Chapter 15
fifteen
DARIUS
I could hear Rae and Kat talking when I walked into Callum's place after my shift. I saluted Callum on my way to the kitchen, and he rose to his feet.
Everything was fucking dark after a few hours at the café.
I needed my mate more than I needed to eat, and my stomach was growling.
"Oh my god, those are the best dumplings I've ever had," Kat groaned.
"Right?" Rae asked around a mouthful of food. "Try them in the sauce."
"The red one?"
"Mmhm."
Kat groaned again, louder.
"If your mate keeps making my female moan, we're going to have a problem," Callum drawled.
"I heard that," Kat called from the kitchen, her mouth still full. "You're going to moan when you try this, too."
Kat was in a chair when we reached them, and Rae was sitting on the wooden ledge of the table.
Callum slid into the chair beside Kat's, and she took his hand.
I walked right up to Rae, crushing her to my chest and breathing her in. I slid a hand beneath the back hem of her shirt, pressing it against her bare skin. The way my numbing apathy disappeared immediately was a fucking rush.
"Hi," Rae said against my throat.
"Hey, baby."
She poked my side. "The food's getting cold, and you're still not supposed to call me that."
"We ordered enough for you guys too," Kat added.
I dragged a chair over and sat next to Rae, setting my hand on her thigh as I grabbed a fork.
"How's the café?" Kat checked, glancing at me.
"It's fine. You're out of chocolate cake."
Her gaze darted to Callum before flicking back to me. "That's okay."
Callum narrowed his eyes at her. "Do you want more cake?"
Kat lifted a dumpling toward his face. "Try this. It's so good." He didn't open his mouth, but she shoved it in anyway. He made a sound of complaint, but his eyebrows lifted as he chewed.
He cleared his throat. "That is good. The cake?"
"It's gone," she said. "But Rae shared hers with me."
"Just buy another one," I told Callum.
His phone was already in his hands, his fingers flying over the screen.
"I have a mountain of other treats," Kat protested. "And Callum likes to buy me a variety of things, so—"
Callum set his phone down on the table. "Too late. It'll be here in an hour."
Kat's eyes brightened. "Thanks."
"Of course." He took another dumpling, then put the carton of them in front of Kat without making a big deal of it. She flashed him a smile and slid closer.
Rae poked my arm with her fork. "You're not eating anything."
"I'm basking."
"Basking in what?"
"You."
Her expression was skeptical. "That's not a thing."
"It is for fae." I lifted her knee off the table and kissed it before setting it back down.
She looked at Kat for confirmation, but Kat shrugged.
"It's a thing," Callum said. "Particularly when you've only found your mate recently, or been away from them for a while. The transition between paying the price of our magic and touching our mate is dramatic, so taking a moment to enjoy it is normal."
"Hmm." Rae looked down at me again, then back to Callum. "When does your magic feel the worst, if you guys aren't together?"
She was trying to confirm whether I'd lied to her about mine or not.
"Nighttime."
"That's why he got rid of the couch and the rest of the furniture before we were really together," Kat explained. "So I would sleep next to him."
Rae nodded, like she knew the story.
They'd probably talked about it while they were hanging out. I wasn't entirely sure what they'd been doing all morning, but Rae seemed happy, and she was sharing her food with me again.
We talked while we ate. Rae and Kat got along a hell of a lot better than I expected. Kat kept her talking, and Rae seemed a lot less guarded with her than she'd been with Merrily. Definitely less guarded than she'd been with me the first time we had a conversation, too.
It was a good sign.
Rae even talked to Callum, and considering her dislike of people in general, that was significant.
We headed out after the food and chocolate cheesecake was gone. Rae was so in love with the cheesecake that I pretended not to enjoy it, so she ate my slice too.
Instead of going straight home, I took her to a car dealership, and we wandered for a while.
She wouldn't tell me which car she liked the most, but I kept catching her staring at a matte black Corvette. I walked her over to it a few times, just so I was sure, and we left without buying anything.
It would be more fun as a surprise.
I took her to one of my houses afterward, so we could swap my bike for a car.
Rae wasn't thrilled about it, but she agreed to get in the driver's seat in exchange for the last two corn dogs we found in the freezer.
I gave her a short rundown of driving that particular car, and she gave me the last bite of her second corn dog as she put the car in reverse, wearing a deep grimace.
We spent two hours driving slowly around the neighborhood while I gave her instructions and she adjusted to being behind the wheel.
Rae really didn't want to go out on the road, but she admitted that she needed to learn how to drive, so she eventually took the plunge. She drove slower than the majority of the traffic, but she had no real problem with it.
We stopped for food after a few hours of aimless driving, and inhaled more takeout.
She looked relieved when she finally pulled up in front of the hotel and the valet took my car. My bike would stay at my house; I needed a vehicle that could fit both of us a little easier.
The sun was already setting.
It didn't take long to get to her suite. Rae ignored the binder sitting in the hallway, leaned up against the wall beside our door, but I grabbed it on our way in.
She went straight for the bed and flung herself onto the mattress, staring up at the decorative light fixture that hung above her. "Driving is way worse than traveling by shadow."
"Yeah, it is." I didn't bother disagreeing. Transportation would be really fucking useful.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, not sure if she wanted me in her space or not.
"Can you drive when we go places together?" she asked.
"Hell yeah." After a moment of debate, I slid closer to her. She lifted her head so I could tuck my arm beneath it, and draped one of her calves over one of my legs. "I brought you a binder of options. I owe you a place to live that doesn't have multiple floors of people below it."
She perked up a little, and took the binder.
I watched her slowly read through all of the options. There were about two dozen pictured, but there were more I could add if she wasn't a fan of them. Most of the others had renters living in them, so I'd rather pick one of the empty ones that I typically switched between.
"Have you fucked people in all of these?" she asked me, as she neared the end of the binder. She didn't sound bothered about it, but I studied her anyway, watching closely for a sign that she cared more than she seemed to.
I considered the question. I'd never really thought about it, but now that I did...
"Not all of them."
There were a few I hadn't spent much time in at all. Like this hotel suite.
She handed me the binder. "I don't want to move somewhere that you've been with anyone else. The place we live shouldn't come with memories of other people for you."
My cock throbbed violently.
She was saying we, like we were both moving there.
I opened the rings of the binder and pulled out most of the pages, leaving her with three options.
One was an apartment above one of my clubs. I'd never gotten around to furnishing it, so I'd never been inside. I doubted she'd choose that one, given the location.
As expected, she read the blurb about where it was located, and skipped right over it.
Another option was a modern mansion that was all glass, brick, and concrete, on Fae Row. She lingered on that one.
The third was a Tudor-style manor that was mostly red brick and ivy, also on Fae Row.
"This doesn't look like your style," she remarked.
"It was Callum's. When he mated with Kat, he wanted a place that would give her a better view of the forest," I explained. "I moved around a lot to try to keep my magic under control, so he gave it to me. I never used it. Felt too weird."
"What about this one?" she asked, flipping back to the modern mansion. "I like the style."
"I built that when we moved here. It's next door to Merrily's old place, and she has a shitload of cameras. I didn't want her seeing something she wasn't comfortable with, so I never took anyone there. Rarely went there at all."
"She lives in the demon royals' mansion now?"
"Right."
"And her house is empty?"
"Yup."
"So if I picked this one, you wouldn't have an issue with it? "
"Nope. But if you'd rather live in the Shadow District, I can find a new place there. It's not a big deal."
"Your job is here," she pointed out. "And mine is all over the city."
She still wasn't ready to accept that I'd be dropping the café job as soon as she was comfortable with it. There was enough shit for me to do for the Cabinet and some of my family's businesses to stay busy.
"So, I'll live here." She pointed to the mansion on fae row.
She'd dropped the we.
I tried not to care. Really did. Didn't really succeed.
"I'll have someone get it ready. It'll probably take a few days."
"A few days isn't too bad."
"Nope." I kissed her forehead. Couldn't seem to stop myself. "You seemed to like Kat."
"I do," Rae admitted. "Do you think it's weird that I wasn't socially and emotionally drained after hanging out with her? I usually need like a week off from life after I do things like that."
"You only get emotionally and socially drained after talking to Grayson and the lamia royals," I pointed out.
She made a face. "Yeah."
"Some part of you probably associates all of them with the hell you went through."
"They were the ones who got me out, though." She stared at the ceiling, her eyes darker than usual despite the specks of blue in her eyes that seemed to be spreading. There were definitely more of them than before. The more she drank my blood, the better off she was.
"Maybe you just need more people in your life. If you like Kat, you should hang out with her more. I know she doesn't have many friends. Jonah was the only person she was close to, and he's with Gwen now."
Rae changed the subject. "Would your magic be easier to deal with if you spent your nights with me?"
"It would be, but I’m managing it fine as it is.”
She dropped the binder on the mattress and slid a little closer, so more of her body was on top of mine. "Okay. Stay the night with me. If you want to, obviously."
I dragged her into my arms. "I want to. But I want you to bite me, first."
The smile she gave me was followed by her teeth in my throat.
And my hand in her shorts.
And her mouth on my cock.
She was fucking perfect.