Page 51 of Heavy is the Crown
TWENTY-EIGHT
Little known fact: The royal family of Hell aren’t just witches.
At some point in their history, a succubus appeared in the bloodline, creating a hybrid.
Now, this has translated into how the family is able to replenish their magic.
– Mori Family Grimoire
Shadow
My chest feels cracked open; I vacillate between wanting to vomit up the minimal contents of my stomach to so anxious I could crawl out of my skin. Neither is a feeling I’m enjoying. I stand braced against the countertop in the kitchen, as close to the knives as I’ll get. The only acceptable thing I can use if I decide to escape this feeling, now that I’ve given up my razors. Their corpses lie in the bottom of the harbor now, far away from me. Every single one of them, even my emergency one that I had taped under the bed. I want to heal.
Or, at least, I think I do.
I pull a deep breath in through my nose and hold it for a few moments before I push it out through my mouth. I repeat this three more times before I feel Drago move up behind me.
“You didn’t stay?” My voice is hoarse, like I’m one word away from losing it entirely out of fear of saying the wrong thing. Ava hit me where I was most vulnerable today, and while I can’t blame her, I also don’t know how to function in this space now that I’m trying to be “sober.”
Drago’s hands loop around my stomach, and I feel his head press against my back. His scent surrounds me as his heat presses in through the thin black T-shirt I’m wearing. It’s a moment of vulnerability for him to hold me like this. I can feel his breathing is not quite steady, not fully under control. I drape my own tattooed and scarred hand over his and fiddle with his rings as another way to ground myself to this moment. To avoid my thoughts going to that dark space.
His voice is muffled as he speaks into my back. “She commanded me out. She commanded my dragon out.” There is pride in his voice.
He slowly pulls back, his hands and body leaving my own. The cold feels like it’s pressing in around me now as he comes around the counter. Eyes tracking to the knives, then back to me. He doesn’t say anything.
“This is my fault.” My voice is quiet in the kitchen, barely audible, but he still hears me.
“Why did you run?” It’s the question I knew he’d ask, but one I wanted to avoid for as long as I could.
“An excellent question.” Ava’s voice comes from the end of the kitchen. “I can’t go through with this until I talk with you, until I hear what happened. So, talk.” She doesn’t come closer, doesn’t move from the spot. Just steadily watches me and Drago, arms tightly hugging her own thin waist.
I push off from the countertop and move around to where Drago stands. His eyes flare in surprise for a moment as I near him but soften when I loop my body around his, burrowing my face into the space where my mark should be. We stand quiet for a moment, the only sounds our breathing.
“My dragon took matters into his own hands,” I start. “I was going to run anyway; I had no intention of staying and mating Ava or you. I thought if I wasn’t here, you two would give in. You’d live a happy life without me.” His body tenses under me, but I keep pushing forward. “When I woke up in the harbor, I was at a loss. All these feelings I wanted to avoid piled down on top of me. So, I gave control over to him. I let myself blink out of existence for a while. I had hoped that I would stay unaware, that he would putmein a cage for everything I’ve done. So, you can imagine my surprise, and maybe some disappointment, when I awoke to Astrea yelling at me.”
I drag in a ragged breath. “She talked to me about how she lives with her darkness. How Ciaran helps her. How she doesn’t push it away but allows it to coexist with her.” I pull away from his chest finally and gaze into his eyes for a moment before I continue. “They helped me see some things that I wasn’t able to see.”
“What things?” Drago asks. His lips have moved closer to mine, and it’s hard to focus on the words that I need to say when he’s this close, when his eyes look hungry. Ava, however, keeps her distance.
“That, maybe, you both were right. The way to heal, or start to heal, is to stop denying myself happiness. I can’t promise I won’t struggle—I mean, fuck, I was standing here trying to decide if it was worth stealing a kitchen knife and hiding in the bathroom. But Iwantto try. I want to live.”
Ava lets out a long sigh behind us, but I still don’t look at her. “That’s all I needed to hear.” I hear her feet shuffle away and thedoor open and close again. But I keep my eyes locked on Drago’s blue ones.
His mouth crashes into mine, the kiss so claiming I start to doubt whether my broken-apart soul wasn’t just ripped from me. I let out a long whimper of need as his hands fist into my hair, his restraint gone and replaced with feral need. My own hands grapple at his shirt buttons until I can’t take it anymore and rip them apart instead so I can feel his bare skin against my hands.
“I need you,” I say into the kiss. A desperate plea for absolution in our intimacy. “Please.”
Drago pulls away from me, grabbing my hand and dragging me down the hallway to one of the back rooms of the house. Pushing the door open, we enter into a rather average guest room, the walls eggshell white and a pallet bed on the floor. The lines are bright white. The windows open up to the backyard, which leads to the woods. The pine trees moving in the heavy wind bring in the scent of fresh earth and clean rain.
(“Miracle” – Bad Omens)
“Kneel.” Drago’s command pushes through me, and I drop to the hardwood floor with no hesitation. I watch as he slowly pushes his pants down, his length bobbing free in my face. “Stay,” he says as he moves behind me.
I don’t allow my eyes to track him; instead, I keep them locked in front of me. But I can hear him open a drawer. I feel his presence move up behind me, and one of his hands tug my black T-shirt up. “Take it all off.”
I don’t hesitate and scramble to remove the shirt, followed by the pants, before returning to my knees in front of him. The press of his hand has me falling onto all fours as cool liquid dribbles down my crack toward my hole. My muscles shake as I hold completely still while he makes sure to spread the lubearound, before gently pressing the tip of his thick finger in. He stays there only briefly before I feel something metal.
“Fuck,” I groan as the tapered end of the plug starts to push in.
