Chapter Twenty-Eight The Nova #2
“How am I, you ask? Swell!” I laughed. “By the stars, I am terrible at this. You’d laugh if you saw me attempt this silly exercise.
But at least I knew you wouldn’t tease.” The words were coming easier now, a lightness to them.
“There were so many times I wanted to tell you. About all of this. It’s embarrassing, though. An old habit I couldn’t stop.
“I just wanted the best for us. I think deep down, I knew you would have told me to stop. Maybe because I’m capable, or maybe because you’d think it’s fair, I don’t know.” I shrugged, pressing my hand into my eye socket, as if to stop any tears from introducing themselves again.
“I miss you,” I said out loud, “and I love you. I’m having a really hard time.” Another shaky breath before my last admission. “And I want to go back, make it all go away.”
The rock did not reply to me, unsurprisingly.
But now I felt a little lighter, even by only a minute difference.
Much like other things, it was time I moved on.
I stopped at the first grave beside Dorian’s, kneeling before it to clean the dust from the slab. It looked like a standard grave the city used for inmates. They always had the same cheap cut and minimal information engraved. Just enough for records to confirm the death.
John Lahue
“Hello, John.” I pulled a notebook from my purse, then a pencil.
As I held one of the pages to the stone, I scraped the graphite pencil back and forth over the name to take the impression.
“Just borrowing,” I whispered, as if he could hear me, digging my finger into the dirt to smear it under the name on the page.
I hoped the soil counted as something of his, as it was his grave.
“At some point, the curiosity becomes obsessive.” Altair’s voice manifested like the whistling wind, then he was suddenly kneeling next to me, looking at my current project.
“I’m testing a theory,” I said smugly, “unless you have any useful input?”
“About necromancy?” he scoffed.
I stared at the smug bastard. “So you do listen to me.”
“Don’t be self-obsessed.” He rolled his eyes as he stood. “I have to make sure you’re not going to frolic into any coaches or oceans. Since you have such an affinity for insisting danger upon yourself.” His tone was trite, not much more to add, based on his body language.
Was he . . . jealous?
“I suppose you wouldn’t have been as much help as Calum anyway.” I smiled, turning down the path as I looked for more graves.
An audible scoff again, this time with a slight hiss.
I chose a newer grave, where the dirt was upturned and richer than the surrounding soil.
Astraea truly wasn’t built for having as much development as it did.
The soil was sandy, loose, more so in this area.
I supposed that graves were the only things they could put here, realistically.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the coffins migrated over time below the surface.
I scraped the pencil again over the paper, collecting another name, and another smear of dirt.
Rachel Witham
“Do you know these people?” he asked.
“No.” I moved on to the next, this time venturing off the path and toward some of the crypts and mausoleums, decorated with statues and pillars. Of course, there were still small headstones gathered about.
I flicked one of the rusted bells hanging on a cross. I knew the city was stingy, but you would think they’d have had at least enough to take the bells of the safety coffins off after some time; the dead weren’t going anywhere at this point.
“I don’t trust that man.”
“You know his name is Calum,” I stated, eyeing him as I surveyed my next pick.
“You shouldn’t trust him with something as serious as this. You are wasting your time asking for his help. He isn’t there to help you.”
“Why is he there, then, Altair?” I turned on my heel, the dry earth crunching under my boot. I snapped my notepad shut, stepping toward him. “Could it be that you are feeling some sort of way about another man being friendly with me?”
“If you are insinuating I am jealous, then you forget that I don’t entirely suffer from the same ailments as you people,” he hissed. His eyes were sharp, shoulders rigid.
“You people,” I repeated, an amused whisper. “Do you think that fondly of us? Of me?”
His eye twitched, his facade easily fallible.
“Are you sure you are so immune?” I poked his chest with the corner of my notebook.
He took a step back. Such a comical reaction to little old me, with a tiny notebook and sharp words. Perhaps he was getting soft on me.
I shoved him, and he stumbled from the sudden assault. His back hit a tall headstone, and his hands immediately flailed against the stone to get up.
“Ah, ah.” I clicked my tongue at him, placed my boot on his thigh. “Where are you going?”
“Apparently nowhere.” He glared, his eyes sliding down to my boot peeking under my skirt, my heel dug into the meat of his thigh.
“Before you change into some monstrosity and whip me around like a rag doll, like I know you want to,” I began, stepping off his thigh, “how about we test your abilities.”
“Excuse me?” he scoffed.
I gathered my skirts, lowering myself to my knees, just above his lap.
He pressed his body against the stone, pupils widening and constricting, completely unaware of how honest a human skin could be.
I leaned close, sitting down on his lap with my hands pressed into his chest. Our noses touching, I could feel every breath, every beat.
“Whether or not you can be afflicted,” I breathed, “since you are so sure you’re some numb, boring piece of wood that can’t feel a thing.”
For once the shadow was quiet, but that only meant he was stubborn enough to take the challenge.
“You can’t cheat by removing the cock from your body.” I spread my legs, my knees rubbing against the dirt. “Now, give me something to play with.”
That was when I felt a bulge form.
“You are so good at following directions.” I touched his face.
Altair raised his chin, fists gripping the dry grass by his side.
“Mmm.” A gentle moan as I dragged my hips across the bulge; there was a twitch. “It hurts, you know.”
The words made him flinch. Suddenly, his eyes were searching physically.
“In here”—I pulled his hand and placed it flat on my chest, then down between my breasts—“when you say such cruel things, or lie to me.”
“I told you—”
“Your body is more honest than your words.” I leaned in by his ear, pressing my body closer. “At least your touches are more gentle with my heart, or are those selfish and dishonest too?”
His face was hot, the heat radiating from him.
My hand moved to the side of his neck, and I brushed my lips against the curve of his ear.
“Wait,” he mumbled, “this isn’t fair.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I urged my hips on his, posting a steady rhythm as if he were a smooth seat on a gaited horse.
His hands moved to my waist, holding me as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to push me off or see it through. If he stopped me now, he would know I’d won. He was too stubborn for that.
“Altair,” I sighed into his ear. “Altair, please . . .”
His cock was hard, tenting his pants enough where I could feel it take a confident shape. I wondered how he’d be as a man, rather than a beast. I doubted he was confident enough to keep shape like that for the time it would take to finish me.
“Didn’t you like it?” I asked him.
His eyes fluttered open, glaring up at me like I was breaking his focus.
“Playing with me as if I were some delicate meal,” I teased, touching my forehead to his, “to devour me like you wanted to? Completely at your mercy . . . staking your claim firmly inside.”
He shuddered, then his eyes closed again.
I slapped his face and grabbed it with my other hand. “Open your eyes.”
He obeyed, terror flashing in his gaze.
“Good boy,” I purred against his lips, my nails dug into his jaw.
He groaned.
Such sweet sounds just for me.
“Don’t be shy,” I gasped mockingly, my fingers digging deeper into his face, “give me a good whimper.”
His eyes melted into a daze, but his body shook. The rigidness made it clear he was trying so very hard to stay composed. Not if I could help it.
He swallowed. A gasping noise came from him as he struggled. So determined to prove me wrong. Perhaps I needed to take this direction more often when I needed him to be useful.
“Someone could see us,” I whimpered, but I sat down harder on his throbbing cock. “I bet they’d imagine being you. Imagine being inside such a warm, inviting cunt—”
A small vocalization. It was almost soft enough to miss.
His body tension suddenly released, his eyes squeezing shut.
Blood dripped from his lip. He’d been biting it.
“Oh!” My voice lowered, my hand let go of his face to wipe his lip with my thumb. The blood mixed with what could have even been a tear running from his frightened eyes. “It seems you are thoroughly, utterly afflicted, my dear Beast.” I smirked, licking my proof of victory from my finger.
His chest rose and fell, and his hips shifted under me.
I took out my notebook, opening to a blank page. Then behind him, on the grave, I took my last graphite transfer of a name.
“Allison Thomas,” I read, smeared, and put the booklet away.
“You are surely human,” he muttered, almost panting.
“Why? Because of my creativity?”
“Because of your cruelty.”
“Is that what it is?” I smiled, standing over him. “I thought it was just some old-fashioned fun. Cruelty would be saying you have to walk home, without changing, in your soiled trousers.”
I stepped away, my skirt unveiling the dark stain on the charcoal fabric.
“It’s a good thing you don’t make the rules, then.”
“But you’d let me.” I winked. “Now come. I have work to do.”