Chapter 34
Ambrose tore himself away, and before Lila could even climb down the banister and turn around, he dashed into a shaded part of the ship.
She was bleeding, she knew she was—she could feel the hot, sticky liquid drip down her ass cheeks, down her thighs. It burned, it hurt, but her soul felt like it was coming apart.
Little Mouse.
The words ripped through her more than his cock did. As she planted her feet firmly on the deck once more, her legs immediately gave out under her.
She was shaking, crying, desperately trying to regain her breath—and Ambrose wasn’t near her.
But she could hear him.
“I hurt you . . .” he kept repeating. “I hurt you so bad, your love stopped protecting me from the sun. I hurt you so bad, you’re crying. I hurt you so bad, you’re bleeding. I hurt you.”
Lila looked over her shoulder, and he crumbled on the deck. Sitting on his knees, his upper body hunched over itself. In any other situation, it would look as though he were begging her, on his knees for her. But now . . .
He looked like a man defeated, broken.
“Ambrose,” she began, shifting to face him. “I’m sorry about the sun, I—”
“Don’t you dare apologize. You did nothing wrong. I am the monster. I’m the one that does not deserve you, the one that hurt you. I am the one that has fucked everything up.” His ruby, glowing eyes—eyes that were nearly all pupils just a moment ago as his arousal overtook him—were dimming to unused coals, black as the void, black as the depth of the ocean. “I am so sorry, Lila. I do not deserve your love.”
Lila tried to move toward him, tried to comfort and soothe him. To tell him, yes, it hurt. Yes, he was too rough. But that did not mean he was unworthy. That one did not have to do with the other. Lila wanted to ask him what was wrong, what had been wrong, why he was always so on edge, why he was too careful and too filled with shame.
But Ambrose didn’t let her ask anything. Not as he flinched the moment she crawled closer, and shifted into the white crow. He hovered for only a moment, and then swooped into the lower part of the ship, into the shadows, and away from the sun.
Not even a few moments later, Rebekkah hurried to the base of the steps, peeking her head onto the deck where Lila still lay slumped.
“Mousey, Ambrose sent me, he said—I smell blood! Is it yours?”
Lila weakly nodded. “I—fuck, this is embarrassing,” she hissed, trying to get up. “I don’t think I can walk right now.”
Rebekkah inched onto the deck, but her skin sizzled the moment it touched the light. She hissed then met Lila’s eyes.
“Just . . . give me one second.” Her power felt akin to being out of breath. Like it was there, all she needed to do was take a few deep breaths to stutter it back into existence. But, as being out of breath, it felt like wading through weighted water, like each inhale would never bring enough air to the lungs.
She knew she would heal. She knew her strength would return, and she could bring sunlight to the vampires she loved on this ship. But Ambrose had surprised her. He was rough—rougher than usual—and so . . . demanding. It was animalistic, and the moment she felt him give in to his desire for her, something else shifted too. She felt like she’d never felt before, as if she were the prey being hunted, being chased, being toyed with, before being eaten alive.
Though his cock in her ass felt fantastic at first, the need to hear her made him aggressive, almost . . . blinded him it seemed. And when he called her Little Mouse, a slip of the mind and the predator/prey dynamic spreading from body to body, it crumpled something in Lila’s mind. It destroyed the feeling of comfort, of safety . . . of Ambrose.
All he wanted was for her to scream. But . . . Lila wouldn’t. All because of a little game she started.
Lila sighed. Maybe she fucked up. She had told Ambrose to use her, to take the monster out on her. But she couldn’t keep her end of the unofficial bargain.
The hurt in his eyes when he came to, when he dashed into the shade as his perfect, dark skin sizzled under the light of the sun, it was enough to make her burst into tears just at the memory.
She needed to find him. Yes, what he did was wrong. But she’s known something was wrong for a while and still didn’t make it a priority to get to the bottom of it. They were still so new at being . . . this, and they were constantly in peril, constantly on the run, and constantly testing new limits. Lila knew they were madly attracted to each other, and madly in love, they just needed to figure out how to navigate that. How to navigate being a monster and a human in love. She needed to talk to him, to find out what in Malvania was going on with him. This was just a hiccup. Something they could talk through, she assured herself.
Lila faced the sun, and whispered a silent prayer. Give me strength. She took a deep breath, imagining the rays of light converging, in through her nose, deep into her lungs, and spreading through her body. I am the Sun Child, she reminded herself.
And she loved Ambrose. She couldn’t believe her power stuttered, she’d allowed fear to take over. But she knew she loved him.
Lila stood, despite the soreness between her thighs, the soreness of her ass. The wound healed and she could wash off the blood later. Right now, she needed clothes, and then she needed to talk to Ambrose.
She turned to Rebekkah. “It should be safe, Bek. Can you find me clothes? A blanket even?”
Rebekkah nodded and disappeared into the dark once more. Lila only waited a moment before she reappeared, dashing onto the deck, into the sunlight, with a blanket in her arms.
“I found clothes as well. Let me help,” she said as she tied the blanket around Lila’s shoulders, covering her tattered clothes and bare skin. “I found a large barrel. We could fill it with water and wash the blood from your skin. It’ll be sea water, but—”
Lila nodded. “That’ll do. Is anyone else up?”
Rebekkah shook her head. “Not that I know of. Most only went to sleep within the last hour. Ambrose woke me to come find you. He seemed . . . scared.”
Ambrose sent Bek. No one else would see her like this. In his madness, he still cared enough to ask the right person. Lila felt a sob in her throat.
“What happened?” Rebekkah asked seriously, her eyes flaring like the sunlight behind her. “Do I need to kill him?” Her fangs were bared, and in that moment, Lila knew she would if Lila asked her to.
The corner of her lips lifted at that, before falling into a flat line as she sighed. “No, I think we just need to talk. We just haven’t really had a chance, not since we’ve reunited. Not with everything happening.”
Rebekkah put her arm around Lila’s waist, and guided her below deck, passed their cabin doors—and though Lila wanted to stop at her own, to face Ambrose immediately, she let Rebekkah guide her.
“Was he . . . aggressive?” she asked.
“Not like Hektor,” Lila snapped.
“I would never think ‘like Hektor.’”
Together, they descended another small set of stairs, going even lower into the ship. “I ask because I feel I maybe can provide some . . . clarity.”
Lila turned to her, raising an eyebrow, and Rebekkah smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Our desires for body and blood are often entwined, clouded. It is easy to mistake one for the other, especially if we have lost ourselves to the sensations of it all. Hence, why Hektor is such a monster. He cares not for that difference.
“Sometimes, in the throes of passion, the throes of hunger come as well. The need to taste. In any capacity. Just like with our bloodlust, it is difficult to snap out of being the predator. I am not sure what just happened between the both of you, but based on your clothing, and where the smell of blood is coming from, I can only assume his need for you was blinding. His need to have you overlapped with his need for you, and it sent him into a kind of frenzy.”
They entered a back room on the ship. It was dark, and down here Lila could feel the sway of the ship, the crash of the waves, at its strongest. But in the poorly lit room, there sat a large, barrel-sized tub, filled with water—salt water by the scent of it.
“It was all I could find. The water will be a bit cold now, but the salt will help clean any wound.”
Though Lila knew she was already healed, the thought warmed her heart.
“A little cold water is no bother. Thank you, Bek,” she said, as Rebekkah helped her into the tub. “And I think you’re right. I know Ambrose would never intentionally hurt me. I know that. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think he is so afraid to hurt me that he ends up doing just that. As if, in holding back, it is actually shoving him forward.”
“It’s a primal need. We are animals, monsters . . . things of want and desire. Selfish beings. But also beings desperate for love. And Draven has found that with you, and—if my guess is correct—he is trying desperately to preserve that. And it is as you said. He is trying so hard, it is driving him mad. I’m sure there is more to it as well.”
Lila stayed silent for a moment, using a washcloth between her legs, and then sighed heavily. “I will make sure to talk to him, and figure out what’s going through his mind.”
Rebekkah nodded. “I think . . . well, Mousey, it’s not my place, but I think you should talk to him about what’s going through your mind as well.”
Lila scrunched her brows. “What do you mean?”
Running her long nails through Lila’s hair, she shrugged a shoulder. “Have you told him about the last three months?”
Damn. “About my powers—”
“I mean about Hektor. About Ciro, and Drusilla. About the day they put that collar on you. About your trip to your home village.”
Lila pressed her lips together and lowered herself deeper into the make-shift tub, pressing her knees to her chest.
Silence thickened between the two women, until Rebekkah solemnly nodded. “It might help get him to talk, if you talk as well.”
She knew Rebekkah was right, but reliving those memories was the last thing she wanted to do, and reliving them for Ambrose? She couldn’t imagine how upset he’d be.
After bathing and dressing in more loose-fitting clothes they found around the ship, Lila padded back toward her room, determined to right the wrong between her and Ambrose.
She stood before the closed door, damp hair dripping onto her loose white linen shirt, and hesitated. Did she knock? Did she just enter? Awkward tension gripped around Lila’s throat like a strigoi’s claws. It had never been awkward between her and Ambrose. Not like this. Not even when they argued in the Arachnid Estate the afternoon after Sanktus Pernox. But since their reunion, there have been so many moments in which she just simply didn’t know what to do, how to respond, how to act.
This is Ambrose, she told herself. I don’t have to be afraid of saying the wrong thing, of making the wrong move. I just need to let him know I’m okay.
The look in his eyes when she turned to him as he said “I hurt you,” sprang to her mind, and pushed her into the room.
“Ambrose, I—”
But the room was empty, the blanket was tossed over the bed, their things were exactly where they’d left them. Ambrose had not returned here after he disappeared.
And he did not return to their room for the rest of their voyage. Though she thought she saw a ruffle of white feathers from the corner of her eye on more than one occasion, she slept alone in her bunk. She tried to call him through the Concord, but he would never respond, and it was a conversation she wanted to have face to face.
By the third morning, she’d had enough. She called his name, over and over, hoping to lure him out by sheer annoyance. It was torture, without him. Her heart felt like it was crumbling in two, and she felt like it was all her fault.
When he still did not appear before her, or answer in the Concord, Lila felt hollow. She began to feel far away.
She did not see him as she spent time with Constance, Kaz, and Marcus, hearing of everything that happened in the last three months. She did not see him as she spent time speaking to Darius, whose eyes were on Rebekkah for nearly the entire three nights remaining of their trip. She did not see him as she spoke to Nostro of their plans to tour the Morada villages to free the humans-turned-strigoi.
And through these all, she was only half there. She felt like she had been underwater. Floating, stagnant, her lungs quickly needing air. The people around her, the ship, they were the sun just above the surface.
And just like underwater, she needed Ambrose to come pull her above the water before she drowned.
Lila did not see Ambrose as the ship was docked at the shores of the Viper Morada, as she soared in Marcus’s arms toward her personal hell, not as everyone gathered around and made a plan for Rebekkah to take over the Morada and have the remaining vipers follow her, not as they walked the path to the stone manor, not as she stepped through the main hall of the large doors and every sense of courage slipped from her veins, not as Rebekkah told the vipers to stand down, to follow her or be exiled into the lands of strigoi.
She didn’t see Ambrose again until her first night back in the suffocating walls of the Viper Morada, until Rebekkah forced her to wash and change from her sea clothes to a flowing dress the same shade as her hair, with sleeves as thin as spider silk, until Pollock landed on her shoulder and nipped on her chin, beckoning her attention. Until she turned toward where the bird ushered, and followed the path that had led to what was once her room.