Page 31 of Even Angels fall
Normally, she wouldn’t be able to hear me, but I have a suspicion that her side of the door is open, and I’m not willing to take a risk.
I can’t come as she does. It would create an intimacy I’m not ready for. Even if she doesn’t hear me, I’ll know.
I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t make any sense to anyone but me, but I know I can’t.
So, I keep stroking myself to the sound of her moans, not slipping my hand inside of my pants and boxers. Just enough pressure.
Until I can hear that she’s close. Her breathing picks up, and her moans become louder.
Fuck. I’m gonna need to make sure no one has the room next to hers or even the one after.
I might not want her as my wife, I might not want to claim her as mine, but I sure as hell don’t want anyone to hear her like this.
I don’t care if she’s my personal brand of hell, or if I have to go through hearing her come everyday multiple times a day, there is no way I’d let anyone hear my bride in the throes of an orgasm.
The moans continue to get louder, and I feel my heart beating faster.
If I don’t pay attention, I’m going to break that damn handle.
And then she comes… with my name on her lips.
Fuck.
It takes all of my self control not to barge in and take her in a punishing way for taunting me through our doors, but instead, I release the handle, as if it’s white hot iron, and as silently as I can, I go to my shower. I don’t even take the time to undress before I’m under cold water.
I’m so freaking fucked.
17
Angélique
It’s been five days since I arrived at Notre Dame. I haven’t seen Elhyor much, and it’s driving me crazy.
I know he sleeps in his room. Sometimes I can hear him, but it’s like a ghost lives in that neighboring room. I can never see him or hear him more than in a fleeting way. Sometimes, it feels like I dreamt the fact he’s in the other room.
He hasn’t opened his door again, but true to his word, the following day, there was someone to teach me how to use the computer.
Turned out that IthoughtI knew how to use the computer, but really, I didn’t.
At least I learned a few things out of myhalf-lie.
Every day, Cassiopé has come to get me out of my room. She still talks too much, but she’s growing on me.
Thanks to her, I’ve discovered a lot of information.
Bats don’t age the same way as the other shifters, and she’s actually older than I am, by quite a bit, since she’s thirty-two.Brice is her father, and she doesn’t know her mother, since she died when she was very young. He doesn’t look old at all, and yet he’s two-hundred-twenty-nine years old. And weirdly, Elhyor isn’t much younger, with his two hundred and four years.
The discovery of how bats and dragons age similarly felt like a coveted secret, but with the way Cassiopé told me that so freely, I’m not sure it’s really a secret. It’s just dumb how people don’t try to learn about the other species. For all I know, fish-shifters have a longer lifespan, too, and there’s nothing written on it in Versailles—or else Léandre would have told me.
I’m not sure everything that comes out of Cassiopé’s mouth is important to my mission, but I try to listen to it all.
I feel a little bad when I spend time with her, though.
She’s very sweet and doesn’t seem to know when to stop talking or even how to talk and breathe at the same time, but she’s nice, and in another life, she could have been my friend.
I just need to compartmentalize.
I can’t get attached to the little bat-shifter if I want to survive what’s to come.
