“So William can’t do his magic Elite thing and give me pale blue eyes?” My tone was defeated. “At least it can’t get any worse.”
William walked into the room, his arms open like a king addressing his subjects. He still wore his hipster t-shirt and an easy smile as he strode across the room and sank into the chair next to Trix. William gave her a subtle nod, which she pointedly ignored.
“I had to make some calls. The Rose family are hosting the Equinox festival this year at their estate in Eltham Palace. It will be closed to the public for the month of March.” William crossed one leg over this other at the knee. His pose unusually dominating.
Henry gave his friend a long-suffering look. “Will Sophia be safe in the auction?”
“If your mistress doesn’t find out.” He smirked.
I bristled. “Your mistress?” I thought back to the comment that Cynthia the PA had made in the elevator and I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
William glanced at Henry, “It is not my place to speak about Lillian Blaire.”
Heat rose from my toes to my hairline. Anger flooded my body as Henry turned to me. There was guilt, plain as day, written all over his perfect face. His doe-eyes shot to my lips, and I tasted a metallic tang. I had bitten clean through my cheek lining, and blood filled my mouth. Henry’s eyes flared from their deep blue to pale ice. He stood up without a word and walked into the door nearest the living room, slamming it behind him. He was avoiding the blood, but I didn’t care. I leapt to my feet, fists clenched and walked after him.
When I opened the door to the room, which turned out to lead to the study, Henry paced in the dark. His eyes the only thing in the room I could see clearly, everything else was a black outline as the thick shutters kept out almost all light.
I kept my voice level, but it held malice as I measured my words carefully.
“Lillian is your mistress,” I said. “You left me, two years ago, for her. It wasn’t just a ‘summons’ was it?”
Henry turned silently. A candle on the other end of the room flared to life and made me jump back. His face was bathed in shadow, the light caught the perfect angle of his jaw and the light red sheen of his dark mahogany hair.
He said nothing, his jaw churned as if he was trying hard to loosen it.
My throat was dry; my eyes were anything but. “Tell me.” I croaked. “Tell. Me.”
“Yes, we were together.” He murmured, without turning to face me fully.
“You.” I pointed my finger at him, hatred flared in my bones. “You are a bastard.”
“Knowing I was with Lillian in that capacity, does not change anything.” He explained, no ounce of guilt entered his voice. “I am here with you. You are mine.”
“It changes everything,” I said. “I knew you were summoned. I didn’t know you were still sleeping together!” My voice became a shrill scream in the now silent room.
Henry's movements were slow and deliberate as he walked towards me. His fingers wove around my waist, and all my strength left my body. I wanted to push him away, but the part of me that wanted him to hold me was more powerful. I was disgusted with myself. His touch sent sparks through my blood even though my mind shrieked for me to pound his beautiful face to a messy pulp.
“You are my soulmate.” Henry buried his head in my hair. His hard, muscular body leeched my body heat and I melted into his embrace. I allowed my arms to drop limply to my side, unable to speak.
“I left you to protect you.” He whispered. “Lillian holds an immense amount of power over me.”
“You left me.” I struggled to break our embrace, “You may have chosen me. You may have marked me. But I never chose you.” I scratched the Blaire Sigil on the crook my wrist out of habit. Henry gripped my shoulders and pushed my body to arm's length so he could survey my expression. I did not know what he found, a tentative mixture of utter betrayal battling lust probably.
“You don’t mean that.” He said.
I closed my eyes as a single tear dropped down my cheek. The warmth I had felt from the JD only minutes before was gone. My fingers shook, and I needed something to take the edge off.
My skin throbbed with the new to cut. To turn my mental anguish into something physical.
He leant forward, his hands gripped the back of my head as our lips were forced together. I felt the light inside of my chest, the happiness that had always seemed so elusive. It flared and then slipped away as the kiss deepened. I couldn’t do that to myself anymore. I didn’t want to be someone’s second choice. I didn’t want to be the one that picked up the pieces of a man when his real woman tore him down. I cupped Henry’s face gently and forced myself to look into his eyes. My heart broke in two. My ears burned, both embarrassed and angry.
“I can't consolidate the man that I fell in love with, with the man that came back.” My voice shook. “I think that I need to leave.”
Henry slammed his hand into the wall, the drywall shattered. His consistently concealed anger and restraint was gone, shattered on the floor. The stoic man who screamed danger had shifted to something desperate. The only time I had seen that expression was when he was inside of me like I would disappear if he held me too tightly. As if I were a figment of his imagination.
“I have waited since the beginning of creation for you; and you tell me that I can’t have you because I am cursed?” His words were slow and carefully measured.
My eyes were wet with tears. “I don’t care about the curse. I care about Lillian.”
“They are one and the same.” He snarled. I flinched.
I tried to take a step back but found myself trapped by the wall, Henry took the opportunity to use his thigh to pry my knees apart. He stood between my legs, his hand was embedded in the drywall a foot away from my skull. I forced eye contact with him, unable to back down. I wanted to be strong, I didn’t want to be the weak woman that he had left in a cold bed for another.
“I love you so much.” He whispered, broken. “Please.”
I dug my fingers into my palms, hard enough to draw blood. I could still taste the remnants of my earlier bite, the blood on my tongue. Henry’s chest heaved as if he were drawing breath. The energy in the room, my energy, swirled in dizzying colour. His presence gobbled it greedily, leeching life force from the air without a thought. All he ever did was take, take, take! I was broken. I towed the line between mentally unwell and morally corrupt. I couldn’t afford to give anymore. Not when I would be dead in a few days anyway, at best, and insane on a murderous rampage, at worst.
“You were a Pureblood.” I hissed and jabbed my finger into his hard chest. “You are no more trapped than you allow yourself to be.”
I pushed him away, unwilling to concede to his touch. “You are excellent at pretending to be a human, Henry,” I said, a tell-tale tear leaked from my eye, and I cursed my weakness. “You have been cursed for so long. Feeling the emotions of others, experiencing them. But they are not your feelings. You’re just a spectator. You are nothing but a monster.”
I grasped in the darkness as my hand searched for the door handle. Henry’s arm wove around my waist, his grip was a hard, an unmoving marble statue. I struggled, but he stepped closer, pressing my back against his chest. I wanted nothing more than to collapse into him. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I knew he could sense the deep stirring, betraying love I felt for him. He planted a slow kiss where the seam of my arm met my shoulder and my cheeks flushed. My inner bitch roared. He was an incubus and he was trying to use sex to manipulate me into staying. I stepped away and instantly missed the electricity of his skin on mine.
I was unable to comprehend if his affection was a declaration of love or an acknowledgement of my goodbye.
“There is no ‘us’ anymore,” I said, my voice was barely audible. “I can’t do this. I can’t keep being hurt by your secrets. You have too many.”
“I need to protect you.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” I replied.
Henry spun me
around, and his lips sought mine. They were cold and demanding, his sandalwood and mint scent flooded my mind. I was drunk from his touch. The Pure blood in my veins, Damian’s blood, ensured that he could not drain me by touching me, but I still felt weak and overcome by my body’s need for him. I wanted nothing more than to climb under his skin and live there. But I needed to know that he had no more secrets, and there was no way I could ever be sure. There was no way that I could trust him, not when I couldn’t even believe my own two eyes. I allowed the kiss to continue for a few moments, even though I shouldn’t have.
When the kiss began to deepen, and Henry’s nimble fingers trailed sparks up the skin of my torso as his hand slipped under my shirt. I bit down on his bottom lip. Hard.
A growl, unlike any I had ever heard, vibrated through the room. I pushed him away and wiped his blood from my lips with the back of my hand. His wide doe-eyes were shocked. The familiar addictive rush of daemon blood coated my mouth as I pushed through the door and walked to the elevator. I jammed the button to the lift, repeatedly.
I heard footsteps on the tiles but forced myself not to look back. Trix’s delicate tattooed hand rested on my shoulder, she was silent as she stood next to me.
Henry slammed the study door open, his blood dripped down his chin.
“Don’t leave!” He begged, he dropped to his knees, his palms were flat on the marble floor as if the weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t let Damian kill you. I can’t.”
Trix's hazel irises moved sluggishly from Henry to me. Her expression did not chance but she must have seen something that steeled her resolve. The Witching squared her shoulders as Henry crawled towards us.
“Don’t come closer.” Beatrix said, her voice was low and threatening.
"Don’t allow Lillian to come between us.” Henry pleaded.
Bereft, I pushed every feeling I had for him, every warm and fuzzy until it was squashed under the balls of my feet. I forced myself to focus only on the stinging betrayal and hurt I felt.
“You are the one that allowed her to come between us,” I said robotically. “I’m sure I will find a way to survive without you.”
When the elevator arrived, Trix and I turned and left. I allowed myself one last glance at my daemon before my heart broke. He wasn’t my daemon any more.
I had a routine for my grief. After my dad died, and then when Melanie followed soon after, I had perfected the art of falling into the abyss.
Step one: Lots of vodka.
I didn’t have any more steps. Not anymore.
Before I had met Henry, my arms and thighs were covered in angry red lines from my razor blade. I used to self-harm. I was a cutter. Deep down, there was a nagging voice in the back of my mind that begged me to hurt myself. I had yearned to replace the mental and emotional pain with something tangible. I curled into a ball on my bedroom floor as sobs wracked through my slight body. My cheeks stung from the abundance of saltwater tears. I was pathetic. I grieved the loss of a man in the same way I had mourned the loss of murdered sister. I couldn’t help the disgusting and horrible feeling that had crawled under my skin. Any ounce of goodness I had felt had withered and died.
It took me a while to notice that Trix was stood in my doorway, watching me. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her face was clear of all emotion but her eyes glittered with a feeling that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was akin to what I felt when I had stared into my sister's eyes. I was unable to get up and shake off the pathetic person that I had become. When I had met Trix, and we had started fights and drank daemon blood, I had never shown any kind of weakness. I wasn’t the strong and confident person I wanted so desperately to be.
Trix lowered her arms to her sides, her hands shook and her nails embedded in her palms. She stretched her fingers out when realised I was watching her. Her fingernails, which was always painted and maintained, had been bitten down. Beatrix turned on her heel without a word and returned a second later with a bottle of Russia’s finest vodka. She placed on the shag carpet, in front of where I had curled up on the floor.
Without another word, her gaze caught on the hundreds of sketches of Henry Blaire that I had done years ago. They hung on my walls like a stalker-obsessive wallpaper. It hurt to look at them.
Before when Henry had left me, there had been no closure and no finality. Now, it had ended. It was done.
Trix's lip curled in anger and her face flushed red, I pushed myself up onto my knees (and like an idiot) grabbed the vodka to protect it. A long slow drop of crimson blood slid from her nostril and ran over her lips, her eyes caught mine and we stared at each other. Witching powers had a substantial cost and the nose bleed was only a small part of the damage that Trix did every time she used magic.
Every single portrait of Henry burst into flames. Her power was incredible. I could taste it on the back of my tongue like burning plastic. Nothing else in my room burned, only the sketches had been set alight.
Another sob ripped through me.
“What am I going to do, Trix?” I croaked, my voice was broken. “Damian is going to kill me.”
She knelt by my side, the hard ice in her expression melted. She wove an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I started to cry again, and rested my face on her chest; she was much more well-endowed than I was, even though she was a good foot shorter. I let tears and snot fall onto her shirt but she didn’t push me away, Trix held me closer, more tightly.
“If you’re so worried about the Pureblood, why didn’t you just stay?” Trix asked, curiously.
“He left me for her.”
Trix undid the screw top on the vodka bottle and took a swig. She offered it to me, and I grabbed it and nursed it greedily.
I felt warmer with Trix by my side and with a little bit of liquid courage, it seemed like maybe one day I would get better.
“I’ll help you,” Trix whispered. She held me and stroked my hair. “You’re my family, Fia.”
She always called me Taylor, never Fia.
Trix held me until my tears ran dry.
8.
It had been a few weeks, although time meant something different now. My toes were constantly warm with a strong buzz, and although many of my problems had started because of drinking daemon blood, I found myself knocking a shot or two back before Trix and I hit the town.
Trix had assured me that the tattoo on the back of my neck would make it almost impossible for Damian to track me, and with no reason to avoid Lillian’s reach because Henry and I were done, the Fold became open to us again. Folds were pockets of purgatory, links between worlds, hidden away. They were caused by immense suffering, death and decay. El Dandy had been an illegal dance club on Denmark Street before an arsonist had killed every single immigrant inside. Now, it was home to a salsa club of the same name; only the club was trapped between London and Hell. El Dandy was the nearest Fold to the Camden flat and as such, Trix and I were regulars.
The thick smog of lust and life clogged my senses as I knocked back another Sambuca. It wasn’t my favourite choice of drink but I was shaking it up a bit.
I sat in the booth with Trix, who was just as drunk as I was, although you would never know it.
The club was full of Latin American electronica fusion music and various daemons. Not all of them sucked the energy from the room, and some of them even put out different waves. I recognised the sunburst orange of a Kitsune, a fox daemon in the body of a young woman. Once I thought I had even seen someone with cloven goats’ feet.
A stark contrast from the perfection of the Incubi and succubae who were designed to lure in humans to feed on.
My brow furrowed and before my mood shifted because I had thought about him, Trix grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dancefloor.
I was well practised in the art of drunk dancing, but it had been ages since I had worn heels even though I didn’t need them. At five foot nine, I towered over everything, Trix was my little
Witchy sidekick. Although, technically, I was more of her sidekick. She was powerful, I was weak and very occasionally did things I shouldn’t.
A blur of movement in my peripheral drew my attention, and I saw Melanie on the dancefloor, beside a female succubus daemon and a man that were so close they seemed attached. Despite the thumping music of the club, I still heard my dead sister whispering my name. She lived inside my mind. Her violet eyes flashed and met mine, mischievously. Melanie began to sway to the music, gyrating her hips and running her fingers through her hair without a care in the world.
In real life, the last time I had seen her was through yellow police tape, her skin blackened from a heroin overdose. The last time I had seen her in a vision was when she had laughed at me for stabbing someone in a bar.
I was not happy to see my sister.
“Are you alright?” Trix shouted over the music. A few heads twitched in our direction. Daemons had super-sensitive hearing.
“Yeah,” I said, bobbing my head to the dance music. A fusion of electronica and acoustic guitar.
You’re going to die, Sophia.
The dancefloor was packed with writhing bodies, all of us were bathed in red lights. I closed my eyes and focused on the music. I could feel my buzz wearing off, I needed copious amounts of booze or a little bit of daemon blood in my system. Either/or.
“Do you have any D?” I crooked my finger and spoke into Trix’s ear. She was grinding on a male daemon, who looked a little bit like a famous rockstar who’s name I couldn’t remember.
Beatrix shook her head and wound her arms around his neck, allowing his nose to trail a sensual path up the skin of her throat. I could have stayed close, and danced parallel to them like an awkward third wheel, but I needed another drink. I didn’t feel ready to find a conquest just yet. I was still raw and hurting even if I wanted to be numb.
I ordered a double whisky and downed it, before circling my finger for another. I leant on the bar and took a slower sip from the second glass. I allowed my eyes to travel over the club and my gaze drifted up to the VIP platform overlooking the dance floor. I shook my head to clear my paranoid thoughts. Pureblood’s did not come into the Folds. They were owned by the daemon Families and as such were out of their ‘jurisdiction’.
Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods Page 31