Chapter Thirty-Three

Valentin

W hen Uncle Julian opens the door, it takes less than five seconds for him to see the death in my eyes. To know what I've done.

He pulls me into his arms, and I collapse into sobs. I'm that eight-year-old boy again, crying as he tends to the wounds my father gave me.

"I killed him."

"Shhh, it's okay, Valentin. My sweet boy."

I heave in his arms, letting everything go. Feeling every emotion that I've pushed down for so long. He lets me grieve. For my father, for my absent mother, and for myself.

And by the end of the night, I am cleansed. I'm born again.

I spare him the gritty details and instead speak her praises. My dark queen. I tell him of how she protected me from him. "She's our salvation, Uncle. She sacrificed her soul and body to right their wrongs."

Julian nods. "I misjudged her. Her love for you is pure. I see that now."

"We all misjudged her," Jessamine whispers as she peers from behind the wall. "Penny was wrong about her too."

"Her grandmother? She's never met her." I am still not one hundred percent happy that my uncle is shacked up with this ghost chick.

Jessamine creeps in, her body language timid and awkward. "There are things you don't know about Maureen. Things she doesn't even know about herself. You need to take her to Ever Graves."

"Tell me now," I demand, my patience non-existent after the night we just had.

"Easy, Val. Maybe it would be best to go to Ever Graves. Maureen needs to know where she… came from."

The way he speaks is cryptic. "She was born in Wickford Hollow."

He and Jessamine exchange a look. "Yes, but her mother was born in Ever Graves."

I shrug. "And?"

Jessamine cowers back into the shadows of the hallway. " There's something wrong with the women of Ever Graves ," she whispers.

An uneasy feeling hits my stomach. But this chick has that effect on people. She's so fucking weird. I can never make sense of what she says. I pinch my brow as I feel a headache coming on.

"What about the ravens?" I ask her.

She shudders. "The ravens are the devil's children."

What the fuck? I stalk toward the hallway, determined to get a clearer answer out of her, but my uncle stops me.

"Go get some rest, Val. You've been through a lot tonight." Julian hands me my leather jacket.

I nod. "Yeah, you're right. I'll come by later this week."

The sky is black, without a star in sight. I slide behind the wheel and drive as fast as I fucking can through the woods. I roll the windows down to feel the wind whip at me. It's cold and sharp, and it makes me feel something other than this hole in my chest that I have for that fucking disappointment of a father.

When I get back to Nocturnus, the lights are off, and the house is quiet. I slink up to my room, grateful to be back home. I kick off my shoes, strip out of my clothes, and slide into my bed. My pulse races when I feel her warm body inside my sheets.

"Maur…" I just want to bury my heart in her chest for safe-keeping.

She caresses my face. "Val," she breathes. "My beautiful Valentin… you're safe now. You're always safe with me."

I love this woman so fucking much. I gasp as I kiss her, thrusting my tongue deep inside her mouth. "Please fuck me, Maur. Fuck me violently and dark and hard. I need…"

"Shh, I'll give you whatever you want, Frankenstein. We can drink, fuck, read poetry under the stars, fall in love…"

I rip her pants off first, then her top. "All of it. I want all of it with you."

She lets me fuck her hard and rough. She begs me for more when I bruise her lips and thighs. She cries tears of joy, singing my name like it's a holy hymn when I slam my cock over and over again inside her pussy and her ass. Until there's so much cum and sweat that neither one of us has an ounce of energy left to give.

I collapse in her arms and fall asleep instantly, for the first time in my rotten life.