Chapter 17
M y eyes flick to the fire exit at the back of the rave again. It’s slightly ajar.
If I run now, I miss my chance at asking the demons for help, but from my meeting with Dorian, I’m not so sure I can twist their arms into helping me anyway. And I have to trust that father can solve this, now that I can tell him how. I have to trust that I should place more faith in him than in a random hag and the guy who kidnapped me. And when he’s done saving Mum, I’ll get him to save Obi, somehow.
Getting from London to Devon is easy. I can walk from Brixton to Paddington, and then it’s just a case of slipping onto a train and hiding in a toilet for three and a half hours.
Thumping bass reverberates through my chest as I clutch my vodka orange juice, the wetness slinking through my fingers and mingling with the sweat on my palms. I don’t know if the drops falling down my forehead come from the coke or the nerves.
Abnehor, Shiva, and Kaya are all dancing, huddled in a corner of the rave with smoke swirling around their ankles and bright neon green lights flashing across their skin. They look so happy, and it twists my heart that I won’t get to stay here.
Dae is somewhere behind me. I want to glance at him one last time before I move, savour the glint in his eyes, the curve of his mouth, but I don’t dare risk it. Setting my drink down on a sticky table lining the dark wall, I slink through the crowd and out the door.
It leads to the smoking area we entered from. I half jump, half run through the packed crowd, past the security guards, out into the rain. I’m on the pavement of a busy street in Brixton. I dash past cars, across the road, towards a quiet side area. I follow the signs to Stockwell, knowing it’ll be quieter there.
A couple shouts at me as I sprint past them, past the gates of a park, past tall houses and?—
My head is yanked back, and I’m thrown against the red-bricked wall of a shop. Spots flash in my vision, and a hard wall of muscle slams against my front. I smell bergamot as lavender-adorned fingers spear through my hair and cup my neck, pressing me deeper into the wall.
Dae’s ragged breaths fall against the skin of my neck. The tip of his nose slides across my chin, and I hear him take a deep breath. I’m shaking, top to bottom, as my head rings, and I try to face the fact that I’ve just tried to run—and failed.
He tugs at my hair, tilting my chin up, before trailing kisses along my jaw, up my cheek, to the corner of my lips. I let go of a breath, and then he’s at my mouth. Enveloping, devouring, engulfing me.
When we were young, I would imagine Dae kissing me. I imagined him pressing himself against me gently, cupping my waist and stroking my hair. But that is not how Dae kisses at all. I should have known.
Instead, he devours me, consumes me whole. He is everywhere, his scent is in my nose, he’s in my mouth, at my hip, against my breasts. Fire rages between my legs, and the next thing I know, I’m meeting his tongue stroke for stroke, grabbing at him, ripping his clothes off until his hard chest is against mine.
“I love you,” he breathes against my lips before kissing me again. His fingers are between my legs, and he’s tugging at my hair as he pulls my thighs apart. I press myself against him, and he cups me as a growl escapes his lips.
We’re broken apart by loud, raucous laughter. Dae’s head whips around, half wild, and we both spot a crowd nearing us. Another second, and they’d have caught us. Dae covers my body with his as he pulls my top down and straightens my trousers before stepping back. I can’t catch my breath, and all I want is to be back at Dae’s lips. “I owed you a kiss,” he pants.
“Let me go, Dae,” I say, running the tips of my fingers over my lips.
“Not without a fight.” He leans over me, pressing his hands into the wall above me as he catches his breath, or maybe it’s something else he’s trying to catch. I glance to the side, wondering if I could make it under his arms and across the street. “Now’s not the time to start running,” he says, eyes glinting with cruelty.
I rest my head against the wall, looking up at him. “What now, then?”
“You give me a second to claw back the small amount of self-control I’ve built, and then we go back to our friends.”
Drenched in rain, our first kiss still burning on our lips, Dae and I go back to the rave and dance the entire night.