Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

I lurched for her arm to pull her up, but halted when, from her mouth, a long, skinny, fibrous creature slithered out past her lips and into the water. Three more tumbled after it–two from her nose.

I watched as the worms wriggled over the tub’s porcelain floor and forged a path through the water to gather at the drain holes. At least two dozen more poured free, forcing her mouth and nostrils wide.

Noctisoma expert at Dracadia. Professor Bramwell. He teaches Neuroparasitology and gross anatomy, and is board certified in anatomical and forensic pathology. He’s also the one who performs autopsies for those suspected of Noctisoma.”

No one touched what belonged to me without repercussions. My class. My requirements. My student. Without a doubt, Lilia Vespertine was going to be a massive headache. But she was my headache.

Any sympathy I may have had drained out of me right then. “Seriously? You just had a seizure in front of me, and you’re worried about a little dust on your coat?” “Welcome to my Tuesday. This is nothing new.” He pushed to his feet until standing over me.

A thank you would’ve been nice, though.

I still in his embrace and breathe hard through my nose. “What word?” “Impervious.” “Impervious?” “Yes. It means nothing bad can hurt you. Ever. When you feel like Death is coming for you, you say that word. Death can’t touch you, then.”

“I have a rare genetic disorder. It’s called Voneric’s Disease. It remains dormant until late in life. Unless triggered by trauma.” “The whack to your head. Your old man triggered it.” “Yes. Every day I live with the risk that it will seize up my heart and I’ll go into cardiac arrest.” “If it’s genetic, does that mean your brother has it, too?” “Had,” I corrected. His brows flickered, and he shifted where he sat on the cot. “He’s no longer alive.”

“Miss Vespertine,” he said, the acknowledgement nearly kicking me backward onto my ass. “Professor Bramwell,” I responded, offering a respectful nod.

“Right.” She blew out a breath that rattled through the phone. “So, I softened the peach in public.” “What?” “I paddled the pink canoe in the parking lot at Daly’s Market.” “Paddled the what?” I shook my head, trying to decipher what the hell she was talking about. “What are you saying?”

A figure cloaked in a long cape and what looked very much like a plague doctor’s mask.

A wiser man would’ve kicked her out of his class and avoided the inevitable headache that was sure to follow. I’d certainly never professed to be the wisest.

“Allow me to caution you, Miss Vespertine. You are a confused moth dancing about a wild flame. Blind to the incomprehensible danger of your curiosities.”

“The problem? Have you seen her?” Damned near every night when I closed my eyes, but I didn’t bother to say that aloud. “She’s a spitting image of her mother!” “A number of children are.” “Quit fucking mocking me, Devryck!” He

“Her mother is the other missing woman. The runaway in your father’s fucked-up study.”

Just like that, Lilia Vespertine had become more than a student. She was a serious problem.

“You’re the one who transported my brother to his killer.” There it was. The reason I’d taken a man off the streets and infected him with the deadly worms that had begun to ravage his body. Revenge.

“Stay out of trouble, Curious Moth,” he said, as he strode for the door. Curious Moth. A nickname. A fitting one, too, given the fact that I had no intentions of avoiding the flame.

“You think they’re staring at you because you’re poor?” He buried a smirk in his drink and tipped back a long swill that emptied the glass. His jaw flexed with the clenching of his teeth as he swallowed. “The wealthy possess an insatiable appetite for the rare and priceless. They stare because you’re the only thing worth staring at.”

He tipped his head, and I caught a flicker of intrigue in that coppery gaze. “Look at you. Such a bold moth. Far bolder than I gave you credit for.”

His brow winged up, and he strode off in the direction of the exit. “And so the moth befriended the flame.”

Achilles, and the one in the front, with the goofy proboscis, should be Patroclus.”

“And just how does that benefit you as a reader? A voyeur, essentially. You have no intimate connection with these fictional characters.” “Says who? I happen to get very attached to my fictional boyfriends.” Yet another frown. “Boyfriends?” “I read a lot.”

“Did you think I’d feel sorry for you? That I’d be gentle? I feel this torture every fucking time you walk into a room.”

With a mirthless chuckle, he shook his head. “Here, I thought it was the moth who would succumb to the fire.”

“I won’t soon forget last night. Tell me you understand how much it meant that you were here for my first success.” His words slashed across my heart like a poison-tipped blade.

His kiss was cruel and blistering, his hands like barbed wire across my skin, and I wanted to push him away and tell him how much I fucking hated his stupid games. That I hated the push and pull and cat and mouse. Tell him, Lilia! Make him hurt, too! But I couldn’t. Because the unsettling truth of it was, it set me alight. I really was a dumb fucking moth.

Eyes locked on his, I reached up the hem of my skirt and pulled down my panties, slipping them over my ankles. I balled them in my palm and stuffed them into the pocket of his slacks, next to the hard length that brushed the edge of my thumb. “Panties are for the modest,” I said, and turned for the door.

“And if you think, for one second, I’m letting you jog around here in the dark in those tiny fucking shorts, looking like a midnight snack, you’ve grossly underestimated just how much of a prick I can be.”

“Jealousy is a callow schoolboy’s emotion that ends in hard feelings and bloody noses. What I feel for you, Miss Vespertine, would destroy lives.”

“Dr. Lippincott.”

“The decision was made the moment I met you, though. To stay here. I choose you.”

I pushed past the revolting lack of feeling and hooked my finger beneath her chin, turning her to face me. “I choose you,” I said, and pulled her in for a kiss, feeling the smile against my lips. “And believe me when I say, you’re hard to forget, Miss Vespertine.”

“So, what … you can’t feel anymore? Is that why you’ve avoided touching me today?” Brows lowered, he stared down at his drink. “Perhaps the most vindictive torment was having a brief moment of knowing what you felt like.”

“Hey.” Fingers tangled into a tight grip at my crown, and he pulled my head back, staring down at me. “You don’t have to be scared. I will never hurt you, Lilia. In fact, I’ll rain hell on anyone who ever hurts you again.”

I loved him. Every cell, every fiber of my being couldn’t hide that truth. Even if I wasn’t bold enough to say it or brave enough to risk the universe stealing it away from me, the words were as real as my fears. The words I kept secret like all my other trinkets–safely tucked away.

“You were brave to fight him. My brave Little Moth.” He brushed his thumb over my temple.

“There was … the briefest moment … when I was running toward that room. Your screams had silenced. And I thought—“ Lips pressed to a hard line, he flashed me a sullen scowl that tore at my heart. He shook his head, refusing to say it. “That was the first time I truly felt that something could hurt me. That I could be brought to my knees. I don’t ever want to feel that again, Lilia.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” “Because it’s true. Spencer isn’t even mine. He was a product of my wife’s affair with your father.” The man just couldn’t help himself, dropping bomb after bomb in my lap.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” “Don’t be like that, baby,” he said, while I mentally fought to make sense of the scenario. Baby? He never called me baby. What the hell was this?

My heart stuttered. Not Devryck. Definitely not Devryck. Oh, God.

“You’re … you’re … Caedmon,” I whispered. A part of me felt relieved, the other part of me still reeling from the shock.

“That I would kill for you without a beat of hesitation, or remorse. And yet, at the same time, I could be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash without you. I’m weak for you, Lilia.”

“But he will never hurt you again, Little Moth. I will bleed out every one of your demons until you feel safe.”

“I love you. And I don’t think I can stop loving you.” I leaned forward to kiss him, but hesitated, uncertain if I’d confessed too much. A firm hand gripped my nape, preventing my retreat. “I will never reject you, or turn you away.”

“Don’t ever hesitate to touch me, Lilia. You’re the only one who can. It was you who dragged my heart from this insensate slumber. And it’s you for whom it beats now.”