Chapter 49

MAEVE

24 Park Road

That's all we have.

Once deciphered, and with Ash's help, Jamie researched every Park Road in the London area, and any town in reasonable travelling distance to the city. Without a suburb or postcode, locating the exact address proves hard. But isn't that the point of the code and vagueness?

Most locations that the pair find are shops and residential homes, all too small or too public to house an army of vampires or perform supernatural rituals. We check and double-check owners' names for any links to dragons, but we'd never background check every person in the time we have.

By the morning, Jamie narrowed down to two possibilities a couple of hours drive from each other: a derelict building that Google map's images shows covered in scaffolding and a builder's sign, and the other a disused theatre. Although checking out both places makes sense, there isn't any connection between the builder's name and dragons, and the disused theatre raises the highest red flag. We'll begin there and if there's no trace of Dominion activity, we'll move on to the other location.

We're reluctant to ask Dorian for his blood rune help and the hybrid clearly stated he didn't want to involve himself, so we've a long drive. But if the ritual involves hemia from the catacombs, the event must take place after sundown. We'll arrive in London in plenty of time. As far as we know, Gabriella can't daywalk which adds another advantage—an opportunity to search the buildings in daylight, and enough time to snoop around both locations, if necessary.

Ash questions whether the address could be a trick, or that Gabriella might change the venue once she knows we infiltrated the catacombs. Possible but unlikely if everything's in place for tonight. By now, Gabriella must know the story about the hemia vampire who transformed into something with eyes like stars in the centre of a void-like presence. A creature that killed with his mind without pause to think and would've slaughtered more. Gabriella will recognise the First's energy and Andrei from the description.

I spoke to Andrei briefly yesterday evening. He's avoiding people, which worries us. After Tobias's time with me, he went to Andrei and the pair sat in the lounge room talking for hours, stopping my chance to do the same.

At least Andrei's communicating and not hiding—for now. The distance he keeps from us all worries me, especially after his comments about pressure within him exploding. What keeps Andrei away from the others as much as from me? Concern because he doesn't understand his capabilities or how close he is to the First now?

As Andrei was never an open, relaxed person, his behaviour isn't unusual but despite him committing to our cause, he's not a hundred percent here. Yesterday, after his disastrous outburst, is the first time Andrei's spoken candidly to everybody about his mental situation. Yet afterwards he withdrew straightaway to his room, claiming exhaustion, and never joined us for dinner despite my attempt to drag him downstairs.

This morning, I wander from room to room searching for Andrei but he's missing. Missing. My heart rate increases with every minute I can't find him. Andrei wouldn't leave but what if the First took him? He doesn't reply when I text him and I take another panicked circuit of the house.

As I step outside in the rain, I push away thoughts the First abducted him. No. He must be outside if he isn't in the house. But why can't I sense his presence? It's not unusual for Andrei to wander away on his own these days, but he rarely leaves the estate alone. Today, he must've because I scout all the places I'd find Andrei outdoors. Nothing. The rain batters my yellow jacket, testing the limits of the waterproof and my blue pants soak through.

The Winterfall house's location isn't the best; sun lovers should choose somewhere different to live than the north of England. This morning, clouds replaced the view of the hills and mountains, as if they don't exist, the world around soaked by rain and engulfed in grey. No sunshine for Andrei; less reason for him to walk outside.

My stomach knots.

I head to the summerhouse last, but if Andrei waited for me there, he would've replied to my message with something suggestive. There's nobody in the cosy building apart from me dripping water onto the wooden floor beside the cushioned wooden bench.

Andrei where are you? I'm in the summerhouse

I half-smile to myself. If he gets that message, surely he'll respond. I pull off my damp coat then absentmindedly take hold of the book I read the day Andrei returned. Dracula. My cool fingers dampen the pages as I flick through. How ironic that I never read or watched horror movies in the past, and had zero interest in TV shows filled with vampires and werewolves. Or witches.

Tessa obsessed about vampires in our early teens, which is one reason I worried what might happen at the Halloween dance when Andrei tagged along. Back then, I knew enough about Andrei's past to know that he'd used his looks and charms as a vampire with human girls before.

How was I to realise Andrei was the one with the obsession but not for human blood? For me.

I shiver from more than the soaking when the First's presence comes into my circle of awareness. Or Andrei? I'm still unable to differentiate between Andrei and the creature. As the heartbeat grows closer, I step out, hoping this is a repeat of the day Andrei returned.

Yes and no.

Andrei pauses at the edge of the clearing surrounding the summerhouse, but he isn't smiling, neither does he walk across to me. Bizarrely, the person who destroyed lives yesterday holds a bunch of sunflowers in his left hand. He's shaking and watching me with wide eyes.

"Andrei?" I whisper.

Not looking at me. Andrei's looking through me. He's soaked, no hoodie, just a black T-shirt stretching damp across his chest accentuating every dip and curve of his muscle. Rain flattens hair against Andrei's face, his skin paler in the gloom. He shivers like someone would trapped in a rainstorm, but cold and wet never bothered him as hemia and wouldn't now.

I step towards him, but Andrei doesn't move or register me, the sunflowers now held downwards by his side. As I touch Andrei's face, I snatch my hand back. He's burning up, much warmer than Ash's unnatural heat. And his eyes. They're like quicksilver.

Andrei matches Tobias's description of the night he took the blood.

No.A familiar fear wrenches at my heart; the one that pulled at me every time I walked into Andrei's room as he lay unmoving. I can't go back there. I'd never cope a second time, not now we've tasted a new freedom together.

"Are you bleeding?" I ask in a trembling voice as rain trickles down my face. "Have you vomited?"

Andrei blinks at me. "Maeve."

My voice rises in pitch. "What's happening to you?"

"I don't feel right," he says hoarsely.

"We should go back to the house. Tobias can help." I take a step closer, and we don't touch but the heat from Andrei meets the ice spreading through my veins.

"No!" Andrei steps back, then pauses and frowns at the sunflowers. "I bought these. From town. I shouldn't have walked into town," he says emotionlessly.

"What did you do?" I ask in horror.

"Nothing. But I don't belong in that world." He winces. "I don't belong to the day."

"The sun's hurting you?" I grab the sunflowers and drag him by the hand into the summerhouse. "Has the ability…" I push damp hair from my face. "Worn off?"

"No. Maeve."

"Has using the powers yesterday done this to you?" I drop the flowers onto the small table, pulse racing harder when Andrei doesn't reply. "You're not well. I'll find Tobias." As I step around where he stands in the doorway, Andrei grabs my arm so hard that I swear in pain.

"Don't leave me, Maeve."

"Tell me what's wrong," I urge.

Tell me you're not disappearing again.

"I don't know." Andrei splays his fingers across my cheeks. "Stay with me."

"Always," I stroke hair from his forehead, and Andrei buries his damp face into my neck, lips pressing against the skin.

My muscles go rigid, ready to fight Andrei off if his teeth pierce my skin, but he's kissing me again. Slowly, sensually, running his lips and tongue from my neck to my jaw. His fingers touch my waist; they should be ice cold and uncomfortable, but instead he triggers a heat inside me to match them.

Andrei's shaking doesn't stop as his lips cross my cheek to reach my mouth again, and he pauses. "What have I done?"

"In town?" I ask, mouth filling with an acidic taste, images of human bodies in the street leaping into my mind.

"The blood. Why would I be different to the others that the First created?" His hot breath strokes my lips. "The blood will kill me."

"No!" I attempt to move but his arm around me bands tighter. "Wrong. The First created you to protect itself."

Andrei's voice becomes a rasp. "Has something happened to the First? Because something's wrong."

"I don't know." I wipe more rain from his face. "Look at me. You'll be okay."

"I love you," he murmurs. "Don't let me go."

"Never. But we need to get help."

"The others can't see this," says Andrei. "They won't trust me. They'll think it has power over me."

"You're hurting inside yourself, not attacking others. Is this…" I can barely say the words. "Like when you took the First's blood?"

Andrei shakes his head. "Something else. Like I'm falling."

"I'm scared for you, Andrei. Please let me find the others."

He's looks less himself in this state, but this is my Andrei gazing at me. "I don't know who I am."

"You're Andrei." I place my hands on his. "Andrei, who I love and who loves me. The First targeted you because it saw a broken person and glued you together with… this. But you are not whatever you contain now."

"But I am. I'm losing him. Since yesterday… when I attacked." He squeezes his eyes closed. "Like the energy burned some of who I am away too."

"Look at me." I stare into eyes that burn mine. "You are Andrei. The guy who once did everything he could to act like an asshole and push me away. The one I hid in the dark with when you opened up to who you are. Who we are. You're frustrating and make the stupidest decisions sometimes but you're too strong for mistakes to break you. Look at your life. What you've survived. What we survived." Every second that passes, I'm on tenterhooks, waiting for blood to seep from him. "Whatever this has done to you will not kill Andrei."

"I'm not here." His eyes close again. "I'm not connected anymore."

Not connected.

"That's half of the problem. You're disconnected from us," I say. "You've left me."

"No. That isn't true."

"Don't you understand? You're severing the connection you've made with us all because that's what Andrei does when he's scared. He shuts everybody out. You've shut me out through fear."

"No." Andrei repeats and kisses my face, pressing his lips to my forehead. "Because I'm cautious."

Stepping back, I push fingers into my hair. "Because you're scared!"

I wait for the angry denial but that's pointless because every single moment since he walked into my day, fear radiated from him more than any other emotion.

"How lost are you, Andrei?" I ask. "Are you the First or yourself?"

"Yesterday. The things I did. The First's voice wasn't there. I never felt her influence but… that wasn't me. I attacked Jamie, for fuck's sake. I don't know what I'm capable of! I'm not in control once I'm triggered. What if I disappear altogether?"

The tears choke me again. "I can't lose you, Andrei, but sometimes I feel I already have."

He tenses. "Why?"

"Because you won't touch me!" I never meant to shout but the frustration seeps out. "Because you're withdrawing into the dark that sometimes surrounds you now."

"Maeve…" His hands hold my cheeks. "You won't lose me. I'll cling onto who I am as long as I don't lose you."

I hold his face too, the shared breath hot and intense, and the charge beneath our fingers, between our lips where they hover so close together, sparks the familiarity between us.

"Please come back to me, Andrei."

Andrei only hesitates a single moment before he kisses me, dragging the air from my lungs as his impossibly hot lips and tongue move against mine. He tastes of sweetness I've missed and of the darkness that whispers around him, but he's mine.

Andrei's kiss splinters our broken world further as the intensity of the fierce energy from within him tears apart the remaining parts of us that I"ve held together. Not energy that he's fighting, but that which drives his desire to return to who we were. I sprawl across the cushions as Andrei tips me backwards and covers my body with his.

I need to be surrounded by Andrei, engulfed by everything he's denied. I pull at his wet T-shirt, and when he helps tug it over his head fingers trembling, as the desire to reconnect consumes me. Andrei pushes my sweater upwards and kisses along my skin, holding my waist as he moves his lips. He stops, exhaling against my stomach; his hot cheek pressed against me and breath coming in bursts. Pausing. Anchoring himself before anything can drag him away again.

I tug at Andrei's hair. "Kiss me."

He lifts his head, and everything in Andrei"s expression blows apart any last doubt who he is. Andrei gazes at me with the same vulnerability and need as he did the first night spent in his room, but as magnified as the changed the blood made to him.

All my worries and desires reflect back as Andrei strokes damp hair from my forehead. "I love you, Maeve. Whatever else changes, that never will."

A rough passion follows the tenderness, a longing to get skin on skin as we pull at our clothes. The world shifts further away with each item we remove from each other, and every new taste and touch of each other"s skin. As I shiver against the cool day, Andrei slides a hand under my back, arching me towards him, his mouth and tongue teasing me.

He"s holding his weight away, cautious but I'm starved by the days lost, eager to be pressed beneath him, obliterated from anything but this. Dizzied by his lips and tongue on each newly revealed place, I"m a trembling mess as he pulls at my soaked jeans, now a second skin.

I laugh at how it takes two of us to strip them away, then his own as he struggles with his too. The day cools my naked skin, but Andrei covers me again. He smiles, head pressed against mine, his hands on my hips. I murmur as he strokes gently from my ankle upwards, circling his thumb against my inner thigh teasingly close to the apex. As he slides a finger along my heat, my body fires with the memory of every time Andrei touched me.

More. I need more. To push away the guy who walked into my day minutes ago and find the one Andrei's scared he's lost. I make a soft sound as he eases his fingers into me, and Andrei sucks in a breath and tenses.

His bright eyes hold my own, asking the question without words, and I nod. "I want this. You. Everything you've held back from me."

His fringe is damp on my forehead as he places his lips on mine. "I want you so much, Maeve, but don't let me fuck this up."

I half-smile at his words. "You won't. You never do."

Andrei's mouth crashes onto mine again, our tongues dancing together, tasting each other, knowing each other. I moan into Andrei's mouth, as holds me tightly, and guides himself into me until I'm completely surrounding him. Tipping my head back and closing my eyes, I groan as each thrust intensifies the pleasure I've craved .

"Look at me, Maeve," he says.

My eyelids flutter open, and I meet Andrei's. Not quicksilver ones brimming with confusion, but his. There is more intimacy in the look we share than any kiss and my heart fills until it aches to explode.

"I see you, Andrei," I whisper. "You're not lost; you're here."

The fierceness of us, the pleasure pushing me further towards the edge consumes me, and tears fight my eyes as I hold his gaze and watch as he lets go—release the fear, the desire, and the wall he rebuilt around himself. He rests his forehead against mine, murmuring over and over how much he loves me, as he places a hand between us, teasing me until a shockwave tears through every part of me. Andrei pulls his head back watches me unravel, soaking up my pleasure. Crying out, I dig my fingers into his back not wanting to let go of him as he continues to touch me, sending me over the edge again.

Eyes closing, Andrei's mouth parts, and the pleasure at seeing the effect I have on this guy knocks away the little breath I have left. I move against Andrei, urging him on, whispering what he's doing to me, until he pushes hard into me one last time, and buries his face into my hair, groaning.

He lifts his head and brushes tendrils of damp hair from my face staring down at me as if I might disappear if he blinks.

"You're fucking incredible" he says and then a smile tugs at his lips. I know exactly what he's about to say, and arch a brow, remembering these words. "And I will never get tired of the incredibleness of fu?—."

I slam a hand over his mouth. "Okay. You're definitely not lost, Andrei."

Andrei chuckles against my palm before pulling my hand away. His head dips, fingers splaying across my side as he kisses along my collarbone, until meeting my lips.

"Did I say I love you?" he murmurs against them.

"Yes."

"Because I really fucking do, Maeve."

"Ah, there's my eloquent Andrei." I drag the blanket from the seat, the tassels tickling my skin as I draw it around us.

My hair lies across Andrei's chest, and I rest my cheek against his heated skin, but the fingers pulling through the tangles are cooler.

Andrei's short breaths aren't from fear anymore and when I place my chin on his raven tattoo and gaze up, tears well again in relief when the green dominates the silver in Andrei's emerald eyes.

"Are you okay?" I whisper.

"Well, I definitely feel more connected."

I roll my eyes at his joking. "But how you were…before."

Andrei focuses on stroking my cheek. "Yes. But still not right. Don't say anything to the others."

I lace my fingers through his other hand and kiss them. "Hold on to me. Us. Everyone in the house. That's who you are."

His eyes lift to mine. "I've missed you so much, Maeve."

"Don't ever push me away like that again." I crawl up to rest my forehead against his. "Don't break yourself because you're frightened of breaking me."

A hand slides into my hair thumb across a cheek. "You say I'm the Andrei from the academy who was an asshole to you? I'm not. But you're also not the confused girl I tried to push away, and sometimes I forget that."

"I don't need protection," I whisper. "I've security from knowing I'm loved and cared for, and confidence from everybody's belief in me. If you focus on protecting me, you'll lose focus on what's happening around you."

"And lose control."

"Exactly." I slide my fingers to the nape of his neck. "Try common sense not this new instinct."

He pokes my nose. "You're the one who isn't showing common sense."

"Why? Because I helped you?"

"Um. No. Because you stripped naked in the summerhouse, in the daytime, where anybody could see you." He nips my bottom lip.

I could cry at how Andrei's relaxed around me again, that I feel him. "Ah. The real reason you didn't want to return to the house?" He frowns. "I'm joking, but you got your wish."

"I wasn't expecting that particular wish fulfilment today." He smirks at me; something I once hated but now love—another part of him.

"Same." I sit up. "Can we agree that you need to fix your bond with the others too?"

Andrei chokes. "Um. I'm not having sex with them."

"Ha ha." I poke his nose then reach out for my sweater. "None of us knows what we're facing today. But we do this together. No rogue, First-filled antics, Andrei."

"I'll try, but I'm worried." He watches as I dress, grabbing his clothes too. "I had an overly long conversation with Tobias about this last night. Softly, softly something-something."

"I think that's asking a little too much." I smile as I pull on my soaking jeans—or attempt to—the smile becoming a grimace. "I'd love to stay here, but it's freaking cold. Can we please return to the house now?" Andrei nods and I pick up the half-squashed sunflowers. "Is this why you went into town? To buy me flowers?"

"Yeah. The ones in the kitchen vase died while we were in London." He smiles. "Sunflowers always remind me of you, the girl who shines in the sun and fills our home and my life with colour. You love them too."

"You took a trip to the florist on the day we're hoping to tear down Gabriella and the Dominion?" I chuckle. "You never stop surprising me."

His smile brightens his eyes. "Sometimes in a good way?"

I lean down and kiss him, a soft brush of my lips. "Very occasionally."

Andrei mock gasps and pulls me to him. I rest my head beneath the perfect spot between his shoulder and head, inhaling the scent of him and our intimacy, never wanting to forget the taste of his kiss again.

Andrei isn't lost. The First will never kill the guy I love. I've told myself this every day since he took the blood, and I will never let go of that belief or him.