30. I’d Put It Into Poetry If I Only Knew How

Liora finished combing her towel-dried hair, leaving it loose and hanging down her back. The white silk robe she wore only just skimmed her bare thighs.

The matching shorts and camisole underneath kept her covered, but she felt like she was naked. And she’d only feel even more exposed once she faced him again.

She loosed a shaky breath. She had washed the blood away, let it slide down the drain and emerged clean. Free of all her usual restraints. Her heart picked up speed.

It was a trot, not the usual slow, metronomic thud.

The terrifying truth of why she stood there settled deep in her core. It was a ball of conflicting emotions and centuries-old survival instincts warring; she had chosen to stop running from it.

She didn’t want to hide anymore, though it seemed safest. She wanted him. Wanted to fuck him, feed him, and touch him.

To claim something for herself. Only for her.

To take what she wanted with no pretense of denial or fighting him for foreplay first. It was petrifying. Her hands quaked as she smoothed them down her robe.

The silk warmed to her temperature. Ears straining and teeth worrying her bottom lip.

He moved around just through the door she was gearing herself up to walk out of. Quiet footsteps, slight inhalations of his breath, and creaking floorboards were the only sounds apart from her heart’s frantic beating.

Her stomach flipped and grumbled as she heard him walk to the front door.

She frowned as it opened then closed, and she couldn’t hear him anymore. Her pulse jumped in her neck—he shouldn’t leave. Not alone. Why was he leaving?

Doubts crept in. The same warnings and lessons and the mistakes she’d vowed never to repeat seven times before repeated in her head. The past rose, dragging her down, down, down.

The bathroom dissolved into a murky place. Blinded by the agony radiating through her skull. The temple was dank.

Its crumbling walls echoed her furious cries. She smelled it as her hands gripped the marble sink in the present.

The scent of church incense, old sweat, and burning horn. Rasputin’s pious orders after he caught her without her glamor. Holding her down, his lightning-wreathed hand scorched her temple.

“These are unnatural. Cursed antlers,” he’d spat, Madeira wine soaked his breath and laced the spittle sprinkling her pained face. “You’ll kneel, demon whore.”

Electricity speared her horn, and she screamed, flailing like a fish before the hammer came down. His voice faded into the blackness of her memory and released her.

Her own mind took over the diatribe.

You’re too much. Too monstrous. No one could ever love you.

They’ll only ever want to own you. Bind you. Break you. Run.

Run before you have no choice.

The old urges shot through her system, and she jolted, gritting her teeth as she stood her ground. Barefoot on the tiles, she sighed and shoved it all away.

She could walk onto a battlefield alone, face down an army of hunters or monsters without a single fear or doubt. But this?

This was... she shuddered and rubbed her hand over her chest, the muscle frothing behind her sternum. This was something that could destroy her, and if he did, she’d given him the codes to do it.

There was a boulder on her back, trying to grind her to dust and keep her trapped in that liminal space. Her head hung low.

Her limbs didn’t know if they wanted to fill with lead or helium. She swayed. And told herself to get a grip as her eyelids slid to half-mast.

She was so tired of herself and the cycles she spiralled through. The running, the constant struggle between letting him in and pushing him away... she didn’t want to do it anymore.

Five hundred years of solitary living, battles, and betrayals. Was this the end of it all? Or the start of something worse?

She had realized, while peeling the hunter’s flesh from his bones and forcing him to scream Ash’s name, that she didn’t really care.

Even if it killed her, she needed to follow this to its end to see where it led.

See if his words and actions were true once and for all. If he came back from wherever he had gone, while she fought her own war in here.

She sent a shadow to follow him, telling it to monitor him while he was out of her sight. It slithered away.

She relaxed an inch. The budding bloom of dangerous hope had taken root without her noticing. And now that she had, she did not have the heart to cut it out.

Whether it had been his persistence, his constant presence and inability to shut up, his refusal to back down—he’d worked his way in. He’d assailed every wall and hurdle she’d thrown up.

Infuriating, insufferable, absolutely reckless. He’d lain in wait like a ground fire, unnoticed or easily dismissed until the first ribbon of smoke breached the earth.

By the time the entire forest was aflame, it was already over. He was in her, and she wanted to keep him. She just had to leave the bathroom.

Before she could gather the nerve to do it, Ash walked back inside the penthouse. Locking the door behind him. Her dark tendril snuck back to her and refused to tell her what he was doing.

She scowled at her darkness, but it was smug. Hissing at her to be patient. Ash’s voice cut through her internal, ignored interrogation.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I think I can handle meeting the delivery guy, Red.” He chuckled, pausing. “Come eat.”

Liora jerked, wanting to groan. Cheeks heating, mouth trying to curve. Face bare of makeup. Her usual facade washed away with the blood, sweat, and viscera.

She shook her head. A huffed, breathy laugh left her. He’d ordered dinner. To her apartment. And he hadn’t bothered to ask first.

The idea had never crossed her mind.

He’s a clever lad! If he’d asked, you’d have said no. Stop brooding and go. He bites, but you like that!

Her demon tittered, and Liora rolled her eyes.

She drew a long breath, held it for several seconds, then released it. Now or never.

Her shoulders went back, head held high as she walked out of the enclosed space. Following the noise of cupboards banging shut to the living room.

He’d set out two fine china plates and an assortment of shining silver cutlery. He’d gone back through to the kitchen. She scanned the scene before her.

He’d laid everything out on top of the oak coffee table in the center of the space. A myriad of red and white Chinese takeout containers decorated the tabletop.

Chopsticks, egg rolls, pork buns, and an array of different dumplings and dishes greeted her. Her nervy gaze wouldn’t settle. The sound of a bottle opening and liquid pouring through in the kitchen was almost comical to her at that moment.

Her eyes snagged on the receipt lying beside the crockery. It was in her hand before she registered moving.

She read the handwritten note scrawled under the order in blue ink:

No coriander/cilantro as requested.

Her heart stopped.

Throbbing and swelling as she stared and stared at the small slip of paper. From her periphery, she saw him standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

No smugness like she expected. It was a frozen intensity, as though her reading those words was the most important thing happening in the world.

He vanished from view as she set it back down. A jagged lump lodged in her throat. Her claws unsheathed and sheathed again as a tremor wove down her spine. Fuck.

Gods, how did she navigate this? Maybe she should wait.

Wait until she could pretend he didn’t see right through her and remembered everything about her. She should wait until her past lives weren’t screaming at her.

Cackling and jeering and biting at her for being stupid enough to believe she could have this. More dreadful memories surfaced as she stood there.

Her toes curled into the plush rug, her only tether as her mind swallowed her again. She sat at a formal dining table in a private lounge in Cambridge.

Half-written poems and the ramblings of a mind unable to rest or shut up lay crumpled around the room. Another lover.

Another meal that seemed as if it would to lead to more—he was one of the first to see her true self.

Byron’s horrified face erupted in her head.

He’d giggled at first when she let the horns curl from her temples.

Trusting him after weeks of sonnets, steamy nights, and silver-tongued praise spoken into her sticky skin. The high, drunken screech of that laughter grated through her.

“What—what are they? Put them away. Stop it!” He said, all his poetic grace lost while confronted with her truth. “Disgusting. You’re no woman!”

That was the first time she had understood it. The idea of fucking, of loving a demon was only palatable when she didn’t appear like one. It had sliced deeper than any weapon ever had.

The scales had burst free. She’d rocked back in her chair as if shoved and gaped at him. Claws scored the mahogany tabletop. He’d screamed at the sight of her.

Howled like a man possessed and threw himself on the floor. Crawling away from her sobbing, on all fours.

He hadn’t even seen the rest of her monstrous self, but it was enough to make him piss himself on his way out. She had phased, leaving her meal uneaten and promising herself she’d kill him tomorrow.

She did, but the damage was done.

Shame had forever replaced her hunger, her very core self. The vision cleared; her parlour and Ash’s idea of a Kings feast were all she saw. She rapidly blinked, clenched her jaw, and tried to calm her breathing.

Her body vibrated with the desire to leave before she debased herself again. Waiting was the safe option. Maybe she could try again later.

Yes. Later was better...

She sat down.

Ash almost tripped at the sight of her as he approached slowly. Hands full with two glasses of her expensive bourbon. She sat cross-legged on the floor, fingers toying with the hem of her robe.

Her damp hair hung loose, claws gone, no hateful mask, and shadows docile for once. She looked so utterly human, he couldn’t believe it was her at first. Her gaze flew to his, her face bare, her expression open.

She appeared smaller and younger than he’d ever seen her.

He memorized her in that moment and went preternaturally still. Afraid if he moved, the vision of her might shatter.

The air left him all at once, ribs aching, fingers itching to smooth away the worry marking her face, and throat clogging. This was the woman beneath the monster.

The one he’d relentlessly been unearthing. And tonight, somehow, someway, she was offering herself to him. The sheer, defenseless trust in that act was more disarming than any of her violence.

A feather could’ve knocked him flat. Beautiful. She always was, but it was a fiery punch to his chest tonight. He smoothed his stride and smiled his slanted smile. He set down the drinks and sat across from her.

He hunted for words, but his brain would only focus on cataloguing how different she looked. She looked... freer.

The leather and braids were gone. She had no snarls or shuttered eyes. Her toned, scarred legs were totally bare. Shit. He couldn’t find anything to say.

A horrible first for him. Frost glimmered on his glass as he sipped from it.

He nearly choked on the smoky liquid when she broke the tension-strumming silence. “Why didn’t they ring the bell?”

It took him a moment to catch up and understand what she meant. His chuckle came out rough, mortal, even to him.

“I thought you wouldn’t want them knowing the exact address. I told them to meet me in the lobby.”

She nodded, pulse racing and eyes darting over him and around him. She even smelled nervous. It put him on edge.

The same one she was on. He’d courted it but never fully believed she’d let him hone her to this precision.

Had she noticed the heart he’d encased in ice by the window? Nah. Definitely not. She’d have yelled something at him if she had.

He reached for the box of chow mien noodles as she picked up a pork bun and tore it in half. Inspecting the steaming insides as the scent of Char Sui infused the air. He laughed.

“I haven’t poisoned it. I even told them not to add coriander to anything.” He cocked his head as she chuckled.

It was only a tiny chuckle, but it struck him as though she’d howled it.

“I couldn’t tell them the demon who’d be eating them was a picky eater, but I tipped enough for them to agree to the request.”

“I’m not picky. It tastes like—”

“—soap?” He finished, grinning.

She nodded, ripping off a small piece of her bun off and popping it in her mouth. Chewing it carefully, swallowing it before she replied, “Does it taste different to you?”

He blinked. He hadn’t expected a follow-up question. It was as though he were outside of his body, watching from above. Was he going mad?

Was she? Maybe the restaurant had poisoned the food.

“It’s... fresh, lemony. Sometimes peppery. Depends what it’s in.” He shrugged, munching on a shrimp dumpling.

“That still doesn’t sound very nice,” she said, frowning at him.

He just laughed again. Low and rich and threaded with something she’d tried to avoid and now tried to hold on to. Even though it was more awkward than any compromising position she had ever been in.

Liora took a bigger bite of her food to give herself time to consider what to do or say next. He spooned out some shrimp fried rice onto her plate and told her to help herself. The sweet and savory pork melted in her mouth.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down and eaten a meal. It was usually candy bars, chocolate to ease the succubus hunger that needed to be fed more often these days.

Or it was something convenient she could scarf down while on the go. Or she fed on him.

A warm flush crept up her neck as she shifted her weight.

Replays of every time she’d gorged on him rolled across her mind’s eye. Liora smothered the sensual, mental onslaught before he caught a hint in her scent.

Her shadows lay like living smoke on the surrounding floor. They seeped under the table to float around Ash as they ate.

She tasted almost nothing. Her heart raced faster and faster as she sat there. She was almost grateful when his questions started up again.

“So, are the pork buns or fried rice mediocre? I think it’s too late to resurrect the hunter that shot me that one time, but I’m sure we can find another one.”

His silver eyes glittered like polished knives as she tried and failed to suffocate an exasperated smile.

“Let’s not risk it. You have a knack for finding strange and inventive ways to die and I just bathed. Wait until tomorrow.”

“Killjoy,” he said, grinning, all white teeth and familiar arrogance. “Can you actually resurrect someone?”

His tone had turned serious. He leaned forward, not breathing, and watched her as if he needed the answer to live.

“Only if I get there in time. There’s only a small window for it to work or only the body returns. It... the Shroud doesn’t like me using that power too often.”

Ash rocked back, mind wheeling as he filed the information away to add to his records later. The Shroud.

He knew of it. Hadn’t ever bothered to worry about it or consider what it did. Why would he? He hadn’t asked to become what he was. But the word triggered the memory of her on the docks and the question he’d meant to ask her since.

“What’s the deal with that? Didn’t you call yourself the—what was it?—Shroud-Keeper?”

Her eyes latched onto his. Hand stilling above her plate, chopsticks stalled mid-air with a soup dumpling poised halfway to her mouth.

Her heart rate had never slowed the entire time they’d been eating. He couldn’t seem to ease it.

Every attempt made it skip more. He didn’t think she’d answer. Ash exhaled at the same time she did.

“It’s my duty to make sure it never falls again.”

Ash wanted to groan but held it back. This was the most awkward thing they’d ever done together. Still, he wouldn’t change it. They’d get over it, and it would go smoother after this.

He crossed his fingers that the thought would hold true.

“I don’t know what that means,” he admitted. Scratching the back of his neck, grimacing. “I know it’s the source of magic. That there’s a Balance to keep. But there’s not much out there about it.”

She smirked. “There wouldn’t be. I erased it.”

He tracked her movements as she drank a mouthful of bourbon.

Hanging onto her every word as she went on, “If the Shroud falls, the world does too. My job is to keep supernatural creatures in line and... end them when they become a detriment. The hunters are skewing the Balance to their side every time they kill one of us.”

Ash went so still, blinking seemed to shatter his skin. He shelved the part about the hunters. They’d spoiled enough already.

Tonight was theirs. “How do you know when that happens? When you need to kill somebody to keep the Balance up?”

“My shadows. They’re of the Shroud. They feel the disturbance in it when the time comes. A gift when I was reborn as this.”

She waved a hand at herself.

Finally. He half thought he was dreaming but trusted it anyway. She’d never been so forthcoming. He wasn’t wasting a second of it.

“Is that why you’re so feared?”

Her shoulders stiffened as she nodded. She didn’t elaborate. His stomach twisted unpleasantly, mouth drying out, and lips pressing together. What a lonely, heavy existence.

No wonder she fought so hard to keep him out. He fished for another thing to ask before she clammed up again.

“When was the last time you had to kill someone?”

She sighed. Wouldn’t meet his eye. “Rasputin. He was hellbent on ruling Russia and didn’t care if he outed us all to do it.”

She glanced at him and arched a brow at the snarl furling his mouth. A green glint in his eyes. He white-knuckled his plastic chopsticks.

The snap as they broke, cracked like the first rock in a landslide.

“Calm down, leech. He was strictly business.” She feigned a wince, rubbing salt in the wound. “I wanted to see if the rumors of his stamina were true.”

His expression smoothed. The tension in him melted away so abruptly she shook her head. Mercurial to the extreme. All of him. Life hadn’t beaten it out of him yet.

Good. She’d kill it if it ever did.

“Does everyone know you work for the Shroud? Is there a class we can take to learn it all?” His disgruntled tone was clear as a bell.

The subject change was like whiplash.

She considered it. Poking at that bear. Ultimately, she let it go. Her body was warm all over. A quiver rolling beneath her skin.

“Not everyone. The oldest ones do. And a few demons still call me by that title. I’ve contracted their services.”

“Like Barbatos?”

She set her chopsticks down. Drinking the last of her bourbon. It burned down her oesophagus and merrily flickered in her stomach. She rinsed her mouth of chili oil.

“Prick.” Was all she said with a sneer.

He burst out laughing.

Her demon sighed dreamily, ahh. Isn’t he lovely? He is learning us so well. Let him.

Her shadows lapped at his knees and agreed; it’s safe.

Safe? Was it? Was he?

Yes.

Every voice other than her own yelled. She knew. But full acceptance was terrifying.

“Your chat with him didn’t go well?” Ash said, pulling her out of her thoughts. Had he heard them? She wouldn’t ask.

Her chest tightened. Knee bouncing as her toes curled and uncurled. Heart still beating itself against its ivory prison.

“No. But I think it’s alright now.”

The truth of the words made her eyes widen. A sharp inhale as her chest caught. Mind quiet for once.

It was alright. The thought of an eternity with their bond and him in close proximity didn’t seem like a death row sentence anymore.

The bond wasn’t a noose now. She wasn’t sure when it had changed. How it had changed. But it had. It now was...

The closest thing she’d had to a home. A violent, blood-drinking, power-leeching little bat had made this old, hollow house feel like home.

Eternity wasn’t boring anymore. Sex wasn’t a curse she had to force herself through.

Oh, oh.

She was fucked. Probably had been for longer than she wanted to acknowledge. Ash didn’t seem to notice her sudden silence.

He’d gone quiet too as he drained his liquor and tidied away the open containers. His usual laser focus wasn’t on her for the moment.

He sat with his legs stretched out, hands braced on the floor after he finished closing the boxes. His eyes had locked onto something near the window. Liora took the opportunity to do something she couldn’t come back from.

For the first time, she let herself look at him.

Really look at him.

To see him as a lover, something to ignite her, and not a gelid chain seeking to tame her.

The sharp cheekbones, stubbled, strong jaw, and thick lashes framing his mirror-like irises. His raven hair, always tousled just so. She wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose or if it lay like that on its own.

Her fingers ached to card through the silken strands. Handsome. Despite the vampire curse that normally set their species at odds, he was handsome.

Chiselled from survival, secret strength, and stubborn determination to outlast every monster or hunter that came before or for him. And she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it clearly until now.

Her entire body turned pliant as all the pent-up tension bled out of her. Venom pooled sweet and hot under her tongue. Her demon uncoiling, stretching, and bathing in the freshly kindled flames licking to life inside her. Lips tingling as her eyes dropped to his mouth.

Her hands twisted in her silk robe as she nodded to herself. Heat flared so bright, she knew he’d sense it through the bond soon. Restless energy ran rampant through her muscles.

Urging her to take. To taste and bite and mark him as hers. So everyone knew who he belonged to. It was more potent than any drug, any poison she’d ever imbibed.

He turned to her just as she hauled her attention back to his eyes. He pointed to the crab rangoons she hadn’t touched, and he’d put away.

“What? Did you want—” he cut himself off as he read what must surely be obvious on her face.

The wildfire pouring through the tether between them finally snared him. And he was not afraid of it. Or of her.

He never had been. He’d called her ‘Red’ from the start despite knowing what she was. She should’ve known then.

Her lived experience had destroyed that chance. Throughout her eternity, her wants had always formed into weapons used against her whenever she risked revealing them.

They were things to be exploited, mocked, and never treasured. Ash’s gaze held no mockery.

Only a waiting, cold calm. As if he’d known this was coming. And he just had to be there until it did. She stopped thinking.

Liora simply moved.

She hadn’t decided to do it. It was pure instinct. One she had hidden from for too long. He’d proven himself time and time again. It was time.

One second, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and the next, she was in his lap. Knees bracketing his hips, her hands fisted in the soft cotton of his black shirt.

Her blood rushed in her ears, deafening her to everything but him. The cold, hard body she had come to know better than her own. He knew how to make hers sing louder than she thought was possible.

The world tilted as she pushed him down on the rug. Her damp hair curtained their faces as her shadows formed a living cage around them.

For a stuttered heartbeat, he was a statue beneath her. Silver eyes blown wide and brimming with unadulterated shock and a little bit of victory.

The clever retorts, the raised brow, the indelible smirk—all gone. Wiped clean. In its place was an open, stunned silence.

More vulnerable than any word he’d ever spoken. Frost spread across the floor and over the oak table in a fine film. Crackling on his empty glass beside his fingers.

“Liora?...” His voice was little more than a ragged breath.

She inhaled him into her lungs and let him settle there. There was no need to reply. Words were his weapon, not hers.

Actions were her truth. Her fingers trembled, chest catching, and eyes blurring as she lowered her head.

Lips a hairsbreadth from his, her scent of pomegranates and burnt sugar entwining with his bergamot, flooded both their senses as his nostrils flared. His mouth parted, and his icy hands framed her hips.

He trembled too, clutching her like he thought she might vanish if he didn’t hold on. It made her brave.

“No more talking,” she whispered. The command came out scraped, shaking, and unguarded.

Then, she closed the distance and kissed him. Hard and soft and everything in between. It wasn’t a fight for dominance this time. For her surrender.

She’d already given that. This was a need, a necessity she’d pushed away for too long and refused to endure another second without it. His chilly mouth moved against hers once he got over the shock of it.

A muffled growl rumbled through his chest and into hers. Making her blood surge even faster, scorching in her veins to warm him too.

His hands buried in her hair, dragging her nearer in. Fingers hooked into her roots.

Tugging the long copper strands to angle her head, deepening the kiss as he let her in. Her tongue brushed against his, tasting his relieved triumph and melting away his chill.

He let her lead him, let her explore and find her way. She’d never initiated sex with him or anyone.

She always allowed them to take what they wanted. To get it over with, ease the hunger pangs.

She wanted to savor him. The clumsy kiss swiftly became so consuming and arousing, she forgot how to breathe.

Wet heat pooled thick and fast between her thighs, her caramelised scent strengthening as he hardened under her. His stubble scraped the tender skin around her mouth pink and made it tingle.

She bit his lip hard enough to bleed, blood budding like black-ice as her tongue swept it away. He groaned, hips bucking into her as his grip on her hair flexed and pulled.

Repeating the move when she ground down on his hard length, trapped behind his jeans. She mewled into the kiss as her flimsy silk shorts clung to her slick folds.

More, his body said, echoing hers. It was all the encouragement she needed.

Her shadows tightened their cage, plunging them into a private, midnight-silent world of their making. A world where only this, only they mattered.

The taste of bourbon, ice, and the dark, buttery, metallic tang of his blood on her tongue all that existed.

The familiar sensation of his glacial hands disentangling from her hair to scorch paths up her bare thighs beneath her robe was her favorite new prayer. He pushed the silk aside.

And left a trail of prickling gooseflesh in his wake as he kissed her back with equal force. Equal desires. She didn’t know how long it went on before they broke for air.

Both panting, foreheads pressed together, and both quaking.

His voice was a wrecked, husky thing. “The bedroom,” he murmured against her lips, his thumbs stroking the sensitive skin of her scarred inner thighs as she twitched and pressed closer. “For once, let’s use the fucking bed.”

Liora chuckled, the genuine sound rusty and raspy from disuse, and she did not argue.

She phased them in a swirl of shadow, frost, and impatience from the living room rug to the center of her large, unmade bed.