Chapter 37
Ipulled myself towards Fen with every fiber of my being, as if climbing a rope hand over hand.
After a few seconds, my form flickered, making me almost lose my grip.
The feel of myself in two bodies at once—one salamander, one human—made the edges of my vision go hazy, but I ignored it and kept going, kept reaching for him.
He doubled over with a growl. Then I felt him mentally grab the other end of our bond and haul me towards him.
A moment later, I was sprawled on the floor, my hands splayed out in front of me.
Human hands.
I met Fen’s startled gaze, and emotions slammed into me through our bond, so many it was hard to tell them apart. Joy, relief, anger, shame, guilt, love. Fear. He dropped to his knees, nearly skidding across the floor to reach me. I was wrapped in his arms before I could flinch back.
“Maeve.” His voice shook as he buried his face in my hair, his body trembling with emotion. He clung to me as if he was afraid I’d disappear.
My arms circled his back automatically, and I let my eyes flutter closed. The feel of his leather tunic against my skin was comforting, grounding in a way I hadn’t realized I needed. Being back in his arms felt so right, I almost wondered why I’d left.
Almost.
As much of a relief as it was to be in human form again, to be so close to Fen, there was no forgetting what had driven me away.
I wanted to try, but in order to do so I needed him to be honest with me.
No more lies or half-truths. I needed to know about his addiction and why he’d limited the amount of power I could draw from him. Would he give me that?
Uncertainty sat heavy on my shoulders, but I let myself savor the moment for a little while longer. After all, it might be the last one we had like this.
“I felt you disappear. Our bond went silent. I thought you’d gone.” His voice sounded thick.
“I did, for a while. I needed some space.”
He pulled back to search my face. Tears ran in tracks down his face into his beard, and I couldn’t resist the urge to wipe them away. “Do you still need space?” His fingers flexed on my skin, as if he knew he should pull away, but couldn’t bring himself to.
“I need answers.”
He looked down and nodded. “You also need clothes.” Finally letting me go, he rose and went to the bed.
Awareness of my nakedness hit me along with the cool air of the room. I’d completely forgotten I left my clothes in the Dungeon when I’d transformed.
A blanket settled over my shoulders. “I can send someone for some.”
“No need.” With a flick, I sent light surging through the material, transforming it into my preferred tunic, pants, and boots. They shimmered gently as they settled over my curves, and my lips curled in satisfaction.
Fen’s look of awe when I rose quickly morphed into something both panicked and determined. The moment had arrived. There was no more putting it off. “I owe you an explanation.”
“Yes.”
He gestured to one of the chairs, and I took a seat while he paced in front of the fire, gathering his nerve. “Gods. I don’t know where to start, even though I’ve already done this once.”
I presumed he meant telling Daphne and Marcus. “You’re addicted to pain.”
He winced at my statement. “No, not really.”
“Don’t lie to me. I felt it, Fen.” I crossed my arms, not bothering to hide my irritation. He’d promised me answers. If he wouldn’t give them to me, there was no hope for us.
“The pain… is part of it, but it’s not…” He scrubbed a hand down his face. If it weren’t for his turmoil I could feel through our bond, I would have thought he was stalling instead of looking for the words to explain.
“Power,” he said finally. “I crave power. Pain is just the easiest, fastest way to get it.”
My brow creased in confusion. Power? It was the exact thing Death had accused him of when she’d told me he hired Colt, what Talia must have been about to say in the hidden throne room when Fen cut her off.
I thought about his memory with Talia I’d seen in the Dungeon.
I’d been so horrified by his enjoyment of feeding on pain that I’d overlooked what happened to it once he took it in, the way it filled his stores.
“Is that why you kept me from drawing as much as I needed?”
He pressed his lips together as he nodded.
An angry flush crawled up my neck as the connection between the two finally clicked into place, because this was worse than I thought.
Why did it have to be power that he was addicted to?
The one thing I needed more than anything else to defeat Death.
Did the Guardian want things to come back into balance or not?
Because they seemed to be going to ridiculous lengths to make it as hard as possible.
Fen was looking at the floor, his shoulders slumped, and I realized he had mistaken my anger for condemnation. I wasn’t angry at him. Well, maybe a little. I was angry at the unfairness of the situation.
Making an effort to rein in my feelings, I cleared my throat and sent a wordless apology down our bond. “How long have you had these… cravings?” I was proud of how level my voice sounded.
He took a deep breath and met my gaze, his jaw set in determination. “Since I first became the Devil.”
My lips parted. That was over a hundred years ago.
“I didn’t know what they were at first. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Then I realized, every time I transferred a soul to the Dungeon, the cravings were sated.”
“Every time you generated power,” I said, recalling what Sasha had said.
“Yes. They weren’t always so bad. For the first decade they came and went.
I didn’t notice a pattern until I realized they were worse when I was around souls who were in the most pain.
The first time I fed it was an accident.
I acted out of instinct. And it made the soul feel better.
What I absorbed no longer tormented them.
It made me feel good to give them relief.
And then I realized that I also got a power boost from it.
” He took a breath, his shame intensifying, and I felt a trickle of sympathy for him.
“When I felt the itch, I would go looking for souls that needed relief. I thought it was a sign that I was meant to help them. It took me another two decades to realize that, because Death and I weren’t bonded, the more power I generated the more it threw the In Between out of balance.
But by then I couldn’t stop. It was no longer an itch, it was a need. ”
He sounded so defeated, I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth. His end of our bond was more open than I’d ever felt it, so much that I could feel the edges of the ocean of power he carried. My anger was now a thin thread, cooled by a gentle flow of sympathy that grew with every word he spoke.
“I fought it as best I could,” he continued.
“I tried exercising, drinking, jacking off. They were distractions at best, only giving me short bursts of respite. My only consolation was that when my cravings got the better of me, I still gave souls relief. Even if the In Between was suffering, I could tell myself I was still doing good. But that changed too.” He glanced at Titus’s still form on the bed.
“Not long after he joined my inner circle, I was feeding and the soul started screaming. Their pain ramped up instead of down. And it was intoxicating.” He closed his eyes as if remembering, and I could feel his internal struggle—the euphoric pleasure and how guilty he felt afterwards.
“The power boost from it was bigger than I’d ever gotten before.
It scared the shit out of me how amazing it felt, how much I wanted it.
I swore to myself I’d never do it again.
I made sure I was never alone with any souls, stopped siphoning off their pain altogether, and for a while everything was fine. ”
“But then things got stressful again and… things weren’t fine. My resolve wavered and I occasionally let my cravings take control.” His cheeks pinked.
That must be what I’d seen in his memory with Talia—him slipping.
My chest ached at his admission. Knowing him as I did, I didn’t doubt he’d worked hard to suppress his urges and took it as a personal failure when he couldn’t. But it was clear as I listened that his addiction was something he couldn’t control.
“I hated myself every time it happened. I tried to be more careful. I went back to siphoning off pain so I could feed, but I did it more often, in smaller doses. I thought if I gave myself a steady diet of power, even if it drove the In Between further out of balance the increments would be smaller, and it would keep me from hurting anyone. And it worked. Until you arrived.” His expression turned apologetic and regret crept into our bond.
A lump formed in my throat as I realized why my arrival had changed things. “I made it worse, didn’t I?” Just like I made the imbalance worse.
“When you first arrived, things weren’t that different. Even when we formed our Death Chord they didn’t change. But then you were living with me. When we were together, my cravings almost disappeared. I craved your presence instead, and I thought maybe you’d cured me.”
My chest ached at the emotion in his voice.
I had very little experience with addiction, but based on what he’d said I suspected it wasn’t something that ever went away.
Even if it could be managed, it would always lurk in the background, waiting for a weak moment.
He was fighting against something he couldn’t defeat, otherwise he already would have.
And instead of helping, I’d made it worse. I swallowed.
“But when you pulled power from me to practice or after we had sex…” He sucked in a breath as if the memory physically pained him. “They returned worse than ever.”
Understanding dawned. “All those times you worked in the Dungeon all day and came back relaxed and yet jittery at night. You’d fed.”