Her body fully faces me now and I glance at the bite mark on her chest. I refuse to believe he did it like a claiming mark. The only reason it’s scarred as it is is because of the blue belladon.
“If you ever,” she rumbles with a deadly sort of quiet, “try to get into my mind again. . . Iwillmake you beg for death.”
Oh fuck I’ve messed up. I messed up monumentally.
“Mavyn, I’m – “
Her hand snaps up, silencing me before she turns those death laced eyes on Thorne. “Can I continue my job upstairs and finish down here when you’re done?”
Thorne must nod or acknowledge her because she turns back around and puts her mop and bucket back on the cart before rolling it away. No second glance back, no last words, no care that I am wanting to fuck myself up because I hurt her.
I shouldn’t be this attached to someone after only just meeting them. Iknowthat. Love at first sight doesn’t really exist. Lust at first sight does, enraptured at first sight does, but not love. I wouldn’t call what I feel for her necessarily love, but it is more than just lust or enrapturement.
I want her. I want her more than I should given the circumstances. And I just blew it by doing the exact thing the monster who abused her for years did to her. On top of that, Iamwhat they are.
Devils and demons have always gotten criticism because of stereotypes humans have made up. Despite the fact that we’re not on Earth, devils and demons are associated with Hell, Nihel, damnation, curses, evil, darkness. . . we’re not white shining holiness.
I had been enamored when she didn’t seem to care what I was. When she rolled her eyes at Varian and acted as if a devil was just like everyone else. She didn’t care despite having every right to be afraid of our race. And then I fucked it up.
I. Messed. It. Up.
Like with everything else. I fucking ruined it.
A hand claps on my shoulder but I’m rooted to the floor. I can’t move, can’t process, can’t think of anything other than the hatred in her eyes at what I did.
“Breathe,” a rough voice growls. A familiar voice. A voice that has been there time and time again. “You need to fucking breathe, Callahan. Your blood is rushing too fast.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. I cannot have a fucking panic attack right now. I cannot pass out right now.
Iknowthat.
But my brain won’t slow with thoughts and comments and berating me again and again and again.
“Callahan,” Thorne growls again. Two red orbs glowing against black, two red eyes making a light within the nothingness. A type of grounding. “Good. Now breathe.”
I breathe.
Sucking in a lungful of air before slowly releasing it. His hands that were gripping the sides of my head hold steady until my heart is no longer pounding and my blood is no longer rushing. He stays, eyes locked on me, until the voices dissipate and I’m back in the present physical world.
He takes a step back and observes me. “Do I need to call your mother?”
My mother, a devil herself, has only ever been the serene against the raging storm that I and my father am at times. She knows exactly how to calm us from both anger and episodes like this. But she thinks my anxiety and self-hatred has been getting better.
“No,” I gruff. “She’ll just argue that I should come home. I don’t need to worry her.”
He watches me with a stone solid expression. Powerful red eyes probing.
“Do you still want to train, or do you need to take a break?”
Quiet humming sounds and we both turn our head to face the machinery upstairs. She probably thinks we can’t hear her with how soft it is, but she’s right by the railing that overlooks part of the area. There’s bits of words I can hear her sing.
Her voice sounds faint but gentle. And then her words register.
“. . . got a paper and pen and a page with no space. . . filled the hole in my head. . . forgot how to cry, who am I to complain. . . “
It’s a sad song. It’s something I would listen to.
Thorne’s presence draws closer to me. “Go take some time,” he says, though is sounds more like a demand. “I don’t think it’s good for you to be near her right now.”
