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𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 : 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋, 

𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒

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It was sometime past one in the morning when we finally drove up the path to the cabin. The air was colder than it had been when I'd left hours ago and Crow had to peel me up from my seat, my bones and muscles rigid and hard. Everything stuck to me like glue; my clothes, my hair, my blood. Even the towel and duct tape seemed to be suctioned to my skin, crusted red and still wet, but no longer warm. It was just as cold as the air outside.

Crow took the majority of my weight against him but taking the few stairs up to the porch proved to be more than difficult. I couldn't bend my knee, I could barely even raise my foot above the ground. Every little movement felt like needles, like something tearing me apart inside. But I could still move my toes, so you could say I was still a winner here.

When he got the door open after our fight up the stairs, the warmth of the cabin nearly left me breathless. The car had been warm once my stomach settled and I could get comfortable but this was different. This was home.

Crow dropped the keys in the bowl by the door before helping me through the cabin and towards the bedroom. We didn't go to mine, like I was thinking we would, but rather we went straight for his. Bigger bathroom, I assumed was his reasoning.

After helping me inside and seating me on the lid of the toilet, he hurried away. It gave me the opportunity to take in a few deep breaths and work my jacket off. It was heavy with both demon blades inside and I laid it aside carefully. Everything would need to be washed. I got the shoe off my good leg but couldn't bend down or forward to get the second off. I felt pathetic, more pathetic than when Conner had broken my nose. Or when West had broken my nose, too...or maybe when John and Ace's betrayal became apparent. There were too many things, too many factors that have left me feeling like a sad wet dog.

Crow returned to the bathroom with a first aid kit, fresh towels, and scissors. He got down on one knee in front of me, setting the kit aside before one hand wrapped itself around my calf.

"I'll have to cut your pants off," he said in a slow voice, finally looking up and meeting my gaze. His hair was brushed back and out of his face and I could see how different he looked from this morning. The bags under his eyes were gone, there was no longer a weariness in him. It looked like nothing had ever controlled him. "Are you okay with that?"

I nodded, feeling breathless.

He worked my boot off my foot and then my sock, setting them aside gingerly. He took the scissors and worked them underneath the ankle of my jeans and slowly cut. The metal glided against my shin, working its way up my leg until it reached my knee. He worked the scissors to the side until he met the towel and duct tape, working the blades underneath where there was no wound before cutting. When he was done, slicing my jeans all the way up through my belt loops until he could tear them open. We ignored how he'd accidentally sliced through my underwear, but I was still covered. I was still in control.

He peeled the towel off the gash and I bunched my mouth together to keep from yelling. Flesh peeled up with it, ragged strands Blood had sliced through haphazardly. The flesh was red and swollen, oozing with the remnants of Crow's blood which now looked gray. It still bled, red and angry and screaming back at me. The skin that wasn't puckered and red around the wound was pale, nearing a deadly green gray.

Crow lifted my leg, resting my calf painfully against his knee. "I need to clean it."

I started to shake my head because I knew what that meant. I knew the type of pain that would bring me and I couldn't fathom another second of agony like before. "It's–it's too deep–you can't–"

"It's healed more than you think," he said, his fingers like ice as they touched the skin still whole on my thigh. It would've sent me over the edge if my leg wasn't throbbing and fear taking over my chest and head. I would've liked to have his hands on me, like this, if I had been well. "Do you trust me?"

I nodded without hesitation.

He held up a bottle of saline solution and gave me a long look. "Then, please, trust me now."

I bit into my lip and nodded again as he uncapped the bottle. He met my eyes again and nodded, to which I responded by breathing in deeply through my nose as he poured it over the wound.

An animalistic cry left me instantly as my leg tensed and shook, my nails digging into my palms. I couldn't even breathe properly, there was no air in my lungs, only a howl that was leaving from my soul. He sliced into his palm with the scissors and added some of his blood into the gash and I closed my eyes tightly. I couldn't watch him anymore, I couldn't stand to see what he was going to do until it was over.

"Blaire," his voice was so soft, "I need to stitch this up. It'll help with the healing."

I nodded, breathing roughly through my nose. I felt lightheaded. "Okay. Okay. Okay."

"You have to keep still, your leg–"

"Okay–okay–"

He took my hand in his and I finally opened my eyes. "Just focus on me and not what I'm doing. Can you do that for me?"

I nodded and he got closer, taking my knee in one hand and my thigh in the other. I could've trembled just by his touch alone. Even if I wasn't injured, I would've been shaking. He already had a surgical needle in between two fingers, threaded and prepared for me. I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, settling both hands on his shoulders to steady myself as he trapped my leg against his hip and arm to keep me still.

He had to push the skin together and I held my breath. My leg was threatening to buckle, to bend and scream. When he pushed the needle through the flesh, a cry whimpered out of my mouth and my nails dug into his shoulder. I could've torn out his jugular, ripped it with my teeth and nails from the pain now sizzling over my entire body. Red pus oozed from the corner of the wound as he continued to work the needle through. He did his job well and fast, keeping his elbow on my knee to keep me from jerking away.

I thought of John as he continued to sow me whole. I thought of how he wanted me, wanted to defile and ruin me, and I saw red. The red was good, it was a distraction. It built up in my eyes and chest, a burning tension because I would never allow him to touch me the way he so wanted. There was only one man I wanted to touch me, to ruin me in the way I pleased. And it was not John, it was not Ace, it was not any boy.

It was wrong to have such a strong need for him. He was a demon, I was a necromancer destined to kill him but was that really what my fate entailed? Cage had made it seem like my job was to kill the Morticianers, to wipe them out and any other demon I saw fit. But it wasn't like that. Cage had been friends with them and everything he'd told me, everything he'd built up, was a lie. Except for now.

I was going to die and so was Crow, and now he knew the truth.

"Are you okay?" I asked, the words a whisper in the air. I winced at the needle but kept my eyes on his as his brows furrowed.

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not the one who nearly had their leg amputated tonight."

I relaxed my hands on his shoulders just slightly, my breath stuttering as he pulled the flesh together. "I–I told you what Cage said."

"And?" he murmured, concentrating. I wanted him to look me in the eyes, to look away from my stitches just for a second to see me. I only ever wanted to be seen by him.

"And–" I let out a shaky breath as the skin pushed and squelched together. "–you're–you're okay with dying?"

"I've been alive a long time," he said, pulling the needle tightly. He was nearly done. "I've seen and done a lot of things here, Blaire, and..." He finished the last stitch, tying it off and cutting it with the scissors. His hand rested on the outside of my thigh and stayed there when he finally looked up and met my eyes. "...and I'd rather be dead than live in a world when you are not there."

"You'd–you'd–" The stitches were neat but the skin was so thick and swollen it made my eyes water to glance down. "–die for me?"

"A thousand times over."

I shook my head and breathed, "Why?"

His answer was simple. "Why not?"

"B-because you hated me."

He shook his head, running his thumb so gently over the clean and whole flesh of my thigh I felt goosebumps rise. "I never hated you."

"You wanted me dead," I whispered, knowing we'd had this conversation before but I couldn't help it, and he smiled.

"I was never going to kill you," he said, his other hand coming to my other thigh. He was perched between my legs and I felt warmth flush over me so quickly it made my head spin. "I was never going to kill you or anyone you loved."

I smoothed my hands down his shoulders to his arms, feeling his muscles and the way they constricted against my touch. He wasn't wearing a jacket so my fingers touched smooth skin, no longer warm or clammy from sickness. He felt whole again. I could sense it through my fingertips.

"Blood...he told me something that John wants," I whispered, feeling myself become more clear headed the longer we sat together. His blood was working, slowly. I wanted Crow to know everything, I wanted us to have an even playing field when dealing with John. "I..."

"Is it what you mentioned earlier?" he asked. "How he wants to," he glanced down towards my thigh and knee, "take you?"

I forced an embarrassed smile as my face went red. "A virgin sacrifice."

"He won't sacrifice you," said Crow, shaking his head. "He won't ever get the chance to lay a hand on you."

"A full moon isn't that far away," I whispered, "and we both know what John wants, John gets. Eventually."

His hands slid up the sides of my thighs and I wished my other leg hadn't been clothed still. His palm against my bare skin made my heart reach a fevered beat. He was so close to me and I wasn't sure he even knew what he was doing, that it was just an unconscious reaction. But his fingers were warm against me and he was pushing himself closer between my legs.

"I won't let him touch you," he whispered, looking like a man kneeling to worship. But something crossed over his face, like something of cruel realization, and his hands planted themselves on my hips as he murmured, "It's late, let's get you showered."

He lifted me until I was standing on both feet, securely in front of him. I ignored the pang in my chest because this wasn't what I wanted, not yet. I wanted his hands on other parts of me, open and bare and exposed.

"Can you stand on your own?" he asked and I knew he didn't mean it harshly but it felt that way. He didn't want anything to do with me, he doesn't even want you.

I forced myself to nod, applying the slightest pressure to my left leg as he pulled himself back and away from me. He turned the water on and couldn't even look at me as he said while leaving, "I'll get you some clothes."

I undressed myself slowly, dropping my dirty and ruined clothes in a pile near my boots. I tried to ignore the way my chest felt like it was caving in, how the pounding was in tune to the throbbing in my leg and the echo in my head.

The water was warm when I entered and when it touched my leg, I fell back loudly against the glass door and nearly collapsed against the floor. I awkwardly fumbled until I was gripping the handle of the door to keep myself up right, cursing at myself and yanking my hand back. The cut on my palm was red and swollen, a strange darkness looming in the wound that signaled to me to raise it under the water. I'd have Crow heal that later, to save me from an infection undoubtedly striking her way through my bloodstream. The other wound, the one that felt like it was blistering and splitting open, was a different story as water cursed it from above. My leg was throbbing but there was an awful numbness that kept me from moving too quickly. It felt, still, with every movement it would burst open and erupt.

Swollen and red, angry and hard, lost and wishing it were gone.

There would be no true healing from this, even with the wound sealed. I'd still feel it, even in my dreams. I'd feel the knife cutting me, I'd feel myself being split open over and over again, like an orange. Like a small clementine, the skin peeling peeled back and fingers digging into the center, pulling the pieces back one by one. Juice sliding down fingers, gathering under nails, dripping down inner arms. Devouring. I'd always be devoured here.

I breathed deeply through my nose, tears mixing with water, forcing myself away from the door to wash my hair. It was hard trying to do everything with one hand so I could keep myself steady but I got the shampoo bottle open and somehow spilled out into my palm. I ignored the sting it caused.

"Blaire? You okay?" came Crow's voice on the other side of the bathroom door.

My words came out sharp and annoyed. "Fucking fine."

"I'm coming in."

I wanted to scream at him, for how fast he changed his tune. It seemed like he wanted to get away from me, faster the better, but now he was rushing in with concern. It made me want to wrap my hands around his throat.

"Do not come in," I snapped, finding my old anger returning with every beat of water hitting my flesh. I'd been so cold earlier that the water was a much needed comfort, both to my weary heart and angry bones. "I am naked, Crow, do not–"

"Too late."

He was in the shower before I could stop him. Cold air rushed me as he did, his hands on my skin and helping me stand. There was shampoo in my eyes and the feel of him on me made me dizzy. But through my own blurriness, I could see his eyes casted upwards and not towards me at all.

Always the psychotic gentleman.

He brushed his fingers across my forehead, gathering suds to keep out of my eyes.

"I shouldn't have left you in here by yourself," he said, fully clothed and using his knee to push between my legs. He was stepping me backwards and towards the water, helping me dip my head back to rinse the suds. "It's hard, sometimes," he whispered.

"What is?" I asked, wondering if his hands would ever move from where they were suctioned to both my arms.

"Being alone with you."

I got the soap out of my stinging eyes and wished he would look down at me finally, but he kept his eyes on the shower head. "It doesn't have to be."

He shook his head, the veins in his neck straining.

"Who's telling us it has to be hard?" I asked, urging the conversation further. The impossible conversation we'd been running from. "Who says it has to be anything then what we both already know it is?" I had the need to press myself against his chest, for him to feel every inch of me down the length of his body.

"Nothing has ever been easy with us."

"Ah," I purred with a hint of a laugh, "so there's an us now?"

He looked down and met my eyes. His pupils were shot and his stare was heated, his fingers curling around my arm. "You know what I mean."

"Do I?" I asked. "You're the one who killed someone for me tonight. Came running to my rescue. You wouldn't have been angry with me for leaving if you hadn't cared. If there hadn't been an 'us.'"

"Are you done?" he said in a low voice, his words a double meaning as his eyes motioned up to the water and I nodded. He reached behind me and turned the shower off. His chest was so close to mine as he bent forward but that warmth he brought with him was gone in an instant and replaced by the cool air outside.

He wrapped me in a towel and helped me limp out of the shower. He had a set of clothes waiting for me on the counter and I needed to get my underwear on before I made a bad decision. I'd been wanting to make a mistake for a while tonight and I couldn't let myself start now.

"You have bruises on your neck," he said suddenly and my head whipped up from where I'd been zoning out on a spot on the floor. "And more on your face." He turned from where he stood to face me and asked, darkly, "Which ones are from me?"

"You know that it wasn't you–"

"Doesn't matter. I hurt you. I'm a liability to you."

My heartbeat rushed to my ears, pounding. "You're not, okay? It was John's fault but now that's done and over with."

"I don't like being somebody's plaything, Blaire." It was only a confession, something for me to hear. He wasn't running away, only stating the obvious. "I don't like being controlled."

"And you won't be," I whispered, feeling water drip off the ends of my hair. He was soaking wet, standing there on the mat, watching me with cold eyes. No longer entranced by the heat I'd seen moments before. "Never again."

"If John can get to me," he murmured, "then he can get to you just as easily."

I tightened the towel around myself. He was right, of course. If John could bypass simple summoning circles and devil traps, there was nothing stopping him from coming here. I'd be his even before the next week began.

"I've spelled the cabin," explained Crow, reading my mind. "But I don't know if that's enough to keep him out. I can't protect you when you're at school, when you go to Cassandra's or even the church."

"I have my knife now–"

"It's not enough." He opened his mouth to say something more but closed it, rethinking for a moment, before continuing. "I need you to know, Blaire, that he will never touch you the way he wants. He will never lay a finger on you, on any part of you–"

"That he won't have my, uh, virginity, right? Because I know, trust me, " I said with a little smile. "He can have my blood but he won't ever have what he truly wants to make it...sealed." The one thing to tether himself to me will never be his.

"He can still use your blood, steal your power–"

"But he won't have the one thing that's mine to control."

Crow's head cocked to the side as I reached forward and took the shirt he'd picked out for me. It was one of mine and I was only slightly disappointed it wasn't his. I slipped it on over my head and let it fall down the length of my body, ending in the middle of my thighs as I let the towel drop to the floor. I heard him breathe in deeply, sucking in a sharp intake of air like a man straining for his last breath.

I bent down slowly, grabbing the towel and working it against my hair. I felt his eyes on my legs as the shirt rose, but not too high. I liked him thinking, I liked him tempted. Who have you turned into, Blaire Lake?

"Even if he kills you?" asked Crow in a strained voice. "If he can't have–" He couldn't say it. "Then you'll let him kill you, instead?"

"If it's my fate," I murmured, "then I don't have much of a choice. You know it as well as I do, whatever the fates have had planned usually happens." I slid my underwear on and let him watch as they slid up my legs then my thighs and disappeared under the shirt. My thigh no longer throbbed like before, only a dull ache. The clementine was almost whole, but the memory would be stained against my skin forever.

"How will you alter fate? How can anyone?"

I smiled. "I'm one step ahead now. I know what John wants and yes, he wants my blood, but if I can take away the second option? The one thing he thinks will change everything?" Crow's arms crossed over his chest. "He'll think he's lost something important."

He'll lose what can make him a true god.

I grabbed the shorts he'd brought me and stalked out of the bathroom, still limping but getting out of the humidity of the trapped room. His bedroom smelled light, if that made sense. Like the air was thinner and cooler, no longer thick with claustrophobia. Of hidden lust.

"Because let's face it," I said, "the devil is coming and he's bringing his miniature army of assholes and there's nothing we can do to stop that. But what we can do is change John's endgame. He wants my virginity? Too bad. He won't get the chance to have it. He wants my blood? I'll poison it, I don't fucking care–"

"You'll just give it away?" asked Crow from behind me, standing in the bathroom doorway. "Who the fuck are you going to let touch you?"

"Wow," I muttered, shaking my head. "Sounding a little jealous there, Crow."

"Of course, I am–" He stopped himself, jaw clenched. "Jesus, Blaire, stop with the fucking mind games."

My brows furrowed. "I'm not playing any games. I'm telling you the truth, about all of it."

"You sound like a person who knows they're going to die and will do nothing to stop it. Only postponing it from when it's supposed to happen." He was scowling. "You sound like a woman who is happy to die."

"I don't want to die," I said in a soft voice. I'd seen death's face, every time I closed my eyes and slept, every time I saw Pandora, in every ghost I'd ever seen. "I've never wanted to die but if I can ruin it for John, then I will."

"I won't allow it."

A sharp laugh escaped me. "You won't allow it?" His scowl got worse. "You think you have any power here? Over what I'll be doing?"

"We're partners in this, Blaire–"

"I know we are," I hissed, shaking my head. He just didn't understand what I was alluding to, what I was willing to give away. "But you and I both know it's not just a partnership here. You know it's more."

"It can't be."

My heart plummeted into my stomach. "Why not?"

"Because you're going to die," he said. "Because you're always going to die. We can't deny it, Blaire. You were always going to die and I can't allow myself to be..." His brows furrowed, as if fighting with himself. "I can't allow you to be more important to me than you already are, because you're going to die."

"And now so are you," I argued, bunching my shorts in my fist. What he didn't know was how I was going to secure his place on earth. Archer Crow would not die like me, but that didn't stop me from saying, "You're going to die, too, so what's stopping you?"

"Because none of this is real," he muttered. "This is just fueled by a near death experience and the threats on your life, on both of our lives. When the veil comes up, it'll be just as it always has been."

"You're a fucking asshole."

"Blaire–"

I stomped out of his bedroom, limping and slamming my feet down angrily as I stalked towards the kitchen. He followed me moments later. I could hear the washer going down the hall and the soft patter of rain on the roof. I made it to the kitchen and snatched up one of the cooking knives. I always knew I'd do this for him, I just didn't know I'd need to do it so soon.

"You don't believe me," I snapped. "You think all of this is some big ploy my brain is making to protect me but it's fucking not and you know it." Can't you see what I've been trying to do? What I've been trying to say?

I want you–I want you–

I sliced my wounded palm open and red blood pooled instantly over the old scar and through the new crusted layer. "Archer," his name was a prayer, "I swear fealty to you."

There was a strange panicked look in his eyes as he saw the blood begin to pool in my palm. He took just three large steps before he was in front of me. He took my hand in his and curled it closed, shaking his head. "Blaire, no–"

"I swear fealty to you," I whispered again. "Heart and soul."

"You don't mean this–"

I felt my heart skip a scared beat as I intertwined my bleeding hand with his, not caring that he hadn't cut his. This was for me. This had always been for me and I could only hope he saw the truth in this. There wasn't anything controlling me, there was no power behind the scenes forcing me to grip his hand in mine.

"I–" I swallowed and caught my hammering breath. This had all been leading to this moment. When we first met. When he'd helped me tonight. It'd all lead to this moment. "I love you and I swear fealty to you, heart and soul, until my last dying breath and for however long we may have together." Repeating his own words back to him like some mighty godly vow.

"You love me." Not a question but a statement, one that left him nearly breathless.

His eyes felt like thousands as I nodded and whispered, "I love you."

I held the knife out to him and he took it, slowly. It wasn't a hesitation but something else entirely, like he was in shock. Like he couldn't believe this was real, too. He pulled his hand out from mine and dragged the knife across his palm, holding out the bleeding wound and looking up to meet my eyes. Intertwining out fingers for a second time and pressing the bloody slices together, it felt different from the first time. It felt more secure, like we had passed some great barrier between us to get here.

"I am yours," he whispered and there was a great flutter through my body, "and you are mine?"

I nodded, feeling a burn creep down the length of my body. A need, a want, a yearning. "I've–I've loved you for a really long time, Archer."

"I do not deserve it."

"You're the only one who does."

"I'm a demon–"

"And I'm a necromancer," I said, shaking my head. My hand, still in his, had long been healed by him. "It doesn't matter, none of it matters because we're here together. I..." I shook my head again and felt my chest constrict. "I don't care if you don't feel the same, I don't care, but I need you to know how I feel. You're the only one I trust like this."

"Blaire..." A prayer. A sacred vow. A promise on his tongue. My name meant it all.

"I–I love you, Archer, and I need you to do it for me," I whispered. He knew what I was asking, what I needed of him. I always knew it would be him here, with me, at the end of this long road. "I love you and you're the only one I trust with this. I want...I want to do it with someone I love, no one else I love can do this for me like you...if–if you're okay with that. With–with doing something like this–"

His free hand came up and brushed the wet hair from my face, caressing my cheek and down to my neck. He gripped the side of my neck, his fingers pressing lightly into my throat. "You don't know how I feel."

"I don't care if you don't–"

His fingers tightened, keeping my head back so my eyes stayed on his. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you." My heart was jack hammering, I knew he could feel it against his cold fingers. "That moment when we first met in the morgue, I knew it was you. I knew you would always be it for me." His thumb came up, touching my bottom lip and then my chin. "It was always going to be you."

My lips parted and I wanted to cry. He was reaffirming everything I've felt, everything I'd seen and nearly tasted and touched. I was being heard, I was being accepted. "Archer..."

He was drowning in my eyes. "Mhmm?"

"Kiss me."

He wasted no time dipping his head down and pressing his lips to mine. I breathed in deeply, standing on my toes and ignoring the strain in my muscles and thigh. It felt like I was falling into something so familiar, something like home with his mouth slanted against mine. I felt a strange sob coming bubbling to my throat and it escaped through my lips, making him pull back with furrowed brows.

"I'm sorry," he started but I shook my head. His thumbs found my cheeks, brushing away the tears stuck on my lashes. "You're–you're crying, Blaire."

I continued to shake my head, feeling my lips wobble. I'd never felt like this before. I'd never felt so seen. "I'm happy," I whispered, feeling that emotion explode in my chest and behind my eyes. "I'm just–" I sighed deeply. "I'm just so happy."

His fingers drew themselves across my cheek to push my hair back again. "I need to kiss you again." He leaned closer and I arched my back to lean forward as his lips dragged across my jaw and up to my ear where he nibbled the lope and kissed me softly right below. "I need to kiss you everywhere, Blaire." He nipped the skin against the nape of my neck, his breath warm like coming in from the cold. "Every. Inch."

I was coming undone by only his words and by the hands that were gripping my sides like malleable clay. I'd never wanted to be used before now and I was considering begging for it. I wanted him to use me, to ball me up, to bury himself in me for his own pleasure because I wanted him to feel what I was feeling. It wasn't suffocating, it wasn't demanding. It was this softness that was like a burn, like something coming to life. I was feeling it all, every little bit of everything all together. He backed me up against the island and his hands found their ways to my ass.

"Up."

Commanding.

I jumped and he lifted me with ease, placing me gently on the counter where he could capture my lips easily. I was nearly eye level with him now, leaning my head back to meet his hungry devour. Whatever pain I'd felt earlier wasn't even registering now. The sweetness of the clementine in my mind was now being tasted on his tongue, on his dangerous kiss. I was lost in his touch as he let his fingers drag up my bare thighs, his thumbs pressing against the inner most sensitive part of my leg.

He kissed me deeply, like poison being smothered over spitting searing coals. I was intoxicated. I was drunk. I was his. He was mine. And he showed me how much I was his with his tongue and with his fingers.

We stumbled to his bedroom with my hands peeling up his shirt and then working my fingers against his belt. I'd never gone farther than this, farther than the touching and silken tongues pressed against flesh. But this was so different from the times I'd kissed the boy in middle school, the girl during summer camp, my freshman year boyfriend of three months, the junior year mistake of a prom date. This was different. This was Crow with his big hands splayed against my back, pressing me against him and the edge of the bed.

"Is this okay?" he whispered as I ran my hand over his chest. He was hard and soft and smooth and rough, I couldn't get enough. And yet, he was still asking me if it was okay. He was trying to steel himself against me, to slow down, to ask me if this was what I wanted, if I was feeling safe. He just didn't know how safe, so at home, I felt inside his arms.

I nodded, rubbing my nose against the side of his trying to recapture his lips. He was a drug. His hand moved up my shirt before pulling it off and exposing my breasts to the cold air. Everything on me was covered in gooseflesh and hardened, except for my core which was aching and warm and crying out for him to touch just once. A single stroke would send me over the edge.

"I need to hear you say it," he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to the underside of my jaw. He wouldn't touch me any lower than my neck.

I nodded again, breathless but got the words out, "Yes, please, keep going."

He smiled against my skin and ran one hand up my side until his thumb brushed my breast. I didn't know that the barest of touches could send fire between my thighs the way it did, but I was pooling in lava and something sweet, like honey. Like the ripe and supple taste of oranges in summer, or peaches perhaps. He brushed his thumb again and I arched my back before he was squeezing the flesh, molding it to his palm.

It was like he was trying to memorize the way I felt against him. With every squeeze and pressured touch of his fingers. He was taking it all to memory. He kissed the curve of my breast then against the side, a suckle underneath before finally taking the hardened tip into his mouth with a swirl of his tongue. His hands explored my sides, gripping tightly against me before one hand took up the unoccupied breast, pinching my nipple so tightly it made my head spin.

When he took his mouth against the other, I had my fingers in his hair and tugging to pull him back up to me. I wanted his lips on mine, I wanted to feel him whisper against my mouth and lap up the words I would murmur back.

I ran my hands over his back up to his shoulders, dragging my broken and short nails as sharply as I could. I wanted him under my nail, I wanted him in every pore, in every piece of air that entered my lungs. I'd never been so sure of it in my entire life, the desperation of needing him.

The fates made you for each other. You were made centuries ago.

His hands found my hips and then the waistband of my underwear. I was already trembling, already so needy it was nearing pathetic. To have someone touch me there, other than myself, it made a whine crawl up my throat.

"I want to touch you," he murmured against my mouth, my lips already so swollen from kissing they were tingling. "I need to touch you," he corrected himself. "Can I? Please?"

I nodded, as he pulled back to meet my eyes. "Please."

"Please what, Blaire?" He pressed his thumb to my bottom lip, pulling it down before caressing the side of my jaw. "I'm going to need to hear you say it, sweetheart."

"Please–"

His hand squeezed my hip, so dangerously close to being under the fabric of my underwear. "Hmm?"

"Please, Archer," I whispered, breathless. "Please, touch me."

He pressed a kiss to my neck then to my collarbone before finally peeling my underwear down my legs. I helped him kick them off the rest of the way and he kissed me, so softly, against the lips I could've easily seen stars.

He dragged a hand down my side, pressing gently against my hip then moving between my legs as I parted them slightly for him. My own hand could not do what his was doing now. The secret vibrator I got junior year couldn't even compare. I hadn't even thought of touching myself, giving myself one moment of pleasure in between all the chaos. But with one single stroke of his finger had my eyes rolling back and something warm buzzing around in my chest.

"God," he breathed into my neck, kissing me again there. "You're soaking wet."

I couldn't even come up with words besides the short little breaths leaving my lips. He could tell he had power over me because when he pumped a slow finger inside of me, he captured my lips to conceal the gasp, smiling against me like the cruel villain he was. But I was in control too and I took his wrist and helped him move inside of me, finding the dangerously delicious speed that made my eyes water when I was alone. I dug my free hand into his hair as he made his slow descent down my body, still curling his fingers as I worked with him. I wanted to pull him back up, some part of me was nervous for him to see me so bare and open but it was Crow.

It was only Crow. I'd let him crack me open and split my heart in two. This was no different.

He kissed my inner thighs, leaving marks against my skin that made me pull against his hair and earn a soft chuckle from him. I felt his laughter drum against my skin, his breath fanning across me. The heat was no longer my own when his tongue touched me, my heart was no longer mine, my lungs, my body, my most sacred places because I wanted them to be his too. Did that make me deranged? Wanting him to have every piece of me?

It felt like everything had finally slipped into place, that things were finally right before the very worst would come. He was my flash of light in the darkness trying to swallow us whole. Like some god coming down to take me into their arms, to raise me from perdition, to keep me warm and tight.

A moan left me, loud and hearty, and he smiled against me. His tongue was just as skilled as his fingers, swirling and licking and sucking. There were no other words to describe it or what he was doing to me. My head was swarmed with warmth and this golden honey hue that I could feel over every inch of my skin. He was working me in just the right way so that I could feel the warmth building up like the buzzing in my chest. It was coating me all over and suddenly it was bursting like a build up I'd never felt before. Deeper, more intense, just more.

He kissed my inner thigh all the way up to my lips as I breathed in deeply. I didn't let my fuzzy feeling last because there was this building need to feel whole and full, aching deeply within me that I was pulling at his pants, trying to get them off his hips. I'd never felt whole before, always fragmented and lost, but with him, it was starting to feel like there was this great reconnection I'd been missing for so long, since Pandora, since my mother.

I could feel him through his jeans, pressing thickly against my inner thigh and my fingertips. He took me by the wrist and guided me, like I had done for him. There was no forceful grip or yank, there was just a gentle presence telling me he was there and this was okay.

This wasn't junior year when the boy forced my hand down his pants then pushed my head down to his lap. This wasn't anything that made me uncomfortable and suddenly anxious. I was in control, even if his hand was there. But he wasn't guiding me to him, to what I was so desperate to touch. He was taking my hand to his waistband, showing me he was okay with how things were progressing, and I pulled them off slowly from the back to purposefully feel the smooth curve of his ass and he laughed.

He laughed again and nuzzled my neck with a kiss as I took his jeans and underwear off, sitting up slowly to drag them down his thighs. He stood before me, naked and bearing everything to me. Is it wrong to say my mouth began to water? That an insatiable hunger began to crawl at my stomach and throat? Like I was becoming the devotee he had been moments before?

There was no one else like him.

I took him into my hand and cursed at the thickness, the power and length of him. I inched forward, opening my mouth when he whispered, "You don't need to do that."

I looked up at him through my lashes and smiled. "I want to."

Dragging my tongue against him, I flattened it against the underside of his length and heard him curse above me. I took him into my mouth slowly, swirling my tongue like he had. I took him as far as I could go to save myself from gagging before working him up and down. I wasn't doing this for him, more so for the fact that I really just wanted to do it. Plain and simple. To feel him like this, at his most intimate, was something I would never be able to recreate to its perfection with anyone other than him

When he could take only so much until his thighs began to tremble, he tugged back on my hair a few times just so I would release him from my mouth. I smiled, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand as I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want me to stop?"

His hand wrapped around my throat and he pushed my head back so my eyes would meet his. "You..."

"What?" Innocence playing on my lips.

It was a very simple question and he laughed again, applying pressure to my throat with his thumb. "You're terrible, you know that?"

"Yeah, but you love it."

"Damn right I do."

He leaned down and kissed me so deeply I felt something like a sunrise explode off inside my chest. It was a steady warmth, golden and sparking from the fires he kept igniting. There would be nothing as good as this.

When he was finally pressing himself against me, a soft pressure bloomed as he sheathed himself completely inside. There was pain, just the slightest discomfort and then there was something more. Something that was trying to escape through my chest because nothing would ever be the same again. A piece of me felt as if it had been unlocked as he held my face in one hand and the other bracing himself above me, all I could feel was love.

There was no evil trying to take me away, trying to capture and hurt me. This was done on my own accord. This was me and no one else. No, correction, it was us and no one else.

This was us conjoining in a way further than physical, further than emotional. A connection so deep that it had truly spanned years and astrals. The Lovers card had finally played her delightful hand, laying right under the surface for me to discover on my own terms. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.

But I was still me. I was still me, in control. There would be an us, I was certain of that now, but I would still be me. Even if I wanted him to have me, a piece of my soul with his, I was still my own person. I was still me and mine.

He moved at such a slow pace it made me want to drag my nails deeply into his skin, to be coated in his black. He was slow because this was new, this was something far beyond the cherished. I moaned in his ear and he buried a smile against my shoulder. This would be what John would never get, he would never have his virgin sacrifice and, yes, this was what spurned all of this but it had been burning far before then. The ache had been present long before I knew John's true colors.

"I love you," I whispered, clutching his face and moving him to look me in the eyes. His eyes were hazed and dark, his lips parted and a slight sheen across his cheeks like he was straining himself to hold back. I knew he was holding back but that would be something we would explore later.

"Fuck," he murmured with a thrust, the curse ricocheting in my skin. "I love you, Blaire. I fucking love you."

"Say it again."

"I love you."

"Again."

He said it against my lips. He said it against every inch of me.

ahhhhh.......hope this was okay <33

a bit different for me writing the more explicit moments, I'm not used to first POV when writing a sex scene haha. i hope i did both blaire and crow justice here and made it special still !! lmk thoughts as always

crow and blaire finally kissing: 

crow and blaire saying I LOVE YOU:

updates might b a bit slower for the rest of the book as we're nearing the end and i dont want it to end yet LOL

pls pls vote / comment <333