by Lana Sky
Air clawed its way into my lungs as I hauled myself upright using the wall for balance and threw myself between the gap in the curtains shielding our box.
The hallway beyond was deserted. Spinning and distorted. No matter where I looked, all I could see was endless red. It dripped from the walls and coated the floor. Drowning me…
Fabric snatched at my hands as I ran, feeling along the wall, desperate for a door, an exit. Anything. In the end, I staggered into an empty box and spotted a vase of roses. I ripped out the flowers by their stems, lowered my mouth over the neck of the vase, and—
Watery liquid erupted from my throat. The force of each wretch brought me to my knees, and it was all I could do to clutch the vase to my chest and heave.
I cringed into the shadows as heavy footsteps approached my corner and someone drew the curtain back.
A lingering chill lowered the atmosphere, identifying the intruder as clearly as if he’d shouted his name. But he said nothing, advancing toward my corner with broad strides. He crouched instead, sweeping my hair back as another wave of vomit spilled into the vase. When my stomach finally had nothing left, he took the vase away.
“Don’t,” I pleaded when his hand brushed my shoulder. I scurried out of reach as if burned. My face found the safety of my palms and I hunched into myself, too tired to keep the tears at bay. “Don’t touch me—”
“Eleanor, look at me.” He sounded too soft. Too gentle. “Look at me—”
“I can’t take this.” My voice bordered on shrill, alarmingly high-pitched. Broken. I couldn’t get enough air. My lungs were deflated, impossible to fill. God, I needed him to leave—only then could I break. “Get out! Just leave. Get away!”
“You’re hyperventilating. Breathe!”
“Stop!” My hands muffled the plea, but I couldn’t look at him. “Just leave me alone. Please. Leave me alone. I can’t… I can’t take it anymore—”
“You can’t? I knew that very first day,” he gruffly admitted. “That first day when you met my gaze, completely unafraid. I knew.” Heedless of my plea, he remained, still restraining my curls. “I knew you’d torment me to no end. I knew that you would thwart even my most well laid plans. I knew then and there that one encounter with you would never be enough.”
His voice was deeper than ever. Gone were the harsh bravado or bitter anger. This was Dublin Helos in a way I’d rarely experienced him.
Open and honest.
Yet I wanted to scream loud enough to drown him out.
“Please, go—”
“I’d met your sister before you,” he continued. Even level, I could never overpower the gritted cadence of his voice. “A beautiful creature. If there were any Gray doomed to tempt me, it would be her…” He trailed off, and nausea constricted my throat as I imagined everything he’d held back.
Him with Georgie, laughing at my naivety. Stinging tears fell without restraint, but in a sick, twisted way, there was peace in the agony. Finally—finally—he was telling me what I’d wanted to hear all along.
The full truth.
“I’ve avoided your kind throughout the centuries for a reason, the Grays, but…something made me confront her directly when she grew bold enough to challenge Raphael,” he continued, unconcerned as I shook my head in a silent plea. “I expected… She was beautiful, yes, but she aroused me no more than any other beautiful, talented soul I’d traded for centuries. In a way, I pitied her—the most interesting creature to spring from your bloodline since James and I was immune to even her charms. Still, I decided that selling her to Raphael would be a waste, so I intervened. Her dowdy, plain sister would make a useful pawn, but it would be for her benefit in the end. In one fell swoop, they’d both be spared, and I would have the last laugh over a creature I’d grown bored of serving. My plan was infallible—until I saw you.”
His voice lowered to a hiss. Me, Eleanor Gray, the bane of his existence. So infuriating that he couldn’t even refer to me without rage constricting his voice. He grabbed my wrists, wrenching me upright, tearing my shield away.
I closed my eyes instead. Facing rejection was easier this way. If only he would just get it over with. Stop twisting the knife.
“I get it,” I insisted. “I’ve always gotten it—”
“Do you?” His voice dripped directly into my ear, preceding the sensation of ice brushing my earlobe. His mouth? “I saw you and I experienced an irritation unlike anything I’d ever felt. This pathetic mortal woman had the nerve to spite my plans through sheer stubborn denial. Rather than come to me begging for life, you shrugged me off. Turned away. You looked me in the eye and merely scoffed at what I was—even your sister hadn’t done that.” He sounded more incredulous than impressed. “No…you were determined to spite me, even then, and I knew… No one could imagine such a doom.”
The coldness of his finger swiped at my cheek, brushing away a fresh wave of tears.
“And even now you’ll still deny it. I all but tell you out loud and it’s as though you slam your hands over your ears, childishly refusing to hear it. Then I push you away and you react as though you’re the one who has been wounded. Regardless, I am a fool.”
The stark admission startled me into opening my eyes. He looked so hollow, Dublin. A frown replaced his polished persona, his eyes narrowed. Gingerly, he brought his hand to the side of my face, tilting my jaw for his inspection.
“I am…sorry,” he confessed, but the words lacked true sympathy. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to saying them. In real time, he was relearning how to feel something as simple as empathy. “For doubting you. For hurting you—”
“You didn’t!” I scoffed. “You’re trying to get inside my head—you’re always inside my head!”
And I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration. My fingers curled, nails drawn, and I started to raise them, but he renewed his grip, stepping forward in the same smooth motion.
“Let me go,” I hissed.
His eyes flashed, and I waited for a cruel retort. He lowered his head instead, brushing his mouth against my forehead. Shock paralyzed me—his end goal.
“You’re in no state to be alone,” he murmured against my flesh, but his tone made me recoil. Soft again. Deceptive again. He sounded too much like he cared. “That’s why you are this way.”
“I’m always alone,” I pointed out, my voice hollow. “Always. Even my sister…” I couldn’t even say it. “And I’m dying, and I’m scared, and I’m alone. I’ll always be alone—”
His mouth found my lips, sealing them with a single motion. I faltered, flicking my tongue against his. It wasn’t fair. His taste teased my senses, a tempting drug, potent enough to take the pain away.
It hurt. My heart. My head. I couldn’t focus on everything Dmitri had said all at once or I’d go insane. I was going insane.
“Look at me.” He gripped my chin, tilting my head back, and met my gaze. His tongue traced his lower lip, reminding me of a predator wondering where to strike first on vulnerable prey. “You asked me once, why someone like me might be attracted to someone like you.” He brushed his thumb against my mouth but nothing more.
I inhaled raggedly, wanting…needing. Something. Anything.
As if aware of that, he angled himself even farther away from me. “I suppose that’s part of your appeal. Your innocence. You don’t even know what you do to me, do you?”
I bit my lip as our gazes connected. His burned, impossibly bright.
“Your smell. Your taste. You pretend that I bought you from Raphael to rescue your delicate soul from any other, but deep down, you know the truth: I wanted you for myself.”
“Lies,” I croaked. It was all I could say.
And he laughed. “What did I promise I’d do the next time you countered me?” He pretended to mull it over, stroking his chin, even as he advanced.
I held my breath.
With deliberate slowness, he fingered the delicate silk over my shoulder. Then he tugged, easing the fabric down until
my breasts threatened to slip free. “I said I would strip you naked.”
I watched in slow motion as my dress continued its guided descent. I didn’t recognize my body anymore. Flushed pink with arousal as if coming to life for him alone. Even as my mind was in turmoil.
Even as the world shattered beneath my feet, I belonged to him.
“And you questioned…” He shook his head, eyeing me the way one would a feast. Someone starving—but there was a flaw with his meal. Frowning, he grazed my cheek with his thumb, smearing the tears still streaming down it. I could see his thoughts shift—lust becoming pity. The contrast made my head hurt.
So I lunged forward, risking my balance to reach for the fastenings of his pants. “I don’t want to think,” I confessed as he stiffened. “Please. I don’t need coddling or sympathy. I just want…”
Sensation. His mouth on mine, his hands between my legs, delivering a dose of pleasure so potent that I’d shudder, arching wantonly into his touch.
Grays did not perform or require physical acts of comfort. We endured. “A strong inheritance is the only embrace you ever need,” my mother used to say.
So he didn’t hug me. He merely held me close instead. Close enough for me to cling to the front of his suit as though I were drowning. Close enough to bury my face against his chest and smother whatever sounds I made. I was shaking—that’s why his arms tightened around me, keeping me there, keeping me from completely breaking apart.
His hand caught my throat, but there was no violence in the gesture. Guiding me to face him, he met my lips with his. Chilling. Frozen. Distracting. My arms went around his neck, drawing me further into the kiss. Sloppy, bruising, skin against teeth.
I needed more. Only this could make the harsh interior of the theater and the agony in my chest disappear. Only he could make it stop. With more pain—his teeth grazing my tongue. His hand plunging between my legs.
More. More. More.
I rocked my hips into every touch, not giving a damn for anyone around to hear the groan that tore from my lips. It clashed with the opening lines of the orchestra. The opera was continuing, somewhere in another realm that felt eons away.
In my world, there was only him. Ice and fire. Skin and silk, twisting, rubbing, claiming.
Dublin.
“Please,” I croaked as he withdrew. My fingers shamelessly reached for him, clinging to whatever they could. “Please, I need you—”
He stood and snagged my wrist to haul me upright after him. One shift of his weight shoved me against a wooden sideboard pressed against the wall. It held only a vase of roses, which he easily batted aside. Then his hands gripped my hips, hauling me onto the smooth surface while he forced his bulk between my legs.
I spread them easily, allowing him to peel back the sleeves of my dress. My body spilled out from the silk, eager for his touch, and he devoured me with ravenous, groping hands.
My nipples stiffened for him, roughened by the merciless sensation of his chest against mine. Our mouths reconnected. Devoured. Fabric tore. Cool air assaulted my skin, preparing me for ice as he undid the fastenings of his pants. The flat of his hand caught my lower back, dragging me closer as he lunged, entering me in one thrust. Hard. Brutal. No mercy.
No care.
Just need that outlasted the soreness from the last time he’d taken me like this.
A scream caught in my throat, smothered by his palm. My head fell back. All I knew was pleasure and pain as I let my eyes close and rode every deep, punishing thrust.
With every one, I clawed at him, demanding more, more, more. Everything.
Only he had the power to erase my mind.
All I had to do was feel.
All I had to do was fall.
But even the Devil couldn’t extend the violent descent from Heaven.
Eventually, we both crashed, breathless and senseless. His mouth was on my neck. My hands were clutching fistfuls of his suit jacket, but even buried inside me, crushing me with his weight, he wasn’t close enough. His presence couldn’t snuff out the fear. The guilt. The doubt.
“Look at me.” He caught my chin in his palm, forcing me to meet his gaze.
I saw nothing there but silver. It blinded me just long enough for him to shrug his suit jacket from his shoulders and draw it around me. There was no one in the hallway beyond the private box as he helped me from the sideboard and pulled me out after him.
Any usher we passed said nothing but a cheerful greeting, and the rest of our surroundings blurred as he led me through winding corridors, then out into fresh air. Eventually, we entered his car.
The driver pulled off without a word, returning us to that secluded manor in the hills. I wondered if he owned it. I wanted to ask. Something trivial. Something mindless that might devolve into pointless small talk. My lips sprang apart, but by then, he was already hauling me out onto the curb and up the front walkway.
The door opened automatically, held by an unseen figure. I could only make out a blur of formless features before I found myself being dragged up the stairs. Into my bedroom.
There, in the darkness, he shoved the jacket from my shoulders, leaving my body bare. One bruising kiss robbed me of my senses. Then the mattress struck the back of my legs before he shoved me onto it fully.
Another kiss stopped time, kept eternity at bay.
I moaned, arching into every touch, every stroke, extending the barrier between reality.
Silk and ice became my world.
The only thing that mattered was feeling.
As long as he stayed.
In the Gray
Sleep was the one realm Dublin couldn’t follow me into, and alone, I traversed a hellscape of memories with nothing to shield myself from the pain.
Shadowed specters watched me, peeking from beyond a darkened veil. Only snippets of their faces were ever visible, but I knew their identities well enough.
Georgie. My parents. Death.
They all taunted from the abyss, cackling at my attempts to chase them away. But sprinkled in between their insults was a cruel truth that never ceased to echo.
Deformed.
Abomination.
Unnatural.
I startled awake, but reality was just as unwelcoming: a labyrinth of twisted sheets threatening to suffocate me. My fingers fanned out desperately, finding only empty, frozen space. Alone, I writhed, screaming my throat raw—but no real sound came out. Just gasping, broken whimpers. Sobs. Cries.
Despair weighed on my chest, crushing every ounce of air from my lungs.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m here.” Cold fingers caressed my spine, banishing the terror. Their owner rested beside me, and his mere presence was enough to keep the darkness at bay.
Tension drained from my limbs as gulps of air entered my chest. Drifting from my back, his hands cradled my hips, pulling me against the firmness of his body.
But the contact wasn’t enough. I squirmed until his grip tightened and comfort became possession. Grasping fingertips. Scratching nails. I was a slave to whatever he could make me feel.
Pain. Misery. Mercy.
Anything.
I craved it all.
And much like the doctor he pretended to be, he delivered each necessary dose. In his arms, hours unfolded like seconds. I endured them in a daze, aware of him leaving only long enough to let me catch snatches of sleep or to shove food into my mouth.
Eventually, I started to refuse even that much.
But my Devil persisted, unwilling to see me in Hell just yet.
“Eat.”
I cringed as he pressed something to my lips despite how hard I pursed them shut. Then I rolled onto my side to escape him, but he merely circled the bed, remaining in my line of sight. Balanced on his hand was a steaming plate, but I felt nothing even as the smell tickled my nose.
“Eleanor, eat.”
I shook my head, eyeing the ceiling in lieu of his darkening expression. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re starving.” He matched my apathy with aggression, his tone bordering on a growl.
But I couldn’t muster up the fear to heed him.
Numb, I buried my face against a pillow. Exhaustion preyed on my psyche, warning that sleep would come for me again. I didn’t even have the strength to fight it.
“Look at me.” He fisted his fingers through my hair, forcing me to face him.
For the first time, I noted how these hours had changed him. His eyes glowed, his fangs hanging freely.
Yet he still played pretend, trying once again to tempt me with a morsel stabbed on the end of a fork. “Eat.”
“Why?”
His throat jerked, but his lips trapped the answer. Because you’ll die.
“I’m fine.”
“Look at me.” He reached for my arm, but I didn’t mean to swat his hand away. The plate fell from his grip anyway, smashing into pieces at his feet.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, closing my eyes against the mess I’d made. Guilt slipped through my numb armor regardless, heralding dangerous, whispered thoughts. Desperate, I tried to banish them, gritting my teeth in concentration. Don’t think. Don’t.
Nonetheless, Dmitri’s words echoed in my skull anyway. Deformed. Dying. Horror.
I hunched away from them, clinging to the sheets, craving oblivion again. But already, Dublin wanted nothing to do with me.
He stood, crossing the room to snatch up the broken pieces of a porcelain plate. The sight of his back was a familiar one, all things considered. But God…not now.
My voice broke. “Don’t leave me—”
“I’m not,” he hissed even as he approached the door and wrenched it open. His gaze met mine as he crossed the threshold, honed like a knife’s edge. “But you will eat.”
The door slammed in his wake, but my boneless limbs kept me from chasing after him. I crawled to the edge of the mattress anyway. I was that pathetic. I’d fallen that far. His nearness alone could keep the thoughts at bay. The fear.
I would have done anything to extend it. Anything.
