Chapter Eight
Delaney
Delaney didn’t remember him carrying her upstairs. Didn’t remember nodding when he asked about the bath. Everything felt distant and cotton-soft, like she was watching it happen to someone else.
But the sound of running water cut through the haze.
She was sitting on the closed toilet lid, and Maelic was crouched in front of her, testing the temperature with those clawed fingers.
“Can you even use a bath?” Her voice sounded wrong. Flat.
He turned to frown at her. “I was able to use your showering receptacle just fine this morning, after some trial and error.”
“Oh. Was that before or after you drenched the floor?”
His scowl would have made her laugh yesterday. Today she couldn’t muster it.
He turned back to the tub, adjusting the taps until steam rose in lazy curls. Then he paused.
“Do you possess bath oils or something fragrant?”
“Uh, well… let me see.” She moved to stand, legs shaking, but he was faster. He gently pushed her back down.
“Stay. I will find them.”
He rummaged through the cabinet under the sink, surprisingly careful with his movements in the small space. His wings kept catching on the doorframe.
“Here we go.” He pulled out a bottle she’d forgotten she had—bath salts, peppermint and cocoa scented. A gift from Grandma years ago.
Her throat tightened.
Maelic opened the bottle and poured some into the water. The scent filled the small bathroom immediately, sharp and sweet and wrong.
It smelled like Christmas. Like the holidays when Grandma was still alive and everything was okay and—
She couldn’t do this.
“Okay, so, I’ll see you in a bit,” she said abruptly, standing again.
Maelic frowned, turning off the taps. “No. I must aid you.”
“No way!”
He quirked a brow. “I have already seen you naked, astara.”
“That’s different!” Her face heated despite everything. “What if you go all crazy and decide to go feral again?”
Maelic flinched. Something pained crossed his expression before he schooled it away.
“I am a highly disciplined Axiom,” he said quietly. “I swear on that honor, I will not lose control again.” His voice was solemn. Sincere. “I would never hurt you, Del. Never.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to send him away so she could fall apart in private like she’d been doing for months.
But she was so tired.
“In my culture, bathing is typically communal. At least with family. We do not fly well with wet wings, so we stay close when one is indisposed.” His antennae lowered, almost… submissive. “I am not here to do anything you do not want. I just wish to care for you.”
That broke something loose in her chest.
When was the last time someone had taken care of her? Really taken care of her, not out of pity but because they wanted to?
She couldn’t remember.
“Fine,” she whispered.
She reached for the hem of her shirt, but her hands wouldn’t cooperate. They were shaking too hard, fingers clumsy and useless.
Maelic noticed. Of course he did.
“May I?” he asked softly.
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.
He lifted her shirt over her head, helped her step out of her jeans when her legs wobbled. Helped pull her bra off when her arms wouldn’t cooperate.
She stood before him completely bare, and he didn’t leer. Didn’t make it sexual. Just looked at her with something that felt like reverence.
His gaze caught on her hand. The bandage she’d haphazardly put on after showering this morning was filthy—dirt-caked and stained from her frantic work in the woods.
Her fingers flexed, trying to hide it. Like she was embarrassed by the evidence of how hard she’d pushed herself.
“Let me see,” he said quietly.
She hesitated, then extended her hand. He unwrapped the soiled bandage carefully, revealing the cut beneath. Still angry-looking, but healing. Not infected, thank the goddess.
He moved to the sink, wetting a clean cloth with warm water. Returned and cleaned the wound with gentle precision, his touch feather-light despite his size.
She watched him work, throat tight. Hard to believe this was the same alien who’d pinned her against the barn wall on their first meeting.
He worked in silence, focused entirely on her hand. Reached for the first aid supplies she kept under the sink, wrapping her hand in fresh, clean gauze with the same careful attention. When he finished, he pressed a kiss to her wrapped knuckles.
“There.” His voice was rough. “Better.”
“In you go,” he murmured, offering his hand.
She took it. Let him steady her as she climbed into the hot water.
The heat hit her like a physical blow. Too much sensation all at once. She hissed, muscles seizing, but then—
Oh.
Her body melted. The tightness in her chest eased just enough to breathe. The constant tension in her shoulders released. She sank deeper, water lapping at her collarbones, and let out a shaky exhale.
She didn’t even realize she was crying again until Maelic’s hand cupped her cheek.
“Easy, astara.” His thumb swept across her cheekbone, wiping away tears. “You’re safe now. Just breathe.”
“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I don’t know why I can’t stop—”
“Don’t apologize.” His voice was firm. “Not for this. Never for this.”
He settled behind her on the floor, wings folding against the wall. She startled as his big hands met her shoulders.
“Easy.” His fingers kneaded into her skin with care. “I am just doing what a male should do for an exhausted female.”
She wanted to laugh, but it felt so good she barely choked back a moan.
Who knew he was a pro massage therapist on top of everything else?
“Wet your hair.”
She did, hot water splashing over her face. She sat up and those hands kneaded into her scalp. His remaining claws scraped her skin in a way that was so good.
“You mentioned your grandsire,” he said quietly while working shampoo into her hair. “But what of your parents? What happened?”
Delaney sighed, but finally resigned herself to it. She could tell him. Why not? What would it change?
“My parents died when I was a kid.” She wasn’t watching him for this part. She couldn’t.
“They had an accident coming down the mountain. It was a huge shock. My dad?” She swallowed.
“He was this amazing presence. Everyone said so. He was so smart. He was going to take this farm and make it a huge tourist destination. He lived for it. He’d started working on a plan for the North Ridge of the property.
The plan was to turn it into a ski bowl.
It’s kind of like what Winter Pines is. Skiing is a recreational sport that humans do.
People love to come up from the city to do it.
” She leaned into his touch. “Anyway, Grandpa and Grandma were in shock. Then they had to deal with me. That plan fell to the wayside. They were too old to be raising a child all over again. But they did. They were amazing.”
“They loved you,” Maelic said simply.
“Yeah.” Her voice cracked. “Yeah, they did.”
He reached for the handheld showerhead to rinse her hair, one hand cupped over her forehead to keep the water from her eyes. The gesture was so tender it made her chest ache.
“Grandma got cancer when I was seventeen,” she continued, words spilling out now like a dam had broken.
“Right before graduation. It happened so fast—one day she was fine, the next she was in the hospital, then hospice, then…” She swallowed hard.
“She lasted six months. We threw every penny we had at treatment. It didn’t matter. ”
Maelic reached for the conditioner, working it through the ends of her hair with the same careful attention.
“I had a college acceptance letter. Full ride scholarship. I was going to study environmental science, come back and help Grandpa modernize the farm.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “I burned it. Put it in the woodstove the day after her funeral.”
“Why?”
“Because Grandpa needed me. Because I couldn’t leave him alone with all of this.
Because—” Her voice broke completely. “Because my parents died trying to make this place work, and Grandma died trying to save it, and I thought if I just worked hard enough, sacrificed enough, it would mean something. Their deaths would mean something.”
“Astara—”
“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” The words came out in a rush now, desperate and broken.
“Nothing I do matters. We took out loans to cover the medical bills. Took out more to replant after the wildfire hit. Took out even more to just keep the lights on. And Grandpa just kept saying we’d turn it around.
One more year. One more season. We just needed time. ”
She was crying again, but she couldn’t stop talking.
“This last year… god, this last year I prayed he’d give up. That he’d finally sell and we could leave this place.” The confession tasted like ash. “I was so tired of watching him work himself to death. Of watching this place slowly kill him. I wanted OUT.”
Her breath hitched on a sob.
“And then his heart gave out. Right there in the kitchen, over his morning coffee. Just… stopped. And I got what I wanted.” She looked up at Maelic, vision blurring. “I finally got what I wanted, and it’s all my fault. If I’d just worked harder, been better, done MORE—”
“Stop.” The command was gentle but unyielding. His hands stilled in her hair. “Delaney, look at me.”
She couldn’t. Couldn’t bear to see the pitying look she knew would be there.
“Look at me,” he repeated, softer this time.
She forced her eyes up to meet his glowing red gaze.
“This is not your fault.” Each word was deliberate. Certain. “None of this is your fault. You did not kill your family. You did not start that fire. You did not make your grandsire work himself to exhaustion. You are just doing what anyone does—you survived.”
“But—”
“No.” His hands moved to cup her face, thumbs brushing away tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “The weight of the dead is a heavy thing to carry.” His voice went rough, distant. “But working yourself to the point of joining them? That is not honor. That is not love. That is just… foolish.”
She stared at him, something in his tone making her pause.
“You sound like you know.”
His hands dropped from her face. He reached for the washcloth, covering it in soap with movements that were suddenly too controlled. Too deliberate.
“I…” He paused. Took a breath. “I lost my parents too.”
Delaney’s breath caught.
“I was young, only about 14 cycles old.” His voice had gone flat. Emotionless in a way that screamed pain. “It was—” He stopped himself. Shook his head slightly.
He trailed off. Started washing her shoulders with careful, gentle strokes.
“Maelic—”
“I just know what it is to carry the type of weight you have in your heart.” His hands stilled on her shoulders. “But if you let it drag on you, consume you… it will do nothing but choke you.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy with shared grief.
“What can I do?” she asked softly. “Are you saying I should just move on and what? Leave this place and pretend it didn’t exist, that I’m not being crushed by the weight of this all?”
“No.” The word was barely audible. “It just… The weight doesn’t get lighter. You just learn to carry it.” He resumed washing her, the cloth gliding across her collarbone. “But you don’t have to carry it alone anymore, astara. I’m here.”
Something broke open in her chest at those words.
I’m here.
Not let me fix this. Not you should do this differently. Just… I’m here.
The washcloth grazed her breasts, and despite everything, her breath caught.
Maelic stilled instantly.
“Tell me if my pheromones are too much.” His voice had gone rough. Strained. “I swore I would never take what you do not want. Shall I stop?”
She should say yes. Should tell him to keep it platonic, that she couldn’t handle anything more right now.
But that’s not what came out.
“No.” It came out shaky but certain. “Don’t stop. I want—” She swallowed. “I want you to keep going.”
A rumble rolled through his chest. Deep and approving and hungry.
The cloth drifted lower, tracing the curve of her ribs, the soft plane of her stomach. Then it slipped beneath the water entirely and was gone, forgotten, replaced by his bare fingers.
Oh god.
They slid between her thighs, finding her already slick, and she gasped.
“May I?” he rasped against her ear, lips brushing the shell. “Let me take care of you, my astara. Please.”
That word—please—like he needed this as much as she did.
She nodded, unable to speak.
His mouth found her throat, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses over her pulse. The faint scrape of fangs, the soothing drag of his tongue. His fingers circled her clit with agonizing slowness, building heat low in her belly that had nothing to do with the bathwater.
This wasn’t just sex. It was something deeper. More intimate.
He was seeing her—really seeing her—broken and messy and falling apart, and he wasn’t running. Wasn’t flinching. He was choosing to stay.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“I have got you,” he murmured against her skin. “You are safe.. Just let go for me. I want to feel you come apart.”
His touch turned surer. Faster. Relentless. One thick finger slid inside her, then two, curling to hit that spot that made her vision white out. His thumb kept working her clit in tight circles while his other hand came up to cup her breast, rolling her nipple between careful fingers.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but feel—his hands, his mouth, the rumble of his chest vibrating through her back like a purr.
“That’s it,” he growled against her throat. “Let me hear you, pretty human.”
The pressure crested and she shattered, back arching, his name torn from her throat in a broken cry.
Water sloshed over the edge of the tub. She didn’t care.
Couldn’t care about anything except the waves of pleasure rolling through her, his fingers still moving, drawing it out until she was trembling and boneless.
When she finally came back to herself, she was sagging against the tub, chest heaving. Maelic’s arms banded around her, strong and steady, that deep rumble starting up in his chest again.
Definitely a purr.
She melted into it. Into him. Every knot of tension finally, blessedly undone.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For not leaving.”
His arms tightened. “I couldn’t if I tried.”
She heard the truth in those words. The confession he probably didn’t mean to make.
And for the first time in months, she didn’t feel alone.