I winced, and Haley drew back.
“Did I hurt you?” she gasped.
“No, it’s… Some areas are still a little sensitive.”
“Elian couldn’t heal you?”
“He did his best, Haley. But vampire healing isn’t always a sure thing with demons, and… Well, this was about all we could hope for.”
She traced her fingertip across my eyebrow, then down the long scar that bisected it, all the way to my jaw. “And this one? Did Elian do this too?”
“That one… That wasmydoing,” I said. “After we left Midnight, I started having these nightmares. Migraines too. Melantha, this place… I never quite shook free of it. And every night I’d wake up with my entire skull feeling like it was on fire, and in those moments, I felt like I’d doanythingto make it stop. Anything. So one night, delirious from lack of sleep and wild with rage and completely fucking devoid of all hope, I grabbed a dagger and I just…” I made a slashing motion, then shook my head. “Terrible idea, obviously, but when you’re desperate and you feel helpless and you just… Fuck. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never really be free of Midnight, even if we do make it out, and I swear to the moon and the stars, Haley Barnes, if you fucking cry so much asonetear for me over this, I will leave you here without a second—”
“Jax.” She cupped my face, tilting it up until I looked at her again. “You survived. You’restillsurviving. So no, I’m not crying for you. I’m fuckingproudof you.”
She kissed me then, fierce and fiery, and wrapped her thighs around my hips, my cock hard between us, the water making us both hot and slippery. She was a survivor too, my angel, and had her own scars and stories to prove it, her own darkness to carry. And in that moment, I knew she understood me. Right down to my tarnished fucking soul. She’d seen it, and she was still here. Still in my arms. Still looking at me like she couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t exist.
Without another word, she smiled and slid down over my length, taking me inside with a shudder I felt right down to my balls.
Fuck, this woman…
The bathwater was slowly beginning to cool, but in my arms, Haley was on fire, my angel of darkness and flame, burning me from the inside out. When she pulled back from that intense kiss, the darkness swirled in her eyes again, matched in intensity only by the bright light of her heart, a juxtaposition that made my head spin and my entire body ache for her in ways a demon shouldn’t be allowed to feel.
For us, love should only hurt, like it had with Oona—a fae woman who’d allegedly cared for me enough to fake her own death to get me to leave Midnight, but not enough to trust me with the truth.
It should hurt, like it had with the men I’d once called brothers in a place where bonds were more often than not cast aside for a better offer.
It should hurt, like it had with my first family—the parents who’d condemned me to hell as a human, so certain I was a sinner beyond saving that they hadn’t even bothered to try.
But Haley…
She made me feel almost whole again. Made me believe that it was evenpossibleto feel whole again. And even as every warning about love and fear blazed through my mind, as my skull burned with old memories, as my chest constricted with old regrets, I couldn’t help but feel this. But fall. But bring her closer to me with every deep thrust, every soft breath on my lips, every kiss. And when her eyes locked on mine and her body tightened around me and she came for me once more, my heart expanded in my chest, filling me, filling in the holes and gaps, softening the old hurts, muting the fears I’d so fervently fought against for so long.
“Jax,” she breathed, and I swallowed her soft moan with another kiss—her lips, then her chin, then her throat, the sweet taste of her skin a fucking gift I still wasn’t sure I’d earned. And when I finally came for her, it shook me right down to my bones, and I bit down hard on her shoulder, marking her with a silent promise as deeply as I’d marked her with my teeth.
A promise to love her the right way—not with the kind of false, fleeting, conditional love that hurt and destroyed, but with the kind that wasreal.
Now that I’d gotten a glimpse of it, I’d never settle for anything less.
We lingered in the water a bit longer, just holding each other, Haley humming another of her blissfully off-key, post-orgasm melodies—a sexy-as-sin lullaby that soothed me like none other.
When our skin had sufficiently pruned and the water had turned cold, I got out of the tub, grabbing a towel and one of the guest robes hanging on a hook behind the door.
But I didn’t grab the eye patch.
I was done with it. For good.
“You coming?” I asked her, watching her naked form rise out of the water like a damned goddess.
“Soon. I’m just going to take a few minutes alone to finish up.”
“Fine. I’ll be waiting for you in bed.”
“Whose bed, demon?” she teased.
“Mine. Also known as yours, since that’s the only bed you’ll be sharing for the foreseeable future.”
“We’ll see about that.” She laughed, stepping out of the tub and looping her arms around my neck. “You’re not ready to call it a night? Get some sleep before your mission tomorrow?”
