Chapter 53 Gideon
Gideon
Winnie: Gideon, where did you go? Arabella’s looking for you. She’s upset.
I DRAG MYSELF BACK TO MY ROOM and collapse on the sofa, tossing my phone beside me without checking any of the messages currently blowing it up.
I’ve done my job. I’ve taken care of everything.
I recalled the security team from their “night off” to take care of Sinead’s body and drag Astor down to the cells.
I sent Lilac over to Arabella’s house with potions to close over her wounds.
And I’ve ordered a media blackout that absolutely no one will adhere to.
Gossip will spread through Sanctus faster than a conversation between Rory and Lorelai Gilmore – not a topical reference, I know, but Alaric was a big fan of the show for a while, and when Alaric is a fan of something, you’re a fan too, or else – and every second that goes by without PR damage control will mean more ammunition for the Conclave to use against me. But I can’t bring myself to care.
Arabella’s safe.
I rub at the itchy spot on my neck where Astor’s bite has already healed over.
I peel off my ruined shirt and toss it in the rubbish bin.
I go to my closet, but there’s nothing in there.
Most of my clothing has been sent to the London penthouse, and Sinead neglected my week’s laundry in favour of betraying me.
I find a shirt in the clean laundry bin and bring it out into the living room with the ironing board.
I need to do something with my hands or I will sprint back to Arabella’s house, snatch her from the arms of her friends, and shag her on every available surface until she begs for mercy in a fun way.
But this time, I’m keeping my promise.
I’m staying away from her.
I’ve already ruined her life several times over. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want me in it again. And with her owning a majority share in Sanctus now, there’s not much point staying.
I plug in the iron and pace across the floor until it heats up, trying to force out the images of a bloody and broken Arabella by mentally running through the list of what I need to accomplish before I leave Sanctus. I’m just starting to iron when the elevator doors slide open.
I look up in surprise. No one else can get up here apart from Sinead, and—
I throw up my hands to defend myself, but I’m not fast enough. A small, hard device hits me in the face. That’s followed by a pillow, and a hail of abuse so poetic that Shakespeare should be taking notes.
Arabella looms over me, brandishing the cushion from my sofa in one hand and dragging the bloody but not-quite-dead body of Astor in the other.
“How dare you sit there like the smug king of your domain?” she yells, drawing back her arm for another blow.
“Technically, I’m standing. How did you get up here?”
She whomps me over the head again. “The same way I got up here last time. Moriarty. And I ask the questions. Not you. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m ironing.”
She drops the cushion and snatches the iron from my hands. “I’m going to strangle you with this cord and enjoy every minute of it.”
“So will I. But before we get erotic, can you tell me what this is about?”
“What’s this about? You left!”
“Of course I did.” I shrug. “You were safe. You were with your friends. I wasn’t needed.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re the head of Sanctus. You have justice to dispense—”
“Technically, you’re head of Sanctus. We signed the paperwork. You own this place outright. So that means what happens to Astor is up to you.” I frown at the vampire dripping blood on my larch floor.
Her mouth twists. Even battered and bloody, she is so beautiful I can barely stand to look at her. “What if I don’t want—Hey!”
I grab the iron from her and start working on the cuffs.
“Do you know how impossible it is to stay here in your presence, when every corner of this estate reminds me of you? I can’t walk in the Midnight Garden without remembering our night together in Paris.
I can’t step foot in Sanctus Club without hearing you cry my name.
My private apartments reek of your ginger and myrrh scent.
When I drink blood, I taste raspberries.
I taste you.” I furiously rub at the sleeve of my shirt, dimly aware of a burning smell rising from the expensive fabric.
“Living here without you is torture. I’m tearing myself to pieces, but if this is the only way I can love you, by leaving this place, then I’ll do it.
” My head snaps up, my eyes meeting hers.
“Because I do love you, Arabella. I love you so much that I’m setting you free of me. ”
She looks stunned.
“Gideon…”
“Please leave.” I turn back to my shirt. I’ve burned a hole near the cuff the size of a 20-pence piece. “I have the last of my things to pack.”
A hand closes over mine, wrenching the iron away. “Gideon, you fool. Look at me.”
It takes everything I have to turn my head up to hers. I’m trembling. The only thing keeping me upright is a thin strand of foolish, impossible hope.
A pair of dark eyes meet mine, the edges softened by a halo of golden light. Her eyebrow twitches.
“Gideon, I love you.”
Did she just…
My blood sings.
Never have three words felt so much like magic.
“You… you’re sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snaps. “I’m Arabella Lestrange. I’m always sure.”
A slow grin breaks out across my face. “It’s impressive how someone so beautiful and brilliant can be so humble.”
“Humility is difficult, especially when I’ve never been wrong in my life, but not as difficult as it is for me to admit these words, so don’t make me do it again.
I love you, Gideon Blake, and I forgive you.
I can’t promise I won’t occasionally want to rearrange your guts, but I’ll do it in pretty shapes like flowers and hearts. Because I love you.”
“I—”
She kisses me.
I say this as a vampire who’s had a long life filled with pleasures – you haven’t lived until you’ve been kissed by Arabella Lestrange.
The woman’s tongue is silk, her fingers knitting in my hair, possessive and decisive.
Her little moans are the only music I ever wish to hear.
She keeps her eyes open, those golden haloes dancing as they draw me in until I am utterly under her spell.
She loves me.
I tug the cord from the wall. The iron hisses and smokes as it burns through my shirt, but I leave it, not caring if I burn the whole damn building down.
I push Arabella back, back towards my fancy sofa, already imagining how she’ll look luxuriating on the luxe fabric, surveying her kingdom through the windows, her legs spread wide while I kneel between them.
I’m so busy imagining it that I almost trip over Astor’s body.
“Why’d you bring him?” I say. “I’m down for a threesome, but this is a bit kinky even for me.”
She raises her eyebrow at that. “I thought to make him a gift, for saving my life. Although he did almost triumph. You just had to do a whole supervillain ‘I’ve got you now’ speech, didn’t you?”
“What happened to ‘thank you for saving my beautiful neck, Gideon’?”
“Thank you for saving my beautiful neck, Gideon.” She breaks away from me to haul Astor over to my sofa, leaving a long smear of blood across the floor.
She sinks into the fabric like it should be grateful for her presence and pulls Astor’s lolling body over her lap.
With a wicked grin, she pats the seat beside her.
“We’ve never really been on a real date. Why don’t you join me for dinner?”
I can never refuse her. I slide into the seat beside her, taking some of Astor’s weight.
He’s in bad shape – between the injuries from the blade and the werewolf bites that won’t heal over, he’s barely conscious.
What Arabella is suggesting is a kindness that he doesn’t deserve, but I know she’s not thinking about him.
I can’t gift her back the necklace. édouard has already informed me that his client spooked when I didn’t show, and returned to the darkness. But Lord Astor is a much better gift.
Arabella stares down at him, her expression unreadable. She’s remembering. In time, she might tell me about the things he did to her. Or they might remain her secrets forever. But the remembering is important. The remembering is her finally laying his ghost to rest.
She swipes the hair from his face with an almost gentle reverence.
And then she sinks her fangs into his neck.
Astor struggles for a moment, but then the endorphins hit and he sinks happily into her arms. A vampire is no more immune to our bite than a human, which is partly why drinking from each other is forbidden.
Arabella’s eyes meet mine as she drinks deep. I’m mesmerised by the movement in her throat as she gulps and sucks. The room fills with the mingled scent of raspberries and copper – the unmistakable tang of fresh, flowing blood.
When she draws her mouth away, there’s a smudge of his blood across her lip.
I wipe it with my finger. She smiles against my hand, her fang scraping across my skin.
And then we’re kissing and sucking and licking blood, our hands everywhere, our fangs entangled, our tongues ravenous.
She tastes sharp and tangy – like raspberries and revenge, like myrrh and magic.
Her ruined dress falls to pieces in my hands.
Or maybe I tear it to shreds like an animal.
It’s all a blur of taste and magic and her.
Astor’s blood is like nothing I’ve ever drunk before, and I already drank it once.
It’s rich and heavy with his years and his magic.
Not even the memory of drinking him back in Paris compares to the hunger roaring through me as I gulp the last of him from Arabella’s tongue.
It is salvation and damnation at once, and I have no idea what such a quantity of an ancient vampire’s blood will do to us.
There are reasons vampires don’t drink from each other.
And even more reasons why we’re not supposed to cheat death a second time.
But I don’t care about the consequences now, not when Astor’s blood flows between our lips as we share the last of his life.
It’s wicked. It’s wrong. But it feels right.
When he’s finally drained, when Arabella’s past is a dead, heavy thing between us and our veins sing with his magic, she shoves Astor’s husked body from the sofa and crawls into my lap. Her body – like her clothing – is couture. That triangle of dark hair between her thighs could drive men to ruin.
And of all the men, in this eternity and the next, she’s chosen me to ruin.
I do so enjoy being ruined by her.
Every night when I woke from dreamless sleep to find she wasn’t beside me, I wished for this second chance. And now that she’s in my arms, I’m not going to waste a single moment. I need to taste every inch of her.
I kiss a trail to the spot behind her ear that always used to drive her wild.
“You remember…” she whimpers.
“I remember everything about you.”
I kiss a trail down her body, pushing her over the arms of the sofa, spreading her legs for me. She tilts her chin down towards me, and her expression is pure haughty goddess.
I lower myself to my knees, exactly where I’ve always wanted to be. I kiss the tiny mole on her inner thigh before I move to the real treasure.
As soon as I taste her, I know that a taste will never be enough for me. I need to devour this woman.
And I do. I feast on her clit, mingling Astor’s blood with the rich, raspberry taste of her. I plunge my tongue inside her opening, tasting the juices of her arousal before pounding her clit with my tongue until she lets slip a stream of foul, delicious curses and then, just my name, over and over…
“Damn you, Gideon…”
She comes apart for me.
Before she has recovered from the orgasm, I sweep her into my arms. Arabella wraps her body around me as I carry her back to my room. Her lips twist in amusement as she takes in the large, revolving coffin-shaped bed and the floor-to-ceiling windows giving us a view across the whole of Sanctus.
“That Patrick was a genius.” Arabella studies the glass. “These windows are an engineering marvel. I can see across to my house, and the Midnight Garden beyond.”
“I thought a queen might appreciate surveying her domain.”
“But this bed is absurd,” she murmurs as I lay her down, flick on the LED lights, and set it to rotate slowly. “Like you.”
“You’re just mad I didn’t have a replica of your Queen Anne mahogany monstrosity.”
“It was awfully fun tying you to the cherubs,” she admits.
I groan, kicking off my trousers. “Damn you, woman. Don’t mention the cherubs again or I won’t make it.”
I crawl up on top of her, pressing myself into her, needing every inch where we touch.
Her legs wrap around me, pulling me down.
I nibble behind her ear and she laughs her low, throaty laugh, and I am utterly lost. And when I enter her, for the first time in my whole life, I know the meaning of the word home.