29. Hurricanes, Heartbeats, and Hallways

Liora wasn’t in the house when the black fog of restorative sleep finally lifted.

Ash woke on the chair, neck aching, alone. The muscle Claire had twisted too far twinged every time he turned his head. He stared blearily at the chaise Liora had perched on last night.

Her scent had faded, pomegranate and grave dirt still lingered. Fury, he knew.

At him for revealing the truth of what he’d done? Or something else? The questions swirled. His stomach roiled.

His mouth was bone-dry and tasted like something had crawled in there and died as he slept. Bile rose in him as he sat up straight and clasped his head in his icy hands.

His throat burned. Too much bourbon.

Too much... everything. His sluggish, blunted mind was still booting up. He bolted to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.

The cold water, unfiltered and slightly bitter, cleared the smut from his mouth. His brain flung random reminders at him. She hadn’t run after witnessing his past.

She’d touched him. Touched him in a way that wasn’t violence. It wasn’t lust, either.

Her hot little hand had wrapped possessively around his neck. A gesture he hadn’t seen coming.

He thought she’d kick him out, rage and yell that he deserved it all.

Somehow, she hadn’t. He still felt her hand there. He’d leaned into it. The slight sting of her claws in his chest helped sharpen his memory as he’d fought with himself. His only anchor in a morass of traumatic experience.

The entire night had been a giant clusterfuck. He could’ve ruined everything, and he wouldn’t have realized until the darkness cleared. He hadn’t expected it.

He hadn’t seen the platinum hair coming. Her new glamor had absolutely annihilated his self-control.

The vault he’d lined with lead and explosives, buried deep in the dark of his skull. Buried to keep him from getting into trouble, it had exploded.

Peppering them both with the shrapnel. He’d never forget the hurt look of betrayal on her borrowed face when he demanded she take the glamor off. He’d had to use everything he had to keep it from getting the best of him.

To stop it from demolishing the one real thing he had.

It didn’t. The world didn’t end. It won’t end.

He repeated it to himself as he padded through the living room and went to the bathroom. Feet dragging a little. Where was she?

Had his show of weakness pissed her off? She hated weakness of any kind, and he’d had all the substance of Play-Doh last night.

He groaned. Gritty eyes closed for a second. If only he’d gotten a hold of himself and explained in a less dramatic fashion.

Maybe then the ground would feel solid beneath his feet. He wanted to beat his head bloody off the tiles as he turned the shower on as hot as it would go.

It was a poor substitute for her wildfire heat, but it burned the way he needed it to. He let the water beat down on his sore neck, sighing as he listened to the bond.

Nothing came through.

She hadn’t gone too far away—he’d have felt it tugging at him if she’d left the city. Small comforts. He took his time washing, stealing her floral-scented soap.

The familiar fragrance helped him draw a deep breath.

His mind still seemed foggy as he scrubbed his hair. Fingers digging into his scalp as though to scrape it clear again. It had been a while since he’d let himself relive that memory.

At least no one had died this time. But she might decide he wasn’t strong enough to handle her now. His brow wrinkled, breath held as his stomach lurched.

The worry gnawed at him as steam clouded the air and the glass shower screens. There was a bond between them. They couldn’t break it. But that wasn’t a failsafe.

Thinking only made it seem worse, so he focused on practical matters instead. If she didn’t come back before ten o’clock that night, he’d go look for her.

Two hours. She had two hours to return on her own. The soap suds circled the drain.

In another life, blood had joined the water sluicing over the tiles. His. Jason’s. The hunters. It all looked the same.

He was there for an hour before he got out. Savoring the warmth that dissipated the second he left the steam’s scalding shroud.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and quickly brushed his teeth. His phone was dead as he pulled it out of his pants pocket. He doubted she’d answer if he called her.

He’d never actually seen her with a cell phone, now he thought about it. She had given him the number for one, but she never seemed to have it on her. She hadn’t understood a thing he’d said about his online escapades.

Her eyes had glazed over as if he’d recited the dictionary to her. He chuckled quietly.

It figured he’d end up tied to a demon who thought technology was beneath her. He tidied up after himself, tossing his clothes in the basket with hers before leaving the bathroom.

He’d stepped one foot into the hall, towel slung low across his hips as the shadows at the front door swirled and swelled. He gritted his jaw, steeled his spine, and waited. Frost sparkled on his fingertips as they clenched into fists.

He didn’t know what to expect. How she’d react to him. Disdain or denial? Rage or pity? He didn’t want any of them.

Rage, if he had to pick one. Before he could fully prepare himself, she stood in front of him, eyes clear and face sprinkled with scarlet blood.

He scanned her. Crimson covered her. His breath caught as the scent hit him. Familiar mortal blood. Gun metal, fear, and saccharine rot woven through it.

Hunters then. He frowned, scenting her for an injury, but her shadows coiled around him, not her.

Her claws dripped sanguine tears onto the pale rug as he met her eye. She had a human heart cradled between her stained palms. Her copper hair glittered under the dim light.

He had expected her to teleport inside. That was normal. What she did next sent his frost crackling up the walls, merging in glittering fractals with her dark magic as his world flipped.

She tossed the heart at his feet. It landed with a wet, final thud. He made no move to catch it, his eyes tracking her as she shook blood from her hands and sauntered toward him.

She’d seek refuge in the bathroom if he didn’t stop her. He cleared his throat.

“Wait.”

She paused, expression blank as her back went stiff. “What?”

Smiling, he rolled his eyes. He catalogued her every breath and detail. He’d been certain she’d left to punish him.

She’d gone out to kill for him instead. He couldn’t resist the temptation to question her.

“Why?”

She stood tall, shoulders back, and jaw set in its usual hard line. Her heart raced, though. It started jumping.

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. Gaze dropping to the heart she’d just tossed at him. Still warm. Cooling now, she wasn’t keeping it from chilling.

“It took you over twelve hours to find and kill one hunter? You’re slacking, Red.”

He let his eyes flash quicksilver as he met hers. She stared woodenly at him. Her pulse jittered.

Her scent sharpened. Pomegranates and something new, like night-blooming jasmine.

“No. I took four of them. I savoured the last one.” She paused, breaking eye contact to frown at the heart. “His begging was melodic.”

Lies. Well, she might’ve enjoyed their screaming, but it wasn’t the only thing. He didn’t think she’d done it for kicks.

Dry amusement was clear in his tone as he said, “Why hunt them?”

“They were in my way.”

The worry he’d felt earlier had vanished. Replaced by a delicate, throat-thickening, and nerve-igniting hope.

She scowled at him. Her claws twitched. He knew she was imagining flaying him. Patch by patch, she’d strip him to his bones. “Tell the truth.”

She huffed. Eyes rolling and fingers trembling. The rush of her blood surging through her veins pounded in his ears.

“I don’t share my toys with pests.”

He arched his brow. His smirk slid into place. It reached his eyes now. Humor, real and black, returned to life.

He wanted to grab her and force it out of her. But force wasn’t the way. Not here. “Liar. You let Byron share.”

“Byron screamed.” Her claws sheathed, human fingers stained with viscera. “You never do.”

Silence, heavy as the first dead mortal he’d buried, blanketed the hall. He took a step closer. Testing her.

She didn’t blink. His attention fell to the heart again, its arteries frayed like the bedsheets under her tearing fingers.

“You kept it warm.”

She stiffened. Hands clasped at her waist as if to keep from strangling him. “It’s fresh.”

“Bullshit. You cradled it here.” The gory gift meant more, and he would get it out of her even if she killed him for it. “You carried it the whole way back. Admit it.”

She snarled. Shadows writhed even as they manacled his wrists and collared his throat. Their warm restraints buzzed against his cold skin.

“I carried it like carrion,” she said, but her voice cracked, roughened, and bled.

“Try again. Why, Liora?”

Her stare recoiled from his as she backed up a step. Unable to meet his gaze, she locked hers on some point over his shoulder. Her mouth worked as if she had to pull the words out letter by letter.

“They hurt you. I wanted to hear them scream your name. The way you screamed theirs,” she spat, pupils vanishing, replaced with swirling streams of amber and bruise.

He stilled. She’d heard. Of course, the nightmares had come.

She would’ve had a front-row seat to his hellish time as a captive.

Had he begged?

The pleas he’d once choked on always slipped his control when reminded of Claire. The chain reaction killing her had caused.

They’d taken him apart in that cursed lab; he doubted he’d ever forget it.

Liora had taken it personally.

His smirk changed to an open-mouthed, oh, as her statement shivered through him. There was a warm ache twining in his chest.

It wrapped around his cadaver heart, making it sting in a way that didn’t hurt—the warmth sank deeper in.

His voice was barely audible as he said, “And?”

Her scent turned to grave dirt, thinner than usual. Her pulse ran like a spooked deer.

“No one hurts you but me.”

The world seemed to hold its breath for a heartbeat. Those six words dangled like jewels between them. His throat thickened. The tether between them lit up inside him.

Everything in him went still. Quiet. Then, a startled, genuine laugh burst through his lips. Silver eyes widened a fraction as his hands itched to grab her.

Kiss her. Force her to say it the way he needed to hear it. His mouth watered with venom, a wash of heat flickering through their bond.

The vein in her neck fluttered wildly. His fangs dropped, desperate to erase the space between them. But he saw how she swayed from heel to heel.

She shifted her weight to rest on her right side and then her left. He noted her red-rimmed eyes. Easy to miss given the amount of blood soaking her leathers.

It hit him then. Akin to a taser to his ribs. She wasn’t simply a wildfire. A source of eternal heat to warm himself by.

She was a hurricane with a heartbeat, his dark saint dressed in blood, and the eye of it was the only place he ever wanted to be.

She took another step toward him, her nude lips trying to curve. He hurried to make the most of this time with her before she hid in the bath.

His shoulders tensed, hands hanging at his sides, and there was a visible tremor in his fingers.

Here we go. Screw it. All or nothing.

“Could you answer a question for me?” His voice was deceptively light.

Liora sighed, a cold, calculating mask sliding into place as she tried to fathom his angle. His scent had gone back to snowy bergamot with a hint of bourbon. Toothpaste, old worries, and her soap.

She tasted the peppermint. Smelled the freesia. He had the look of someone carved from sandstone, sharp edges crumbled away for now, but he was slowly chiselling them back in.

Tension, like the charge in the air before the first lightning strike, thrummed in the atmosphere; a new dance had begun. One she hadn’t learned the steps of yet.

She held back a growl of pure irritation when she couldn’t parse his trick. “What now?”

He chuckled, a low, knowing sound. “Don’t worry. It’s simple.” He cocked his head, his gaze dropping to her mouth, to the discarded heart on the floor, before finally latching back onto her eyes. “What does love look like for a creature like you?”

The air vanished from her lungs as if an invisible hand had reached inside her chest and squeezed. Prying her ribs open one by one to get at them.

The urge to stomp her foot, to phase away from the question, burned in her. Even the bond warmed, it sparkled as her darkness froze to see if she’d answer.

You, her demon supplied unhelpfully. Against her will, her eyes flickered down to the cooling, fleshy organ lying between them.

Like that. Warm, still beating. Vulnerable in a way that... terrifying.

She couldn’t look too closely at the thought, or at the thing on the floor. So she didn’t. She met his gaze, let her lip curl, and walked past him.

She disappeared into the bathroom without a word. Heart rattling so loud, her pretense of calm seemed silly to them both. The blood was just an excuse she used to gain more time.

It was a barrier she needed to scour away before she faced him. Clean, the leathers peeled off, nothing left to hide behind.

Ash let out a laugh in a rush of cool air as the door snicked shut behind her. Almost, she almost said it. She didn’t have to. A tendril of her shadows still braided his neck.

It didn’t go with her. He did not interrupt her bath like he wanted to. He knew. Without any doubt. She’d come to him when she was ready.

She’d gradually responded to his attempts to get to know her over the last couple of weeks. She answered more often now.

In clipped conversations, she considered every way he could betray her if she told the truth.

Guarding every answer as if it were precious gold or diamonds until sure it wouldn’t be the death of her. He’d pushed enough.

The pieces she had given him would hold him over. For tonight, at least.

She’d answered his last question in her own twisted way. She’d speak it soon. He went to his room to dress and charge his phone.

Ordering dinner once it turned back on. He hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks. Neither had she.

He bought a veritable feast and specified her preference of no coriander. Recalling her disgust that very first night.

He had a mad impulse to cackle at how many things had changed since that fateful meeting, and yet still some things remained the same. Dumplings, once again.

Chinese food. The proper way to celebrate slaying some hunters. He wondered whether coriander tasted like soap to her. He’d ask later.

For now, he encased that mortal heart in ice so clear it looked like glass. A perfect frozen reliquary for their first real vow.

He left it on the table by the living room window. So the moonlight would strike it, transforming the muscle and arteries into a stained glass window—devotion for monsters.

He settled into the leather armchair. The chill of his skin made him sigh. The memory of her wildfire heat only made it worse.

He waited. Mind calm for once. The silence was now a sacred space between the sounds of her bathing.

And the thumping of her heart that chased and warded off the ghosts of his past. He recorded their conversation in his mental ledger. Whenever he doubted his place here, he’d relive it.

If or when the hunters succeeded and caught him, he’d have that excellent memory to sustain him. Loss, destruction, and abandonment wouldn’t be all he had now.

He had something worth more than power, control, and survival.

It was a new faith. One they decided, with its own bloody sacraments. She’d hate it. Hate the sentimental nature of it. He kept smirking.

That memory would never fade. If the worst happened, he’d fight like hell to get back to it.

The shadow still necklacing his throat hummed in agreement.