Chapter 20
TWENTY
Quin
Quin’s body felt like it had been run through the washing machine, complete with an extra spin cycle. He tried to move, but found himself constrained by something solid around his wrists.
Blinking, he opened his eyes. He was in his bedroom—he could tell that much—and it was dark.
He yanked on whatever was weighing him down, and his headboard creaked.
Craning his neck, he saw the thick metal chains that held him in place; the ones he’d used to keep his beast in check when it had longed to chase after Kit.
A noise of confusion escaped him, to which he heard an answering sound. This one sounded more distressed than confused, though.
He scanned the room, catching sight of Kit sitting against the wall beside the door. He had his knees pulled up to his chest and was staring right at Quin, unmoving.
“Baby?” Quin croaked.
Kit stood. His eyes narrowed, studying Quin.
“Why am I chained to the bed?” Quin’s lips were swollen, and he pressed his tongue to a bump on the inside of his cheek. There was the taste of old blood in his mouth.
Kit had a shrewd look on his face. “You don’t remember?” he asked.
Quin’s head throbbed. “No, I don’t.”
Kit approached the bed, but stopped well out of Quin’s reach. “Nothing? What’s the last thing you recall?”
It hurt to think. “You left. I showered. And then…” A dark shape. The wrong face. Someone else in control of his body. Recollection hit him all at once, stealing his breath and leaving him winded.
“Quin?” Kit’s voice was quiet.
“Holy shit. I was possessed.” It made little sense, and yet, it was also the only explanation.
“But you’re you again?”
Quin blinked. “Of course.”
“I can’t take your word for it.”
“What?” Quin squinted at Kit. More memories came flooding back; the indistinct images and snatches of conversation seemed at once very close, but stubbornly out of reach.
“Is that you, Lawrence?” The tremor in Kit’s voice betrayed his show of aloofness.
“It’s Quin. It’s me, baby boy. I promise.”
“I—” Kit broke off. His skin had paled to the point that it appeared grey, and he’d wrapped his arms around himself.
Quin ached to go to Kit, to hold him in his arms instead. But when he pulled on the chains, the metal links clanked together, loud and jarring in the silent room.
Kit took a few hurried steps backwards, huddling against the wall. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Did he hurt you?” Quin asked. He tried to recall the sequence of events, but it was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.
“He hurt you more,” came Kit’s quiet, devastating response.
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry. You understand I would never do that to you, right?” The parts Quin remembered—fractured as they were—horrified him. “Christ, Kit, I’d realised your creator was bad, but I hadn’t known just how bad.”
Kit made a distressed little noise that tore at Quin’s heart. “I didn’t want you to find out.”
Quin swallowed against the lump in his throat. Lawrence’s thoughts in his head were malformed, but the echoes remained. Bile rose as he remembered what Lawrence had been planning to do to Kit with Quin’s body.
“He was a monster,” Quin said.
“Is,” Kit corrected bitterly. “He’s not gone.”
Quin had spent only scant moments under Lawrence’s control.
Knowing Kit had spent so long with someone as twisted as his creator made Quin want to scream until he was hoarse.
Unfairness didn’t cover it. Kit had gone through far worse than anyone deserved, but for it to happen to his boy filled him with a rage he rarely felt.
Quin looked down at himself, trying to see if there was anything physically different to mark himself as taken over by Lawrence. “Is he… still inside me?” He grimaced. “Ugh, phrasing.”
Kit approached again, this time close enough to touch. Quin didn’t dare breathe as Kit slid one hand onto the bed, near to Quin’s face. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“It’s me, baby.”
Kit still didn’t look fully convinced, but his hand came up to hold Quin’s face. His touch was feather-light, but Quin revelled in it. After a few moments, Kit nodded. “Your eyes are your own.”
Before Quin could respond, Kit was on top of him, bending down to place his ear to Quin’s chest. “Your heartbeat is speeding up.”
Quin hummed in agreement. “That would be because you’re lying on me.”
Kit gave Quin a tentative smile, then squeezed Quin hard enough that he struggled to inhale.
“Bit tight, baby.”
Kit loosened his hold, but only a little.
Quin let Kit do what he wanted. He had no say in the matter. But the ache in his arms soon became too insistent to ignore. “Are you going to free me from these chains?”
Kit lifted his head. “Eventually.”
“I’m losing circulation.”
Kit looked down at Quin, contemplative. “Letting you go is risky.”
“Baby, we can try bondage another time, but right now, my fingers are going numb.”
Kit snorted. “Okay. It’s you.” He pulled on the chains, the warm metal sliding off Quin’s wrists and leaving his arms weightless. When Quin moved them back to their usual position, he let out a groan.
Kit jumped at the sudden noise like a startled cat.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Quin said, one hand moving to soothe over Kit’s back. Once his hand was in sight, however, he noticed the cuts and bruising on his knuckles.
“You—um, he—punched the wall,” Kit said. “And then your face. I cleaned you up, but you might need to go to the hospital. You also hit your head, but it didn’t split. I checked.”
“Shit,” Quin said, prodding at a finger that looked a little bent out of shape. He doubted it was broken, but he was no doctor.
“Daddy, don’t make it worse.”
The relief that filled Quin at Kit calling him that was palpable. Pressure unwound in his chest, and even though his whole body ached, he pulled Kit in close. Kit was stiff in his arms at first, but after a few moments, he relaxed into Quin’s hold.
Quin sat up with a start, jostling Kit. “Mabel?” he asked.
“He shut her in the utility room. I checked on her and gave her some food and attention—she’s fine. I kept her downstairs just in case.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course. I think she’s unsure of things, but she settled well enough in her bed.”
The helplessness Quin had experienced returned tenfold. Alternative outcomes of the night played out in his mind, ones where not all of them survived, and each more terrible than the last.
“Do you want to go see her?” Kit asked.
Quin scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll go to her once you’re asleep. It’s close to morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Not long.”
Quin looked down at where Kit sat in his lap, holding onto him. “Do you feel safe enough to sleep here?” He hated having to ask but needed to be sure.
Kit searched his eyes before nodding. “I do. He’s gone.”
The unspoken for now rang in Quin’s ears, but Kit didn’t say it. He didn’t need to, not when they both knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as that.
Quin lay back down, bringing Kit with him. He rubbed his hand over Kit’s back, careful to keep his sore finger out of the way. The sun would be up soon, and Quin had to tell Kit something whilst he had the chance.
He put his lips close to Kit’s ear, heart thrumming in his chest as he formulated the words he needed to say.
It didn’t matter if Kit didn’t return the sentiment, but given Quin had no idea what might happen the next time he looked in the mirror, it needed to be spoken out loud. “You should know that I love you.”
“What?” Kit squeaked, lifting his head.
“I’m in love with you.”
“How?”
Quin hadn’t been expecting an inquest, so it took him a second to gather his thoughts. When he did, it came out in a tumble of words. “Because you’re amazing, Kit. Beyond resilient. You’ve gone through so much, and you’re still the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
Kit’s eyes had never looked bigger as he stared open-mouthed at Quin.
“No pressure to say it back, either,” Quin said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since I first caught your scent, so I don’t expect you to be there yet.” He’d wait for Kit as long as he needed to.
“Nobody—” Kit broke off as his voice hitched, and Quin gave him time to collect himself. Eventually, Kit spoke again. “Nobody has ever told me before that they loved me.” His words were a whisper, but each one pierced Quin’s heart.
“You are so, so loved, Kit. You deserve it.”
“Do I?”
“You do. But even if you didn’t, I’d love you, anyway.”
Kit nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Can you say it again?”
“I love you.”
“Again.” This time, Kit was more demanding.
Quin smiled. “I love you.”
“A—” Kit started, but Quin cut in.
“I love you. And I’ll tell you it every day until you grow bored with me saying it.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of hearing it.”
“Good. Because I don’t plan to stop.”
The smile that Kit gave Quin was small, but it told the truth. Kit believed Quin’s words. But then Kit’s face fell. “What the hell are we going to do about everything?”
“About our ghostly problem?” Quin asked, and Kit nodded. Quin swallowed before suggesting something he didn’t want to, but it might be their only option. “What about Conroy and the witches?”
Kit’s expression turned pained. “Those arseholes won’t help us. Conroy would cheer Lawrence on from the sidelines.”
“The witches didn’t seem so bad.” Even though Quin had wanted to rip Xavier to shreds for threatening Kit—and then again for calling him by an overfamiliar endearment—he would admit that he didn’t think the witch would have hurt Kit.
Although Roxy had been intimidating, she seemed unlikely to wield her power maliciously.
At least, that’s what Quin thought. In his beast form, it was like experiencing life on a different frequency.
He relied less on his physical senses, and a lot more on instinct.
Kit hummed in response before sighing. “I’m not sure.”
“How about we speak to them whilst the others are here? Bring them for backup?”
Kit made a face. “I don’t suppose we have another choice.”
“We do. The two of us can try to fight whatever it is alone, but I think we’ll have more of a chance of defeating Lawrence if we understand what we’re facing. The witches are our best option.”
“You’re right.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Kit frowned. “You’re often right.”
Quin’s face heated. “I’m just being stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.” Kit punched him in the arm as if to punctuate his point.
“Um, ow? I’m covered in enough bruises.”
“I barely touched you.”
“You have vampire strength.”
Kit harrumphed. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Then stop moaning.”
“I think it needs to be kissed better,” Quin said, pressing his hand to where Kit had, indeed, hardly touched him.
Kit rolled his eyes and batted Quin’s hand away. “You’re so dramatic.” But he leaned over and kissed Quin’s arm where he’d hit it.
“So much better,” Quin said. “But what about my knuckles?”
“If you think you can pull an Indiana Jones and get me to kiss all of your injuries, then…” Kit trailed off, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Well, I suppose you’d be right.”
Kit took his time kissing Quin’s knuckles, and his head, and his jaw, and his lips. It went some way to alleviating Quin’s aches, but unease lurked close to the surface. He wanted to claw at it, rip away his skin, to see whether Lawrence remained.
Kit fell asleep as soon as the sun came up. Quin, however, couldn’t rest, his mind racing. He hoped the witches might have some answers to the questions he had running through his mind.
He looked down at his torn knuckles, sick with the knowledge that that his own hands could inflict such violence. Kit didn’t deserve someone who could harm him, deliberately or not. Quin couldn’t let that happen to him.
Not again.