Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Forty-eight hours.
It was a very short amount of time to make her love him, but Sloane was nothing if not determined — or desperate enough to fight until the bitter end.
They sat outside on the bluff overlooking the ocean, a blanket spread beneath them.
Cecilia had picked out several of her revolting foods from the cupboard and spread them on one side.
She’d then commanded him to sit behind her.
He hadn’t been a fan of that particular order until she climbed between his legs and made herself comfortable against his chest.
Cecilia arranged his limbs like she owned them. She wrapped his arms around her middle and tipped her head against his jaw.
The sunset blazed over the horizon, setting the ocean aflame. It lit her in gold and pink, softening the edges of her until she appeared to be the thing that glowed, not the sun.
Ignoring the twinge of his bruises, Sloane squeezed her tight against him.
That raw nerve in his chest burned when she was so near, when he got to touch her, when she draped herself against him, when she was just…
Cecilia. It wasn’t the bad kind of burn.
It was the good kind, like a growing pain or sore muscles after a hard mission. He never wanted it to go away.
We have to leave, he thought, arms tightening around his consort’s middle. But how could he explain that to her without telling her everything else?
“What’s with the shag rug?”
Sloane sucked in a deep breath through his helmet’s filter. It took him a beat to figure out what she was referring to. “In the bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“It looked like yours,” he explained.
“I figured, but why did you want your room to look like mine? You’re not exactly a pink and sparkles kind of guy.
I mean, look at the rest of the house. You don’t even have pictures on the walls.
” She leaned her head back against his shoulder to look up at him.
“We could make this place more homey, you know? But I wouldn’t want it to just be my taste. ”
As often happened with Cecilia, Sloane experienced a mix of opposing emotions.
It was a heady thing, knowing she wanted to make a home with him.
A real home. Something he hadn’t experienced since he was six years old and never thought he’d have again.
But he couldn’t give that to her. Not here.
Not when they would have to run — should have run already.
Choosing his answer carefully, Sloane said, “I like your taste. Soft things are… rare in my life. Your apartment seemed comforting. I wanted that.”
“Hm.” She watched him closely, but he had no idea what thoughts ran through her tricky mind. He’d stopped trying to guess, since he was always wrong. Cecilia had an incredible ability to surprise him at every turn.
The bow of the ribbon she used as a headband brushed his helmet when she looked back at the ocean. Waves crashed against gritty rocks far below them. The air was cool, but the warmth of the sun still managed to touch their little bubble of peace.
Cecilia wore a soft lavender sweater over jeans and shiny white boots. Her cheeks were dark from the brisk, salty breeze and her eyes glittered with the reflected sunset. Sloane couldn’t stop himself from cupping her jaw. Turning her head to face him again, he held her there with infinite care.
“What?” she breathed, a smile pulling at her lips.
He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the corner of her jaw, savoring the slight burn in the beds of his claws. All he wanted to do was look at her. It was all he’d ever wanted. To have so much more than that was still hard to process.
Sloane struggled with the tight, panicked feeling in his chest — a fear that at any moment she’d be stolen from him. His trainers used to give him precious things only to snatch them away, teaching him the value of deprivation. But he’d never had anything so precious as her.
To lose her now, when he was so close to being chosen, would be unendurable.
No wonder the doctor thought we couldn’t handle this, he realized with dread. We can’t. We can’t survive the loss of it.
“I…” He trailed off, unsure what he meant to say. His throat constricted as his body fought conflicting instincts.
Finding a few words he knew were horribly inadequate, he said, “I enjoy this. You. I don’t want anything to change.”
Cecilia let out a soft breath. “I don’t know… Some change can be good, don’t you think?”
His jaw clenched. “Do you want to leave?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she assured him. “I’m talking about doing normal couple things. You did great last night, so I don’t see why we couldn’t go back to the city and—”
“It’s too dangerous.”
It did something explosive to his ego when she simply rolled her eyes, utterly unconcerned. “Listen, champ, I’m not worried about danger. I’ve got you. Who would dare hurt me when I’ve got a hunky elf boyfriend who can literally rip them limb from limb?”
Sloane let out an astonished breath. “I’m not your boyfriend.”
“You’re my mate,” she corrected herself. Hearing it come from her lips sent an electric shock through his body.
“Yes,” he whispered. “And you’re mine.”
Ever curious, his brilliant consort asked, “What does it feel like for you?”
He shook his head. “You’re asking the wrong elf. I’m not good at describing feelings.”
“Try,” she insisted.
Sloane licked his lips as he attempted to boil down the most significant shift in his life, his biology, and his eternal landscape since his birth. “We call it the Pull. It feels… like a pull. Like we can’t be separated from our consort or we’ll die. It’s wonderful. It’s also awful.”
Her dark brows drew together. “Will you? Die, I mean.”
“If exposed to your pheromones for long enough, then cut off, yes. We often waste away until infirmity or madness sets in. Usually both.” He shrugged. “There are worse deaths.”
And I’ve participated in nearly all of them, he silently added.
Cecilia sat up, depriving him of all that delicious contact. “Wait, so if I decided I wanted to be with you forever, and then one day I changed my mind, it could kill you?”
He nodded. “Affirmative.”
Cecilia stared at him with an emotion he knew well: horror. “No wonder you want to wait to take your helmet off,” she whispered.
Sloane frowned. “That’s not why I’m keeping it on. I’m not afraid of dying, Cece. I’m afraid of taking your choice from you. Because I know you wouldn’t let me die. That’s the problem.”
She let out a slow, trembling breath. “You think I’d feel guilted into staying with you?”
“Yes,” he answered, stomach tightening.
“You’re a complicated man, Sloane. You don’t have any problem kidnapping me and saying I can’t leave, but you also won’t force a matebond on me, which most people wouldn’t think twice about.
” Cecilia gave the center of his visor a poke with her index finger.
“I don’t know why that appeals to me so much, but it does. ”
The breeze pushed her hair over her shoulders. It tickled his chest as he grabbed the hand that had poked him and twined their fingers together. “Do arrants feel a type of Pull?”
“Mm, not really,” she answered, lips twisting from one side to the other. “We have a lot of stories about love at first sight, and instant attraction is definitely a thing, but I don’t think it’s anything like what you and orcs and shifters experience.”
He wasn’t surprised but he couldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed. “I see.”
He couldn’t be sure what Cecilia heard in his voice.
Whatever it was, it made her expression soften.
She leaned in close to cup the side of his helmet.
“Hey… That doesn’t mean I feel nothing. If anything, I think arrants have a gift to give people like you.
When we stay, it’s because we want to, not because of biology or magic.
It’s our choice to love you. One hundred percent. ”
“Could you love me, Cece?” Sloane didn’t mean to sound so pathetic and desperate, but he did.
She was quiet for a beat. That was one of those nuances he never could’ve picked up through distant observation, the way she talked non-stop until she really had something to say. Then she took her time.
Before she could answer, he continued, “I’m a monster.
More than you know. I’ve killed hundreds of people in my life, and I’m not— I was made into something that’s not right.
I can’t be fixed, and even if I could be I don’t know that I’d choose it.
But I’d die for you, Cece. I’ll give up everything that matters to me for you.
Not just because you’re my consort, but because you’re you. ”
Her breath hitched. “Sloane…”
He lowered his head to rest it on the curve of her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
A soft hand drifted up to cradle the back of his neck.
Normally, instinct would’ve seen him strike out at anyone, even a teammate, for coming so close to that vulnerable spot, but there wasn’t even a prickle of unease in him when she stroked the skin beneath his collar.
She was the only one who was allowed so close to the most vulnerable part of him because he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d never harm him.
She was safe. She was soft. She was his.
“Don’t apologize for saying how you feel,” she gently scolded him.
“I like that. Actually, I love it. I love how honest you are, baby. And in the spirit of honesty, lemme just say this: I’m not quite right in the head either.
I don’t know… maybe the ways that I’m a little messed up and the ways you’re a lot messed up align, you know?
I find you outrageously charming, and I know it’s fucked to say I don’t care about you killing people, but I kinda don’t because I trust your judgement.
I mean, a man who values consent as much as you do has to have a solid moral compass, right? ”
She let out a slow breath. Voice lowering, she continued, “Or maybe that’s just an excuse I tell myself to justify the fact that I find how dangerous you are to be so fucking sexy it makes it hard to function.
I think you’re funny and earnest and sweet.
I want to help you live a good life, Sloane, and I want to be a part of it. ”
Sloane couldn’t catch his breath. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything besides cling to her like she was a life preserver in a turbulent ocean.
Her hand fell from the back of his neck. “I have an idea, but you’ve got to let me go.”
Instantly, his arms banded around her middle. “No,” he protested, burying his visor in her neck.
A soft chuckle shook her chest. “I meant let me sit up, not let me run away, you dork.”
It still wasn’t his preference. Sloane didn’t want to release her for even a moment, but he reluctantly allowed her to arrange his limbs again. When she stood up, he tilted his head back to look up at her gilded image, perfect and windswept.
Cecilia motioned for him to stand. “Come on. Up you go.”
He rose to his feet and watched, baffled, as she licked the tip of her index finger and held it in the air. He’d never been so jealous of a finger in his fucking life.
“Perfect,” she announced, dropping her hand. Grabbing his forearms, she gently steered them in a circle, so his back was to the ocean and hers was to the Battery.
“What are you doing?” he asked, head tilting.
Cecilia curled her lips between her teeth for a moment, as she often did when she was building herself up to say something. Her cheeks were rosy, and those dark, doe eyes glittered when she let out a gusty exhale.
“I’m standing downwind,” she explained, unhelpfully.
Sloane gave her a puzzle frown she couldn’t see. “Affirmative. But why?”
She searched his visor so intently, it felt for a moment like she could actually see through it. “So you won’t smell me.”
It took him several tense seconds to catch onto what she was suggesting. “You want me to take my helmet off.”
“If I’m gonna fall in love with a man, I want to look him in the eyes when I do it,” she declared. “And if you’re gonna fall in love with me, you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide.”
He’d crashed through floors before. He’d fallen off buildings and down stairs during fights. None of those experiences compared to the way the earth fell out from under him when Cecilia said that.
Heart racing so fast it felt like it might pop, he rasped, “It’s dangerous. What if I—”
Cutting him off, she told him, “First of all, I trust you. Second, if it’s too much, you can hold your breath until you get your helmet back on.”
Nervous sweat accumulated beneath the accordion folds of his collar. “Cece, if I fuck up…”
She firmed her delicate chin. “Then that’s that. But I’m not taking this any further without looking you in the eye, Sloane. And I don’t think you should, either.”
Her trust humbled him, but it was the vulnerability she asked of him that made him hesitate. His helmet had been a part of him for so long that he didn’t know exactly who he was without it.
Who do I want to be?
Sloane had no idea who he wanted to be, but he did know that all possible answers began and ended with having her by his side.
His hands trembled as he lifted them to the latches on either side of his jaw.
Cecilia’s steady gaze followed every movement of his fingers as he disengaged the seal. He lost sight of her briefly when he lifted the helmet over his head.
The cold breeze contrasted with the warm glow of the sunrise on his face. The light passed through the thin skin of his closed eyelids. Something kept him from opening them. Maybe it was fear, or perhaps it was reverence.
Either way, he couldn’t look at Cecilia when she whispered, “You’re beautiful.”
A shuddering exhale left his parted lips. He didn’t dare breathe in yet, terrified that he’d ruin everything with one reckless gasp.
Cecilia’s hands settled on his chest, but they didn’t stay there. They followed an invisible path upward, over his shoulders and the cords of his neck, to cup his cheeks. Blood rushed to those lucky points of contact, making his skin tingle and desire sit heavily in his gut.
“Take a deep breath,” she quietly commanded.
Following her orders instinctively, he tilted his head up to avoid any hint of her scent on the wind. “Why?”
Cecilia guided his head back down with those careful hands. “Because I’m going to kiss you, Sloane.”