Chapter 34 Julien
The mole, Lucanus, is lasting longer than we anticipated.
Without Ezekial here to keep him from slipping unconscious every time the pain becomes too much, we’ve had to be slow, meticulous.
Pulling away just before his eyes roll back.
Alas, it seems he has been compelled too. Like the young enforcer—Silas, who Kane and Ezekial broke so beautifully. But this compulsion is stronger, more ingrained. Twisting through his mind like rot.
We need Ezekial.
A gurgled scream echoes through the chamber. Not a plea—something rawer. Frantic. Like his body knows what his mind refuses to surrender.
“We have to get this fucker to break,” Sai pants.
He’s been using too much of his power, too quickly, too eager to ‘finish the job’—because we all know what awaits us after.
And I have the honour of easing her into it.
“We will.” Kane’s tone is concrete, as is his will. He’s made a promise to Jasmine, and Kane always kept his word. “Julien, please send my brother.”
“You lucky bastard.” Sai shakes his head when I glance over, but we’re both smiling.
Another wet gasp, the traitor’s body twitching like something broken trying to remember how to be whole, and I flit.
I arrive inside the shadows of the apartment next door to Kacey’s. I don’t even see Ezekial, he leaves the moment he feels me arrive.
And then—I feel her.
My blood hums, thrumming with the need to be closer, pulling me incessantly until I appear outside Kacey’s door. A door which is already opening—
There she is.
The object of my every desire.
The fire that lights my soul.
My bond.
“Anything?” she asks, eyes dropping to the dried blood speckling my chest plate.
I shake my head, and her face falls. The need to change that expression, to erase her disappointment, grips me instantly.
“We will break him,” I murmur with assurance, lowering my face. “We could not break his compulsion. But Ezekial will.”
She chews her bottom lip, a simple, innocent gesture to her. But for me?
Triggering. It’s carnal.
My darkness latches onto it, imagining the press of our teeth, our fangs, sinking into that soft, pink skin—
“Do you… do you want to come in?” she asks, studying my expression that I attempt to school into something neutral.
“I cannot, mon ame.”
She winces. “Ah. The barrier. I forgot.”
I lean closer, and she holds still as I brace one hand on the doorframe.
“As you have kept your mental wall in place, as you have every right to do so.” That earns me a quick, pleased smile. “I came to deliver you a message.”
She frowns, a soft laugh escaping from her. “A message? You could’ve just texted me…”
“I wanted to see you.”
That makes her expression falter, but only for a moment. She squares her shoulders again. “Okay, well… what is it?”
“First, I must ask you something.”
I feel her curiosity through our shared blood, spiking with a delicious warmth.
“Ask away.”
“Do you have a safe word?”
I expect immediate shock. Perhaps a little outrage twisted with disbelief, thinly veiled beneath reluctant intrigue. Instead, I’m met with… confusion.
“Like a password?” she asks, brows furrowing as she pulls out her phone. “I just use my fingerprint for my phone—I don’t really need a safe word.”
Sweet heavens above.
I may be sated, for now. Still high on the remnants of her blood. But the knowledge that I will have to explain this to her is enough to make my darkness stir, pulse, grin.
“Not quite,” I murmur.
The fact we’re about to have this sensitive conversation in a corridor offends every refined instinct I possess. But it cannot wait.
We cannot wait.
“A safe word is something you say when you feel like things are becoming… too much. Too intense.”
She watches me closely, her soft features knitting together as she works to understand.
“If anything happens that you don’t want—if we go too far—this word ends it. Instantly. No questions, no hesitation.”
“Oh. Me and Kacey have something kinda similar,” she offers, and the feral rage that rises in me is instant.
She lifts her pinkie, slipping it over the threshold and into my space.
“If she does this, I know it’s too much and she needs to leave.” She must realise my silence is due to confusion and adds, “If she gets overwhelmed with Amon, it’s my cue to intervene.”
She drops her hand, and I mourn the lost opportunity to take it.
Imbécile.
“Why would we need one?” she asks after a pause. “I thought we were past the…” She glances up, searching for the phrasing. “Starving beast saga.”
Starving beast?
That is precisely what I am.
Even now, the hunger coils beneath the surface—an insatiable, unrelenting need... We all feel it. Which is why she must have a safe word. I will not risk losing the progress we’ve made.
“I am always starving for you.” That simple statement makes her eyes darken to a richer shade. “Which is why I need you to choose one. A word you can say if any of us ever cross a line. If something doesn’t feel right. If you need us to stop.”
I see the understanding settle in her gaze, piece by piece, until the red nearly disappears, swallowed by something darker.
“Oh.” Her voice is soft. Her eyes wide, but so dark, so alluring.
Dangerous.
“No. It must be a word you are very unlikely to say in… such moments.” I add a soft smile. But I let the tips of my fangs show, intentionally. Her gaze drops to them, caught, as I knew it would be.
“But we’re not… we’re just…” The denial comes gently, layered in hesitation, and I already know what she’ll say next. “We’re just friends. We don’t need—”
“If you sleepwalk to my door tonight, I will not be a gentleman.” Her breath catches. “You will be in my bed. I will be touching you. I will not let you leave.” My voice drops lower, sliding into a rasp as the edge of my darkness rises to meet hers. “I need your safe word.”
“Pit.”
“One syllable. Perfect.”
She soaks up that tiny piece of praise like I’ve draped her in it. And goddesses, it makes me ache to see how she’ll respond when I tell her the things I truly wish to say.
“You speak it, and everything stops,” I murmur, studying her darkened gaze. “No hesitation.”
Then I flit. I have to.
The urge to reach through that barrier, to feel my skin blister for just a chance to touch her cheek, to cup her face like she’s the last soft thing in a brutal world—it’s unbearable.
As I strip off the uniform in the bathroom, I pull out my phone...
Me: Her safe word is ‘pit’.
She could have refused. Denied me with ease. She’s so good at pretending, at batting her long lashes and feigning innocence. But she gave me a word.
She gave me herself, in that small, silent way.
Her expression. The way her lips parted at my tone. The dark heat in her gaze.
I rest my head against the shower tiles and force my hands to remain at my sides, even as need claws down my spine like hunger incarnate. Another form of torture. One I’ll endure gladly, if it ends with her beneath me, beside me, above me…
Breathe. In… one, two, three… and out.
Control. I need to stay in control.
But she riles my beast so easily, carelessly. With no idea of what she awakens.
Like all immortals, I do not need sleep. Not in any significant quantity. But when I’m near our bond… the urge takes hold. Strong and barely inescapable. Ezekial has succumbed almost every night, drawn in by her darkness, lulled beneath its tide.
And tonight, as I lie in bed, back pressed to the wall I know she sleeps beyond… I feel it.
Her.
And I fall asleep with a smile.
***
She’s here.
I wake and beside me, asleep, is Jasmine.
Not only did I leave the apartment door unlocked, but open. I didn’t want a single barrier in her way. And now… she’s here.
Curled on her side, bare legs tucked to her chest, flames of crimson hair spread around her like a fiery halo. Divine. Mine.
My phone’s already buzzing with messages from the group. One of them must have stepped away from the Pit. But I ignore them, grabbing it and opening the camera.
I take a picture. Then another. And a few more.
When I finally flick to the chat, I find Sai’s reaction to the safe word message and smile. Then I open our private chat: Fifty Shades of Desperation, and send a photo.
My phone rings immediately. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Sai whisper-snarls.
I glance down at the goddess sleeping beside me. “I woke… and there she was.”
“Fuck off. You fucking—” He cuts himself off with a strangled groan, some incoherent muttering, curses, a deep exhale—“Look, they’re still going. Zeek’s in the fucker’s mind right now, trying to break through the compulsion—they’re close.”
“How close, Sai?” I ask, picturing his strained expression. “Because I’m not waiting.”
He growls down the line. “You evil, nasty fucker!”
I smile again.
He lets out another long breath. “Are you touching her? Right now? Let me see. Please, mate.”
I haven’t, because I daren’t. The moment is so… fragile. Precarious.
I’m terrified the second she wakes, she’ll be flooded with fear. With regret. She’ll speak her safe word, and this delicate, impossible thing between us will shatter before it even begins.
“No.” My fingers hover over her cheek. “She may not—”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Sai’s tone sharpens, suddenly serious. “You listen to me now. Ease her into it, yeah? Soft touches. Gentle. Nice and slow.”
My beast does not agree with those words.
“Take control,” Sai continues, “but don’t go too hard. Don’t go all you’re mine just yet. And praise, for the love of everything, praise her.”
There’s a shift in his breathing as it deepens, becoming more of a pant as the heated image forms in his mind.
“Delay her,” he whispers in a rasp. “I need her out of her mind, delirious, desperate for us.”
I practically feel his desperation pour through the speaker, feeding my carnal needs, tempting my beast.
I have to touch her.
I let my fingers brush along the bare skin of her throat, the lightest caress—but it’s as though I’ve been struck by lightning. Delicious, heavenly lightning that ignites every nerve.