As silently as I could, I inserted my key into my door and swung it open, pulling Ayaz inside. The last thing I needed was Greg or Andre waking up.
The door clicked shut and I was alone in my dorm room with my scritching rats, Ayaz Demir and my pounding heart.
“This used to be Zehra’s room,” he said, running his fingers along the peeling paint on the wall. His silky voice raised the hairs on my arms. “I cried when I saw it for the first time. She deserved so much better than this. So do you.”
“This is a palace compared to where I grew up.” I stood at the foot of my bed, frozen in place by the sight of him – those broad shoulders dominating the narrow space, that strong chin pointing directly at me like a dare, a challenge. His warm scent filled my nostrils, curling opium tendrils through my brain, smoothing out any last traces of doubt. I stepped toward him, feeling the room contract, the pull of need tugging us together. “Didn’t you sleep here when you first came to Derleth?”
Ayaz shook his head. “They didn’t have the official scholarship program then. I was a charity case here on Vincent’s dime, but he still gave me a nice room. No, this madness started after the fire, when they needed the sacrifices. It was all the Eldritch Club’s idea.”
“Why keep the new scholarship students down here in the dungeon, then?”
“All of this is supposed to put the charity cases in their place. It’s supposed to be the beginning of what breaks you. But you…” Ayaz closed the space between us in one long stride, his body inches from mine. My skin tingled with heat as his eyes swept over me, his jaw tight with need. “You’ve never stayed where you were put. You’ve never been broken.”
“I don’t know about that,” I whispered. My arms ached, heavy in their sockets, desperate to hold and to be held. I leaned forward, a moth to my flame, seeking the heat only his touch would provide.
“This is so fucked up.” Ayaz’s breath fluttering against my lips. “You’re not supposed to want me. Not after everything I did.”
“Stop being so fucking tempting, then,” I growled.
We fell against each other, mouths clashing, tongues hunting for the flame. My heart raced ahead, and I clung to him - the only thing keeping me upright. As we fought for purchase against each other’s warm bodies, Ayaz watched me through narrowed eyes – two shards of obsidian between tangled lashes.
I’m really doing this. Tonight. With a dead boy. With my bully.
Yes, I fucking am.
Ayaz’s hands gripped my shoulders, shoving me toward the bed. I bent down to the nightstand, grabbed a condom, and thrust it in his face. “Here.”
He caught it between his fingers, his eyes wide. “Hazel, what is this?”
“It’s a condom, obviously. People throw them at me all the time, since I’m the resident whore,” I said. “This is me being sensible.”
“I’m anedimmu– you can’t get pregnant from someone who isn’t alive.”
“My mother told me I’m never supposed to take a guy’s word on it.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
I hesitated.Trust.I never trusted anyone, except Greg and Andre. You didn’t trust in my world. Trust got you beaten up or left for dead. Trust left you with debts to pay and only one way to clear them. Trust got your heart stomped on and your hands covered in blood and fire. The only two people I’d ever trusted before were dead.
After everything I’ve been through, do I trust Ayaz?
“Yes.” The word was a whisper, a promise. It said a hundred things I couldn’t articulate.
More than any of the others, Ayaz understood how hard that was for me to say. His trust had been broken, too. He’d been bought and sold between families to further his parents’ ambition. He’d been used by Vincent as a way to torture his own son. He’d been kept from his sister. All his life, he’d been taught that cruelty was the only way to stay on top, to stave off the darkness.
“I trust you,” Ayaz whispered. His next kiss was soft, accepting my trust and giving his own in return – a broken fragile thing, like a bird with a broken wing. He gently pushed me backward, giving me every chance to break the kiss, to stop this before it went further. But I didn’t want to stop.
“I still want the condom.”
“I know.”
My legs brushed the side of the bed, and I sat down, curling my fingers around his school tie and dragging him down with me. The broken springs groaned under our combined weight. The bed was only narrow enough for one body, so Ayaz laid on top, fitting me beneath him like two puzzle pieces slotting together.
He leaned me back against the pillow, his eyes studying me. The room filled with his intoxicating scent. I breathed deep, drowning in him, losing myself in those fierce eyes. My thighs tightened around his leg, and a moan escaped my lips. We ground our bodies together in all the places that mattered, teasing the flame higher and higher, until my skin seemed to be made of sparks and ashes.
I popped the buttons on his school shirt, pressing my hands to his chest, tracing the tattoos the way I had done in the grotto. Ayaz peeled back my hoodie and t-shirt, revealing my breasts nestled inside my good black bra. He moaned as his hand cupped my breast, his finger grazing my nipple through the fabric. “Fuck, I’ve had dreams about this bra.”
I snorted. “You have not.”
