Chapter Twenty-Nine
He didn’t get her a drink, but he did offer to make her breakfast. Downstairs in his big kitchen, she sat on a stool at the island counter and watched him scramble eggs with chives, cream and seasoning. His expression gave nothing away as he worked, but she wondered what he was thinking. She tried to remind herself that he wouldn’t have told her any of this if he didn’t want her around.
“You regret telling me,” Soph said in a low voice and the whisk in the eggs slowed. Eventually, he shook his head.
“I’m actually relieved. I’ve never told anyone before. Seven hundred years I’ve kept it to myself.”
“Seven hundred years,” Soph echoed. Far too many years to fathom. Eli put the bowl down and set a pan heating on the stovetop before going to the fridge and pulling out a jug of orange juice. After a moment’s hesitation, he also withdrew a bottle of champagne. He set both of them on the bench before Soph, followed by two glasses and she set to work pouring them both a mimosa.
“Can I ask more questions?” she requested and Eli, watching her, nodded. She cleared her throat.
“I’m confused about the lifetimes thing. Are you immortal? Witches normally aren’t, though vampires are.”
“I age like everyone else, but after I die, I’m reborn. I’ve lived eight lifetimes.”
Soph wrinkled her nose and lifted her drink. Eli drank with her before pouring the egg mixture into the pan. She didn’t want to think too much about the dying and rebirthing part. It was far outside her spiritual awareness to even contemplate how it worked.
“So you’re actually a thirty-year-old man.”
Finally, Eli cracked a smile. “Yes, with loving parents who live in Italy, and two sisters - both younger.”
“Wow.” Staring at him, Soph saw a completely different man to the one she’d assumed he was that morning. She drained her glass and poured herself another.
“And the other witch Founders are like this too?”
He nodded. “That’s right. We’ve been chasing each other through many lifetimes. The Light Witch will be getting old by now. I expect she’ll contact me within the next decade to hold up her end of the bargain and give me her magic.”
“Okay, rewind a bit,” Soph rocked back on the stool. Eli pulled the eggs from the heat and turned to survey her. He seemed less reserved now, which she was grateful for. But she needed to keep digging to understand. “So you’ve already killed all the vampire Founders and taken their powers… how?”
“I took the Possessive first,” he explained. “By sheer luck, I tricked her in my first lifetime. Psychic was next. He foresaw something happening with Ethereal and gifted his powers. I was then able to use both those magics to take on the Predator. The witches are much harder. Because we all live and die as different people each time, it makes it difficult to find each other. Or in the case of the Black Witch, hide from us. She’s killed me twice, the bitch, so I have to be careful.”
Soph’s eyes widened. “She’s killed you?”
“My own fault. The first time I trusted her to do the right thing, and she stabbed me in the back. The second time she just got the lucky jump. Got me in the back again.”
“What the fuck,” she breathed and Eli let out a little chuckle, but he quickly sobered.
“It’s why I was slow to move on this thing between us, Soph. I’m so close to finishing this once and for all. Once I have the Light, all I have to do is hunt down the Black. But that’s dangerous. She could kill me again. I wouldn’t put it past her to be petty enough to kill the people I love.”
Well, that was fucking sobering, though she didn’t miss the roundabout way he’d just declared his love for her. She twisted the stem of her glass and stared into the liquid. This was definitely beyond normal relationship boundary setting, like deciding whether or not to have a family. This was world altering apocalyptic shit. And yet she still wasn’t scared off by the things he’d told her.
“I’m not defenceless or helpless,” she reminded him, not quite meeting his eye. “I’m a witch too, and a strong one, you said so yourself. I’m certain the Black Witch Founder is Adriana. Let me help you.”
Eli pushed off the bench and came around it to stand by her stool. She turned to face him and he wrapped his arms round her waist.
“Thanks for offering,” he whispered. “I don’t know if I’ll need your help or not, but we’ve got time before it comes to that. Perhaps even another entire lifetime for me. Why don’t we talk about something not so doomsdayish?”
“Oh, yeah?” He was ready to change the subject, so she wracked her brain to think of something else to say. “Maybe you can help me with a predicament.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her neck, the whisper of his breath sending shivers across her skin.
“You don’t have any tips on how I can pass a drug test, do you?”
He rocked back. “You’re failing drug tests?”
He looked sad for her, and a lump caught in her throat. His expression said it all - there was no way to get the traces of vampire blood out of her system. She’d never get a job again. She looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears that pricked her eyes, but he cupped her face in his hands and forced her gaze back to his. His thumb wiped away a tear that spilled over to track down her cheek.
“I might have an idea,” he offered. “But let’s eat first. I have to fly out again this afternoon, and I think I’ll need a nap before I go.”
Soph’s heart sank at the reminder that his presence here was only temporary. “How long will you be gone?”
He smoothed her damp hair back from her face as his eyes softened. “Five days. I’ll be back on Friday morning. Can I see you then?”
She nodded, that lump still making it hard to speak. “Yes, of course.”
They ate, and his simple scrambled eggs on sourdough slices were to die for. Another two glasses of mimosa and they snuggled down in his home cinema to watch a movie. It was a new release, not even out of cinemas yet. An action adventure or something… Soph couldn’t remember. In that cool, dark room, on that huge, sprawling lounge, she promptly fell asleep.
It was quite possibly the best sleep she’d had in her life. Pressed over Eli’s chest with his heartbeat a steady thud against her face, all the anxiousness and guilt and jealousy faded to nothing. She was with him. And for now, he was hers. And that was all that mattered.
Too soon, a sharp beeping infiltrated her blissful rest, and she groaned as Eli shifted beneath her, reaching for his phone to turn the alarm off. Silence reigned, then he scrubbed the sleep from his face. “I have to go.”
Nooo.
She didn’t want him to go. She wanted to stay right here in this dark room, hidden from the world. She wanted to crawl under his skin and sleep against his heartbeat for eternity.
She couldn’t though, and she said nothing as she allowed him to rise before tailing him back upstairs to watch him pack. Several crisp business shirts went into the suitcase, followed by a neat stack of casual, comfortable clothes.
He was going to Paris. The same place he’d had that party with Chase and the hookers. She knew it was stupid to worry about it. He’d promised as much as she that there’d be no-one else, but this was still too new. This tender, blooming spark between them wasn’t being given enough time to properly catch before he left. What if he got to Paris and changed his mind? He went to the bathroom, returning with a toiletries bag, and she finally cracked.
“I don’t want you to go.”
He gave her a sad smile and zipped up the suitcase before moving towards her. Close enough for his heat to become her heat. He didn’t assuage her fears with words, rather he stole them from her breath with his lips upon hers in a kiss so heady and desperate she knew he didn’t want to leave either. Laying her down on the already rumpled bed, he fucked her again.
It wasn’t a messy, rough fuck, but nor was it a slow and tender lovemaking. Every movement was firm, claiming. He marked her as his possession with his lips and his hands and his cock, and when he came inside her, a newly discovered desire skittered through her chest.
His fertility was a switch, and he’d promised there would be long conversations if he were to ever turn it on, but it didn’t stop her imagination running wild with the idea of him pinning her down and filling her womb on his terms.
The mere thought sent a fresh thrill of heat slicking down her spine to blaze in her already throbbing core.
Eli suckled her breast, a groan rumbling in his chest as her walls pulsed around his softening cock before he finally pulled out, leaving a smear of fluid down her thigh.
Another shower later - this one shared beneath the same showerhead - and a brief, lighthearted argument in which she demanded he strip the soiled bed rather than leaving it for the cleaners to find and he was dropping her off at her apartment before continuing on to the airport.
Soph closed the door quietly behind her and dropped her bag on the lounge. Zita was on the balcony, bathed in afternoon sunlight, and Soph joined her there.
“How did you go, Baby?” Zita asked, a cigarette pinched between her lips as she polished an array of crystals scattered on the table before her. “I’m assuming you finally got hold of your man with the way you rushed out this morning?”
“He forgave me,” she replied, reaching out to pick up an unpolished black onyx that was the size of her palm. Zita surveyed her with a frank look.
“Then why do you look so despondent? I thought you wanted this.”
“I do,” Soph sighed and set the crystal back on the table. “It’s not even about him. It’s me.”
Eli had opened up to her about his true nature and, in turn, that confession had made her want to spill her own… And perhaps discover whether her family knew any of the dark truths she’d uncovered about herself. She finally met her mother’s eye. “I need to tell you something, mum. And I think I’m going to have to tell Nona, too.”
Zita sat back in her chair, pulling the cigarette from her mouth and extinguishing it in the ashtray. “You’re scaring me, Baby. What happened?”
Soph stared over the balcony to the city she loved so much. Her jaw worked. Telling her mother was the right thing to do; she would need her family’s support.
“I’m a black witch.”
Zita blinked, then flung her chair back as she rose. “You’re a what?”
Soph cringed. If unfazed Zita was taking this badly, then how would Nona react?
“How long have you known?”
“Well, earlier this year, I found out when a coven of black witches recruited me. Of course, I didn’t know they were black witches until…”
But Zita wasn’t listening. She whirled away, hands pressed to her temples. “Fuck!” She hissed. “How does this happen?”
Soph swallowed, fingers knotting together. She forced the next question out. “Is it possible that I’m not yours?”
Zita spun back, an accusing finger jabbing in Soph’s direction. “Oh no, Baby. I distinctly remember pushing your fat head out of my vagina. You’re definitely mine.”
Well, that was a relief, Soph supposed. “Should we tell Nona?”
“Fuck no!” Zita scooped up her cigarette and relit it. “Not until your cousin’s married. I won’t be responsible for killing the old bat before the wedding of the century.”
Agitated, she dragged on her cigarette, then extinguished it once more. “I need to sage the apartment,” she muttered, heading for the balcony door. She paused by Soph, though, her expression softening slightly. “I love you, Baby, however you align, remember that.”
Soph smiled, feeling the weight on her shoulders lift a little. “Thanks mum.”