Chapter 18
Creature.
The word echoes in my head. Somehow, it’s even worse because she said it. Well, she didn’t say it, but she thought it.
I know I probably should shut off her thoughts, but I can’t help it. I have this constant need to know what she thinks of me, to reassure myself that she could love me. I know she’s said it.
I heard her say it—but human feelings, in my experience, are fleeting. I don’t fault her for asking Noir about me. I haven’t been the most forthcoming, but I was slightly taken aback by the fact that she has reservations about me, even after everything.
I showed her my life, not everything, but enough. I’ve never done that with anyone—no one’s seen my memories, my history. I keep that safely under lock and key.
But I shouldn’t be surprised. After being in existence for tens of thousands of years, I should be used to the fickleness of humanity—how their love is conditional.
When the going gets tough, they get going. No matter what I hear in Mackenzie’s head, I should have never taken her at her word. I can’t even be mad at her, though—I learned this lesson eons ago with Monroe.
But with a simple bat of her eyelashes, I was ready to throw my heart into her lion’s den. She made it beat again, but she wrecked it…again. And I let her.
I keep walking, my strides long and purposeful. The sound of her heels clicking frantically against the pavement behind me only fuels my resolve.
“Daxton! Stop!” There’s a desperation in her voice that makes my heart twist. I shouldn’t turn around—I shouldn’t care.
I halt abruptly, causing her to nearly collide with my back. When I turn to face her, her chest is heaving, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. Even disheveled, she’s beautiful. That’s the cruelest part.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice low and controlled despite the hurricane raging inside me. “No matter what your heart feels, this is all I’ll ever be.”
She shakes her head frantically, loose strands of hair sticking to her tear-streaked face. “It’s not like that.”
“Enlighten me then. What’s it like, Kenz?
” Snatching her hand from her side, I place it over a heart gone wild—the heart she set on fire.
Mine. “Isn’t this proof enough for you? This is the melody of my heart now, Mackenzie.
If a monster, a creature, is what I am…then this creature’s heart only beats for you.
” My pride never functions right when it comes to her—I whisper, “It slipped right through your thoughts before you could catch it, didn't it? Somehow, that was worse than anything I’ve been called, simply because it came from you.”
Her fingers tremble against my chest. Her eyes widen, filled with tears that threaten to spill over. “I never meant it like that. You have to know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It doesn’t matter if you meant it,” I say, dropping her hand. “What matters is…what you think when you look at me. Not what you want to think, not what you try to convince yourself of—but what you truly believe. That I’m something that can’t possibly understand love.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t say that,” she whispers. “I’m just trying to understand all of this. You’re asking me to accept that death isn’t the enemy, that everything I’ve ever believed is wrong.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I’ve never asked you to change your beliefs. I’ve only asked you to see me.”
The night air hangs heavy between us, thick with unspoken words.
Around us, the garden seems to hold its breath, the moonlight casting long shadows across the stone path.
I watch her face, trying to read what's behind those eyes. There was a time that I thought hearing what was in her mind would tell me what was in her heart, that she could somehow see past my scythe, but maybe I’ve got it all wrong.
“I’m just afraid.”
“I am too. Mackenzie, losing you is the only thing that scares me.” I laugh, hollow and bitter. “But fear and I are old friends, belle ame."
“Even in our fear, we are different,” she insists, stepping closer. “You fear losing me. I fear...losing myself. That’s why I ask all of these questions.”
I step back. “Same difference in the end, isn’t it? You’re afraid I’ll consume you. That loving me means becoming a monster too, and I am afraid losing you makes everything I’ve ever thought about myself true.”
She doesn’t say anything, her silence weighing heavy in the space between us.
I break it first. “Let’s just get on with it then, shall we?”
“What happens after?” she murmurs. I’ve been asked this by many a mortal over my existence, but for the first time—
“I don’t know.”
St. Aurelius’s library is about a half a mile from Mackenzie’s dorm, but we walk there in silence. There is not much said between us aside from when I throw my jacket over her shivering body. Hesitant at first, she slips her arm inside the sleeves without much of a fight.
“It’s warm.” She smiles like I’ve just saved her. “Thank you."
Little does she know that same smile rips me apart. I’m not warm because of some Nethra-sent magic. In truth, the gods and demons of the Underworld—we all burn with hellfire in our veins, scorching hotter than any mortal flame.
Yet, centuries among the dead had frozen me from the inside out, turning my soul to permafrost. My heart, when it bothered to beat at all, pulsed with the glacial rhythm of eternity. Now, it thaws and freezes simultaneously—cracking painfully with each pulse.
I should hate her for making me feel this. I should thank her. I should go back to the numbness of before. I should never let her go.
A million thoughts race through my head, every one contradicting the last.
“The library?” Her question cuts through what seems to be an endless torment. “What are we doing here?”
“Research.” I shrug, careful to keep my voice low despite the emptiness of the campus grounds around us.
Mackenzie hugs my jacket tighter around her small frame. “How exactly are we supposed to get in? I’m pretty sure they are not just going to let two undergrads wander in at night.”
I allow myself a thin smile. “I have my ways.”
The grand facade of the building looms before us, its Gothic architecture more fitting for a cathedral than a university library.
Stone gargoyles perch along the roof’s edge, their weathered faces watching us with hollow eyes.
I know better than most that some guardians aren’t merely decorative.
St. Aurelius houses one of the most extensive collections of ancient texts in the country—but that’s not why we are here.
“Follow me and don’t speak to anyone,” I instruct as we climb the wide stone steps.
Inside, the library is nearly empty, save for a bored-looking security guard behind the main desk. The lobby’s vaulted ceiling stretches high above us, intricate wood carvings depicting scenes from ancient myths that most academics misinterpret. I know better. I lived them.
“Stay close,” I murmur to Mackenzie, feeling her presence at my side like a burning brand.
The guard looks up as we approach, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Library’s closing in twenty minutes. Students aren’t allowed in the special collections after hours.”
I meet his gaze and let a sliver of my true nature surface in my eyes. Just enough. “Professor Leighton sent us. We have permission to access the Morrow Collection for our thesis research.”
His pupils dilate slightly as my influence takes hold.
Mortals are so easily swayed when you know the right pressure points of their consciousness—I don’t use it often because it takes the kind of patience that I don’t possess, and lying makes my skin itch, but it’s how I stop the screams and give the dead peace just before they enter Nethra to board my brother’s ship and cross the River Styx.
The guard blinks a few times, his expression going slack. “Professor Leighton…” he repeats, though I know full well there is no such professor at this university. “Right. The Morrow Collection.” He fumbles with a set of keys hanging from his belt. “Follow me.”
Mackenzie shoots me a questioning look, but I give a subtle shake of my head. Questions later. She’s smart enough to understand, pressing her lips together as we follow the guard toward the back of the library.
We pass through rows of ordinary bookshelves housing mundane academic texts, then through a set of heavy oak doors that require the guard’s keycard.
The air changes here—cooler, drier, preserved for the sake of ancient paper and binding glue.
But there’s something else in the air too, something only I can sense—old magic, faint but persistent, like the lingering scent of incense.
Secrets whispered in forgotten tongues, promises made in blood.
The guard leads us to a small study room tucked away in the corner of the special collections area.
Unlike the grand main hall, this space is intimate, lit by green-shaded reading lamps that cast pools of light onto polished wooden tables.
The walls are lined with glass-fronted cabinets, their contents obscured by the dim lighting.
“Here you are,” the guard says mechanically. “Return the key to the front desk when you’re finished.” He places a small brass key on the table and turns to leave.
“No, we were never here,” I tell him, my voice carrying the weight of command. “You took a routine patrol through an empty section of the library. Be sure to erase the security footage.”
He nods absently and walks away, footsteps fading down the corridor.
Mackenzie waits until the door closes before turning to me. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing permanent,” I reply, turning the key in the lock. “He’ll be fine. Follow me.”
Electricity runs through me when she loops her arm through mine. For a moment, it stops me in my tracks, and the thoughts—her thoughts— that I have been trying to shut out all night bleed in.