Chapter 5

Clara

He let go. I hit the floor on my back. Air rushed into my lungs in a raw, ragged gasp. I rolled onto my side and pressed one hand to my throat, coughing until my chest ached.

By the time I looked up, the corridor was empty.

His wife.

My knees hit concrete.

I stayed down for three breaths, pulling air through the mask until the burning faded. I could still feel where each of his fingers had pressed.

A wife.

I pushed myself up. Braced against the wall until my legs held. Then I moved.

Dylan was waiting two blocks south with the car running. The girl sat in the back seat wrapped in his jacket, staring at nothing. He'd driven to the secondary extraction point without being told. That was how we worked. No discussion needed.

"She's stable," he said when I climbed in. "Sent coordinates to the network. They'll have her somewhere safe within the hour."

I pulled the mask off. Cool air hit the sweat on my face.

"He let me go."

Dylan's hands tightened on the wheel. "What happened?"

"I hit him. Silver round, right shoulder. He grabbed my throat." I touched my neck. "Then he stopped. Checked a pocket watch and said he had to go see his wife."

"His wife?" Dylan pulled onto the main road. "First I've heard of it. Worth looking into."

I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. My throat ached with every swallow.

I locked the door and stripped out of the gear before stepping into the shower.

The garlic compound turned the water faintly green as it rinsed from my skin. I scrubbed my arms and neck until my skin stung, moving through the shower quickly, wanting nothing more than to get back to him.

The drive home took twenty minutes. I parked crookedly and didn't bother straightening out. By the time I reached our floor, my hands had almost stopped shaking.

I opened the door.

The apartment smelled like coffee and the soap he used. Soft music drifted from the kitchen radio he never remembered to turn off.

Elias was on the couch in a gray t-shirt and sweatpants, a book open across his knee, the lamp behind him throwing warm light across his shoulders. He looked up when I stepped inside, and everything else in the room stopped mattering.

"Hey." That quiet smile. The one that loosened something behind my sternum every time.

He was here. Just like he'd promised this morning.

I wanted to cross the room and press my face into his chest and stay there until tonight dissolved. I wanted his arms around me until I forgot the creature whose hand had closed around my throat without effort.

But in his mind, I'd just come from the office. I hadn't showered.

"Let me clean up first," I said. "Long day."

I closed the bathroom door behind me and turned the water as hot as it would go.

Under the spray, the Vampire King’s face surfaced behind my eyelids—fog where features should have been, a voice that didn’t belong to anything human.

And still, one thought wouldn’t leave me: a creature like him had a wife waiting somewhere.

I pressed my palms flat against the tile and let the water pound my shoulders. The ache from his hand hadn't faded.

The glass door slid open behind me.

I turned. Elias stepped into the shower. Water darkened his hair and ran down his chest in seconds.

"What are you thinking about?" Soft. No pressure behind it.

I blinked the water from my eyes and found a smile. "Just work. Long day."

"You worry too much." He brushed the wet hair from my forehead, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. Slow and steady. "Whatever it is, I'll handle it. You don't have to carry everything alone."

He meant every word. The warmth of it settled in my chest. Then the ache came, sharp and close behind it, because he meant every word and I was lying to his face.

"I know," I said.

He kissed me.

His mouth was warm and unhurried, and I kissed him back harder than I meant to. My hands found his chest and pulled him closer until the water fell on both of us. I needed this. After the fog and the scepter and the hand around my throat, I needed something real and warm and mine.

He deepened the kiss. His hands settled on my waist, his thumbs tracing slow circles against my hip bones. I pressed against him and felt his heartbeat under my palms, steady and alive.

My back met the tile wall. The tile was cool against my skin. His hands were warm.

His mouth moved to my jaw, my throat, the spot below my ear that made my breath catch. I tipped my head back and let my hands slide up his chest, over his shoulders, pulling him down to me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck. Steam clouded the glass around us.

His lips traced a line from my jaw to the hollow at my collarbone, and I let my fingers drag across the back of his neck, down over his shoulder blades. The muscles were warm and solid beneath my palms.

I knew this body. Every angle, every inch.

The pad of my finger crossed a raised line of skin.

A fresh wound. On the outside of his right shoulder.

I opened my eyes.

The image slammed through me. Silver bullet tearing fabric. A thin red line splitting the skin on the Vampire King's right shoulder.

The same side.

The water kept falling. Elias’s mouth was still warm against my throat. And my fingers hadn’t moved from the wound.