Aven
Cain's leaning against a display of crystal jars, looking unfairly elegant for a man who just spent the night lurking in my shadow.
His posture's relaxed, but his eyes are sharp, tracking every twitch of my hands.
Soren's pacing, his reddish-orange hair catching the dim shop light like a dying ember.
He's the most frantic of the three, his energy spilling out in sparks that make the air taste like copper.
Then there's Ira. Ira doesn't pace. He just stands there, a literal mountain of tactical muscle and quiet observation, watching me with green eyes that seem to be measuring me for a casket or a cradle. I can't decide which is worse.
"Great," I say, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
The wool's scratchy against my collarbone, a grounding discomfort I'm clinging to.
"Because I was just thinking my Tuesday needed more lectures on destiny and supernatural wiring.
It really beats my usual routine of serving cheap scotch to people who've been dead since the Reagan administration.
Is there a PowerPoint? Or should I just wait for the ritual sacrifice portion of the evening? "
He stops at the edge of my chair. He looks wrecked, dark circles under his eyes, his shirt rumpled.
He looks like I feel, and that's the most dangerous thing in the room.
He reaches out, his hand hovering near mine on the arm of the chair.
It's a question. A tentative, desperate plea for a connection I don't fully understand.
I shouldn't answer it. I should pull my hand away and tuck it under the blanket. But the air in here's cold, and I'm so tired of the shivering, the internal, bone-deep tremor that's been rattling me since I ran out of my apartment, that I let my fingers drift toward his.
The moment we touch, the world snaps into focus.
A rush of warmth floods through me, starting at my fingertips and racing up my arm like a forest fire.
It isn't just physical heat; it's a golden, thick sensation, like drinking sunlight.
The shop seems to sharpen around me, every shadow taking shape instead of teeth.
The ghost of Vera, hovering near the library door, flickers into clearer focus.
I can see the fine lace of her collar, the weary kindness in the lines of her face.
She looks at me, and her expression softens into something almost maternal, a silent approval that makes my throat tighten.
It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever felt. Shape. Warmth. A way to understand the noise without drowning in it.
It also feels like a total lie.
"See?" Soren whispers, his green eyes widening as he feels the surge. "That's the bond. That's the current. We stabilize you, we provide the ground, and you... you save us. You take the excess, the rot that builds up when we use our gifts, and you transmute it. It's how this was supposed to work."
I pull my hand back like I've been burned by a hot iron.
The warmth vanishes instantly, replaced by a cold so sharp it makes my teeth ache.
Vera's spirit dims into a translucent grey blur, her features washing out until she's just a smudge of grief against the bookshelves.
The quiet Cain provided earlier, the beautiful, blissful absence, now feels like the heavy, suffocating air before a thunderstorm.
The spirits outside the wards start to thrum again, a low-frequency moan that vibrates in my molars.
"This is a supernatural sex cult," I say, the words coming out sharper than I intended.
My voice sounds thin and brittle in the large room.
"That's what this is. You've got a brochure and everything.
'Join our coven, save a witch, get a free vampire anchor.
' Does it come with a t-shirt? Or do we just get the matching soul-scars? "
Soren lets out a startled, breathless laugh. It's a sharp, genuine sound that breaks through his frantic energy, and for exactly half a second, I like him. I like the way his eyes crinkle and the way he looks like he's actually seen the absurdity of the situation.
I hate that I like it. I hate that I'm looking for reasons to stay in this room with three strangers who look at me like I'm the last glass of water in a desert.
I hate that my body's already mourning the loss of his hand.
It makes me feel weak. It makes me feel like a tool designed to fit a specific hand, and now that I've felt the grip, I'm supposed to be grateful for the purpose.
"It's not a cult, Aven," Cain says, stepping forward from the display.
He doesn't touch me, which I suppose is progress, but his presence is its own kind of gravity.
"But I won't lie to you. I herded you here.
I knew that if you felt the spirits again, if the noise became the agonizing roar I knew it'd be once you left the reach of my magic, you'd seek out the only sanctuary left.
I ensured you had nowhere else to turn that felt safe. "
The word herded lands in my chest like a lead weight.
It's too honest. He doesn't try to dress it up in destiny or romance or the will of the divine.
He doesn't even use the word protected. He treated me like a stray sheep, nipping at my heels, closing off the side streets, until I ran exactly where he wanted me to go.
He manipulated my pain to ensure my compliance.
"You herded me," I repeat, my voice flat.
I look at Ira, who's still silent. He hasn't moved an inch since I sat down.
He's like a statue of a guardian, but guardians are just jailers with better public relations.
"And what about you? The silent enforcer.
Are you here to keep the sheep in the pen? To make sure I don't jump the fence?"
Ira's jaw tightens. I can see the muscle jumping in his cheek.
"I'm here to make sure you don't die. The Church is looking for you, Aven.
They don't want to save you. They want to use you until there's nothing left but gathered divinity and a cold body on a stone floor.
My job's to ensure that doesn't happen. My job's to keep you alive. "
"By caging me here?" I ask. I'm standing now, the wool blanket sliding off my shoulders and pooling on the floor like a shed skin.
I feel exposed, standing there in my boxers and a thin t-shirt that's seen better decades, but I'd rather be cold and naked than wrapped in their hospitality.
"By deciding what's best for me? Because Ezra spent years doing that.
The seminary spent years doing that. Every time a priest pressed a cross into my hand until the metal bit into my palm and told me my visions were a sin, they were protecting me.
They were saving my soul while they were actually just managing a problematic asset.
I'm a little full up on protection right now.
I've been protected right into a mental breakdown. "
I can feel the anger rising, a hot, oily tide that drowns out the fear.
If the bond's real, then everything I was taught, every prayer, every sermon about the sanctity of my suffering, was a lie told to keep me from realizing I was being robbed.
But if the bond's just another form of manipulation, then my own body's a traitor.
I can't trust the warmth I felt with Soren.
I can't trust the silence I found with Cain.
I can't trust the safety I feel looking at Ira.
"I'm done," I say. My voice is shaking, but I put all the sarcasm and venom I've got left into it.
"I'm done with the vampires. I'm done with the witches and the exorcists and the fated bonds that conveniently require me to be a battery for your problems. And I'm definitely done with men who think that because they need me, they get the right to move me around like a piece on a board.
I'm not a pawn. I'm not an anchor. I'm a person who'd very much like to go back to being miserable on my own terms."
Cain flinches. It's subtle, just a flicker in his dark eyes, a slight tightening of his elegant hands, but it's there.
I know exactly where I hit him. I know because his face changes, and because some ugly part of me's glad it landed.
It feels good to hurt them. It's the only way I know they aren't in control.
I head for the door. My heart's thumping a frantic, irregular rhythm against my ribs, and every instinct I've got is screaming at me to turn around.
My skin's already screaming for the heat of the bond.
My brain's pleading for the silence. I want to go back to the warmth, the quiet, and the massive man who scares me because he looks capable of protecting me without asking permission to own me.
Ira moves. My breath hitches. He doesn't block me, but he steps into my peripheral vision, a mountain of iron and intent.
He's so much larger than me; he could stop me with one hand.
He could pick me up and lock me in the back room, and I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.
I wait for the grab, the hand on the shoulder, the it's for your own good that always precedes the cage.
He doesn't. He stops three feet away, his hands at his sides, fingers curled into fists so tight his knuckles are white. He lets me pass. He looks like it's physically pained him to stay still, but he doesn't touch me. That matters, in a way I'm not ready to admit.
Soren looks wrecked, his reddish hair messy where he's been running his hands through it, his eyes wide and glassy. "Aven, wait. Please. The wards... the spirits are waiting right outside that door. You're bleeding. You're exhausted. You won't last an hour out there without the ground."
"Let them wait," I say, my hand gripping the cold brass handle of the shop door. The metal feels real. The cold feels honest. "At least the dead don't pretend they're doing me a favor while they're eating me alive. They're honest about being parasites."
I pull the door open and step out into the night.
The transition's violent, an assault that hits the second I cross the threshold.
The artificial silence of the shop's pulverized.
A dozen voices hit me at once, whispers, screams, the dry rasp of the dead who haven't realized they're gone yet, the frantic babbling of the ones who've been gone too long.
It's a physical blow, a wall of static that makes my knees buckle and my vision swim with grey spots.
I stumble, my bare shoulder hitting the brick of the building.
I almost turn back. The warmth of the shop's right there, a few inches behind my heels.
I can feel the golden glow of the interior lighting on the back of my neck.
I can almost feel the phantom touch of Soren's hand, the quiet weight of Ira's presence.
If I go back now, I'll never leave again.
I'll be their anchor, their miracle, their cherished pet.
I'll be safe, and I'll be a slave to their need.
I keep walking.
The pavement's wet and freezing under my bare soles, the grit of the city street grinding into my skin.
A piece of broken glass or sharp gravel bites into my heel, drawing blood, but the sharp sting's almost a relief compared to the mental roar.
I don't stop. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold my own pieces together as the dead swarm me.
They can sense the gathered divinity in me; they can sense the leak.
They press close, their translucent faces inches from mine, their cold breath smelling of wet earth, old copper, and the stagnant air of tombs.
Help us, they whisper. Hear us. Give us the light. Give us the heat.
I'm shaking so hard I can barely stay upright.
My pride's a thin, tattered thing, but it's the only thing keeping me from crawling back to that door on my hands and knees.
I look at the street, empty, dark, and filled with ghosts, and I realize I've got nowhere to go.
My apartment isn't safe. The seminary's a trap. The bar's a hunting ground.
I'm a man without a floor, falling through a sky full of hungry mouths.
"If you're going to ruin my life," I snap at a grey-faced woman who's weeping directly into my ear, her transparent fingers clawing at my t-shirt, "at least form an orderly line. I'm currently at capacity for existential bullshit. Take a number and wait in the back."
She doesn't listen, of course. They never do. But saying it makes me feel like I still have some power.
I'm alone in the street, bleeding and shaking, barefoot and half-naked in a city that wants to swallow me whole.
My skin's cold, my head's a riot of noise, and my heart feels like it's been hollowed out with a spoon.
It's a terrible choice, messy and painful and will probably leave me face-down in a gutter before sunrise.
But as I limp away from the shop, every step away from the men who need me feels like a victory. It's a hollow, freezing victory, but it's mine. And right now, in the dark and the noise, that's the only weapon I've got left. I'll bleed out before I let someone else hold the leash again.