Chapter 10 #2
He murmured something against her inner thigh in that liquid, dark language—Abyssal, he’d called it—and the vibration combined with his clever tongue sent her spiraling.
When she came back to herself, he was kissing his way back up her body, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Smug,” she accused breathlessly.
“Earned.” He kissed her, and she could taste herself on his lips. “Also, you’re stunning when you come. I could watch that every day and never get bored.”
“Every day?”
“At minimum.” His expression turned serious. “Ava, I need you to know—this isn’t just physical for me. I haven’t felt like this in four centuries. Maybe never. The thought of going back to how things were before, of pretending this is just an arrangement—”
She pulled him down into a kiss, pouring everything she felt into it. When they broke apart, she cupped his face in her hands.
“It was never just an arrangement. Not for me.”
His eyes searched hers. “When did you know?”
“Conference Room Seven. When you told me about your garden.”
“Ava.” Her name sounded different in his mouth. Heavier. Like it meant more than two syllables had any right to.
She reached between them, wrapping her hand around his cock through his pants. “Now are you going to keep talking, or are you going to fuck me?”
He laughed, the sound rough and wanting. “Counselor, your oral advocacy skills are impeccable.”
“Less talking, Castellanos.”
“As you wish.”
What followed was messy and intense and not at all coordinated—his elbow catching the headboard, her knee finding his hip at the wrong angle, both of them laughing and adjusting and trying again.
Clothes finally shed completely, kicked off the bed to join the pillow graveyard on the floor.
His hands and mouth everywhere, the ocean breeze cooling the sweat on her skin between kisses.
When he finally pushed inside her, she felt the stretch and the heat and the rightness of it settle into her bones.
He murmured her name in language after language, each one lower than the last, and the marks blazed bright enough to light the room in shifting blue and silver.
She could see their shadows thrown huge and tangled across the ceiling.
They found a rhythm that didn’t need thinking about.
The marks blazed brighter with every beat—not contract magic, not obligation.
Just them choosing this. His forehead dropped against hers and she could feel his breath coming apart, could feel the six-thousand-year-old composure dissolving in real time, and the most devastating part was that he let it.
Let her see him without the armor. Without the polish. Just Victor, undone.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, both breathing hard. Ava pressed her cheek to his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow. The marks still pulsed faintly—call and response, blue and silver, a quiet conversation in light.
The ocean rolled against the shore in slow, rhythmic waves.
Ava lay against Victor’s chest, her cheek pressed to skin still warm from what they’d done. His heartbeat was steady beneath her ear, slower than a human’s, she realized. Deeper. Like everything about him, it operated on a different timescale.
The breeze through the balcony door cooled the sweat on her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms. Victor pulled the sheet higher without being asked, tucking it around her shoulders.
His fingers traced patterns on her back. Absent. Possessive. Like he was mapping territory he intended to claim permanently.
“So,” she said against his collarbone. “That happened.”
His chest rumbled with laughter. “Your gift for understatement remains intact.”
“I try.” She propped herself up on an elbow to look at him. In the aftermath, he looked younger somehow. Less guarded. The sharp edges of the demon lawyer had softened.
She traced the sigil on his chest, watching it shimmer faintly beneath her touch. The marks had blazed so bright during… she felt heat rise to her cheeks at the memory.
“Still thinking about the glowing?” He caught her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“Hard not to.” She watched blue light ripple under his skin where their hands touched. “You said it appeared three weeks ago. The day we signed.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it?”
“I thought it was just contract magic.” His thumb traced circles on her palm. “Standard binding notation. I’ve had marks appear before for significant agreements.”
“But this isn’t standard.”
“No.” His voice softened. “This is something else entirely.”
She lay back down against his chest, listening to the slow rhythm of his heart. Their marks pulsed in sync, his blue, hers silver, a quiet call and response.
“You said something before,” she murmured. “During. In another language.”
He caught her hand again, brought it to his lips. “I forgot myself.”
“What did you say?”
He was quiet for a while. His thumb stroked her knuckles.
“Your name, mostly. In Abyssal.”
“Just my name?”
“Among other things.” He pulled her closer, tucking her against his side. “Things that don’t translate well.”
“Try.”
Another pause. When he spoke, something had shifted in his tone. “There’s a word; it doesn’t have an English equivalent. It means something like ‘the one who ends wandering.’ Like finding home after centuries of movement.”
Ava’s chest tightened. “You called me that?”
“I called you several things.” His fingers resumed their patterns on her back. “Most of them embarrassingly sentimental for someone my age.”
She smiled against his skin. “We should probably discuss what this means. For us. For the arrangement.”
“I think we both know what it means.”
“The arrangement just became real.”
“It was always real.” His voice was soft, certain. “We just needed time to admit it.”
She traced the edges of his mark, watching blue light ripple beneath his skin like bioluminescence. “This does change everything, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” A pause. “Thank Mammon.”
She laughed, and the sound felt easy. Natural. Like something she could do for a very long time.
Outside, the ocean rolled against the shore. The moon had shifted, casting new shadows across the tangled sheets. For the first time since she’d walked into Grimm, Malphas & Associates, everything felt right.
“The partners are going to know something’s different,” she said. “Tomorrow at the gala.”
“Good.”
“Lilith is going to be furious.”
“Fine.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You’re not worried?”
His eyes caught the moonlight, something molten shifting behind them. “Ava, I’ve faced the Barons of Hell, argued with gods, and once had to explain to Malphas why I accidentally signed off on demolishing his favorite building in 1922.”
“You what?”
“Long story involving a miscommunication, a very persistent poltergeist, and some truly atrocious architecture.” He cupped her face. “The point is, Lilith’s tantrums barely register anymore.”
“What about the liability issue? The verification?”
“What about it?” His thumb brushed her cheek. “This is as real as it gets. Let them verify that.”
She kissed him. Slow and sweet, without the desperate edge of before. When they pulled apart, she stayed close, tracing idle patterns on his chest.
The glow from their marks had faded to a soft shimmer, but she could still feel the connection: a thread of warmth running between them.
But the question had been burning since her parents’ restaurant. Since Lilith’s knowing smile.
“Victor?”
“Mm?”
“We need to talk about Peterson Holdings.”
His hand stilled on her shoulder. The warmth in the room seemed to dim.
“Now?”
“I can’t stop thinking about what my parents said. Lilith has been planning this for fifteen years.” She lifted her head. “Since I was a kid. Since my grandmother died. Why? What’s so special about my family that she’d invest that much time?”
He was quiet. She watched his jaw tighten, watched the easy aftermath harden.
“I don’t know.” He paused. “And that terrifies me.”
“You’ve worked with her for how long?”
“Longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your parents have been alive.”
“And you’ve never seen her do anything like this?”
“Long-term investments are her specialty, but this?” He shook his head against the pillow. “Fifteen years of cultivation. That level of patience, that commitment, all of it focused on you, on your family. It’s not her usual style.”
Ava sat up, pulling the sheet around herself. The ocean breeze felt cold now.
“But what makes my family a target? We’re not rich. We’re not powerful. We’re just…”
“I don’t know.” Victor sat up beside her, the sheet pooling at his waist. “But whatever it is, you’re central to it. You specifically.”
“I hadn’t even applied to law school when she gave them the line of credit.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed, calculating. “But your grandmother had just died.”
Her hand went to her chest, where the jade sent a low vibration through her fingertips.
“You think that’s what she’s after? The pendant?”
“Maybe. Or maybe she knew something about you. About what you could become.” He reached out, touched the jade where it lay against her collarbone. “Or about what your grandmother knew. The timing can’t be coincidence.”
“So she… what? Invested in my parents’ restaurant to have leverage over me years later?”
“Apparently.” His expression darkened. “And I didn’t see it coming.”
“How could you? We only met three weeks ago.”
“But Peterson Holdings is one of the firm’s clients.
Part of Malphas’s portfolio. I’ve never worked on it directly, never had reason to look closely.
” He ran a hand through his already-disheveled hair.
“I should have paid more attention when Lilith mentioned it at that first dinner. Should have asked why she was so interested in a shell company that’s supposed to handle routine commercial lending. ”
“You think she’s been using it without Malphas knowing?”
“I think she has access to it as a partner. And she’s been doing things with it that no one’s questioned closely enough.” He looked at her. “I need to get into the archives. Pull every Peterson Holdings file going back decades.”
“That’s thousands of files.”
“Probably more.” He caught her hand. “But if she’s been planning this long, she’s left breadcrumbs. Signatures in her work. She’s too pleased with her own cleverness not to.”
“So we dig.”
“We dig,” he agreed. “After the retreat. After we get your family somewhere safe.”
“They’re not safe now?”
“They still have the line of credit. As long as they don’t draw on it or sign anything else, they should be fine. But I’m having Derek pull their full contract history. Make sure there aren’t any traps we haven’t found.”
Ava felt cold despite the warm room, despite his proximity. “Could there be?”
“With Lilith?” His voice was grim. “Always.”
He pulled her back down against him, wrapping the sheet around them both. His arms were solid around her, anchoring.
“But right now, she doesn’t know that we know. That’s our advantage. She thinks she’s still controlling the game. Still moving pieces while we react.”
“And we’re going to let her think that?”
“Until we understand what she’s really after, yes.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Trust me. We’ll find a way.”
She wanted to argue. Demand they start immediately: drive back to the city, break into the archives, tear apart every file until they found answers. But exhaustion pulled at her, and his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear, and tomorrow would bring its own battles.
“Okay,” she whispered. “But after the retreat, we tear Peterson Holdings apart. Every file. Every contract. Every clause.”
“Every comma,” he agreed.
The pendant pulsed warm against her chest, echoed a moment later by the blue shimmer from his mark.
He pulled the sheets tighter around them, his arm secure around her waist. “Sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be interesting.”
She drifted off to his heartbeat and the distant ocean, their marks glowing softly in the dark.
She didn’t dream.