I try to swallow, my throat and mouth painfully dry. “Where am I?”
I can’t move my head much, but the room is completely unfamiliar. Sunlight streams through in the background and the walls look like they’re made of shiplap.
“Shelter Cove,” he says. “Northern California.”
The name sounds familiar. “Is this…your house?”
He nods, stroking my cheek gently. “Yes. One of them.”
“And the dog?”
“That’s Odin. He’s also mine. I brought him up here a while ago, knowing you’d be with us in San Francisco. He can be territorial, but I had nothing to worry about. He likes you. Barely listens to me though.” He sighs in amusement. “So much for being the alpha.”
I frown at him, learning new things. “You had a dog all this time?”
“Most vampires do. We are predators after all. Who better to understand us?” He brushes the hair back from my face. “Don’t you witches have cats?”
I manage a smile. “I’m allergic.” I pause. “And I’m only a half-witch.”
He studies me admiringly. “Don’t sell yourself short. What you did back there…”
It all comes rushing back.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“What happened was you shook me to my very foundation, Lenore. You were…” he licks his lips in thought and then smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “you were remarkable. And if you don’t remember, I’ll tell you all over again, because you need to know what you’re capable of.”
I nod and Solon fills me in with what happened, from his point of view. I remember it all as he says it, his voice filling in the details, conjuring up my own memories this time, as well as his.
Yanik kidnapped me.
Solon lit me on fire.
I used the fire to burn everything else.
“When was that?” I ask.
“A week ago.”
I blink at him, my heart stuttering. “I’ve been out for a week? Is this a case of me missing time or—”
“You’ve been out, my dear,” he says, leaning forward to place a lingering kiss on my forehead, the feel of his lips against my skin making my toes curl, my chest grow impossibly warm. “This is the first time I’ve seen you open your eyes. To say it’s a relief is…an understatement.”
I stare at him for a moment, trying to fit everything together.
“How did you find me?”
A hint of a smile tugs at his lips. “Your necklace. Yanik threw it out of the car, but it was close enough that when I got there, I was able to track you to the barn. The old-fashioned way.” He taps the side of his nose.
“So the necklace was to keep tabs on me. I knew there was more magic to it than it just growing warm whenever you were around.”
“Magic?” he says with a quirk of his brow. “Not quite. Ezra put a microscopic GPS chip in it. I always knew where you were with a few taps of an app.”
My eyes go wide, a flare of indignation inside me. “You literally were tracking my every move?”
“It was never a matter of trust, moonshine. I had to keep you safe.”
“Still,” I tell him. I mean, I’m glad that the necklace had it or maybe he never would have found me. But he doesn’t have to know that. “Then you must have seen me go to my parent’s place.”
He nods, eyes skimming over my face. “I did. But I knew you had things to sort out and I knew I couldn’t help you with it. So I let you go.”
“Because you were mad at me,” I say softly.
The corner of his mouth lifts and he places a quick and gentle kiss on my lips. God, he’s being so soft with me, it’s killing me in the best way.
“I was never mad at you. I was…upset. Confused. You definitely have a knack for bringing out my jealous side, and that’s an ugly side. But no, I wasn’t mad. I know you couldn’t help yourself, I know what you did was weighing heavily on you. And I too had some things to deal with. You may not believe it, but I took no pleasure in killing your friend.”
I’m about to correct him, tell him Matt wasn’t my friend, but such a small detail doesn’t matter after death. He was someone I knew and that was enough.
“Then,” he goes on, “I saw what happened.”
Panic suddenly runs through me. “My father!” I cry out, sitting up in bed, my head reeling from the movement.
“He’s okay,” he says quickly, putting his hands on my shoulders and gently pushing me back into the bed. “Your father is fine. He’s alive, he’s at home.”
Relief floods my heart and I close my eyes. “Thank god.”
“It did make the news, though,” he explains carefully. “A high-jacking by someone high on meth is what they’re calling it. Some bystanders reported seeing a girl in the car, you. But I got there right away, with your mother, and we were able to coerce the story. When your dad was conscious in the hospital, he already knew what to say to protect you. That he was alone in the car, that you were elsewhere, that some junkie took the car after attacking him and that was that.”
“Jesus, what a complicated web we weave,” I say, sinking back into the bed.
“That we do,” he says. “But you’re safe. Your parents are safe. They know you’re here. And Yanik and the Dark Order are dead. I think you deserve to get some good rest now. You deserve it.”
I stare up at him. “A week of sleep wasn’t rest enough?”
“Just because you were sleeping, doesn’t mean your heart wasn’t dealing with everything. You needed time to refill the well inside you. You need time to work on the rest of you.” He brings his hand down over mine and raises it to his mouth, kissing the back of it, my knuckles, my fingertips, his eyelids fluttering closed.
Heavy silence fills the room for a few moments.
I hear his heartbeat.
“I was so afraid I’d lose you,” he whispers against my hand, eyes shut. “I’ve lived for so long, so long, and yet I feel like I never really lived. That time was something that didn’t matter anymore, that there was no consequence to my life, no more beginnings, no fresh starts. No more chapters. But you…you brought a new chapter to my life. A chapter where my life has purpose.” His eyes open and he peers right into me, stealing my breath. “You’re my purpose.”
I hear the deep, classical strains of “The Poet Acts” start to swirl in my head, sinking into my heart, which is blooming bigger by the moment. My eyes grow wet, my chest expanding, my jaw sore from holding back sudden tears.
He reaches out with his other hand, cupping it against my cheek, and he’s gazing at me with wonderment and adoration, like he can’t believe it, that I’m here, and he’s here, and we’re together.
“I love you,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “I truly do. And I always have.”
A smile cracks my face, spilling the tears, and I’m crying.
“I love you,” I manage to say but it comes out like a sob.
I’m a fucking mess.
But he knows I’m a mess, and somehow he loves me anyway.
God, he loves me.
Solon loves me.
He leans forward, kissing me on the forehead, and I’m grabbing his shirt, clawing at him, needing him, and then he’s fully on the bed now. He lies beside me and gently pulls me up into his arms. Cradles me. Holds me.
And I cry because I love him and he loves me, and I cry because I almost died and I almost lost him, and I cry for all that I did lose.
He just holds me and keeps me safe until I’m falling asleep again, my heart finally feeling free.
* * *
“Lenore?”
I move my head to the side, blinking.
Solon is sitting in an armchair right next to the bed, a steaming cup of coffee on the side table.
I automatically smile at the sight of him, my grin from ear-to-ear. “Hi,” I say softly.
“Good morning,” he says, the tone of his voice matching mine. He nods at the table. “I brought you some coffee. We have a brand-new espresso machine and
Angelo is still getting the hang of it, so my apologies if it’s not up to snuff.”
I slowly sit up, noticing for the first time that I’m in a white nightgown, similar to the one that Solon first put me in. “How long was I asleep this time?” I ask, voice groggy.
“Just a day,” he says. “You’re looking much better, but you’re still weak.”
I reach over for the coffee and have a sip, but the hot bitter liquid in my mouth feels wrong. “Well, you can tell Angelo the coffee isn’t weak,” I tell him, swallowing. “Whoever that is. But I don’t think it will help me.” I put it back on the table with a shaking hand.
“Angelo is the groundskeeper here,” Solon says, getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed beside me. “He’s been taking care of Odin. He’s like Yvonne, minus the warm personality. But he’s also a vampire, so that’s probably why.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “And you don’t want coffee because you don’t need coffee. You need me. You need blood, Lenore. It’s been too long.”
I glance at him. “What about you? Were you able to feed on me while I was asleep?”
His jaw clenches together as he shakes his head, eyes sharp. “I would never do that without your consent.”
“You could have. I wouldn’t have minded. I would have understood.”
“No.”
“Then you’re even more weak than I am,” I tell him. I think back to him at the barn, when he was in the grasp of the Dark Order. I felt like something was holding him back in his struggle. If he was weak then, how is he now?
“You need your strength first,” I tell him, sitting up straighter, and before he can do or say anything, I raise my arm to my mouth and bite into the soft flesh of my mid-forearm. Blood immediately pools at the wound and spills over.
“Lenore,” he says gruffly, trying to move back, but then I can see the smell of my blood has already taken hold of him, his pupils turning red.
I raise my arm out to him and he grabs it, his fingers sinking in, his mouth latching on. Sometimes I forget that he’s a vampire—sometimes I forget I am too—but here I’m reminded of exactly what he is.
And I love him anyway.
So he drinks, and drinks, and when I feel myself growing weaker, I pull my arm away, and fall back into the bed, and he stops.
Next thing I know he’s pressing his arm against my mouth, his blood spilling on my open lips, a few drops, enough to make me fully open my eyes, and then that hunger roars inside me and I let it go. Because with him I can be a monster, but one on a leash. He holds me back, keeps me in check, as I do for him.
I drink and let it fill the well, fill my veins, fill my heart until it’s pumping with him, pushing his life source through my circulation.
The world returns to me, a littler clearer, a little brighter. My muscles come to life, my brain switches back on, I feel like I’m glowing, floating.
I’ve never felt more alive.
Solon pulls his arm away and wipes my chin with his thumbs, his eyes positively luminous as he studies me. “There you are, my moonshine.”
I reach up with my hands, grabbing the sides of his face, my fingers pressed into his temples, and I pull him toward me.
“Kiss me,” I whisper to him, a new hunger running through me.
Heat flickers in his eyes.
He moves up on the bed, his weight over me, and covers my mouth with his and I’m lost in the way he tastes, the way he feels, the way his tongue and lips both soothe and spur me on, alternating, yin and yang.
It all comes down to feeling now.
To being.
The two of us together, somehow separated by time and then brought together.
He’d been waiting for me for so long.
“I did what I could not to fall in love you,” he murmurs, running his fingers over my lip before taking it between his teeth for a moment. “I tried. I really did. But it was already too late. It was already in the making. You were already meant for me.”
“Thank you for giving in,” I say softly against his lips.
He gives me the most breathtaking smile. “You’re welcome.”
Then he kisses me again, deeper this time, searing and sweet, the kind of kiss that your body never lets you forget, a kiss to compare all past and future ones to.
It does me in, opens up my heart to his, my heart that’s already pumping with his beautiful blood, beneath skin that feels like just a veil between us. We’re already so connected, flesh is just a formality now.
And it fades between us as he pulls my nightgown over my head, as my fingers fumble and tear at his shirt, as we strip each other naked, his body pressed against mine, hovering in my view.
I stare up at him, marveling at the way he was made, how every single inch of him is so perfectly put together. Even supposed flaws like a nose slightly too wide, the lines at the corners of his deep-set eyes, his permanent frown, every single part melds together to create a walking, breathing work of art. One that happens to have walked through history, through time itself.
All the way to me.
He smiles, the lines at his eyes growing deeper. “All the way to you,” he repeats, and for once I’m not mad that he read my thoughts. He deserves to hear it all.
He kisses me again, harder this time, a hunger that he’s kept at bay is now sneaking through, and I respond in kind, feeding off of it. My hands roam over his rock-hard shoulders, nails scraping lightly over his chest until he moans, his lips now at my neck, gently biting, sucking, nibbling, bringing my body to new heights, my back arching off the bed.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers in awe, his mouth working its way down between my breasts, over my stomach. “Most beautiful being that I’ve ever seen. You really do bring me to my knees, Lenore.”
My name on his lips sounds like a prayer.
I close my eyes, leaning back into the bed as he goes between my thighs.
Kisses me gently at first, then his tongue and mouth are lost to a feverish intensity that has me coming, the bedroom ringing with my cries.
I expect him to be rushing after that, but he’s taking his time now, because we have all the time in the world. His kisses turn to words of adoration, devotion, worship, and he places them all over my body, from the delicate bones of my ankle, to my stomach, to the soft skin under my breast. He kisses me with such reverence that I’m practically shaking from it, the same as any orgasm, but this time it’s my heart that’s being rendered.
I don’t know how it is with vampires, I barely know how it is with people. But this, right now, this feels so much more than what is happening. This feels like the two of us are being bonded beyond blood now, bonded by love, bonded by something that’s greater than us both.
And when he brings his face up to mine, gazing down at me in such a way that my heart does cartwheels in my chest, and kissing me like a dying man on his last breath, I know he feels it too.
His hands slip down over my sides, skin skimming skin, then he’s parting my thighs and pushing himself inside me.
I gasp, taken aback, having forgotten his size, how commanding he is, even when he’s not being rough. He slides inside me, my body seizing around him, my chest out, hands fisted in the sheets.
His breath is shaky as he pushes in to the hilt, sliding over every raw nerve, making my heart dance again and again. And he stares at me, in me, and I’m meeting his eyes, lost in how dark they are, both warm and cold. Like a fire made of ice.
Then he lowers his head with a low, shuddering groan, and presses his chest against mine, our skin leaping at the contact, and he buries his mouth in my neck. Biting but not drawing blood. Just holding on.
I am so in love with him I never realized how wonderfully terrifying that is until now. To know that I have him, that I could lose him, lose us.
But his movements steal my fears, bring me back around and then he’s moving faster, knees planting on either side of me, his large, strong body looming over mine.
I feel safe.
Loved.
Wanted.
Not alone.
And then he’s moving faster and I’m holding back, wanting to come with him at the same time. I’m whispering to him in my head, Please. Now.
And he’s responding with another groan, this one sounding from the depths of him, and then his fist is in my hair and he’s holding tight, breath trembling, mouth open as he stares at me, thrusting in and out, shaking the bed.
What he means is not now, but soon.
So I dig my nails into his back, holding on, holding back as he fucks me slowly, and then fast, and everything in between, and I’m feeling everything at once, all my sense overwhelmed, drowning in him.
“I’m coming,” he rasps, staring at me with so much intensity I think I might come just from his eye contact alone, but it’s too much for him, and he’s throwing his head back, neck arched, letting out a rumbling cry as he comes, his muscles straining as he holds himself together above me.
And I, I let myself go, the crescendo at the peak, the music inside me coming to a pitch, and then I’m shaking, screaming, crying, feeling it all, moving with it all, in synchronicity, like we once did across a dance floor, but this time it’s different, this time it seals us to each other in ways maybe we’ll never really understand.
I open my eyes, gasping, seeing the golden stars falling from the ceiling, landing on our skin, melting before they disappear.
I let out a giddy laugh, half-drunk with my love for him, half dazed because of the orgasm, and I wonder if I’m hallucinating.
But I realize it doesn’t matter.
Because what this is between us, that’s what’s real.
I feel it in my blood.
* * *
I spend a few more days at Solon’s house high above Shelter Cove as we get me settled, which means a lot of daily phone calls with my parents letting them know I’m okay. My dad has healed fast, probably because my mother smothered him in herbal poultices as soon as he got home. He was lucky.
I’m lucky too. I’m trying not to dwell on that too much.
I’m trying to live in the present.
It’s beautiful here.
Black Sunshine Page 36