Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
One Year Later
“You did not wish to dance?”
Adrienne sat at the pianoforte, the sapphire gown I’d had made for her spilling over the bench and brushing the floor. She sighed, plucking out a few chords of a piece she’d been working on for the last few weeks. “I missed you.”
Pain sliced through my chest. I crossed the room and slid onto the bench to gather her into my arms. “And I you.”
“I fear for you when you leave,” she mumbled, tracing the brocade of my jacket.
For three nights I’d been with the Lycan packs on the outskirts near the ocean, accompanied by Mateo, visiting those who did not spend most of their time with the inner-city Darcay or Belovuk packs.
We provided food, clothing, oyista if they needed it, and in exchange they offered their reassurance that if the Covenant fell, they would support our cause.
I’d returned as soon as the sun set tonight and Adrienne had been waiting for me here, though I’d been ushered off to dress for the guests arriving.
I’d asked her to join me in our rooms but, as always, she’d refused.
Adrienne kept to the music room, the library, or the ballroom.
The times that I visited her in the Souzterain, I stayed as close to dawn as possible, but she refused to join me at the estate for more than a night or two a week.
This was her home, yet she did not believe it.
“There is no reason to fear, my heart.” I tipped her chin up to brush my mouth across hers. “And if you must know, I fear for you just as much when we are apart.”
She had been ill while I’d been away. Callum had informed me upon his arrival tonight she’d shown symptoms of the same illness Jules had fallen prey to.
I thanked the goddess each night Cora, one of the apothecary owners in the Souzterain, had developed a tonic to cure the illness as long as it was given quickly.
There was even more gratitude for Callum, who had provided her the tonic in my absence.
Of course, Adrienne had not told me of her illness for fear I might, as she said often, “overreact.” The way I had overreacted when one of her gowns had finally fallen to tatters and I’d purchased her a few dresses.
Or the way I’d overreacted when her hairpin rusted and I’d provided her a replacement.
She saw those things as charity and, though I could not often read her thoughts, I knew she kept a running tab to one day repay me.
Once again, I had failed, just as I had with my brother Mael.
I’d hoped with time and patience she would understand what she was to me.
Yet even now she was drawing away, a small bit of the light in her eyes shuttering closed.
I stroked her cheek, breathing in her scent, the only balm that would ease the pulsing open wound in my heart.
“I believe someone is sending Lilith gifts,” she said, changing subject to something other than my affection for her.
With a sigh, I let her go, turning to place my hands on the keys. “Yes, I know. Mateo informed me of Callum’s infatuation.”
A small smile twisted her full lips and her brows raised in surprise. “Callum, truly? Then is that why is here tonight?”
“I believe so. He almost never attends.”
Callum stayed away as much as he could, as the fledgling Mael focused on the most out of all his progeny.
He feared that to grow too close to me would be to endanger everything I had worked for to free our people from the Covenant—everything he and his siblings had worked for as well.
Mael’s gift was similar to mine, but where I could receive the thoughts of those around me and perhaps dive a bit deeper to what they were willing to show, my brother took.
He sliced through minds and ripped apart consciousness.
“They fear him,” she murmured, watching as I tapped out the melody she’d been composing.
I hummed. “Callum was an instrument of my brother for centuries. He destroyed many, many lives.”
“He must carry so much guilt.” Her expression grew distant and I knew it was her own guilt she thought of now.
Lilith had told me in confidence that after Adrienne had sent her family the oyista she’d made from the hunt at the Montag estate—almost all of it, in fact—the letters from her mother had begun to come much more frequently.
I never knew what they said, but any time Adrienne received a correspondence, her face would appear more drawn, her eyes more haunted.
“He should not,” I replied, speaking of them both.
Her teeth strummed her bottom lip and I added a little flair to the ending, turning to wink at her in the hopes of drawing her out.
Though a little of the light returned to her eyes, she did not smile or laugh—she did not often do those things anymore since Jules died, but she tried for Lilith.
It warmed something in me that she did not try for me, that she allowed me to see the weariness in her expression.
“You are tired, my heart.”
Adrienne shook her head. “I’m fine.”
I leaned over to press a kiss to her shoulder, skimming my nose across the curve of her neck.
She tilted her head to the side, arousal blossoming in the air between us.
The only time she softened for me now was when my teeth were in her throat.
Only then could I taste the longing in her blood, the desperate need for connection—the mating bond pulling at her soul for her to recognize what she refused to acknowledge.
“Will you allow me to drink from you?”
Her golden brows knitted together. “Of course.” That is what I’m here for, she said silently, the words a reminder shouted at herself so loudly I picked it up easily.
At the beginning, I’d asked her to take my blood a handful of times.
But in each and every instance fear wept out from her pores and I would catch flashes of images I had come to identify as her mother in various states of distress.
After a few times, I had not pushed the matter, though more and more I wished I had.
If she would drink my blood then she would understand the depth of emotion I felt for her, the need I had for her that went beyond what her blood provided.
I loved Adrienne Valois more than I had ever loved anyone or anything in my entire existence.
“Stand up.”
She obeyed, heartbeat thrumming at her throat.
This evening or late afternoon she must have closed the lid not to disturb anyone as she played, though Bernard and the others within my employ enjoyed her music very much.
I took advantage now, grabbing her by the hips and settling her above the fallboard.
“Lift your skirts.”
The deep blue of her gown contrasted beautifully with her pale skin as it slid up her thighs. She wore no stockings or undergarments, and I raised a brow as she exposed her glistening pink cunt to me.
“Is this for me, little bird?” My voice was merely a rumble as I dragged my thumb through her wetness.
Her neck arched, hips jumping off the shiny wood, the hem of her dress brushing my trousers straining against my cock.
Shiny scars from my bite littered her inner thighs—marks I’d been unable to bring myself to erase, and she had never asked me to, thank the goddess.
I kissed each one in turn, my cool breath slipping across her aching sex as I dipped from one leg to the other, nipping and sucking the only evidence of my love she would ever accept.
“Yes, Eamon,” she breathed.
Another pulse of warmth in my heart. Only recently had she begun to call me that—one single brick in her wall fallen. I rewarded her with a kiss to her clit, moaning at the taste that was just as sweet as her blood.
By the time I sank my teeth into her flesh she was already coming, gushing around my fingers as I fisted my cock.
Adrienne stared down at me with parted lips, blue eyes flicking from my face to my hand.
Every cell in my body ached to press inside of her, to claim her, to once and for all take away this goddess-damned fear that clung to every breath she took.
I should do it.
But I would be no better than anyone else in her life if I did.
So instead, I stood, bracing one hand on her thigh to press it open, fucking my fist as my attention flicked from her face to her cunt and back again.
I allowed myself to imagine she was finally welcoming me home, finally accepting me as her mate, finally trusting that I would never, ever let her go.
When I came across her swollen cunt only moments later it was with a cry that was somewhere between relief and a sob. I gathered my release with my fingers, pressing it into her with languid strokes that had her mewling and reaching for me.
And I pretended, just for a little while longer, that it meant something to her.