Chapter 25 Christine #2
“What?” He hooks an eyebrow, gives us a faint grin.
“So dramatic, both of you. Fuck, we’ve all been trapped, torn apart, abused—we’ve all suffered.
We get it. We understand each other. Christine, do you think I’m not terrified, too?
You think I don’t have trust issues so deep I could drown a mountain in them and have room to spare?
Of course I do. But should we let our trauma win?
Should we let it steal our future like it has already stolen our past?
Hell no. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give another second of my potential happiness to the people who took my childhood from me.
You want the ties broken? I’ll do it. I’ll stand up to my sister, reject my birthright, throw myself out of the shifter pack.
They might come after me, but fuck ’em. I’ve got a vampire girlfriend, and my boyfriend is a god. ”
A startled, hysterical laugh bubbles up inside me, slips out of my fanged mouth. Raoul’s grin widens, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
I’m still broken inside, still wretched and hungry, but something has shifted into place. Me. I’ve shifted into place with the satisfying click of the last piece latching into a puzzle. The murderous pain in my heart eases, and relief floods into its place.
Whether he knows it or not, those words were exactly what I needed to hear.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to give another second of my potential happiness to the people who took my childhood from me.
Fuck yes.
I duck my head, not to Raoul’s neck this time, but to his mouth.
With my fangs out, the kiss is messy, dangerous, but he growls in eager response, the most animalistic sound I’ve ever heard from him.
When I pull away, his lower lip is bleeding.
I lick the tiny cut, then turn to the Angel, drag him closer, and kiss him with Raoul’s blood on my tongue.
He releases a ragged breath, an aching sigh that I feel right down to my bones.
Pulling back, I touch his half mask. “Raoul is giving up his family. What will you yield to me, besides your life?”
When I toy with the edge of the mask, dread pools in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t control it.”
“Show me,” I whisper. “Show us.”
Slowly, he reaches for the mask, tugs it away from his face, and sets it aside.
Beneath the mask, the right side of his face is striated with open gashes, red wounds that look fresh, though I know he must have carried them for a long time, ever since he gained this form.
As Raoul and I watch, tiny black tendrils poke out of the gashes and writhe in midair. A few of them sprout leaves as they extend and expand. It’s as if a dark, deadly forest lives inside the Angel, ready to emerge and invade the world around him like a malevolent disease.
Part of me cringes at the sight of the vines, recoiling from the virulent magic I sense in them.
But I force myself to reach out, to let one of the tendrils curl around my finger.
With a twitch of my hand, the vine explodes into black ash.
They’re fragile, these vines of his. An echo of some greater power he used to possess.
Raoul shifts under me, and I scoot back to let him sit up. He strokes the wounded side of the Angel’s face, and with each contact, more tendrils dissipate into black dust.
I want to erase the lost look from the Angel’s eyes, to soothe the ache I see there, to seal up the wounds of his heart. So I lean forward, and I kiss one of the open gashes.
Then, on impulse, I sweep my tongue along the wound.
There’s a hum of reaction, a magical response to the enzymes in my saliva, so I lick the Angel’s cheek again, another swipe over the ravine in his flesh.
When I lean back, the edges of the gash are coming together, sealing shut, forming a long, pale scar.
“Oh shit,” whispers Raoul.
Heart pounding, I stroke the Angel’s face with my tongue, bathing every cut, ignoring the twitch of the vines, the ashy burst of their tendrils when they contact my skin.
Each gash closes, and when I’m finished, there are no more vines, no more raw red flesh.
The Angel’s face bears several white scars but no open wounds.
His fingertips drift wonderingly over his right cheek. I can see the realization dawning on his face—that if he had trusted me and bared himself to me, he could have been healed sooner. His suffering could have been alleviated, his fears allayed.
The symbolism of it penetrates my heart more deeply than Raoul’s words.
If I open myself to loving these men, maybe I could heal, too.
I won’t have to work on these relationships alone; Raoul and the Angel will be there, too, working beside me.
I know I can survive by myself, but maybe I don’t have to.
Maybe this trifold knot of ours isn’t a snare at all but security.
Strength. Relief. Maybe, instead of making each other worse, we can make each other better.
Days ago, I made the choice to share my body with them. This decision feels more important…monumental, in fact. And like that other choice, it happens softly, swiftly, in some deep place of my heart.
I thought choosing them would feel like a trap closing, but instead it feels like I’ve been released from torment. The bridge has been crossed, and it’s burning behind me. I see the heat of the flames in the Angel’s golden eyes, in the flash of Raoul’s smile.
I look from the Angel to Raoul and back again. “If we’re going to do this, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I don’t need a guide or a guardian. I don’t belong to either of you.” I pause, cupping Raoul’s face with my left hand and the Angel’s with my right. “You both belong to me.”
“Hell yes,” breathes Raoul.
Instead of answering, the Angel rises, drawing me to my feet as well. Once I’m standing, he drops to his knees and presses his face against me.
For a moment, he simply remains there with his arms wrapped around my hips and his cheek against my waist. My hands find their way into his hair instinctively, twining through the black curls.
The Angel inhales slowly, like he’s savoring my scent, and then he nuzzles against my lower belly.
Arousal swirls through my body, every inch of me waking up to his nearness, his tenderness.
His fingers find the waistband of my dance shorts. Carefully, he drags them down my legs, along with the panties, inch by tantalizing inch, until they’re loose and lax around my ankles.
Then he kisses my bare pussy, the tip of his tongue stroking my clit with an abject devotion that takes my breath away.
Raoul makes a sound of fervent enthusiasm and rises behind me on his knees, caressing my ass like it’s his favorite thing. He lifts my shirt and begins planting kisses on my lower back, right over my spine.
The two of them kneel there, worshipping my body. They press their repentance into my flesh with their lips, trace their love on my skin with wet tongues.
And for the first time in my life, I begin to believe that I’m worthy of happiness.
Raoul trails his hands up my body, getting to his feet as he follows my curves upward. He slips both hands under my breasts and moves in until his body presses against my back and his lips brush my ear. The Angel remains at my feet, holding my thighs while he licks me softly, firmly, relentlessly.
When I whimper, Raoul kisses my temple and murmurs, “Come for him, sweetheart. Come on his tongue.”
Raoul is cupping my breasts, his fingertips stimulating my nipples, and it’s heaven, it’s hell, it’s more than I can take.
The sensations spiraling through my body demand release, climbing in an irresistible crescendo toward the peak.
And then, just when I’m writhing at the brink, the Angel’s tongue vibrates.
I come with a hoarse scream, shuddering through the force of the ecstasy.
My whole body shakes, and Raoul holds me steady, soothes me with whispers of wicked satisfaction until I go limp, my limbs turned to useless jelly.
I sag in Raoul’s arms while the Angel looks up, his mouth glistening.
His scarred face is the loveliest thing I have ever seen.
“Oh my god,” I gasp. “What you did at the end—what was that?”
“Something I thought I would try,” he replies.
“You didn’t think to do that last time we were together?”
He shrugs, a naughty smirk playing over his lips. “You don’t expect me to reveal all my secrets at once, do you? I have to save a few surprises.”
“Yes, but when you have a vibrating tongue—”
“Wait, what?” Raoul’s tone is threaded with astonished envy.
“Would you like a turn, poet?” asks the Angel, his eyes hooded and lustful.
“Yes,” says Raoul. “But if we’re going to do this, I need to get something from my truck first.”
He releases me and races out of the motel room. I sway on my feet, my shorts still around my ankles.
The Angel reaches past me and yanks back the covers of the bed, and I topple gratefully backward onto the sheets. They’re cheap but much cleaner than the rest of the room, and I lie limply on them while the Angel removes my shoes and the rest of my clothes with methodical tenderness.
Raoul knocks at the door, and when the Angel lets him in, Raoul holds up a bottle of lube.
I hook an eyebrow at him. “You keep lube in your truck?”
Raoul flushes. “I picked some up the other day. You know…just in case.” His gaze flicks to the Angel, who doesn’t smile but gives Raoul the filthiest bedroom eyes I’ve ever witnessed.
At first, I think Raoul might collapse under the dark intensity of that stare, but although his blush deepens, he manages to stay upright.
“Do you know what ‘Raoul’ means, little poet?” inquires the Angel, circling Raoul like a panther sizing up its prey.
“Wolf counsel,” whispers Raoul.
“Very good. And do you vow, poet, to be our counsel? Our wolf, loyal to us alone?”