CHAPTER 12
GOD KILLER

WARNING: MATURE SCENES AHEAD

HADLEY wasn't sure if she was scared of herself or her own temptation.

When she thought back to Halloween night – to the blood on Percy's lips, to the quick flash of fear in his eyes ­– she was scared of the monster lurking underneath her skin. She couldn't believe she allowed him to guilt her into that. She never wanted him to see her in that way again, in fear that it would remind him of why he was at the Cortez in the first place. He could tell her all he wanted that he was staying there for her, but Hadley couldn't help the nagging thought in the back of her mind, telling her that he was afraid of her.

She guessed he was even more afraid now, after what he saw.

Hadley began to avoid him, hoping their time apart would loosen the tension between them. But this space only lasted for a day and a half, until Percy was calling Iris at the front desk, wanting to know if Hadley had left him on his own – again. Hadley had been next to Iris the entire time, listening in on the conversation, and it wasn't until she sighed heavily that she decided to see Percy.

The bloodlust between them was gone, but ... there was always a significant tension that rose in the air when they were near each other. A kind of tension that Hadley couldn't pinpoint. However, it was clear enough that something was there when Percy's eyes would darken under her gaze, and the spark of electricity that ignited in her gut whenever their hands touched.

Sometimes, she wanted him to touch her all over.

But that couldn't happen. Ever.

Percy wasn't an idiot. He knew why Hadley was avoiding him. Maybe he shouldn't have asked of her that task on Halloween night, but curiosity got the best of him, and it wasn't far from being silent. He wondered why the sight of Hadley's teeth diving into a man's neck hadn't scared him. The scene was gruesome, straight out of a horror movie, like a remake of Jennifer's Body. But he wasn't scared. He couldn't be scared of Hadley, and that fact confused both of them equally.

His only idea was to suggest something that they could do together, and it had to be the simplest – no, the most innocent place they could go to. A place where they weren't surrounded by empty graves or monsters hidden beneath the floorboards. A place not filled to the brink with drunk college students and marijuana smoke circling the room.

"Let's go to a bookstore together," Percy suggested the second she entered Room 66.

Hadley raised a brow. "A bookstore."

"Isn't there one right down the street from here?" He asked, pointing with his thumb. "It runs as a coffee shop too? I think it could be fun."

"You want to make another daring escape with me after what happened on Halloween?"

Percy frowned. "You didn't do anything wrong, Hadley –"

She reached forward, ignoring his reply as she brushed her thumb across the cut on his lip. It was healed now, thankfully, and it wasn't a large wound, but she was left with an itchy feeling of guilt that she had put him in that situation.

Hadley sighed, lowering her hands to her sides. Percy silently wished she would touch him again. She cocked her head to the side, as if she heard his thoughts, but instead, she said, "Fine, I'll go. I'm so used to the bland hotel coffee, anyways. Maybe I can become a coffee connoisseur."

•••

The shop was only a block from the Cortez. Percy and Hadley managed to scoot by the front desk while Iris' back was turned, though Hadley knew that the older woman wouldn't do much to stop them. In fact, Iris was glad that one of the monsters was finally getting her time to be human again. Donovan would've been so happy.

It was Percy's turn to tug onto Hadley's hand and drag her down the street. Clouds gathered in the sky, threatening a torrential downpour. Was a miracle finally happening in California? They hardly got any rain. Hadley guessed that miracles could exist, seeing as her own species was now a popular theme in young adult novels.

Funny enough, the shop was named Percy's Palace. Percy got a real kick out of it once they walked through the front door, leaning down to Hadley's ear to whisper, "I wonder if they'll give me a discount!"

Hadley patted his shoulder. "I don't think you're that lucky, Perce."

Much to her own surprise, they spent hours shuffling through the aisles of books. Percy used a lot of the time to show Hadley various novels he had to read for different college classes, which were vastly different from the classics she read in the nineties. At one point, she left him alone to meander through the shelves of old science fiction, while she ventured to the classic English literature. Hadley brushed her fingers across all the old spines, and she felt a sense of nostalgia that she hadn't experienced in a long time. She hardly got to go out anymore. Percy was allowing her to explore more of the world again. She was becoming human.

She looked up from the vintage copy of Emma by Jane Austen. This was one of her favorites to read in college. Hadley stepped out from behind the shelf, peeking over the side to stare at Percy. He flipped through the pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne – another one of Hadley's favorites. His brow was furrowed. He was so engrossed in the words that it took him a little under two minutes to flip a page. Every word tickled his brain, urging him to read more. The sight almost made Hadley's chest collapse.

As if he sensed her eyes on him, he viewed up, meeting her stare with a large grin. A few honey curls fell in front of his eyes, causing Hadley to swallow hard. She bit her bottom lip and turned away quickly.

She'd give anything to always feel this human.

He came over to her minutes later, carefully slipping his book back in the right place while a new one rested in her small hands. Peering over her shoulder, he asked, "What's that?"

She placed a hand on her chest, a gasp threatening to release from her throat. Hadley closed the book and hit his chest with it. Percy laughed, "Did I scare you? That's a new one." She scoffed, holding the book close to her chest. Percy placed a hand on the top and pushed it down so he could see the cover. "Dracula? Seriously?"

"It's a classic!" She exclaimed, a grin tugging on the ends of her pink lips. "Have you never read it?"

Percy shook his head.

Hadley's grin spread even further and she hugged the large book against her chest. Swaying her hips back and forth, she replied, "Well, it looks like we have something to read then."

After she made her purchase, Percy took her over to the coffee station, where he ordered her a Caramel Macchiato and a Caffè Americano for him, just so she could try both. As he ordered, she babbled on and on about the characters in Dracula. Percy hadn't been too excited for them to read it together, but the more she talked about it, the more his interest sparked. He wasn't sure if it was the way she was hyping it up or if he was simply infatuated with anything she talked about. Her face lit up while she talked about the book, and Percy had never wanted to read it more in his life.

Percy set the two drinks on a small table in the back of the shop. Hadley looked to both cups with hesitation, sliding her book onto the dark wooden surface. Percy placed one hand on the cup to her right, "This one is going to be sweet." His hand then hovered to the other on the left. "And this will be much more bitter. Pick your poison."

"I want the bitter one," Hadley replied, and before Percy could warn her that she might not like it, she was downing the drink, sending the hot liquid right down her throat without a moment of reluctance. When she set the cup down, she licked her lips and shrugged. "Tastes fine to me."

His brow creased. "What? That's an Americano. It's, like, the God Killer drink."

"Maybe I'm a God Killer."

He snorted, pushing the Caramel Macchiato in front of her. "Try this one."

Hadley sniffed the opening slot, nose scrunching up slightly. She then tipped the cup back and took a large gulp, allowing her whole expression to twist this time. She could hardly swallow it as she placed the cup back on the table. Once the liquid went through her system, she gagged, bringing out her tongue in a dramatic way. "Are you kidding me?!" She exclaimed. "That's the most bitter shit I've ever drank! And I've had stoner blood."

Percy blinked. She really was a God Killer.

•••

The downpour was insane as they ran back to the Cortez. After a long drought in Los Angeles, water was finally coming back. Weirdly enough, it only began to happen after Percy arrived at the hotel. He wondered if this was the Hellmouth working in mysterious ways.

They sprinted through the double doors hand-in-hand, giggling to their heart's content. Hadley now had more energy than ever before, and Percy wondered if caffeine had an accelerated effect on vampires than it did with humans. She was practically bouncing off the walls, teetering on her tiptoes as they jumped into the elevator. Hadley made sure to wave to Liz before the elevator shot up to the sixth floor.

Hugging her newest purchase to her chest, she turned to him and asked, "Do you want me to read some of this to you?" When he gave her a sour look, she tugged on the end of his wet sweatshirt. "C'mon! I promise it's good!"

"Fine," he sighed, unable to contain the smile pulling on the ends of his mouth. "But can we both shower and change out of these clothes first? Then, you can come back to the room and you can read your little origin story." She went to hit his arm, but he ended up pulling at the top of her drenched shirt. "You're completely soaked."

Hadley swallowed hard, shaking her head of thoughts that shouldn't be there. "Yes, yes. Of course."

She grabbed a new set of clothes from her drawer and decided to shower in another vacant room. Hadley tried her best to ignore Percy tearing his soaked t-shirt off as she exited Room 66, but she still felt his stare burning into her back. With her quick reflexes, she was out of the shower within ten minutes. She didn't like to dwell under the water, especially when she wasn't sure just how clean it was anyways.

Hadley felt like an idiot when she found herself checking her appearance in the mirror. Why did she suddenly care how Percy saw her? She knew why – oh, goddamn, she knew why – but she refused to admit the truth. She lowered her head and sniffed her armpits. Fresh as a daisy. She held her breath for a moment as she sprayed herself all over with an expensive perfume that she stole from Elizabeth.

She tried desperately hiding the stupid grin on her face as she exited the empty room. Miss Evers was cleaning a dark stain on the walls when Hadley entered the corridor, and she turned to the young vampire immediately with a sneer on her red lips. "Try not to make a big mess," she giggled. "Not that I mind!"

Hadley rolled her eyes before barging into her own room, locking the door as her spine hit it. Rubbing a hand over her eyes, she asked herself why she bothered to acknowledge March's dutiful ally. She walked over to the dresser, where she kept her new copy of Dracula wrapped in a plastic bag, but ended up stopping in place when a certain sound graced her ears.

She spun on her heel. Were those ... voices coming from the bathroom?

Not voices, she realized. Just one voice.

As Hadley began to inch closer to the bathroom, she realized the door was cracked. Steam drifted out into the suite, hovering around Hadley's feet. She felt bile rise in her throat when the sounds got louder, and she prayed to whatever God was out there in the world that she didn't walk in on something she shouldn't.

She was invincible to a lot of things, but curiosity would surely kill her one day.

"Hadley."

She heard the hiss as soon as her eye went to the crack in the door. Hadley clamped a hand over her mouth, stumbling into the door as she watched Percy's chin lift in the air. His whole body was turned away, giving her a complete view of his backside. Hadley's teeth sunk into her bottom lip when the door flew open, and she wondered if she had just caught Percy stroking his fucking dick. But she didn't have time to register it, because he was already turning around with a scream clogged in his throat and grabbing a towel to cover his waist.

"Oh, my god!" Hadley shrieked, covering her eyes.

Percy was absolutely mortified. "Hadley, wait, I –" He was cut off by her slamming the door in his face.

Hadley could just smell his arousal. It was seeping through the bottom of the door, causing her stomach to form into knots. A subtle ache appeared in between her legs when she thought of the way he whispered her name, and she did this over and over again. She bit on the edge of her fingernail, trying to calm her anxiety, but found herself jumping slightly when Percy knocked on the door.

"Hadley," he called desperately, "I'm sorry. I –"

"No, I should apologize," she interrupted. "I should've knocked."

The door was opening behind her, causing Hadley to immediately back away and spin to face him, as much as that terrified her. Percy now had a towel on – thankfully – and he looked down at Hadley through wet strands in front of his eyes. His baby blues were full of worry and unease, fearful of how she thought of him now because of what she saw.

Hadley almost looked down. For a split second, she noticed a significant bulge underneath the towel tied to his waist.

"You said my name," she whispered, taking a long moment to swallow down her nerves. "Were you thinking of me?"

Percy chuckled like he was trying to cover something up. Hadley had never heard anything so fake in her life. "In what way?"

Hadley paused, voice lowering to a whisper as she replied, "You know what way."

The room was deafeningly quiet. The air was still. Nothing could be heard beside their breathing. Hadley wanted so badly to look away from him, to take a moment to gather her thoughts, to apologize for her bluntness a second prior. She wanted to do all these things to make up for walking in on Percy whispering her name like a prayer while pumping his hand around his erection. Or for being so frank to assume that he thought of her in any kind of way besides a friend.

But she couldn't, because he was kissing her.

Percy wrapped a hand around the back of her head, beckoning her forward, as if her lips weren't already a magnet to his own. Their mouths fit perfectly together, moving in a kind of sync that the gods would kill to have. They kissed each other like it was second nature, like they already had in another life. As Percy pressed her back against the wall behind them, his chest collided with hers, radiating a warmth that she wanted to feel every second of every hour. It was the kind of warmth that stemmed from the pits of the Underworld, engulfing Hades and Persephone in an eternal glow.

Percy's mouth pressed so hard onto hers that he could feel their teeth smacking together. Their salvia mixed as his other hand snaked around her waist, pulling her closer. Hadley tugged on the towel hanging so very loosely on his abdomen, threatening to expose more of his warmth as he nudged a leg into between hers, and she – instinctively, impulsively – began moving her hips back and forth on it. He explored her mouth like it was an expansive desert, tasting the subtle hint of blood on her tongue when it tangled with his.

Hadley drew herself away for a moment, lips ghosting around her cheek as she tried getting herself off on his leg – and boy, could she do without the tight skinny jeans she was wearing right now. Percy breathed against her ear, blowing hot air into it. She shivered when she felt his teeth attach on her lobe.

"You could turn me right now, Hadley." He whispered, ever so softly while she grinded against his leg, kissing the side of his face. "I could be like you. I could stay here forever with you. Immortality isn't overrated –"

Hadley halted her actions, bringing her head up to meet his stare. Her lips parted, and for a second, she almost didn't believe what he asked. Percy opened his eyes and murmured, "Did I ruin the moment?"

"I'm not turning you," she muttered, looking down to finally realize the situation she was in now. Immediately, she unhooked her legs from his and tried to step away, but she didn't like moving far from his heat. "Maybe ... maybe you should leave the Cortez. I was so selfish to keep you here, and now, you want this virus –"

"You don't really want me to leave," he reminded her in a soft voice, "and neither do I."

Hadley huffed, sending him an anxious glare. It didn't take long for their lips to connect again, but this time, it was more innocent, gentler, as if time wasn't an enemy to them. Percy cupped her cold cheek, running his thumb along her cheekbone, and she tangled her hands into his wet hair. He tasted like honey, cinnamon, and all things light-hearted and warm. She wanted him so much closer – deeper, heavier – but she didn't want to overstep it, in fear of the monster taking control.

That night they slept in her bed together – arm in arm, hand in hand. Nothing had ever felt so natural.

•••

A/N: Well,,,,,,,,the babies have kissed!!!!!!! I know I teased y'all with some LIGHT smut, but I promise there will be real smut, just give it some time 😉