Chapter 17
I’m pretty sure I’ve never slept better in my life .
Waking up without being afraid that something is breaking in or from some shitty nightmare is a nice experience. And I fully expect to see Cairo gone now that the sun is up. It’s what always happens to monsters and myths, after all, and he’s a bit of both in my mind.
But when I turn over, my arm brushes against something warm and solid.
I open my eyes to find him right beside me, his eyes on my face and his expression thoughtful.
He reaches out to me, and just when I think he’s going to do something sweet like brush my hair back from my face, he instead wraps his fingers around my throat and pulls me to him with a purr of possessive satisfaction.
“You look good like this,” Cairo tells me in a husky, soft tone.
“Like what? Tired?” I murmur, not fighting his grip on my neck or particularly freaked out about it. “Post-panic and post-slightly dissociative?”
His mouth twitches in a grin, and he rolls his eyes. “No, little bird. Marked as mine and worn out from what I did to you. Though I want to do so much more to you. I was keeping myself a little human, for you.”
“What?” I ask, surprised and more than a little confused. “What do you mean?”
Cairo’s eyes glint with amusement. “I’m a monster, Fern,” he reminds me, seeming happy to point that out again.
“If I were to indulge in what I really want with you, then you wouldn’t be getting out of bed today.
I wouldn’t let you.” He speaks with such confidence that my stomach twists and I feel like my chest is full of butterflies.
Before I can remark on it, Cairo glances toward the window, his eyes go serious and his smile fades.
But he doesn’t let go of me. Instead he shifts to wrap an arm around my shoulders, his chin resting against my hair with my face pressed to his shoulder.
With anyone else, I would’ve called the move cute. Affectionate.
With Cairo, it screams possession. Like he sees me as his and is just proving it in any way he pleases.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, when all I feel is the too-fast beat of his heart and his slow breathing. He’s warm against me, like always, and it’s hard not to just close my eyes and drift back to sleep, even though my instincts won’t let me completely forget he’s neither human nor absolutely safe.
“Yes,” he sighs suddenly. “Unfortunately. Lately there’s always something wrong.” He moves his hand, allowing his fingers to skim down my back, like he’s trying to touch every bit of me he can. “They’re restless.”
“Who?”
“The others like me.”
For a moment I only focus on the feeling of his fingers drawing senseless shapes on my back.
But my curiosity gets the better of me, and I can’t help it when questions bubble to my lips; my urge to know more about him is unstoppable.
“What are you, exactly? And don’t say a monster. That’s incredibly vague.”
Cairo huffs out a laugh, and I swear I can sense him rolling his eyes at my attempts at humor. “I didn’t know you needed a label for everything, Fern. But to be honest with you, I’m not even sure what you’d call us. Some of the others say we’re cursed, so I’ve always gone with that.”
“Cursed like you pissed off a witch in a chicken-legged hut?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, and I pay for it when Cairo rolls me onto my back, caging me in when he rises above me on his hands and knees.
His face is close enough to mine that his eyes look black, but a second later they reflect the light, becoming an illuminated green and incredibly unnatural.
It’s creep in a way.
But I’m starting to be less afraid every time I see it. It’s just him . Just a quirk about him that exists, rather than something necessarily bad. He bares those too-sharp teeth that he didn’t have at the asylum, prompting more questions to line up in my head.
“No. Cursed like we did something awful in order to survive, then we paid the karmic price for it.” He clicks his teeth near my face, pulling an involuntary shudder from me.
“It gets cold in these mountains.” His voice takes on that eerie, ambiguous quality again, where he doesn’t sound like himself, but like a jumble of voices all at once.
“How do you do that? The voice thing?”
By now, my inappropriate curiosity barely phases Cairo.
He just blinks, and I see his throat working as he considers it.
But then a slightly less-than-friendly smile appears on his lips, and when he opens his mouth, he says, “ How do you do that? The voice thing ?” In a perfect copy of my voice and tone.
An involuntary shudder goes through me as fear coils like a cold snake in my stomach.
That’s something I don’t know how to get used to, and he doesn’t act like he’s bothered by my fear.
“You ask so many questions, don’t you?” Cairo laughs darkly, back to his own tone.
He leans down, and before I can do anything other than give a quick, surprised inhale, his lips find mine.
He isn’t sweet. But that doesn’t surprise or disappoint me.
He’s voracious and hungry. His kiss is starving, like he wants to eat me from the inside out.
Cairo’s tongue is possessive, tasting every inch of space between my lips like he hasn’t done it before.
Once in a while I feel his teeth against my mouth, but he never bites down.
When I try to sit up a little bit though, a hand is quickly splayed at the base of my throat, and a low growl drifts from his mouth to mine.
“ Stay ,” he orders, in a voice that tells me it’s not up for debate.
“You stay .” I do, expecting him to get up and pull his disappearing act.
Instead, he goes right back to kissing me.
Cairo is unhurried, and thorough. When he’s done with the inside of my mouth, he moves to my face, then my throat; dragging his tongue up the side of my neck in long, savoring sweeps while a purr builds in him.
“Feels like you want to eat me,” I say on a breath, pressing my thighs together as arousal flares to life in my stomach.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Well, that’s because I do.” He captures my mouth again, pinning me to the bed with his hand on my chest once more. Cairo doesn’t offer an apology; he just spends a good five minutes licking and nipping at my mouth until my lips are sore and swollen before he finally sits up.
His eyes dip to where my thighs are pressed together, and a small smile twitches at his lips. He shoves the covers back and before I know what he’s doing, reaches down to shove his hand between my thighs, easily getting between them.
“Poor thing,” he purrs as he slides his fingers against my slit and dips them inside teasingly. “My poor little bird.” When he pulls them out, his fingers are slick and glistening with my arousal. I watch as he brings them to his mouth, his tongue laves against them and his eyes drift shut.
“Something to remember you by,” he tells me, getting to his feet.
“You’re leaving?” I sit up in my bed, aroused and frustrated. “You’re actually, literally leaving ?”
The grin Cairo throws my way tells me that he most definitely is, and I watch as he pulls on his jeans and the long-sleeved tee he came here in.
“Yeah, I’m leaving. I have to go take care of this disquiet.
” His eyes flick to the window again. “It’s better to snuff it out now, I suppose, than have to deal with the consequences later.
” He doesn’t sound thrilled by the idea, and his voice is flat with disdain.
“You’re leaving.” I repeat, still flustered.
Finally, Cairo stops, understanding what I’m saying, and smugness radiates from him.
“What’s wrong, little bird?” he teases in a lilting tone.
“Will you miss me? Will your fingers not be enough for you after last night? Poor thing.” He moves back to the bed to twine his fingers in my hair, and urges me up on my knees until I’m kneeling against him.
“Maybe this way, you’ll miss me,” Cairo purrs, showing off his fangs.
“And next time I show up, maybe you’ll forget about your questions, hmm?
” With that, he kisses me again, just enough to leave me panting when he lets me fall back onto the bed before turning and opening the bedroom door.
He stays long enough to love on Moro, telling her what a good girl she is, before leaving so quietly I don’t even know what door he’s taken.
When I finally force myself up and out of bed, I remind myself that he is in fact the more dangerous one between us, and that I can’t put a hit out on the man/monster I let fuck me last night.
But only because I don’t want to go into debt to a hitman in this economy.
All I can think to do with my day is to get out of the house for a little while.
With Moro in the car, I head back into town, deciding to get my food from the diner I missed out on yesterday thanks to panicking.
“I’ll get you a hot dog if you don’t tear up my car or start a panic,” I tell Moro, sitting in the lot behind both Dr. Radley’s and the diner, only two spots away from where I parked yesterday.
Given that it’s Saturday, I’ve convinced myself that Dr. Radley isn’t here.
So she certainly wouldn’t be plastered to the window staring me down or anything quite so ridiculous.
Which means I’m safe to get my grilled cheese in peace, I hope.
But it’s still difficult to force myself out of the car when she managed to set me off yesterday.
Eventually, I roll down the windows for Moro, telling myself it’s not nearly hot enough to feel like a bad dog owner, and since I’ve called in my order except for the ice cream, I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.
Moro being in the car also lets me pretend that when I walk really fast across the sidewalk with a wary glance up at the window to Dr. Radley’s office, I’m speeding up for my dog’s sake instead of doing it to get away from my therapist’s potential prying gaze a little more quickly.
My food is almost ready, and I pat myself on the back for my timing.
I already ordered Moro a hot dog, so my threats of her only getting it if she’d behaved are empty.
While my fries finish, I order a dreamsicle shake like I’ve been craving, and it takes only another minute for them to hand me the bulgy, white paper bag full of fried, cheesy goodness.
Now, all I have to do is make the quick drive home and figure out what I want to watch while I eat. My few small freelance jobs can be done later, I tell myself, after I’ve watched a few episodes of some questionably realistic court shows with high drama and not so high stakes.
But when I round the corner so my car is back in sight, I come to a stop. “Hey…” My words trail off, because the person standing at my car window where Moro is barking isn’t a stranger like I initially thought.
It’s Hattie.
“Hattie?!” I yelp, unbelieving. I nearly drop what I’m holding, and only belatedly realize that Moro is acting like she is not a fan of the redhead from the asylum. She turns to me, looking at me with wide eyes, and suddenly smiles so much that it lights up her face.
“Fern!” She flies at me, practically knocking me down, and I barely maintain a hold on my food and milkshake while staggering back until my back hits a wall. “He said you were okay,” she rambles. “But I worried. He isn’t always truthful. Isn’t always right .”
I have no idea what she’s saying, or how she’s here. She looks a little worse for wear, with dirt streaked across her face and her shirt needing to be washed three wears ago. But she’s alive and, from what I can see, unharmed.
“Do you mean Cairo?” I ask, confused, as she continues to hold me tight in her shaky embrace. “When did he tell you? How did you?—”
She draws back, her eyebrows pulled together as she searches my face. “Not Cairo. No, no he didn’t tell me.” She shakes her head. “He’s not my friend.”
“Then who’s your friend, Hattie?” She looks at me strangely, and again I look her over. She really does seem different, and a little more off than usual—which is really saying something. “Are you okay?”
“He said you were okay, and you are. He said you should’ve stayed with me. I told you to stay with me.” Her eyes narrow as she chastises me, but I don’t feel guilty about whatever she’s upset about. Then again, I barely have any idea what’s going on.
“Hattie, where have you been? Are you safe? I didn’t think anyone else survived.” Except for Cairo, but that’s a bit different, given what he is. In my mind, I was the only human survivor. Until now.
She hugs me again rather than answering. Hattie rocks us back and forth, humming softly in her throat like I’m the one that’s unwell, instead of her. “It’s okay now.” She sighs contentedly. “You’re okay, like he said. Everything’s okay.”
“How’d you get out?” I ask, trying to match her strange calmness instead of bombarding her with anxious questions. “I came back for you. I was worried about you.”
“So nice to worry about me. But you didn’t have to. Tyler wouldn’t let them hurt me,” Hattie assures me.
Instantly I pull away from her, head tilted. “Tyler?” I repeat. “But how would he?”
A look of frustration crosses Hattie’s face, and she shakes her head. “No, no, he told me not to talk to you about that. So you can’t ask me, Fern,” she tells me, irritated. She backs away, hugging her arms to her chest.
“I’m sorry,” I say, confused. I take a step toward her, but she shakes her head, still backing away. “Hattie…”
My next step closer to her makes her tense, and my use of her name makes her turn and flee.
I don’t chase her—because I’m not a crazy lady who’s going to chase a crazier lady through town—but I do stand where I am, confused.
I resolve to get answers from Cairo the next time I see him, even if I have to do something drastic in order to pry the answers from his lips.