I shrugged, turning my computer on. “You’re welcome, I guess. What were they…saying? Why do you hear voices? You were terrifying when you came into the kitchen.”
He seemed to ponder it for a moment, seemingly unsure if I was worthy of the information. Or, like he wasashamedof talking about it.
“Us Fallen are forced to hear the voices of our peers as punishment for our sins. They’re constantly in the back of our mind, judging every action, every thought. They become white noise with time, only getting louder if we do something particularly bad.
“But then, you showed up. My mate.Demonmate. They didn’t like that.”
My throat bobbed, mouth opening and closing without allowing any sound to pass through.
“I’ve been trying to tamper them down with Datura. It worked—for a while. The effects allowed me some peace for a few hours at a time. And then I bit you.”
His eyes gleamed with the memory, as if mentioning it suddenly allowed him to relive it. My cheeks burned and core throbbed, remembering the way his hand had circled my throat from behind, pulling my head to the side, offering him my neck. The way his other hand had found its way to my breast as Arc had brought me to my climax without even taking our clothes off.
“The voices weremad, I’ll tell you that. I thought I was going to die from their screeches. My brain felt like seconds away from dripping down my ears.” He chuckled dryly, shaking his head in disbelief. “And then they were gone. Silent. My mind wasfinallyclear after over a century, and I didn’t even have a fucking headache the next morning to remind me I was a pathetic Datura addict.”
Our eyes met then. And maybe he did see the guilt swirling in them, because he added, “Don’t look at me like that. I deserved every punch you landed.”
I agreed, giving him a single nod. But it didn’t stop the knot in my stomach from tightening at the thought that, all this time, me being in the same room as him had hurt him in an unimaginable way.
“Your blood makes them quiet,” he said. “The only reason I can think of is that it’s because you’re my mate.”
“You think so?”
He straightened up in his chair, leaning his elbows on his thighs, and nodded. “I don’t see any other reason.”
He stayed with me in the Archives all morning. Maggie was unusually quiet, only summoning a steaming cup of coffee on my desk during the five minutes I spent looking for a book that Jeremiah had sent a request for the day before.
Carter had walked from faraway shelves to even farther away ones, and the only grunts he let out had nothing to do with Maggie potentially harassing him, but everything to do with some files being somehow gone.
But, maybe it was her who had messed with them, so I didn’t want to speak too fast.
The door creaked open and the hesitant face of Ann peeked through. My stomach made a little loop. We haven’t talked for a while, since I thought that she might have had a part in chipping Dimitri without his consent. Her eyes were silently asking my permission to come in.
I nodded before focusing back on my screen. Requests had piled up in the few days I’ve been cast out of here…I wouldn’t even have topretendI was working.
“Hi,” she said, stopping next to her usual armchair, the one that Carter had occupied when we arrived a couple of hours ago. “Kai told me you were here. With Carter. Is everything okay?”
“How does he know Carter’s here?”
“He just suggested it. Apparently, you guys left together from your apartment this morning…”
I muttered a curse, typing on my keyboard furiously. “People—Kai—should mind their own businesses.”
Ann gulped, sitting hesitantly on the very edge of the cushioned seat.
“Well…Iasked him. I knew he was going to your place this morning to introduce his old friend and—Well, it’s been a while since we last spoke and…I don’t know. I’m still not sure why you’re mad at me, and I miss you, and—”
“I’m not mad,” I said with a long exhale. I knew she had nothing to do with the whole chip in the uniform thing. After all, Marcus was probably right; Ann only oversaw the medical side of things, and that matter had nothing to do with it. “I mean, I was a little. But I think I was just…freaking out. With everything that happened with Dimitri, and the chip…I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
That seemed to hurt her. Me, not trusting her. But she only squared her shoulders and nodded. “I understand.”
The silence was awkward, none of us really knowing what to say after that. But it only took her about two minutes before she talked again, surprising me.
“Do you want to hear the latest gossip?”
My eyebrow arched up. I didn’t like gossiping. Then why was I suddenly so intrigued?
“Is there ever a day where people don’t put their noses up everyone else’s asses?” I groaned. “Ugh, you know what? Yeah. Tell me. That’ll make me forget my own issues for a bit.”
