Chapter 44 #2
“So, does he suck people’s blood?” I thought about Dagon serving blood at one of his parties. Maybe he was secretly a vampire, too.
“Mm,” Soren hummed while continuing to work on my wounds. "Lots of creatures do though. Even humans have entered the trade when it comes to drinking supernatural blood.”
Rough fingers glided softly over my skin, and the goosebumps both distracted me from my pain and set my nerve endings alight. I was too sensitive.
The current silence didn’t help.
“Tell me something else to distract me. You know so much about me. Tell me something about you that most people don't know.”
“I wanted to be a vet,” Soren said after a long pause.
“A vet?”
“Before I made the choice, I wanted to be a vet. I was planning to go to school to learn how to take care of sick animals so I could work with injured wildlife in refuge parks.”
My whole body warmed at his confession even as I struggled to reconcile the Soren I knew with someone who cared about sick and injured animals.
But why?
I mean, here he was, taking care of my injuries.
Have I been misjudging him this whole time?
“What was the decision?” I asked quietly. “The one you made that kept you alive and 23 for this long? I mean, I’d like to know how to never die.”
“Really? You seem like you’re always trying to get yourself killed.” His response was too fast.
“Well, it wouldn’t seem that way if you’d share the secrets to immortality and invincibility. Oh, and can I please learn how to swim, too?”
I think I heard a small laugh. “I will never let you make this decision. It would require you to give up the most important part of you and would make my own sacrifice completely useless.”
“Does it have to do with you being a nephilim?”
No answer, of course.
The next bout of silence made it hard not to wince under the touch of his fingers against my mauled flesh. With how slowly they were making their way up my back, I figured I looked like I’d fallen through a cheese grater.
“What about the wings?” I asked, not expecting him to answer. “Do all nephilim get wings as marks on their back that they can pop out when they turn into a humanoid version of a swiss army knife?”
“I was born with the markings,” he said. “Like your scepter. They only became real wings when I decided to fully embrace my heritage.”
“Huh.” I winced at the next sting of ointment. “So you chose to be a nephilim?”
“That's complicated.”
“Bet it's not too complicated for Marigold,” I grumbled. “She seems to know all about what you being a nephilim entails.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Cornered me while I was naked in the river and warned me not to mess with you or her brother.”
His laugh rumbled low in his chest. “You should thank her. Steering clear of an incubus and a nephilim isn’t terrible advice. We’re both much more likely to kill you than not.”
“I don’t think she said it out of kindness.”
“Hmm?” Soren’s hands moved to one of my arms, so I figured that’s why he was closer to my ear. Didn’t explain why his voice got deeper. “Then why do you think she did it?”
Little sparks erupted all over my body, and my ribs struggled to expand and accommodate the sharp inhale I took. All I wanted in that moment was for him to move closer, be closer.
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
Soren’s knuckles traced a patch of bare, unmarked skin on my side.
They weren’t touching my breast, but that’s where I felt them, my nipples hardening under me, and the ache between my legs suddenly wet and throbbing.
“You know why,” he said, voice dipping further into sin.
Before I could answer, he rolled me gently onto my back. I looked at him for all of a moment before needing to avert my gaze. His eyes were doing more caressing than the hands on both sides of my lower ribs.
The sting of the scrapes on my back was inconsequential in the wake of his touch.
“You don’t always have to be alone, Eliana.”
My gaze flicked back to his.
The silver danced in his eyes, and I pretended it was for me. I imagined for just one moment that he never looked at others with those silver eyes.
I had nothing to say. But it didn’t matter. The moment my lips parted without any words, Soren shifted so that he was hovering above me. The cool of his breath washed against mine.
Then he kissed me.
It wasn’t the first time.
But it wasn’t like before.
His lips brushed mine, soft and warm, then pressed again.
I responded with hesitation first, then more certainty—sucking gently on his lower lip, tasting something darker than blood or smoke or the son of a Fallen. I tasted him.
I sighed, an admission he understood. His tongue slipped in slow but seeking, and mine reacted in kind.
Soren let out a low guttural groan that sent heat spiraling down my core.
I expected his hand to move further up under my shirt, but something else entirely played out. His hand abandoned the expanse of skin he’d taken possession of and slid to cup the side of my neck.
This time, I sighed audibly, and something in him stilled.
Then, without warning, he pulled back.
I blinked at the sudden cold.
“Let me finish the medicine first,” he murmured, sitting back on his haunches. He unscrewed the cap again and turned his attention back to the wounds across my ribs.
His fingers were steady, cool against the rawness, but his gaze stayed averted, not meeting mine.
I watched him, heart still racing with things I hadn’t ever allowed myself to feel. Every ounce of my self-control worked to not shift against the knee resting between my thighs, just south of where I wanted the pressure of his touch.
And out of habit, I self-sabotaged.
“So, nothing can kill you?” I asked as he spread ointment over a gnarly gash on my ribs. I was trying to shift the tone of the conversation and the topic.
Silence.
Soren’s hands paused and then slowly pulled away.
He held out the ointment tube, eyes black and granite, expression unreadable.
“I think you can do the rest,” he said, voice rough.
Not sure what I did to piss him off again, I took the tube and sat up. He turned away, busying himself with something in the bag.
I applied the rest of the ointment to my stomach and arm, wincing as I worked.
When I was done, I dropped the tube into the pack without a word and lay back on the mat, careful not to rub the healing skin against anything.
I was almost asleep when I heard him say it. Maybe he thought I was sleeping, or perhaps I dreamed it. Or maybe he wanted to confuse me even more.
“You’ll be the thing to end me. One way or another.”