Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  Her shoulders slouched and her chin dipped, almost as if she wished she could melt into the pavement before her. One hand rubbed absently at the opposite wrist. She looked broken and frail, even more than she had when we’d met again in Salem.

  My heart longed to be near her, but I had promised to meet her at four. I was determined to keep my word to the letter, if only to let her know she could trust me. It took everything in me not to run straight to her though.

  She looked around, almost as if she was checking the road to ensure she wasn’t being followed, and then walked a slow circle around the building. I hid lower in my seat and was reminded of the last time I’d watched her from an automotive hideout. Then, she’d walked down the street with a disguise firmly in place but a bounce in her step. Now, she slinked around as if trying to leave as small an impression on the world as she could.

  The catalyst for the difference between who she was and who she’d been was me. I had destroyed her life by introducing myself, and therefore my family, into it.

  After she’d circled the warehouse, she stood in front of the roller door and appeared to take a moment to catch her breath. I couldn’t blame her. The last time I’d been in that place was the day I’d shot my own father to secure her escape. I had no reason to suspect that she’d been in there since then either.

  The weight of those memories weighed heavy on me. It must have been crushing for her—that was the same day her father had lost his life. Not for the first time, I wondered whether I should’ve tried to arrange a different meeting place.

  Once she’d completed her lap, she appeared to gather the courage to head inside to wait for my arrival. The sight made me want to run straight to her. I reminded myself again of the reasons I was determined to wait. Her comfort was everything.

  I closed my eyes and counted out the seconds, living with the memory of happier times with her for minutes at a time. Eventually, I could wait no longer. It was still fifteen minutes before my promised arrival, but it was almost an hour since she’d gone inside. It was time to reveal myself and take whatever would come next.

  Ensuring I made as much noise as I could, I traced steps that had once been precious to me. The time we’d spent together in this place so many years ago were like fables to me now, stories told of someone else’s life—a warning to future generations.

  When I found my way to the door to the inner-sanctum, I held my breath before pushing through it. For good or bad, I was going to lay it all on the line. She couldn’t hurt me, except through rejection. If that happened, I just hoped it didn’t destroy me completely. I wasn’t sure how many more times I would survive being ripped from her hold.

  Entering the room, my eyes immediately searched for the sight they’d craved for over eighteen months. When my gaze fell on her, I wasn’t disappointed. She was as beautiful as ever, even though it was clear she’d had a hard time since I’d last seen her.

  Hadn’t we both?

  At first, our conversation was stilted, awkward. I wanted her to throw herself at me, wanted to catch her in my arms and kiss the fuck out of her, but I couldn’t. She didn’t belong to me—she might never again. The thought was devastating. Still, I couldn’t help but edge closer to her with every word we shared.

  “You must regret the day we ever met,” I said to her when I was close enough to touch her, even though I didn’t dare close that final distance.

  She looked at the ground for a moment, before her perfect lilac irises lifted back to meet my muddy brown ones. “Despite everything, I don’t think I could ever regret that. I could never regret . . . you or what we had.”

  My heart just about burst at her words.

  And yet, they weren’t enough.

  They didn’t erase the pain in her eyes that caused my heart to constrict. I’d been aching to touch her, my fingers moving toward her of their own volition, but I was afraid. If I touched her, I knew the memories of her embrace would be burned into me anew. If she rejected me after that, it would shatter me.

  Who are you trying to kid? You won’t survive leaving here without her regardless of any small touches.

  She dropped her chin in what appeared to be the granting of permission, and between that and the truth in my thoughts, I couldn’t resist any longer.

  My fingertips brushed across her cheekbone, and I almost sobbed with the satisfaction that the small touch offered. The way my fingertips burned in such a fantastic way—something only she could do to me—set a fire racing through my blood.

  Gaining confidence when she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch, I pressed my palm against her soft cheek and my feet drifted forward until I could feel the heat radiating from her. I absorbed the warmth, turning toward it like a sunflower toward the sun, and soaked up her radiant energy.

  “You’re such a beautiful woman, Evie.” I wasn’t even sure that the words had come from me, except I knew it was my voice. My heart had taken over and disconnected my body from my brain, it was unwilling to heed cautionary advice and proceed with care.

  “Why are you being so sweet?” She almost sobbed the words as desperation filled her tone and tears welled in her tightly squeezed eyes.

  The question took me aback. Had she forgotten that she was the one who’d run from me?

  I tried to console her, telling her the truth about everything. Then she delivered a blow I hadn’t expected. She’d heard me on the phone at the hospital, heard the venom and disgust as I’d spat hateful words at my father—only she’d thought the words and the emotions behind them were directed at her.

  Her statement was a physical kick to my stomach, making it ache with the sorrow that a stupid misunderstanding was the reason I’d had to endure so many months without her.

  Vines of hope for us and hatred for my family tangled around my throat making it almost impossible to explain myself without a tight voice. I pressed on regardless, telling her about the memorial I’d had to do for Lou and the plan that Eth and Dad had concocted behind my back.

  I tried to explain everything as best I could. “When I found out you’d run from the hospital, I figured you didn’t want to be around me anymore—that you finally understood the danger that I’d put you in. That you blamed me for my family’s actions, and I got it.”

  Her body started to tremble as I continued my explanation, telling her how I’d felt when I watched her drive away, what I had done when I was in Europe.

  “It took a long time and a whole pile of favors to translate them all, but I did it. I needed to know.” I brushed my fingers across her cheek as I debated how much to tell her. I couldn’t give away the real reason I’d started my journey, not without pushing her away again, and I couldn’t risk that. “I needed to know that you’d be safe. And then, when I realized you wouldn’t be, I had to find you and warn you.”

  I was about to tell her the rest when she spoke words that filled me with dread.

  “I’ve run for so long because I thought you were hunting me.”

  She told me of the times that she’d been close to capture, and I cursed my own stupidity. I’d left the country assuming that she would be left alone and someone had continued to hunt her anyway. I wasn’t sure if it was Eth or Dad, or someone else from the Rain—I wouldn’t even put it past Ben to organize something like that. Regardless, I should have been at her side to keep her safe.

  She’s alive. She’s here.

  The thought lessened my internal rage, but only slightly.

  “Whoever is hunting me seems to be able to second-guess my every move. It’s like they’re always just one step behind me.”

  Her words made me certain it was my family. Hatred for Eth burned through me. Had his help with the Oxford situation been the result of a guilty conscience? Was he actually tracking Evie each time I’d called?

  “I thought you hated me for what happened to Louise. It made sense that you would want me dead.”

  I’d been holding back so many emotions about my sister for so long, and the
sorrow in her voice made the dam break. “What happened to Lou was her own doing! It was her fault, and it was just a goddamned miracle that you weren’t killed too. I’ll never be able to get the sight of you, unresponsive on that fucking hospital bed, out of my head. It’s haunted me for so fucking long, Evie.”

  She sounded close to tears as she continued, “I know I was wrong now, and I’m sorry. I should have trusted you more.”

  “You should have,” I murmured, immediately regretting my choice of words when she shrunk away from me as if I’d slapped her. I tried to soften the blow. “I told you that I’d made my choice and that I didn’t regret it. Nothing changed with Lou’s stupidity. I have never regretted you.”

  I told her about the epiphany I’d had while overseas. It was the way I had felt for so long, but the desire of making the world safer for those who were like Evie, of not hunting without prejudice anymore, burned in me stronger than it ever had. My discoveries had provided me with evidence of the inherent good in Evie, and I was certain there were other creatures out there like that.

  Over the course of the conversation that followed, we both had the chance to air our regrets and explain our worst choices. I’d just finished explaining the state of my mind when she ran from me in Rolla when she looked up at me with sorrow-filled eyes.

  “I’m so tired, Clay.” The dark circles seemed more pronounced as she spoke, as if her words had the power to manifest a physical change within her. “When I first got your letter, I thought that this was a trap. I thought I would walk in but that I’d never walk back out.”

  I couldn’t understand why she came if she was so certain I had been hunting her—why she’d come in spite of thinking it was a trap that might end her life. “Then why are you here?”

  “I had to see you again, even if it was the last thing I ever did.”

  Her words should have made my heart sing. She’d been so desperate to see me again that she willingly walked into what she’d thought was certain death. Somehow, despite the positive I could take from them, each syllable was like a knife to my heart. It almost seemed as though she was giving up, suicide by former-lover.

  Anger and sorrow swirled through my body, each fighting for control. To steady myself, I drew her into my embrace and found a peace I hadn’t felt in far too long.

  While I held her, I asked her to stay. I wanted her to, but was so certain she would push me away.

  “So you really haven’t been hunting me?” she asked quietly.

  “I really haven’t,” I reassured her. Soon, I would tell her what I had done instead and she would see the truth in my words.

  “Good.” I almost thought I imagined the word, silently issued on the top of her breath. “Then that means this isn’t an entirely stupid move.”

  The feel of her lips against mine was a shock. No less powerful than a punch to the gut but so much more pleasant. In fact, so much better that, for a moment, I couldn’t imagine a more wondrous feeling in the whole world.

  I parted my lips and reciprocated the emotions she was giving me. My fingertips brushed across her cheek and into her hair. As all the blood in my body rushed south, and memories assaulted my mind, I imagined a number of better feelings—ones I was more than willing to rediscover then and there if she’d let me.

  Her name flowed from me as a whisper and I was almost certain I would wake and find this was all a dream—a hyper-real night vision inspired by a boo hag somewhere in a faraway country.

  Regardless of whether that was the reality, I was going to enjoy every second I had with her. Unlike in the dreams I’d had while at Oxford, in this instance I could make my own sounds. I could move my own body. My hands took that thought as a challenge and reached for the hem of Evie’s hoodie, pushing it higher and exposing more skin with every second that ticked past.

  I figured my insistent urging would have one of two results: she’d push me away or pull me closer.

  When her fingers tugged at the buttons on my shirt, I was done. It had been a year and a half since I’d shared anything more intimate than a practically platonic kiss. My hand had kept me satisfied enough to function from day to day, but it had nothing on the insistent playfulness of Evie’s tender caresses.

  Wrapping her legs around me, I lifted her and carried her to the nearest wall for support. Part of my mind registered the fact that I was doing what I’d been so careful not to the last time I was in this place—I was reducing our relationship to nothing more than a quick fuck against the wall of an abandoned warehouse. It was impossible for me to stop though. I knew her touch now and I needed her kisses.

  In that moment, I could refuse oxygen easier than I could resist her.

  “I’ve missed you so goddamned much,” I murmured against the warm skin on her neck. Her body grew hotter and hotter in my palms and yet, instead of burning me, it ignited desires that had been buried deep in my heart for so long.

  There wasn’t enough of her exposed, not nearly enough for me to touch, to kiss. I ripped her hoodie and shirt off in one swift move, leaving her almost naked and panting with need. I barely glanced at her before my mouth was back exploring the skin it had missed so desperately. My tongue lapped at her collarbone, desperate to caress every inch of her.

  I moved along the curve of her shoulder until I reached the point where her throat swept upward and then I stilled and pulled away—barely able to believe what I saw. Resting in place around her neck, as if it had been there forever and would never be removed, hung the chain I’d given her.

  I’d been so certain she would’ve thrown it away in anger or disgust, it never occurred to me that she’d carried it around with her for so long—or that she’d worn it through it all. She had thought I was hunting her—that I wanted to kill her—and yet she still wore my chain.

  “It never occurred to me to take it off.” Her words were weighted with something I didn’t understand, and she squirmed under my gaze.

  “What is it?” I asked, sensing there was more to the story than she’d said.

  A tiny sigh fell from her lips before they tipped into a slight smile. “It always comforted me. Whenever the days were at their darkest, I would touch it and be reminded.”

  “Reminded of what?”

  “That, even for a moment, you loved me enough to give me this piece of yourself.”

  “Silly, Evie.” I couldn’t believe the stupidity of us both—we’d lost so many months of potential happiness because we’d been so scared of the doubt the other harbored. “I’ll love you forever, and I give you every piece of myself. For the rest of our lives. Or as long as you’ll have me.”

  Before giving her a chance to respond, I showed her exactly how much I loved her through a kiss. My tongue met hers urgently and dragged deliciously across her lips, my teeth scraped across the plump pillow of her lower lip, and my hands wandered frenzied, aimless trails across her smooth skin, tracing old paths that were both familiar and new.

  Littering one shoulder were a series of small scars, almost certainly remnants of the burns she’d received in the fire Lou had set. The almost invisible blemishes forced me to recall every minute of the time I had been apart from Evie with crystal clarity and resolve to never be parted from her again. Not even if I had to reach into the flames myself next time.

  There won’t be a next time, I reassured myself. From that day forward, I would do what I’d failed to do so far—keep her safe.

  My fingers touched her cheeks, dragged at her bra, brushed over her nipples, tickled at her stomach. Everything happened without conscious thought, as though I was compelled into action by something greater than just me.

  Even if I had been in control though, I wouldn’t have changed a goddamned thing. I tugged her clothes away, seeking access to all the things I’d been denied for so long by absence. Even though it wasn’t wise to delay or let our desire take hold just yet, I couldn’t stop myself if I’d wanted to.

  Only Evie held the power to say no, and her voice was otherwise
occupied with tiny sounds that spurred my need on to heights that I could never have imagined. Eighteen months denied pleasure, denied access to her sweet taste—it was too much.

  I fell to my knees in front of her. Once, I’d wondered whether her kind had been worshipped in days gone by. From the artifacts I’d found, I now knew they were. Not one would ever have been worshipped as thoroughly as Evie would be for the rest of her days if I had anything to do with it though.

  Grabbing hold of her hips for support, I moved to caress her pussy with my tongue. The taste of her was divine and a moan rose in my throat in response, vibrating against her warm flesh. In response, she clutched at the wall behind her for support and cried out with need. Continuing to explore, to taste, I moved my hand so I could use my fingers to speed her to pleasure.

  The sensation of the warmth surrounding me as I rediscovered her body, made me long for more. For everything. Worshiping her with my fingers, I kissed my way back up her body, stopping to clutch at her waist as the realization she was back in my arms struck with an intensity that made me want to sob.

  I glanced up her body, her flawless olive skin, her chest—heaving as she panted with desperation—her fiery red-gold hair spilling over her shoulders, and couldn’t let the moment go unnoticed.

  “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” I murmured against her stomach

  By the time I reached her lips again, I couldn’t wait another second. Evie’s body trembled in my hold, and I wanted—needed—to unite with her fully. I wrapped her legs around my waist, took just a second to line myself up, and thrust into her.

  Being with her again was almost too much to cope with, too much for my body to withstand, and I had to clutch at her hips and still my movements to stop myself from coming on the spot.

  When I started to move again, the small moans of pleasure she made as I thrust into her were almost worth every second of the time we’d spent apart—except for the knowledge that if I’d been at her side, I could have made her issue similar sounds every day for the past year and a half. As if she sensed a melancholy settling into me, she drew my lips back to hers and kissed me until we were both breathless.