by Imogen Sera
"No, you're not," he says. "But you're safe and you're mine, and I'll do whatever I need to do to keep those things true right now. Including not telling you everything."
The twice monthly sleep is coming up. It doesn't really make sense, because day and night work here the same way that they do at home. But Az never sleeps in bed with me, he just lays with me until I'm asleep and then leaves. But all of the demons in all of Poremi sleep for the same 24-hour period every two weeks.
There have been two since I arrived, and they were both just boring. I spent most of the first one in the library and most of the second one in the garden, before climbing into bed next to Az and enjoying the sight of him sleeping.
I'm irresponsible enough that I'm absolutely using this one for snooping. There's no Az to worry over me, and no guards to tail me, and no one to even notice that I'm not where Az wants me to be: in his bedroom. He makes this clear over and over again, and has even stocked the room with books and games and food until I have supplies for weeks in here.
I feel a little guilty, because I know that he's just trying to protect me, but...well, everyone will be asleep, right? So it's not like anyone can hurt me.
He'll go to sleep at midnight, so I spend hours beforehand running my hands up his sculpted abdomen, and down his muscular thighs, and around to press along his broad back. He's as wonderful to touch as he's ever been, warm and hard under my fingers, and I think I could spend a lifetime just watching his face as he reacts to my hands.
And my mouth. It's pretty much impossible to fit much more than the head of his cock in my mouth, but he loves it just as much when I run my tongue along the length of him or swirl it around the tip. I just like touching him, everywhere, all the time, and the muscles in his thighs tense under my hands as I take the head of him in my mouth and hum 'Happy Birthday'. Which makes me giggle and makes him groan.
Az lifts me up against him to sit on his lap, and then with no warning at all, moves me up higher until I'm sitting with my legs over his shoulders and spread wide right in front of his face. There's nothing to hold onto but his horns, so I do, and he holds my hips firmly in place as he devours me. He knows by now that I go completely crazy when he dips his tongue inside of me, so he does it as often as he possibly can. It's such an intimate invasion, and suspended in the air, supported by nothing but his shoulders under my thighs and his hands on my hips, I come apart while his mouth moves furiously against me.
"Baby," I manage, while he lowers me to his lap again and then kisses me hard. His cock is hard under my butt, and I wouldn't have to move much to position him just right, but then he lifts me up, climbs out of bed, and pins me against the wall.
I nod with wide eyes while he positions himself at my entrance. Even after weeks and weeks of this, he has to start slowly, but now I know how much it's worth it.
I'm soaking wet when he pushes into me, inch by inch by inch. My hands are behind his neck and his hands are under my butt, and I pull his mouth to mine and kiss him with everything I have.
Once he's all the way in, he moves just a little bit, waiting to feel me relax around him. And then I do, and he pushes into me harder and faster and more possessively, his mouth soft against me the whole time.
I run my hands through his hair and push my chest against his, and when he lowers his mouth from my face to my nipple, I quiver on his cock and come undone. He's close too, I can see from the looks on his face and his steeled jaw. He reaches for my clit and rubs it just how I like it, around and across and around and across until I'm nearly there again.
He comes hard, groaning my name while I can feel the heat inside of me. I brace myself for the sharp pain, and it comes as it always does, but then he returns his thumb to my clit and I explode on him. The pain is mild compared to the pleasure, and it just makes every nerve feel more alive. His cock is so deep in me that it's all I can feel, and shaking around him while knowing that he's not going anywhere is such a heady feeling.
He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine, and there's so much affection in the gesture that I feel guilty for what I'm going to do as soon as he's asleep.
"You're mine," I murmur into his ear, and he opens his eyes to grin at me before carrying me back to the bed.
He tangles his legs with mine and wraps his arms around me, and he looks so adorably exhausted that I get such a sense of satisfaction from pulling the blanket up over him. "I'll see you soon," he says with a small, tired smile.
"I'll miss you while you're sleeping," I say, and I mean it. I'm going to use this time to figure out what the hell is going on, but I really will miss his presence today.
His eyes are already closed, so I kiss the tip of his nose and turn around to get dressed.
Chapter 22
Eve
The bedroom door has three locks on it. On the inside, of course, because Az wouldn't lock me in here. He's not a monster.
But looking at them makes me feel guilty, because I know he's worried about me and I know that he's desperate to keep...something out. But I really don't know if his fears are founded and I do know that he's lying to me and I don't like it.
I slide each deadbolt open, but before I slip out into the hall, I decide I should have some kind of weapon. Everyone will be asleep, but having something might make me feel better.
Az doesn't have weapons, at least not in here. He doesn't really need them. I watched him fight with Ronan last week, and he only needs his fangs and claws. It was kind of unsettling to watch, and also really hot in such a weird way that just thinking about it makes me flush.
There is a letter opener. It's not really sharp, but I guess it's better than nothing, so I tuck it into the top of my dress. Just in case.
The entire castle is eerily silent. I remember what I heard Ronan say the other day, about the prisoner. I don't know where else to start, and they've been talking about it so intently that it just makes sense that it has to do with what I'm not being told. If only I knew where I might find a prisoner.
I start on the ground floor of the castle. I've been here long enough that I can easily find the dining room or the library or Az's room, but it's still fairly easy to get lost. I just poke my head in each room, hoping for a giant staircase with a sign hanging over it announcing dungeons below! or answers to all of your mysteries this way.
But aside from a wine cellar that I thoroughly inspect for secret doors, I don't see anything that looks like it might lead to a dungeon. I don't really feel like I should need to look for secret doors, because there's pretty much no reason that a dungeon would be secret, but it's kind of fun to do it anyway.
The ground floor is a bust, which is several hours of wasted time. I cross my arms, wondering where to go from here. Maybe somewhere in the cavern? I hope not, though, because it's massive and I only have a day to look around freely. Searching the entire cavern would probably take months, and I don't even know what's down all of the little passages that lead away from it.
I also don't really want to venture down any of those dark passages in the dark while I'm totally alone. Partly because I'm a wuss, and partly because I've become so accustomed to having Az next to me all the time that doing something like that sounds extra scary.
I bite my lip and look through the big glass doors to the courtyard outside. Maybe it's like a cellar, and there's an entrance from outside? It's been cold the last few days, though, so I run back up to Az's room and steal his jacket to shrug on over my dress.
It's hilariously huge on me, and if he were awake I would just figure out how to fashion a shawl, but it smells like him and I kind of miss him even though he's been asleep for like three hours. So I cinch it around my waist, tight enough that it stops falling off my shoulders, and then I kiss him where he's sleeping.
He would be so mad at me right now, but I don't care and want to kiss him anyway. And I'm probably being reckless and I probably should just go to sleep like any sane person would be at three in the morning, but it's so thrilling to take some of my ag
ency back. Just a tiny bit, really, but making my own decision about this feels wonderful.
I venture out to the courtyard. It's never very dark out here, probably because the moon seems constantly full in the sky. I've been out here so many times, but I've never really looked at anything closely--just passed through on my way to the garden. But now that I'm looking, I'm kind of shocked at all of the human faces staring back at me. There are many, many statues along the perimeter of the courtyard, and I've never looked at them before except in passing. But as I look around now, there are men and women, all of varying heights and builds, but not one of them has wings or a tail and there's not a single horn in sight. They all look so utterly human.
And I distinctly remember Az telling me that his kind created this world, but I don't know why they would create something like that.
I'm going to pester him about it as soon as he wakes up. The thought of him waking up makes me smile to myself, and then I want to frown at myself for being such a lovesick idiot, but I'm too much of a lovesick idiot to frown.
I don't know why I'm not afraid of this between us. I'm always afraid of things like this. I hate change, and I'm terrified of commitment, but I find myself so easily imagining my future here. I just want Az to be in my life forever, and I want him to want me in his life forever.
I'm studying the statues when a pale glimmer catches my eye. It's tucked against the wall of the castle, but the material is different than the wall. I can't tell what I'm looking at from where I am, so I move closer, wondering what I'm seeing.
It's a door. It's not exactly secret or hidden, but it's meant to be discreet, I think. There's no handle, so I push against it, and I'm relieved when it inches open. I would have felt really guilty if I had to go back to the room and steal Az's keys.
My nose is immediately met with a wet, musty smell, and the stairs downward make me grin in delight. This must be it. But the stairs are dark after the dozen or so that are illuminated by the moon, and when I press a hand against the wall, it's just stone. No useful, glowing spores.
I consider running back up to the castle to figure out what I can use for light, but then I hear a quiet noise from far below. I don't know what it is, but it feels almost deafening in the complete still that's surrounded me since everyone went to sleep.
I keep a hand on the wall as I descend the stairs slowly, testing my foot on each step so I don't fall. I can hear the noise louder now, and I kind of want to call out, but I also don't know what the hell here would be awake right now, and I don't want to get inadvertently eaten.
And yes, I should probably be listening to my own advice that I like to give to characters in horror movies, which is 'for the love of god don't investigate that noise', but the last time I investigated a noise I ended up here in Poremi. And on the whole, I think that's a good thing.
So I guess I'm doing this.
It takes what feels like forever to get to the bottom of the stairs, and when I do, I'm relieved to see grates cut into the ceiling to let some of the moonlight in. The corridor only goes one direction, so I follow it slowly, and am a little alarmed to see bars running from floor to ceiling on either side of me.
Most cells appear to be empty, although I do see a flash of wings in the moonlight that make me pause. They're down on the floor, though, as if the owner is asleep. As he or she should be.
Everyone down here should be asleep. I don't know where the noise is coming from, and I half expect to find a rat or something. I think I'll feel relieved when I do.
I tiptoe over the rough rock and pull Az's coat more tightly around myself. It's very cold down here, a kind of damp coldness that settles into my bones, and I'm going to be relieved when I can be done here and climb back into bed and pull Az's arm over myself.
The sound is almost loud now, echoing off the rock walls and coming from straight ahead of me. It's sniffling, I realize, and I'm so sure that rats don't cry that I almost turn around and go straight back to the palace before I can see whatever is here. I pull the letter opener out of my dress, wishing I'd spent the time to find a real weapon despite the fact that whoever is sniffling is behind bars.
There's a grate right above the cell, and it's shining down on dark, curly hair. It's a woman, her arms folded around her knees and her body huddled into the corner. She has one of the clothing sheets wrapped around her like I did before I knew how to tie it, and a large blanket covering every inch of her. Despite it, she's shivering violently.
I don't know why she's not sleeping. She should be asleep like every other demon right now, and I wonder if she's sick or something. I wish that Az was awake so I could ask him to help, or I could go straight to the healer and find out.
"Are you alright?" I ask quietly, trying not to startle her.
Her head whips around to face me, so quickly that I almost jump. Her eyes are wide, and her hair hangs in front of her face, and when she stands and approaches me, I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
"Eve," she breathes. "Oh my god, Eve. You're here."
Oh my god indeed. "Allie? What are you doing here? Why are you down here?"
She lets out a sound that starts like a laugh and turns into a hiccuping sob, and I reach my hand through the bars to touch her arm. She's so cold. "They took Petra," she says. "They stole my sister and they locked me up and they question me endlessly about things that make no sense."
"Oh, Allie," I say. "This is...this is a mistake. I can fix this."
She shakes her head quickly. "You have to run," she says. "There's no guard tonight and I don't know why. But you can't let them catch you too. Get away from here."
My heart feels like it breaks in half. How long has she been down here while I've been just above, eating and playing in the garden and sleeping with Az? My stomach does a flip at the thought of him. Surely he doesn't know that she's down here; surely this is all a mistake.
"How long have you been here?" I ask her, slipping Az's jacket off of my shoulders and feeding it through the bars to her.
"Three days," she says, shrugging it on and letting the sleeves hand down past her hands. "I think it's three days. I haven't really been sleeping."
Three days. That's the morning Az was missing. That's when he started not telling me things.
Fuck. I don't want him to have done this.
I squeeze her arm and think of the heavy keyring that hangs on a hook in Az's bedroom. Surely one of the hundreds there works on these cells. "I'll be back in just a minute," I say. "I promise. I'm getting the keys, and you're getting out of here."
I dart back through the cells and up the stairs and back into our bedroom. Az is sleeping peacefully, and the light of dawn is shining onto him through the window, but I don't want to kiss him. I kind of want to kick him.
I take the keys. I'm going to get Allie out, and then I'm going to bring her here where she'll be behind three deadbolts from whoever locked her down there. Unless that person is Az, in which case, I'll...do something horrible. I'm too pissed off at him to think of anything decent right this second.
"Dammit, Az," I say to him before I leave again, and he doesn't stir.
Chapter 23
Eve
I bring Allie back up to Az's room. My stomach is clenching painfully the whole time, hoping that he had no idea what was going on, hoping that he didn't have a part in imprisoning my best friend.
But she lets out a distinctively un-Allie-like whimper upon seeing him asleep on the bed, and my heart sinks. Of course he knows. He's been acting like something is different. I just didn't imagine it would be something like this.
Allie's nervous in the room, but after I yell in Az's face and he doesn't so much as stir, she relaxes some. She's still shivering, even in the warm castle, and I persuade her to take a bath in the little in-ground spring.
I rummage through what's become my chest for the little glass soap and shampoo bottles I have. And when I find them, they just piss me off more, because Az took me to Namesti Market three days ago t
o get them after I told him I missed the smell of my shampoo.
It made me cuddle up to him at the time. Of course, at the time, I didn't know that he threw my best friend in an actual dungeon just that morning.
"Tell me what happened," I say, once Allie's in the water and I'm sitting on the couch, safely away from where Az sleeps. Safely away from being able to suffocate him.
She lets out a long sigh. "I was so worried about you," she says. "You texted me about some weird noise and you just stopped answering. And then I didn't hear from you at all, and I ended up calling the police on the island to check on you."
"God, I'm so sorry," I say. "I knew you would be worried, and I didn't have any way to let you know that I'm alright."
She shoots me an incredulous look. "You're alright?" she asks, her eyes flicking to Az's sleeping form.
I haven't really explained any of that yet, because I want her warm and I want to know how she got here. And there's a part of me that's feeling pretty terrible that I'm half in love with the guy who put her in a dungeon, and I don't really want to describe any part of it.
"The police were just confusing," she continues. "They checked the house and said it was all boarded up for the season. There was no record at all of you being there. Which is insane, because you sent me pictures of it, and it matched up to the address you gave me. I have pictures of you in it, and when I tried to give that information to the police, they just acted like I was crazy."
"It was boarded up? I left the door unlocked in the middle of the night."
"Right? It didn't make any sense. And then I eventually got so frustrated and so worried that I got it in my head to fly up there and look for you myself because I couldn't do anything from Florida, and I was pretty sure you were the victim of some serial killer. I didn't have money for a ticket, but Petra did, and she was worried about me going by myself, so she came too."
Allie's voice wavers at the end, and I want to hug her, but she's naked in the bath so I probably shouldn't.
