Page 219 of Black Bird

“Flip it over.” She did, and at the base of the skull was a round disc that covered a compartment he’d carved out of the bottom. She glanced up through lowered brows. “Open it.” When she turned the small disc, it popped open, and a glass vial fell out of the figure and into her hand. There was a small, rolled piece of aged-looking paper inside. “What you have in your hand is as rare as you are. Be extra careful with it.”

“I’m intrigued.” Sarah smiled, screwing the lid off of the glass tube. The roll of paper … there was something hard hidden in it. Her heart started pounding and she looked at him. His breathing had quickened. She slowly unrolled the little torn strip and a ring with a stunning blood ruby, haloed by tiny black diamonds dropped from it. Athan caught it in his hand. “Oh, my God …”

“Read it,” he whispered, swallowing.

She flattened the paper in her palm, trying earnestly not to cry. There was a small smudge of really old ink, and a scribble of a dip pen that formed the word ‘Nevermore’ in handwriting that looked very—veryold. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked back up at him. “Is this …?”

“A piece of Edgar Allan Poe’s handwritten first draft of The Raven. I thought we could add it to the shelf.” He nodded towards his collection of old books, and journals that they’d moved into the safest corner of the apartment. Sarah swallowed back the knot in her throat, but she couldn’t do a damn thing about the pounding of flesh in her ribcage. “This though …” He held up the ring and raised his back off the pillows. “This I’d rather put somewhere else.” Sarah held the small piece of parchment in her right hand while he lifted her left, sliding the ring onto her finger.

“Athan …” She could hardly breathe.

“I’ve never had the pleasure of knowing what love feels like, Sarah. I told you I’m no good at it. But therehavebeen some changes … I’ve lived a really …really… long time. I’ve known what pain feels like. Loneliness. I’ve felt how bitter and cold the dark can be, and I know you have too. I know you’ve suffered in unimaginable ways, and we were both looking for the light. We were both chasing the sun. In all my years, I’ve never met anybody like you, Sarah St. James. I finally caught up to the sun, and I wanna stay in it …forever. With you.”

Just a couple of months ago, she’d had a ring on this finger. One from someone else, that had been a lie the entire time. Whether she had known it then, or not … that was the moment that everything changed in her relationship with Brent. The moment he started becoming more distant … less like he actually loved her. But this … this was different—wasn’t it? She swallowed and blinked back warm tears. “Are you sure?” Her breathing was as rapid and shaky as his. “It’s only been—”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my immortal life.” He lowered her hand and tilted her chin up to look him in the eyes. “Can I ask you, now?”

All she could manage was a tearful nod.

“I love you,” he choked. “You’ve given me everything. You’ve given me life. You’ve given me purpose. You’ve given me a heart that beats … you gave me back the warmth I’ve been missing for over two hundred years, Sarah. You brought me out of Hell with your spine straight, and your pretty mouth just as smart as the brilliant mind that bleeds the most delicious insanity.” Sarah laughed through her tears, and he brushed his lips against hers. “Fuck this other life. I wanna spend the rest of my days buried in that insanity. Will you do me the honor of spending eternity at my side?”

“Yes …fuck yes…” Sarah dropped the paper onto the pillow beside them and took both sides of his face kissing him hard enough to steal his breath. His hands slid up beneath the hooded jacket that threatened to swallow the upper half of her body, and he lifted it off. It seemed only right, Sarah thought … to rectify this situation of that jacket still being a bother. She broke their kiss, and dipped her chin to his neck, relishing in the hiss that bit through his clenched teeth as she sank the sharp points of hers into his jugular. His hips bucked against hers and she drew his skin into her mouth as her tongue rolled, pulling the incredible taste of his blood down her throat. She drank, infuriatingly slow, pressing her body against him and moving her hips to match his pace as he gripped her hair.

“Christ,” Athan whispered, trembling with need. She released him, and he jerked her head back, grazing his fingertips over her bloody mouth and chin. The look in his eyes was pure fire, and ruin. “You are sofuckingbeautiful …”

“Don’t hold back. Take me. Lose control.” She could barely get the words out, every nerve responding to how he felt beneath her. Athan grazed her jaw with his teeth.

“There’s nobody here to save you if I do …” he whispered, breathing harder. Sarah smiled.

“There’s no salvation for bad girls, detective.”

It was his undoing. He leaned her back, holding her with an arm and kissing down the column of her neck. Then, lower … across her collarbone, and down her chest. Sarah reached into his hair with both hands as his fangs unexpectedly punctured the inner swell of her left breast. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t slow. It was that pain she reveled in. The kind that sent an otherworldly surge of euphoria through every part of her body. Sarah felt the easy, numbing satisfaction of what he took from her body, and something between a deep moan and a growl left her throat. She felt the tear of the material around her hips right before the assault of his throbbing cock as he slammed it inside her, and she cried out, gripping his hair as he continued to drink from her. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d managed to come out of his pants.

There was no one in this world better suited for either of them. This chaos … this sick,deranged, love story of the two most damaged little fuckers this side of the dark had ever seen. When he raised his head and slid his tongue over his bottom lip, the unhinged smile he gave her set her off. Sarah leaned forward, riding him hard while she took that bloody mouth against hers.

Poe trilled from his perch stand, turning himself to face the freshly framed poster that had been returned to the wall above their bed. His head cocked to the side, the reflection of text gleaming in his sharp eyes.

“Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door …”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

EPILOGUE

Snow fell lightly over the Boston skyline, the quiet and stillness of it bringing in the magic that was Christmas. The glow of a cigarette bloomed across her chin beneath the hood of her dark jacket. She watched the exchange of the couple that lived above the art gallery on the corner of 4th and Butner, through the slight gap between their curtains. They were shameless. Beautiful, really. Beautiful, at least, in the way that their kind enjoyed each other.

She raised her phone to her ear as she smirked, the shadow of her hood hiding the upper half of her face.

“Yes?”

“I found them. They’re still in Boston.”

“I want proof.”

“I think you’ll have to wait a bit for that.”

“And why is that?”

She smiled, taking another drag from her cigarette. “Looks like a late dinner … among other things.”

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