Chapter Thirty-Five The Devil and the Sun
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Devil and the Sun
An hour later, Michal and I stare at each other atop his emerald duvet.
“We don’t need to do this if you’re uncomfortable,” he says. “My blood will heal your hand, yes, but there is no reason for you to reciprocate. I can strengthen myself in other ways.”
His low voice reverberates up my spine, leaving gooseflesh in its wake, but after Death’s thinly veiled threat, I shouldn’t be shivering at the sound of Michal’s voice. After poring over the grimoire and finding nothing—not a single spell to help Filippa—I shouldn’t be this keenly aware of his body either. We have other things, critical things, apocalyptic things, to focus on now. Indeed, Odessa and Dimitri are helping my mother pack at this very moment. Without Pasha and Ivan as protection, she can longer remain in my room. When Michal offered this grotto as an alternative, she accepted with a suspicious lack of protest, her eyes narrowed on the scant distance between us.
Even now—despite my throbbing palm—I cannot seem to think beyond the long lines of his thighs as they stretch out beside me; I cannot see beyond the sheer breadth of his shoulders as he leans against the headboard. Have I ever truly appreciated his shoulders until this moment? Surely I have, yet my mouth feels rather dry at the sight of them. Of him .
My mother has never spoken a kind word to Michal, yet he still opened his chambers to her. He removed the kittens from her presence, adopting all seven for both her and for me. I can still hear the ringing finality with which he defended my sister to Odessa, can still feel his staunch presence at my back.
Just as it always is.
“Célie?” he asks quietly.
We should’ve picked somewhere else to do this. Like a cold bathtub.
Shaking myself mentally, I drag myself back to the present and say, “You saw Pasha and Ivan. Death isn’t going to stop, and until we’ve decided just how to lure him here, it would be... beneficial for you to feed too. To keep up your strength,” I clarify, “and to—to see the veil as well. It might be useful. We have no idea what Death might do next.”
“This is a risk too, Célie.” Though Michal speaks in that cool, dispassionate way of his, I can sense the tension radiating beneath the facade. His entire body has clenched tighter than a bow, and instinctively, I know one stroke of my fingers will loose— something between us. “You’ve been lucky thus far, but if I drink from you again, the bond might form. Are you willing to risk eternity with someone like me?”
Irritation prickles my chest at that. Someone like me. He speaks as if such a fate would be reprehensible, the worst possible outcome in a situation filled with worst possible outcomes. But Michal has never been the worst thing to happen to me; in some lights—even the dim, flickering light of this grotto—he might even seem the best. By sharing his blood with me, he is not only healing the cut on my palm but also offering his physical strength, his speed, his protection in the fight to come. And I—
I want to protect him too.
My irritation contracts at the realization, squeezing until I’m almost breathless with it. I want to protect Michal. I do. Moreover, we’ll need every advantage against Death, against Filippa, and that includes my sight. Still I hesitate, however, staring hard at the grimoire in my lap. Attempting to think around the deep, unending ache in my chest whenever I’m around Michal. Though an unbreakable bond with him no longer feels like the worst possible thing—perhaps never has—would I still pursue it if not under threat of Death? Would I still want it? Would I choose it?
Have I ever made a choice for myself?
Squaring my shoulders, I rise to my knees and level him with a look. “Emotions are the key, right?”
Michal nods warily. “Right.”
“So... theoretically, if we feel nothing for each other, the bond cannot form?”
“Theoretically.”
I sit up straighter, tossing the grimoire aside and clasping my hands. “Excellent. Seems simple enough.”
He blinks like I’ve just spoken in tongues. His eyes harden. Then—just as I’ve opened my mouth to ask why , exactly, that slow smirk is spreading—he sits up too, leaning forward to drape his elbows on his knees. Bringing his face within a breath of mine. I hold very still, trying not to notice the rings of rich, molten brown around his pupils. The fringe of thick, dark lashes.
Was his hair always silver? The thought strikes again without permission as we study each other. Or was it once dark? Has he always worn black?
He tilts his head as if hearing my thoughts, lifting a hand to touch my own hair in a light caress. “You think it simple not to feel?” I force myself to nod. To try . Because the only way to strengthen ourselves without forming this—this permanent bond is to be painfully honest. And the painful truth is—no matter how much I want him—I cannot truly choose Michal while backed in a corner.
He deserves more than that.
My determination falters slightly, however, as his fingers tangle in my hair, his thumb sweeping slowly up my cheek. “Perhaps you’re right, pet. Perhaps it is simple.” A meaningful pause. “Show me.”
My belly tightens almost painfully at the sobriquet. Pet. It drips with familiarity, intimacy, and something darker too. Something sinful and possessive. “Sh-Show you what?”
“That you feel nothing for me.” His smirk spreads at my blank expression. “It should be easy, right?”
I reach up to seize his hand, to push it away with a scowl, but lace my fingers through his instead, tugging him to his knees. Pressing flush against him. “Right,” I manage through a very tight, very dry throat. “This is—it’s only to strengthen each other. Just to—to share abilities.”
He takes my other hand too, guiding both behind my back and leaning low to brush a kiss against my throat. “You feel absolutely nothing?”
“Absolutely”—I resist the urge to tip my head back, to close my eyes and bare my throat to his lips—“nothing.”
Nothing at all, except—my entire body shudders as he gently coaxes one of my sleeves down, down, down, revealing my shoulder, and God , I want him to bite me there; I want to feel the sharp sting of his teeth, the lave of his tongue, the weight of his arms around me. Nothing , I tell myself fiercely. Nothing, nothing, nothing—
He chuckles against the curve of my neck before drawing back once more, releasing my hands and pulling his shirt—loose and stark white—over his head. Revealing every inch of his perfect adamantine skin. His flat torso, his broad chest, his shoulders . “How about now?” At my stricken expression, he wipes his smirk away with a hand. “You made a real mess last time. Even an immortal only has so many shirts.”
“ Me? ” My fingers react instinctively, fumbling to undo the midnight buttons down my front. Pearls. A ridiculous choice— “You’re the one who shredded my gown to tie me to a tree .”
“And I regret nothing.” He nods toward the gown with a wicked gleam in his black eyes. Brown eyes , I correct myself reflexively. Dark, sultry brown eyes — “Do you need help with that?”
“No.” With extreme strength of will, I force myself to look away from him, to slow down and unbutton each pearl one by one, to ignore how Michal tracks my every move with predatory focus. And that intensity in his gaze—that hunger —seems to sharpen each sensation; never before have I been more aware of my body, of the slick slide of pearl, the deliberate push of my fingers, the delicious friction against my skin. With a plunging neckline and billowing sleeves—and green silk so deep it looks black—this gown is striking on its own. On me , however—with my shoulder still bared—it looks... provocative. Powerful, even.
No. My fingers still as my gaze lifts to Michal. I feel powerful.
And when our eyes lock, a low sound of approval rumbles from his chest. He reaches for me, but I shake my head, undoing the last of the buttons slowly, slowly , while the gown parts down my body in the center. Jaw clenched—eyes burning with restraint—Michal stretches back against the headboard to watch as I shrug the gown from my shoulders and it slides down my hips to my knees, pooling against the duvet. Baring my silken undergarments to his gaze. No corset. The neckline wouldn’t allow for one, but I cannot bring myself to regret the scant garment I wear instead. Not when Michal’s lids have gone hooded and he stares at me like a feast to devour.
I hook a finger beneath the strap of my top, following it to the swell of my breast, until I reach the clasp at the front.
Without a word, I undo it, tossing it aside and crawling into his lap.
His eyes darken, and for several seconds, he simply stares at me, his entire body hard and still beneath me. When I lean forward to kiss his cheek, trailing my lips down his jaw to his throat, he swallows hard, and I feel the movement on my tongue. I want to taste it. I want to taste him . A soft sigh escapes me as I wrap my arms around his neck, and Michal seems to thaw at the sound; his fingers creep up my ribs as if ensuring that I’m real—that I’m here—before tightening when I nip his ear impatiently. Because I am real; I am here, and—
I draw back just far enough to meet his gaze, unwilling to relinquish my hold on him. Relishing the feel of his bare chest against mine. The cool slide of our skin as he shifts slightly, thrusting his hips upward. A bolt of heat spikes through my core at the movement, and I—I think I want to feel him elsewhere too. The realization leaves me overwrought, breathless. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” I tell him, burying my face in his neck and bearing downward, rolling, rubbing, seeking that delicious friction down his leg.
His hands seize my hips when I find it, and he drags me along its length in a brutal grip. Gasping, I grind harder still, my hands scrabbling at his neck as the pressure builds. “I thought,” he says through gritted teeth, “we’re pretending not to like each other.”
Now I do tip my head back, closing my eyes against the sight of his body as it flexes beneath me, as it coils. Tension has hardened his abdomen to steel, and his biceps clench; his shoulders strain. “In that case”—I can scarcely breathe at the feel of him—“you’re the most insufferable man too.”
His exhales a ragged breath of his own. “The least infatuated.”
“I never think of you, never —”
“I never imagine you like this,” he snarls. “Above me, below me, around me, your heels digging into my back.” I gasp again at the imagery, and he releases my hip to grip my chin. “Look at me,” he says, and I respond without hesitation, my eyes snapping open to find his blazing with heat. “I never dream about holding you, and I never lie awake until dusk, torturing myself over the way you say my name—like you revere me, like I’m a fallen angel and not the Devil himself.”
I forget our game instantly, rearing back to glare at him. “You aren’t the Devil—”
“And you aren’t the sun.”
He speaks the words furiously, as if I’ve torn them from his very chest, and in a wave of warmth, of longing, I realize what the confession cost him. And I realize what it means—to him, yes, but also to me. You aren’t the sun. Perhaps I was once, and perhaps he wasn’t an endless night; perhaps we’ve both become creatures darker than we were before, or perhaps we’ve always been this way. The sun and the night. The dark and the light. Two souls reaching for each other through time, twining together at last.
Holding his gaze deliberately, I draw aside my hair to reveal my neck in invitation.
His eyes ask the question his voice cannot. Are you sure?
When I nod, he strikes without hesitation, sinking his teeth into my throat and rolling our bodies, pinning mine beneath him like he did before. Like he never imagined. I’ve imagined it, though—in my darkest fantasies, I allowed myself to be with him like this. I allowed myself to arch, to moan his name, to pull at the laces of his pants until they fall free. When I touch him, he shudders, clutching my chin and pressing his thumb against my lower lip in invitation. With it, I remember another time—another life —and pierce the tip as I wanted to do in Les Abysses. I take his thumb in my mouth, and I suck. I feed . The grotto disappears with each pull of my mouth, and blinding white erupts behind my eyelids. A tendril of something cracks open in my chest as we hold each other. Tentative at first, then stronger.
Just as it swells with peculiar heat, however, stealing my thoughts—my very breath, suffocating in its intensity—footsteps echo down the stairs behind us. Loud footsteps. They crash through my consciousness in an explosion of awareness, and the heat snaps like a band, vanishing from existence between one step and the next. Leaving me gasping, oddly bereft, as Michal and I break apart, whirling toward the entrance of the grotto.
“If you’re doing what it smells like you’re doing,” Dimitri calls, his voice preceding him into the room, “I suggest you finish quickly. Madame Tremblay is en route with my sister as I speak, and I doubt she wants to see her daughter dancing the Devil’s waltz with anyone.” He pokes his head around the corner as I scramble to cover myself in blind panic—my heart sinking like a stone—and Michal tugs my gown up and over my body in a blur of green silk. Dimitri winks at the two of us, grinning broadly. “Unless, of course, that someone is me.”