Chapter 29 #2
“I will get something for the blood,” Jules murmured. Her voice was steady, but I caught the tremor beneath it, the hairline cracks in her composure. She darted off through the door, leaving me alone with Damien.
He was bent over Rowan, unbuttoning his torn shirt with long, deft fingers that moved with practiced efficiency.
Stripping away blood-soaked fabric, revealing pale skin painted with violence.
The wounds were ghastly: strips of missing flesh near his neck and arm, clawed marks that had gone to the bone, meat and muscle exposed in ways that made my stomach lurch.
I’d seen worse in my previous life. I’d experienced worse. But this was different.
This was Rowan.
“Is he still alive? Can you help him?” My voice sounded thin and thready, like it was coming from very far away.
“He very well might live, but whether or not he wakes is far more uncertain.” Damien’s tone was even and conversational. He sounded as if he were discussing what he’d had for lunch and not Rowan’s mortality.
My throat closed. Acid burned the back of my tongue. Uncertain. That word shouldn’t exist in a world where I’d clawed my way back from death itself, where I’d been given this second chance.
“What can we do? What can I do?”
This time, Damien’s eyes met mine. They were gold, yes, but a shade so dark they reflected the blue firelight, framed by impossibly long lashes.
He was beautiful in ways that made my core clench and rushed heat through my body.
I caught the scent of wine and cinder on his skin, something spicy and dangerous and intoxicating.
Stop. Don’t look at him like that. Don’t feel that. Rowan is dying, and you’re getting wet over this guy.
“Ah, sweet gatita,” he said, “I am afraid that there is little either of us can do for him right now. It is faint, but I can feel the presence of a Grim waiting beside him.”
“What does that mean?”
Jules reappeared, balancing a basin and a cloth.
She knelt across from me, movements quick and practiced like she’d done this before, cleaning wounds with a tenderness that belied her efficiency.
Her hands were steady, even though I could see tears tracking down her face, cutting through makeup and leaving pale trails.
How many times has she done this? How many dying people has she tended to?
“Gatita means kitten,” Damien said as he stood, tossing Rowan’s shredded shirt into the blue-green flames. The fire hissed like a living serpent, sparks jumping high enough to make me flinch. The shirt didn’t burn so much as dissolve, fabric turning to ash and acrid smoke that made my eyes water.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” The limited Spanish I knew from my family made it simple enough to follow the pet names he seemed to assign people. Now he was just pissing me off.
He rubbed his wrist, thinking aloud. “A Grim is a sort of chaperone of the soul to Death’s realm.
Most mortals have no clue how to find their way in the ever-expansive afterlife, so a Grim is often sent to offer guidance and assistance.
” He sighed. “I must confess that I did not expect this to happen.”
I strode to Damien’s side, desperation finally spilling over. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking. “You explain like I’m supposed to know what that all means. Tell me, how can we save him?”
I’ll do anything. Trade anything. I already offered myself once tonight, and I’ll do it again. Just save him.
Damien began to speak, mouth opening around words I desperately needed to hear when Jules’s astonished voice said, “Look!”
I spun, heart in my throat, and watched the impossible happen.
Rowan’s bare chest glowed faintly, like a dying ember fighting to rekindle.
Gold light seeped through his skin—illuminating veins and arteries in a network of brilliance—as his wounds knit together.
Knit is the closest word I can use to describe how his bite marks, slashes, and gashes weaved themselves closed.
It was as if time ran in reverse, wounds fading away as though they had never been.
His breathing steadied, deepened, and became the strong, even rhythm I’d heard thousands of times.
He’s alive. Oh, thank god, he’s alive. “Oh my god,” I whispered as I perched beside him. My shaking hands hovered over his knitted flesh. I was desperate to touch him, but also afraid to. “How?”
Damien was suddenly next to me, the warmth of his body radiating between us. He hadn’t crossed the room; he had simply appeared. “A god indeed,” he said, amused. “Though which god is an interesting question, mi gatita.”
We both stared at the faint glow pulsing under Rowan’s skin. For the briefest moment, a word shimmered across his collarbone, written in gold light before vanishing like breath on glass: Lavernai.
A small gasp escaped Jules and me both.
“Was that word important?” My voice seemed to echo in the cavernous study as Rowan’s chest rose and fell steadily, a rhythm that made my heart stutter in disbelief. I couldn’t breathe fast enough, couldn’t think straight enough to process the miracle before me.
He’s healing. He’s actually healing. This is real. This is happening.
Damien’s gaze sharpened, all humor gone. “Well, it would appear that he does bear the mark of a god.”
Confusion laced my words. “What?”
“No,” he mused to himself, ignoring me. “This seems to be more than simple divine intervention at play here.”
I opened my mouth to ask Damien what he meant, but stopped when I saw Rowan’s pale blue eyes flutter open. They were unfocused, as though he were trying to remember where he or who he was.
Then they locked onto mine.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was raw, ragged, barely a whisper, but it was like a chorus in my ears.
My knees gave way as my vision blurred, and I fell forward, throwing my arms around him without thought.
“Am I hurt?” My voice was thick. “I thought I’d lost you.
” I choked on my tears as I buried my face against his neck, inhaling the scent of him—sweat, blood, pine, life. “I thought. . . I thought you—”
The words died. I couldn’t finish them. Couldn’t articulate the abyss that had opened beneath me when those twins latched onto his throat, couldn’t explain the way my world had narrowed to the wet sound of them feeding, couldn’t describe the same sense of helplessness I had only ever felt one other time before.
A kaleidoscope of pain echoed through my entire being despite the relief I felt at the insistent beating of Rowan’s heart, which seemed to match my own fervent pace.
At the end of my first life, the fear, desperation, and hopelessness of Edward killing me? That amalgamation of feelings. . . watching Rowan die in front of me felt the same.
“I am here,” he murmured, voice hoarse yet resolute. He wrapped an arm around me, his hand trembling slightly as it pressed against my back. “I am here.”
I couldn’t stop crying. The tears flowed freely now, hot and unrelenting.
My body shook against his, desperate to anchor him to me, to make sure he was truly, undeniably real.
Every second I’d feared he was gone replayed through my mind, and as I processed that he was here—alive and safe—relief burned through me like a wildfire.
“You can’t do that to me again, Rowan,” I whispered, voice breaking as I pressed my mouth to his neck.
I felt his heartbeat against my lips, steady and strong.
“You don’t get to call me reckless ever again.
Not when you nearly died brawling with vampyres in a back alley.
Don’t ever do that. Not again. Not ever. ”
I can’t watch you die. I cannot. I’ve buried too many pieces of myself already.
His free hand lifted slowly, brushing my hair back from my tear-streaked face, his touch gentle but grounding. “I will not make a promise I cannot keep, Violet.” He said with a lilt of humor, using the same phrase I had used against him from what seemed like ages ago.
“Hypocritical ass.” I half laughed, half sobbed, and hugged him tighter.
My fingers dug into his skin as though holding him could make the last moments of fear vanish, could rewrite history so I never had to watch blood pour from his throat, never had to hear those wet, obscene feeding sounds, never had to taste that bitter flavor of helplessness again.
“I was so scared,” I admitted, shivering against him. The confession felt like peeling off my skin, exposing raw nerve endings to air. “I don’t even want to think about. . .” I trailed off, the words not needing to be said.
Don’t make me survive losing you. I can’t. Not after everything.
Rowan’s lips pressed briefly against the top of my head, a soft promise. “I am not going anywhere. You have my word.”
Liar. Everyone leaves eventually. Everyone dies or betrays or decides you’re not worth the trouble. That’s what I learned with Edward.
But I wanted to believe Rowan. I wanted to believe in Rowan. I needed to believe both in him, and in this life I’d learned to share with him.
“Well,” Damien said, “I am an avid and enthusiastic fan of happy endings, especially when those endings are between lovers. However, I have never been a fan of deus ex machina in my stories. I find the involvement of a god to be rather. . . offensive.” His voice cut through the warmth of our moment, smooth and teasing.
His tone was laced with an amusement that felt inappropriate given we’d just witnessed what seemed like a miracle.
Rowan stiffened beside me, muscles going rigid beneath my hands. I looked up to see his gaze sliding between Jules and Damien, sharpening into that hunter’s focus I’d seen a handful of times. The look that said he’d identified a threat and was calculating how to survive it.
“A demon?” Rowan’s voice was low and dangerous, stripped of the gentleness he’d just shown me. He pushed himself up to sit. “No, a High Demon. Why is there a High Demon here?”
High Demon? What is a High Demon? How is that different from a regular demon? Are there rankings? Hierarchies?
Too many questions. My brain couldn’t process them fast enough, couldn’t catalog the information flooding in faster than I could sort it.
“You mean Damien?” I turned my tear-streaked face to stare back at the proprietor of Oubliette, unsure of what Rowan saw that I was missing. To me, Damien looked like a man. A beautiful man, yes. In fact, so beautiful it was unsettling. But still just a man.
Damien’s smile faltered a fraction before he composed himself. “Well, you’ve certainly lost quite a lot of blood just now. I imagine you are feeling rather confused and—”
“Why is there a High Demon here?” Rowan repeated.
“Oh, come now,” Damien said with an air of disbelief. “I know I do look devilishly handsome. But in case you weren’t aware, High Demons are a rather rare sight. Not nearly common enough for one to stumble across you in a back alley during an evening stroll.”
My stomach dropped. Rowan’s glare did not waver. “Do not mock me, demon. Though you are the first I have met, I know that your kind bears a mark to distinguish you from lesser demons.”
That seemed to grab ahold of Damien’s attention. “Fascinating,” he said with a toothy smile and an arched eyebrow. The shift in Rowan’s attitude ratcheted up the tension in the room, but Damien kept his tone casual. “And do tell me, what mark would that be?”
“Your two hearts.”
For the first time, Damien froze. Humor drained from his expression, replaced by a dangerous calm that accentuated the firelight flickering against the walls, as if the fire itself feared him.
“I would wager you’d been blessed by Godsblood to be able to discern my two hearts with nothing more than a glance.
” He laughed as if he’d told the punchline to a joke nobody else understood.
“So, what gift were you given, then? You can see through my flesh and into my chest as if I were made of glass? Peruse through the thoughts in my head and read them at your leisure like a book?”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed as he said, “I can hear one heart beating in your chest while the other beats in your lying tongue.”
His tongue? How does that work?
I saw it then—the shift in Damien’s posture, the faint tightening of his jaw, the flash of anger in his golden eyes.
His body became a coiled spring, a sheathed blade, a marauder about to pounce.
The weight of his fury pressed down upon all of us in the room like a storm gathering overhead, and even Jules—normally so composed and confident—cowered before him.
Fear curled through me, icy and sharp. We were in a room with someone who could end us in an eyeblink. I didn't know how I knew this, but I could feel it in the very depths of my bones. Damien was beyond dangerous.
And yet. . .
Rowan’s presence emboldened me, and—whether it was true or not—gave me the feeling that we could face anything together.
He’s insane. We’re both insane. This was going to get us killed.
But maybe I didn’t care. Maybe after spending my entire first life making myself small and quiet and obedient just to survive, I was done with simple self-preservation. Maybe I was ready to burn if it meant burning brightly along with someone I trusted.
Damien stepped closer, slow, deliberate, each footfall measured like a count towards execution. I held my breath. The firelight danced across his sharp features, his eyes locked on Rowan’s, each measuring the other with the weight of predators deciding if the fight was worth it.
The quiet pressed down, almost unbearable, broken only by the soft crackle of the fireplace. I clutched Rowan’s arm, holding him close, knowing that whatever came next, he wouldn’t yield easily—and I wouldn’t let him face it alone.
“I do wish you had not said that aloud, chico valiente. You owe me a great boon for what you have forced me to do,” Damien’s voice cut through the silence like a razor, his words as solemn as a eulogy.
The nickname caught me off guard. Brave boy? What was he talking about? A boon? That’s medieval shit. Fantasy novel shit. Not real-life shit.
Except apparently it was real life now. Apparently, everything was real: vampyres and demons and gods and grimoires and resurrections.
Jules stepped close with her hands clasped together over her chest. There were tears in her eyes, and her voice cracked, sounding desperate and hopeless as she begged, “Wait! Please! I promise never to—”
Then everything changed.