Chapter 34
34
Raze
“ Y our little friend is demanding to see you,” my mother’s harsh, irritated voice informs through my earbud.
Demanding? I don’t like the way that sounds.
“Where is she?”
“At the safe house.”
I still my steps so suddenly, the two lingering students walking behind me nearly crash into my back. Their curses rumble beneath their breaths before I turn to face them. They clamp their mouths shut as they recognize my face, tucking their chins down and rushing away, their bags hugged tightly to their chests.
Mother fucker. The Ellerys were supposed to wait for me before they showed their faces. I planned to go tonight and drop off everyone’s duffel bags and break the news to her then. They agreed to wait in their loft until that happened. If she’s telling them she wants to see me, she’s probably already got plans for what she’s going to do with my balls when she gets them in her death grip.
They tighten in response to the thought, and I shift my hips in a small gesture of reassurance. No one is going to touch you, little buddies .
“Are you still at the house?” I hope she isn’t. My mother has done nothing but agitate Sonny at every turn. If she’s lingering in their family business, it’s not for any reason outside of providing extra torture for Sonny.
Thankfully, she responds in the negative. “No, I have other things to do outside of babysitting the cradle you’re robbing.”
“I am not—” I start to bicker back, cutting myself off before someone overhears. Jesus Christ, I miss when we only saw each other twice a year for birthdays. This war has brought on too much togetherness.
“Well, she’s holed up in her room, demanding to speak to you before she faces her parents. I’d think after years of mourning them, she’d be elated to find that they’re still alive, but who am I?”
Yeah, that’s doubtful. My mother holds a grudge harder than anyone else I know. It’s exactly why she’s been so rude to Sonny to begin with. She may appear to Nocturne Valley as the sweet little baker grandma, but deep down I know she’s got a running list of people who have wronged her since Bane died.
If my father randomly popped up out of nowhere and said, Surprise! I’m not dead, she’d probably kick him in the throat, and then roast his balls over a fire and feed them to him.
Shit, maybe she and Sonny are more alike than I’ve realized.
“I’ll head there now,” I bite out, then hang up before we devolve into a full-blown argument.
I’ve been avoiding seeing Sonny since I dropped them off at my mom’s. If you asked me why in front of her, I’d tell you the Syndicate has been extra pissy since she escaped, and I have to be as present with them as possible if I don’t want them catching on to me. But if I’m being honest? I haven’t been able to get her words out of my head since she planted them there in the van that night.
“Bane says hi.”
Somehow, I know she wasn’t bullshitting. She’s spoken to my brother, and the idea of that terrifies me because that means he knows. He fucking knows the monster I’ve become. He’s witnessed my spiral into madness.
I’ve never felt so much shame in my life. I don’t care what anyone in Nocturne Valley or the Midnight Syndicate thinks of me.
But Bane? Fuck, I can’t live with myself if he’s disappointed in me. And by proxy, if she’s disappointed in me.
It’s been easy to stay away. The Syndicate has been increasingly needy as they scramble to recover from her escape. They can’t figure out how she managed to do it. Hell, I still don’t understand how she managed to pick an enchanted lock that shouldn't have been breakable. The only explanation I can come up with is that her bloodline provided some protection against them.
The Syndicate’s paranoia was the perfect excuse to stay away while the others help them settle in.
I’m a coward, hiding in the shadows to avoid facing what I’ve done. What I’ve become. And now, I’m going to have to answer to even more lies.
I twist around and head back toward my car. Blowing off my dinner meeting with Hatchcroft is just an added bonus to make up for the shitshow that’s about to happen.
Constance and Carter are nowhere to be found when I enter their home. They likely ran and hid in their loft, where they should have stayed until I could get here and explain everything myself.
“Oh, shit,” the guy who is always with Sonny calls to me as he rounds the corner from the kitchen.
What’s his name again? Jonas?
He points a steaming fork at me as he passes by, then plops onto the couch. “You’re in trouble,” he informs me.
My upper lift lifts in a snarl at the implication. “Where is she?” I grind out.
He jerks his head at me in surprise, his brows lifting to his hairline as he sizes me up. When he’s through with this, he purses his lips and jabs his fork toward the stairs before he turns away and dismisses me.
He dismisses me.
Instead of responding, I head for the stairs. Of course, Jonas couldn’t make it easy and tell me which room she’s in. When I step toward the closed one on my left, my hand hovering over the handle, something tells me not to do it. I listen to it, going for the next one until the same thing happens.
There’s a tug in my chest toward the other end of the hallway and I swear under my breath.
Now I’ve got special Sonny senses?
A garbage bag full of splintered wood has been discarded into the hallway beside a broken head and footboard.
Not super promising.
When I got to rap my knuckles against this door, opting to knock instead of barging right in, it pushes open and reveals my little nightmare staring at the ceiling, sprawled across her mattress.
She springs up when she sees me, her expression instantly morphing from sweet and serene to absolute chaos.
“You,” she seethes, jamming her finger into the air the same way she had done when I surprised her in the interrogation room.
There are no cameras around this time. No chance of an Aeternum coming through to expose our secrets. It’s just me and her and all the little half-truths we’ve told one another.
I slip through the crack in the door and gently ease it shut until I hear the lock click into place. For extra measure, I throw up a sound shield around us to prevent anyone else from hearing. I’m about to admit things to her that I haven’t ever spoken out loud.
Resting my back against the wall in feigned ease, I tilt my head and offer my most charming smile. “I see you’ve met your hosts.”
A shoe flies past me, narrowly missing my head when it bounces off the wall, hits my shoulder, and then falls to the floor.
“Of all people, you should have told me,” she guilts, bottom lip wobbling the tiniest amount before she stiffens her mouth and tilts her chin up.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes you did!” she screams back, proving me right about the sound shield. “You had so many opportunities to tell me. Most notably, when you convinced me you were the one to kill them.”
“Right in front of the people who need to believe they’re dead? My hands were tied.”
“What about every single minute we’ve spoken since then? Without their audience?”
I shake my head. “This wasn’t my secret to share and?—”
“That’s a cop out, and you know it,” she grinds out through a clenched jaw. “How could telling me that you killed them be the best possible plan?”
“I never told you I killed them,” I point out. In fact, I’ve been very careful not to tell her that.
“You’re not going to win this argument over semantics.”
“I don’t think I’m going to win this argument at all,” I mumble under my breath.
“What am I supposed to do, Raze? There’s two people out there who claim to be the parents I’ve spent half of my life mourning. Am I supposed to forgive them for abandoning me? For leaving me with absolutely nothing?”
“You don’t owe them anything,” I insist, because it’s true. They made their choices.
She pauses for a moment, then pivots the subject. “Is this their house?”
“I feel like there’s going to be consequences if I say yes...”
A pillow hits my face. “Well, now I understand where my ‘inheritance’ went. Why is this where you guys took us for safety if they didn’t want me to know they’re alive?”
Rounding the bed, I close the distance between us—only slightly ignoring the risk of being pummeled. Thankfully, she allows it with nothing more than a threatening scowl. “They insisted you come here. I fought against it, trust me.”
No one disagrees with how Constance and Carter have handled their disappearance more than me. I let it be known the moment I realized she existed. I just haven't been allowed to express my distaste without it being thrown in my face that I’m partially at fault.
A bullshit accusation, if you ask me. Who plans their own fake death on a night they don’t have all the people they want to “die” present?
“None of us can trust you anymore. Our little peace treaty? It’s over.” Her arms cut through the air to prove the point. “In fact, we would already be gone if it were up to me.”
“Sonny, you cannot put your safety at risk over this. There are hundreds of people clamoring to tear you limb from limb.”
She jerks her chin to the left, looking away from me. “All I am to you is a weapon for you to win your war.”
“No,” I bite out. “Maybe to them, but never to me.”
I jam my finger into my chest. “I know what it’s like to be seen as nothing more than how easily you can take someone’s life or how willing you are to do someone’s bidding. You’re so much more than any of this to me, Sonny. I’ll do anything to make sure you’re safe.”
Including destroying a decades-long undercover operation just to get her out of those cells.
Her chin wobbles again, forehead creased with worry. It’s like she’s not even listening to me. “And you could have warned me that your mother is the Betty White of Nocturne Valley,” she whines.
I have to suppress my laugh before she flings something else at my head.
“She looks like she could be someone’s sweet grandmother, and then she opens her mouth and everything she says is so mean.” A single tear falls from her eye, and I use my thumb to swipe it away before it can reach her jaw.
For the first time since I’ve visited her in that interrogation room, I can visibly see the events of the last few weeks finally weighing on her. She needs a break. Probably a full twelve hours of sleep, a long bath, a warm meal. What she didn’t need was to witness her parents coming back to life after eleven years of thinking they were dead.
“How do you do this? Live a double life every day, switching between good and evil? All of these people are out of their minds,” she sputters out.
“The best piece of advice I can offer is to understand that every bit of information you’re given by these people is only half of the truth. It’s up to you to uncover the other half,” I repeat the words my father said to me right before he died. Nothing has ever rung truer.
Her expression sobers, eyes set in determination as she stands from the bed before me. “You said before that you would get on your knees and beg for my forgiveness.”
“I would.”
Her nose twitches. “You meant that?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Then, beg.”
There’s a pause. A weighted moment where I contemplate if I’ve heard her correctly. She notices my hesitation and raises her brows expectantly to emphasize the point.
“What?” I finally ask, the word coming out as nothing more than an incredulous whisper.
A slender finger points toward the ground between us. “You heard me. You said you’d beg, so do it. Get on your knees and ask me to forgive you.”
Without another moment of delay, I step forward and fall to my knees. Grabbing her outstretched hand into mine, I lift her palm to my lips to brush them against her knuckles. If this is what will finally get her to see how serious I am, then I’ll do it.
If she were anyone else, this would be emasculating. A complete humiliation. No one gets Raze Whitlock on his knees—especially a woman.
But for her?
Fuck, I’m afraid of what I’ll do for her. There are no limits—no ends—and that’s terrifying.
Since I saw her use every ounce of strength she had to fight against Brody and Niles like some feral animal, I’ve been gone for her. I’ve been on my knees since I learned that she made it out of those cells and clawed her way into her friend’s, refusing to go without them.
If I’m being honest, I fell for her long before any of that. Probably as soon as I claimed her.
A woman with pride and strength and honor—all the things I’m lacking. I was destined to fall as soon as her name showed up on that legacy attendance sheet.
I don’t even think she realizes how powerful she is. She has no clue how many people are counting on her strength right now. Even if she did, I don’t think she would back down from the task.
“I lied to you,” I begin, planting featherlight kisses against her skin.
“Mhm,” she hums, lashes shuttering closed at my touch.
“You lied, too,” I test with a smirk. She lied, and I forgave her the instant I discovered it.
Those beautiful, violet eyes spring open, a slim brow raising. “You’re not off to a good start.”
“My life has been a complete shit show since you arrived,” I begin again, signaling for her to wait when she goes to interject again. “It’s like you’ve taken this town and turned it on its head, and we’re all just free falling. I’m suspended in the air, waiting for the ground to hit, but it never comes. That’s how you make me feel—weightless.”
Weightless . After a lifetime of burdens anchoring me down.
I swallow past the lump forming in my throat, the words clawing into my esophagus to avoid being released. This is what it’s like to express my feelings.
Physically impossible.
But I have to try for her.
“I never knew I needed you—this feisty little red head with wild eyes.” I reach forward and grab one of her coiled locks into my hand, giving a gentle tug that earns a soft giggle before I let it fall against her shoulder again. “You walked onto my campus with a fake name and a mission, and you claimed it. You’re better than anything I could ever dream of having—anything I deserve. But fuck, do I want you.”
I pause, inhaling a deep breath. All along I had thought admitting that would make me feel weak. As if giving her that kind of power would destroy me. But speaking those words has freed something inside of me. It loosened the knot that kept me held together, and now I’m unraveling.
“I’m a selfish person who does bad things. Horrible, miserable things. But I still pray to the universe every single night to make me worthy. I promise to change everything about myself, if it means I get to have you.”
She shakes her head. “I never want you to change. I want you to be truthful.”
Reaching forward, I wrap my hand around the back of her knee and pull her left leg toward me, offering my other arm for support when she careens over. She startles, her hands falling to my shoulders as I run my lips along her clothed thigh.
“Please forgive me, Little Nightmare,” I enunciate each word with a kiss, cursing these goddamn baggy pants for keeping her bare skin from me.
Her grip tightens on my shoulders as my mouth moves further upward, muscles going tense. I look up at her, shocked to find her heavy-lidded eyes staring back. She bites her lip, her brows tenting up as I move my fingers closer to her apex the smallest amount.
There probably isn’t a worse time to do this. She’s just discovered a life-altering secret, and she wanted to put the same foot that I’m holding through my chest a few minutes ago. As the one of sound mind, I should be stopping this. Not reaching for the waistband of her pants and tugging them down. Not getting instantly hard when I discover she’s not wearing any panties.
And certainly not lifting her leg back up to drape it over my shoulder.
She doesn’t stop me from doing any of that, either.
No, she hisses out a breath that shoots straight to my cock when my lips hit the bare skin of her inner thigh. I drag my tongue across her smoothness, stopping just short of her pussy before I look back up at her.
Who decided I’m of sound mind, anyway? The moment I get within ten feet of this woman, all other thoughts disappear. There is only me and her. And I’ve dreamed of having my lips on her skin again for weeks. It would take an ungodly amount of restraint to stop myself now.
Her fingers snake through my hair, tugging and pulling in a not-so-subtle demand for me to keep moving.
I’m not strong enough or good enough to reject her wishes.
The thin thread that’s been holding me back snaps, and I’m moving at hyperspeed. I wrap my hand around her hip to steady her as I yank her forward, lining her center perfectly with my mouth.
A quick swipe of my finger tells me she more than wants this. The air that blows out when I breathe out a soft chuckle has her stomach caving in with want and her chest vibrating with a growl. Then, she uses her grip on my head to pull my face closer.
Impatient little thing.
My tongue glides across her waiting sex, her arousal coating it so heavily that it runs down to my chin. It tastes so delicious, I nearly forgot how rabid it makes me. A flavor specifically made for my tastebuds. And suddenly, I’m back to wanting to strangle any man who has sampled this before me—including that squirrelly fucker, Hayes, who reported her and got us here in the first place.
“So fucking wet for me,” I mutter, then test her entrance with one finger.
She jerks her hips, sending my finger deeper and pressing my tongue further against her clit. I add another finger, curling them forward inside of her.
“Oh god, Raze,” she cries out, her nails scraping deeper against my scalp.
My response is to dig my hand further into her thigh until she’s grinding against my mouth. Her hips move in circles, adding a rhythmic pressure to my tongue against her clit until I feel her quiver around my fingers.
My erection presses against the zipper of my pants, begging to be set free, but I palm it further down. God, I’d love to bend her across the mattress and fuck her into oblivion, but this isn’t about me.
Heavy, quick breaths saw out of her as her body stills, and she fights her orgasm. She doesn’t want to finish yet, and I find that little fact equally charming and annoying.
“Come for me, Little Nightmare,” I encourage, slipping a third finger in. “Please. I’ll do this all night if you want me to.”
My hand snakes beneath her shirt, gently cupping her breast.
She stares down at me, her face contorted in a tortured frown, and I run my tongue along her once again to convince her to let go. Just as my fingers thrust back inside, her shoulders shake in a sob and she finally succumbs to her ecstasy.
Her knees give out, her head flying backward as she holds my face in one spot and rides her orgasm out in a string of curse words.
Once she’s through, she collapses into my lap and stares up at me through heavy-lidded eyes.
“That should not have happened,” she mutters, her words slightly slurred.
I hold her tightly against my chest, running my hand along her thigh. “It absolutely should have, and I’m glad it did.”
“I’m still mad at you for making me think you killed my parents. But that certainly helped me remember why I’ve kept you around these past few months.”
My chest rumbles with my silent laugh, shaking her in my arms. “I’ve got more time to remind you...”
She hums her disapproval as I scoop her into my arms and climb to my feet, then carry her over to the bed. Her pants are left behind on the floor, so I pull the blanket up and drape it over her legs to keep her warm.
“Will you stay with me?”