Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sitting in my usual chair, I wait for Valdemar to be brought in. It’s been a week since I’ve seen him and seven nights of the same goddamn dream.
It’s consumed me during the waking hours as well as during sleep. I’ve tried sleeping on the sofa, drinking herbal teas, and exercising before bed in the hope that I’ll banish the dream. But no matter what I do, every night I’m on the balcony, the silver dress clinging to my body, craving him like a junkie needing a hit. And what sickens me the most is the fact that when I wake, I’m hot and panting with a growing throb between my legs and a thirst for more.
I woke this morning still feeling the vibrations of Valdemar’s touch on my skin as if his hands had only been there seconds before. The ache within me has been unbearable, but I’ve not given in and relieved myself, as I will not yield to this demonic dream.
He murdered my brother.
He took Ed’s life from him with the simple pull of the trigger.
He killed the other half of me.
Yet, when I move, I can feel the memory of his hand, his fingers, the tremor of the orgasm.
I can feel it all.
He enters the room with a swagger, his head low and a glint in his eye, his broad shoulders swaying, his hair scraped back into a smooth bun. Trying to block out the recollection of his fingers inside me, I stare at him, stony-faced and tight-lipped, until he sits down.
“Are you sleeping any better?” Valdemar enquires.
“Why do you ask?” I snap. Why would this be his first question? Then I remember that last week, he told me I looked tired, and his parting words had been something to do with getting a better night’s sleep.
“There’s colour in your cheeks,” he observes.
Fuck.
“Yes. No. I mean, I have been getting some sleep.” There’s no way he can know about the dream. Unless he’s a goddamn mind-reader. The thought prickles my skin. “Your gift. Can you read minds?” I ask, though I almost don’t want to know.
He smirks and gazes at me from underneath his thick lashes. “Fortunately not.”
Hiding my relief, I ask, “Why fortunately? I thought that would be a great gift.”
“Being plagued with the thoughts of everyone in the room is more like going mad than a gift. Not something I would like to endure. Living with my own thoughts is bad enough,” he says.
Jupiter springs to mind, and I ask, “Are there Raven Hands with this gift?”
“Not for many years. Our gifts aren’t something we talk openly about.” He glances at the table, something I know people do when they don’t want to talk about the subject you’ve raised, but I won’t be deterred.
“Why?”
“Because they’re personal to us.” Valdemar sits back in his chair, as if he’s keeping his secrets at bay.
I’ve never told anyone I can see the dead. It’s not something I feel comfortable talking about, and Valdemar is right—it’s personal. But mine isn’t a gift. A curse, yes, but a gift, no.
“How did you become a Raven Hand?” Folding my arms, I try not to look at his hands.
“I’ve always known, deep down, that I didn’t belong with the rest of society, but I didn’t officially become a Raven Hand until I was seventeen.”
“That young?” It shouldn’t come as a surprise. The corruption in this city doesn’t discriminate against age.
“My mother was a single parent. My dad walked out on her the minute he found out she was pregnant. She worked three different jobs to keep food on our table and a roof over our heads. She was always working, whether it be cleaning the offices in Charmion Square or waiting tables at The Haunted Palace restaurant.”
“So, you were left to your own devices.”
“To fend for myself in every way possible. But only because she didn’t have a choice.” His eyes soften. “I was walking the streets one night, trying to avoid being alone in the apartment. I’d been texting my mother, telling her I was okay and that I was on my way home, when a man came up behind me and grabbed my phone from my hand.
“It took my mother months to save up the money to buy me that phone, and it was my only way of contacting her when she was at work. And he took it, just like that. I hadn’t got a good look at him. He could have been seven feet tall with a machine gun in his hand—I didn’t care. The anger was blazing, the rage taking over the controls.”
The room stills as if everyone else has faded into the background and only Valdemar and I remain with his memories.
“So, I ran after him. Down Locke Lane, onto Hunter Grove, and then right through the Blackwood estate until I caught up with him on Fay Road. I was seventeen, lean, and in shape. He was a thirtysomething slob who couldn’t keep the pace, but even so, I only caught up with him because someone had got to him before me.” Valdemar’s eyes have lost their focus, as if he’s looking into his past rather than at me.
“By the time I rounded onto Fay Road, the guy was being held aloft by a tall man all dressed in black with light hair and large hungry eyes. He held the thief like he was a sack of rubbish. ‘Does this belong to you?’ he asked, eyeing me as the guy dangled in midair, his high tops scraping the ground and his hands grappling with the chokehold the other guy had on him. I told him that he’d stolen my phone, and I just wanted it back. The man eyed the thief and then dropped him. And before the thief could run, the man stepped on his forearm, pinning him to the pavement.
“He searched the thief, pulling my phone from an inside pocket and asking me whether it was mine. I nodded. He told me to come and get it. I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. I stepped closer, reached out to take the phone, and the man said to me, ‘You gonna let him get away with this?’ I wasn’t sure how to answer, and he carried on. ‘He took what was yours. He had no right. He’ll do it again unless you teach him a lesson.’ I thought he meant for me to beat the guy up and send him away with a black eye and a fat lip, but when he pulled the knife out of his pocket, I knew he meant more of a permanent lesson.”
Valdemar presses his lips together before he continues.
“I’d been in fights at school, so I was no stranger to a bit of violence, but I’d never handled a weapon before. He handed me the knife, telling me it was my lesson to deliver and to make sure it was one the guy would heed. The thief was now squealing, tears swelling in his eyes, pleading with me not to hurt him. But as he did, all I could think about was how easily he snatched my phone from my hand, how hard my mother had worked to buy it, and how he’d taken it from me without a second’s hesitation.”
Valdemar pauses as if savouring the memory. “I don’t think I drew a breath as I cut off two fingers from his right hand.”