Chapter Thirty-Two
I’d never wanted anything so badly in my life.
My body was hot and cold all at once. My fingers tore at him, digging into him as if, perhaps if I could burrow into him, he’d be unable to leave. He caught me, scooping his hands under my ass just as I hopped up to wrap my legs around his waist, kissing and tasting and touching any part of him my mouth could find. I moaned as he growled the name he’d called me from my first memory against my throat, arousal rushing through me like a flash flood as years of the longing I’d denied myself crashed over me.
He wasn’t just real.
I was his, and he was mine.
I wrapped my legs tighter as he slammed me into the wall with a demand, a claim, a desperation that I’d needed more than water, more than life. I gasped between pleasure and pain as the world spun. He moved me to the bed, yanking me up with strong arms so my head crashed against the pillows, propped up like the princess he’d always wanted me to be. I scrambled for his shirt, craving his skin, his tongue, his cock, but he gathered my wrists into a single large hand and pinned them above me.
“I’ve missed you more than air,” he breathed, words moving between our lips and tongues.
I hooked my legs around him once more, and his low, appreciative chuckle did more to me than I could ever understand.
“How did you find me?”
“Love.” He said it like a prayer. “I always know where you are. Imagine my surprise when I felt you step into my kingdom without me. And then to feel you so close…”
“I’m so sorry, I—” I began, the apology pouring out of me as I dug my fingers into him. I’d been crawling out of my skin for months. Knowing that he was real, Caliban was an addiction for which I wanted no cure. Desperation seeped from me. He released my hands as they shot to his face, to his hair, apology filling my eyes. “What I said, what I did, I had no idea, I would never have—”
“Shh.” He rolled his mouth toward the hand that I’d left against his cheek and pressed a kiss into my palm. “Why are you blaming yourself for what you didn’t know?”
Even his kindness was sending me into a tailspin. I was so overcome with waves of conflicting emotions that I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. I didn’t want every memory he had of me to be me crying. I exhaled slowly as I asked, “Was I this stupid in all of my lives?”
He relaxed his body into mine, and I felt so secure beneath the pressure of his weight. He wrapped an arm around me as he said, “You’re brilliant. You’re as quick and clever in this life as you’ve been in all of them.”
“Fauna would disagree,” I murmured.
He smiled softly. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve found a Norde.”
I realized with a sharp stab that, though I’d been living and working with Fauna and Azrames, spending every waking second talking about Caliban, he hadn’t heard a word about them. I distinctly recalled Azrames saying he’d never met Hell’s Prince, as he wasn’t important enough to run in such circles. I wondered what Caliban would think about me having a demon as one of my most trusted friends.
“So much has happened,” I said, intensity cooling as I memorized his features. His eyes burned with the incomprehensible silver of starlight. His hair was the same white as the fox that had kept me from shattering, my friend and guardian when I’d had nothing and no one. His chest was broad enough that I could disappear into it as he held me, lost in the mossy scent of the forest.
He asked me to tell him about it, and so I did.
His fingers continued to work through my hair, grazing gently against my scalp and moving my strands around with slow, methodical motions. He didn’t stop touching me as I explained the witches I’d called or the sigil I’d found above my door. He drew a thumb around the black ink that contrasted against the skin of my forearm while I spoke of the parasite and my second encounter with Silas. He stiffened ever so slightly when I explained how Silas had offered the bond, and then he relaxed once more when my story turned to Fauna.
He traced relaxing patterns along my back while I told him of Betty and Azrames and hearing about the cycle of mortal lives. He cupped the back of my head when my conversation drifted to my mother and her cruelty and then bunched in my hair with a smile when I told him of my time in Hell. His teeth glistened with true joy at the way I described his father.
“He’s loved you for more than two thousand years,” Caliban said. “You’re his daughter-in-waiting in his eyes.”
“That’s a long time to wait,” I whispered. A switch within me flipped at thoughts of his father. “Caliban…you risked his life. You risked your kingdom. Your people. The war. The end times.”
His laugh was short and breathy. “If you wouldn’t burn the world to the ground for the one you love, are you even in love?”
“You should have let me die,” I said quietly. “Fauna said that if Heaven wins, every pantheon will fall. Heaven and his angels will reign on earth. Eight billion humans enslaved while calling it worship. I’m not worth the goddamn apocalypse.”
“I can promise you: you are.” He pressed another kiss into my hair, tucking me against him even more tightly as he said, “I’d wait two thousand more, you know.”
I wormed away just enough to look up at him as I said, “I won’t.”
He arched a cautious brow.
“Bond with me,” I said, voice breathless.
His smile faltered. “Oh, Love.”
“I end the loop then, right? Isn’t that what everyone’s been trying to explain? If we bond, I won’t be born again as a human. I can stay with you. We can—”
“We’re already bonded. What we have is more than the formality of realms,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to hook your soul to mine.”
“I want to,” I pressed, and I meant it. Maybe I’d spent my life insisting that he was a perfect figment of my imagination, that I’d created a best friend, a guardian, a lover, a beautiful puzzle piece for the hole within me. Maybe I hadn’t known about realms or kingdoms or fae for long, but I’d known Caliban since my very first memory. I’d known of him and his goodness since the day I stood with soap running around my sneakers and a sponge in my hand. And after Fauna’s words…
He exhaled, ferns and mist on his breath. “Even if we were to finalize the bond, it can’t be now, Marlow. You know where we are? What this town is?”
My cheek rubbed against the impossible soft fabric of his thin black tee as I nodded. “It’s why I’m here. Why Az and I—” I looked over my shoulder as if Azrames would be in the corner. “We’re going to get you out. I’m going to get you out.”
“Once you’re bound, you won’t be able to leave. It’s a—”
“God catcher,” I finished quietly. “Have you met her? Astarte? We were supposed to go find Venus, whatever that means. I was ready to knock on every door in Bellfield to find you, but apparently, this goddess and some random planet were the key to figuring out what the fuck is going on.”
He made a short, frustrated sound.
“I’ve found her,” he said, “and Venus was a way to hide in plain sight. I’ve kept a low profile while I plan my next steps. She’ll know something is amiss after today’s display with the weather. I expect she’ll be on alert. She’s kept Dagon here for hundreds of years, and I know there are others. I can smell them.” He inhaled my hair, and I wondered if he was breathing in the distant salt and pine from the splash of fae within my blood. “I don’t know whether they stumbled in on accident, or how they’ve come to be, but this city is a spider web. No one from any of the realms can come to save us.”
Anger lanced through me. I pushed myself out of his arms and into a sitting position. “How could Silas do this to you? Does he hate you that much?”
Caliban moved into a sitting position, facing me as he smirked. “I think you might be surprised at the answer.”
My muscles tensed as I waited.
“I could be wrong, but I think he sent me here specifically because no one else could come for me. No angel or deity is going to intervene here. I don’t know what he’s up to, but…many of us were angels once. We’re brothers of the same kingdom cleaved in two.”
I swallowed. “Are you implying that he…?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t stake my life on him defecting, but even if the best we get out of him is that he doesn’t agree with the war? Then we’ve made a powerful ally.”
A new, fresh anger surged through me as I balled my fingers into a fist and hit him as hard as I could in the arm. First surprise, then delight shone through him. I got up from the bed as I glared.
“We haven’t fought in lifetimes.” His eyes sparkled, far too amused by the rage that filled me. He swung his legs over the side of the bed as he eyed me.
I was ready to fight. “What the fuck is a tier-five favor? Why would you do that! You didn’t know who would respond! You didn’t know what they could call in! You didn’t—”
“Love—”
“No! It wasn’t just your kingdom or your people. You could have died! I could have lost you!” I cried out and swung for him again. He caught my fist this time, so I switched arms and tried to hit him with my other hand. He was on his feet in a flash, snatching it just as easily before it made contact. I spun to break his hold, but it backfired terribly. He twisted with me until my back was pinned to his chest, arms pressed to my sternum.
“We really should have been working on your self-defense,” he murmured in my ear.
“I’m mad at you!” I said while trying to drive my elbow into him. Unable to so much as see my target, I failed once more and he tightened his hold, running his teeth along my neck from behind me. “Don’t be sexy! I’m angry!”
“Can I help it if your rage is a turn-on?” came the vibrations against the back of my ear.
“Fuck, Caliban.” It came out in a gasp strangled between lust and fury. He tightened his arms and bit down on the soft spot where my neck met my shoulder until my growl gave way to a gasp. My body was a traitor. “Wanting you doesn’t make me any less enraged,” I said, but my hips rolled as if to contradict my words.
He only needed one arm to keep me pinned to his chest while the other ran idly down to my hips, forcing me against him so I could feel the precise effect the fight had had on him as it pressed into me.
“I need a few things from you,” he said in my ear.
I swallowed and closed my eyes, leaning into his voice.
“First, I need you to set me free from the limitations you’ve put on me in your life. You’ve roped me into the smallest of corners, and I respect you, Love, but I’m not one for a cage.”
My breathing came in ragged pulls, wanting his hand to go farther, to touch me, to cup and stroke and enter me. I nodded.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be the one to say it, Love.”
“What do I say?” I repeated, lightheaded as I scarcely remembered to sip the air.
He tsked. “If I feed you the words, it defeats the purpose of free will.”
“Do it,” I said, voice so airy I wasn’t sure if he could hear me at all. My head swam in memory, in hope, in past and present and future. We weren’t in Bellfield, or in a hotel, or Heaven or Hell or the mortal realm. We weren’t anywhere. We existed between place and time that had been created just for us.
“Do what?” Caliban asked, crushing me to him.
“Anything. Everything. It’s all yours. I’m yours.”