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She moved in Black Elm on a hot, balmy morning, with no preamble nor ceremony except for Darlington stumbling upon her on his way back from a run just as she exited the car she'd called this morning on a whim with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder for only luggage.
Well, not on a whim exactly. Dawes was back in Westport for the summer. Mercy was interning in France, relishing the beauty around, the beauty she deserved. Lauren was on a road-trip with this boy she'd met at a party, drunkenly made-out and fallen giddy in love with. Alex had asked Turner to run a background check and he hadn't even groaned for the sake of it, just done it like the time he'd come to pick her up because she'd told him something had happened to her. Turner was busy taking care of his mother who'd just had hip surgery, and otherwise busy pretending he could forget all about the things he saw and did because of her.
And Tripp was too busy hiding out in the dark to keep from melting under the scorching sun because, well, vampires. He was probably having the time of his life anyway, beating his own record at GTA. Sometimes he randomly texted the group chat with a joke or a plea for Dawes to cook him dinner, and while no one particularly bothered replying most times, Alex couldn't pretend she wasn't relieved. Tripp was Tripp, but he was alive and as well as he could be, and his dumb selfies pouting for Dawes to care for him lived in her heart rent-free.
Which only left she and Darlington. Virgil and Dante without Oculus, Virgil and Dante with no one to supervise, no ritual to attend during the summer break, the societies giving themselves a well-deserved break from all the fuckery they pulled during the school year. Assholes. Perhaps Turner was right and they were all just dumb rich kids playing wizards; the only kind of magic Alex knew and feared and loved at the same time was the one who'd brought Darlington back to her.
He was staring at her. Wide-eyed as if she were a burglar, a thief in broad daylight breaking and entering his kingdom of isolation. His mouth opened - in greeting or dismissal, Alex couldn't tell, because he pressed his lips shut just as quickly. His tank top clung to his skin from sweat, dark, damp spots under his armpits and across his stomach; his hair was a mess, beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead, at the tips of his hair, one droplet gleaming on his right earlobe. Alex wanted to suck it into her mouth, wrap her lips around his ear, taste every part of him until she knew him like every badly-healed wound on her own body.
He smelled, the sharp tang hitting her nose and tongue, but only making her want him more. It was foolish to believe she could come here and leave unscathed if she was that affected by the salty scent of his sweat.
It was foolish to believe she had it in her to turn around and leave now.
She missed him even though she saw him all the time. She missed him whenever he made himself go back to that house alone. There had been a few nights at Il Bastone when she'd almost felt at peace, with him and Dawes near, the three of them reunited as they were meant to be. And then Darlington had decided to go the noble, stupid route, and exile himself back to Black Elm, as if his sins were contagious, a shadow that would pull them under and drown them.
As if she and Dawes weren't just as stained, filthy with it - the shame and the guilt and the fear and the horror of it all. As if they weren't the only ones who could help, or at least try.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? Darlington didn't want help. Didn't believe he deserved it. During the day, he was Virgil once again, even if now he was hers, too. Her Virgil in the way she'd once been his Dante. Now the two could not be separated: he was her mentor, her friend, the one she loved, the one who loved her. The one who'd serve her 'til the end of days. But at night, he stood vigil from afar. She'd tried arguing with him, playing his own cards against him - if he wanted to serve her, then didn't he need to be close? - but Darlington was always one step ahead, countering everything she said with implacable logic that belonged to only him.
Alex was tired of his bullshit.
She couldn't stand the silence in the dorms without Mercy and Lauren. She'd spent too many hours dancing around the real questions she wanted to write in the Albemarle Book to stay a minute longer alone at the house on Orange.
How do I get my Darlington back?
How do I help him find himself?
Where's Danny?
Alex had never been book-smart. That was for people like Darlington and Dawes and Mercy. She wasn't fluent in this language they all shared, academics and knowledge and history. And yet she'd spent infinite time in the library searching for ways to save Darlington, to help Turner in his investigations, to get rid of enemies.
But books couldn't help her now. Alex wasn't even certain anyone could. But she had to try. She had to.
"Where have you been?" she asked Darlington in lieu of a hello. He was breathing hard, which meant he'd pushed his limits and run that extra, punishing mile. Just watching him made Alex feel gross with the way her own shirt was slick at her lower back just from getting up and dressed.
He sucked his top lip in, grimacing at the sweat gathered over the bow of his lip meeting his tongue. "Up the hill and into the woods. Then I went into town. The botanical gardens are beautiful at dawn."
It was about nine now. Alex had barely slept, then hopped in the shower, gotten dressed, randomly thrown her things in a bag and called a car. Darlington had been up and running for hours. That wasn't normal, even for an exercise-freak like him.
"Well," she shrugged it off, "you must be hungry now. You go take a shower, I'll make breakfast," she proclaimed, aiming for firm, hoping to leave no room for argument.
Instead she felt her heart clamoring in her temple, her throat closing up. She couldn't bear it if Darlington sent her away.
Instead he took a step closer, reaching out to her with his hand, his fingers curling around the sling of her bag. Silently he slid it down her arm and shouldered it, walking off towards the mansion without another glance.
She followed him before he could change his mind.
Alex hadn't been in Black Elm in a couple of months, not since Dawes had convinced Darlington to let them help with the repairs of the damaged ballroom and by convince Alex meant Dawes waking her up one morning and throwing her Lethe sweatpants and telling her to be ready in fifteen; then a car had taken them to Black Elm and Dawes had simply let herself in and made tea until Darlington came back from his morning run. She'd calmly told him that they were here to help and Darlington had looked so impressed by her newfound confidence so painfully acquired over the past year that he'd just marched them to the ballroom while he explained what it was that needed to be done today.
Alex wasn't made for books, nor for home edits. Dawes had taken to it like she did with anything else - by listening carefully to Darlington's advice and observing him, studying him. Alex just wondered how he'd learned it all in the first place.
"Youtube tutorials," Darlington had said. "And lots of trials and errors."
He'd told them about that time when he was eighteen when he'd smashed his thumb with a hammer while working on the wood paneling in the living-room. He'd been lucky that it was a clean break, but he'd kept working on the repairs despite his broken thumb that still felt stiff and crooked sometimes. Alex could just picture him so easily, running himself to exhaustion, driving himself mad over the need to repair this house, to have Black Elm reclaim its former glory.
And since then, she'd been unable to not stare at his hands. Every bit of him had always looked perfect to her, his handsome features, his toned stomach and muscled arms, the way his hair hung like those guys on billboards in Hollywood; but now Alex was looking for the flaws, the things hidden under layers of secrets and shame. A broken thumb that had badly healed. The faded burn on his chest from when he'd been scorched by Anselm's fire. Some people wore their scars like a badge of honor, proof that they'd faced the worst and risen from the ashes; Darlington's were so intimate, he couldn't separate the two, marred body and lost soul one and the same, an open bleeding wound.
Alex let herself into the kitchen, finding it unchanged. Next to Darlington's protein shakes and nut mix was her collection of sugar treats, cereals that were so sugary they made him sick just to look at, Reese's cups and Pop-Tarts. Darlington could have just thrown them away, or given them back - but he'd kept them, organized his kitchen around her belongings, almost as if they were just waiting for her to come back.
Maybe he had, too.
Dawes was the cook. Darlington had regularly mocked Alex's typical student diet of pizza, soda and cookies. And yet here she was, trying to make a semblance of breakfast that would be deemed somewhat acceptable by the lord of the house. She was ridiculous; what business did she have playing this domestic little housewife act?
How was she supposed to care for anyone, when all she'd done was bring misery onto herself and everyone around her? Hellie was gone. Her mother was a clueless fool who would always be the prey to all the demons out there, mortal and mythical alike. Dawes and Mercy had lost their innocence, and Turner that sharp edge that he'd used to shield himself from the reality of what it truly meant to be Centurion. Tripp wasn't Tripp anymore.
Darlington wasn't Darlington anymore, either. Their connection was as strong as ever, Queen Mab and her most loyal knight or whoever they'd become now - the Queen of Hell and her hellhound - but Alex was still learning how fragile and brittle an equilibrium it was, loyalty and service, love and obsession. How easy it'd be to tip the scale over to one and fall.
Darlington was back, but pieces of him were still in Hell. Alex knew that feeling well. Pieces of her had died in that butterfly grove, or in Ground Zero. Wounds she'd believed healed had reopened and bled all over Yale when Darlington had disappeared. Shards of her heart were still scattered all over the ballroom floor whenever she saw his smile fade or that golden gleam glower in his eyes. Alex knew what it felt like to be broken.
Not broken. Bent. Crooked. Damaged. Len had seen her as damaged goods who could still serve a purpose if he played his cards right. Lethe had seen her as an inconvenience, a scrawny, potty-mouthed little girl with a gift she didn't deserve. Darlington...
Darlington had been jealous of her talent. He'd frowned at her bad habit of swearing, shaken his head at her lack of wonder for the world around them. But he'd never made her feel damaged. If anything, he'd empowered her. Made her see that she was something else. Made her long for a life that could be more than the pain and the trauma and the heartache.
If Alex could give him that, even a small sense of peace or belonging, even just a glimpse into who he used to be, then she'd be damned if she didn't try.
For now though, she was making him eggs. Scrambled eggs were better than the tasteless muesli he ate with the weird milk from an unknown origin in his fridge. The fridge and cupboards were oddly half-empty; Darlington often spent the evening at Il Bastone with them, where Dawes cooked them dinner. Did he even bother to eat when he was up here alone?
Didn't he have appetites that needed to be fulfilled?
She was standing at the stove, watching the bacon sizzle in a pan, when she heard Darlington come down the stairs. He was making himself heard, his step louder than he'd ever been before. Alex had noticed that - how Darlington made so much effort to make himself less threatening. He announced himself in some way before entering a room; he'd started absently rubbing his thumb across the markings at his wrists whenever he felt his temper flare; he took extra care around Turner and Mercy who were both a bit wary around him in those first few months. Fuck, he'd even let Dawes put him in a Christmas sweater and take a picture.
She didn't want him to think he needed to be cautious around her. Alex wouldn't lie and say she hadn't been scared at times, but she'd take the wolf grin, the golden eyes, lethal and gorgeous, over all this careful calculation any day. She didn't want him to play at Darlington; she wanted to help him get back to himself, one painful, aching step at a time. He'd helped her get her footing around Lethe, around Yale, around the new life she'd been granted; she'd help him remake himself any way he wanted, needed to be.
She needed him to be okay. If not okay, then better. Dawes had gone with careful handling, as if Darlington was a fragile piece of ancient jewelry that needed to be tended to with extreme care and delicacy. Alex didn't think she had a delicate bone in her body.
She didn't think that this was what Darlington needed, either.
"Smells good in here," Darlington said as he came in, immediately going to the cupboards to gather plates and cutlery and set the table.
Alex couldn't help a snort. "Don't get used to it."
He let out a chuckle, something warm that filled up the room. Alex wasn't sure there had been much life in the house lately, or ever, really. His grandfather had raised and groomed him to be the perfect gentleman and Arlington heir; his parents had been no more than a memory long before they were gone. Darlington's entire life had revolved around duty. Alex had been surprised by the gaming room, a proof that he could have fun; still she couldn't picture him bringing a girl here, taking a stroll in the maze, flirting, pressing a warm body against a wall, giggling, fucking in that old dungeon-like bedroom of his.
She could have been the one exception, if she hadn't let him cower behind his chivalry. Wake up and fuck me or cut that out. She'd been crass and a little mean because that was who she was, what Len had made of her when he hadn't loved her right, when he'd handed her out like a piece of meat to these men who made her feel even dirtier than usual. She'd given Darlington an out, half-hoping he wouldn't take it, telling herself he needed to be the one to put an end to this dumb attraction she felt by kindly rejecting her so she wouldn't have to face the fact that she wanted him. She could have turned around in his embrace and made the first move; she could have been the one if she hadn't let her own cowardice keep her from taking that leap of faith.
Darlington had been the first thing that was good and real in her life. She hadn't wanted to ruin that.
She'd regretted it ever since.
Not just the missed opportunity for sex, even if that was part of it. Alex remembered the feel of him pressed against her vividly, the warmth of his body as they'd curled in his narrow cot, his fingers curled possessively around her thighs at the Manuscript party, the gleam in his eyes as he'd looked up at her. Behind the drug, she'd seen something else.
Darlington seeing her.
And that was a hundred times scarier than the occasional horns and his other demon abilities.
But as terrifying as it was, losing him had been worse. That feeling she wouldn't name then - was still afraid to call love now - had only grown with his absence. There had been a before and an after Darlington. Before, she would have fucked him to make him come back for more, to indebt him to her somehow, so he would be softer for her, forgive her when she'd inevitably screw up. But now, after she'd gotten to know the real him behind his posh, preppy, pain in the ass self, she couldn't do that. Didn't want to ruin the one beautiful, safe thing in her life with something as crude as a quick fuck. He was her Virgil and she was his Dante; there was no reason to mess that up.
But they had. Darlington had disappeared and she'd gone to Hell for him, and life was messy. They were still trying to pick up the pieces months later. Darlington had been gone a year; they'd spent months fighting for his life, for his soul, for the sake of the very world. Didn't they deserve something good now?
Darlington brushed against her as he reached for something on the counter beside her, whatever, Alex couldn't see or feel anything past the warmth of his body. All of a sudden all she wanted was for him to back her up against the kitchen island, lift her on top of the counter and stand in the open slot of her legs, to feel him so intimately pressed against her that she wouldn't be able to tell where he ended and where she began, same as when she'd welcomed him in and tasted his soul, soft and sweet like honey on her tongue.
"Want something healthy with all your sugar?" Darlington asked, wiggling a little wicker basket in front of her. "There are some wild berries at the entrance of the woods. I'll be right back."
Alex nodded and watched him go from the window, feeling like the roles were reversed for a moment: there he was, sauntering off to the woods with his basket like Little Red Riding Hood, and she was the wolf licking her lips as she dreamed of eating him up and swallowing him whole.
She watched him eat his eggs with no small amount of pride.
Darlington was ravenous, she'd noticed that, too. He'd help himself to three servings of whatever Dawes cooked and here he was devouring his food as if Alex were a three-stars chef, even though the eggs were overcooked and she could have made them nicer if she knew her way around the spice rack. She'd almost called Dawes to ask before feeling stupid about it, and then Darlington was there with his strawberries and raspberries and Alex had dropped it.
He looked happy with her cooking skills anyway, too happy to even frown at her own plate. She'd whined about the absence of whipped cream in the fridge and decided to dip her strawberries in a bowl of sugar just to test him. But Darlington was too busy engulfing his eggs and bacon, and Alex caught him glancing at her own.
Wordlessly, she pushed her plate towards him. Darlington didn't need to be told twice. He didn't put up the gentleman act, didn't argue that she needed to eat too, that she'd been nice enough already to make him breakfast. He swallowed her slice of bacon without chewing it, it seemed, and Alex just plucked more cereals from the box and stuffed her mouth.
Right after Darlington came back, she'd wondered if his diet would change. He'd laughed. I do not have a newfound predilection for raw steak, Stern. But he was hungry all the time and barely kept any food in here. Why?
"We need to go for a grocery run," she told him matter-of-factly.
Darlington raised an eyebrow at her, as if to ask We? "Not enough sugar for you, Stern?" he teased her.
Alex grinned. Then she brought a strawberry to her mouth, biting into it, painting her lips red from the juice. Darlington barely held back a groan.
So that was it? A fallen angel with a war in his eyes, fighting against his demon instinct to indulge in those appetites of his? Did he run that much to clear his mind, to free himself from all these desires? Did he not trust himself when left to his own devices?
He wouldn't be alone anymore, then. If he needed someone to remind him that demons weren't the only ones to indulge in guilty pleasures, then she'd be here.
"I need tampons," she shrugged.
Darlington cracked a smile. His eyes were still trained on her mouth, and Alex ran her tongue over her lips slowly. His smile faltered and his grip on his fork tightened. Still, there was no sign of the golden eyes nor the horns. He was all man right now, with a predilection for women who liked to play with fire, it seemed.
He stood then, going to open one of the kitchen drawers. He took out a notepad and pen, then slid them over to her. "Make a list of what you want, then."
Where to fucking start? Alex couldn't help thinking.
Alex didn't think about the sleeping arrangements until Darlington brought it up. To be honest, she hadn't thought this through. She'd thrown some clothes, a toothbrush, some of the books on her syllabus and her art supplies in her bag in a sort of haze, as if she were a real art student on her way to some kind of artsy weekend getaway, not a terrified girl desperately wanting to save the boy she loved from drowning.
"I've been working on the rooms on the second floor," Darlington told her in the afternoon as they were enjoying the shade provided by the trees in the yard. He had a book on his lap he'd been reading and putting down on and off for the past hour, seemingly unable to focus.
"Oh." Alex didn't know what to say. She'd seen things from his past when she'd welcomed his soul in, when she'd shared her body with his grandfather's spirit, things he'd never willingly shared. Darlington had mostly repaired the first floor but given up on the second. What was up there?
"Well, mostly one room," he went on. "My parents' room. Not that they used it much, since they lived in New York. But they had to have one when they visited." He toyed with his fingers, and Alex felt the urge to reach out and hold his hand. The urge was as foreign as it felt familiar. "There was some mold under the old tapestry. Water damage from the adjacent bathroom, I believe. But I've taken care of it."
She gave him an encouraging nod. "You could have asked for help, you know. It's not like I've been busy."
She'd spent almost a week alone before turning up here. He'd known. She'd told her mother she was giving art lessons at the community center downtown as a summer internship, and Lauren had cooed at the idea. You're such a softie, Alex. But Darlington had known she was just as lonely as he was.
And yet he'd spent his time holed up in that empty old mansion alone rather than call her.
"It's exhausting work," Darlington said with a shrug. "You're on summer break, you deserve your rest."
"So do you."
He let out a small sigh. I chose to stay, it's my mess, was what he didn't say. "The bed is old, and the mattress even older. My great-grandmother gave birth on it."
"Charmer."
He laughed this time. "What I meant was, it's not much, but..." He paused then, leaning in, elbows resting on his knees. "It can be yours."
"Oh."
"I'll put on clean sheets, I -"
"Darlington," she interrupted him. She meant to tease him about the dirty sheets with his ancestor's blood and guts. She meant to tease him about being a perfect little housewife. She meant to say something stupid so he'd look less uneasy at her presence in his space. But what she said was, "Thank you. But I can sleep on the couch just fine, don't make a fuss about it."
"Stern." He said her name like she'd just insulted him. Her gentleman demon, worrying about what the etiquette was for an unexpected guest who'd decided to move into your house without your permission. "I'm not making you sleep on the couch. You can have my room if you'd prefer."
Alex laughed. As if she could ever find sleep in that room without memories from that Halloween night plaguing her. If Darlington wanted her in his bedroom, he'd have to ask her nicely. Or just cut this bullshit out and kiss her like they'd both wanted to then.
"The guest room is fine, as long as you can guarantee me your mother didn't give birth to you there."
Darlington rolled his eyes. "That's where you draw the line?"
"Gotta draw it somewhere. I wouldn't mind seeing baby pictures, though." She'd seen him naked before, she could handle pictures of a young Danny running around naked in the garden.
Maybe it'd help him - a reminder that he was still Danny.
Danny, Daniel, Darlington, all different sides of the same boy she loved.
He leaned back in his lounge chair, long legs sprawled out and crossed at the ankle, the toes of one bare foot curling in the grass; tucked his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. Alex watched him from the corner of her eye, and for a moment she reckoned he'd just dozed off. Then his mouth curled into the ghost of a smile, something soft, something that didn't belong to her. Neither of them was soft or gentle with the other; this was the sort of smile he kept for his Pammie, for the girl who'd thrown herself at him and wrapped him into the tightest welcome home hug.
Some things changed, though. Alex, who'd always longed for somewhere to belong, was learning home was not necessarily a place you were welcomed to.
Home was your name safe in the mouth of someone who loved you.
"I think my grandfather kept the albums in a box in his office," Darlington said quietly.
Things got tougher in the evening.
Alex was slowly realizing that they hadn't spent that much time just the two of them in a long time. Usually when Darlington came to meet them at Il Bastone, Dawes was around; Mercy had been there a lot, too, in the beginning, before things became too much for her and she'd started distancing herself from all demon business. Watching over Tripp kept them busy, as did their work with Lethe.
Alex couldn't remember a time when it'd been just the two of them simply enjoying the quiet. There had been the strolls around campus, Darlington teaching her about this town he loved, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Alex felt like she'd aged ten years in the past couple of years, and she was still reeling from the fact that she'd spent half of that time without Darlington.
It was crazy - how many hours of the day and night he'd filled, how his voice had become second nature to her, music to her ears, vessel of his soul tangling with hers, when she'd only just begun to let him in. She'd barely known him.
And yet.
He'd been in her head and in her heart, in her blood and in her tears, but he'd been gone so long that he'd missed birthdays, holidays, the way the seasons bled together, the crunch of boots on leaves and snow, her first steps as a promising young woman ahead of schedule instead of pathologically always behind. He'd missed the person she'd become thanks to knowing him, the Alex who could belong in Yale and learn to love words the way he did.
All her life she'd only known the rush of survival, heart in her throat, the fast pulse of blood thrumming in her veins, drumming in her temple; she didn't know what to do with the steadiness, this slow pace of waking up and enjoying life. It felt too placid, too domestic. It was the life most people led, and Alex was fucking terrified to realize that she might just not be cut out for this sort of peace.
Neither was Darlington, it seemed. As the evening progressed, he only seemed more restless. One moment he was pretending to read the same page over and over again, and the next he was asking her if she wanted to play a game; then, in the next breath, he excused himself to go prepare her room.
Alex hadn't thought that through - what it would do to Darlington, to have her in his space like this. What did she know of what his daily routine entailed? He'd told her he was working on the rooms of the second floor, but what did he do at night? Had he found a way to assuage his appetites? Was he hunting game in the woods like a wolf to quench his blood thirst? Or did he go to some secret fight club to let go of all that pent-up tension?
Was there a woman? Women? She'd seen the lust in his eyes. It was foolish to believe serving her 'til the end of days meant he'd remain faithful to on oath he'd never wanted to pledge in the first place.
Alex felt sick. Darlington was upstairs, making her bed, and all she could think about was all the girls he'd brought to his. All the beds he'd woken up in that weren't hers. She wanted to join him, tell him she didn't need a room and take his hand and lead him to his, go back to Halloween two years ago and start again. He hadn't known who she was then - a killer, a liar, a crook - but he'd seen her for what she could be - glorious, strong, beautiful. She wanted to be those things again.
She'd ruined him. She'd hurt him. She'd let him in her head, see all the terrible things she'd done. Alex knew that no magic could erase that, but it didn't stop her from wishing for another chance anyway.
When she made herself go up the stairs and join him, Darlington was beating her pillows into shape. She'd never seen the room before, but gone was the old tapestry Darlington had mentioned. He'd painted the walls a soft grey, something impersonal that didn't match the rest of the mansion's style. Had he done it on purpose? To separate his parents' room from the rest of the house?
He never talked about them. Alex wasn't one to share about her past or talk about her feelings willingly, but she figured Darlington should. His parents were dead; she knew he felt guilty about it. And she wasn't saying that he needed to talk to her because she was the worst at this, but at least he should talk to Dawes. Dawes would understand, offer the right words of comfort, or find a beloved author whose body of work could make sense of this senseless tragedy.
Dawes should be here instead of her.
Suddenly, Alex felt overwhelmed, out of her depth. Caring was a living thing, a beast carving its way out of her chest, untamed and unbound. She couldn't control it like she did Darlington with her blue fire leash. She cared so much about him, she was terrified of loving him to ruins.
She noticed her duffle bag on a chair nearby. Darlington had brought it on his way up, ever the gentleman. "There are clean towels in the bathroom, a bathrobe. Sadly no leftover tampons."
She snorted, unladylike and somewhat bubbly. Her cycles had always been irregular at best from years of abusing her body and stress, and his disappearance had been the biggest strike. She'd gone a year without having her period while he was gone, and her body was still in recovery. She was as likely to need tampons during her stay as she was to get him to open up. "And here I thought a gentleman always came prepared," Alex deadpanned as she let herself drop on the bed, messing with the perfectly smoothed-out bedding.
Darlington glared at her. "I'll bear that in mind for future reference."
He was gone when she woke up.
Alex felt his absence the moment she stirred awake, even before she was fully aware of her surroundings. She could feel it in her bones, recognized the familiar ache, this sense of loss lodged between her ribs. Despite the hot summer breeze filtering through the open window, Alex felt ice cold.
Darlington was gone. She'd finally pushed him away, said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing. She should have never come here.
Bolting awake, she sat up straight and balanced her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching blindly for the lamp on the bedside table. She needed to act fast: call Dawes to check if he'd called her, call Turner to ask him to send a search party. She almost stumbled over her own legs as she tried to stand.
And then she saw it. A yellow sticky note by her phone.
Gone running.
And then she was crying, her tears smearing the ink, Darlington's quick scribbling turning into a blue stain. Alex traced the blurry words with shaky fingers. She'd bled herself dry to save him, get him back; she'd held her head up and kept her wits about her through thick and thin; she'd only ever allowed herself one night to crumble and fall apart, Cosmo's soft fur tickling her chin as she curled up in Darlington's clothes and bed, dreaming that he loved her.
And here she was crying over this - not the fact that he was gone, but that he'd cared enough to let her know that he was coming back.
Now that the dam had broken, Alex had no clue how to stop everything she'd bottled in from flooding.
Maybe that's your problem, Stern. Maybe you don't have to hold it all in.
His voice, always. He'd been in her bloodstream long before she'd welcomed his soul in.
She started collecting the little notes, putting them away in the drawer of her nightstand instead of throwing them out.
Different iterations of the original message. Gone for a run. Be back later. Go enjoy the tree shade while it's not too hot outside. Going to buy you all the tampons. Every morning, Alex woke up to a new note, and every morning she marveled at how deep her slumber was that she never heard Darlington come in.
She tried picturing him getting in on careful tiptoes, standing by her bed, watching her. Cosmo had found his way in, once, and as she stroked his soft fur and drifted back to sleep, Alex let herself imagine Darlington doing the same, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear, brushing stray locks off her forehead to take her sleepy features in.
It was wishful thinking.
And if her cheek tingled some mornings, it simply had to be the remnants of a dream.
By the end of the first week, they had an unspoken routine.
Darlington ran in the morning - well before dawn, and sometimes he wouldn't come back until almost noon. Alex slept in. No matter how old her mattress was, it was the best sleep she'd had in months.
She took care of breakfast; Darlington took care of everything else. Alex nearly choked on her own tongue the first time she saw him hanging out laundry, her bra dangling from his long fingers. She was grateful she'd never been able to afford real lingerie, her underwear soft-worn and practical, nothing sexy, the elastic band in one of her pair of panties so loose she only ever wore them to sleep; still Darlington held the strap with a reverence that made her mouth dry. She'd look at him do it from behind the window of the sunroom and wonder about this parallel universe she'd seemed to fall into, one with a domestic Darlington tending to her like one of those perfect, unreal characters from the romance novels she used to read. Except that Darlington had always been a gentleman in any world, the one thing about him that Hell could not take from him.
In the afternoons, he worked on the repairs of the second floor. Sometimes, he let her help. She'd watch his muscles flex with every movement with hunger, swallow hard as the musk of his sweat hit her nostrils and tongue. It was a labor of love and perhaps a bit of madness, and sometimes it got too much, to watch him lose himself into the task at hand.
Most times, Alex napped under the shade of the trees or tried to read. Once, she even took out her paints and tried recreating the golden glow from dusk gleaming in Darlington's hair. She'd quickly hidden her work under her lounge chair as he came nearer, carrying a tray of pizza rolls and cheese buns and wearing the biggest, fakest scowl. He did it for her benefit, Alex figured; to make her laugh at his obvious despair over pairing nice wine with her greasy treats. She'd grabbed the bottle from him before he could pour the wine in their glasses and taken a gulp and Darlington's eyes had widened, fire and golden brown melting before the blue poured back in, the press of his lips together tight.
Then he'd leaned in to wipe a drop from her lip with his thumb, glossing over her full, trembling lower lip before sucking his finger into his mouth. Hotter than hell.
The evenings were never the same.
Sometimes they'd seek the cool air from the nightfall, lying on their backs in the grass, staring at the stars; Darlington would teach her their names, the stories behind them. He was the Darlington she'd first known then - knowledgeable, the scholar - but with the way starlight lit his features, he was her prince once again. Once Alex fell asleep, lulled by his soft timbre, and couldn't remember getting up the stairs to go to bed, only this warmth, this sense of peace when she curled beneath the cocoon of her sheets.
Sometimes Darlington read and Alex just watched him, learning to love the quiet, to believe this could be the rest of her life now. She'd slip her feet beneath his thigh for warmth despite the summer heat and he wouldn't bat an eyelash; she'd lay her legs over his lap and he'd put a hand on her ankle, feather light, delicate, as if he too was looking for a tether.
He had an impressive collection of video games. Alex remembered Len, this game he liked to play, where the winner had to go down on the other; he'd never taught her how to play in the first place and he always had this gleam in his eye whenever he suggested they play, thumb lazily playing around the mouth of his beer bottle before bringing it to his lips as she automatically went down to her knees. The first time Darlington beat her at Super Smash Bros, he only shifted closer to her on the couch, wrapping his arms around her and his long fingers shadowing hers as he taught her how to increase her top speed. Alex nearly wept.
Once they took a stroll in the maze. Darlington told her about hiding in there as a child, before he got old enough to wander into town and find refuge at the Peabody museum. The maze was overgrown now, filled with thorns and dead branches, and he told her it would be his next project. When he talked like that, Alex wondered if he saw the repairs on the mansion as the rebuilding of his own soul - as if fixing his birthright would give life to something, someone new. She reached out and took his hand in hers before she could question the urge or try to resist it. She threaded her fingers through his, squeezing tight, hoping he understood she never meant to let go ever again.
She wished he'd kissed her then. Under the stars, hidden away from the rest of the world, something secret, just the two of them. She wished she'd been brave or stupid enough to do it herself.
But Darlington had only squeezed back, looking ahead of him as he kept walking, as if he were afraid that bringing attention to their linked hands would break the spell. Summer was young, Alex reckoned, they had plenty of time.
At night the dreams came, leaving Alex panting, her hair sticking slickly to her skin, her body pleasantly warm and buzzing, the fire in her lower belly blazing hotter than hell.
Darlington was hammering the new wood paneling, and the next moment he was pushing her against it, pinning her body with his, pounding into her.
He was pointing at stars, tracing his finger through the sky to shape constellations, and then he was doing the same with her tattoos, trailing a path between them with his tongue.
They were standing across each other in the kitchen, sipping wine and eating strawberries, and then he was licking the juice from her chin and lifting her on top of the kitchen island to devour her.
Darlington was reading a poem out loud, and she'd be the one unbuttoning his shirt, kissing down his chest, nipping at his hipbone, unbuckling his belt and curling her tongue around him, daring him to keep going without a stutter.
Every time Alex would startle awake with the furious need to run to Darlington's room and beg him to finish the job the dreams had started, and one night, after so many nights of taking care of herself on her own, she did. Half-ran, half-stumbled on shaky legs, deer learning how to walk for the first time, throwing itself at the wolf. She didn't even knock on the door, just barged in.
Darlington wasn't there.
Alex roamed the house, looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. She took an ice cold shower and went back to sleep in dream-soaked sheets, frustrated and angry with herself for fooling herself into believing he'd just wait for her.
She paid more attention after that.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she'd hear footsteps, Darlington leaving his room and not coming back until he'd return from his morning run. He'd brush by her while she made breakfast on his way to the bathroom, and Alex would try to catch the faint smell of sex on him, mingled with the sweat. That had to be it, she'd decided: he had to be fucking his way through all the townies to deal with all that pent-up tension she could feel radiating from him. He'd spent a year exiled and alone and he had needs and he was too dumb to see she was right here.
He was the dumbest smart person she knew and Alex hated that there was no one she could tell about Darlington, the golden boy of Lethe, too dumb to realize she was his from the start.
If she spent another day holed up in that mansion with him, Alex was going to jump his bones, she knew it. There would be no finesse, no time for patience and delicacy, no time to savor, just the powerful need to feel him everywhere.
So when Darlington came back from his run that morning, she was packing a picnic and casually informed him that they were going to the beach. "Yes, ma'am", he said, his mock-salute sending heat rolling down her spine.
She'd seen Darlington naked before - but it was another thing completely to be able to admire him out in the sun. His pale skin had turned sun-kissed golden in the summer, nowhere near as tan as hers but he looked so healthy and strong and magnificent, Alex wanted to lick him up like an ice-cream; to dip her tongue in the hard ridge of his abs, to map all his ticklish spots with her fingers, to catch every water droplet on his skin with her lips.
She'd noticed all the heads turning on him, the heat in the eyes of every woman staring at him. There had been stares for her, too, her lithe body marred with tattoos, but nothing like the hunger he provoked in his wake. Even the devil was an angel once; Alex had never found a quote that accurate before. If Darlington was a fallen angel, she'd happily kneel before him and pray.
But he didn't care about all the stares - he only had eyes for her. Cheek resting against his biceps, his arm tucked behind his head, Alex had first thought he was sleeping before she noticed the flicker in his eyes behind his sunglasses. His eyes were travelling down her body and she could feel his gaze setting her aflame wherever it landed. In the hollow of her clavicle, near the halter strap of her bikini top that he was staring at as if he could untie it by thought only; in the dip of her cleavage, where Alex could so easily imagine his big hands cupping her breasts, memory alone bringing back the lazy warmth from his thumb flicking across her nipple the morning after the Manuscript party; down her still too-flat stomach despite a few of weeks having meals at regular hours instead of too scarce because of the fear eating her alive.
Alex shifted uncomfortably then, pulling her leg up and bending her knee, creating friction between her slick thighs. She was craving the firm grip of his fingers around her thighs; he was driving her insane. She could spend the rest of the summer in the water and still not cool down.
Darlington rolled on his side, reaching out for her. His big hand landed on her bare stomach, burning her brighter than the sun. His fingers fanned across her belly, the tip of his little finger brushing just over the edge of her bikini bottoms; Alex hitched a breath. "I like seeing you like this," he said, his voice a mere murmur.
Her mouth felt dry, rock-rasp as if she'd swallowed a mouthful of sand. Their eyes locked and Darlington was staring back with intensity, without shame. Naked desire and aching longing. "Like what?" Alex said back. What did she even look like? A skinny girl with as many scars as tattoos?
His hand moved up, cupped her ribcage, then down her side, to grab her bent knee. He used it to roll her to her side, right into him. He was hard against her but when Alex lifted her hand to slide his sunglasses up, his eyes were impossibly tender. Typical Darlington. Alex wondered if he knew how comforting it was that he was still the same deep down where it mattered.
"This you," he went on softly, tracing the snake across her collarbone with a reverent finger. "The one who's unafraid."
She laughed. Couldn't help it. Darlington was so wrong - she was always afraid now. Afraid to lose him, to scare him away, to lose everything she'd been desperately building on shaky ground and legs, to lose Dawes and Turner, even Tripp, to watch Mercy leave for good and turn her back on her. She was terrified out of her mind of losing the first good thing she was finally learning to accept she deserved.
But she understood what Darlington meant. The Alex from two years ago who'd taken him up on his offer to erase her tattoos had watched the moths draw the ink from her skin with a childish hope that it could be the start of something new, a rebirth of sorts, the Alex who'd made so many mistakes stepping out of the husk of her former self to step into the shoes of Yale Alex, a girl with a bright future ahead.
Today she didn't care about the stares. Didn't care about what other people thought about her, not when the only ones who mattered knew her, the stories behind the ink, the scars, all her sharp edges.
Not when Darlington loved everything crooked and sharp and a little bit broken about her.
She meant to kiss him then. She meant to wrap herself around him and push him to his back and straddle him.
Instead she asked, "Where do you go at night?"
Darlington didn't even frown. He didn't bother with pretending he didn't know what she was talking about. Instead he let out a small sigh, his breath fanning across her lips, Alex's mouth hanging open. "Into the woods," he said.
Not the answer she was expecting. Alex frowned. "Why?" she asked, confused. Had she been right all along? Did he turn into his demon self at night to roam the woods and feed on wild animals?
His body was hot against hers, his fingers curling at her hip branding her. She'd have a mark if he didn't let go but Alex never wanted him to. Let his fingers dig into her flesh, pull her closer, crawl into her. He was still hard and Alex wanted nothing more than to grind against him, to put an end to both of their suffering.
Darlington closed his eyes as she tilted her hips to him. "I don't want to be like that around you," he groaned, and for a second Alex thought he meant the current state of his body. She tried pulling away but his grip on her hip made it impossible. "You misunderstand me, Stern."
His brow was furrowed as if he were fighting a battle she didn't even know had begun. "Explain, then, if you're so clever."
He shook his head, chuckling. Then, with his eyes still closed, he leaned in, nipping at her chin, tipping it with the bridge of his nose until his lips could reach the column of her throat. Alex barely held a whimper. "I don't want to let the monster into my home," he breathed against her neck. "Before you got here, I tried staying away from Black Elm as much as I could. I only let myself turn when there's no one around I could hurt."
"Oh."
Alex felt stupid. She'd thought he had some sort of control over it by now, no horn incident in months. She'd never stopped to think about what it took; what it'd done to him, to have his home invaded like that.
The golden boy of Lethe, her knight, her prince, turned into a demon, an enemy of good in the holy war he'd embarked on since childhood.
She meant to tell him he didn't have to hide from her. She meant to tell him he was the captain of his own soul. Instead she cupped his cheek and called him home. "Danny," Alex whispered, tasting his name on her tongue. It'd felt weird the first time she called him that, like she was an intruder, crossing too intimate a line. But it felt right now. He was still the young boy who dreamed of magic, the young man who'd taught her the ways.
He was still hers. Always would be.
He was her Danny and he was home and she'd be his anchor in the midst of the storm as long as he needed her to be. As long as he wanted her near, and even after that.
And then she was kissing him and he felt like honey on her tongue.
Darlington groaned in her mouth, tightening his hold on her, fingers splaying at her back as he pressed her against him, the tent in his swimming trunks poking valiantly against her core. He was kissing her back like he could devour her and Alex wanted to surrender to that feeling so badly, she couldn't even care about being at the beach. Fuck, anyone with the chance of having a Darlington in their life would do the same; there wasn't a minute to waste.
"Stern," Darlington scolded her when she started draping her leg over his hip. His chastising tone was definitely made less convincing by the strangled "Fuck, Alex," that came out after.
She wanted to make him growl her name like that 'til the end of days. Alex threaded her fingers in his hair, pulling lightly at the ends; it was getting a little too long, it needed a trim. When they got home she'd get the kitchen shears and do it for him. That is, if they even managed to get out of the Mercedes.
Alex grinned against his mouth. Darlington would chide her for having such impure thoughts about his precious car.
Then again, Alex wasn't certain Darlington cared much about being proper now. "When I get you home," he half-moaned in her ear, "I'm not letting you out of bed for three days."
Alex could deal with that.
Alex wanted to go back to Black Elm right this instant; Darlington whined about needing a minute, or twenty. Then a minute turned into deciding to enjoy the beach as long as they could. At some point Darlington stood up and told her he was going for a swim, and Alex lazily waved at him to let her be.
His arms were slipping underneath her and grabbing her before she could protest or even bother to pretend to shriek. Darlington hauled her up in his arms and over his shoulder like a potato bag and Alex laughed harder than she ever remembered. The water felt amazing against her warm skin and Darlington's arms around her felt even better. He looked like a puppy with his wet hair falling loose across his face, and his laughter danced along her spine as she splashed water on him then playfully dunk his head underneath the water.
Darlington wrapped his arms around her underwater, his face pressed against her stomach. Alex felt a surge of fondness washing over her, and when he came back to the surface, holding her up like she weighed nothing at all, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, wishing she were big enough to keep him safe.
"You'll have to carry me back, I'm never walking ever again," she told him as she squeezed her legs tighter around his waist.
He bowed his head and Alex touched her hand to his shoulder, then the other, as if knighting him. "I will serve you 'til the end of days," he said, the echo of a heartfelt promise that had never rung so true.
Alex sifted her fingers through his hair, tipping his head up to kiss him. "And love me?" she asked shakily.
Darlington brushed his lips against hers, soft, slow, sweet. A promise, a vow, an oath. "And love you." His kiss turned hotter, hungry, his hands skimming down to her ass. Alex moaned against his mouth. "Fuck, Alex, I love you."
For once, she didn't hesitate. "I love you too."
Alex thought she'd seen this film before, but she'd never pictured herself as the main character. The girl who got to stumble and fall and learn to walk into love.
Darlington was driving, one hand reaching over to cup her knee. He looked like every love interest in those movies Lauren loved, with the perfect hair and the gorgeous blue eyes, skin aglow and muscles flexing deliciously. Alex was staring at him hungrily, heart filled to the brim with the freedom of doing so without fear.
All her life, she'd replaced one hunger with the next. Her empty stomach clenching painfully, the desperate impulse to keep running, the rush in her blood from getting high, the profane freedom of shutting her mind out and using her body to survive. She'd been hungry for food, warmth, safety, love. And for the first time in her life, Alex felt sated.
When they stumbled through the kitchen door kissing, hands gripping at one another, his fingers digging into her hips, hers running through his hair, Darlington still managed to mumble something about making her dinner first and Alex laughed; she laughed at the way he cocked a confused eyebrow at her, at his small frown, the dazed look in his eyes when she pushed him against the wall and kissed him again. Alex kept laughing until her laugh turned into a moan when he sank to his knees, lips trailing a blazing path across the sensitive skin of her stomach, deft fingers undoing the button of her denim shorts and slowly pulling them down along with her bikini bottoms.
Darlington looked up at her then, blue eyes as dark as the midnight sky as his fingers gently shaped constellations across her thighs. They were back on Halloween night two years before, except that this time Darlington was only high on her. His eyes were sparking, reminding Alex of a Shakespeare quote her brain couldn't quite form. She'd have to ask Darlington to read to her again.
She stopped thinking the moment his lips pressed against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, her fingers instinctively reaching out to tangle in his hair. It was too long; but it felt divine in her hands, silky soft as she held him to her. She hadn't allowed herself back then; she'd pushed him off, shaken him out of his trance, been the good guy for once. And the next morning, she'd been the coward.
But now she was Queen Mab again, his monstrous queen, the princess in her own story, and maybe she wasn't golden and beautiful like she should, but Alex didn't care. She didn't care about anything beyond the next seventy-two hours, beyond the walls of Black Elm that she'd help him reclaim. She'd gone to Hell for him and she'd do it all over again now that he was showing her that heaven was indeed a place on earth when she was with him.
He was her gentleman demon. She was his Wheelwalker. They were the shepherds, looking out for one another first and foremost. They were teaching each other that a monster stopped being a monster when you loved them, that there were no monsters in the first place, only people who did monstrous things and those who were brave enough to face their shit and do something about it.
She was a screwed-up. He'd been chewed and spit out. They were doomed from the start.
None of them was meant to survive but here they were, and here was good. Here was great. It was the most hopeful Alex had ever felt.
And then she couldn't feel anything beyond his lips on her.
Alex was dreaming again.
In her dream, Darlington was reading to her in bed, a Shakespeare anthology that was the first book on top of the pile at his bedside. He'd reached over her to get it and Alex had grabbed his arm, pulled him on top of her to feel the glorious weight of him above her, then the delicious friction of his mouth down below.
She was nestled against his side now, head resting above his bare chest, his arm wrapped around her, his heart beating soothingly beneath her cheek. "Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love."
Alex didn't need to be a scholar to get what it meant.
Darlington brushed his mouth to the crown of her hair, Alex to the spot above his heart. Its soft beat was grounding her, the slow realization that this wasn't a dream dawning on her.
She nuzzled closer, slung her arm across his taut stomach and squeezed herself tighter. Darlington's bed was too narrow for the two of them but they were one in that moment, her leg tucked between his thighs, her dark hair fanning across his chest, souls tangled together forever.
"Keep reading," she mumbled in that moment just before slumber pull you under. I love your voice. I love you.
'Til the end of days.
the end