Chapter 18. Caitlyn #2
“The thing is, I’m not the most organized demon,” he went on.
“I can be a bit of a whirlwind when I’m distracted.
But I’m even worse when I’m focused.” His voice dipped.
“I became so obsessed with finding work and learning how to function in this realm that I forgot some of the more basic survival skills.”
He hesitated.
“About a month after I left the Shadow Realm, Ambrose came to visit me for the first time.” He paused. “It was bad, Caitlyn. I’d just finished a two-week stint as a bouncer, and he found me sitting in the dark, hunched over my laptop, scrolling for the next job I could take.”
That didn’t sound too bad, I thought.
“I’d forgotten that normal people turn lights on,” he said quietly, “and need to do laundry, and wash dishes, and shower. All things we never had to think about in the Shadow Realm.” His fingers stilled briefly before resuming their slow circles.
“I became so obsessed with finding work that I forgot the most basic survival skills. Including feeding.”
Ah. Yeah. That was pretty bad.
An image flashed through my mind—Ambrose, faceless in my imagination, stepping into an apartment as grimy as my house had once been. Piles of laundry. Overflowing trash. And a half-feral demon clutching his laptop like Gollum with a precious.
“So, after a very long lecture on housekeeping,” Blaise went on, “Ambrose practically had to carry me to a bar to find someone to feed from. I hadn’t realized how weak I’d become after a month without it. Honestly, I don’t know how I survived that last security job.”
Blaise blew out a breath.
“He found a shifter who was particularly enthusiastic about spending the night with an incubus.” A faint, embarrassed huff escaped him.
“When she suggested both of us...” Blaise hesitated, his body tensing beneath me.
“We usually feed alone. But I was weak, and Ambrose was already going to have to help me back to her place anyway. So that night was—”
He shuddered, the motion sending a strange, sympathetic and oddly curious ripple through me.
“—the first of many,” he finished quietly. “We never fed from each other. But it felt right, having him there. Like we were meant to be a pair.”
My chest tightened.
“So, Ambrose stayed,” he continued. “We lived together. Worked together. Fed together.” He paused, then added, “I think that’s why my rhythm was off last night. You were the first person in almost a decade that I’d been fully with without Ambrose at my side.”
Okay. So... that was something we could work on.
He was used to having another person there—which explained why he hadn’t found a solo rhythm yet. Why he’d been out of sync. Because the first time we were together, he’d been picturing Ambrose at his side.
My core clenched at the sudden image of two incubus demons in the tent.
Blaise shifted beneath me, as if he could sense the sudden spike of desire that flared through my body.
The desire that absolutely should not be happening, I reminded myself. Because it was wrong—on so many levels—that the mental image of a faceless Ambrose in that tent with us was doing this to me.
I shoved the thought away, smothering the spark with logic.
Because if Blaise had been feeding with Ambrose beside him, then it was likely they’d both been with the person who’d broken his heart. Had that person chosen Ambrose over Blaise? Had Blaise been forced to watch while the person he loved fell for his best friend instead?
A second later, the elastic band at his wrist snapped.
After another steadying breath, Blaise went on. “We built a life together after that. We set up the business. Made the apartment a home. And every Samhain, I was excited at the thought of finally meeting you—but not disappointed when you didn’t summon me.”
There was an apology threaded through his tone.
I squeezed his leg gently, letting him know he didn’t need to be sorry for that.
“And life was good. Right up until six months ago.” His voice faltered. A sniffle escaped him, and there was a long pause before he caught me completely off guard with his next question. “Have you ever heard of the Silent Massacre?”
I nodded slowly.
Everyone had heard of the Silent Massacre.
It had dominated the news for months—not just because it was the largest loss of supernatural life in recent history, but because it forced the Council to acknowledge something they’d ignored for decades.
Families of the missing, who’d never been given answers, suddenly had proof that their loved ones hadn’t simply vanished.
For years, the only place the theory had lived was in Who Do the Voodoo?
—a notoriously unreliable supernatural tabloid that thrived on hysteria and half-baked conspiracy theories.
Every few weeks, they’d publish another article insisting that the disappearances of supernatural groups over the past decades were all linked.
Like most sane people, I’d dismissed it as nonsense. A way to turn other people’s grief into sensational headlines.
Until six months ago.
An anonymous tip had been sent directly to the Council. According to the reports that followed, it came from someone who claimed they’d been lured to a vampire nest under false pretenses and had realized too late that they were meant to be dinner.
The tip included exact coordinates. When Council investigators arrived, they found a dozen freshly dismembered vampires scattered through the lair. It wasn’t long before the investigation uncovered the drained remains of hundreds of missing supernaturals, discarded in the crypts beneath it.
But why was Blaise bringing this up?
It wasn’t as if—
My train of thought stilled. The rough, sinewy scar at Blaise’s neck burned against my scalp.
My body moved before I could stop it. Blaise stayed perfectly still as I pushed myself up and tugged the fabric of his T-shirt down far enough to expose the horrific injury at his throat.
His lips tightened, his brows furrowing as he held his breath, as if it hurt to have me look at the scar from that night.
Bile roiled in my stomach as the truth settled in.
My mate could have been taken from me six months ago, and I would never have known. I could have finally been ready to make the summoning... only to find there was no Blaise left to summon at all.
There was more to the story. I knew that.
But for now, all I could do was lower my lips to his neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the cool, silken scar—a reminder that he hadn’t died. That he’d survived.
That he was here with me.
Blaise only released his breath when I settled back against him, nuzzling carefully beneath his jaw, tears threatening to spill from my eyes.
“Ambrose and I were hired by a nest of vampires,” Blaise said quietly.
“The job wasn’t very specific. They just said they needed trained muscle for a while.
Because we were together so much, we kept our abilities to read emotions dampened when we weren’t feeding, otherwise it would drive us insane.
So, we didn’t feel the deadly hunger in the air.
We realized something was wrong far too late.
Not until one of them had already taken a chunk out of my neck.
And Ambrose...” Blaise swallowed, his scar shifting against my temple.
“He was like an avenging angel. He plunged the crypt into a darkness so unnatural that even I couldn’t see through it.
But I could hear the screaming. The sound of flesh tearing. ”
A fresh spill of tears slid down his cheek as he got lost in the memory.
“When it was over, he just stood there, trapped in that rage. Too consumed by it to realize I was okay. For the most part, anyway.” He huffed a weak, humorless breath.
“I summoned my shadows and brought us back to our apartment. But even then... it was like he couldn’t quite believe I was still there. ”
I felt it then—the truth pressing in. My body tensed as my mind screamed what I already knew but hadn’t fully realized, ever since Blaise had first spoken his best friend’s name.
My mate was in love with Ambrose.
And this was the night he’d realized it.
“I was already healing,” Blaise continued softly. “But Ambrose couldn’t seem to believe it without touching me. And—fuck.” He threaded a hand through his hair. “Gods, I wanted him to.”
He fell silent, gathering himself.
“We crossed a line that night,” he said finally.
“One there was no coming back from. One I didn’t want to come back from.
I thought... maybe Ambrose felt the same.
But the next morning, he blamed the bloodlust and the aphrodisiac in the vampire venom.
I didn’t push him. He seemed to regret it so much, and I didn’t want to make it worse. ”
I felt him chew on his bottom lip.
“So, we drifted apart,” he said quietly. “We stopped feeding together. Took safe, boring jobs we didn’t have to work as a team on. And we avoided each other as much as we could.” His breath hitched. “Which is why he’s on a job helping a witch with a hob... and why I’m here with you.”
Silence stretched between us. Was he disappointed? Did he wish he’d never taken the job with me? Did he wish—
“I don’t want you to think I regret meeting you, Caitlyn,” he said, cutting through my spiraling thoughts.
I felt his gaze turn down to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up. He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.
“From the moment I opened the door of your beat-up car and saw those beautiful hazel eyes, I was a goner,” he murmured.
“My heart opened to you instantly. And I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to explore what we could be together.
I just... need time,” he finished softly. “Time to forget Ambrose.”
Forget Ambrose.
I should have felt relieved. Thrilled, even, that he wanted to move on, to choose me fully. Instead, my mind betrayed me with another fleeting mental snapshoot of the three of us in that tent.
I smothered the thought instantly.
Ambrose was fated to a Briar Coven witch. Maybe even my cousin, Jen. Or worse—Priscilla, if the coven’s magic ever finally accepted her. I wondered how much it would hurt Blaise to see his former lover walking around the coven arm in arm with someone else when Ambrose was eventually summoned.
Would we have to leave the coven for good?
The thought made my chest ache. But the idea of putting my mate through that kind of pain hurt even more.
I drew in a steadying breath.
This whole situation was a royal shit show.
But I had to trust that Fate had played her hand this way for a reason.
I eased myself out of the crook of Blaise’s neck.
His eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy from the Wailing Whirls, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he waited for me to say something.
All my body wanted to do was show him—in every way I knew how—that he never had to fear being vulnerable with me.
I lifted my hand and cupped his jaw.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said softly. “And I never doubted your feelings for me.” My thumb brushed gently along his cheek. “What you had with Ambrose doesn’t change how I feel about you. And you don’t need to be sorry for any of it, Blaise.”