Chapter 28
Committing You to Memory
ELLIOT
I sit for another six hours before the door opens again. This time it isn’t Almar or Tree. But a tall inquisitor I’ve seen before.
“Mr. Cross,” Malictus greets me. “You’re free to go.”
He holds the door open and gestures silently for me to exit.
I don’t waste time acknowledging him. I simply rise from my seat, and I don’t look back as I continue through the door, down the many vacant hallways, past Mrs. Gibbons, and out onto the empty steps.
I shield my eyes as I step out into the evening sun, and I pause, searching, as a familiar honied fragrance floats by on the breeze.
She’s leaning against a low wall a few paces in front of the steps, picking at a stray thread in her skirt. She hasn’t noticed me yet, and I take the opportunity to watch her as I haven’t in quite some time.
I prefer to catch her when she’s not looking, but lately, whenever I’m staring, she’s been staring back. It makes it hard to really see her.
The setting sun blankets her in orange and purple rays, making her brown skin look lit from within.
She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, and to have her for only one night, I am either the luckiest man on earth or the dumbest.
I’m contemplating taking a picture when she spots me.
“Elliot!” she shouts, racing toward me in her towering shoes. “Oh, thank gods!”
She crashes into me, tossing her arms around my neck, and I can’t resist the need to hold her, even as the simple act starts to suffocate me.
I lift her feet from the floor, cradling her close until she pulls back, pressing her mouth to mine. It’s a quick kiss, nothing like the feverish hunger of last night, but the kind of kiss you give someone when you know there will be more to come. I rear back, more than a little surprised.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, setting her back on her feet.
“I’ve been standing out here for almost an hour, and that’s what I get? What are you doing here?”
Her arms cross and her hip hitches as she nails me with an icy stare, those warm eyes suddenly cold. The image makes me smile, and I draw her back in, though she’s fighting me now.
“No,” she hisses, chuckling under her breath. “You’re ungrateful. Get off.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” I murmur, fisting her ass and pressing swift kisses to her neck. “I just didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought we agreed,” I say. “Just once.”
She shrugs, biting back a smile.
“How about twice?”
Again? I had no business giving her one night, let alone two. But I seem to be incapable of making an intelligent decision when she’s around because the next words out of my mouth are, “I can do twice.”
She beams at me, and any hesitation I may have had quickly dissolves.
“Good,” she says, twisting out of my grip. “But we have plans first,”
“Plans?” I shake my head. “Iris, I need to go talk to Deacon. He might—”
“Deacon’s still asleep,” she says. “And Kitty has an in at the admissions office who’s cross-referencing the rolls for any students with demon blood that were in attendance at Fright Night. There’s nothing for you to do right now. So I made plans.”
“What kind of plans?” I ask, remembering the last time she said those words, and I ended up sitting across from Owen, watching him fawn over a disinterested Elsie for two hours.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll like them. I think.”
* * *
“Hello?” Iris calls into the empty foyer, and her voice rings back over the vaulted ceiling as I stand beneath the dusty chandelier with my hands in my pockets.
“Isaac?” she calls out a name, and my ears stand at attention at the sound of another man’s name in her mouth.
I am not sure where we are.
Iris refused to tell me anything beyond which direction to point the bike.
It’s a home, that much I can tell. And not the Cross kind of home with the grand empty spaces and eerily silent gatherings. No, this smells like a home. Like people and food, it even sounds like a home. I can hear the faint notes of music playing upstairs and the quiet thud of footsteps.
But even with all the notes of an inviting space, I take a cautionary step further into the room, sniffing at the air as Iris starts to wander.
“Isaac,” she shouts again when no one answers.
“Library!” a male voice shouts back, and I try not to bristle.
She’s not yours, I remind myself. Not really.
Iris drops her bag by the stairs, and I follow suit, ignoring the voice that shouts at me to take my things and secure them behind a locked door somewhere.
Or to scrub myself down with mint and blank so Mother will not inquire as to my whereabouts.
But I forget the urge as Iris takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
“What’s that smell!” she shouts back, dragging me through a maze of hallways.
The house may look small compared to the manor, but the rooms make good use of the space available.
Furniture and art are dotted around the house, and we pass by several photos of a young Iris and a boy not much older. In every photo, their faces are pressed together, like they’re clinging to one another for dear life. Smiles stretched to capacity.
It’s an image I’m familiar with.
That’s how Vanessa and I used to look, before they broke her.
Around them are pictures of a dark, thin man and a woman as striking as Iris, the two of them fully embracing with contented smiles.
The further we go, and the more pictures I see, the more my wolf relaxes. But it isn’t until we round the corner into the library, and a tall man with dark eyes and a smile just like hers confirms my suspicion.
Siblings.
“Ah,” Isaac exclaims as he looks at me. “You brought a man with you?”
Iris wrinkles her nose, pressing her free hand to my arm.
“A friend,” she says.
Isaac’s eyes track down to the place where our fingers are still laced together, and he lifts a brow. At which, Iris releases me, and I have no choice but to hate him.
“Elliot, this is my brother, Isaac Ashbourne. Isaac, meet Elliot Cross.”
“Cross?” Isaac repeats, a hint of skepticism in his voice.
I brace for my family’s reputation to railroad me.
They aren’t exactly unknown in the high-born circles, and judging from the crest hung above the mantle and Iris’s general spoiled nature, it’s safe to assume the Ashbournes’s rank is pretty high.
Not as high as me, but high enough, they know the name Cross is synonymous with blood.
But Isaac only smiles as he goes on staring at me.
“Happy to have you,” he says.
He doesn’t reach out a hand, so I don’t offer one. Instead, I trail after Iris like a puppy as she moves around the room.
The library is less of a library and more like a den.
The tall floor-to-ceiling bookcases line the walls, but there is an array of seating around the room, and a small piano set off to one side.
She drags her finger over the spines as she walks the perimeter before propping herself up on the piano bench, absently tapping at the keys.
There’s no real melody to it, just a few notes thrown together to amuse herself, but Isaac quickly declares it a nuisance, and she slams her arm across the lower octave, sneering at him.
“What’re you cooking?” she asks, going back to her lazy tune.
“Pot roast,” Isaac answers. “But I like what you brought better. Maybe we can trade.”
Iris giggles, and I turn to see Isaac leaning against the back of the sofa, staring at me hungrily. My wolf bristles and my tail stiffens, and my reaction doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Oh,” Isaac says. “Does my staring bother you?”
I blink, surprised by how forward he is. Although I’m not sure why. Iris was just the same when we first met, always saying exactly what was on her mind at any given moment.
I miss that, actually. Now, she just lies to me and tells me ‘I’m fine.’
“Isaac—”
She prepares to scold him on my behalf, but I cut in.
“No,” I say plainly. “You can stare all you’d like. But you won’t be trading. I only feed Iris.”
“Is that so?” Isaac asks, more than a little doubtful.
It’s understandable. It’s not hard to see that I’m no angel.
But after last night, I think I’d rather die than touch someone else.
If Iris cuts me off, I’ll have no choice but to be celibate.
Find a monastery somewhere willing to take me in, live out the rest of my days praying to the thought of her.
“Yeah,” I mutter in answer to Isaac’s skepticism. “See, it says ‘Property of Iris’ right here.”
I tap my forehead, and Isaac smirks, glancing at her. She is hiding a bright smile behind a book she’s picked up, and she swats me with it playfully.
“Elliot…” she whispers, scent heating with excitement.
I try not to groan as I breathe it in. Something tells me it wouldn’t bode well for me.
Between Iris’s lust and Isaac’s hunger, they might actually tear me to pieces.
But I take my chances as I lean down to place a kiss on her forehead.
I know it’s done its job when I pull back and find the flush in her face has died down.
“Oh, I like him,” Isaac says, rising to his full height. “He can stay for dinner.”
I follow them, like some succubus pet, into a small dining room with a table already set for two. Iris grabs another place setting before gesturing at me to have a seat, which I do while nearly blind from lack of air.
My dampener has been slowly constricting with every step I take further into this house.
Now, tucked away in the back, sitting in a quiet room with nothing to do but talk, I’m almost certain I will pass out.
My hand finds her knee beneath the table as she settles beside me, and I squeeze in an effort to anchor myself to anything other than the itching pain around my throat.
“Are you okay?” she whispers the moment Isaac ducks out for more glasses. “We don’t have to stay. I just thought it would be nice to take a break.”