Chapter 14
Elias
The crack of light through Talin's bedroom window had shifted from harsh midday brightness to the softer gold of late afternoon. I'd been tracking it all afternoon, watching the sun creep across her floor while she lay curled against my side, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my chest.
Other than getting up once for food and a very interesting shower, we'd barely moved from this bed all day while we'd waited for the sun to go down so I could leave the apartment.
But, the thing was, I didn't want to.
For the first time in a very long time, I'd laid around, not cleaning, not organizing, not worrying, just… talking. Touching. Getting to know each other in ways that had nothing to do with magic or threads or ancient djinn manipulating our lives.
She told me about her family, about her parents.
About growing up practicing magic with her cousins and how when she was diagnosed the Moss family closed ranks around her so tight that sometimes Talin felt like she was suffocating.
About the battle she fought in her tender teenage years that stole part of her body and all of her certainty that she'd ever be wanted as a woman.
I told her about the war. About the men I couldn't save, the ones who'd bled out in my arms while shells screamed overhead. About Killian finding me in the aftermath, offering me a choice I didn't fully comprehend until it was too late to take back. But at the time, I'd only wanted to live.
I told her about my life as a vampire.
Well, not everything. I didn't tell her I was a murderer.
I didn't describe the way blood lust could consume you like a wildfire, burning away every rational thought until nothing remained but the thirst, especially in those first volatile years after being turned.
I didn't tell her about waking from that haze with cold, lifeless bodies in my arms, eyes wide with terror when I'd realized what I'd done.
Or how the guilt became this physical thing inside you, this constant companion that sat on your chest when you tried to sleep, whispered in your ear when you fed.
How it followed you through the decades, becoming as much a part of you as your fangs.
Maybe someday I would tell her those things too. Maybe someday I'd find the courage to reveal every dark corner of my soul and see if she could still look at me the way she did now.
Or maybe not.
Now the sun was setting, and I sensed the burden of our impending future bearing down upon us both.
"We should get up and get ready to go," Talin said softly. "The others will be gathering soon."
"I know."
Neither of us moved.
Her apartment was small. The bedroom barely fit her queen-sized bed and a dresser, but she'd made it hers.
And it was girlier than I would've expected.
All pinks and browns. A collection of pretty crystals on the windowsill that caught the dying light.
Clothes draped over a chair in the corner because apparently she didn't believe in hangers.
It was messy, and it made my fingers itch to organize it. To put everything in order because that would somehow help me stabilize the thoughts and emotions that had been knocking around inside of me all day.
"Elias."
"Hmm?"
"You're doing it again."
I glanced down at her. "Doing what?"
"That thing where you catalog everything in the room and mentally rearrange it." She poked me in the ribs. "I can practically hear you thinking about how you could maximize my closet space."
A smile tugged at my mouth despite everything. "Your closet is a disaster."
"My closet is fine."
"You have sweaters shoved in with your summer dresses. The hangers are facing three different directions. And I'm pretty sure there's a shoe graveyard at the bottom that hasn't been excavated in months."
She propped herself up on one elbow, her green eyes dancing. "Are you closet-shaming me right now?"
"I'm closet-observing."
"Uh-huh." But she was grinning, and gods, I wanted to keep that expression on her face. Wanted to freeze this moment before we had to walk back into the nightmare waiting outside her door.
The smile faded from her face like she could read my thoughts. "I don't want to go," she admitted quietly.
"Then don't."
"Elias—"
"I know." I pulled her closer, pressing my face into her hair. She smelled like an herbal garden after a storm and the sweet scent of her blood, a scent I could've tracked across the entire city now. "I know we have to do this. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
She tilted her head back, her green eyes digging into mine, searching for something. I wanted to look away, but I didn't, though. Instead, I played with the silver hoop in her eyebrow and let her find whatever she was searching for.
"You're scared," she said.
"No," I shook my head slightly. "I'm not. I'm fucking terrified I'm going to lose you somehow."
She stared up at me, but didn't say anything.
"I can't lose you," I told her, forcing the words out. "I just found you, and honestly I don't know what the fuck to do with that, but I know I can't lose you."
"I'll come back."
"You don't know that."
"You're right." She sits up on the bed so she's facing me.
"But I know that even though what's happening between us wasn't anything either of us expected, it's strong enough to pull me home.
You're strong enough. And I know that if we don't try, Alex dies.
Maybe Alice too. Hell, maybe all of us. And then Marcus wins, and we can't allow that to happen. "
Logic. Cold, brutal logic that I couldn't argue with no matter how much I wanted to.
The light had deepened to amber, painting her skin in warm tones. Another ten minutes and the sun would slip below the horizon. I'd feel it when it happened, feel that loosening in my chest, the world opening up in a way it couldn't during daylight hours.
Another ten minutes, and we'd have to leave this sanctuary.
"Kiss me," I said roughly.
It started gentle, a soft press of lips filled with all the uncertainty of what was going to happen that night. But then her fingers slid into my hair and I was hauling her on top of me, and gentle burned away like paper in a flame.
I flipped us so she was beneath me, my body caging hers against the mattress. She gasped into my mouth and I swallowed the sound, my tongue sliding against hers in a rhythm that made my entire body tighten with need.
Her legs wrapped around my waist. The oversized T-shirt she was wearing between us too much, not enough, a barrier I wanted to tear away so I could feel every inch of her skin against mine.
"Elias." My name came out breathless, desperate. "We don't have time—"
"I know."
I kissed down her throat anyway, tasting the pulse that fluttered just beneath her skin. My fangs ached, the urge to bite nearly overwhelming. Maybe her blood would fill the hollowness in my chest and make me whole again. Something I could take with me into the time I had left if she left me…
No.
She needed to be at full strength. Needed every drop of power she could hold if she was going to walk into Marcus's realm and come back out alive.
With a growl of frustration, I pulled back, putting space between us even though every instinct screamed at me to get closer, to claim, to take.
Talin tilted her face away, exposing the vulnerable curve where her neck met her shoulder, and my eyes zeroed in on her pulsing artery.
She rolled her hips in a slow, deliberate motion against the hard length of my cock straining against my jeans, drawing a guttural sound from deep in my chest that was barely human.
My control—that final strand of restraint I'd clung to—broke.
I moved in a blur, one hand fisting in her hair to angle her head, the other braced against the headboard. My fangs extended fully, sharp and aching, and then I was sinking them into the side of her throat.
She cried out and her nails dug into my back as her body arched into mine.
Her blood flooded my mouth in a hot, perfect rush.
Sweeter than anything I'd tasted in over a century, yet carrying an edge of wild, untamed magic that made every nerve ending in my body sing.
Liquid heat seared down my throat, spreading through my chest, my limbs, until every muscle felt stronger, every sense sharper.
The bond between us blazed to life, white-hot and undeniable, thrumming with an intensity that made the world around us fade to nothing.
I could feel her inside of me now. Not just the taste of her blood on my tongue or the warmth of her body pressed against mine, but her—the essence of who she was.
Every frantic beat of her heart echoed in my own chest, synchronizing with the rhythm of my own undead pulse until they moved as one.
Her power coursed through my veins like lightning, electrifying every cell, awakening parts of me that had lain dormant for decades.
It was intoxicating, overwhelming, right in a way that terrified me even as it completed me.
More.
Her body trembled against mine, small whimpers escaping her lips as her fingers clutched desperately at my shoulders, anchoring herself to me as though afraid she might float away if she let go. The taste of her was addictive, richer than anything I'd ever experienced in all my immortal years.
Without releasing her from my bite, I roughly lifted her shirt and spread her legs with my knees, shoving down my boxer briefs until I could feel the wet heat of her sex against the head of my cock.
The scent of her arousal mingled with the taste of her blood, creating an intoxicating cocktail that made my head swim and my control fracture.
In one hard buck of my hips, I drove inside her until I was buried to the hilt, the tight heat of her body gripping me like a vice. She enveloped me completely, her inner walls clenching around me with such perfect pressure that stars exploded behind my eyelids.