“I love you, son, but if you want to stay part of our family, you’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to.”
I couldn’t listen. Not to this. Moving to the edge of the bed, I tugged on my shoes, buttoned my shirt, and found the rest of my clothing. I had too many things to take with me at one go—perhaps I could hire someone to remove them for me, for surely I’d never set another foot here. But I had a small valise, and I pulled it from the wardrobe and stuffed whatever came to hand into it: my shaving kit, some socks, the Arcanorum. The hideous Valentine card Griffin had given me.
I’d keep it in my desk, wherever I ended up. Perhaps I’d take it out each February to remind myself of the few months we’d snatched from fate, before the world forced our lives back onto their inevitable courses.
My throat tightened with unshed tears, but years of pretending not to care, not to feel, helped me smooth out my expression. Picking up the valise, I went to the stairs.
Griffin and his father were in the front parlor; there was no hope to evade them. Upon hearing my step, Griffin turned to the hall. His eyes widened at the sight of me.
“Whyborne—”
“I’m not under the dweller’s influence,” I said hastily. What had he told his family about the attack, about my bizarre fit?
His brows drew together. “Then what are you doing?”
I glanced past him at Mr. Kerr, but the man refused to even look at me. Perhaps he blamed me for seducing Griffin. If it would make things easier for Griffin, I’d take all the blame, and gladly.
“I thought it would be better if I…if I left,” I said, struggling to keep misery from my voice.
Griffin’s lips parted with shock. “Why?”
I nodded in the direction of his father. “What else should I do, when you’ve no other choice? I can't ask you to give up your family, give up a normal life, for…this.” I gestured bleakly at myself. “For a life in the shadows.”
“Listen to him.” The floor creaked under Mr. Kerr’s boots. “Ruth will make you a fine wife. A year from now, you’ll be glad to have been saved from this, just like a drunkard’s glad to be saved from the bottle.”
Griffin looked between us, his green eyes dark with unhappiness. “Pa, please. I’m sorry you found out like this; I’m sorry I lied. But can’t you at least try to understand? To accept this is how I feel?”
His father reached out and gently gripped both Griffin’s shoulders. “I can’t because I care about you. I want you to have a real home. A family of your own. Someone who’ll love you, who’ll take care of you. Somebody to be for you what your ma has been for me.”
“But I already do,” Griffin protested.
Grief twisted Mr. Kerr’s features. “No, you don’t. He don’t love you. It’s just pleasures of the flesh, and the worst kind at that. Whatever you think you have, it’ll never last. Let it go. Be happy.”
“I am happy.” Griffin blinked rapidly, his eyes overly bright in the gas-lit hall. “I’m sorry I can’t be the son you wanted, but can’t you…can’t you at least try to love me as I am?”
Kerr bit his lip, tears shining on his lashes. “I do love you. But if you continue on like this, I can’t have nothing to do with you. Nor your ma, or Ruth. It ain’t natural.”
For a long moment, no one moved. Then Griffin let out a sigh and bowed his head. “Leave.”
I couldn’t breathe through the bands constricting my chest. “I…of course.”
“Not you.” Griffin took a step back from his father and toward me. “Him.”
What? I couldn’t have heard right. I balanced on a razor edge of pain, because this had to be another delusion.
But it wasn’t. Kerr’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean that.”
Griffin folded his arms over his chest, shoulders hunched, as if expecting a blow. “Please. Just go.”
“You’re really choosing him over your family?”
“Whyborne is my family.”
Moving slowly, as if sure Griffin would change his mind, Kerr went to the door and opened it. Pausing on the threshold, he said, “Your ma and I will pray for you.”
Then, wiping his face as if to dash away tears, he hurried out, leaving the door open behind him. As he reached the iron gate, Griffin looked up and after him, wetness shining on his lashes. “Bye, Pa,” he said in a small, lost voice.
~ * ~
I stepped past him and gently shut the door. When I turned back, he flung himself into my arms, his whole body shaking against me.
“I just wanted them to love me,” he whispered into my coat. “To not wish they’d picked some other boy from the orphan train.”
In that moment, I hated Kerr for doing this to Griffin. How could anyone raise such a son, brave and clever and wonderful, and then just throw him away?
“I’m sorry, my darling,” I said, holding him tight. “I never, ever meant to make you choose between us.”
Griffin shook his head and pulled away, just far enough to look up at me through eyes brimming with tears. “You didn’t. He did.”
“But—”
“Don’t you understand?” His arms tightened around me. “I l-love Ma and Pa, but...I can’t lose you. I can’t. Not to the dweller, or to society, or to anything else.”
He kissed me, hard and desperate, his teeth bruising my lip. “Don’t leave,” he begged between kisses. His breath had gone ragged, and he trembled against me. “God, Ival, please.”
“I won’t.”
“Show me.” His hip pressed against my thigh. His fingers slipped from my hair, shaping my body, tugging at my coat. “Show me you feel the same.”
“Yes.”
I took his hand and pulled him after me. The night candle yet burned in the bedroom, and Griffin pulled away long enough to drag the chair from the bedside, before sliding out of his coat.
I went for the buttons on his vest, kissing him as I did so. We undressed each other, our breathing ragged and raw. I sat on the edge of the bed, and he moved to straddle my lap, the hot length of his member pressing against mine. Threading his fingers again through my hair, he tilted my head back to kiss me, his hips flexing to rub our bodies together.
“My dear.” His voice rasped with emotion.
“Yes,” I breathed back.
Griffin shoved me back onto the bed, stretching his body over mine, his hands tracing the contours of my chest and sides. I ran my fingers across his shoulders, gasping and arching under him. He nuzzled into my neck, biting lightly on my ear until I squirmed against him, before tracing my throat with his tongue.
“Say you won’t leave me,” he begged. “I’m broken and scarred and selfish, but I swear, you’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I insisted. How could he think otherwise, considering our current activity? “I’m yours, for as long as you want me.”
He stilled and pulled back, his face revealed to me in the soft glow of the night candle. “What if I want you forever?”
My breath caught. I’d never allowed myself to consider our relationship in the long term. Griffin wouldn’t have invited me to move in had he not found my company agreeable, but I’d striven not to let my fancy stray beyond the next few months, perhaps the next holiday. Because, of course, he would tire of me, or the burden of our secrets would grow too great, or he would one day wake up and realize he could do better than a gawky, bookish creature such as myself.
His expression faltered; I’d hesitated too long. “I…forgive me, I shouldn’t have…”
I rolled over and took him with me, so I was on top. My heart pounded and I couldn’t quite catch my breath, but I framed his face with my hands and stared directly into his gaze.
“Yes,” I said.
His smile bloomed, better and brighter to me than a thousand electric bulbs. He flipped us back over, bending down over me and whispering, “Say it again.”
“Yes.” I kissed the nearest patch of exposed skin within reach, on his arm. “Yes. I-
I wish to be with you until the breath leaves my body, until the last stars burn out and the earth falls into the dying sun.”
His lips pressed against mine with bruising intensity, his arms and legs flexing to rub his body against mine. The feel of skin on skin made me groan into his kiss. He caught my tongue in his mouth, sucking hard, his erection leaving a slick trail on my belly.
“I want you,” he panted, when he finally pulled back. “Want in you.”
My mouth went dry with lust and anticipation, so I only nodded frantic agreement. He grabbed one of the pillows and stuffed it beneath my hips, before retrieving what we needed from the nightstand. When he turned back to me, he paused, running his gaze over my exposed form. Heat suffused my cheeks at his scrutiny, but my cock bobbed against my stomach, responding to the hunger in his eyes.
“My Ival,” he murmured.
Slick fingers pressed against me, and I breathed deep, opening to him, letting him do anything he wanted. I’d always trusted him with my body, and with a great deal of my heart. But I’d always held a little something back in reserve, a part which refused to think of a real future with him.
I could blame it on my knowledge of the uncertainty and fragility of life. We’d almost died on more than one occasion, and for all we knew, the dweller would emerge onto land and kill us all by the end of the week. But I’d be lying if I blamed my reticence on anything other than my own fear, my determination not to be surprised when he finally left me.
He shifted into position, and I clasped my legs against his flanks, feeling the broad head of his cock press against my passage. “Griffin?”
The candlelight turned the light sheen of sweat on his forehead into gold. He stopped, not moving, his eyes nearly black with desire. “Yes, my dear? Is something wrong? Shall I stop?”
“No.” I swallowed hard against the constriction in my throat, the fear which tried to steal away my words. Why had intimacy of the body always come easier to me than that of words? Was it because I had built my life around language, and so believed something once spoken had a weight and a truth it hadn’t before? “I just…You chose tonight. Chose me. And I just wanted to say I choose this, too. A life with you.”
He pushed into me. I gasped, back arching, legs tightening, seeking to draw him deeper. I abandoned words and let my body speak for me, reveling in the feel of him opening and filling me. He bent over me, beautiful, the muscles of his shoulders taut, his curls stuck to his forehead by sweat. Bracing himself with one hand while he stared into my eyes, he wrapped the other around my aching member.
A sharp cry of ecstasy escaped me, and I writhed under him, wanting to thrust and be thrust into. I ran my palms over his arms, his shoulders, his chest, before catching the tight buds of his nipples in my fingers and pinching. Now it was his turn to hiss in pleasure.
“You are everything to me,” he whispered. “The light to guide me through my days. The cove shielding me in the storm.”
“Griffin...”
He shifted slightly, changing the angle between us, and the head of his cock dragged over just the right spot inside me. My whole body jerked, electrified, and I gasped, “There!”
He obliged, keeping the angle, his fist tugging on my cock even as he sent shockwaves of pleasure through me with every thrust. I couldn’t possibly last, and I had just enough breath in my lungs to call his name as the tidal wave of my orgasm crashed down over me.
Chapter 19
Griffin growled wordlessly when I clenched around him. A moment later, his head went back, spine arching, pushing hard against me. Then he collapsed forward, catching himself on his palms.
For a moment, there was no sound but our breathing: rough and ragged, returning only gradually to normal. With a sigh, he eased gently away from me, pausing only long enough to brush a kiss across my forehead before padding to the washbasin.
“Stay where you are,” he said. He returned shortly with a wet cloth, cool against my overheated skin. I sighed happily.
The bed creaked under his weight. My limbs felt boneless and heavy, and I wanted badly to sink down into sleep. But instead I turned onto my side to face Griffin, catching his near hand in mine. “Will you be all right?” I asked.
A shadow passed over his face, but he nodded. “Yes.”
“Given my relationship with Father, I can only imagine how you must feel,” I said. “But I know it’s hard for you.”
“Yes.” He shifted closer, tangling our legs together. “Maybe a part of me knew this was coming, ever since the first time I left Kansas, and the last few days have been my final, foolish attempt to stave off the inevitable. Or perhaps I truly did believe I could have it both ways.”
“If I hadn’t succumbed to the dweller’s influence…”
“Hush.” He kissed me tenderly. “You haven’t done anything wrong, so stop apologizing. Just…hold me, please.”
“Of course.” I wrapped my arms around him, and he laid his head on my shoulder. Together we lay in warm silence, but it was a long time before either of us could sleep.
~ * ~
We both slept poorly; although Griffin didn’t have a full fit, he woke me thrashing and whimpering several times, in the grip of nightmares. Sleep returned slower and slower with each awakening. In the end, we both rose and dressed with the dawn.
Which turned out to be just as well, given Christine chose to pound on our door before we’d even finished breakfast.
“Ah, good, you are still alive,” she said when I opened the door.
“Er, yes,” I said. “I take it Griffin sent word?”
“He said you’d been attacked by cultists, were unwounded, but under some sort of psychic assault from the creature. I would have come immediately, but unfortunately, I chose last night to attend the opera, and it was quite late by the time I returned to the boarding house and found his note waiting.” She eyed me closely. “So what were the two of you doing when you were attacked, and why the devil didn’t you ask me to go with you?”
“It was just a trip to the park!” I exclaimed, exasperated. “And Griffin did invite you, remember?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. I had no idea. I’d assumed something happened to divert you from your planned evening.”
“Unfortunately, no.” I glanced behind me to make certain Griffin hadn’t come out into the hall, then stepped onto the porch with Christine. “His parents were there,” I said in a low voice. “They…found out.”
“Oh.” She pursed her lips. “I did warn him. Well, how bad is it?”
“Griffin told his father to leave.” I normally wouldn’t speak of our intimate life with Christine, but I needed to talk about it to someone. “The man threatened to cut off all contact if Griffin didn’t give me up, and, well, there you have it.”
“Good for Griffin,” Christine agreed, as though I hadn’t just said something extraordinary. “He seems to have learned his damned lesson, so we can all look forward to a great deal less drama in the future.”
“I…well, I suppose.” I lowered my voice even further. “But Griffin…he said…he wants our arrangement to be permanent!” The last word came out as more of a squeak than I’d intended. “Um, assuming we don’t all die in the next few days, anyway.”
“Well at least there’s one thing he’s sensible about.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t think you’re taking this any of this very seriously.”
“I think it’s too early to deal with any of this before I’ve even had coffee, especially having been up half the night worrying about you.”
“Oh.” I winced. “I’m sorry. Please, come inside and have breakfast.”
“Thank you.”
I’d assumed she’d keep my confidence, but as soon as we entered the kitchen, where Griffin poured a cup of coffee for her, she said, “Congratulations on coming to your senses and asking Whyborne to put up with you on a permanent basis.”
“Christine!” I exclaimed. Forget the griddle; Griffin could just fry
our breakfast eggs on my face.
“What?” she asked, taking her coffee from Griffin.
“I meant it as a confidence!”
“Well, I assumed Griffin knew about it already, considering,” she said with a shrug.
Griffin unsuccessfully tried to hide his smile behind his own coffee. “Indeed. Thank you, Christine. I am pleased Whyborne agreed to such an arrangement.”
“You blasted well ought to be.” She sat at the table and began to stir sugar into her cup.
Griffin winced. “Yes, well…you were right. I should never have taken things as far as I did. It was selfish of me.”
“Indeed, it was.” She sipped her coffee and made an appreciative sound. “Ah, much better than the swill the landlady makes. Now, tell me what happened yesterday.”
I let Griffin relate the facts. When he finished, Christine absently tapped her spoon against her cup. “They seem rather keen on killing you and Whyborne. Zeiler, at least, perceives you as a threat, which I take to be a good sign.”
“I don’t think they were going to kill me,” I said, remembering the threats of the sailor. “He told me to come with him, and didn’t try to use the knife until I refused.”
Griffin frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“I agree. And they were certainly trying to kill me when I encountered them earlier.”
“Perhaps they know their god is trying to take over Whyborne’s mind?” Christine suggested.
“Which only begs the question: what does it want with Whyborne?” Griffin replied.
“Perhaps it knows I can use magic?” I suggested reluctantly, not happy to give Griffin more ammunition for his argument against my using the Arcanorum.
“Perhaps.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced, however. “I’ll go to the docks today and discover if there is anything I can learn. Someone must have seen or heard something that might be of use. Or if I can find one of the cultists and get him alone, I might force him to tell me when they intend to summon the dweller, and why they’re interested in you all of a sudden.”
It didn’t seem like much of a plan to me, but I had no better suggestion. Christine seemed to come to the same conclusion, pursing her lips unhappily. “As you wish. I’ll go to the museum and attempt to do something useful, in the hope monsters from the deep don’t overrun the world. Send word immediately if you need my assistance.”
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 65