46. The Right Thing
DAMIEN
Ireturn to Eloise the moment the darkness will carry me, anxious to touch her again, to remind myself that she’s safe, to hear her tell me she’s mine. Tony is dead, as are the only other two men who saw her in the cavern. Eloise will have heard about the fire by now. Learned that Tony and his two allies were onboard. She’ll know I was the one who came down on them like the night itself, who torched the evidence.
For centuries, I’ve been bound to another’s will. Is it any surprise then, that when given the freedom to do as I pleased I opted for the dramatic? Last night, after I left Eloise, I carried Tony’s limp body down into that cavern and sent a text from the phone in his pocket to the number he’d last contacted about “taking care of the issue”. The issue was Eloise seeing his operation. I would have loved to be the one to kill Tony for intending to eradicate my mate, but since Eloise exacted her own vengeance, I had to settle for all that was left, namely sending a message to anyone or anything that would dare consider harming her.
When I heard the hum of the boat’s engine in the sea cave, I punched through the back of Tony’s skull and held him next to me like a puppet. His brain matter was sliding down my sleeve by the time his two cronies exited the trawler, one blond and one with some kind of bird tattooed on his face.
“Thanks for coming.” I worked Tony’s mouth like I was the ventriloquist and he was the dummy, clacking his teeth together as I added, “Tony and I would like to have a few words with you.”
A clump of something dark and wet sluiced from Tony’s head, glopping onto the sand somewhere near my toes and eliciting a dark laugh from me. True terror registered on their faces then.
Welcome to your darkest nightmare, assholes.
The answering barrage of bullets slammed into me and what remained of Tony, riddling us both with enough lead to kill any human a hundred times over. I laughed. If bullets could kill me, I’d have been dead a long time ago. I let them believe they hurt though. I let them believe they’d killed me. I let them completely empty their weapons into me before tossing Tony’s leftovers onto the sand and flopping onto the ground.
And then I waited. Waited for those two lowlifes to creep up on me and lean over, nice and close, to make sure I was dead. With a cross and flick of two fingers, I sent a needle thin shadow to pierce the blond one’s throat, while I sent a second to puncture the lung of face tattoo. The two men crumpled, dropping their empty weapons to use both hands to staunch where they’d sprung a leak.
“I could kill you instantly,” I said, as one crawled toward the boat while the other squirmed on the ground, reloading his gun. As if the magazine of bullets they’d already emptied into me wasn’t proof enough that that plan wasn’t going to work. “All it would take would be a shadow to burrow through your brain. Unfortunately for you, I’m enjoying this. Your friend Tony attacked my mate tonight. I warned him that if he touched her, I’d kill him. He’s already dead, though. And I don’t feel any better about what happened. Yet.”
I sent another arrow of shadow though the blond’s ribs, narrowly missing his heart, and then through face tattoo’s liver. Then his stomach and his thighs. Their cries were wasted on me. I shared none of Eloise’s softness or compassion. Blood smeared across the sand as they dragged themselves away from me, and I reveled in their suffering, until I could no longer ignore the pull of sunrise. “Alas, play time is over.”
Grabbing the blond one by the back of the neck, I dragged him up and bit through his jugular. His blood flowed down my throat. It wasn’t particularly satisfying, but it would have to do. I needed my strength.
I released the man’s throat and tossed his lifeless body onto the boat, then did the same with Tony and tattoo face, whose neck I snapped when he still showed signs of life. Then I drove the trawler out onto the river.
Conveniently, I found a red plastic container of gasoline onboard and a lighter in tattoo face’s pocket. I doused the entire vessel, then lit the fucker on fire. Oh, how I reveled in that blaze, until the first rays of sunlight broke the horizon and I surfed the shadows back to my apartment, back to Night Haven.
Eloise may never know exactly what I did to those two humans, how I’d been cruel and prolonged their suffering, but she knows enough. All I pray is that she accepts that what I did was necessary, and that her soft heart doesn’t cause her guilt or shame for it.
As usual, I manifest in the parlor beside the grandfather clock and sniff the air for Eloise’s scent. It’s there, but faint. I prowl the rooms of the old house, flitting from shadow to shadow until I hear her voice from above.
“Damien, I’m in the attic.”
I shoot through the web of darkness and form on the landing at the top of the stairs. I can’t get any closer to her. When I try to enter, the room is... locked. Inaccessible to me, even in my shadow form. “Eloise?”
The knob turns and the door swings open, power washing over me like a swarm of bees buzzing against my skin. Before I can even greet her, she’s throwing her arms around me. Her lips crash into mine the moment I lean down to her height. When she breaks away, her eyes are wild with excitement.
“Come in. Wait until you see. I have so much to tell you.” She takes my hand and pulls me over the threshold.
All my cells come to attention. This room is enchanted. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. Gods, what is this place?
“Is that the keyspell?” I ask breathlessly. The symbols from her tattoo are sketched on the floor, but not in the shape of the key. They”re drawn in chalk along the border of a wide rimmed circle, and the power oozing off it rattles my fangs.
“It is.” Her voice is soft, laden with a note of sadness. “I know what it does now.”
I can’t take my eyes off the symbol. I step deeper into the room and the tingling along my skin intensifies. I’m shifting into shadow along the outside of my arms and legs as if the symbol is coaxing me to change into my true form.
“It’s tampering with my illusion.”
Her fingers thread into mine, tears in her eyes pooling along her lower lashes. “It’s your way home.”
Now I do break apart, circle her in my shadow form and come together with her in my arms. My mind is everywhere, remembering what Lazarus told me, the page from the book. I shouldn’t be surprised, time and time again my mate has proven herself to be more than anyone around her expects, but still, I fight against the implications. “How can you be so sure?”
Her smile falters. “It’s in my parents” spellbook. My family’s keyspell unlocks curses but also portals between worlds. That’s how I was able to speak with my parents when I… when Tony...” Her gaze drops. “When he was strangling me and I might have died.”
A growl rumbles in my chest. “He’s dead. They’re all dead. He’ll never hurt you again.”
She places her palms on my cheeks. “I know. I know. Thank you for that. The boat, the fire.”
I’m relieved she understands and accepts what I had to do. Taking her hands between my own, I say, “We’ll have to be careful. There could be others in the Denardi family. If they suspect you were behind his death, they’ll come for you.”
Her gaze falls to our coupled fingers, and although her brow creases, she doesn’t respond to my warning. “The keyspell will carry you home to Tenebris, Damien. This was my parents” specialty. They developed it after drinking dragon’s blood when they were members of a coven called the Order of the Dragon. According to the spell, all it needs is your blood. If I”ve drawn it correctly, and it works as the book instructed, the symbol will open a gate to take you home.”
Instantly, I know everything she says is true. I can feel the pull of the symbol, practically smell the warm scent of the crimson fields of my world. A pulse in the air around us beckons me to activate the magic. The idea that I’m so close to going home, to potentially seeing my parents and siblings again, to righting centuries of wrongs, is almost overwhelming. The draw of the symbol tugs an invisible cord in me, tying it into a knot that clogs my throat and makes it hard to breathe.
“What about you?” I squeeze her hand tighter. ”What about us?”
“What about me?” Her tone is light, but her eyes tell a different story.
“You’re my mate, Eloise. I will not leave without you.” I pull her closer, until we are nose to nose. “Come with me,” I say quickly. “I will make you a princess of Stygarde. My people will adore you. My family will be your family. We will not be separated by night and day.”
She opens her mouth, closes it again. “I want to, but I can’t. Not yet. Not now. I just found this place.” She sweeps a hand toward all the books and baubles on the shelves lining the walls. “I need to learn my family’s magic. Maeve is going to help me. I have to know who I am before I become someone else.”
I stare down at our coupled hands. ”Then I will remain here.”
“But you can’t stay because of me,” she grits out. I can smell the salt in her tears, and the scent burns in my throat. I hate that scent. I never want her to cry, especially not because of me.
“I can and I will.” My voice is trashed and comes out more as a growl than human words, but she hears me and understands.
“No, Damien. I can’t keep you from your home, your family, your people. What the Gowdies did to you was wrong, and this is the way to make things right.”
My muscles tense like I’m being torn in two. I do want to go home, but every instinct tells me I can’t leave her behind.
She’s sobbing in earnest now. I”ve longed for home, but I know she’ll always regret it if she doesn’t uncover the secrets this room holds.
I take her face in my hands, my mind made up. “Then I will stay for as long as it takes for you to read every word and practice every spell in this room, and when you are through, and only then, I will return home with my mate on my arm.”
She wipes under her eyes. ”Are you sure?”
”Beyond certain.”
Her lips draw into a smile. “Damn it, Damien, I love you. With everything I am.”
“I love you too, my mate.”
The emotions I’m feeling for her are too strong to contain. My lips crash down on hers and my form slips. Before I know what”s happening, I’m looking down on her from a greater height, my hands larger and taloned, my skin darker. Her eyes widen as I spread my wings, my tail flicking behind me. “The magic in this room is powerful,” I say softly. “It’s hard for me to hold my illusion here when my instinct to claim you owns me. We’ll have to go downstairs for me to change back.”
She runs her hands up my chest, then around my sides. My cock throbs at the feel of her touch. “No. Let’s stay here,” she says softly. “I think I like you just as you are.”
“Little dragon, are you sure?”
Her hands wrap around my shaft, their color pale against my shadowy skin. Gods, it feels good as she starts to work me from base to tip. I lean down to kiss her carefully around my fangs, as I stroke along her spine, careful not to tear her skin with my talons. She pulls back just enough to get her shirt over her head and the rest of her clothes off as the rumbling purr of my excitement fills the room.
I take her by the shoulders and pull her against me again, so small, so soft. Smoothing my hands down her back, I cup her ass and drag her up my chest so we’re face-to-face. She spreads her legs wide to wrap around my hips.
Her fingers explore my mane, my horns, my wings. She trembles.
“I won’t hurt you,” I rumble, wishing I could control myself and appear more human for her.
“I know.” She kisses me again, but when I draw in her scent, I can tell she’s not ready. Not yet.
I lift her higher. I will give my mate what she needs.
“What are you—? Oh!”
Resting her thighs on my shoulders, I brace her against the wall and lap up her folds, holding her in place, tasting her, pleasing her. My shadows rise to caress her skin, circle her breasts, brush the space behind her ear, tease her most intimate flesh. Another lap up her center and I delve inside, spearing her.
“Oh, God, your tongue —Oh my God. Oh my God.” My little dragon is learning the joy of a shade”s tongue, its texture rougher, its length longer than in my human form.
I lick along her inner walls, then graze the side of her clit in the way I know she enjoys. In time, her body loosens, her scent telling me she’s close to finding her release. Hands braced on my horns, her thighs tremble against my cheeks. I work her tender flesh until her body spasms against me, the room echoing with the sounds of her pleasure.
Now she’s ready.
I slide her body down mine until the crown of my weeping cock is at her entrance. Ever so slowly, I enter her inch by inch. My mate is small and tight, and I don’t want to hurt her. But she wraps her calves around my back and squeezes, drawing me deep, hard, and fast. I hold her there as she gasps and pants.
“Yes. Oh, Damien, yes!” She writhes against me.
I lift her almost off of me and then thrust into her hard.
She cries out. “More! Oh fuck, more.” She clings to my neck as I spread my wings and give myself over to the monster I am. The walls rattle. My entire world is her ragged breath. She tips her head back, her eyes rolling skyward. “Yes! Yes.”
When her inner muscles contract around me, it’s all I can take. I fill her with my seed and sink my fangs into her throat. Her blood and her body are pure ecstasy and the tiny, satisfied mews she makes fill me with pride. I’ve pleased my mate.
I’m still holding her close when I begin to shift, morphing into my human form. Gently, I lower her to her feet.
She strokes her hands over my shoulders and blinks up at me through full lashes. “You’re back.”
I offer her a lazy smile. “You’ve appeased my inner beast.”
She laughs through a lopsided grin. “He appeased me as well. More than once.” Her legs shake and I move to help her into the red velvet chair, but she shakes her head.
“Wait, I’m covered in you.” Her fingers trail down my chest and gesture to her lower half. Her thighs are slick with the results of our mating. I love it. My scent covers her, exactly as it should. But she points to her shirt. “Can you?”
Of course I can. I”ll do anything for her. As I cross the room to retrieve it, I smile at her over my shoulder. I want to carry her downstairs, put her into a hot bath.
The moment I lift the shirt from the floor, I know something’s wrong. A sound like the buzz of cicadas in late summer has me on high alert. Light flares around me, locking me in before I can take another step. I try to leap through the beams but I bounce off the magic, skin burning.
“Damien!” Eloise rushes toward me. “What’s happening?”
She looks toward the symbol she’d readied, but it isn’t her magic encircling me. I know all too well what this is. My hair blows back in the mounting power. “It’s another trap. One that requires my blood. The Gowdies!” I growl my fury that they”d dare recapture me.
“No. She promised!”
The light herds me backward toward a whirling vortex of nothingness. It’s dark but there are no shadows in those depths. Nothing to cling to. I shift into my native form again and dig my talons into the floorboards, but it’s no use. Inch by horrifying inch, the wood gives way as my claws tear through and I draw closer to the inevitable. I can’t escape this.
I meet my mate’s eyes. I have no words.
Wild eyed, Eloise thrusts her hand through the light, and grabs on to me. “What do I do? How do I stop it?” She squeezes my arm, but her grip slips to my wrist, then my fingers.
Over my shoulder, the glimpse I get of the widening portal tells me all I need to know. She can’t stop this. No one can. My feet are already gone. I lock eyes with her again and shake my head.
“Damien!”
My fingers slip from hers, and I fall.