Chapter 19 Diantha #3
What’re you, an eighty-five-year-old divorcée? One of my mom’s friends always made that joke. They’d throw back their heads and laugh, even as my face would heat with anger.
Oh, leave her alone. My mother’s stock reply. Leave the kid alone!
His fingers don’t stop. They keep their steady, tender pace.
“Ice cream,” I say. “I’d really love some ice cream.”
Orfeo goes out and comes back with enough ice cream to silence the nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me that what he really wants is for me to fuck off back to my apartment. That no one in their right mind would willingly take in a guest for an indeterminate amount of time.
But as usual, Orfeo shocks me—both with the quantity of ice cream and when he opens a drawer and pulls out two spoons.
“Do all vampires eat ice cream?” I ask, accepting my utensil and immediately going for the pistachio cream gelato that looks like it may have cost him a small fortune.
“Well.” He levels me with a bored look. “Considering most humans can’t digest dairy, what do you think?”
“Sorry, I’m still educating myself. It just seems so crazy to me. Is Misha a Mediterranean vampire?”
“No,” Orfeo says, pulling the paper back on a tub of double chocolate ice cream.
He would like double chocolate, I think.
Rich, silky, and decadent. “She’s a baobhan-sith—they’re very similar to fairies in their powers, but not as dissimilar from strigoi as we Mediterranean vampires are.
She dies at dawn and sunlight is lethal for her.
She has incredible strength and speed, and, of course, she is not a particularly emotional creature. ”
“And Leo?”
“Oceanid.” Orfeo licks a droplet of chocolate from his thumb, and I yank my eyes away. “His mother fell prey to a wicked demon.”
“Seems to happen a lot in your world.”
He snorts. “We are all victims and perpetrators in equal measure.”
I finish another mouthful of gelato, then narrow my eyes at him. “Remind me to follow up on that. What about Nisos?”
“Unfortunately, I know nothing about the boy other than the fact that Alfo has completely bewitched his mind.”
“That’s really fucking sad.”
Orfeo reaches over and rubs his thumb over my chin. “You’ve made a mess of yourself, my goddess.”
My skin goosebumps from the brief contact. “Look, I know it doesn’t really matter anymore, but I’m sorry we fought. I should have listened to you—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I put you in an impossible situation. How could you agree with so much at risk? I was too emotional. Vampires are never supposed to act from a place of feeling.”
“That’s what makes you different.” I shrug and skim a spoonful of double chocolate from his container.
“You know, I am very sorry too,” he says in a low voice. “It was hell to be without you.”
I bite the corner of my mouth. It’s the only way to stop my smile. “You know, it was for me too.”
“I’m going to head to work. Let me bring you some stuff from your apartment,” Orfeo says, pulling on a heavy denim jacket with a sheepskin collar.
He’s swapped his usual gold chain for a heavier, silver piece I recognize as a stylized collar.
Makes sense. Hades House, for some people, is a kink bar—a safe space to explore their deepest desires.
To give in to that quiet, filthy voice in the back of their minds.
And, looking at Orfeo, I can’t blame them. His movements are fluid and sumptuous. Just as they were in the library, taking my hair in his fist. I press back the memory, clearing my throat and getting to my feet. “Okay, thank you.”
I grab a piece of notebook paper from my bag and make a quick list. Pajamas, clothes, my special curl care shampoo and conditioner, and my laptop.
“I won’t be back until dawn, so please…” He gestures toward the loft. “The sheets are clean, and I’ve set out a pair of pajamas for you.”
“And Misha’s close by?” Anxiety peaks inside me at the thought of being alone and unprotected. I know there’s no way anyone else is aware of the plan we’ve put into motion, but the veil between myself and the other realms feels thin.
“Patrolling the forest as we speak,” Orfeo says, and it sounds like a promise. “If anything happens, call me. If you cannot reach me, decouple into the bar and make yourself known. I’ll be back in an instant.”
I nod. “Okay.”
He gives me a final solemn look before grabbing his keys and wallet off the secretary table by the door.
I watch the low light catch on his earring, on the deep darkness of his hair.
Affection swells in me, threatening to choke me.
For the last two years, I’ve been completely alone.
And finally, I have someone. He’s not mine, but he’s here.
And now that I think about it, I have many people. “Orfeo?”
“Hm?” He turns back toward me, eyebrows raised.
“Thank you,” I say, a distant pinprick of emotion in my eyes. “For everything.”
Orfeo presses his lips together. His chest rises and falls with a sharp breath, then he crosses the room, heads back my way.
Maybe it’s the wine or all the sugar, but I hope he takes my face in his hands, tilts my head back, and kisses me.
I want to taste his tongue. I hope I feel his fangs and I hope—no, I pray he draws blood.
He brings his thumb to my cheek and caresses the curve of my face and the angle of my chin. “It is my pleasure.”
Alone in the carriage house, all my exhaustion from the last month finally crashes.
I rinse my wineglass and ice cream bowl, only doing some minor snooping through Orfeo’s kitchen drawers—which appear to be filled with expensive Japanese knives and cutting boards made of fancy, oiled woods—before getting ready for bed.
I take a long, hot shower and put on the silky pajamas Orfeo left behind. I try not to focus on the fact that he might actually sleep in a matching set of pajamas as I climb between the sheets. This bed is luxurious, the pillows smell like him.
Through all the chaos, I can’t seem to access the dread I’ve been carrying around for months. I only toss and turn twice before falling into a dreamless sleep.