Chapter 16

16

Aurora

“You goddamn demon spawn.”

I stare at the ruined mess of a bed and curse harder. Apparently instead of leaving this room after we went to dinner, the cat decided to mark his territory by shredding the bedspread—and a pillow, if the feathers everywhere are any indication—and pissing all over everything.

I hold a hand to my nose. “What the actual fuck, you little shit?” I can’t sleep here. I can barely stand in the room without my eyes watering from the smell of cat urine.

He’s nowhere to be found, of course. Why stick around to deal with the consequences of his actions? Not that I’d really throw a cat out a high-rise window, but I want to at least threaten him with the possibility.

Maybe I can strip the sheets and the smell won’t be too bad?

I take a step toward the bed…and gag. Nope, that’s not going to work. If the smell is this bad, then he soaked the bedding and probably the mattress, too. “Of course Malone would have a demon cat that destroys everything and then pisses on it for good measure. It’s the animal version of her, but at least she has some control.”

“So glad you think so.”

I close my eyes and spend a full five seconds wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole. “Your cat is a monster,” I say without turning around.

“Rogue is particular.” She clears her throat. “Let’s continue this conversation in the hall.”

I don’t know why it makes her seem a little more human that the smell seems to bother her as much as it bothers me, but it does. I back slowly out of the room, and Malone shuts the door. We both take slow breaths. I rub my nose. “You say particular, but I’m hearing sadistic.”

“I don’t have guests often.” She contemplates my closed door. “Apparently he’s feeling threatened.”

“Or he’s just a dick.”

Her lips curve. “Or he’s just a dick.”

I look around. “Where is the little monster? He and I are going to have a chat.”

“Rogue knows how to make himself scarce after he destroys something.”

The way she says it so easily… I stare. “Does your cat often destroy furniture?”

“At least quarterly.” She shrugs and heads down the hallway in the opposite direction from the bedrooms. “As I said, he’s particular.”

Malone keeps a cat that actively destroys furniture. I haven’t seen any evidence of it in the house, which means she must replace the pieces after he fucks them up. The fact that she keeps the cat, even seems to love him despite it… It doesn’t fit in with the picture of Malone I’ve crafted over the years. Very little tonight has fit in with that picture, and I don’t know how to adjust.

It doesn’t change what she did. Nothing can change that.

But she’s more complicated than I first imagined. It was easy enough to imagine killing her when I thought her a cold monster. Now, I don’t know what to feel. Her actions are unforgivable, but she’s got layers that I can’t help but sympathize with. It doesn’t make me hate her less…except the deep rage I’ve had in my chest for so long feels strangely blunted.

I’m tired, that’s all. A simple explanation that I’m overthinking.

I follow Malone into the kitchen and watch as she pours two glasses of wine. She raises her brows at me as if daring me to challenge her. I decide to pick my battles and take the offered glass without complaint. It’s an expensive vintage, and I relish the flavor profiles sliding over my tongue. “This is very good.”

“I know.” Malone props a hip against the counter and studies me the same way she studied the guest bedroom door. “Do you have any family beyond your grandmother, Aurora?”

“No. She’s all I have.” Rage has me weaving on my feet. I almost thank her for the reminder, for unearthing my reason for hating her so intensely. “Or all I used to have.” I know Malone will assume the person I’m grieving is my grandmother, and I’m only too happy to let her make that mistake. The truth is that my grandmother passed six years ago in her sleep. It was a peaceful way to go, the way she said she always wanted, and though I grieved her, there was a strange sort of peace mixed in because she was finally at rest.

There’s no peace when it comes to my mother.

“Ah.” She sips her wine, still watching me closely. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s picked up more in those three words than I meant her to. “I’ll have the mattress and bedding replaced tomorrow. The couch is chic but freakishly uncomfortable. You’ll sleep with me tonight.”

I blink. “What?”

“I did mention that I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”

She did, but I still can’t wrap my head around how quickly this happened. Malone is letting me into her inner sanctum. No matter how intense she is, eventually she’ll have to sleep. This could end tonight.

The knowledge is a stone in my stomach, weighing me down. I sip my wine through numb lips. When I originally set myself down this path, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my heart. Now? Now, down is up and up is down. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I should want to end this woman, to make her pay for the pain she’s caused me, the mother she took from me. For the memories that grow hazier every year, ones that I can never replace. The woman who birthed me is gone, body and soul. She’s never going to wake up. Never going to smile. Never going to hug me again.

Because of Malone.

I close my eyes and wait to embrace the rage that lingers in me at all times. It’s still there, still a roiling mess of darkness, but it doesn’t surge the way I expect.

I am so fucking tired.

“Aurora.”

I open my eyes as Malone plucks the wine glass from my hand and moves to the sink. She washes both glasses with quick, efficient movements and then sets them on a small drying rack I hadn’t noticed before now. Malone turns, and it almost seems like she hesitates, though it’s so brief a pause, I’m half sure I imagined it.

I swallow hard. “This is a mistake.”

“Which part?” Her lips curve, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m well aware of the pitfalls. Come along.” She turns and walks out of the kitchen, leaving me to trail after her.

Except she’s not aware of the pitfalls. No matter how formidable she is, she’s not even on the same playing field because the possibility of me actually attacking her doesn’t even register. I don’t know why that bothers me so much. It should be an asset. My end goal is easier if she’s caught unawares.

But somehow I’m opening my mouth, and words spring free. “Do you often invite people into your bed?”

“No. Never.”

That makes me feel even worse. I rub the heel of my hand against my chest. The sequins are little pokes of pain that do nothing to calm me. “Then put me up on the couch.”

Malone pauses in her doorway. Shadows hide her expression from me, but I can tell she’s displeased by the tense line of her shoulders. “Tell me your safe word.”

I stop short. “You are not turning me sleeping beside you into a scene.”

“Aurora, we’ve been in a scene from the moment you arrived here. Tell me your safe word.”

“Thorn.”

She doesn’t move. “Do you want to use it?”

Conflicting desires rise in me, tangling themselves up until I don’t know what I want anymore. Against all reason, my throat goes tight. I am…so incredibly tired. I hang my head. “No, I don’t want to use it.”

She opens her bedroom door and steps back. “Go in and strip. I’ll be there presently.”

The numbness from before spreads, coating my cheeks, sliding down my neck, curling around my heart. I slide past her and pull off my dress. I followed the earlier instructions, so I’m naked beneath it, but I take the time to fold it and set it on the chair next to the stylized desk across from the bed. By the time I finish, Malone has reappeared with my toothbrush and hair wrap in hand.

She passes it over. “Is there anything else you need from the room tonight?”

“No.”

“Get ready.”

I’m almost relieved when she doesn’t follow me into the bathroom. This is strange enough without brushing my teeth next to this woman in a parody of domesticity that can never exist. My numbness doesn’t decrease as I go through the familiar motions of getting ready for bed. I can almost pretend that I’m not about to sleep next to my enemy. Almost.

Right up until I stand in the doorway and stare at her large bed. I’m still coming to terms with the thought of lying next to her, close enough to touch, to kiss, to taste. Close enough to strike.

Then she walks out of the closet without a single piece of clothing on, and it’s everything I can do not to hit my knees right then and there. Malone is magnificent. There’s no other word for it. Her hair is a little less than perfect, sticking up in places like she’s been running her fingers through it, and her body is all lean, strong lines, save for the softness of the curve of her hips, her small breasts each tipped with a rosy-pink nipple.

She stops short, and we stare at each other. She’s seen me naked more times than I can count by virtue of the Underworld, but right now she’s looking at me like this is the first time. Like it means something that I’m standing here without a single physical barrier between us.

It doesn’t.

It can’t.

“You put me in a nightgown before because you keep this place so cold.” It doesn’t feel cold right now. It feels like I’m burning alive.

She barely glances at me. “My bedding and body heat are more than enough to keep you warm tonight.”

“Malone—”

“Bed.” She snaps her fingers and points to the left side, farthest from the door. Her expression is strange, as if she tries to pull on the icy expression but can’t quite manage it.

I hesitate but finally obey. There’s no other option. I’m too tired, too wired, to push her right now. I don’t know what would happen if I did. Better to just submit to this tonight and land on solid ground tomorrow when she replaces the things her demon cat destroyed.

The bed is so comfortable, the sheets so soft, I actually moan a little as I settle in. The guest bed was nice, but this is on another level. I could… But no, I can’t. I can’t do shit, because I’m supposed to be figuring out how to end Malone instead of wiggling around in her bed like a puppy.

She stalks to the other side of the bed and flicks on the lamp there before moving to turn off the lights in the room.

I pull the covers up higher over me and watch her climb into bed. Am I supposed to say good night? Do we kiss? Do we fuck? I don’t know, and panic over not having a game plan sends my brain swirling in frantic circles.

Malone cuts me a look. “Sleep.” She turns off the light, bathing the room in inky darkness. With the curtains closed, we might as well be in a cave for all I can see. I’ve never been someone who needs a light to sleep, but there’s something about the feeling of the mattress shifting beneath me as Malone gets comfortable that has me desperately wanting to see.

I close my eyes and focus on inhaling slowly and exhaling equally slowly. There was a time when sleep was difficult for me, and so I’ve acquired dozens of meditation techniques designed to help me drift off.

Not that any of them work now, when I desperately need them to. Time turns to taffy, the seconds ticking by in an endless loop. I keep my breathing steady. It’s the one thing I can control, and so that’s what I do.

Malone must think I’ve actually gone to sleep. She shifts, and then I feel a nearly phantom touch against my temple. Her fingers linger for a few moments, and then she withdraws, taking her touch with her.

I don’t understand what’s happening.

Things were fine as long as we didn’t speak beyond kink, but now I can’t stop seeing facets of this woman. How tired she is. How much she bears. How her people seem to respect and even love her.

Did my mother’s people love her?

I don’t…

I don’t know. I don’t remember much of her because she kept me so separate from the world she moved in. I lived with my grandmother even before the fight that put my mother into a coma. My grandmother was a hard woman, beaten down by the world. She’s the one who taught me how to be strong, how to blend in so people would continually underestimate me. Always focused on survival at all costs. From the way she spoke, she thought my mother was the worst kind of fool for grabbing at power beyond her reach. Almost as if she believed my mother got what she deserved because of it.

I exhale slowly. It doesn’t matter. No one deserves what happened to my mother. Malone could have stopped the attack at any time. From the reports I’ve unearthed in the Underworld, she delivered one last kick to ensure my mother stayed down. The doctors can’t conclusively say that last blow is responsible for the coma, but if not that, then what?

Next to me, Malone’s breathing has evened out, her body relaxed in sleep. Now’s the time to move, to climb on top of her and pin a pillow to her face. To do something except lie here and count every breath she takes.

I just need to move, to put myself into motion.

To…