by Liza James
“Tell me,” Luna quickly turns to Camden for the answers and suddenly I hate everything about this moment in time, everything that’s lead to this. The fact that she’s learning this personal truth about herself from anyone other than me. I loathe him for offering it to her so willingly. I hate her for asking this of him, asking for his touch and I despise that I had to witness it.
I need Sam, my distraction—anything that would change the outcome of what’s about to happen.
“You do have Angel blood in your veins,” he starts. The rushing sound in my head is loud and I’m unsure how Luna will handle this which worries me even more. She’s only recently learned that we exist in her world at all. “But you also have another’s blood. You were born of both Angel and Demon. Both coexist inside of you.” He hesitates for a moment before detailing her legitimacy. “You aren’t human, Luna. Both you and Stella are half Angel and half Demon.”
Silence. Luna stares back at Camden. His hand reaches up as he offers a sympathetic smile, brushing his thumb against her pale cheek. Her small body continues to tremble and her head whips back to meet my gaze. Her eyes are piercing, dark and wildly angry as she turns to face me. “You knew this?” She’s quiet, her voice barely above a whisper.
Pain sears through me at the understanding she’s coming to. Again, I curse myself for drinking on such an important night for her and yet I know, after all is said and done, that I’ll still be angry with her for choosing him tonight. Irrationally angry with unjustified rage. But angry all the same. This is why I never wanted to bond again. It was a constant whirlwind of conflicting emotions.
“I knew,” I reply to her, squaring my shoulders and readying myself for her wrath.
“When?”
I open my mouth to answer her but realize that I want this moment for us alone. “Leave,” I motion towards Camden and notice the small smirk lifting at his lips. He glances down to Luna and squeezes her upper arm in encouragement.
“If you need me, call me. I’ll be here,” he tells her. I contemplate killing him now, in this moment for offering her the support I should be willing to give her. She nods in thank you and he walks past me back into my home, intentionally bumping against my shoulder on the way in. I’m this close to ripping the motherfucker’s head off, but I force my attention to stay on Luna.
“Since I found you with Amelia and Danner,” I admit.
“How? How could you possibly have known that?” she asks, taking a step away from me and back towards the railing. I follow her, step for step until I’m standing only a foot away. I take her agony and let it punish me. I absorb the pain she’s experiencing, even if I can’t feel it directly through our connection. I see it all written across her face and in her tense little body.
“Amelia said you were born of Archophys and Estera. I think you were nearly unconscious at that point. I don’t know how much you actually remember of that night. They cut you, let your blood fall on her skin and it turned black against her flesh. That was how I knew it was true. Demon blood transforms against our skin,” I explain as I place both hands on either side of the railing behind her, confining her to our private moment. I watch as tears build in her eyes and she fights them back. I can feel the war inside myself, begging me to reach out and lay my rough hands against her soft skin. Urging me to feel the cool breeze of her body against mine, to experience the touch of my Fated as we ride out this wave together. She craves me and everything in my soul is hungry to devour her.
“Who are they? My parents?” Her voice is even smaller in the space between us and my eyes selfishly fall to her rosy lips. I blatantly ignore her question. Few inches separate my aching body from hers and the need to suck her pillow like lower lip in between my teeth and bite is overwhelming. As if she knows this, like she can still feel my desire through the drunken haze of our bond, she sucks her lip in between her own teeth and away from me. A low growl breaks free from my throat as I sink closer to her, letting my nose drift across the fallen locks of her dark hair and inhale her scent.
For me.
Fucking floral peonies, the addictive smell of roasted coffee, and something sweet and bitter lying underneath. Vanilla bean and cacao.
Her arousal, perfectly tailored to infect my mind and electrocute my blood as it pumps through my veins. My cock is straining against my jeans, pushing and kicking to be closer to her.
Don’t touch her skin. Don’t touch her skin.
I feel her sharp intake of breath as I bury myself deeper into her hair, trying to curb the craving desire I have to touch her by breathing in as much of her scent as I possibly can. Her eyes drift closed, and her chest begins lifting and falling in strong, powerful breaths. She’s taking everything she can from this as well, flourishing in the space between us. Even as the blood bond is numbed, I can feel the power and strength of our Fated connection growing. The fire blazes underneath my skin and mingles with the icy wisps of hers, coming together before stopping abruptly, just short of complete integration. I know the potential of what could happen if we took this Fate and made it ours. Luna has never shown signs of any sort of ability on her own, she isn’t fully Angel or Demon. But together, there’s a chance, a high fucking probability even, that we’d manifest something magnificent.
Luna lifts her hand and reaches for my face, intending to take this moment between us for herself. I tense, immediately straightening and stepping back, shattering the trance we had fallen into. A small, quiet whimper escapes her lips at the rejection and the separation between us. But I can’t take it back, as painful as it is, this can never happen between us. I don’t have anything left to give anyone. It will always be safer for Luna to go back to her own life when we can manage this, live out the rest of her existence as a human would.
In a split second, I watch as anger quickly replaces the simpering pain in her eyes. Her mind rapidly clears from the hazy daze we had slipped into. “What the actual fuck, Elijah?” she spits out, and honestly, I’m relieved at her anger.
Anger, I can deal with.
It’s the possibility of fucking caring—loving again—that I can’t do.
“You weren’t ready to know, Luna. You still aren’t fucking ready,” I tell her, resentment laced in my harsh tone. “You were raised as a human. You were never around anyone from our race. You could have lived a traditional human life and been happy.” I take another step back, creating the division between us that we so desperately need.
“It’s me, for Christ’s sake. I have the right to know about my own blood, my own family.” Her small fists clench at her sides as she fights to keep her voice down.
“I don’t give a shit, honestly,” I scrub my hand down my face in frustration. “One day, you’ll go back to your own life when we can manage this bond separately. You’ll live out the rest of your days as a normal person, doing regular, ordinary things.”
She laughs. A bitter, sadistic laugh that tears through her throat and poisons the air around us. “You think, after all of this, I’m going back? That I’ll simply forget everything I’ve learned and everything I am?” She lifts her hands and rests them on her head, gripping her hair and clearly trying not to pull. “You made me get rid of my fucking apartment, Elijah! You bonded me and now I can’t stand the fucking sight of you and I can’t stay the hell away from you either.” Luna turns and begins pacing back and forth across the deck.
Our bond is billowing between us. She doesn’t realize that the pull of emotions flowing through her are pushing at my own simultaneously. We’re like oil and water, refusing to mix even when our souls beg to do so.
The chilly air around us is ice cold one moment and blazing hot in the next. Our sentiments are riled and perfuming through the air, warring for control with each other when truly, they simply need to merge.
But neither of us will submit that easily.
I can’t fucking believe him. The actual nerve he has to think he can control me? He’s got another thing coming. Honestly though, it’s no skin o
ff my back. Camden has made it clear that he will give me the answers I want, and he’s fucking hot. That’s just a bonus.
My blood is frozen in my body, slow moving with an icy rage that’s stuck in my throat. Elijah has completely shut down and placed his walls back in front of him. One second, he’s breathing me in, feeding my desperate hunger for him, filling me in almost every way I want him too.
Almost.
Because holy fuck, in those moments, when we’re so close that I can feel his heat radiating into my skin and warming my cold blood? That empty ache between my thighs is craving to be filled by his cock as well. I physically burn to have him inside of me, have his lips devouring my own. I need to feel his rough hands exploring my body, in ideally an even rougher way.
It surprises me that I instinctively know how I want it from him. I know how he would give it to me. Hard, demanding, dominantly harsh in ways that would complement my odd need to surrender to him.
“Fuck you, Elijah,” I spit out, denying the quick turn my thoughts had taken.
“Not in your dreams, mo dheamhan,” his voice is thick with heat and irritation. But he isn’t me, he isn’t nearly as pissed as I am.
“What the hell does that mean?” I shout as I step around him. He grips my upper arm before I completely pass. His fingers bite through the sleeve of my dress as he drags me up against his side, close, but not close enough to touch.
“My Demon,” he whispers the two words against my ear as his hot breath floods my body. A sarcastic bite lines his tone and I know he doesn’t mean it as an endearing term.
A fucking Demon.
You’ve got to be kidding me. But how do I even deny it? We shouldn’t have been able to bond if I didn’t at least have some amount of Angel blood within me, or so I’ve been told. It should be no surprise I have Demon as well. It would explain my ability to attract outrageously shitty situations though, that’s for sure.
“This can’t be happening to me. None of it, it doesn’t make fucking sense.” I rip my arm from his grasp and stalk towards the back door leading inside his house.
“Believe it, sweetheart. You’ve already been here a week, you feel it in your gut. It sings in your blood, whether you want it to or not. I get it,” he pauses for a beat. His eyes turning towards mine and meeting me head on. “I don’t want you.”
I don’t want you.
It shouldn’t hurt. God, I fucking wish it didn’t pain me to hear him utter those words. But the excruciating confession feels like a knife slicing through my soul, tearing it in half and ripping off limbs I find essential to my being. I shut my eyes tightly, forcing back the stinging tears and refuse to show him that I actually care. No, I stopped begging a long ass time ago and I’m not about to start now.
I open my eyes again, letting a calm and casual smile fall against my face. A mask I should have put in place a long time ago but am just now trying to manipulate to my own needs.
“Say it again,” I demand, knowing that hearing the words will internally shatter my little facade. I need to hear it though. I need to force him to say the words a second time.
His eyes widen for a moment as the smallest flash of pain sparks in his bright gaze. An inky darkness swims through them as he steels his callous expression back into place. That’s it, I want that again. I want to see that pain in his eyes as he fucking rejects me. I can’t feel it, he’s blocked me out of the bond too much for me to read anything from him.
So, I’ll push him this way. Make him say the words he promises he means yet agonizes over voicing.
“Do it. Fucking say it again, Elijah.”
“Why?” His voice is deep and sinister against the night sky, making it seem even lighter than the darkness surrounding his large body.
“Because I fucking said so.” I turn on my heels and stalk back over to him, stopping only inches away from his powerful chest. I feel the electricity buzz back to life between us, vibrating around our frames in a mix of lust and revulsion. “Tell me again. I want to hear you say it. Remind me that whatever this is between us, this blood bond you initiated, is nothing to you.”
He leans down, his soft lips only breaths away from mine. My achingly hard nipples brush against his chest with every breath I take. I try to remain cool and apathetic, prove to him that I don’t care if he wants me or not. The hairs stand on the back of my neck at our tense interaction however, every pulse inside my body is lighting up with our proximity and bond.
“I. Don’t. Want. You.”
He says it. Enunciating each word with a powerful punch to my chest. My skin feels like it’s peeling off of my body, his fire licking through me as I burn alive in front of him.
But I see it, the hatred in his eyes as he watches me. It’s not a hatred directed at me though. It’s the way I can see him internally reflecting the words back at himself that really gets me. I don’t feel this through the blood bond, I can’t. But it’s a knowledge that simmers just below the surface of what connects us. I don’t understand it, but it’s something else. Something deeper, a thinner wire that runs directly from his soul to mine, uniting us and throwing me off at the realization of how deep our connection is.
“I don’t believe you,” I choke out. I don’t need the blood bond to see the way he watches me. I don’t need to feel his emotions in order to see them written so clearly in his tortured eyes.
“Well then,” he straightens his spine, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning away from me. “I’ll just have to change that, now won’t I?”
Great. Just fucking great.
I spend the rest of the evening in my room, stewing over my own thoughts and trying to make some sort of sense out of this fucking mess. Eventually, I’m going to need to talk to Stella and tell her everything. How the hell am I supposed to explain what I’ve learned? What we are? She’s my full-blooded sister, that’s the only thing I know for sure. Other than the fact that we were abandoned when we were too young to remember anything. My memories are filled with new families, foster homes, foster siblings, and social workers until I was seventeen and filed the necessary paperwork to get myself and Stella out.
I was never given the names of our parents, no one actually knew. We were left at Safe Haven—a small refuge establishment in the city—until we were collected and taken to the hospital for routine checks before finally being filtered through the system. Thankfully, our social worker kept us together, insisting that we needed to go as a pair. She was kind, but it never stopped my need for us to be out on our own.
No one claimed us.
No one wanted us.
I don’t want you.
The words seem to be repeated over and over again, throughout my entire life.
“No one wants you. You’re good for one fucking thing.”
The memory from seven years ago bites at my mind, clawing its way up to remind me of that horrible night. It started out just like any other, I was walking home from Stella’s apartment and I took a detour, a quicker route to get home because it was so late. I just wanted to get off the streets sooner, but what a fucking mistake that was. Ironic too, trying to stay safe only placed me directly in the line of danger.
One by one, the four faces of the men that night spring to life inside of my head. Only their eyes though, because they all wore black cloths tied around the lower half of their faces. I shut my eyes, forcing the memories back down where they belong. In the darkness.
Thankfully, I’m distracted and pulled out of that night as a light knock sounds from my door. “You can come in,” I say, knowing it isn’t Elijah. I don’t really care who it is as long as it isn’t him.
Stella peeks her head in from behind the door and stumbles inside. She’s been drinking, responsibly of course, but she’s always been a little partier. “Well hello there, sunshine,” her voice is chipper and I immediately know that she’s happy. In this little world she knows nothing about, with these people who are so much more than she realizes. She’s happy.
I
smile back at her, patting the side of the bed for her to sit. “Having a good time?” I laugh as she complies.
“Oddly yes, more so than I thought I would when I first got here.” She smirks, taking another sip from the red cup in her hand. “But you aren’t, I can feel it. What happened?” She pulls my hands into hers and leans back against the headboard, getting herself comfortable.
“Far too much to explain to you right now, especially when you’re drunk,” I keep my tone playful. I’m too exhausted to break the news to her now. I know it won’t make any sense, and I need her completely present to absorb all of it.
“I’m not that drunk, just a little tipsy,” she singsongs, revealing the fact that she’s most definitely more than tipsy.
“Another time, promise. I’ll tell you everything. Is your new boyfriend wondering where you are?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Her eyes shine with a mix of disappointment and excitement at the mention of him.
“No, he’s sweet and knows I’m out with my sister and her friends.” Her eyes fall to our clasped hands and I know something is bothering her. It’s etched in the worried lines creasing her forehead.
“All right, spit it out. What’s eating at you?” I push.
She laughs, but it’s a bitter, hesitant sound that has me instantly anxious. “I’ve felt weird all day. Like something’s waking up inside of me,” she’s whispering and trails off with a laugh like it’s ridiculous. But my heart rate kicks up to a quicker speed and suddenly, I’m terrified for what she could be experiencing.
“What does that mean exactly?” I ask, giving her hands an encouraging squeeze.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel good, Lun. Something’s wrong. Like I’m missing something important, like something’s being taken away from me.” She laughs again. She’s nervous and I can tell that she’s afraid I won’t understand what she’s saying. She doesn’t realize how much I do though.
