“Or one, for that matter,” Apollo noted. “In the year that we’ve worked together, I’ve seen her walk through that door with everything from a broken wrist to the flu. She just doesn’t know how to do sick. I don’t think she’s ever taken a single day.”
I stopped straightening the books and stared at my frazzled boss, who looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion. “If you don’t get out of here, you’ll be sick, too. Take that girl with you.” I nodded toward Erica who was half asleep on top of the books piled up on the floor.
“You sure? I can stay and help close.”
“Positive.” I pointed to the door. “Oh, and if Katie isn’t here in the morning, one of us is going to her apartment.”
I think taking a physical inventory cost more in manpower than a cheap software system. The store was littered with books that had come off the shelves as we fingered through them, and my estimate was that I’d be stuck at the shop for an extra hour just to clean up the mess.
It was just after ten when I looked at my phone. Greer was used to seeing me walk through the door by now, so I expected to see Rhom—the real Rhom—at the door to fetch me home. That never happened.
At ten thirty, I locked the shop door and headed north. Columbus Avenue was always crowded, but being Friday night it was busier than usual.
The sidewalk tables were full as the spring air enticed people outdoors to sip beer and salty margaritas under the stars. There was something about eating under the night sky that seemed to make the food taste better, and the company sitting across the table more likable.
A sea of heads bobbed up and down the sidewalk. Some stared straight ahead with blank expressions, while others tapped away on the keyboards of their phones in the all-consuming need to stay on top of social media. They had a name for that: Obsessive Compulsive Social Media Disorder or OCSMD.
My head panned to the left as I felt one of those faces looking back at me. His eyes zeroed in on mine, mocking me like a predator stalking prey. My first instinct was to run, but I’d done that too many times, and I was tired of running. I made the decision in the middle of the sidewalk to face him head on.
Daemon stopped as I began to work my way through the crowd toward him. With each step, his expression grew less cocky and more surprised at my audacity; a mere woman having the balls to challenge his threat and approach within two feet.
“I guess it’s not so easy to grab me in the middle of hundreds of witnesses. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I know exactly what you are.”
Rogues were nothing more than rapists and child abductors, building an army of stolen half-breed children they sired with their victims.
He cocked his head and a small grin returned to his face. “You think you know what I am? I bet you don’t know why I’m here.”
I said nothing and glanced at the mob of pedestrians moving past us, confident that he didn’t have the upper hand this time.
“Just get to the point and tell me what you want? Is it the amulet? Well, get in line.”
His eyes walked over my face and then ran down the length of my body. “Does it hurt when sunlight hits your skin?” he asked in a distracted way. “You’re so fair. It never used to hurt mine, but I find it more uncomfortable these days. Makes me wonder if we’ll all end up underground someday.” He caught himself and amended his statement. “We’re not vampire, Alex. I wouldn’t want to mislead you based on my candor, but the light does seem to cause discomfort lately.”
“May I touch your skin?” His hand moved toward my arm.
I snorted and glared at him incredulously. “Why would I let you do that?”
His mouth was against my ear before I even saw him move. “Because you belong to me, and I asked you nicely.” He pulled back, lingering within a few inches of me as his eyes explored my face. “I don’t think I like the smell of other men on you.”
His breath crawled over my skin. I tried to step back but froze, unable to move as he crossed that boundary he no longer respected.
“You’re in my space,” I said through clenched teeth. “I don’t think I like the smell of you.”
His eyes darted to my right, and his grin widened as he began moving backward into the crowd. “I’ll be back for you, Alex.”
Rhom came out of nowhere a moment after Daemon disappeared into the ocean of moving bodies.
He rubbed his forehead and looked at me. “It’s almost eleven. What the fuck, Alex?”
“Why does everyone keep saying that to me?”
NINETEEN
Constantine thought about the first time he’d felt the sting of passion intertwined with unrequited love. It was a hard lesson in wanting and devotion, and the all too common one-sidedness that so often came with it.
He was a yearling when it happened, that constriction of the heart, and the blind faith of trusting the one at the other end of that constricting rope. He was in love, and about to learn the lessons that could only be gleaned through unconditional trust and the complete opening of the heart.
His mother had died in childbirth, alone in the forest where no one would hear her screams as he pushed from her body with his soft but powerful hooves. She took her last breath under a three-hundred-year-old oak, leaving her child to be raised by the woods: trees that grew at will and cascaded over his moss-lined cradle; streams that flowed to his lips and then receded so not to drown him; birds with gifts of berries and insects.
At the age of three, the forest booted him to the fields where he was found and brought to the Queen.
Desiree watched him grow for fourteen years before taking him as her companion, warning the other young maidens that any indiscretions would be judged as the crime of thievery. Constantine was hers, and as Desiree was the Queen, theft of her property would result in a punishment worse than any death.
She took Constantine’s innocence on his seventeenth birthday, quickly schooling him in the art of pleasure. It was a late age for a young satyr to experience his rite of passage, but she’d grown expert in spotting the perfect time to release the lust and passion satyrs were legendary for.
He loved her and fantasized about becoming her king when the reigning king took his last breath. No matter if it took ten or twenty years, he would wait for her. But as smart and devoted as he was, he was also blinded by the very passion his kind were known for.
It was Imbolc, the start of the spring festivals. Under the thick layer of snow, the crepe-paper orange and yellow fringe fell from the witch hazel, and purple cups of hellebore sprang from underneath the naked trees. It was the beginning of the new in the middle of frost and winter and symbolized the rebirth of the young King from his long winter sleep.
Constantine had been called by the Queen and wondered if tonight would be the night he became her young king. He picked a sprig of bright red berries from the holly tree at the crossroads, and walked through the thick carpet of white snow that led to the entrance of the Queen’s chambers. He’d walked through that door and shared her bed for a total of one-hundred and sixty-seven nights since the last Beltane when she claimed him, but never had he seen another face when he entered her walls.
Tonight the room was filled with faces. Their eyes followed Constantine as he approached the bed where Desiree lay, with her exposed legs spread wide and her knees pulled toward the sky.
He stood at the foot of the bed and waited for her instructions. As the room fell silent and all eyes remained on him, he took it as a sign and shed his own clothes, standing naked while the audience watched and murmured quietly behind the veil of dim light in the room.
As the minutes passed and the crowd continued to stare, his discomfort and shame began to cloud his thoughts. He fought the urge to cover his exposed genitals from their eyes, but then he lifted his leg to climb onto the bed. She was his Queen and he would not question her motives for sharing their lovemaking with a room full of strangers. And then it occurred to him that it was the rite of Imbolc, and he was honored.
Desire
e pushed up on her elbows and gave him a warning look as he climbed higher on the bed, ready to play his part in the rite of fertility.
“Not you,” she said. “You disappoint me. You’ve grown too old.”
Her eyes remained on his as her finger crooked at someone on the other side of the room. A young man, barely a season less than Constantine, appeared from the dark corner and climbed onto the bed. Her legs widened as the man’s head dropped between them. And when she’d had enough of his tongue, she rolled him on his back and mounted him.
“Fuck,” she commanded, her eyes still locked on Constantine’s as she rode the younger man’s hips.
Constantine watched as the man worked his Queen for some time. She moaned as she had with Constantine inside of her for so many days and nights.
As the sex grew frenzied and the man brought her to a climax, a single tear rolled from Constantine’s eye. But just one, because in that small moment of teaching, his soul had hardened.
Desiree rose from the bed and walked naked to Constantine, meeting his eyes with a sympathetic but cold stare. He had suffered the additional shame of an erection throughout the entire display. She took his cock in her hand and stroked. “As witnessed this night, I release you.”
She turned to the crowd assembled around her bed and offered Constantine to anyone in the room, man or woman, without discretion.
It was the first and last taste of humiliation he would ever suffer. And he swore to himself he would never inflict that feeling on another soul as long as he existed—not even the Queen.
Constantine came back to the here and now, shedding the memory of the betrayal as far back in his mind as it would go. It was a constant reminder to tread the soul with care.
Fucking was fucking, but the woman beside him was something more. He would not cheapen her or make her feel anything but cared for and wanted.
She’d slipped into a deep sleep, well deserved from all the energy expended during their hours of battle under the damp sheets.
Constantine hadn’t slept in a century. There was too much to miss in those fleeting moments of altered state. But what he feared most was letting down his guard for any trespasser to come in and wreak havoc with the existence he’d crafted so intently. He would never let anyone tinker with his sphere of existence ever again.
“Are you hungry?” she asked as she woke from her sleep and rolled over to look at him.
“I have never been so hungry.” His eyes filled with heat. “But I doubt there is anything that could sate my appetite.”
She smiled in that way a woman does when she’s ready to show a man how wrong he is.
“Not again. I’m raw, woman.” He sat up and pulled the sheet back to show her. “See what you’ve done to me.” Constantine’s parts looked a bit tender, but despite the wear of excessive lovemaking, he was growing again.
“Ah, now see?” she purred. “I think we need to do something about that.”
He hopped off the bed and stretched his magnificent form like a tiger waking from a lazy nap, his erection taming from the separation. She followed and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her cheek in the muscles of his back. “Where did you come from and how do I keep you here?”
“You can let me feed you,” he growled playfully as he turned to kiss her and engulf her naked body with his. The feel of her breasts against his skin ignited his need to be inside of her again. He broke the embrace and reasoned with his desire. “You need to eat, and then we can take a shower.”
“And after that?” She looked at him for reassurance that he’d stay.
He led her to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “God, woman. How do you survive?” Except for an expired container of yogurt and a limp head of lettuce, it was empty.
“I think there’s some cereal in the cabinet.”
Constantine grabbed the box of Cheerios and found a bag of raisins. “Remind me to bring you some food.”
“Does that mean you’ll be coming back?” She had that look again, the one that said more. Her eyelids fell and her mouth appeared fuller as the lust washed through her again. “Will this ever stop?” she asked. “Wanting you?”
“Ah, fuck.” Constantine threw the food on the counter and descended on her like a starving dog. A minute later, he had her against the wall of the shower, moving into her as the water ran down their bodies and washed the stains of lovemaking from their skin.
It had been days since they entered that bed, and if they didn’t take hold of their crippling need, it would be days more before they were forced to tread into the bright glare of the world.
When they finally emerged from the shower, clean and ready for yet another round under the sheets, he knew it would have to end. But not until he had one last taste of her.
Constantine laid her on the bed and gently slid his hand up and down the skin of her freshly bathed calf, stopping to kiss the inside of her knee. Then he wrapped his fingers around her ankles and placed them on his tightly muscled shoulders. With a single stroke, he pushed inside of her, holding firmly against her as he reached full penetration and watched her face contort and twist into a picture of ecstasy. He pulled out of her and then pushed back inside with the same determination, taking note of each detail of her face.
He would use these memories as foreplay for the next time they made love, and the next, and the next. He would remember every nuance of her pleasured expression and do whatever it took to produce that same look over and over again.
She tightened around him, and he lowered his body on top of hers, his forearms leveraged as he rocked inside of her and looked in her eyes. The release came as intensely as the first one had, and the second, and the tenth. How many days had they been like this, lost in the powerful lust that gripped them and refused to let them leave this place?
She rolled to her side in a slack, boneless laze of sated flesh, and he ran his fingers over the black lines as if he could feel the edges of her tattoo. He stroked them and followed them down to where they intersected with the dimple of her back. And then they began to move and expand. Constantine had marveled the first time he’d seen it and felt the strange sensation slide across his skin.
He waited for the shadow to grow and take up the better part of the room, and then he lay back on the bed with his hands tucked behind his head, and let his dragon have her turn.
Saturdays were the busiest days at Shakespeare’s Library. I liked working weekends because time flew by, and everyone’s mood was brighter knowing they had one more day of freedom before returning to the jobs that chained them.
I got to the shop at eight a.m., an hour early to make sure the place was shipshape for the Saturday rush. I also wanted to catch Katie before Apollo did so I could coach her on my big fat lie.
When the doors opened at nine, it was clear that Katie was a no-show for day number four.
“Are you going, or am I?” I asked Apollo. Visions of Katie lying on the floor of her apartment—dead or dying—filled my head.
Apollo looked at the paperwork in his hands and asked if I could go. I was relieved, because I was going regardless of his decision.
Katie lived in a small apartment on the upper Upper West Side, conveniently located about halfway between Columbia University and the shop. I’d never actually been to her place, but Apollo had no problem breaking the law and giving me her address, considering the unusual and concerning circumstances.
The front door of her building was open, but the door past the mailboxes was locked. I hit the buzzer to apartment 6B. Considering she was probably lying comatose on the floor, I didn’t expect to get an answer. I buzzed a second time and heard her sleepy voice over the intercom.
“Katie?”
There was brief silence on the other end and then muffled sounds of a male voice in the background.
“Alex?”
“Let me in, Katie!”
The door buzzed and I hit the stairs to climb the six flights. Was she with a guy all this time? “I
’ll kill her,” I growled under my breath.
I reached her apartment, huffing from the six story sprint, and rang the doorbell. A minute later, the door swung open. Constantine stood in the middle of the frame wearing nothing but a pair of half-zipped pants. He leaned back against the frame with his tousled hair and intense stare, and motioned me in.
The distinct smell of sex hit my nose as I took a step inside. “Are you kidding me?” I snapped as I stepped back into the hall.
Katie appeared behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She couldn’t contain her smile as her face peered around his back. “Alex—”
“Don’t Alex me. We thought you were dead!”
Through it all, Constantine kept his eyes on mine but said nothing.
“I don’t believe this.” I turned and marched back toward the stairs.
“Alex, wait.” She trailed down the hall after me in her T-shirt and underwear and grabbed my arm as I started down the steps. “I think I love him.”
I went completely still. Greer had warned me months earlier about letting a satyr in my head. Constantine and I had developed a clear understanding in that department, but Katie had no such understanding with him.
Before you know what’s happening, he’ll have you so enthralled you’ll be permanently repulsed by the touch of any other man.
“It’s not you talking,” I said as I turned to look at my brainwashed friend. “He has you entranced. God, Katie! You’re ruined!”
I glanced at Constantine who was leaning against the wall, listening to the entire exchange. He seemed passive about the whole thing, and I wondered if it meant anything that he’d done this to my friend. Not Katie. Not the girl who was fearless and let no man dictate her life.
He must have seen the disappointment in my face, because he stepped back inside the apartment and reappeared a minute later fully dressed.
“Katie,” he called in a tone that was much too subdued for him.
The Blood Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 2) Page 18
