A flash of silver strikes out from his side, hidden in his robes as it always is. The same knife he uses to bloodlet me, slices across Francesca’s ivory neck. Her name crawls up my throat as I watch her eyes flutter and her mouth widen into shock. She collapses to her knees, pale hands trying desperately to cover the wound. I thrash against my confines, injuring myself in every attempt to get to her. But her fight is lost. She falls face-first to the ground, blood puddling around her lifeless body as I scream her name over and over again.
“You and I will carry this loss for the rest of our lives,” Bane announces before gathering her body into his arms. He doesn’t linger any longer and carries Francesca down the stairs, as if she is merely asleep.
Francesca is dead.I scream into the night, long after he is gone.
Finally, when my voice is spent, I crawl as close to what is left of her as I can. I don’t touch the blood, rather, I try to commit the scent of her to memory. Images of her would fade over time, of that I was certain, but her blood will always stain me. For a short time, I held Francesca, yet longer did her spirit linger with me in the church tower. Bane never comes back to clean up the blood, and when he does return, he finds his plaything unresponsive to his torture.
And so time went on. As my hunger grew, starvation ate away at me. My consciousness fades into sleep and I relegate myself to the church tower prison, accompanied by the smell of ripened grapes.
Millie — Present Day
By now, tears have claimed the last of my make up and left my face stained with streaks. I lost it when Bane pulled the knife on Francesca, and instead of me comforting Gray, it was the other way around.
“That’s awful, Gray.” His arm is firmly under my head, which is likely soaked from tears now, too. He doesn’t move or try to push me away, though. We just lay there, staring at one another, unsure of what to say next.
“It was.”
“I can’t believe he did that,” I choke on another sob, and he flashes a cool hand forward to catch more stray tears. “They left you there to rot after, too, like, how traumatic? I mean, it’sfucked up enough that he tortured you, but fuck, I mean… how can you just kill someone like that?”
“I know what you mean.” He closes his eyes for a few moments, as if remembering it all one horrible moment after another. “It still haunts me.”
“How did you get through it?” Pain slashes across his features, and I immediately regret asking.
“Starving was a fine distraction. As the years went on, it was easier to let go. In all that time I slept, I was trapped with those feelings stuck inside my head. Guilt, shame, grief. The nightmares were neverending, but I didn’t have the strength to pull myself out of the darkness,” Gray says, his voice tight with emotion. “It wasn’t until you stumbled into me that I was able to wake up.”
“Able to?” I ask, sniffling.
“Your fall startled me,” he says, opening his eyes again. “After that, you had my full attention. The smell of your blood was like a siren call.”
A blush sneaks up on me as I recall the gash on my leg from falling. “Was it really?”
“Millie, yours was the first blood I had smelled since Francesca’s.” I can tell he’s deadly serious, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to shy away. “It was so strong that it overpowered the memory I had of hers.”
“You’re only saying that because you were hungry.”
Gray snakes his free arm around my hip and leans in close to my face. “I thought that at first, but it hasn’t faded. Your blood is like…”
“Peaches?”
He smirks and purrs lowly. “No, darling, that’s your cunt.”
“Oh.” My thighs press tighter together.
“No, your blood is like… the chorus of a song written just for me. When you’re around, I can’t hear or feel anything butthe notes and their vibrations.” Gray’s fingers trail a soft line down my back and along the curve of my rear. My body jolts and shivers in reply. “When I touch you, I hear new notes, new lines that form a different melody. When I taste you, the song is whole, full and flowing. I can’t get it out of my head—I can’t getyouout of my head.”
“Songs get old after a while,” I say sheepishly, though I am completely floored by his profession.
“Not yours,” he says seriously, all while rubbing hypnotic little circles against my hip. “There’s always something new… somethingdifferentI discover. It’s in your voice, your taste, or your scent.”
I make the mistake of making eye contact as he speaks. Something about his expression makes my chest ache, kicking up feelings like fallen leaves. I know the universe is mysterious and all good things happen in due time, but it’s working overtime on me. My head and my heart are falling faster every minute I spend with him. He’s so close I could kiss him, and I desperately want to. He opened up to me; he let down his walls just a little for me to see some of the pieces that make him,him.
Unfortunately, I know myself too well. A kiss would end this conversation, and I don’t want that. Not yet. Not until he’s said everything he needed to say.
With that, I give myself a mental shake and refocus.
“I’m sorry you lost her. Francesca, I mean.” I can’t imagine what it was like for him to watch Father Bane kill her the way he did. It was brutal. “She was clearly important to you.”
Gray’s hand stops moving on my hip. A shuddering breath overtakes his body and he closes his eyes. I see the anguish in his expression, and even if I can’t hear his thoughts, I kind of understand what’s passing through his mind. I lean forward and push him onto his back, draping half of myself on top of him.
