Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
All enclave members are equals.
CIPRIAN
Head pounding, my magic sputters angrily as it tastes my fear while hungering for someone else’s. It’s pointless, like swallowing your own spit when you need a glass of water.
I shouldn’t have made those nightmares to calm the children. My fear stores were already low, and I gained nothing by creating those illusions. But they were scared.
When I got out of the car, their fear hit me. I perked up, then felt sick to my stomach. Orphans dropped in an environment they don’t understand . . . I saw Sheena in their faces and acted without thinking.
Now I’m the only one afraid.
Sheena isn’t answering my texts. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since I last heard from her. Something is wrong. I can’t deny it anymore, and I need to hear her voice or I won’t be able to sleep.
I glance at Alistair. We skipped the club after a pileup on the interstate made the drive back from Valley of Fire take longer than expected.
Head buried in his laptop, he isn’t paying any attention to me, so I make for the bathroom.
It’s late, about an hour before Celine and Luca get back. I have plenty of time to make a call.
Passing through Celine’s bedroom, I shut the bathroom door behind me and turn the fan on. I dial Sheena’s number, fingers clenching tighter and tighter around the phone as it rings and rings and rings and rings, before going to voicemail.
The acidic bubbling in my chest burns, spreading like lava in my veins. I scrub my palm over my ribcage, trying to push the worry away.
It’s going to be okay; she’s tough.
I call her again, my heart leaping into my throat when someone picks up.
“Ciprian? Is that you, sweetheart?”
I frown. The voice on the other end of the line is as familiar to me as my own, but it doesn’t belong to my best friend. “Sarah? Why do you have Sheena’s phone?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Someone should have called you, but everything happened so fast—we’ve been reeling.”
“Slow down,” I beg. “What happened fast? Where’s Sheena?”
I listen to the rest of the call through a dull roaring in my ears. Sinking down on the closed toilet seat, I ask Sarah to keep me updated, then hang up.
Should I text Callum or Gideon? My stomach churns.
Why should I reach out to them when they never consider me?
I scoff, shaking my head. I would gladly swallow my pride if I thought it would help Sheena, but there’s nothing I can add.
There’s no way my brother isn’t already tearing the world apart on her behalf. He doesn’t need me. He never has.
What if I never see her again?
Sheena’s laughing face flashes through my mind. We fell into our friendship fast. And I admit, it started as a way to piss Callum off on my end. I didn’t expect it to last. Now, though . . . she’s important to me, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.
The panic comes for me. I let it in, allowing the tendrils to grab hold of my organs and squeeze. My palms prickle. Cold sweat beads on my temples. Pleased with its unfettered access, the terror rips and claws at me in a way it hasn’t been able to since Dad trained me to master my fear as a boy.
I deserve this. We all do, for failing her.
My breaths come quick and fast. They’re coming too fast. I see spots.
The spots expand, looking more like splotches.
Shit. I’ve let it sink in too deep. I need to get up and go scare Alistair or something before I pass out. This was stupid.
I lurch to my feet, and the room spins. Groping for the wall to steady myself, I grab the shower curtain by mistake and fall to the floor in a pile of damp, wrinkled vinyl.
I try to get up, then fall back into a useless heap.
This is bad.
I close my eyes, trying to banish the fear, but its grip is too strong. Like vines woven through a crumbling brick wall, the panic doesn’t want to let me go.
Calm down, I tell myself. You’ll be fine if you give yourself time to regroup.
The door swings open. Didn’t I lock it? Three sets of vivid, supernatural eyes stare at me from the tops of their blurry, blob-like bodies. I back up until my head hits the wall.
“What the fuck?” Luca demands.
“Did you hurt him, Alistair?” Celine sounds pissed. On my behalf? Probably not, she’s likely upset I yanked her shower curtain down.
“Of course not,” Alistair snaps “He was fine a half hour ago.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper, closing my eyes. Trying to focus on them is making me nauseous.
Celine scoffs. “I don’t need magic to know that’s a lie. You two, get out.”
There’s some grumbling, then I hear the door close. When I force one eye open, I see Celine crouching in front of me.
“Sorry,” I mutter, embarrassment joining the fear and magical exhaustion. I don’t want her to see me this way. Fuck, I don’t want anyone seeing me this way.
Is having a panic attack in my crush’s bathroom while trapped in a self-induced fear void my new rock bottom? I have to hope it is.
“Don’t apologize to have something to say—it’s a pathetic human habit,” Celine says, pressing the back of her hand to my forehead. “What’s wrong with you?”
To my absolute horror, a tear squeezes loose from the corner of my right eye and runs down my cheek. I feel it graze every pore. Clearly, I was wrong. I have more rocks to hit on the way down.
“My best friend is in trouble,” I say. “Big trouble. She might not make it through this. I might never see her again, and there’s not a godsdamn thing I can do about it. How can I accept that?”
Celine hums, then wipes my tear away—Another rock. “It’s not often I see someone crying over a friend in the Fringes,” she murmurs.
“That’s their loss. Having a friend is . . .” I sigh, not sure how to put it into words.
“ . . . One of the best parts about living.” Celine finishes the thought for me. “I would kill dozens of strangers for Imani, no questions asked. If I could buy her a moment’s peace, I would bleed myself dry as payment.”
Exactly. I force my eyes open. “But it hurts.”
“That’s the helplessness, not the friendship.” Celine runs her fingers through my hair absentmindedly, and I shudder. It’s incredible, and I’m starving for her touch. “Why did you collapse? Your body seems okay.”
I tense. We’re treading on shaky ground with this line of questioning. I have to tell her something, though. She’s too smart, and she’s seen too much to be put off by half truths.
“I used too much magic,” I whisper. “The kids were scared, and I pushed too hard.”
“Alistair said you did something that calmed them down. It was an illusion, wasn’t it? Like when you hid us from the angel earlier.”
I nod, seeing no reason to hide that truth from her when she’s already pieced it together.
Celine’s nails scour my scalp, and I curl into her touch like a fucking sapling in search of the sun. If this is another rock on my way down, at least the edges are soft. If that’s pathetic, I can’t bring myself to care.
“How can I help?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Still a lie, Ciprian.”
“It’s not something you can help with,” I argue.
Her fingers stop moving in my hair, and I curse myself for ruining it. “Let me be the judge of that.”
It’s tempting, but I shouldn’t tell her this. She could figure out who I am and kill me for misleading her. An enclave heir, unprotected, alone, and deep within fringe territory . . . some of the supernaturals around here would cheer if she took me out.
But I want to tell her. Fuck, I want to tell her exactly who I am.
Ciprian Casanell, habitual screwup and Dimitri Casanell’s last resort for a nightmare demon legacy.
The one who relies on humor and wine to get the job done, single-handedly breaking through every layer of family tension and distracting them so they never once have to look in the godsdamn mirror.
If I threw all my cards on the table, would Celine still look at me like I matter?
Here, on the bathroom floor, as I sit on the wet shower curtain, my resolve slips. The pain of being overlooked by my own family is too fresh to ignore. They didn’t even call.
“It’s fear,” I blurt. “I need fear to recharge my magic.”
For a moment, Celine says nothing. Sprawled out and helpless, I call myself ten different kinds of stupid. She’s disgusted. Or she knows who I am. Feeding on fear is an extremely specific demonic trait. If she has even a basic knowledge of my kind or enclave politics . . .
A trickle of fear hits my parched, magical core. It sinks in like the first drop of rain in the desert. And it doesn’t belong to me.
Celine’s hand tightens in my hair, no longer stroking, but latching on. She’s using it to anchor herself.
Energy slides into me at a steady stream.
Opening my eyes, I look at her in wonder. Red hair, pin straight tonight, falls over her shoulders. Her brown eyes are wide open, but unseeing.
Her fear intensifies. The stream has a current now—strong, cold, and demanding. I lap it up.
My headache vanishes.
Her bottom lip trembles.
“That’s enough, Celine,” I say, hating that I’m getting better even as her eyes well up with tears.
She ignores me, gripping my hair tighter. The feathers of her wings sharpen and quiver, making a spine-chilling sound—slaughterhouse chains stirred by a summer breeze. It’s too beautiful to come from fear. She’s too beautiful to feed my darkness.
“I’m fine now,” I tell her, rolling my muscles around until I realize it’s not even a lie anymore. I’m not fully recharged, but like everything about Celine, her fear is potent.
A wave of terror hits me, fifty times the size of the last current, and she whimpers.
The sign of her distress breaks the irresistible grip her fear has over me. I roll to my knees and cradle her face, my thumb grazing her lips.
“Celine, please stop,” I beg.
Her eyes are squeezed shut; eyelids creased with the force she’s exerting.
Fuck it. I can’t stand another second of this.
Signing my own death sentence, I press my lips to hers.
My kiss is soft and gentle—everything I wish I could be for her.
Not a monster who needs fear to function.
I move my lips against hers and try to apologize through the kiss.
For lying. For feeding off her fright. For yanking her godsdamn shower curtain down. I apologize for it all.
She gasps into my mouth, and I brace for a punch that doesn’t come. The hand fisting my hair adjusts its grip, pulling me in instead of pushing me away. Then Celine kisses me back.
I drop back on my heels, giving her room to process. Maybe she doesn’t realize what’s happening yet. Or not. She grumbles against my mouth, then crawls forward to straddle my thighs. Our kiss turns hungry and hot. I lick into her mouth, and her tongue battles with mine.
An angel and a demon clinging to each other in a Las Vegas bathroom? I must have fallen into an alternate reality. Five minutes ago, I was at rock bottom, now my wildest dream is coming true.
“Thank you,” I whisper stupidly—not even sure what the fuck I’m thanking her for.
“Shut up,” Celine mutters, nipping my lower lip. “And never bring it up again.”
“Deal.” I drag one hand away from her face and run my fingers over the tips of her wings. They’re impossibly soft, no sharp edges left. “Do you want to make out some more?”
“Obviously,” Celine says, connecting our lips again.
Blood rushes to my cock, and I help her grind down on it. “Anything you want,” I promise, letting the words dangle in the shared breath we’re fighting over. “I’ll give you anything you want.”
Celine chuckles. “A demon with manners? I’m amazed.”
“Have you met many of my kind who don’t take no for an answer?” I growl, my fingers tightening on her hips. “Give me their names. I’ll make their final minutes terrifying, I swear it.”
She pulls back and I notice her brown eyes are dazed. Celine looks exactly like I do after one too many glasses of wine. I frown, then shudder as she grazes her teeth over the sensitive skin of my neck.
“Your buddy, Roscoe, actually, but . . . I took care of him, so you’re a little too late to deliver the terror.” Her lips continue exploring my throat, but the blood in my veins is icing over.
I knew it. They killed Dad’s favorite guard. Everything makes complete sense. I think part of me feared this reality, and it’s why I didn’t push harder for answers. Fuck. Why would she tell me this? She has no idea what’s she’s done. The impossible position it puts me in.
Think, Ciprian, think. What are our options? There’s no immediate answer, and Celine’s lips return to mine before I can make sense of my scattered thoughts.
“Anyone else?” I ask. I’m worried her answer will be yes, but I need to know the full extent of what we’re dealing with. “I’m feeling violent.”
“Thanks, but I can take care of myself.” Celine nibbles on my ear lobe. “I do have one request, though . . . don’t ever call me hot wings again.”
Groaning, I force myself to calm down and play my part. I pull back with an overdramatized mask of horror on my face. “Anything but that!”
Celine’s lips twitch, then she throws her head back and giggles. The sound echoes off the bathroom walls. “I don’t know how you always make me laugh,” she gasps, holding her sides.
Gods, she’s stunning. This afternoon I told her she was everything in between. I meant it then and I mean it now. I’ve never met anyone like her.
“You should laugh more often,” I say, winking to make the comment seem lighter than it is, then rocking my hips suggestively.
Someone knocks on the door. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on in there, but I’ve got to piss. Any chance you two could relocate?” Luca’s voice is strained. He’s pretending to be calm.
Celine and I lock eyes, and I notice hers are back to the sharp, focused brown I’m used to. She stands and pulls me to my feet. My dizziness is gone, thank the gods, but the memory of what brought me here in the first place weighs heavily on me.
Guilt joins the party. How could I have a moment with Celine while Sheena is in trouble?
Don’t be an idiot. It’s Sheena’s voice I hear in my head, and I smile.
She would be furious if she knew I had a chance to kiss Celine but didn’t because of her.
As soon as I can, I’ll tell her all about it. I won’t give up hope.
“She’ll make it through this. Your friend,” Celine says, squeezing my hand and reminding me that she isn’t the only one who spilled her guts on the bathroom floor. “Women are resilient; we have to be. And she’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
I squeeze back and smile. “I think I’m the lucky one.”
As long as Celine keeps looking at me this way, it will be true.