• 𝓛𝓾𝓬𝓪 •

Hail Mary, hallelujah and whatever the fuck.

Mae was curled up against me, her breathing slow and even as she slept and I had to stop myself for the thousandth time from trying to kiss her damn forehead. I didn't get attached to the women I had sex with, mostly because I didn't give myself the chance to get to know them beforehand. But something inside of me was soft, just for Mae, and I couldn't exactly pinpoint when that happened.

Originally, when I saw her before Kite brought her back, all I wanted was to know what the fuss was about with Noah. Why he felt like he needed to save himself for her. Even in those moments, I couldn't figure out why. I could tell she was strong, for a human living amongst vampires.

She still hated vampires. But she seemed to be softening her rage when it came to Noah. I still couldn't tell how she really felt about me, but the hatred would eventually fade and be kept only for the ones who deserve it. She would be a force to be reckoned with if she knew where to aim it.

Now I had this weird niggling in my chest whenever I thought about her, and it sure as hell wasn't my heart.

I closed my eyes, even though I didn't need to sleep. She was warm against me, draped over me like somehow she found comfort being near me.

I didn't want to get attached to her. With how Zero was acting recently, there was a chance he'd just outright kill her the second he had a chance.

I wasn't against Seraph watching over her if he genuinely didn't want to kill her, but who truly knew that but him? He got my hint and took Zero out earlier, but maybe he had some lingering feelings over the fact that Mae went to him for help. I didn't trust him, but I know that she couldn't have eyes on her at all times with the three of us.

Maybe I'd have to bring it up sometime. At least to properly discuss it.

I opened my eyes and looked back down at her when she squirmed. Her eyes clenched shut and she groaned like she was in pain.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyebrows pulling together.

'Does Mae get nightmares a lot,' I asked Noah.

'Sometimes,' he said. 'It hasn't happened so much recently, from what I can tell. She has a bad past. I don't think she's really even broken through the surface of what happened with me.'

I remembered when we were in the same foster home that I could hear her screaming sometimes during the night. Noah was usually quick to get up to help, but I never went to her.

Her hand curled into a fist on my chest, tiny, almost imperceptible scars across her knuckles.

Had a bad past, and wasn't having the best of times with vampires. I knew there had to be a reason why she was the way she was, even without adding Zero to the equation. There was a time before the takeover, and before I moved, that she was so overcome with rage for no apparent reason that she damn near punched a hole in a tree. She kept punching it over and over and over until our foster mom ran out to stop her, and she barely even flinched. Her knuckles had been so bloody, but her eyes were void of any emotion. She just stared off into space, even as our foster mom cleaned them.

I just thought she had anger issues. I didn't equate that to a bad upbringing.

'Were her parents abusive or something,' I asked. That's why I'd been in the foster system. It made sense.

She ground her teeth together so hard that the sound sent a chill down my spine. Fuck, man. Ouch.

'No,' he said. 'I'd suggest you ask her if you're curious. It's not my place to tell.'

I hummed.

'Just don't wake her up if she's having a nightmare,' he warned.

I raised an eyebrow at my ceiling, waiting for him to explain why I shouldn't wake her up, but there was nothing but radio silence after those last few words.

What the hell had she gone through? And why did the thought of anything bad happening to her piss me the hell off? I didn't want to feel anything for her. I didn't want to feel this urge to protect her. I thought I'd fuck her and get it out of my system. And call me a shit person all you want, but nothing ever good came from me caring. I cared about Noah and he got sliced open and nearly fucking died. Fuck if Zero did it to get a rise out of Mae. I about went ape shit when Kite told me to go to the dungeons and I saw Noah there, bleeding and unresponsive. I yelled at Kite to fix him, to heal him. But Noah was too far gone to heal. So the only other option was to turn him into a vampire.

And now I didn't know what I'd do if something ever happened to her, and I hated myself for it. I didn't care about people. It was so much better for me to just keep people at an arm's length. Oh, so and so died? That sucked but at least I didn't know them.

'We need to talk,' I thought to both Noah and Kite, closing my eyes when Mae started whimpering.

'About,' Kite asked, his voice coming through somewhat bitterly.

'Mae.'

'What about her?' He seemed more worried now, and man if the guy would just let her see more of that, she'd probably like him more.

Her entire body tensed like she was in pain and it took everything in me not to try and wake her. There had to be a reason why Noah said not to.

I was holding my breath, my eyes still closed like maybe that'd block out the need to comfort her.

'We'll talk about it tomorrow,' I thought. It wasn't the best time to bring it up. I needed to see their faces, their reactions. And we needed to have a proper conversation. Not just through a mind-link.

I was going to bring up Seraph. I needed to. He may be a crazy son of a bitch, but out of the many times he could have chosen her to kill, he didn't. He saved her more than he probably even knew.

I just hoped it wouldn't come back and bite us in the ass if the idea went awry. Well, more specifically me because Noah would fucking kill me if anything happened to her.

She was still so tense beside me, her scarred hands balled into fists like she was fighting off some invisible monster. And then I felt a tear against my chest.

I reached around and wiped the tear streak from her cheek, and the moment my skin touched hers, her eyes flew open. Her hand flew up and grabbed my wrist so hard that I would have winced if it weren't for the fact that she shocked the hell out of me.

She stared up at me, eyes wide.

I stared back. "Did your nightmare wake-"

She snapped my fucking wrist and had that same hand around my throat before I could even finish my sentence. Her nails dug into my skin, and it would have hurt if my wrist pain hadn't taken precedence over some minor cuts in my jugular.

'Uh...hey, guys?' I tried to sound as calm as possible with Mae on top of me, holding onto me with a strength she had no business having for someone who just woke up. 'She woke up.'

'Did you fucking wake her,' Noah asked, his voice a shout in my head.

'Well, I didn't fucking mean to,' I growled. 'How in the fuck did she break my wrist so easily, Noah?'

"Mae," I choked. "Mae, listen, it's Luca."

'She what,' Kite asked, super unhelpfully.

She didn't even seem to be breathing. She kept choking me, her eyes still wide but void of any real emotion. My wrist was almost healed, so the whole nails in my neck thing was starting to hurt.

"This would be so much hotter if you realized what you were doing," I said in an attempt to shock her out of whatever the fuck this was.

It didn't work. Fantastic.

My door crashed open and Noah ran in, followed closely by Kite who slid to a stop when he realized she was still wholly naked. It would have been funny, you know, if she wasn't trying to kill me. It really was not the time to be considerate of her nudity.

Noah grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. "Maeve. Maeve, it was a dream."

I'd never heard him call her Maeve, but her fingers loosened around my throat.

"Hey," he cooed. "Maeve, breathe. It's Noah, Luca, and Kite. No one here will hurt you. Can I have your hands?"

Her hands fell away from my throat and I finally let myself breathe.

'Hold her,' he thought to me. 'When she comes out of this and realizes she hurt you, you need to be holding her. Trust me.'

And I did. No question. I healed quickly, and nothing she could have done would have killed me. But I finally realized how deep her trauma went. And fuck that made me angry for her.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her as her body slackened in my hold, only to be overcome with shivers.

I glanced up at Noah, and when his eyes met mine, they were sad. And when I looked over at Kite, I saw Seraph standing behind him, his eyes wide as he looked at Mae. And he looked damn near terrified.