Chapter 66 Electra
Electra
Reeve sits on the edge of the bed in the guest cottage my parents put at our disposal, his elbows planted on his spread thighs, one hand cupping the other. He studies his new inscription like he can’t believe it’s real.
In truth, I can’t believe it’s real.
Still brushing through my damp hair, I stroll out of the bathroom toward him. “Did I ever tell you the story of when I first saw my runes?”
He looks up, then reaches out, catches my hip, and eases me onto one of his thighs. “You did not.”
I toss my hairbrush on the striped bed cover. “I was ten. It was right after Malachi found me.”
Reeve frowns. “You never spotted your runes until you were ten? They do appear at birth, don’t they?”
“Yes. The reason I didn’t see them until I was ten was that we didn’t have any mirrors growing up.
My mother was very woo-woo. And more often than not, stoned, though I didn’t understand that until later on.
Anyway, she convinced me that mirrors absorbed people’s good energy, slowly but surely draining it until they perished. ”
Reeve pulls me closer, his arm tightening around my waist as though to keep me safe from the woman who birthed me.
“I obviously believed her. The same way I believed her reasons for siphoning the blood from my veins was to rid me of a rare blood disease.”
“I almost regret that Malachi already killed her,” he says flatly.
I press my cheek to the top of his head and sigh.
“We lived on the outskirts of a tiny town, in complete isolation. Since I didn’t attend school or leave my house because of my sickness”—I add air quotes—“or have access to any electronics, I only discovered my runes the day I discovered my face, at ten. I had no idea what I looked like until then, or that my eyes were two different colors.”
He hugs me harder.
“Even though my first decade in this world was depressing, the next decade was—” I swallow the lump of emotion that perpetually crops up when I think of all the affection and patience my parents and brother gave me.
“Beautiful. Healing. For years after Mal found me, I shunned humans and all forms of physical contact. But my family put up with me and never stopped pouring love my way. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I was finally brave enough to open my heart to them. ”
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
I stroke the hair at his nape, curling a strand around my finger. “Until last year, I shunned humans too. Callie was my first friend. Fiona and Lisa, my second and third. Can you imagine? It took me nineteen years to forge friendships.”
“Those three women are incredible.” Remorse tinges his pitch. “How much do they hate me for what I did to you?”
“Fiona suggested I go Lorena Bobbitt on you so…let’s just say it’s a good thing Gaea kitted you out with a shield rune.”
He fans his fingers over my waist, stroking softly. “Sounds like I’m in for a lot of groveling.”
“Babe, what you’re in for is a lot of free dance lessons. Probably a lifetime’s worth. As for Lisa, she loves cooking. You love cooking…” I stamp a kiss on the top of his head as he chews on my suggestions. “They’ll forgive you. As long as you don’t hurt me, or anyone close to us—”
“Never.” He shakes his head so hard it flutters his still-damp strands. “Never again.”
I believe him. Still, he seals his promise with a lingering kiss that softens the parts of me still coiled tight.
When we come up for air, I ask, “Reeve, what parts of your childhood were real?”
“All of them except for my father’s alcoholism and Mom’s cancer. Also, Quinn, as you might’ve guessed, didn’t die.” He presses his mouth against my collarbone. “The rest: her diabetes, ending up in juvie… That was all true.”
I twist my fingers through his wet locks, unraveling the strands, which I helped him shampoo and condition. I never thought I’d be the type of person who’d enjoy taking care of someone, but apparently that’s who I am.
“After Dad died, we left the organization but stayed in Boston. Mom got me a rescue Pitbull. Did I ever tell you about him?” At the shake of my head, he says, “His name was Cash. God, I loved that dog.” His wistful stare tells me Cash is gone.
It also drops my gaze to his shoes, to the piece of white leather bearing his dog’s name. “Your entire life was right there, drawn on your shoes.”
“In hindsight, I think I wore them so you’d figure out who I was. Unconsciously at first, and then consciously.”
“I would’ve killed you had I realized who you were.” I readjust his spiffy new glasses.
“I know, but I hated deceiving you, Electra. Especially once I got to know you.” A muscle jumps in his jaw.
“I was so sure I could keep a level head. Keep sex purely physical. It had never been more than that before you. But when I took your virginity, it felt like I was taking something precious I had no right to.”
“My virginity was never precious.”
“To me, it was. To me, it meant I’d gotten you all wrong.”
I lean over and kiss his hard mouth. It’s short but not sweet. Before it grows into something more—like back in the shower—I pull away to ask, “So you lived with your mother and your dog…?”
“And Quinn. She came to live with us. For a while at least. It took her father almost a month to notice her absence.
He came to collect her from the tiny walk-up Mom managed to rent thanks to her job as a cleaning lady.
Sullivan was furious. He told us to leave his kid alone.
Except he was the one who left her alone all the time.
“Quinn kept sneaking visits to ours but returning to HQ to sleep. One day, we were out in the junkyard, foraging, and her blood sugar crashed. She went into diabetic shock. God, I’d never been so scared.
“I should’ve called 9-1-1, but we were eleven and didn’t have phones, so I grabbed her and ran to the nearest drugstore. The place was closed—it was the middle of the night. I broke in and stole the insulin, grabbing all the injections I could before getting out.
“I didn’t get arrested, which of course made me feel invincible… Until the next break-in—again, because Sullivan Hayes was a selfish ass who couldn’t remember to get Quinn insulin. That was when I ended up in juvie.
“My poor mother… When she found out, the only person she could think to call was Dominic Caruso. That’s how we ended up back in the organization. Dom bailed me out, scrubbed my record, then offered us our old home back.
“Mom was so scared I’d break more laws, so convinced she wasn’t enough to keep me on the right track that she took him up on his offer before taking him up on his second offer—marriage.
Even though she swore he didn’t force her hand, I preferred to believe that he did, because the alternative—that she could actually love him—somehow felt worse. My father had been Dom’s best friend.”
Reeve’s chest lifts with a sigh.
“Was Dominic nice to you and your mom?”
“Yeah. He was. Surprising, isn’t it? That the man who made your lives hell was capable of kindness. Unlike his psychopath son.”
“Trenton?” I ask.
He nods. “Hudson is just a useful idiot. He’s not rotten to the core.”
“So we shouldn’t kill him when we pick him up?”
Reeve tenses, then cranes his neck to look at me.
“You know we’re not going to stop hunting them, right?”
“Babe, as I told you yesterday and as I’ll tell you as many times as I need to for it to sink in, I have every intention of helping you bring down the organization. Especially now that the only Hunter I care about is safe.”
It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help the twinge of jealousy that travels through me at the mention of his love for Quinn. It must bleed over my expression, because he’s suddenly pinching my chin and twisting my face to his.
“Babe, I love her like you love Dorian.”
“Except my brother is gay.”
“And if he wasn’t? You think you’d have developed a romantic attachment to him?”
I grimace. “Yeah, probably not, but Quinn is beautiful. Even scarred, she’s—”
“—not you. She’s. Not. You. And I’m in love with you.” He pats his abdomen. “I know you don’t buy my mom’s whole ‘feel it here’ theory, but that’s where I feel it, Electra. Every time you walk into a room. Every time you touch me. Every time you so much as look in my direction, my stomach cramps.”
“I give you indigestion? Lovely.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You give me butterflies, babe. Not indigestion. You’ve got quite the cynical streak for such a love-story addict.”
“That’s what happens when you’ve been disillusioned one too many times.”
Reeve gathers me close and breathes yet another apology against the column of my throat.
“I forgive you, Reeve.”
“I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You’ll have to, because I won’t let the man I love hate himself.”
He looks up, his lashes lifting over eyes gone wide with something fragile and disbelieving. “You love me?”
“Yeah.” I brush a stray brown lock from his brow. “I mean, how could I not? You’re a god in the sack. The shower. The car. The kitchen.”
His fingers dig into my waist and tickle me in retaliation.
As I burst into giggles, he asks, “Am I to understand you love me only for my dick and culinary talent, Miss Serran?”
I cup his face, entirely serious now. “Reeve Rafferty, I love you in spite of everything you were…and because of everything you’ve become.”