61. Summer
Chapter Sixty-One
Summer
T he second he is gone, I climb out of bed.
I don’t want to think about anything that happened, anything he or I said, or the way I felt so safe in his arms. The skin beneath my bandage feels tight and hot, and my arm throbs painfully as if the bone is being slowly splintered.
The pain is too intense to account for the wounds, and I wonder if Rafe’s claws are venomous.
I’ll look into that tomorrow, but tonight I just need to check that Rafe is okay.
I need to make sure he knows I am okay and that it wasn’t his fault.
I knock on Rafe’s door, and he opens it immediately. His eyes are frantic as he looks me over, but he exhales heavily when he sees my bandaged arm.
“Hi.”
“Where did you go?” he says by way of a greeting.
“I was getting stitched up,” I say, lifting my arm, feeling the threads tug a little.
“By who?” he asks, tipping his head.
“My friend.” It still feels weird when I call him that, but I’m not sure what else to call him. “Look, Rafe. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Rafe asks, his brows drawing in confusion.
I nod and pick at the edge of my bandage.
“I should have known you weren’t ready for that.
” The beast claws at the boundaries of my mind, wanting to be free again.
It craves it, and so do I. The more I lean into the darkness, the harder it is to push it back into the cage where I have contained it for decades .
Rafe shrugs. “I’m not ready for a lot of things, Summer.
It’s whatever.” I get the sense that he’s not just talking about my injury.
We both know he’s talking about going back to classes.
We’ve only discussed it in passing, but he knows that every day he gets better, chances increase that I’ll open the subject as a very real discussion.
“We can train, Rafe. This is how I have spent my whole life. I can help you,” I say, taking his hand.
Rafe frowns. “Train? What do you mean?”
“I can teach you how to not succumb to others’ darkness.” I’ve been trying not to succumb to my own for my whole life. It will take the same internal tools.
“You can?”
“I can,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“How?”
“My darkness has been looking to escape my entire life. I know how to repress it.”
“That’s not healthy, Summer,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes filled with concern.
“No, but perhaps we could microdose it. To make it easier.”
“How do you microdose being a demon?”
“Not being a demon. Your urges. We can get you to a place where you control them when they push forward.”
Rafe rubs the back of his neck anxiously. “The demon wanted to make you act on it. It wanted to revel in that part of you and make you lose yourself to it.” He hesitates. “Until your soul became mine.”
I squeeze his hand, pulling his attention back to me. “The demon is you, Rafe.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not my voice, the one I hear.”
“It’s easier for you to give it a voice than to accept that it is your new instincts,” I say gently.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I drop his hand and slip past him into his room. “Can we try something?” I ask, sitting on his bed. This may be a bad idea, but he looks so defeated, and it’s breaking my heart. He needs to know he’s not a monster.
“Okay,” Rafe says, sitting down next to me.
“All right, try to resist,” I say, turning to face him .
“You want to provoke the demon again?” Rafe asks, looking at me like I am crazy.
“Let’s just see how we go. Okay?”
Rafe nods, but his hands are fisted tight.
I know he is anxious about doing this, but I need him to see that he can do this, that it won’t always be this hard.
He looked so comfortable in his own skin this morning.
I can’t allow him to lose that already, thanks to my dumb mistake.
I don’t want him to believe that the rest of his existence will be as uncomfortable and painful as it was when he was an angel.
I close my eyes, and my darkness rushes to greet me. It swirls in an eager flurry, but it’s too much. I only need a tiny drop of it so I concentrate and push it down. It feels foreign now, like I’m locking away a huge part of myself. It’s smothering and claustrophobic, but it’s for Rafe.
Once I have it under control, I coax the smallest drop out.
Even that feels consuming, and when I open my eyes, I can see that Rafe is already feeling the effects of it.
His eyes are black and his fangs have elongated.
I watch him, letting the droplet of darkness levitate through me.
I’m enjoying the feeling, basking in it, but Rafe, not so much.
His jeans rip beneath his claws, and a bead of sweat trails down his face.
I take a deep breath and say, “Breathe, Rafe.”
Rafe tries, but he is struggling to draw in a calming breath.
“Breathe,” I say again, inhaling deeply for him to copy.
Rafe sucks in a breath, and I can hear it shudder out between his lips when he exhales. I nod, keeping the drop of darkness hovering near the surface so he can feel it.
“Okay, good. Another one.”
Rafe struggles through another one and then another until his claws retract, and his eyes flash back to blue. When he’s back in control, I shove my drop of darkness down with the rest of it. The moment it is contained, the overwhelming claustrophobic feeling sets in again.
“Fuck,” Rafe pants, and slumps to the side, worn out from the effort of keeping his instincts in check.
“You did so well.” I help him lie down, pleased that he barely reacts when his back brushes against the sheets. “Sleep now. We’ll do more tomorrow.”
Rafe is already asleep. I consider going back to bed too, but it’s already 5:00 a.m., so I decide to get dressed and go to the gym.
Back in my room, I pull off my top, and I am a little alarmed at how much blood is soaked into it.
Now that I am aware of it, I can feel the dried blood on my skin, the sticky residue making me itch.
Shuddering, I prick my finger and draw a rune above my bandage to keep it clean and dry before taking a quick shower.
I feel much better after my shower, and after pulling on my gym clothes, I skip down the stairs and out into the predawn.
As I walk, I let my mind wander. I think about how my hangover stole my whole day yesterday, but now I’m feeling refreshed and ready to take on my training day.
I know I need to refocus on my classes, but I am not sure how to do so when Rafe needs me.
Tonight I’ll make a plan. I’ll find a way to balance everything.
My grades are still good, but I miss the passion I once had for learning in an academic setting.
Maybe it’s not that I have lost it, but that, at the moment, I’m constantly learning.
Every free moment I have is spent in some type of training. It’s just that it’s mostly physical.
Max is doing his own workout when I arrive. Not wanting to interrupt, I walk to the other side of the mats to do some warm-up stretches, but the moment Max notices me, he moves closer to work out beside me.
“How’s Rafe?” he asks, wiping the sweat from his face with a towel.
I bend in the middle, touching my toes. “He’s okay.”
“How’s his aggression?” he asks, and my eyes trail to the bandage on my forearm.
I stretch to the left and pull my sleeve down a little, trying to hide it, but it’s no use.
All I manage to do is draw his attention to it.
“Bad, I see,” he says, his voice tight with concern.
I straighten, but I don’t look at him. “I’m going to clear the gym tomorrow morning.
Be here at five.” I glance at him. “Bring him in?”
I frown and look around. We’re the only ones here anyway, but I appreciate his caution.
This also might be the outlet Rafe needs.
I wonder if he’s healed enough to do any sort of workout, but I am sure that in the appropriate environment with a trained professional would be the safest. For as long as I’ve known Max, he’s worked at the gym, and while I don’t know his exact qualifications, I know he’s good at what he does.
I have no idea how he keeps up with his job here and his studies.
“I’ll try,” I say, knowing the most challenging part will be convincing Rafe to come to the gym.
Max rolls his eyes. “You’re a doer, not a trier.”
My lips twitch. “Fine. I’ll do it. ”
Max winks at me and picks up an absurdly heavy dumbbell to continue his workout.
We work out in silence for a while until Max stows his weight back on the rack and looks at me. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod and follow him into the sparring room.
Max tosses me my sai, and I’m starting to anticipate it. Every time they fly at my head, I am a little more ready to catch them.
“I want to work on something new today. Up for it?”
I nod and spin the sai, getting used to having them in my hands again.
Max swings his broadsword, and then he closes his eyes.
His muscles start to ripple, and I stare in horrified amazement as I watch his body grow.
I’ve seen him lean into his berserker, but I’ve never seen it like this.
When he opens his eyes, they’re green, not brown.
My hands tighten on my sai, my instincts registering a new threat even as I gape up at him.
“Better get running,” he says, a guttural edge rumbling around his voice, and his grin is far more menacing than his usual warm smile.
“Running?” I ask, blinking owlishly.
A rune flickers on Max’s skin, and a blur of energy flies from him. Shocked, I watch as it soars toward me. It looks like a shockingly green lightning bolt, and I barely manage to dodge it in time, the power just grazing my arm.