Chapter 32
DAMIEN
Stella relaxed in my arms as soon as she heard my voice, a strange sense of peace washing over me. I was a safe space for her. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn that, but I wasn’t about to give it away, either.
I pressed my finger to her mouth, not daring to speak until Silas’s footsteps thundered down the hall. ‘Where the fuck are you? You couldn’t have gone far, and I will find you, and you will regret this.’
His footsteps disappeared, echoing further and further, and I took my finger off her lips.
‘Hold on.’ I snapped my fingers, the dimmest ball of light brightening the small alcove.
‘Why didn’t he look in here?’ Stella whispered, looking around the small cubby.
‘Silas has only been around a few decades. I was here when they built this place. Clarissa would know where to look, but she’ll let him flounder before she bothers to come looking herself.’
She looked up at me sadly. ‘I guess you didn’t manage to remove the tracking magic?’
My face and heart fell. ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m still trying, though.
I promise.’ I’d tried everything I knew, Agatha and I both, but nothing had worked so far, and I was quickly running out of time.
I was a man possessed, desperate, and putting us both in danger in my need to see her again.
Without thinking, I’d come into Hell, into Wrath.
I needed her to know the truth, all of truths of what I’d done, so she would know exactly how far I was willing to go for her.
And it needed to be said before it was too late.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, pressing her face into my chest. ‘It’s okay either way.’
My shirt felt wet, and I realized she had hidden her face to cry.
She was here because of me. This was all my fault, and now here she was, reassuring me, and hiding her feelings from me.
‘No,’ I said firmly, lifting her tear-stained face. ‘Absolutely not. None of that. You will not hide any of this from me.’
‘But you’ve tried so hard. I know you have. All you’ve done is protect me. I don’t need to make you feel worse. Maybe this was always how it was supposed to be.’
‘I don’t care. You are the important thing here. Not me.’
She sniffled. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I do.’ I lifted her chin up, dragging her mouth to mine.
‘There is not a single doubt in my mind that you are worth every moment I’ve spent saving you.
Not when I had to kick some guy’s ass in a bar.
Not when I had to fix your shady landlord.
None of it.’ And there they were, all my secrets, spilling out between us.
Let them fall where they may. Stella was either going to love despite them or she wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t hide my truth from her for another moment.
Her full lips dropped open and she was silent for a moment. ‘It was you. All along. How did I not see it?’ Stella blinked, shaking her head. ‘I smelled smoke in my room one day. I thought Grace had been sneaking cigarettes again. I was so angry at her… It was you.’
‘You knew?’ I knew Stella was bright, but maybe something else was going on. My chest warmed, content with the knowledge that maybe she’d known me all along.
She shrugged, a pretty blush spreading across her face. ‘I mean, I didn’t know for sure. I couldn’t exactly tell anyone what I thought without them thinking I’d lost it. But there were some really weird coincidences. I called you my guardian angel.’
Her guardian angel. How wrong she was, and how much I wanted her to be right.
I laughed quietly. ‘For you, Stella, I’d be anything you ask of me. Even if I have to pretend.’ I gripped her face between my hands, resting my lips on hers.
Stella smiled. ‘Is it really pretending if I believe it?’
Her words always seemed to rock me to my core, even the simplest of them.
‘You have no idea what you mean to me,’ I breathed, kissing her deeply.
I dragged my hands down the side of the black lace dress she wore, knowing her skin was just a whisper away from my touch.
‘I will do whatever it takes to save you. I promised you a chance. And I’m going to make sure you get one. ’
‘You’ve already given me one. Lots of them by the sounds of it.’ Stella shook her head, still smiling despite it all. And then her smile fell.
‘What is it?’ I demanded.
‘Silas said something. He said… he said Clarissa hated you so much because you used to be together. Is that true?’
I choked back a laugh. ‘Clarissa and I have never been a thing. She wanted to, once. A long, long time ago. Before she was… this. But even then, I couldn’t stand her. So if that’s why she hates me, it’s because I rejected her. Not because we used to be together.’
‘Oh.’ Stella’s face relaxed, her body softening. ‘Okay.’
‘Were you actually worried?’ I murmured, sliding my hands up her thighs, her skin warm and soft under my touch.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘No. Even if you’d been with her, that was in the past. Ancient history. We have forever.’
Fuck. I hoped she was right. I rested my forehead to hers, wanting to forget for just a moment where we were.
Until a wild roar had us both looking around. Clarissa stood, curtain ripped open before her, Lars and Silas standing behind her. She barely looked human, her skin still that of a human, but her hands were full-on claws, a ripple of scales easily apparent across her body.
She looked ready for murder. ‘What the fuck are you doing here? You know you aren’t allowed here!’
‘It’s our club. And if you hurt a single fucking hair on her body, you will regret it,’ I promised, holding Stella close to me.
She wasn’t theirs. Not one inch of her.
Clarissa’s eyes flashed. ‘We’ll see.’
I pressed my lips to Stella’s ear, wishing I could do more, something, anything, to take her away from this other than my words. ‘She won’t hurt you,’ I whispered. ‘Not now. It’s an empty threat. I will keep you safe.’
Clarissa laughed, a cold shock. ‘An empty threat? Don’t make empty promises. You and I both know you can’t remove her from Hell without killing her, unless I choose to let her go.’
I knew she was right. But there had to be an angle I wasn’t seeing, some solution eluding me. There would be a way I could save her.
Clarissa snatched Stella away from me, leaving my arms empty and cold. ‘You’re rather ungrateful for the freedom I’ve given you.’
For what it was worth, Stella didn’t look scared, which filled me with an odd sense of pride. ‘Seriously? What freedom is it that you speak of? Because I was offered assault, and I’m not sure those are next to each other in the dictionary.’
‘You’ll regret this, Clarissa.’ I couldn’t do anything with the tracking spell in Stella, except offer words. I hated it. For the first time in a long time, I felt useless. Like I told Stella, my power was worthless unless I could protect her.
Clarissa was already pulling Stella away from me, dragging her into the darkened hallway.
‘I’ll get you out of here if it’s the last thing I do,’ I swore, desperate not to lose her touch. I wanted to be her guardian angel. I wanted to save her.
She looked up at me, twisting in Clarissa’s grip to smile at me with such open vulnerability, it made my hands tremble with the raw love there.
‘I never doubted it for a moment.’