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They’re a beautiful disaster together, and I suspect they always have been. They don’t talk, too prideful to show vulnerability, needling at each other just to save face. But at the same time, they need each other just as much as I need them. Maybe even more so. The way their bodies move together, hands familiar with just how to stroke and grope, their kisses biting but at the same time, not lacking in care. There’s an intimacy in their violence.
Elias takes Caelan’s flushed, needy erection in his hand and strokes him roughly enough to make Caelan arch and hiss. Helikesit rough. Elias keeps pumping Caelan’s cock until Caelan comes as well, and they rock against each other with panting breaths and low groans until they’re both spent.
Caelan flops back down onto the bed with a used, satisfied moan. Elias takes a moment to clean them both up, but it’s perfunctory. He soon returns and draws me into the post-coital embrace alongside Caelan and himself.
“Apologies,” Elias says, breathless. “That… escalated.”
I laugh. “I enjoyed the show.”
“Hah. ’Course ya did,” Caelan comments, muffled by the pillow he’s half-buried his face into.
I kiss them both. Despite the thoroughly explicit display they just put on for me, I’m not turned on to the point of being too needy or uncomfortable, even though it was undeniably hot. My body sure wants to be turned on. But my head’s a mess, not really in the mood for sex, and the conflict between the two has me in a strange in-between state.
I might need to masturbate the next time I get some alone time.
But as we fall into silence, quietly dozing in the comfortable aftermath, worries for the future begin to plague my mind instead.What do I do next? Where am I even going to go from here?
I’ve got my master’s degree, with a whole week of classes to catch up on now, apparently, and work, if the lab will even take me back after vanishing like that. I need to notify them and let them know I’m okay. Or, as okay as I can be.
If it was the middle of the day on Sunday when theincidenthappened, and Elias says I was out five days, that should make today Friday again. Right? It’s so disorientating to realize I’m not even sure what day it is.
That gives me another weekend, at least. I’m glad for that. If there is one thing I am certain of, it’s that I’m not ready to leave Elias and Caelan’s sides just yet.
ChapterTwenty-Six
We have to get up eventually. Elias and Caelan have spent the whole rest of the morning indulging me, but the afternoon is getting on, and they have business to get back to. I can’t stay languishing in bed all day either, despite my situation. I desperately need to get some work done too.
Elias and Caelan handle the practicalities, taking a quick trip through the abyss to collect some essentials for me—my laptop, textbooks, notes for my classes, and some more clothes.
Elias retreats to his study and invites me to join him, bringing an extra chair in from the dining room so I can sit on the opposite side of the desk and we can work in comfortable silence together. As much as I want to put in the effort to catch up on my classes, it soon becomes evident that’s not going to happen.
I can’t focus at all.
This new state of being, this soul, this amalgamation, whatever I am, is overwhelming now that Elias isn’t actively stabilizing me. The world is somuch. All my senses feel like they’re in hyperdrive. Colors are too vibrant, almost swimming before my eyes. Sounds are deeper, richer. I swear that if I stop and pay attention, I can feel each molecule of air that dances across my skin. Every moment is a tumultuous cacophony of existence, beautiful and utterly terrifying in its enormity.
I can feel Elias and Caelan even more intensely, especially when they are as close as Elias is, sitting across from me. Caelan is fainter, a room over, but I can sense the energy of his being too.
Swallowing hard, I try to block the awareness of them from my mind because I don’t just sense their presence. Their emotions pry at the edges of my consciousness, slipping in like intrusive thoughts, feelings and sensations that don’t belong to me. That would be enough to fuck with my head by itself. But given the nature of what Caelan and Elias are, their energy isn’t entirely pleasant.
Even though Caelan has mostly forgiven Elias after their moment together, he’s still wound up, some part of him still mad. At Elias, or at other things, I can’t be sure. It comes in bursts, but he feels it deeply, quick to anger, and his rage throws me completely off-kilter in an instant. It’s explosive in a way that leaves me shaking and exhausted.
Elias is colder and more subdued. There is anger, too, at himself, and the sheer weight of guilt. It’s more than that, though. For the first time, I feel the quiet, seething rage he’s felt all this time, the injustice he still carries from thousands of years ago. It lingers like an oil slick, thick and black, drags me down, and leaves me choking in toxic sludge. And the pressure. I understand why he snapped. It feels unbearable, the amount of stress roiling and churning inside him. He is something bitter and alien and vengeful, forced to wear a suit and human face. And yet, despite it all, he’s still moving forward and capable of being genuine and kind.
Perhaps I should be afraid. I finally comprehend their inhumanity and darkness, now more than ever.
Perhaps I should be more afraid of my own.
I stare at my hands instead of my notes. Initially, I do so to shift my thoughts away from Elias and Caelan, but then I lose myself anew just by gently twitching my fingers. How intensely bizarre it is. The human body. Flesh and bone controlled by tiny pulses of electricity in an overwhelmingly complex orchestra. The blood rushes through my veins. I can hear it, see it, feel it. It ismaddening, and it makes me want to tear all the blood vessels out of my own body just so it willstop.
“Shannon.”
Elias grasps my wrists tightly, and I startle. I had been so lost in my head I hadn’t even noticed him moving.
“I’m okay,” I gasp out. I am. The spell is broken, and I feel like I’ve woken from an indistinct dream. I make a mental note to avoid fixating too hard on particular sensations, though.
I wonder if Caelan experiences the same thing.
Shaking my head, I try to give Elias a reassuring smile. “I just need to go and clear my head a bit,” I say, getting up to stretch my legs with a walk through the house.
