Enigma

by RuNyx

put his shoulder in her stomach, throwing her over his shoulder. A shriek left her as she clutched the back of his shirt for stability, though he spread his palm on her ass to keep her dress from rising and keep her from moving. “Are you crazy?” she shouted at him as he began to walk to the exit. “For you.” He smacked her ass. “A thousand percent.”

“You had no right.” His own anger, much more palpable than hers, flared. “I have every right. Need I remind you who’s inside you every night? What name you scream when you strangle my cock? Whose hands are on every inch of your skin?”

I’m with you, you idiot. So, what the hell was that?” He took a step closer to her, grabbing her by the waist, exactly where the guy’s hands had been. “That was me getting pissed, Salem,” he told her seriously. “You ask me if I’m crazy, and I am. I’m crazy about you and I’m crazy for you. Seeing you that close to another guy? You’re lucky I didn’t fuck you right there in his blood.”

one of his hands going under her dress, plunging two fingers inside her. “Mine,” he growled against her mouth, and the sound rumbled from his chest to hers, brushing her aching nipples and heavy breasts, and setting her on fire like he always did.

“You.” He thrust inside her. “Will always be mine. No matter what secrets you keep, no matter what secrets I keep. There won’t ever be another for you or for me.”

Her mother looked between them. “Are you a friend of my daughter’s, Caz?” He gave a slashing smile. “Boyfriend.”

Her mother’s words brought her eyes back. “I should have expected this, to be honest. The Salazars have always found their life partners in Mortimer, generation after generation.” Salem paused. Life partner? She could see herself growing with him, but could he?

Salem gripped her mother’s hand, her chest filling with pride. That was him. That was her man.

“She went to my head like a drug,” he went on, all the while looking at her. “She calls me crazy and makes me crazier. And so, I call this collection Delirium.”

She felt beautiful. Empowered. Adored. And she realized it was the gaze. The photos had been destruction. The paintings were desire.

The thought made her eyes burn. Even after they would be gone, future generations would look at his art and know she had been his muse, that she was his lover, that she was his. Salem had never felt as desired, as wanted, as adored as she did right then. “He loves you,” her mother stated from her side.

She was right. He loved her. Salem could feel it in her bones.

his love for her so palpable that the last of her ice melted, compelled by the heat of him.

Salem had always thought nothing could beat death, that nothing could be immortal. She’d been wrong. Love, deep, true love, was immortal.

And the worst, most surprising part was the girl on it. Melissa. Her friend. Her unconscious friend. The one who was supposed to be home with her family.

The small dick energy emanating from him was enough of an answer about his ego,

“His daughter was the first one we initiated, girl.”

“Seducing you was a part of his task,” Merlin admitted, letting it all out in the open. “He was assisting me to become a part of our society, and I saw how you were with him in class.

“Also,” he said, “I found out why your father did what he did.” Salem pulled back and looked at him, sobering at his tone. “What do you mean?” Caz stared at her. “He had been investigating your sister’s death for a while. When Laz died, he got the Order to help him find the truth. That’s when he realized that Mortemia was still operating. And that my uncle had been the one to restart it with the Vanguard name, after being rejected from the Order.”

“Just so there’s no confusion, you want us to…?” “Marry,” he stated simply. “Not right now, but someday. But I want my ring on your finger and yours on mine. I want the world to know about it and I want you to know you always, always belong. To me.”

squealing when he suddenly attacked her, taking her down with him, peppering kisses on her mouth, giving her the affection she had once been famished for, affection she now expected, affection she knew she would always get from him.

she had begun to glow more and more, a dark goddess shining so bright she could blind a mortal man, and she did.

Fuck, being with her was easy.

“Let sleeping dogs lie,” she’d told Salem and him over dinner that night. “I have my daughter and now I have a son. I don’t care about anything else.”

It was very different from the bond he had with the guys he could call friends. Baron, who was still with Aditi, and Jacob, the guy who had rescued Melissa from the cave that day, who was also her to-be husband. Both guys were from the Order and both dating friends of his girl.

Though he wanted to ask her again, he knew she wasn’t ready.

“We’re already married, you know?” he’d told her lazily drawing back on her shoulder. “We just have to make it legal.”

You … you’re okay to wait, right?” Caz had pressed a soft kiss to her upturned lips, easing the line between her brows. “I’d wait forever if you wanted me to.” And he’d meant it.

In his heart, he was already married to her, and he knew so was she.

He couldn’t dream, couldn’t imagine a better her.

One of the things he found so attractive about her was her brain, the keen intelligence with which she examined the world, the singular focus of her mind when she was analyzing something.

“Let’s do it.”

“Pact of trust for life? Let’s make it official.” She was ready. Fuck him.

And just last month, he had surprised her for her birthday and given her a gift that had made her bawl her eyes out—a tiny, golden-furred creature with a tag around her that said “Junie.” In memory of her only friend and anchor growing up. It had taken a while for the flood of her emotions to stop, her memories pouring in as the tiny puppy licked her tears and gave her kisses.

And he was hers, all hers. Her husband.

Death still was inevitable, but life was more beautiful somehow because of it.

She looked at the tattoo on the side of his neck, one that she got with him, her only tattoo, and the words it said—memento vivere. Remember to live.

She went on her tiptoes, kissing him as he kissed her back, reveling in the fact that she was alive, that he was alive, and together, they were living.