Chapter 20: Afterglow of Annihilation
Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but as a slow, heavy tide. First came the sensation of weightlessness, of being cradled in something impossibly soft. Then, the smell: aged leather, beeswax, and beneath it all, the cold, clean scent of stone, like the depths of a cathedral. It was nothing like the antiseptic sting of a hospital.
Liana opened her eyes.
A vaulted ceiling of dark, exposed beams swam into focus above her. The light was low, warm, and flickering—candlelight, reflected in the polished surface of a midnight-black wardrobe. She was lying in a bed vast enough to get lost in, the sheets beneath her a cool, slippery satin the color of a starless sky.
She turned her head, a movement that sent a dull ache through her temples.
Matthias lay on his side beside her, still fully dressed in his tailored trousers and the scorched, open-collared shirt from the battle. He wasn’t sleeping. His crimson eyes were fixed on her, intense and unblinking, his head propped on one hand. The concern etched into his aristocratic features was so stark it seemed to belong to a different man. As her gaze met his, it dissolved, smoothed away into a mask of elegant relief.
“There you are,” he said, his voice a low vibration in the quiet room. He didn’t move to touch her. He just watched, as if she were a rare artifact that might fracture.
“Where…” The word was a dry croak. Her throat felt raw, scraped clean.
“My home. The Gold Coast. You’ve been out for about fourteen hours.” He finally moved, reaching to a nightstand carved from a single piece of obsidian. A crystal glass of water sat there. He offered it to her, his fingers brushing hers as she took it. The water was perfectly cool, with a faint, refreshing hint of cucumber and mint. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
She drank greedily, the events of the dock reassembling in her mind in jagged pieces: the tearing breach, Sera’s command, the beautiful horror of the vampires fighting, the thing unfolding from the earth, the Aasimar falling.
“Sera,” Liana gasped, lowering the glass. “Is she—”
“Alive,” Matthias said, his tone shifting into something neutral, administrative. “The werewolves got her to your people at Northwestern. Multiple fractures, internal bleeding, severe concussion. But she’s Aasimar. Her constitution is remarkable. She’ll recover.” A pause. “The Fae caster it took did not.”
The weight of that settled in the pit of her stomach. A being, centuries old perhaps, snuffed out. Gone. Because she hadn’t been fast enough, good enough.
“What happened?” she whispered, staring at the play of candlelight on the satin coverlet. “At the end. I remember light… and then you…”
“You defeated it,” he said simply. He finally sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, his back to her. The fabric of his shirt was torn across the shoulder blades, revealing pale, flawless skin beneath. No wound. “What came through wasn’t just a creature. It was a manifestation of the corruption eating at the Veil from the other side. A cancer. Your light… our combined effort… it didn’t just kill it. It scorched the infection clean. The ward site is stable. For now.”
Our combined effort. The memory of his crimson power braiding with her gold, the shocking synergy of it, the way he’d known exactly how to channel her chaos. It hadn’t felt like him helping her. It had felt like a single act, performed by one entity with two minds.
“You caught me,” she said.
“Of course I did.” He glanced back over his shoulder, a faint, unreadable smile on his lips. “You were magnificent, and then you were a sack of potatoes. It was undignified.”
A weak laugh escaped her, hurting her raw throat. She pushed herself up on her elbows. The room spun gently before settling. It was a chamber fit for a Renaissance prince, all rich woods, velvet drapes in deep burgundy, and tapestries depicting obscure, shadowy hunts. One entire wall was glass, looking out over a nighttime panorama of Chicago’s glittering skyline and the dark void of Lake Michigan beyond. She felt like a speck of dust in a museum.
“The Council?” she asked.
“In an uproar. Partly celebratory, partly terrified.” He stood and walked to the window, his silhouette a cutout against the city lights. “A breach of that magnitude hasn’t occurred in over a century. The fact that it was sealed at all is being called a miracle. The fact that a human novice and a vampire lord were the ones to do it… well. It upsets certain narratives.”
“Narratives?”
“That the old powers—vampires, Fae, the celestial-born—are the only capable guardians. That humans, even touched ones, are merely auxiliaries. You’ve made yourself a question mark, Liana. And in my experience, the established powers hate question marks more than they hate outright enemies.” He turned to face her. “Sera will be out of commission for days. Which means you are without your officially appointed celestial minder.”
“What are you saying?”
He gave her a mischievous smile, the kind that erased centuries from his face. “I’m saying we can finally have a few days to ourselves. No breaches, no councils, no stern celestial taskmasters drilling you on ward theory.” He raised an eyebrow and gave her a deliberate wink. “Think of the possibilities.”
Liana felt her cheeks flush with a heat that had nothing to do with residual magic. The satin sheets suddenly felt too intimate against her skin. She looked away, focusing on a tapestry depicting a wolf under a winter moon. “Others on the Council would be suspicious. Won’t they?”
“They’re all too distracted as of right now to notice,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. The gesture was fluid, effortlessly arrogant. “The werewolves are licking their wounds and arguing over territory lines shifted by the corruption. The Fae are in mourning and recrimination. My own kind are scheming to use the event for political leverage.” He moved back toward the bed, his presence shrinking the vast room. “You’ll need to give a report at some point, a debriefing."
“You’ll need to give a report at some point, a debriefing.” He leaned against the bedpost, watching the city lights. “But not tonight. Probably not tomorrow, either.”
“So I can just… stay here?” The concept felt absurd. This wasn’t her world of scrubs and instant coffee.
“Unless you’d prefer a Council safe house.” His smile was all sharp edges. “They’re drafty, full of paranoid werewolf sentries, and the décor is strictly municipal brutalism.” He shrugged a shoulder.
The implication was a seduction in itself. No watchful eyes. No judgment. Just this opulent cage and the predator offering the key. He reached out, his fingers surprisingly warm as they traced the line of her cheekbone, brushing back a strand of her tangled hair. The touch was electric, a static shock that went straight to her spine.
She leaned into it.
The short kiss she gave him was less about passion than punctuation—a period at the end of a sentence of pure chaos. It was an acknowledgment of the shared power on the docks, of him catching her, of this bewildering sanctuary. His lips were soft, and he didn’t push for more, just accepted the brief contact with a hum of approval.
She pulled back, the flush returning. “That sounds wonderful,” she breathed, her voice steadier now. “But before anything else, I think need a shower. I smell like dock water and fear.”
He chuckled, a low, rich sound. He bent his head, his lips brushing the shell of her ear as he whispered, his breath cool. “How about a bath?”
He leaned back just enough to let her see the sensual smirk playing on his mouth. His crimson eyes held a promise of heat that contradicted the chill of his skin. “The tub is quite large. Made of Italian marble. It has jets.” He said the last word like it was a secret.
Liana’s laugh was genuine this time, a short, surprised burst. “Jets? You’re trying to sell me on a vampire’s bathtub with jets?”
“Is it working?” He straightened up, offering a hand. She took it, letting him pull her from the dizzying depths of the bed. Her legs held, just barely. The clothes she’d fought in—now stained and reeking—felt like a second skin she was desperate to shed.
He led her across the cavernous bedroom to a door she hadn’t noticed, carved to blend into the paneled wall. It opened into a bathroom that stole the air from her lungs. It was larger than her entire apartment. The floor was heated black slate. The tub was a colossal, freestanding oval of veined white marble, situated before another window to the sky.
A fire danced in a minimalist fireplace on the far wall, its light reflecting in the polished nickel faucet. The tub was already full, the water a translucent, inviting blue. Steam rose from the bubbling water churned by the aforementioned jets. Matthias put his hands on her shoulders and whispered, "You've earned a little pampering...and pleasure."
His hands moved, slowly unzipping the jumpsuit and peeling it off of her. His own clothes had seemingly vanished into wisps of smoke. He unclasped her bra, and then slid off her panties. He guided her into the tub.
The water felt amazing. The steam smelled of flowers.
She sank into the liquid heat with a gasp that was half relief, half surrender. The jets pulsed against the ache in her lower back, the tension in her shoulders. She watched him through the veil of steam as he stepped into the water, the surface rippling around his pale form. He was a statue come to life, all elegant, predatory lines in the flickering light.