47. Altruism
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ALTRUISM
Saya Claymore
Drip, drip, drip.
My body aches, and I shift, letting out a grunt. Groggy and unable to remember the last time I was awake, I move my hand across silken sheets, which only confuses me more.
I’m not at the fuel station. I’m in a bed…in a room…somewhere.
What happened before this? I peel away the dead skin of my memories, only to wince as I recall the slayer who grabbed me by the hair and dragged me into the sun, revealing that I don’t burn.
Then Serun woke, and in the blink of an eye, bodies became gruesome sculptures, sliced up and unrecognisable.
And there was a dog. She protected me before she fled.
Pain shudders across my wrist, pinching with tension. Hissing, I tuck my arm back towards my chest and rub, only to be met with fabric. I open my eyes, and after a few hard blinks, bandages come into focus, wrapped around my arm from where the slayer cut me.
Drip, drip, drip.
Peeking out from underneath the covers, I discover the bedroom is luxurious. Cement walls and thick, long, red velvet drapes with golden stars flow through the entire room.
I sit up, pushing white hair out of my face and letting it fall over one shoulder. A powdery, exotic scent fills the room from the burning candles on the oak dresser. Everything is deep brown and maroon, reminding me of those fancier homes in Cherry Bloom.
Scanning the room, my focus snaps to the darkest corner. Shadows slip from the ceiling, but that’s not what’s making the dripping sounds. My body tenses at every splash, warning me to stay away, but once my eyes meet his, I shuffle off the bed.
I’m not wearing the clothes I was wearing, but I push aside the fact that Serun probably undressed me and placed me in this silk slip nightgown and make my way over to him.
Those unsettling eyes stay glued to mine, and when I am close enough to touch him, I gasp.
Hands reach out of the shadows, grabbing at my waist and hauling me to him.
Serun’s cheek rests against my stomach, and a sticky wetness creates a faint fabric-peeling sound when his mouth presses gently into the gown.
My hand moves into his hair, and when I do, the shadows rippling with agitation drop, misting into the floorboards.
Stone, red eyes snap to me when I tuck my hand under his chin, forcing him to look at me.
Blood is smeared across his mouth and onto his chest, staining his clothes red. “What happened?”
He lowers his gaze, and the affectionate side of him comes out when his hands move, skimming my skin when he lifts my gown—as if the mere thought of not touching me frightens him. “I was hungry,” he admits.
I rest my hands over his to halt them just before they meet the curve of my arse, and take a step away. “Come. Let me clean you, nightwalker.”
He rises like a cautious cat, while I draw him over near the bed and tell him to wait.
I make my way to the nearby door, expecting it to be the bathroom, and I’m right.
Serun’s eyes burn a hole in the back of my head, even when I am out of sight.
I grab the first cloth I see on the counter and soak it in the sink.
Serun is still in the same position when I return. Those pearly red eyes lower when I stand before him, and when I look up, my face softens at his guarded look. “Take off your shirt so I can clean you properly,” I say.
His hand goes up, scratching at his chest again. This time, he looks away. “I’d rather not, my kamai…”
“Now,” I demand.
He seethes a breath, ears bending back, but when he looks me in the eye and sees the resolve there, he turns away submissively.
My focus immediately lands on tense muscles when he removes his shirt and tosses it to the ground.
My body remembers the taut muscles when I woke in his coffin back in the Undercity.
I wanted to run my fingers across them—drink him in until I was drunk.
Serun smiles crookedly.
“Something funny, nightwalker?”
“Always when it comes to you,” he says.
I raise the cloth to his chest, dragging it down to clear a watery red path. I’m careful, like when I used to tend to Cole’s wounds. He would cry louder if I worked fast, believing that fast meant it hurt more, though that was merely an illusion.
Even though I doubt Serun is harmed under all this gore, I’m still careful. I don’t want to scare him off. For a man feared by all, he fears when someone gets too close. Every time I’ve wanted more, he has given me an inch, only to take a thousand steps away.
We are in a game of cat and mouse, but I want to be caught.
Pressing against his collarbone, I drag the cloth down, clearing another streak of wetness when I notice an ugly, red scar. It moves down his shoulder in a circle, like a pike or something stabbed into him, and it never fully healed. A wrinkled red scar.
Is that why he scratches all the time? This wound bothers him?
I reach up to wash away more blood when Serun’s hand rests on my wrist, over the bandage. Looking away from the scar and up into his eyes, a barrage of feelings I can’t ignore batters my heart.
“I didn’t want to bite you without your permission,” he says, tender fingers drawing circles along the bandage. “I don’t want to take from you, Saya Claymore. Whatever you want, I will never hinder it. If you don’t want me in your life, I will let you go when our brothers are safe.”
I breathe a laugh. “I doubt your words.”
His hands move up, cupping my face. “If it weren’t for me, you could have escaped without those slayers knowing. But you stayed and fought while I was dead from the sun. I am a burden.”
A long sigh escapes me as I move my hands over his.
The cloth drips diluted blood onto our arms. “Serun, I don’t think I can be parted from you.
You know me—every fragment of me, and it doesn’t frighten you.
You don’t see me as weak, and I certainly hope you don’t just want me because you believe I can bear your children. ”
Serun breathes a laugh. “I knew that comment bothered you.”
Removing my hands from his, I lift the washcloth and wipe away the blood staining his jaw. “You don’t see me as merely an object of desire. You’re careful. Attentive. A little creepy in the way you watch me, but I like that you do.”
“Is this a declaration?”
“Almost.”
He bends on one knee, his hand slipping into his pocket and taking out something shiny and silver. “I don’t kneel, but for you, I’d do so for eternity.”
“What’s this?” I breathe, my voice lost to the pounding of my heart.
Serun takes my hand, slipping the silver band onto my ring finger. “A gift. Whether you want to see it as just a piece of jewellery or a wedding band is entirely up to you—but I will wear mine with pride knowing I gained an almost declaration from the one being I wish my heart could beat for.”
“Serun…”
He rises, sliding on his own silver band.
I lower the cloth, then gently touch his chin with my other hand, the silver band glistening in the warm light. My long nails scrape across flesh as I guide him down to me. “Seal it with a kiss, nightwalker.” Our mouths have barely touched when a thought slams into me. “Where’s Olivia?”
Serun’s brow twitches. “I am wounded that your thoughts went to your servant when you were about to kiss me. I deserve all your thoughts.”
“Focus, Serun,” I say, swaying his head from side to side. “Is she okay?”
His hands rest on my cheek and he says, “She is in the other room and fine.”
I want to ask more about her. My last memory was when she ate the slayer and then passed out. However, his greed collides with mine. His mouth tastes my flesh, and his tongue dances with mine attentively until another thought derails me.
“The dog? Have you seen it since the fight?” I say, pulling away.
Another irritated sigh comes from him. “You cannot ask for a kiss and then evade it. I’m greedy. And this word jealous, as many have called me as of late, gets underneath my skin.”
I blink slowly. “But you are jealous.”
“I do not understand the terminology. It doesn’t seem to be in the book I was reading. What is jealous, and why does it sound offensive?”
Bubbled laughter escapes me, breaking through the hard shell I try to hide within. I rest my body against his, and Serun stiffens, his hands hovering as though unsure if he should embrace me.
I place my hand on his chest. He grunts, muscles tightening beneath my flesh.
“Worry, fear, sickness, and irritation when you think of my Blessed, Jaxton, and strangely, Olivia—this is jealousy.” My lips brush against his marble chest, and then his hands finally understand what to do, and they wrap around me.
“You want my attention. You want me to only yearn for you, just as I only want you to yearn for me.”
“What have I become?” he says with disgust.
“My cute plaything,” I say.
“Cute,” he drawls, now even more offended.
I ignore his prickling annoyance as I touch the scar that seems to cause him to turn to stone, my mind going elsewhere. “The slayer’s dog defended me. I don’t know why, but before the slayer could shoot me, the dog attacked him.”
“Fascinating,” Serun says, his breath tickling my hairline. “Is it because you’re a vegodian?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s something to ask my mum when I see her again.”
“You should write a list. I want you to get every answer you need.”
I bite my lower lip and nod. “I will sleep on it. I’m still tired, Serun.”
“Then let us rest.” He faces the bed and grimaces. “It is no deathbed, but Sancliff is safe and clear of slayers.”
My frown deepens, and I step away from his embrace, place the cloth on the bedframe, then crawl over the covers. “How are we in here without an invitation?”
“No one owns the building. If a human labels a room as theirs, or a house, for instance, we cannot enter without an invitation. If a human doesn’t live there, we can enter.
It is a strange concept, and there are ways around this magik, but nightwalkers can enter apartments that a human hasn’t claimed. Compellingly frustrating magik.”
Serun shrugs on the spare shirt in his pack before resting above the covers. I place my arm on his chest, my fingers fiddling with the strings of his shirt. “You scared me when you didn’t wake. I didn’t realise the pull during the day was so…final. How did you wake up?”
“Something about being gutting if I didn’t.” Serun’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, only for it to drop. “And the scent of your blood.” I lay down beside him, and his arms move around me as he murmurs, “Come here. I’m jealous of the space between us.”
I end up lying on his chest, my legs sprawled on either side of him.
Serun then plucks the blanket and drapes it over my body.
I relax as his fingers draw designs up and down my spine in tranquil motions.
A moan escapes me, and I stretch out, relishing the thickness of his cock between my legs, enjoying the pressure of it while I close my eyes and feel myself fall.
Serun’s mouth presses against my temple, and he whispers into my hair, “Iyunenyan kin u, Saya Claymore.”
“Iyunenyan kin u, Serun,” I mumble back.
He gasps as if surprised, only to breathe a laugh a moment later and return to tracing paths across my back, lulling me to sleep.