told them what happened.
Rose looked between Rocco and me. Something shifted in her expression—not pity, something worse. Understanding. “You’re vulnerable, Rocco, for possession.”
Her soft words landed like a brand. Vulnerable. Open. A door that any demon could walk through whenever it wanted. How could I ever be with Selena? How could I hold her, sleep beside her, build a life with her when any day, any moment, something could crawl inside me and use my hands to hurt her?
Two times now. Two times something else had worn my skin. Two times too many.
Selena’s breath hitched. “That’s not true.”
I couldn’t look at her. “She’s right, Selena. This is the second time.”
“Don’t do this.” Her voice broke. “Don’t you dare pull away from me right now.”
Silence stretched between us. The kind that hurts. The kind that means our happiness was an illusion.
Rose spoke again, slowly, carefully, like she was testing each word before letting it go.
“I’ve been thinking of the shard. I may be able to craft a spell—a ward against possession.
But I need it to make sure.” Her gaze moved across each of us.
“For all of us. Vex will want revenge when he finds back. But right now…” She put the back of her hand against forehead. “I’m too weak.”
Selena reached into her back pocket and puled out the shard. “Here.”
She tossed it into Rose’s lap.
Valentin stepped forward and lifted her into his arms without a word. She didn’t argue. That alone told me how drained she was.
We made our way down from the Keep, slow and silent, back toward the village. No one spoke. The sun climbed higher and the shadows shrank behind us, but I could still feel the dark at my back.
I wasn't sure I'd ever stop feeling it.
Villagers stared as we passed. I didn't blame them. Lucien and me, covered in dried blood, clothes stiff with it. I was sure I looked exactly like what I was.
A monster.
Luckily, the same inn had our rooms available. The moment the door closed behind us, I turned to Selena. "You need to forget about—"
She pressed her finger to my lips. "No, Rocco. You're not going to push me away again."
I took her wrist gently and lowered it. "You saw what I did to my mother." My voice came out rough. Scraped raw. "What I did to Lucien. Rose said I was vulnerable — marked, Selena. Any demon can walk right in."
"She also said she thought she knew a spell that might keep us all from being possessed."
I wanted to believe her. But something about me was different — broken, maybe, or just built wrong. Demons didn't have to fight their way in. They slipped inside like I was an open door, like my body welcomed them even when my mind was screaming.
My mother's face flashed behind my eyes. Her face. The terror in her eyes when she realized it wasn't me anymore. The blood. God, the blood. I'd spent years trying to bury that memory and it never stayed down.
If that happened to Selena...
If she ever looked at me with that kind of fear...
I couldn't breathe.
You need to get cleaned up," she said softly.
She took my hand—her palm warm against my ice-cold fingers— and led me into the bathroom's harsh fluorescent light.
She didn't push. Didn't argue. Didn't try to convince me I was wrong.
Steam billowed around us as she turned the ancient copper knobs, water sputtering then streaming.
She started unbuttoning my mud-caked shirt, her fingertips leaving trails of warmth against my goosefleshed chest, and I stood there like a vase glued back together wrong, letting her take care of me because I didn't have the strength to stop her.
She peeled the shirt from my shoulders, the fabric stiff with dried blood, and let it drop to the cracked tile floor with a wet slap.
Then she stripped out of her own clothes—quick, efficient movements— and stepped into the shower.
I kicked off my jeans and followed her in, the hot water needling my skin, too tired to argue, too empty to pretend I didn't need this.
Not a word was spoken as she just stood close.
I breathed deeply, taking in her scent, a clean scent that made me feel whole again.
Her hands moved slow and steady across my skin, washing away blood that wasn't mine.
I closed my eyes and let the heat sink into me, let her fingers trace the places where the demon had lived inside my muscles, my bones, my hands.
The water ran red for a long time.
I still didn’t feel clean. I wasn't sure I'd ever feel clean again.
Selena's lips pressed against mine, soft yet insistent, as her delicate fingers traced patterns across my exhausted shoulders and down my chest.
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her.
But my body didn’t care what I deserved.
My arms pulled her closer, desperate for the heat radiating from her skin, desperate to feel something that wasn’t guilt or blood or sulfur.
Her delicate fingers traced patterns across my exhausted shoulders and down my chest, and everywhere she touched, the demon’s memory flinched and retreated.
She slid her hand downward, her cool palm encircling me with gentle pressure that quickly transformed into rhythmic strokes that made my breath catch. A sound escaped me—raw, broken, somewhere between relief and agony—and I buried my face in her neck.
Stay. Stay with me. Don’t let me disappear into this.
I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t have to. Her free hand came up to the back of my head, fingers threading through my wet hair, holding me against her like she could feel every thought I couldn’t speak.
"Selena," I breathed. Her name was the only word I had left.
Her thighs were slick and fever-hot against my hands. My fingers found her and she arched into me, spine curving, a sound escaping her lips that went through me like electricity. I kissed her and tasted wintergreen on her tongue, sharp and clean, and underneath it something darker, hungrier.
"Take me," she whispered, and her voice broke on it.
Something inside me broke too.
I lifted her, forearms hooked under her knees, pressing her back against the cool tile.
She wrapped around me, rolled her hips, and when I pushed inside her, a sound tore out of me that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with being found — pulled back from the edge of something I'd been falling into all night.
She was heat and pulse and alive, and I was still here. Still me. Still hers.
I needed her. Needed to feel her. Needed this one last time before I walked away forever.
Her ankles locked at the small of my back, pulling me deeper. She pressed her lips to my throat — soft, barely there — then I felt it. The tips of her fangs dragging slow across my vein. A question. A promise.
I tilted my head back and gave her my throat. The most vulnerable thing a vampire could offer another. Take it. Take all of it.
I had to tell her. She had to know before I left that it was never her. It was always me.
"I love you." It came out broken. A confession and an apology and a goodbye all tangled into three words she'd never forgive me for once she understood what they meant.
She struck. Her fangs sank into my neck and I felt my blood rush to meet her — not taken, given — and the intimacy of it shattered me.
This wasn't feeding. This was two souls trying to crawl inside each other.
I drove into her so hard the wall cracked behind her, and she drank from me in deep, hungry pulls that matched every thrust.
I poured everything into her. My blood. My body. Every broken, monstrous part of me.
If this was the last time, she'd remember it. She'd remember me.