Chapter 41
WHEN WE WALK THROUGH THE door, Mother storms toward us, her hands firmly clenched over her chest. “I’m going to kill Oksana, I just want you to know that.” I had filled her in on everything on the car ride home.
Bastian sighs then squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I understand the desire, believe me.” His sardonic laugh sends a spike down my spine. “But we need to hold off on any additional killing right now.” He looks at me, eyes pleading to be released from the conversation.
“Why don’t you get some rest,” I say, patting his chest, and he nods, grateful.
“Delta, could you stay here tonight? I don’t want you alone. I think we should stick together until we have a plan of action.”
She looks at him and then to me again, reverence on her face. “You’re worried about me?”
“You’re the grandmother of my child. I’ll always worry about you now.”
She’s speechless, and now I want to kiss him, but Mother speaks before I can. “Yes, love. I’ll sleep in the extra room downstairs.”
“Where’s Chantal? She should come too,” Bastian says.
“She had a show tonight. I’ll text her.”
Bastian nods, escaping upstairs. I grab Mother’s arm and pull her into the parlor.
“I’ve wanted to kill that bitch for so long. I knew I should have done it years ago.” She looks like a teenager when she says it, and I realize she doesn’t understand the gravity of this betrayal.
“This is a huge shock to Bastian’s family. We need to tread lightly and give a little time for them to come to terms with this.”
“Our own aunts tried to have you killed. I think I know a thing or two about shock and betrayal. There is no time! What are they doing?” She waves her arm toward the door.
“Holding Oksana captive in their dungeon? We need to act swiftly. The aunts want us dead, and who knows what they are plotting now, and why the hell didn’t they kill Oksana? ”
Too many questions, not enough answers, and then I remember the chalice.
“You stole the chalice!” I yell. “You have to take it back.”
“They are gone for the weekend, don’t worry,” she says, flitting her hand in the air.
“How do you know that?”
“For one, Violetta put it on the coven thread—some sister spa weekend she and Rosemary are having in Florida, and for two I duct-taped an AirTag under Violetta’s car. I’ll make the drive back first thing in the morning.” Her lips purse, like she’s pleased with herself.
“You are crazy,” I say, staring at her blankly, my eyes burning.
“I thought Jade could hear Oksana’s thoughts,” Mother says through her hoarse voice.
“Yeah, well Violetta and Rosemary probably have a weird block on her too. Some things could go through, but Jade didn’t hear about this. I know that. She would have told us.”
“She would have,” Mother agrees.
A heavy sigh bellows out of me, exhaustion pulling on every limb. “Okay. Let’s sleep tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll meet. Oksana isn’t going anywhere. I can’t devise a revenge plot when I feel like this. I need my baby, I need my man, I need sleep.”
Surprisingly, her mouth lifts into a half smile, and her hand falls over the side of my head. “Wow. You are really leaning into this family thing.”
“Mother,” I say, pulling her hand from my head in frustration.
“No! I’m happy for you. I’m…it’s all I wanted for myself. All I could want for my daughter.”
“Really?” I say, her words seeming to disarm me.
“Of course.” Her incredulous eyes match her voice. “Of course,” she repeats, kisses my forehead, and hands me the baby monitor.
Down the hall from our bedroom, a light glows from the spare room.
I tiptoe down, my senses suddenly heightened.
Paranoia will be my constant companion until we have Rosemary and Violetta taken care of.
I duck my head into the room, but there’s no witch or vampire come to kill us.
It’s Bastian, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.
“Hey,” I whisper, stepping out of my shoes and walking to him.
“I just needed a minute and didn’t want to wake the baby.”
“Do you need to be alone?” I ask, stepping back, but he reaches for me and pulls me closer.
“Absolutely not. I just…I can’t believe she did this.” He tucks his lips between his teeth eyes looking up to meet mine.
“Do you feel conflicted? Because she was manipulated?”
“She tried to kill you, Aster. And ended up killing me. Manipulated or not, she should have to come to us first instead of letting him infiltrate her mind.”
“Well, she hated me and wanted to be a vampire enough to do what she did. She’s in love with Cassius and has been for a long time. And love makes you do crazy things.”
“Cassius would never turn her. He hated himself so much for turning me. Maybe if she had known the secret we’ve kept, that he turned me and not Nicola, maybe she would have understood how much he hated it.”
“There’s no going back now, Bastian. What’s done is done.” My hand stretches across his shoulder, the heat of his skin still new to me.
His chin rests between my ribs, his green eyes holding me prisoner. Like he wants me to whisper a secret or prayer. Like he wants me to fix all his bleeding wounds. And I wish I could.
That warm hand slides down the back of my knee, pulling it onto the bed. “Come here,” he says softly, sliding the back of my other knee on top of the bed until I’m sitting on his lap, my skirt stretched around my hips, my hands on his shoulders, moving to cup each cheek.
“If she had killed you in that fire, I would’ve had to die too. Because I started all of this from something I thought would be easy. I almost got you killed. And I wouldn’t have been able to live with that or without you.”
My mind sees Bastian, that first time he came into my shop, asking for an illicit potion. My mouth pulls up at the memory. How confident he was, how charming. I slide my arms around his neck, clasping my hands behind it.
“All the risk I’ve put you through, and you were pregnant with our child then.” He shakes his head.
I press my forehead into his. “Then it happened just how it should have. Because I had the power to bring you back. And I would do everything all over again—” and then I echo his words— “a thousand times over.”
He smiles up at me. “My little witch,” he says and raises his mouth to mine, kissing me soft and slowly. My skin pricks, his warm lips consuming mine with tender precision. I feel him harden under me, so my hands slide down his chest, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.
It seems in the times when we’re most lost, we can find each other in our sighs of pleasure, in the connection our bodies make, and it’s all I want right now. To be lost in him and he lost in me.
Sliding his shirt from his shoulders, I look in his eyes and move to kiss up his cheek, then over the scar on his forehead that his father gave him. His arms wrap around my hips, hands squeezing my ass cheeks before he takes my mouth again.
“Aster,” he whispers, hands rising, pulling my shirt over my head. “I just…need you. All the time. You fix everything.”
“Then take me, Bastian. I’m yours.”
“Blessed be,” he says into my mouth, wrapping his tongue around mine, consuming me.
My skirt bunches higher around my waist, my hips grinding against his length. “I’m so in love with you,” is all I can say as he kisses down my chest, over the fabric of my bra, then pulls one side down to take my nipple in his mouth.
I hug his head to my chest as sparks of ecstasy fire off, my insides tightening at the spell his wet mouth is working.
“Oh, God,” I cry. He tightens his hands around my hips, picking me up and turning to lay me on the bed.
Knees skidding across the comforter, he stills, staring at me from above. After seconds pass, I rise on my elbows.
“What? Come here,” I say, and he nods, his green eyes like a sea of moss, the skin around them squinting, and he gently shakes his head.
“I’m just taking in what’s mine,” he breathes. I fall flat on the bed, my foot running up his thigh. I clasp my hands over my head, my foot riding over his crotch, up and down.
“Please,” I beg, and he takes my foot, kissing the top of it and placing it on the bed.
Once he’s got his jeans and boxers off, he crawls up, mouth over my heart.
“Mine,” he whispers, and I could cry. I could break down in tears.
But he’s not done. He slides down over my stomach, placing a gentle kiss on my belly button.
“Mine.” His face moves lower, his mouth, slick and wide.
“Mine,” he groans after placing a kiss over my panties, and that’s it. I might just explode right here and now, but I need him, his body against mine, so I open my mouth.
“Then take what’s yours, Bastian,” I say, biting the tip of my finger. And then my panties are down and his mouth is on me, consuming me, sending my blood into fits of explosion, his tongue tasting and stroking, my hand falling to tug on his soft waves of hair.
My breath stalls, everything in me running hot as a kettle. And I realize that when I thought vampire sex was better, I was wrong, I was so wrong. I had never been in love with someone before. Bastian didn’t make me come undone because he was a vampire. He makes me come undone because he’s Bastian.
The sounds of his moans force me to writhe into his mouth, feeling his growls up to my belly, my throat, making me dizzy, unsteady.
And then he’s snaking up my body, spreading my legs, lining his dick at my entrance, running it over my slick clit, and my legs squeeze, begging for him to just be inside me already.
And finally, finally, he fills me up, thick and wide.
Moving slowly, grinding, watching himself go in and out.
His thumb, circling my center over and over until my legs are quaking, moans of rapture escaping my lips.
He moves closer, hovering over me, kissing my breasts, up my neck. Heated breaths soothe me, making me clench harder around him.
“Oh, my God, Aster,” he growls, rocking into me, our stomachs moving against each other, fingers clasping over our heads.
He moves to kiss down my chest and stomach, pulling out of me, and I follow him, rising, placing the softest kisses up his hard abs until I reach his throat.
“Lean back on me,” he says, guiding my hips to turn.
With both of us on our knees, he pulls my back against his chest as my head falls to my shoulder.
His hand forms a soft necklace around my throat, fingers holding it gently, turning my neck to the side.
Teeth graze the delicate skin behind my ear as he thrusts into me, his free hand biting into my hip, squeezing the flesh like he’s holding on for dear life.
My ass grinds against his pelvis as all the love I hold for him bubbles up, on the verge of blooming into a sea of bliss.
It’s him, it’s only ever been him, and it will always be him. A million times over, and we are lost in each other, the connection our bodies make not of this world. A sensation so deep, lovemaking so pure, even when it feels deliciously filthy.
“Look at me,” he whispers over my ear, and my gaze lazily meets his, drunk off passion, puddy in his hands.
He sees me, every part of me, and I see every part of him.
Our lips, bruised from kissing over and over, our lungs out of breath from the build-up of oxygen, and when we come there’s only one word on my lips, said over and over. “Yours, yours, yours.”
Aven cries over the baby monitor, and I jolt up, both of us lying in each other’s arms, the intensity of our lovemaking and the stress of the day making our limbs heavy with exhaustion.
I pull my skirt down and throw my shirt over my head. “Come to bed,” I say, and he nods, sitting up and following me to our bedroom.
I pick up Aven, his eyes so big and green, it’s like they’re telling me something. Like a beacon for a boat against a foggy shoreline. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I know that I’m tired of waiting.
“We’ll keep him safe, and we’ll fix this,” Bastian promises, voice suddenly so hopeful my head turns to meet his gaze.
“Of course we will,” I say. We rock our son, back and forth until he falls back to sleep, with no idea what lengths his parents will go to protect him.
The next morning, I stand in the kitchen, texting Chantal about Oksana as a cup of tea pours itself.
Cassius called Bastian forty-five minutes ago, asking him to watch Oksana for a few minutes because he didn’t trust Nicola not to kill her.
“I’ll be back in one hour, exactly,” he told me as he kissed my forehead, his eyes full of concern for leaving us.
“We’ll be okay,” I told him, and he kissed me like he wasn’t so sure.
I note the time, 5:50 a.m., and pray Mother is waking up so we can take the chalice back to Violetta’s house.
A clatter startles me, my gaze darting up to the teapot, now crashed onto the counter, as hot tea bleeds across the white marble. I step back into something warm and soft just as a hand pulls a fistful of my hair and a mouth slinks next to my ear.
“You took something that wasn’t yours, darling.” Violetta seethes.
I scream in my mind, my body freezes, and her grip tightens around my hair and slams my forehead onto the counter and back up.
Hot lightning sears through my head, my vision going white, and my hair feels like it’s being ripped from my head.
“Shit,” I cry, and yank my elbow in front of me and think FIRE, jabbing it back into her ribs with everything I have.
She flies backward, crashing into the kitchen table, her floral dress sparking from the flames I shot into her.
Blowing on her hand and pressing it over the sparks, she snuffs the fire completely out, and I stumble back, feeling warm blood pour down my face and into my eye.
All I can think is that Aven is upstairs and I have to keep him safe.
I scramble my fingers across the open text to Chantal, typing random letters.
I think I hit send, but my feet are being lifted from the ground.
I attempt firing electricity bolts into Violetta’s chest, but my arms are suddenly plastered to my sides as she swipes me across the island, my body shooting into the blender and cutlery until I’m thrown on the floor, my shoulder blades slamming, my head booming.
I slide up the best I can, looking this witch in her cruel, brown eyes. “Violetta,” I yell, pushing a hand out in front of me, collecting as much power as I can, hoping Mother will hear and help me because Violetta is older and more powerful than I am, and the blood is blinding me in one eye.
“I’m honestly relieved it’s all out in the open.” She sighs, her hands folded in front of her, her dress still smoking. “Aren’t you, Rosemary?” she asks, staring behind me, and then something whacks across my head, and everything ceases to exist.