Chapter 30
Sadie
Lucan walks beside me in the tangled depths of the cemetery. Talking about my past feels doable under the sparkling sky and black trees. Less scary, despite us being in a graveyard.
“My mom got sick in my sophomore year of high school,” I say.
“Multiple sclerosis. At first it was something to manage. She cut back her hours working as a bartender, but she still brought in enough money to get by. I got a job at Ink & Ivy Books for after school and on weekends to help with bills. But then she got sicker and sicker. Her meds were expensive and we started to drown financially. I begged her to quit her job, but she wouldn’t. ”
Lucan listens in silence. I wonder what he thinks, but don’t ask. I need to get the story out first.
“It was around this time she met Russell at work,” I say. “He was one of her regular customers at the bar. He seemed to give her a real boost in the beginning, mentally. I think she was surprised someone would be interested in her, given her illness. She talked about how funny and charming he was.”
I pause. “Maybe that’s why I like you, Lucan. You’re not funny and charming. You’re serious and intimidating.”
His brows lift. “You like me?”
My comments were meant as half joke, half insult, so I’m flustered that he’s taken them as neither.
I clear my throat. “I didn’t say that.”
“You literally did.”
“Oh.” I turn my face in embarrassment. “I guess I did. Anyway.”
“Anyway,” echoes Lucan. There’s a sound in his voice like he’s suppressing a smile. “Go on.”
“Soon Russell basically moved in, even though Mom and I had a tiny two-bedroom place. His charming mask slipped more often. His interests included drinking, and draining my mother’s energy dry.
She would come home from a shift and he’d be drunk, ready to start a fight.
He stressed her out so badly. Once or twice he dipped into her meds, for a kick.
But he never hit her, so she thought the situation wasn’t that bad. ”
Now that I’ve started talking, it’s like I can’t stop. After years of holding in the poison, it pours from me like I’m being purged.
“I begged her to kick him out. He had a payout from a former employer to keep him afloat. In my senior year of high school, she became too sick to work. He lent her money to survive and that was that—he was never going anywhere. I threw myself into school and work. I desperately wanted to make enough money to get rid of him, but minimum wage was never going to cut it. After high school, I started community college, but studying, working, and looking after my mom was too much, so I dropped out. I ended up—”
“What?” asks Lucan.
I shake my head.
Something stops me from telling him that I co-signed credit cards and a loan for her, hoping she’d no longer feel she needed Russell. It didn’t work and Russell stuck around. The debt is mine to this day.
Maybe I fear Lucan will pity me. Or that he won’t understand, like when he was mystified about the Darkbloom archivist parking down near the forest to avoid paying the daily fee. Like my problems aren’t real problems because they’re microscopic to him.
Or maybe I’m being unfair. If I’m going to tell him everything, I should tell him everything.
“I took on some debt, but it’s fine now,” I say in an offhand manner.
“Russell just got worse. It dawned on me that he didn’t want her in spite of her illness.
He wanted her because of it. He saw someone he could latch onto and slowly grind into the ground.
Someone who couldn’t leave him. The weaker she became, the nastier he got. He was a blood-sucker.”
Even I can hear the venom in my voice. Despite my guilt over what I eventually did to him, that rage still lives inside of me. Because of Russell, my mother died prematurely, broken and defeated.
After several long breaths, I inject calm into my voice. “Our neighbors would call the cops on us when Russell really acted up, smashing things and yelling. The cops never took him away though, because no one had a black eye or bloodied lip.”
The ugly mayhem of those nights hangs in my memory like spiderwebs. Mom sobbing, and Russell burning holes in me with his endless-pit eyes when I comforted her.
“I felt so helpless.” I taste bitterness at the back of my tongue. “You have no idea how many nights I lay awake trying to find a way out. There seemed to be none. I had nobody and nothing. No money, no power, no other family around.”
I glance up at Lucan as we walk. He’s watching me as intently as ever, making no attempt to interrupt.
Do I dare to go further? I haven’t said anything truly revealing about myself yet. Nothing bad. Maybe I shouldn’t hand him the keys to my darkest secrets.
But damn, it feels good to get things off my chest. Lucan’s a surprisingly great listener.
“Russell wore this gross baseball cap,” I say. “Some team from his home state. It was greasy and faded, with a snarling bear on the front. Red and blue. Distinctive. The cops saw him in it whenever they were called to our house, which was often.”
My heart beats harder. “One night last year, after a particularly colorful visit from the police where he cussed them out and barely escaped arrest, I took the cap from his head after he passed out on the sofa. I also took the lighter from his discarded jeans and a bottle of his most flammable booze.”
I exhale slowly through my mouth. “I set fire to the Briarvale police station, once I knew it was empty for the night. I left his baseball cap and lighter at the scene and ran. Russell was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. It was a scummy thing to do, but I was desperate. My mother was finally free. I thought what I did was worth it.”
A rock hardens in my throat. “But she cried when he was gone. She said she missed him. Less than a month after he was locked up, she passed away.”
When my voice trails off, Lucan speaks.
“This is why you feel guilty?”
“Partly. There’s more.” The shame breaks like a dam in my chest, flooding me.
“Russell was killed in prison. Brutalized by another prisoner. And it’s my fault because I put him there.
I couldn’t even finish reading the report of his death because the details were so awful I wanted to puke.
He was a jackass, but he didn’t deserve that. ”
Looking straight ahead, I brace myself for Lucan’s reaction.
“That’s not on you,” he says quietly. “Not in a million years. You were trying to protect your mother.”
“But he still died. And it didn’t even help my mom, in the end. I screwed up beyond belief. I was a murderer, in debt, and alone. I felt like my life was over.”
Lucan nudges me. “You had something though. You could write, and that got you a scholarship.”
“Purely by chance. I saw Darkbloom’s ad on social media while I was doomscrolling, and applied on a whim. I figured, what did I have to lose? I couldn’t believe it when I got in.”
He stops to face me under swaying willow branches. We’ve wandered to a section of the cemetery meant for quiet contemplation. There are ancient stone benches and sculptures overgrown with vines.
“I believe it,” says Lucan. “You deserve the world.”
“But what if I don’t?”
“You do. I see all of you, and you are beautiful.”
I touch my throat. “After I ran from the burning police station, that’s when my engraved locket fell from my neck. You can see why I was freaked out when you sent it to me anonymously. I thought you were making a threat to expose what I did.”
His eyes study mine closely, as if weighing his next actions.
“I have a confession too,” he says.
My spine stiffens. “Yes?”
“I saw you light the fire.”
I pause. “You what?”
“It was late. I was driving back to Darkbloom from the city and saw the flames. When I stopped to investigate, I saw a hauntingly beautiful girl sprinting away into the woods. Your locket fell in a flash of silver. I picked it up and kept driving. Fire trucks were already on their way.”
“I remember. The whole town rang with sirens.”
He nods fondly, like he’s reliving a pleasant memory. “I had to know who you were. I had your initials and knew your appearance. That was enough.”
My mind whirling, I rub my forehead. “You’ve known all along what I did. I can’t believe it. And you still wanted me?”
“I wanted you more.” He caresses my cheek. “You’re brave. You don’t do things by halves. You’re the same as me, at your heart.”
For the first time, I like the thought of being similar to Lucan in some way.
He’s right. Our hearts are edged in something hidden and raw. He recognized it in me and wanted to get closer. Maybe I recognized it in him too, only it scared me.
But opening up to him doesn’t feel scary. I feel lighter, like the invisible shroud of shame has slipped from my shoulders.
A cool ripple of air passes around us, fluttering my hair. Lucan tucks stray strands behind my ears, cups my face, and presses his mouth to mine. I don’t know whether it’s baring my soul or being in a Parisian graveyard, but nothing in me says this is a bad idea.
Lucan, in this moment, seems like a good idea. He sees me, he knows me, he wants me. Nothing else matters as he kisses me in the alabaster moonlight with nobody except the dead as witnesses.
He walks backward as we feverishly kiss, threading his hands in my hair while I tear at the buttons of his shirt. My fingernails drag across his hard pectorals. He sits on a bench and pulls me into his lap.
“Now do you understand?” he murmurs against my lips as my tongue teases and tastes him. “I told you we’re meant for each other.”
What would happen if I chose to believe him?
He slides his hands under the coat on my shoulders. Twitching down the flimsy straps of my gown, he reveals my breasts to the cool night air. My nipples harden as he licks them and kneads my flesh with his fingers.
Heat flares in my core like a phoenix rising. My body wants him more than ever, now that my mind and soul feel safer. Ripping the last of his shirt buttons free, I tug at his belt.
“I need you inside me,” I whisper.
“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” he says with heavily hooded eyes.
He lifts my dress to my waist. His fingertips push aside my lace underwear to find my soaked pussy, and my head falls back from the pure intensity of the sensation.
I’m throbbing for him, I know he can feel it, and I’m no longer ashamed. He knows the worst thing about me. It’s exhilarating and freeing.
His teeth clamp my nipple and I cry out with the pleasurable pain he inflicts so well.
My frantic hands unzip him. He shifts himself to help me free his cock from the confines of his pants. The shaft slams into my stomach, sending a fresh wave of hunger through me.
Rabid with need, I straddle him on the stone bench. My hands grip his neck and his fingers dig into my hips, and our tongues entwine with a bruising force.
“That’s it, Sadie,” he growls into my ear. “I want you to ride me. Show me how good we are together.”
He guides the slippery head of his cock to nestle against my pulsing folds. Without further warning, he tightens his hold on my hips and pulls me down onto him.
His cock invades my pussy with a burning ecstasy that turns my vision briefly white.
Sitting flush in his lap feels so good that I might come without a single thrust. He stretches the limits of my body, while we ravage each other with our mouths and hands.
My swollen clit pulses against his cock, making me wetter.
Then he lifts me effortlessly, my body rising until his tip nearly slides from me, before ruthlessly driving me back down. He does it again and again, a mind-wiping orgasm building in my core, while his jaw clenches and his eyes blaze into mine.
Swiveling on the bench, he lies on his back with me on top, legs astride him. In this position, his cock spears deep inside me, making me gasp with the stabbing new waves of pleasure.
Though I lean down to kiss him, he guides me up again.
“I want to see you, sweetheart,” he says. “You look so fucking perfect with my cock in you.”
His thumb and forefinger torture my nipples.
My hair falls around my shoulders as I ride him, pumping up and down his slick shaft. Whenever I stop short of the base, he grips my hips and drives himself home.
“You’re going to come for me,” he says. “I can fucking feel it.”
He doesn’t let me breathe, thrusting into me without pause. I bounce on him, adoring every moment of feeling wildly alive. The cold graveyard breeze kisses my sweaty face and body.
Lucan grunts, his neck cording, as the tidal wave in my core builds to new heights. I cry out as I come, drilling myself down onto him.
Then he holds me still while he shoots me full of hot jets, his muscular body shuddering as the orgasm moves through him.
“Sadie,” he groans over and over. “Sadie, Sadie.”
Finally, he lets me collapse onto his chest. He pulls the coat over my back and hugs me tightly. His heart thumps into my cheek as he kisses the top of my head.
“You’re going to kill me,” he says in wonderment. “Sex with you is too fucking good.”
Contentment filters through me, pushing away old, choking traces of the past. The world feels different after tonight. I feel different.
Our first official date, and Lucan has one last surprise for me. Panting, he gently pushes my damp hair from my face to look into my eyes.
“I’m falling like a goddam meteor for you,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
The leaves rustle and hush, like they’re listening for my answer.
Maybe he’s caught me in a moment of weakness, or maybe I wanted this all along.
“Yes, Lucan. I’ll be your girlfriend.”