Chapter 18 – Lily
LILY
I’m standing at the window again, but this time it’s different.
The glass is thinner now. It flexes beneath my palms, like tissue paper that might tear at any moment.
Beyond it, the space between planes swirls with silver light and shadow, voices calling out from the darkness like stars scattered across an endless night.
Something’s wrong. I can feel it in the way the air moves, heavy and urgent.
I press my ear to the glass, listening past the usual chorus of spirits seeking attention, searching for something specific.
And then I hear it—a voice I recognize, speaking words I don’t understand.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum…
Cassini’s voice, but not speaking to me. Speaking to someone else entirely. The Latin flows like music through the void, desperate and broken. Round and round it goes like a Benedictine chant.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui…
The pain in his voice cuts through me like a blade. He thinks I’m dying.
He thinks he’s killed me.
I try to reach out to him, to tell him I’m okay, but the connection feels weak, distant. So instead, I push against the window, forcing it open wider, stepping through the space between—
My eyes snap open, and I search the darkness for something familiar.
Something I can see, something I can hear, something I can touch.
Something to bring me back. I can see the outline of Cass, his hands pressed together in prayer.
I can hear him murmuring, low and focused.
I can feel the lumpy couch pressing into my spine, the knots twisting into my flesh.
I’m in the basement. I’m safe.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus…
My body is vibrating, a heavy electricity flooding my nerves.
Making my fizzing limbs feel detached and floaty, yet every part of me feels sensitive.
Every inch aches to be held and to be touched.
I drift my arm out toward Cassini, but it doesn’t reach.
It stays there floating in mid-air, suspended and tingling.
Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
“Amen,” I croak as I open my eyes.
His head jerks up, eyes wide and glassy. “Lily? Oh God, Lily, you’re awake.” He reaches for me, then stops himself, his hands hovering inches from my face. “I thought I’d hurt you. I thought—”
“I’m okay.” I try to sit up and immediately regret it as the ground rises up to meet me. “I’m fine, Cass. Just a little dizzy.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve been out for hours. Your pulse was so weak I could barely—” His voice breaks. “I took too much. I couldn’t stop myself. I’m so sorry.”
I reach up to touch my neck where his fangs had pierced me, expecting to find wounds, but there’s nothing. Just smooth, unmarked skin.
“There’s nothing there,” I say, looking at him with wonder.
“My venom is powerful. It can heal wounds, but it can’t replace the blood I stole from you.” He won’t meet my eyes. “I nearly drained you dry, Lily. Just like I said I would.”
“You didn’t, though.” I struggle to sit up properly, waving away his attempts to help. “I’ve seen this before, you know. At the hospital. People donate blood and sometimes they just pass out, especially if they skip breakfast.” I attempt a smile. “Which I did.”
He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “This wasn’t a blood donation. This was a bloodbath.” He lowers his voice, shame dripping from every word. “I nearly murdered you.”
“I think that’s a little dramatic,” I say, rubbing my temples. “I’m still alive, and look at you. You’re all better. So it’s okay. We’re both okay.”
“It still doesn’t excuse what I did,” he says, shaking his head. “Can I get you anything? What is it that you need?”
My mouth is dry, and a pounding headache threatens from somewhere at the base of my skull, so I slowly attempt to rise from the couch. “I just need to drink something, eat some sugar, and I’ll be okay.”
Cass stands up and guides me to my feet. When my legs wobble and threaten to collapse, he wraps his arms around me and holds me against him. I lean into the hardness of his chest and rest my cheek there for a moment, feeling the chill radiating through his shirt.
At the contact, my body pulses with need.
My heart accelerates abruptly to a gallop and pounds against my ribs.
A kaleidoscope of images flash behind my eyes.
I’m gripped by a sudden need to be naked.
I want to tear away the fabric between us and lick the salt from his skin.
I want to run my fingers through his hair, push his fangs into my veins, and slide on top of him.
To ride him and grind my hips into him until I come.
Where the hell did that come from?
“I don’t think you should be going anywhere,” he says, and the bass of his voice reverberates against my neck, grounding me back to the present.
I press myself into him harder, so my voice is muffled by his body. “You can’t go out there if the sun’s still up or we’ll end up in this mess all over again.” I attempt a laugh, but he doesn’t return it.
“We have about an hour until sundown. I could try and cover my skin, maybe? I could be fast. Just tell me where to find it.”
I pull back and look up at him, his beautiful face marked with soot from his burns, and clean, tear-stained lines cutting a path through his cheeks. I reach up to touch them, and he catches my hand. He brings my palm up to his mouth and delivers a tender kiss in the center.
I smile. “No, I’m fine, please. You stay down here. Besides I need to change, there’s blood on my dress. I’ll get something to eat and start getting my stuff together for nightfall so we can go.”
His eyebrows rise. “You’re not staying here?”
“No, I want you to take me home, and I want you to sleep over…except I don’t want us to sleep.”
“I think you need rest and don’t need a long car journey right now,” he says, missing the point completely.
I wet my lips and give my best attempt at bedroom eyes, tracing my finger down the center of his chest. His breathing gets shallower, and he flinches when I reach his waistband. “I don’t want to rest. I want you to worship me the way you prayed over me.”
His eyes narrow in confusion, and I let out an exasperated sigh.
“Alright, how do I say this nicely? I want you to fuck me, and I’m not doing it in my stepdad’s basement like some teenager. I want to be in my own damn bed.”
His eyes widen.
I think he’s got the message.
If I gloss over the part where I nearly died, the feeding was the most intensely fucking erotic thing I’ve ever experienced.
Every sip he took, every draw of blood from my veins, sent lightning bolts of bliss straight through me.
Like every nerve ending in my body was connected directly to his mouth.
The weakness, the dizziness—that was real.
But so was the desire that had pooled low in my belly, the need that’s still thrumming through me even now.
“Lily,” he says, stepping back. “I know you feel like you want to do this…with me right now, and trust me, I’d love nothing more.
” He bites his lip and takes a deep breath as his eyes rake over me, but then he shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, but you only want to because of my venom.
It’s engineered to make you feel like this.
It’s sick, but once we’ve fed, or kissed, it’s easier for us to feed on a human again and again.
The venom makes it so you don’t just let us—you crave it. ”
Is that true? Is what I’m feeling some kind of supernatural aphrodisiac?
“This is bullshit.” I mutter, pushing past him, the shame of the rejection spreading under my skin like wildfire. “I’m a big girl. I know what I’m feeling, and it’s not some kind of vampire roofie. It’s real.”
He tries to grab my arm, but I shake it off and saunter to the basement stairs on rubber legs, careful for him not to see me struggle.
“Lily, come on. I am only trying to protect you.”
“Ha. That’s pretty big talk for a guy who just did what you just did.”
I open the door, letting in just enough light to see the devastation on his face. My words hit him like a slap, and his whole body deflates. Then I slam the door behind me.
We haven’t spoken in twenty-three minutes. Not since he asked me if the air was okay, or if I’d prefer another radio station. I mumbled something with my arms crossed and have been staring out the window, listening to mariachi music ever since.
It’s weird to be in the passenger seat of your own car, but he insisted he drive, and even though it felt a little too macho for my tastes, I decided to let him.
I know he’d prefer driving his own, but his early dawn joyride at ninety miles per hour must have pushed the old thing to the limit, and he couldn’t get it started.
Earlier, Cass had called up some mechanics to come get his car, promising them a cash bounty if they could deliver it to him in Austin within twenty-four hours.
Two middle-aged Latinas with gray-streaked hair and oil-stained overalls arrived impossibly fast. They never took their eyes off me as he spoke to them in Spanish and paid them handsomely from a huge roll of dollars in the glovebox.
He shifts uncomfortably in the seat and throws me a sideways glance as he adjusts the seatbelt, which is straining across his broad chest. “I don’t know how you drive this thing,” he says, punctuating the trumpet solo of the jovial music. “It’s like driving a tin can. It doesn’t feel safe at all.”
“What?” I splutter. I’d been planning on staying silent the whole ride home, but he’s clearly trying to bait me. “And your car is, I suppose? Oh yeah, it’s the picture of reliability. It’s got to be, what? Fifty years old?”
He flashes me a smile. “Sixty-eight, actually, but who’s counting.”
“It’s probably not even worth repairing it, you know. It’ll end up being stripped for parts in some junkyard. Or donated to a museum like all the other relics.”
“Well, if they do that, I just hope they get the scratch out of the bumper.”
Fuck. So he saw the damage I did.
He winks at me. “It’s fine, really. Accidents happen. It’s just a car. You’re much more precious.”
I’ll admit it feels nice to be talking again. I’ve never been one to hold a grudge or maintain a silence for longer than it takes to get my point across.
I lean back in the passenger seat and stretch out, getting comfy. “What even is that car anyway?”
“A Maserati,” he says, his hands steady on the wheel. “It was the one thing I brought with me from Italy when I ran.”
“You ran?”
His voice gets quiet, and his eyes soften. He stares straight ahead when he speaks. “Yes, I ran. I had to get away from my father.”
I sit up straighter. “Why?”
“He was too controlling. He wanted things for me that I didn’t want. Things that would make me a pawn in his stupid games.” His eyes flicker, as if breaking a spell. “I refused, so he punished me severely.”
The admission twists at me, and I reach out and lay my hand on his thigh, giving it a small squeeze to reassure him. He tilts his face toward me, but he doesn’t look at me.
“Hey, if it helps, I have plenty of daddy issues too,” I offer. “Is it okay if I ask what he wanted you to do?”
The question hangs in the air for what feels like minutes, and when he answers, he finally glances at me.
“They wanted me to marry someone. The daughter of one of my father’s enemies. It was supposed to be a joining of our families, a truce for our people, but I refused.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“I didn’t love her.” He’s matter-of-fact. “I couldn’t marry someone I wasn’t in love with. It felt like a sin. Maybe not against God, but against my heart. I believed marriage to be something sacred, something human.”
“Wait. Vampires believe in God?”
He smiles a slow, sad smile. “Not vampires, no. But I did. When I was human, I studied in the seminary in Rome. I made my parents—my real parents—so proud. If they had seen what I became, this abomination, it would have destroyed them.”
I think of how he prayed over me, the ancient chant of Latin drifting through the veil, the wooden rosary beads on his key ring, and suddenly it all makes sense.
“You were a priest,” I say, not really asking.
“I was.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but do you think that’s maybe why you’re so uptight?”
His eyes nearly pop out of his head. “I am not uptight,” he scoffs. “Please, don’t insult me. I’m Italian. We practically invented sex.”
I laugh. “Okay, then why don’t you believe I want you? Why do you still think it’s the venom that’s making me crave it? Maybe you’re just used to doing it with shy maidens from the 1700s or whatever, but here in the twenty-first century, we women don’t wear petticoats, and we ask for what we want.”
“I know that,” he says, his voice firm again. “But I know my power, and I know what my venom is capable of. It wouldn’t feel right, like I was taking advantage or something.”
“Cassini. Try not to clutch your pearls when I tell you this.” I shift so I’m facing him, and he acknowledges my request with a subtle nod.
“I have wanted you ever since that first night back at the tattoo shop. I thought, and still think, that you are the most beautiful man I have ever seen in real life, and ever since that night I’ve basically been half afraid of you, and half perpetually horny over you. Sometimes both at the same time.”
He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
“So believe me when I say this: I want you to take me home and fuck my brains out. I want you to devour me.” I throw my arms up. “Hell, I want to climb on top of you so I can ride you like a damn bronco.”
I pause to read his reaction, but there’s nothing. His eyes remain fixed on the endless black highway. The picture of focus and concentration.
Shit, okay, maybe I misjudged this. Maybe this has all been a grand delusion after all? A one-sided, venom-induced delirium inside the mind of a woman going through a dry spell.
I swallow my pride and continue. “But if you’re not into me, and you don’t want to, that’s cool. I don’t care. But do me a solid and tell me the truth? Please don’t use the venom as an excuse.”
He’s silent, so I sink back into the seat and kick my feet up on the dash. Deflated, but not defeated.
“So, what do you say?”
He doesn’t look at me, but his knuckles strain as he grips the steering wheel. The car lurches as it speeds up. The dial on the speedometer creeping higher and higher. His voice is much rougher now, hoarse and serious.
“I’m going to take you home and fuck your brains out.”