26. Cassius
DAMIEN
Business to attend to. It isn’t a lie exactly, but also not the full truth. I need a break from Eloise, or I’m likely to consume her. Seeing her on her knees with my cock in her mouth made me feel like a god, and I, of all creatures, have no business feeling that way. I’m a monster cursed to serve other monsters, and unless something changes, that’s all I’ll ever be.
Problem is my feelings for her are as monstrous as I am, and I’m afraid they’ve outgrown their cage. What I need now more than anything is a confidant, and I know where to find one.
I manifest outside Cassius’s Chicago brownstone, thankful my friend and fellow shade answered the call I sent him down our shadow bond. Cassius was once Stygarde’s commander. Along with squad leader, Morpheus, we fought side by side in the battle for Dimhollow, so closely that we were dragged through the rift together. I trust him with my life.
The door opens before I have a chance to knock, and the lithe figure of a dark-skinned man appears in the doorway, his smile reaching all the way to his equally dark eyes. “I felt you down the shadows. They ripple with your distress. Gods, Damien, your energy feels like a coming earthquake.”
I sag in the doorway. “I’m afraid the disaster has already happened. I need your advice, old friend.”
“Come in. I’m great with advice, just as long as I don’t have to follow my own.” He chuckles as he smooths a hand over his hair, longer on top and fading to bare scalp near his neck. He flips on the lights in the foyer even though neither of us needs them to see. Living topside requires certain accommodations to appear human. Lights are one of them. Our human forms are another.
“You look like you’ve been training,” I say, noting the man’s exceptionally lethal appearance.
“Thanks for noticing. Actually yes. I’ve accepted a position as commander of the Chicago vampire coven’s guard. The master here is serious about defending her city. Even has a witch on her payroll.” Cassius pauses inside a neatly arranged living room near the front of the house. “Can I get you a drink?”
“The stronger, the better.”
“I have just the thing.” He flows to a bar built into the far wall of the room, shadows clinging to him as he moves. “I think I know why you’re here,” he says as he tongs ice into two glasses and fills them with generous pours of Reyka vodka. “You’ve been tapped by the queen, haven’t you?”
I snort. “Good guess. She did call me in, but, as you know, my curse prevents me from serving as her consort… thank the gods.”
Cassius laughs and hands me my drink. We sink into leather chairs positioned perfectly around a glass coffee table in a rather austere room. Everything in its place. Just like Cassius. The shade is the most meticulous creature I’ve ever met.
“Use caution with Valeska, Damien. Even your curse may not be enough to dissuade her. She’s hellbent on expanding the hive.”
“Hive, yes, I noticed she used that terminology instead of coven.”
“It started when her predecessor chose to use Queen instead of Master. That opened the door.”
“Technically, Valeska is a queen. When Night Haven conquered the Blood Mark coven, she earned the royal title. More than one Master has bowed to her.”
“Yes, but Valeska won’t stop there. Her lust for power is endless.”
“I sense that too.”
“You represent the ultimate opportunity to her. As a shade, not only could you provide her better protection than any vampire in existence, but also an alternative to feeding on humans. Imagine how useful that would be for her. Feeding is a source of vulnerability for any vampire.”
“So, I gathered when she fed from me without my consent.”
Cassius gives a disapproving hiss.
“I have no interest in serving as her blood bag, and I’m guessing you don’t either, given that you’re here.”
“Insightful of you.” He wags a finger. “I left before I could be invited to apply for the job and am now under the protection of the Chicago master. Morpheus left too.”
“I’m aware. Ran into him at Bad Witches Club, and he has no regrets about performing the triune bond or his newfound abilities to walk in the sun.” I take a long sip of my drink, wishing it had a stronger effect on my constitution. My conversation with Morpheus had been enlightening. The shade accepted the bond immediately after receiving Valeska’s invitation.
“Which means you are her last hope and her first choice.” Cassius scowls.
“I am no choice.” I lift my brows. “It’s a moot point. If a Gowdie witch commands me to kill her, I’ll be helpless but to comply. The Queen understands this.”
“Don’t put it past her to find a way to break the curse just to have you for herself.”
I resist baring my teeth. “Good luck to her. I’ve spent centuries looking for an antidote. The Gowdies are the most powerful coven of animators on the planet. They’ll be pulling her strings the moment she bares her fangs.”
Cassius nods, turning serious. “Just be careful. There’s something about Valeska. I don’t trust her.”
“Considering she likely murdered her predecessor....”
“More than that, Damien.” He narrows his eyes, upper lip curling in disgust. “I sense she’d kill every last vampire in her own coven to reach her goals. She has no loyalty to our kind and values nothing beyond herself.”
The shadows in the room shift and rearrange with our shared tension. “I felt that in her presence too. I’ll be careful.”
“Excellent. If you want me to introduce you to the Chicago coven master?—”
“No. Night Haven is home.” Plus, it’s closer to Eloise.
“Understood. Still, you’re welcome to stay for a few days if you think it will help get you out of sight and out of mind. This city is brimming with nightlife.”
“I will stay, but I’m not here because of the queen.”
“No?”
I tell him about Eloise —everything from how she came to have the candle in her possession to the taste of her blood —and then I command the shadows to paint the tattoo on her back in the air between us.
“It’s definitely a sigil. I recognize several of the arcane symbols.”
“But not the figure itself. It’s not a witch’s bloodline. I know that much.”
“Morpheus didn’t have any insight?”
“No. Not exactly. Recently I’ve learned that Diana Harcourt was hired to paint Bad Witches Club. She was a local artist, and several vampires suspected she was magical, but no one ever knew what she was. She claimed she was human but a friend to the supernatural.”
“Maybe that’s it then. You say, aside from the effect her blood has on you, Eloise seems human.”
“Yes… but...” I scrub my face with my hands.
“What is it? You look tortured.”
“I’m falling in love with her, Cassius, more deeply than I’ve ever loved anyone, in this world or the last.”
“Fuck.”
“Right, fuck.” I stand and pace the room. “At first, I assumed she was a witch, binding me with some new spell I hadn’t yet encountered. But the more I’m with her, the more I’m convinced she’s human. I’m not sure which terrifies me more. I need to know if it’s real.”
He sips his drink, delivering a thoughtful hmmm from his glass. “Tell me, Damien, what do you love about her?”
I rub my jaw, trying to put it into words. “The first time I saw her, I thought she looked like a typical human. The worst kind.”
“Entitled? Wrapped up in her own little corner of eternity?” Cassius fills in.
“Exactly. But then I noticed more. She’s young but living in this house that doesn’t even have a television in the parlor. And I can smell death in the place. She’s soaking in it. The more I learned about her situation, that she’d left her abuser and given up a wealthy lifestyle to help her grandmother die, the more I came to respect her. She’s afraid. The scent of her fear burns in my nose often when we’re together. But she fought for my help, desperate to save her home, not for herself but for her grandmother’s sake, a woman who is dying anyway.”
“You love her because she’s selfless.”
“No.” I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “Selflessness and stupidity are too often bedfellows.” I think back to my interactions with Eloise. “She smells human. Her heart flutters like a human’s. The Gowdie witch confirms she is human. Aside from the sigil, which is in the wrong place to be a sigil, there is no reason for me to suspect she has magic. But that tattoo belied everything else about her. It’s a sign that there’s more inside her, a flame that can’t be extinguished.”
Cassius scratches the back of his head. “Why do I feel like you’re going to break into a stanza of ‘Candle in the Wind?’”
A laugh bubbles from deep within me. I’ve come to the right place. “I’m not drawn to her because she’s selfless. I love her, Cassius, because she’s brave in the way of a warrior. That thing I saw in her that first day, she’s shown it to me again and again. She’s a fighter. She dauntlessly pursues what she feels is right. She’s smart. Reckless perhaps at times but she knows her odds and overcomes her fears to protect the people she loves. In three hundred and eighty years, she is the only candle bearer who ever asked for my name, the only one who cared if I wanted to do as she commanded. She is one of a kind. To have a mate like that. To not be alone anymore....”
“For the extent of her human life.”
It’s a shot to the gut and I pull up short in my pacing, lifting my glass from the end table and draining it dry. “It goes without saying, it would be worth it.”
“Well, Damien, you asked me if what you are feeling is love or magic, and I have the answer.”
“You do?”
“What you just said… everything you’ve told me about why you love her… you never mentioned her blood.”
I close my eyes, suddenly hungry for her. “Her blood is incredible. I dream of it.”
“But it’s not why you love her.” A statement. Not a question.
“No.”
“Congratulations, you love her. It’s not magic.”
I circle the ice in my drink, listening to it clink against the now empty glass. It’s real. It is. “I’m not sure congratulations are in order.”
“No?” Cassius’s brow furrows.
“If I mate her, it changes everything. I can’t truly be with her unless I break the Gowdie hold on me, and if I do that, what then? Do I give up on our quest to find a way home?”
Cassius drains the rest of his drink and rises to cross to the bar to pour himself another. “I’ll tell you what I think. If she is the woman you say she is and she fights for what she holds dear, it won’t be long until you know how she feels. She’ll tell you. She’ll show you. And if you choose to mate her, you’ll know one thing for sure.”
I hold out my empty glass to him and he refills it. “Oh? What’s that?”
“When it comes to the rest of it, she’ll only be a factor for her short human life. If you love her, Damien, enjoy it while it lasts.”