Chapter 39
Mason
My phone vibrated on the counter, snagging my attention away from the food I’d been heating in the microwave.
Dakota : Can you come pick me up?
Me : Yeah. Where are you?
It was the first time she’d spoken to me in almost two weeks, and I was ready to do anything she asked of me without hesitation, without question.
I deserved the silence from her, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed any minute of it, especially now that I’d been spending more time with Micah. Every second without Dakota was agony.
Dakota : The campus parking lot
Anger bristled in my chest at the thought of her there, alone, so late at night.
What are you doing? But I didn’t let it deter me; I grabbed my keys and was out the door in ten seconds, striding down the hall then slipping into the stairwell.
After a quick glance above and below me to ensure my solitude, I hopped over the railing into the gap in the center of the stairs, then dropped all the way to the first floor.
I landed in a crouch, the impact aching through my bones.
Painful, but able to be managed with relative ease.
It was a hell of a lot quicker than the elevator.
I hopped up, shoving open the metal door and jogging towards where my car was parked. There were cameras in the stairwell, but I had to assume they weren’t closely monitored because that wasn’t the first time I’d jumped down those six flights, and nobody had come to check on me yet.
In my car, I texted Dakota back to let her know my ETA, then pulled out, thinking about the ways my life was steadily getting worse—and how there was no clear solution.
Aamon was circling, getting closer.
Micah wasn’t defenseless by any means, but between him and the hybrid, it was going to be a scarily close fight.
And he wasn’t letting me get away with that level of risk, not when he could hold my own life over my head with his twisted brand of evil.
Shoving me into my own darkness without remorse, without thinking twice, drowning me in the one thing I’d never be able to escape.
Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like to live in his head. To think up shit like that. To be constantly planning, manipulating, bending people to your own will.
I wasn’t like that; there wasn’t some darker part of me below the surface that I kept hidden.
I didn’t hide anything. Dakota knew exactly how messed up my head was—as well as she could, being human—and she could fight with that knowledge all she wanted.
Wrestle with all the ways I wanted to break her.
But with Micah, she wouldn’t know a thing.
It was indescribably strange being around his house, especially since it’d been purchased post-me. I wasn’t always inside it, but often close by, at least while he was there. A duty I wished I could escape. A noose around my neck.
We didn’t talk much beyond what was absolutely necessary. I’d tell him the last place I’d seen Aamon—closer, always closer—and he’d make a noncommittal noise to let me know he’d heard me, but nothing beyond that. No gratefulness, no conversation.
The last time we’d spoken was when I pinned him to the wall as he reached inside my mind. When we’d both crossed lines we couldn’t uncross.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Fuck, I wanted to do more. I needed to do more. To hurt him in all the ways I’d dreamed of, and watch him fight back just as hard. It would be even better than fighting other Thrausians, because Micah could stop me from fracturing. The risks were different with him.
My foot pressed down on the gas, some part of me registering that I was driving at felony speeds now, but unable to find the strength to care. There were no other cars on the road. Shadowed scenery was a blur in my periphery, the moon hanging low in the sky above the road.
I slowed my speed entering campus, snaking the perimeter to get to the lot Dakota said she would be at. I wished she’d just gone inside some building and let me pick her up there; I hated thinking about her alone at night in some parking lot.
Pulling into the small lot, my headlights cut through the pitch darkness, catching on Dakota’s figure sitting on one of the concrete parking blocks. She had her knees bent up and her head resting on top of them, hair cascading down around her shins, her school backpack still on.
I parked my car in the spot next to her, then hopped out.
The trees surrounding the lot and the complete absence of any streetlights made it very dark. Dakota didn’t move until I crouched right in front of her. Then she lifted her head, her tired eyes meeting mine.
She looked absolutely exhausted. And sad. I hated that part of it might be because of me.
“Come on,” I said, extending my hand.
Reluctantly, she slipped her small hand into mine, let me pull her up to standing. I led her over to the car and opened the door for her, phone and earbuds clutched in her free hand.
When I climbed back into my side of the car, a strong scent hit my nose, the confined space magnifying it.
I could smell Micah’s kapnos all over Dakota’s skin.
No.
It wasn’t the sort of lingering scent that happened after being in a room with an aroused angel, it was sweat and cum and heavy breathing. My stomach turned and twisted, lust and disgust uniting in my blood, warring in my mind.
Somehow, out of everyone on Earth, she’d chosen to fuck the one person who’d hurt me the most.
I wanted to shake her, scream at her, fucking strangle her.
Two weeks away from me and she’s having sex with her professor? Would she really do that? It felt less like a question of what she would do, and more like a question of what he would manipulate her into doing.
Why else would she be on campus so late?
My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.
I reversed out of the space too fast, anger boiling in my blood.
But whatever had just happened between them made her text me to pick her up, so it couldn’t matter—or at least that was what I told myself. Did he leave her here alone? Did he fuck her and drive away? He deserved whatever painful death Aamon had been saving for him.
“Back to my apartment?” I forced myself to ask.
“Sure.” She didn’t look over at me, her eyes glued to her phone screen, the cracked glass glowing dimly.
Do you hate me?
Are you ever going to forgive me for what I did?
I shouldn’t have ever let myself get that close to losing control around her.
I couldn’t have predicted seeing Micah again five minutes before catching up with Dakota, but I should’ve stopped.
I knew it was dangerous walking to her class building, knew I needed to go do something to cool down, but I didn’t.
I put her in real danger, and I had to live with that shitty choice.
“What were you doing on campus so late?”
“Just drive, Mason,” she snapped.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I needed to know exactly what she’d done with him.
And yet, I couldn’t ask her without revealing that I knew him. That I knew him well enough to recognize his scent on someone else. That his scent was imprinted on every fucking strand of my DNA. That I’d spent years wrapped up in it.
Jaw clenched painfully, I started the drive back to my place.
It was only a handful of minutes before Dakota slumped over, laying her arm on the center console and resting her head down on it. She curled her legs up on the seat, boots squeaking on the leather, breathing slow like she was going to fall asleep. My chest constricted when I looked at her.
She looked so small, so vulnerable. And young.
Sometimes I forgot I had some seventy years on her. I was young for an angel, but Dakota was…twenty one years old. She was a fucking baby. And I needed to keep her safe, to hold her, to protect her, to make her belong to me.
I wanted to consume her whole, but I also wanted her untouched by anything else.
I’m the thing she needs protecting from, and I’ll never let her go.
I tentatively rested my hand on top of her head, lightly running my fingers through her hair—and she let me. She inclined her head, getting more comfortable as she relaxed into my touch. Some of the anxiety in my chest dissipated with her silent acceptance.
It was hard to breathe with the scent of Micah so strong in the car, but I didn’t want to open the windows since Dakota seemed so peaceful laying next to me. I couldn’t see her face from the angle, so I wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or shut.
It took longer to get back to my apartment than it did to get to campus since I drove the speed limit this time, but Dakota stayed slumped down the whole way, my fingers sifting through her hair, scratching her head while she breathed steadily.
We parked and I helped her out of the car, hoisting her up onto my back so she didn’t have to walk.
She was so drained she didn’t even fight me on it.
Her face rested against my shoulder in the elevator, my arms tucked under her knees to hold her up. The forest smell surrounding her was torturous, but I didn’t mention it.
By the time we got into my apartment, I knew I wasn’t going to last the night without getting her to wash him off somehow.
Micah’s kapnos was goddamn suffocating me.
I couldn’t think of a good enough excuse to get her in the shower, so I decided to draw her up a nice bath, hoping to entice her into it so I’d be able to breathe.
She looked at me warily as I filled the tub, arms wrapped around herself, obviously not trusting me. Her instincts of distrust were accurate.