The Innocents

by Riley LaShea

  “Do you want toast?” she asked Kiara after finding the pans still had ample servings.

  Leaning against the counter to wait once Kiara nodded and she’d levered the bread into the toaster, Delaney watched Kiara skip off toward the doorway, thinking too late to try to stop her as she went across the hall to the dining room. Hoping they could have their breakfast in the relative privacy of the kitchen, Delaney realized hiding a while longer was no longer an option for her.

  “Kaffe?” Her first run-in brought a frisson of discomfort. Though, of all the people she could see, Rupert would be one of the least painful.

  One of the few words they could communicate directly to each other, Delaney’s smile felt painfully forced as she nodded at him, and Rupert pulled a hundred-year-old cup down from the cabinet to fill it for her.

  Not understanding the next thing he said in the slightest, Delaney got an instant language lesson when Rupert left the room with her coffee as well as his, and any lingering thoughts of avoidance were instantly annihilated. Kiara’s toast popping up, she took both plates in hand, setting her face to neutral as she crossed the hallway into the company of several members of her current household.

  “Thanks.” Putting her plate down next to her coffee, Delaney returned everyone’s ‘Good mornings’ with averted eyes, the ones looking back at her feeling inquisitorial, despite knowing Vicar Bryce would never gossip behind her back.

  Ellis and Akun the only people missing, Delaney didn’t know if they were still asleep or off somewhere with Layla and Salem. Perhaps, both. She had proven herself how easy it was to lose track of time and place.

  Conversation continuing on without her, much to her relief, Delaney was able to concentrate on eating. The eggs and bacon tasting better in her ravenous condition than eggs and bacon had a right to taste, she was considering seconds when she felt the stomach-distracting awareness of Haydn’s presence. Quickly closing in on her, Delaney looked to the door at the far end of the room, the one that led off the second floor landing, before Haydn stepped through it and the voices around Delaney came to a collective halt.

  “Good morning,” Haydn said, but the stunned silence that greeted her made it seem a far graver announcement.

  “Good morning,” Vicar Bryce at last took up the mantle of good manners when Delaney felt as inarticulate as everyone else.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine,” he returned, even as Kiara crossed her arms, scowl focused on her half-empty plate.

  “Do you have everything you need?” Haydn’s eyes scanned the table, at last landing on Delaney. Targeting her like a thousand suns, Delaney felt her skin flush, temperatures rolling through her threatening heatstroke.

  “For now,” Vicar Bryce responded, but, questions and answers at an end, Haydn still didn’t retreat. No one able to find calm in her presence, herself included - herself especially - Delaney knew it was up to her to put an end to the awkward stalemate.

  “Eat,” she said to Kiara, glancing to the head of the table at Vicar Bryce, choosing to see only his nod that assured her he would keep an eye on Kiara, and not his concern, as she got up from the table and encouraged Haydn out the door.

  Everyplace she could think to go too exposed, Haydn’s presence at her back was nearly overwhelming as Delaney turned through the arch off the landing and into the hallway that led to the sleeping quarters.

  “Is something wrong with Kiara?”

  Question not the least bit provocative, it still feathered against Delaney’s skin.

  “She’s mad at you.”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  “You sent Brooks away.” Delaney didn’t realize where she was going until she stepped through the bedroom door.

  “Hardly seems just,” Haydn responded.

  “She’s a little girl. She doesn’t do just.” Trying to ignore the skip and subsequent thunder of her heart as the door closed behind her, Delaney realized how messed up the situation truly was as she looked around the windowless room. “She’s been taken away from everything she knows, everyone she loves. All she understands is that you sent away one more person she wanted to stay, the only one who was giving her all the attention she needs. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t smile. And I can’t say I’ve been particularly proactive in making her do either. Which is my fault.”

  “None of this is your fault.” Haydn’s voice right behind her, Delaney tried to remind herself that, despite the fact it had no bars or locks, the room was still very much a cell. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just the way it is.”

  “We can’t even blame the people trying to kill us all?” She needed someone to blame, someone toward whom she could hurl her frustrations. It was clear she could do neither with Haydn.

  “There have always been hunters,” Haydn replied. “There always will be. We eliminate some, more rise up to take their places. They are as much a part of it as any of us.”

  Not entirely sure what “it” was, Delaney still thought the interpretation of events rather lenient for a deraph.

  “What’s the chance we’ll ever go home?” Turning at last, her gaze met Haydn’s, and, sinking into dark eyes, their night together came flooding back.

  “I’m working on it,” Haydn said.

  “Since when?” Delaney didn’t try to stop it, knowing she would never hold back the torrent of sensations, or the rush of new longing that came with them.

  “For a while,” Haydn said.

  “And?” Almost afraid to ask, Delaney was equally afraid of the answer, though she could no longer say what potential answer she most feared.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Haydn uttered. “There are plenty of ways to conceal a human being, but none that are exactly sympathetic to the human. I figured I could dismiss out of hand anything involving suspended states or living inside other entities.”

  Shuddering at the mere mentions, Delaney crossed her arms against the reminder of the world that they were in, one she had chosen to visit through speculation time and again, never thinking she would actually end up there.

  “So, we remain prisoners of circumstance,” she uttered.

  “For now,” Haydn responded. “Is that why none of them will talk to me?”

  “You make them nervous,” Delaney declared, wondering how Haydn didn’t know that. Or that they weren’t the only ones. “You can’t expect to have casual conversation with people you’re holding captive. Do you really need to? Whatever you have to tell them, you can tell me. I assume that’s why you…”

  Gaze rising to Haydn’s once more, Delaney abandoned all assumption. The slow steps that brought Haydn ever closer like a tempest coming, she could see it on the horizon, feel it in her bones, but, as dangerous as she knew it was, Delaney was too enthralled not to watch the storm roll in.

  “Can I have you again?” Haydn husked, and, eyes shuttering, the clouds circled around Delaney. Around them both.

  There were so many reasons Haydn didn’t have to ask - Delaney’s own yearning not the least of it - but she did anyway.

  There were so many reasons Delaney should have said no, but ensnared by the feel of Haydn so close all she could do was nod.

  Hands on her cheeks, Haydn’s lips covered hers in the next instant, and, though she had been hoping for it since Haydn first entered the dining room, Delaney hadn’t even considered this might be the reason Haydn had come, that she could possibly be afflicted by the same desperate need. It was so human. So helpless.

  Delaney could feel it, though, in Haydn’s fingers against her face, in the deep, invasive kiss that stole her breath and ability to think beyond the moment or Haydn’s touch.

  Pressed back through the room, she felt the edge of the bed beneath her, and, when Haydn’s mouth left hers to trail over her chin and down her throat, Delaney gave into the pulsing sensation of Haydn’s body pressing her back into the mattress.

  Fingers sliding up Haydn’s back, they dragged the fabric of her shirt along, p
eeling it away and tossing it to the floor, before moving to the button of Haydn’s pants. Her own clothes cast aside with equal haste, Haydn’s strong thigh pressed between her legs, and Delaney’s teeth imprinted her lip in an effort to keep from crying out in encouragement, knowing too well how sound reverberated down the hall.

  Haydn’s hand skimming her abdomen, Delaney curved into the flutter of fingers, choking back relief as they slipped inside of her, probing gently in regard to the fact it had been only a few hours since last time, and, though the healing properties in Haydn’s saliva had closed her wounds, they couldn’t entirely erase the residual pain.

  Beautiful face hovering over her, dark hair untamed, Delaney’s hand jockeyed for space between them, earning an appreciative groan from Haydn as, at last, she found entrance.

  Her own desperate panting the only sound in the room, the low clench in her belly came far too soon, tremors jolting her as Haydn pulsed around her hand. Colors behind her eyes going from black to white to a kaleidoscope, Delaney didn’t know if she passed out, or experienced an instant of enlightenment on her way back to Earth.

  “Thank you.” Lying dormant a moment later, Delaney swore she felt Haydn’s lips press against her collarbone, before Haydn pushed up. Gaze moving over her as she found and pulled her clothes on, Delaney’s instinctive urge to cover herself was superseded by the desire for Haydn to keep looking at her that way, and her own need to watch Haydn as she disappeared behind the cover of black fabric.

  Redressed, Haydn looked like she wanted to say something. Not exactly discomfort, there was something uncertain about her for the first time, and, trying to think of something to say to ease the awkwardness, Delaney found herself equally unprepared for post-coital conversation.

  Grateful when Haydn elected to say nothing, simply sweeping her gaze down Delaney’s naked form once more before going out the door, Delaney grabbed the bed post as she got to her feet when her legs felt tremulous beneath her, trying to decide if returning to the dining room as she was or freshly-showered would prove more obvious.

  Finally conceding the shower could no longer be delayed, she slipped across the hall and beneath a warm spray, trying to regain some measure of sense. The harder she tried, though, the more Delaney was forced to recognize there was no making sense. Of any of it. Thoughts and feelings in utter conflict, the best she could do was stay mindful of the reality, though, with Haydn’s essence all over and inside of her, she didn’t know how easy that would be to do.

  27

  Gratifying as her morning had been, it felt unfinished. Intent as Haydn’s gaze had been upon her when she left the room, Delaney was convinced she would see her again. Time dipping deeper and deeper into night, she looked to the door with greater frequency, though she could feel Haydn’s absence from the house, and, when Haydn didn’t return before bedtime, Delaney crawled beneath the covers with the unexpectedly upsetting thought that Haydn might not come again.

  Awakened several hours later by Kiara’s cries, unidentifiable through the haze of sleep, Delaney struggled to clear her vision and sit up, recognizing the sound as it trailed off into giggles, and, watching the scene come into view, she blinked at the sudden reality of a chocolate and white flash of fur licking Kiara’s face.

  “It’s a puppy.” Kiara attempted to push the enthusiastic mongrel away and hug it at the same time.

  “I see.” Delaney’s comprehension was slow in dawning.

  “Will I get to keep him?”

  Trying to figure out how the puppy had ended up there, it occurred to Delaney, with the threat of the wrong kind of attention gone with Brooks out of the house, there was only one place from where the puppy could have come. “Yeah, I think you will.” Eyes drifting to the door, she could tell Haydn wasn’t that near, but could feel her presence back in the house.

  Attention returning to Kiara as she rubbed the puppy, and it settled down at her side, content with the attention and accommodation, Delaney passed her hand over Kiara’s head, pressing her back against her pillow. “Right now, though, you need to go back to sleep. See.” Her other hand scratched at soft fur as the puppy’s large brown eyes blinked in time with Kiara’s. “Even your puppy wants to sleep.”

  “’Kay.” The lack of fight proof of just how close Kiara was to drifting back off anyway, Delaney couldn’t tell which of the two was out first as Kiara’s hand stilled on the puppy’s head.

  No need to glance at a clock to know it was no appropriate time for a diurnal creature to rise, Delaney figured the most sensible thing for her to do would be return to sleep herself. If she waited until true morning, Haydn might even come to her again, and she could maintain the illusion that she required coaxing. Feel of Haydn so close, though, the seconds that ticked by as she deliberated went insufferably slow, and Delaney knew, whether she stayed or went, she wouldn’t be sleeping.

  Though not keen to enlighten anyone to where she was going, she was even less willing to leave Kiara alone. Walking the familiar path down the hallway, she hesitated for only a second before knocking on Vicar Bryce’s door.

  “Could you stay with Kiara?” She could endure the weight of his knowing gaze for only a second. Convinced her yearning was palpable, Delaney flicked her eyes past him into the darkness of his room.

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  “I don’t mean to keep asking you. I know it’s not…”

  “Delaney.” Vicar Bryce drew her gaze back to him. “You are not responsible for Kiara. Just because she took to you doesn’t make her your sole responsibility. You’re not her mother. We can all help.”

  “Thank you,” Delaney returned.

  “I worry more about you,” Vicar Bryce declared, and Delaney wished she couldn’t imagine why.

  “You shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?” Vicar Bryce asked, and when she nodded, it felt almost like a lie. “I’m not trying to pry,” Vicar Bryce assured her, “but you told us they would manipulate us. I was under the impression you were trying to keep your distance from Haydn.”

  Delaney had been under that impression once too.

  “I just hope she isn’t taking more from you than you’re willing to give.”

  “It isn’t like that.” The impulse to come to Haydn’s defense was immediate and fierce.

  “I hope not,” Vicar Bryce returned, but it didn’t stop him from stepping out of his room and moving down the hall beside her.

  “If you get licked….” Delaney remembered as he stepped through the doorway of her and Kiara’s bedroom. “Don’t worry. It’s only a puppy.”

  Smiling at the bewilderment on his face, Delaney was confident, as always, that Kiara was in good hands. Starting up the stairs, though, her confidence wavered. Nerves fluttering her chest, it felt as it always did when she crossed the final stair to the third floor, as if she was crossing an intangible boundary designed to keep them apart.

  On the landing, her attention went to the door away from the bedrooms - the one that always seemed to have a party inside - due, not to the usual beat, but to Haydn, whom Delaney could feel behind it as surely as she could feel the cadence in the solid floor beneath her. The compulsion to go to her strong, Delaney knew Haydn wouldn’t be alone, and, accepting, with a pang of unfulfilled need she shouldn’t feel, that she would be relegated to waiting, she turned back to the stairs.

  Stepping onto the first, she heard the door open. Sensation of Haydn coiling first around her legs, it drew them to a stop, before snaking up the rest of Delaney and turning her around.

  Pounding rhythm barely contained by the closed door at Haydn’s back, she stood for only a moment, before rapid, flowing strides brought her to Delaney’s side. Hand on her hip drawing her back up onto the landing, Delaney didn’t realize how weak her knees were until she was on even ground.

  “Thank you.” She felt as if she needed a reason to be there. But it was only pretense. Unfair biology - shallow breaths, pounding heart - giving her away, she
knew Haydn knew why she had come.

  “Did she smile?” she asked, and everything Delaney couldn’t feel, those off-limits sentiments, trickled in where they didn’t belong.

  “Yes,” she said. Head tilting up, she wasn’t sure if Haydn’s descent began before or after her request, but, warm lips pressing to her own, Delaney sighed at the relief of her. She could wish it didn’t show, that Haydn couldn’t taste her need, but she couldn’t deny to herself she’d been craving Haydn all day.

  “Will you come to my room?” Delaney wasn’t sure which of them Haydn was trying to convince more that they had equal sway over the situation, that no mystic influence was needed to get her up the stairs.

  “That’s kind of why I’m here,” Delaney admitted, and, statement bringing a fleeting smile to her lips, Haydn took her hand, touch slack, as if she wanted Delaney to know she could escape it at her will, but Delaney had no desire to be anywhere else as she followed Haydn down the hall.

  Haydn’s heart hadn’t calmed. Ten minutes after she arched from the bed in splendorous climax, it still raced inside her chest. Haydn said she needed her heart. Research backed it up. Listening to the accelerated beats beneath her ear, Delaney wondered how long she could withstand such sustained stimulation.

  “I should get back.” Chill from the open balcony door sinking in, even beneath the heavy duvet on Haydn’s bed, she knew it was growing closer to morning when Kiara would wake.

  “Wait.” Haydn’s arm tightened around her, and Delaney’s desire divided. Knowing she needed to get back downstairs, to shake back to reality, she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t gratifying that Haydn wanted her to stay. “Will you come to the surface with me?”

  “The surface?” Question coming as enough surprise that she abandoned all other thoughts, Delaney lifted her head. “You mean above ground? You’re not worried someone might see us?”