Chapter 7
Ophelia stood frozen in the doorway to Thaddeus’s study.
From across the room, the vampire’s gaze held her trapped, but every ounce of her being was focused on the big man in her peripheral vision, silhouetted by the fire.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. No. It couldn’t be. Chase. It had to be Chase.
The man stood, and she quailed, her mouth dry as Gideon’s massive frame filled the space. He slowly turned toward her. Ophelia’s thighs clenched, the urge to piss herself intense. Of course it was him. He’d said he’d wanted an explanation, and Gideon had never been one to take no for an answer.
Behind him, Thaddeus rose. “Talk to him, child. He needs to know.” The vampire stepped into the shadows beside the hearth and disappeared, leaving them alone, and Ophelia free to move again.
She bolted.
“Phe!”
No, no, no, no, no…not like this. Gideon couldn’t see her like this. She fled down the stairs and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it.
“Ophelia!”
Gideon’s heavy tread followed her, and a moment later, the door jumped at her back as he hit it.
She sprang forward like she’d been burned, her pulse pounding.
What should she do, what should she do? Ophelia wrung her hands, pacing, and caught her panicked reflection in the mirror over the sink. She stumbled, and her stomach dropped.
Her tatuaj. Fuck. She lunged for her makeup bag. He couldn’t see them. Couldn’t know what she’d done.
“Ophelia! Goddamn it, open the door!” It shook in its frame, and the knob rattled. “Ophelia!”
The hell she would. She spun off the cap to her concealer and fumbled with the fucking thing, dropping it at another blow to the door. The little bottle spattered its contents over the sink. She bit back a sob and swept up what she could, slathering it around her eyes.
Wood cracked, and the door flew open. Ophelia screamed, throwing her hands over her head and cowering between the sink and the toilet. She squeezed her eyes shut, retreating into herself.
This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. She trembled, trying to steady her jagged breath, her past melding with the now, throwing her back into the Citadel, feeling him come closer.
The air currents changing. The heat of his body.
Sand crunching beneath the soles of his shoes as he stepped inside the little room and crouched before her, a rumble in his chest. She was prey, and he— The scent of sherry and a metallic citrus musk enveloped her.
Her brows furrowed. Wait, that, that wasn’t right…
“Phe.”
No. It was a trick. She bit her lips, shoulders rounding, curling further in on herself, hiding behind her knees, palms pressed to her eye sockets, and memories muddling.
No. A trick. It was a trick. She wasn’t there.
If she wasn’t there, he would go away. Soon.
Soon. Everything would be okay soon, because she wasn’t—
“Ophelia! Please. Look at me.”
His voice—the wrong voice?—was soft, kind. It wouldn’t stay that way. She knew it wouldn’t. As soon as she dropped her guard, it would change, and then he’d—no. She shook her head, rocking. She wasn’t there. Wasn’t there…
Broad fingers brushed over her temple to her ear, softly tracing to her jaw. She flinched from him, bracing herself for the blow.
“Damn it…” His voice cracked. “I’m not going to hurt you, poppet, but I swear to every God, I am going to kill whoever did this to you.”
She whimpered, stilling as his hand cupped her cheek.
Poppet. Only Gideon called her that. She’d never told…
This was Gideon, it wasn’t—oh God—pain lanced through her head at the appellation, and she fisted the hair at her temples.
Fucked up, she was so fucked up. A sob burst from her lips.
She dropped her head to her knees, broken.
“Phe?” He swept her hair aside and raised her face to his with a finger beneath her chin.
Ophelia flinched from his touch, but didn’t resist, her eyes downcast.
“Oh, poppet…” he murmured, sweeping a thumb over the marks beneath her eye.
Her breath hitched, face crumpling with another sob. Her lower lip trembled. “D-don’t look at me. Please…”
His gaze was the azure of a clear Caribbean Sea. Kind. Understanding. Too understanding. Ghandi, she didn’t deserve it.
“Tell me what happened. Who hurt you?”
She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Me. I did. It was my fault,” she whispered raggedly, wishing he would just go away, yet desperately needing him to stay.
“No.” A growl rumbled through his chest, and she cowered back. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “No. I don’t believe that. Not with what Thaddeus just showed me, and every last one of them will pay for what they’ve done.”
Her stomach clenched, hearing the promise for what it was.
Suicide.
Gideon reached up and wet a cloth in the sink, pausing as he brought it close. “May I?” She didn’t answer, and he frowned, then gently began to wash her face.
Her head fell back, retreating into herself again, nausea roiling with every sweep of the cloth exposing the monster she’d become. Tears tracked from the corners of her eyes, but what was the point of fighting? Somehow, he already knew. Let him see the entirety of her shame.
At least he didn’t have to live with it.
Gideon swabbed the makeup from Ophelia’s too-pale skin, banking his rage. This wasn’t the time for it. She needed him, and his vengeance would wait. The opportunity would come, and when it did, he would wipe every last one of those bloodsuckers from the face of the earth.
Gods, Ophelia. What’s happened to you?
Her silence just reinforced what he’d learned tonight.
Those pieces fit far too neatly with that last fight they’d had.
Damn him for being too stubborn to hear her.
He’d brushed her fears aside as pre-wedding jitters.
A product of her youth. If he’d just listened, had just taken them more seriously…
“Chase Montgomery! What the hell do you think you’re doing? I just cleaned—”
Gideon’s attention snapped to the tiny, irate woman standing in the doorway, and she gasped, her back hitting the cracked doorframe. Her hands rose, clutching a cloth to her breast, and her eyes wide in her pretty, china-doll face.
“You’re not—Jesus. Who the fuck are you?” she swore.
“I—”
The woman’s gaze snapped to Ophelia’s crumpled frame, her features reddening and growing darker. “What the hell did you do to her?” Her mass increased, bulking up and morphing into something decidedly threatening.
“Nothing.”
“Try again, asshole,” she growled. “And you better step away from her while you do.”
Damn it. Whoever this woman was, she was a brownie and about to go full boggart. He wasn’t worried about himself, but the damage those creatures could cause wasn’t something he needed Ophelia in the midst of. Especially not in her current state.
Gideon slowly stood, putting himself between her and Ophelia. He held out a hand in supplication. “My name is Gideon Sperry, and the last thing I want to do is hurt Ophelia. She’s my fiancée.” At least, she had been, and come hell or high water, he’d make this right and her his again.
The brownie’s eyes narrowed. “She’s never said anything about a fiancé.”
“No.” Gideon frowned, not surprised. Even before she’d disappeared, Ophelia rarely offered insight into her past. “I can’t imagine she would’ve, but I can assure you, I mean her no harm.”
The brownie glanced at the damage to the door and snorted. “Is that a fact?”
Gideon’s cheeks grew warm. “She may’ve had an adverse reaction to discovering my presence in Thaddeus’s study.”
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “You were what he wanted to talk to her about?”
“I…believe so?” It had certainly seemed like a setup the way the vampire had left them. Gideon retracted his proffered hand and ran it through his tangled hair with a sigh. “Is there someplace more appropriate I can take her to rest whilst we finish this conversation?”
“I don’t know if that’s best.” The little woman chewed her lip, her aggression fading to suspicion. “She doesn’t like to be touched, and when she’s like this…” she shook her head, her face clouded with worry. “It’s not a good idea.”
Gideon’s rage flared anew at what Ophelia must’ve gone through to make it so. He pushed the emotion aside for later. There wasn’t any point in berating himself about it now. She’d already taken the brunt of both their poor choices, and Vesper and her ilk would pay for preying on her fears.
“I’m not leaving her here to languish against the commode,” he growled.
The brownie sniffed, not intimidated in the slightest. “If it makes you feel any better, I just cleaned it.”
Gideon scowled. “It does not.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Fine, but if you make her worse, that’s on you. Follow me,” she muttered as she passed through the broken doorway and stood in the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at him.
Gideon crouched before Ophelia again, the woman’s gaze hot on his back as he tossed the cloth he’d been clutching into the sink.
He reached out and cupped Ophelia’s cheek, his thumb sweeping over the edge of the delicate lacework around her eyes.
It reminded him of the masked fêtes of his youth.
As much as he hated what the dark markings meant, they were fetching.
The emptiness of her eyes was not. His jaw tightened.
“Come, poppet,” he murmured, as if coaxing a wild thing.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Gideon swallowed his scowl at her lack of response, then leaned forward and pulled her lax form into his arms. She whimpered as he held her against him, and a fist constricted around his heart.
Gods, had she always been this slight? He stood, her head lolling against his chest, and shouldered out of the bathroom, past the broken door to follow the brownie down the hall.
She led him to a closed door and pointedly looked at him. “See? This is how they’re supposed to work.” She turned the knob and it swung open. “And if it doesn’t do that, it generally means you should stay the fuck out.”
“I’m aware,” he retorted dryly.
“Huh.” She cocked her head and stepped to the side so he could enter. “And here I was, thinking that what you did to the one in pieces suggested otherwise.”
Gideon glowered at her. “Listen, Tinkerbell, as much as I’m enjoying your wit, now’s not the time for it.
” He pushed past her into the little room, his brows furrowing at the bare mattress and stark environ.
“This is where she’s staying?” he asked, the question rendered rhetorical by the precise line of designer shoes beneath a rolling clothes rack.
The brownie’s gazed narrowed at him again, that menacing bulk returning to her form. “The name’s Soku, and you got a problem with the accommodations?”
“Yes,” he gritted out, glowering at the poor excuse for a bed. Where were the mounds of fluffy duvets and blankets? A pillow, for Christ’s sake.
“Look,” she spat, her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know what your fiancée was like before she got here, but all this is her choice.
She turned down the room at the bed and breakfast, and I tried bringing her blankets, but they sat in a pile on the floor.
” Soku scowled and shook her head at his look of incredulity.
“I told you, she doesn’t like anything touching her, and she doesn’t people.
Not well, at least. She has some serious sensory issues.
Fabric, blankets, clothes, anything against her skin freaks her out.
After the coven summoned her from whatever hole she’d been left to rot in, she slept on the concrete floor without a stitch on for weeks.
That,” she nodded at the mattress, “is a vast improvement.”
Gideon closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He held Ophelia closer, his nose in her hair. Gods, Phe, what did I leave you to suffer?
It was immaterial. He was here now. Still, guilt churned in his stomach. He had to make this right. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here,” he said, forcing the words past the growing lump of self-recrimination in his throat.
The brownie put her hands on her curvaceous hips. “And exactly what do you think you’ll be taking?”
“Care of her. If she finds comfort in stone, I’m more than able to accommodate.” His skin grayed, coarsening, and Ophelia murmured softly against him, her arm rising to tighten around his neck.
Soku’s eyes widened at the movement. “Gargoyle,” she hissed.
“And do you have a problem with that?”
“Not yet, but there’s still time,” she huffed, attempting to compose herself, but by the tremor in her hands, obviously still shaken. Understandably so. His kind were an anomaly on this side of the ocean, and their reputation for violence well deserved.
“Fine,” she said after a tense moment. “But don’t think I won’t be watching, and you owe me a door, Quasimodo.”
He inclined his head, not about to get into the inaccuracies of her intended insult. His hadn’t been particularly veracious either. “I do, and my apologies for the inconvenience.”
“Call me Tinkerbell again or fuck her up any more than she already is, and you’re gonna find yourself with a hell of a lot more ‘inconvenience’ to deal with than that.” The little woman sniffed again and left the room with once last glower.
He was oddly comforted by the brownie’s words.
At least Ophelia had one staunch ally, and brownies weren’t to be trifled with.
Gideon blew out a slow breath and set Ophelia on the mattress.
She curled into a ball, her back to him.
He sighed and closed the door. Watching the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders and thinking about what Soku had said.
He slowly began to remove his coat and t-shirt, his great stone wings shimmering into existence.
If Ophelia took succor in stone, he would give it to her.
He climbed onto the narrow bed and nestled her against his chest, one wing beneath her and draping the other over them both, cocooning her against him.
The heat from his body—his rage—quickly warmed the space.
Minutes ticked by, and she incrementally relaxed, leaving whatever manic state she’d been in and falling into a true sleep.
Gideon was not as fortunate, his mind churning with all he’d learned. All he still had left to discover. Plans of vengeance. This goddamned case.
Somewhere, a clock struck one, then two, and three. His eyes grew heavy, his mind still racing, nothing and everything settled.
He would make this up to her. Ophelia was his, and the Court would pay. The only question was where and when they would bleed out beneath his hands.