Tensley stared at me from across his office desk, his hands curled into fists on the desk. His jaw ticked.
“Nice to see you’re alive,” he said, coolly.
I shifted against the leather chair and didn’t bother responding to him. I knew I should have at least mentioned to Tensley where I was going, but I had to go without anyone chasing me or interfering in my healing.
My fingers tightened around the glass of whisky I was holding, the ice dinging against it. “I cornered Danny last night at the Pit. When I was in Boston, I looked through their correspondence. Danny had been working for them. He was selling low-class demons to hunters for good cash.”
Tensley shook his head, tsking. “Fucking bastard.”
“He’s down in the cellar,” I said, twirling my drink. “I might want to interrogate him myself though.”
Tensley nodded and a silence followed. My fingers ran along the cool glass, desperate to ask a question.
“Has she been doing better?” I asked, carefully, gently, my eyes scanning his features for any signs of distress.
Tensley shifted in his chair, leaning back. “Lex…Lex always tries to act like she’s fine. The truth is she’s been damaged for a long time. She still has her guards up. I don’t know if they’ll ever fully come down.”
My mind went back to over a year ago—how much it took for her to trust me, to open up to me in the middle of the night when she’d wake up screaming. Even when she gave me her body that first time, she still hid from me. My chest tightened and I cleared my throat. There were things I craved more than her body.
I wanted that delicate soul. I wanted that brave heart. If I had to prove to her that I changed, I’d do it. I wouldn’t touch her until she saw I wasn’t the same man anymore.
It was those sleepless nights with her that made my chest ache the most. She’d made me feel like a man in those stolen moments, not a beast. Because Lex didn’t see me as a threat, as a monster.
She saw me as a man.
And now I saw myself as a man too.
“I was going to ask you something,” Tensley said, his smooth voice bringing me back to him. He stared at me, pausing for a moment and then leaned forward. “I need a man I can trust to be positioned in Boston. To be a symbol of Scorpios there.”
I looked away, snorting. “Are you offering me, the disgraced son, to rule over Boston for you?”
“The feared son,” Tensley corrected, and my eyes snapped up to his. “You ruled with an iron fist there for the last year. You know the men, you know the ins and outs. You’d be my second-in-command.”
I took a gulp of my whisky and barely felt the burn. I saw Lex’s baby blues and the way they flickered in the darkness. With fire and sin and lust and most of all—hope. “I have unfinished business here first.” I stood, unbuttoning my suit jacket. “I’ll think about it.”
Tensley smirked. “You’re going to have to grovel if you expect her to give you another chance.”
I glanced down at him. “I’ll kneel for her if it means she’ll forgive me.” I turned, marching out of the room and down the hallway, into the night.
She’d be the only woman I would bow to.
LEX
I wrapped the white towel around Illya, laughing as he cooed back at me, loving the feeling of the soft cotton on his skin.
“All clean,” I whispered to him, smiling as I poked his chubby cheek.
He broke out into a wide smile, a few teeth popping through his lower and upper gums.
I hadn’t seen Beau since that night of Illya’s birthday party over two months ago now and when I asked Tensley about it, he said he assumed he went back to his old ways, of hiding in the darkness. My heart ached for him.
I had walked by the Pit and had gone inside once and when Steel told me Beau hadn’t been there since a year before, my stomach dropped. He was truly gone.
I busied myself with Illya and taking him to the park and studying. Molly took me out for lunch sometimes, but the entire time she continued to mention Beau in every conversation. I stared at her stone-cold, refusing to indulge in her matchmaking. She wanted me to express myself, to tell her I loved him. But it was too late.
He was gone again.
He hadn’t fought for me, for us, or himself.
He had given up. So easily.
I shook off any thoughts of him and focused back on Illya who was snuggled in my arms, wrapped in his white towel, falling fast asleep.
The first time Molly had asked me to hold him, he’d only been a handful of hours old. I’d been absolutely terrified. It took a bit of getting used to, but now I felt comfortable caring for him. Everything became second nature.
The floorboards creaked, and I glanced up to see a frame of a large man in a tailored suit. Scorpios soldiers came in and out to check on us all the time. It was normal, but I didn’t recognize him.
A shaved jaw accompanied by a full mouth and—
I froze.
The man before me was Beau Knight, standing in the doorframe of the nursery. His shadowed features of ink and scars tugged at my heart, but I tightened my grip on Illya.
“What are you doing?” I asked, hating how breathless I sounded. I wondered how long he had been watching me, his body leaning against the wood frame. I wondered where he had gone to, how he could just leave again without a single word to anyone.
He didn’t speak at first, his eyes scanning me and then staying on Illya. My thoughts ran wild, wondering what he was thinking. Of Valentina? The woman he barely ever spoke of. Or his unborn child?
“Were you thinking of Valentina?” I asked and instantly regretted it as his entire body tensed.
He swallowed thickly, the tendons straining in his neck, but as I watched him, scanning me again, he looked different. I licked my bottom lip, tasting something different in the air. Something sweet and light and warm.
“No, I was imagining if that was our child in your arms,” he said, his husky voice making me shiver.
Heat scorched my cheeks and his dark eyes drilled into mine. I looked away, back to Illya, rocking him in my arms. I carefully put him down in his cradle and felt Beau move into the room. Filling it up. Not with his darkness…but with something lighter.
His fingers ghosted over my shoulder and I spun around, eyeing him. “Don’t Beau.”
He frowned at my soft tone. He took another step, this time letting his body touch my own. “Don’t what, Alexandra?”
His fingers touched the edges of my dark hair, stray strands framing my face. When his eyes met mine, I felt on fire. I felt naked and exposed and yearning for him to touch me—only with his eyes. “We can’t do this, Beau,” I said on a gasp. “Not again. We can’t go down this path again, you and I.”
His dark eyes flared at that. But instead of reacting out of anger like I expected him to, like he would’ve reacted a year ago, he only moved back, stuffing his hands in his slacks, giving me the breathing space I needed. “After Valentina and our unborn child died, I thought I’d never want a family of my own. I hated the idea actually. Thought of the whole situation as a few careless mistakes that had cost me more than they’d been worth.”
My throat grew tight.
He sighed, never looking away from me. A sad smile formed. “But you came into my life. Fierce and stubborn and beautiful and so goddamn tempting.” His eyes returned to that hard glint of his. “Everything I wanted to hate. You were a threat to the best I’d found comfort in being and knowing that; I wanted to push you away. To hurt you. Eliminate the threat. But I couldn’t. Because your soul sings to mine. Always has. It called to me in the darkness and it calls to me in the light.”
Wetness built in my eyes and I blinked it back. “Beau, it’s been over a year.” I tried to think of anything. I tried to think of any excuse. I came up with nothing.
“And I haven’t stopped thinking of you. If anything, being apart brought me more clarity of what I will not accept to lose, of what I can’t live without,” he said, calmly, but I felt the change in the air. The intensity of his words. “Our souls touched, Alexandra. I’m addicted to you. Not just because you’re fucking beautiful or because you’re a souleater. I’m addicted to your heart. Your love.”
Beau, the beast, the savage, who had lost his heart years ago—wanted mine.
My breathing grew harsh and shallow. He moved closer, invading my space once more, his rich cologne filling my nostrils with reminders of the past. Of him stroking my hair in the shower while I cried, of him kissing the bruises away on my knee when I fell. We had been a mess, but we had been our mess of affection and addiction and love. Fucking love.
Tears pricked the back of my eyes. Demons weren’t supposed to love. Beau had learned that so long ago, yet here he was, confessing his need to be loved. By me.
“You’re teasing me,” I hissed lowly, afraid Illya would wake.
“No, cucciola,” he whispered, not looking at me, but I felt his fingers trace the curve of my ass and in-between them, wrinkling the sheer fabric to his will. “I’m challenging you. And I know how you hate to back down from a fight. I’m challenging you to let go of the past and see where a future together could take us. I’m challenging you to love me and let me love you. I’ll spend a lifetime proving to you I won’t leave you, I won’t ever stop caring for you,” he whispered.
I opened my mouth to speak but two gentle fingers on my lips stopped me. “Don’t refuse so soon. Please, think about it. Take all the time you need. And when you’re ready, come find me, Alexandra. I’ll always wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”
I glanced up at him, holding my breath and slowly, he let go, moving out of the room.
To let go of the past…
But his words—his words still echoed over and over again in my head.
Love me and let me love you.