Chapter 8
Ophelia woke with a solid weight across her waist, pinning her down.
Only habit keeping her from reacting. She didn’t move, her breath even and her eyes shut.
Her thoughts swirled. The last thing she clearly remembered was Gideon cornering her in the bathroom, seeing her for what she’d become.
Bile rose to her throat and she ignored it, her thoughts far away from the acidic burn.
What’d happened after?
Instead of the expected chill of tile, she was deliciously warm.
The air had the close stillness of an enclosed space.
Her heart rate ticked up, thinking of the sarcophagi in the Citadel’s catacombs, except those were frigid.
Ugh. Stop it and think, Phe. She forced herself to remain calm and take in the small sensory details around her.
The almost imperceptible rub of stone beneath and behind her.
Its gentle rise and fall at her back. The subtle scent of citrus.
Ophelia’s eyes flew open. Gideon.
Her gaze fixed on his lax hand dangling off the edge of the mattress, her head pillowed upon his stoney bicep. His other arm accounted for the weight across her waist, and the gargoyle’s wing draped over her, explaining the stillness and heat.
Yeah, that didn’t do anything to calm her anxiety. Her breath hitched. Why was he here? Why had he stayed?
He stirred, pulling her closer to him, the rasp of his granite fingers over her body a strange comfort that just unsettled her more. “You’re awake,” he said, groggy with sleep.
She chewed her lip, praying he couldn’t feel the rapid beat of her heart. Shit. This was it. She was going to have to explain. “Y-you’re still here,” she whispered.
“I am. I couldn’t leave you like—like that.”
The silence thickened around them, heavy with everything said and unsaid, and all that was still waiting to be spoken.
Finally, “Thaddeus showed me a file from the Citadel last night,” he continued. She stiffened, and Gideon hushed her. “I know you joined the tribes, and I think I understand why. I’m so sorry, Phe.”
The regret in his voice broke her anew, and she swallowed a sob. His arms tightened around her. So solid. So unshakable. How could she have ever let her stupid ego get between them?
It didn’t matter. It had, and there was no coming back from it.
“I should’ve taken your fears more seriously,” he went on. “If I’d known, I would’ve burned their filthy enclave to the ground before I let you remain inside of it…but, what’s done is done. I’m not upset at you, Phe. I just…I need to know. Why didn’t you come back?”
Ghandi, he sounded wrecked over all of it, and telling him wasn’t going to do anything to make that better.
But she also knew damned well he wasn’t going to let it go.
Fuck it. Maybe it was better this way. Once he knew, he’d leave, and that would be that.
Ophelia sniffled, trying to find the words.
He could hate her. Ghandi, he would hate her, but— No. She didn’t care.
Keep telling yourself that, Phe.
“I couldn’t. My tatuaj…” She closed her eyes, fighting the anxious nausea rising to drown her. “They mark me as Dam?.” Her mouth curdled as she rasped out the word, hating everything about the fucked up tribe the stupid marks around her eyes had assigned her to.
Gideon frowned against the crown of her head, lacing his fingers with hers.
Ophelia’s eyes misted up again at the simple gesture of intimacy.
How long had it been since someone had touched her like that?
Him, it’d been him, that last night before everything went to hell.
Ghandi, she missed it but… She bit back a whimper. It wasn’t going to last.
“I don’t understand,” he rumbled.
Ophelia was silent, not wanting him to.
“Phe, please. Tell me.”
She blinked away the tears weighing down her lashes. “They took me to the Citadel right after my reanimation. I wasn’t allowed to leave. None of the Dam? were.”
“That word. What does it mean?”
“I-it’s my tribe,” she gritted out bitterly, her insides heavy with dread.
“I-it loosely translates to wife, but it’s— When I was first put into seclusion, there were only a handful of us.
Five. Six. S-seclusion isn’t—” She broke off, trying to calm herself and not think about that awful place and failing miserably.
Gideon was silent, presumably waiting for her to go on. Then, when it was clear she wasn’t going to: “Wife?”
A sob burst past her lips, and she cursed herself. What the fuck was the point in dragging this out? He wasn’t going to leave it alone until he knew all the dirty details. She ripped her fingers from his and dashed a hand across her eyes, pushing up from the bed. “More like unwitting whore.”
Gideon rolled onto his back, the initial shock on his face morphing into lividity. “They prosti—trafficked you?” he amended, his nostrils flaring.
Yeah, to a clientele of one and a dozen of his closest friends. Ophelia laughed, throwing up her hands. “Sure. If that’s what you wanna call it.”
He sat up and caught her wrist as she paced, pulling her between his granite thighs. “I wish I didn’t have to call it anything. Ophelia, if I’d known—”
He’d already be dead.
“It doesn’t matter.” She stared at the door, the wall, anywhere but at him.
He reached up to tip her face to his. “It does, and none of it’s your fault. The tribes recruited you. Thaddeus showed me the evidence last night.”
She froze, her gaze flicking to his. “Evidence?”
He exhaled heavily and ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “The file from the Citadel I mentioned. It has surveillance photos of us at the old apartment. They were stalking you, Phe. Intentionally grooming you to volunteer.”
She put a hand to her throat. “No, that’s…
” Entirely possible. Her shoulders slumped, and she swallowed hard.
Ghandi, how pathetic was she to fall for something like that?
She’d willingly signed up for a fucking cult.
Her knees gave out, and Gideon pulled her onto his lap, her skin crawling at the rub of his sweatpants beneath her thighs.
He brushed her hair from her face. “Thaddeus thinks their interest had to do with your position and your potential tithe. They wanted you to litigate for them, but given what you’ve said, I think I understand why they ended up recruiting me after the fact.
Their offer came through a week after you disappeared. I can’t believe that’s unrelated.”
“During the initial interview, they were really interested in my record,” she admitted, chewing a nail.
“That’s why I thought—” She shook her head.
It didn’t matter what she’d thought. It hadn’t happened.
“Everyone was shocked as shit when this appeared,” she murmured hollowly, vaguely gesturing at her tatuaj.
His brow furrowed, and she sighed.
“Historically, Dam? aren’t common. Like, one-in-thousands not common…and w-we aren’t treated well.” She looked away at the admission, and he tipped her face back toward his with a finger.
“I have to believe the universe brought you back to me for a reason, and I plan on rectifying that. You’re mine, poppet, and I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
Gideon breathed through his rage as Ophelia slumped against him.
That she’d been abused in such a way, it was little wonder she couldn’t bear to be touched.
He fingered the odd garment covering her slight form, wondering if he had the brownie to thank for that.
His esteem for the little woman grew. It was gossamer, if he wasn’t mistaken, and cost a pretty penny.
The price didn’t matter. If that’s what Ophelia needed, he’d beggar himself to swath her in it. The thought of using the small fortune he’d accrued working for the tribes to help mitigate the trauma they’d caused her was far more satisfying than purchasing another villa he’d never visit.
His is temper rose at his increasing certainty of the trap they’d both fallen into. Gods, Vesper had to have known he was desperate to find Phe and had never said a word. The police, all those private detectives he’d hired—how many of them had been on the Vampire Court’s payroll?
“I looked for you. For years.”
A small smile ghosted across her lips. “I never doubted you would, if only to wring my neck.”
“My prior motive was based on false information, and is no longer relevant,” he said with a small smile of his own at her eye roll. “What is, is that I have you back now.”
She froze, the pulse at her throat quickening. “Gideon, I’m not the person you remember. I can’t ask you to—”
He grasped her hand and held it to his heart, desperate to make her understand.
“You’re not asking, I’m offering. Yes, things change, even stone, but this, this has ever beaten for you.
A gargoyle’s heart— You’re mine, unless you don’t want this, and even then, I don’t think I could let you go. Not again, and not knowing what I do.”
Her brow furrowed and her gaze dropped to her lap, tears falling to stain her tunic. “I—but you don’t know everything,” she whispered hoarsely.
He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, frowning at her slight recoil. Damn it, all he wanted to do was touch her. No. He could wait. However long it took. After all, they had an eternity to make this work.
If she wanted it to.
Gideon sighed. “I know enough. What’s important. You never left; you were stolen from me. Tell me you want this. Another chance at us?”
She was silent long enough for him to begin to sweat. “I-I do, but I don’t think I can be what you want anymore.” The smallness of her voice stoked his temper. Damn it, this wasn’t her.
“I’d say given your track record of deciding what’s best for us, how about you let me be the judge of that?” he asked, far too tempted to put his fist through something.
Annoyance flashed across her countenance at the jab, and he fought a grin. There she was.
“What about the case?” she snapped back, moving away from him, her posture straightening.
He fought the urge to chuckle. Oh, how easily they fell back into their old routine. Gideon was painfully aware of his hot temperament, but Ophelia had ever been his match. If he had to antagonize her into remembering who she was, he’d do so with aplomb.
“Mmm. Yes. The case.” He pursed his lips, and a grin sliced across his face at her narrowed eyes. “Leave that to me. There’s several…inconsistencies…I’ve willfully overlooked. Perhaps it’s time to explore them.”
Ophelia nodded, the glimmer of the goddess she’d been fading. Damn it. She looked at the floor like she wanted it to swallow her.
His wet his lips at her tell. “What else, Ophelia?”
She shook her head, then sighed. “The coven. When they summoned me here, I-I was in the Inchisoare.”
Gideon’s guts churned. Dear Gods, they’d thrown her into that hellhole? “For?”
She chewed her lip and shrugged. “Inciting dissent.”
“Against?” he prompted, feeling like he was deposing a reluctant witness.
“Kremlyn,” she said in a very small voice.
“Kremlyn,” he repeated, her flinch at the name telling him everything he needed to know. His knuckles popped as he tightened a fist. “He’ll come for you.”
Her gaze shot to his. “How do you—”
“I’ve met the prince. Numerous times.” And all the while that pompous son of a bitch had to have known Gideon was looking for Ophelia whilst he’d had her at his mercy. A muscle in Gideon’s jaw ticked, not fond of being the butt of anyone’s joke. “And I’m quite looking forward to seeing him again.”
He was going to eviscerate the bastard.
“Gideon, you don’t understand,” Ophelia said, wrought.
“K-Kremlyn’s not what’s important right now.
I mean, he is, but when the coven summoned me, I pledged myself to the node.
Jena says it will protect me, but I have to win this case.
If I don’t, my covenant with it is broken, and the tribes can take me back. ”
He stared at her in shock. “You pledged your service to the node?”
She nodded, sending his mind racing. If that was true, then it would indeed protect her, as long as she stayed within its bounds. But outside of it…
Its welcome abruptly made sense, and damn every last one of those blighted spirits to hell for trapping him as neatly as the Vampire Court. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Ophelia’s safety was paramount. “Then until this is settled, you’re not leaving Havers unless I’m by your side.”
Ophelia scowled, and his heart leapt to see a glimmer of her fire. “And how will that look, the defense shacking up with the prosecution? I’m not even sure he knows where I am.”
“Oh, he knows,” Gideon muttered, the ringing silence of the line going dead echoing through his mind. “Earlier, I had to disclose who the opposing council was.”
Her face ghosted white.
“But I vow to you now, Ophelia, they’ll not have you,” he said, grasping her shoulders.
Her gaze searched his. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I do. I failed you once, and I won’t fail you again.
” He leaned forward to kiss her forehead, and this time, she softened against him.
Gideon smiled at the increment of progress.
She would come around, he just needed to be patient.
“Now, we’ve work to do. Hand me my shirt?
I think we both need to speak to Thaddeus. ”