Page 97 of The Deer and the Dragon
He laughed. “I’m confident you weren’t raised on that either.”
“No.” I rolled my eyes as I guided the beat-up car through the winding streets, resisting the urge to ram it headlong into a stupid green hill. “Is it accurate? Like a good way to…talk to Hell?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “The Satanic Bible is more philosophical than religious. It’s mostly about loving nature and Epicureanism, or being a stabilizing force in your own life. It didn’t show up until sixty-nine, so, take that as you will. Plus, our king isn’t as interested in dogma.”
“So, if I want to learn about Hell…?”
He shrugged. “Then just ask.”
We pointed the car back to the hotel and idly chatted about our intentions to eat the rest of the clerk’s food and use his computer once we arrived. Since I still had no phone and Azrames had his hands magically tied, we need to figure out what the fuck Dagon had meant when he’d told us to find Venus.
If he was going to continue to disregard my calls for a manhunt to track down Caliban outright, I had a few begrudging alternatives. I suggested we go to a planetarium, followed quickly by a suggestion to drop acid. Azrames found the first suggestion useless but was more open to my second one, though not for the purposes of the mission.
“What if we just bypass Astarte altogether and I rent an excavator?” I rambled on about what I thought was a rather brilliant plan as I pulled into the parking lot. “How hard can it be to operate heavy machinery? Gimme ten seconds to break the seal, and then zap me out of here once it’s done so I don’t get arrested. I just drive the yellow dinosaur to the knoll and—”
My thought died, the rest of my sentence catching in my throat.
Azrames saw it too.
It was him.
The world stopped spinning, my vision vignetting as I saw only the lightning strike of silver fire leaning against the chipping pillar in front of the motel.
I hadn’t found him.
He’d found me.
When Darius had proposed to Nia, she’d claimed she’d turned to see him down on one knee and had blacked out until the ring was on her finger. Lisbeth had once said that mothers forgot the pain of childbirth entirely, remembering only the joy once the bundle was in their arms. I’d heard similar stories where events were so shocking, so wonderful, so life-changing that they short-circuited the brain until it turned off completely. I supposed that that was what had happened to me, and I could only be grateful that my heart remembered to beat, my lungs remembered to breathe, my blood remembered to flow—at least, I hope it did.
I didn’t remember throwing the car in park, though I must have. I didn’t recall grabbing the keys, or Azrames’s comment about disappearing, though he probably said something to the effect. I operated on autopilot out as my feet flew across the pavement, ears ringing, tears spiking my eyes until I crashed into his chest. Strong arms wrapped around me. Moss and rain and gin were as powerful as safety and longing and sorrow. My knees buckled beneath me as I began to cry, but he had me.
I had no idea how he knew which room was mine.
I had no recollection of going up the stairs or of the door opening.
I didn’t remember anything until my back was pressed against the wall, cool hands raking through my hair and fingers brushing away my tears as Caliban said, “I am yours, and you are mine. And whether it’s in this life or the next, we will always find each other.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I’d never wanted anything so badly in my life.
My body was hot and cold all at once. My fingers tore at him, digging into him as if, perhaps if I could burrow into him, he’d be unable to leave. He caught me, scooping his hands under my ass just as I hopped up to wrap my legs around his waist, kissing and tasting and touching any part of him my mouth could find. I moaned as he growled the name he’d called me from my first memory against my throat, arousal rushing through me like a flash flood as years of the longing I’d denied myself crashed over me.
He wasn’t just real.
I was his, and he was mine.
I wrapped my legs tighter as he slammed me into the wall with a demand, a claim, a desperation that I’d needed more than water, more than life. I gasped between pleasure and pain as the world spun. He moved me to the bed, yanking me up with strong arms so my head crashed against the pillows, propped up like the princess he’d always wanted me to be. I scrambled for his shirt, craving his skin, his tongue, his cock, but he gathered my wrists into a single large hand and pinned them above me.
“I’ve missed you more than air,” he breathed, words moving between our lips and tongues.
I hooked my legs around him once more, and his low, appreciative chuckle did more to me than I could ever understand.
“How did you find me?”
“Love.” He said it like a prayer. “I always know where you are. Imagine my surprise when I felt you step into my kingdom without me. And then to feel you so close…”
“I’m so sorry, I—” I began, the apology pouring out of me as I dug my fingers into him. I’d been crawling out of my skin for months. Knowing that he was real, Caliban was an addiction for which I wanted no cure. Desperation seeped from me. He released my hands as they shot to his face, to his hair, apology filling my eyes. “What I said, what I did, I had no idea, I would never have—”
