Chapter 89: You love her?

Felix waited for some time on the sofa, turning away the offer of a girl who wanted to give him a drink and asked for a second glass of water instead. Every once in a while, his eyes wandered towards the stairs, and soon enough, a man, most likely in his mid-twenty, walked down the stairs, straightening his collar along the way. The man noticed Felix for a brief second, an unreadable expression crossing his face, then he hurriedly pushed past him and went out of the front door.

In no time, new footsteps echoed through the hall, lighter and unstable. A woman in her early twenties came down next, adjusting the collar of her blouse as she went, sweat still shining across her forehead. She crossed into the main hall, eyes scanning the room out of habit, and stopped the second they landed on Felix.

Her whole face brightened. "Felix!"

Felix got up from the sofa and answered her smile. "Lara. Good to see you again."

Without warning, she hit him straight in the stomach.

"Ouch! Ouch!" Felix bent in pain. "What was that for?"

"For not coming sooner." Lara crossed her arms and didn’t seem to be bothered by his pained reaction.

"Be careful, seriously." Felix straightened himself, supporting his body with one hand. "I’m still recovering from my last job. Almost died out there."

"What?" Lara’s expression changed in an instant, all the mock anger gone. "Let me see." She tugged on the bottom of his shirt, lifting it. Felix stopped her hand.

"We can, uh, leave this part for a little bit of privacy, okay?"

"Sure, sorry." Lara nodded and went over to the counter. A heavyset woman manager watched the hall. She placed ten silver coins on the wood of the counter. "I’m taking him."

The manager snorted, not even lifting his eyes. "Behave for once."

"Yeah, yeah." Lara waved it off without giving it much thought and turned back to Felix, wrapping an arm casually around his shoulders. "Let’s go."

"I told you, I’m injured." Felix allowed himself to be dragged away, limping in exaggerated pain. "A little gentleness wouldn’t kill you."

"Ha." She hauled him toward the hallway and opened the second door on their right, leading Felix into a room which was a complete mess – clothes scattered on a chair, a big bed against the wall opposite the door and a small bathroom hidden in one of its corners. Felix walked in and she followed him, closing the door and locking it with a chain lock.

"Now show me." She folded her arms, impatient.

"Yes, yes." Felix unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it off and throwing it to the bed. "It was a mess out there. I still can’t believe I actually got baited into taking that job in the first place."

Lara leaned closer, her fingers tracing bruises and shallow cuts still visible on his ribs. "Was whatever you fought really that strong?"

"Not really." Felix shrugged but immediately winced in pain. "I just went overboard. I made some mistakes I shouldn’t have made."

She drew away, looking at him intently for a moment and finally nodding slowly. "You should’ve come to me for help."

"Of course." Felix let himself fall to the edge of the bed and some of the tension in his shoulders dissolved. It had been long since he had spoken to anyone this openly, not having to explain anything and not needing to give any sort of performance.

Lara joined him on the bed, and for some time they did not say anything, letting only the sound of their breathing fill the room.

"Jackson came to visit me about a month ago," Lara finally said, staring at the wall across the room. "He said he needed help with a certain job."

"Came to me too." Felix watched the celling. "Handed me a box, said it was from my mother. Still don’t fully believe that one. Did he tell you what the job actually was?"

"No, just said that there is still enough time until it becomes important and he will contact me if he needs my assistance." She shrugged. "As usual, this bastard tries to look mysterious. He never says anything straightforwardly."

"I can’t say much about him. He helped me out when I was lying in bed recovering."

"Who cares? I would heal you the minute I saw that you were crawling on all fours."

"Since when did you learn actual healing?"

"I know a little." Lara turned her head to look at him. "Anyway, Anthony stopped by once as well and asked me to go with him to the capital."

"What did you say?"

"Well, of course, I told him no," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You weren’t going either, what was I supposed to do out there alone?" A small grin tugged at her mouth. "But his face was worth the whole conversation. Started going off about how I could do so much better, wasting my life the way Felix does. Genuinely funny to watch."

"True." A slight laugh escaped Felix.

She studied him for a few seconds longer, then pushed him back against the bed. "Enough talk," she muttered. "Time to give you what you really came here for." She swung a leg over him, then began pulling the dress off one shoulder.

"I’m not really here for that."

Her brow furrowed but she didn’t stop pulling the fabric off her shoulder and threw it on the side.

"I have a wife now."

"What?" Her mind went blank.

"Yeah. Jackson didn’t mention it? Anthony?"

"No. Neither of them said a single word to me about you having a wife." She shook her head hard, hands shoving lightly against his chest. "Since when? Who the hell is she? Why am I only hearing this now?"

"Just calm down," he whispered, catching her wrists gently. "I’m telling you now."

"That’s why you haven’t been seeing me sooner?"

He mouthed a reply but no words came out of his mouth. Lara leaned closer, her skin touching his, and lowered her head to his shoulder. The tip of her tongue flickered over the skin, followed by her teeth sinking into his flesh. His shoulder jerked under her bite, then went completely still as he released her wrists, allowing her to slowly pull his blood and Numen out of him.

"It happened out of nowhere," he whispered. "I was still torn up over Grandpa, and she, Dune, just appeared. I thought she was some kind of anomaly at first, nothing more than that. Turned out there was already a binding contract between us, some kind of marriage ritual. She acts strange, unnatural in ways I still don’t fully understand, and somewhere in all of it I just forgot to question it. Felt almost like some kind of repayment for my Grandfather’s death."

She sunk her teeth into him harder. He gasped softly, running his hand slowly through her hair.

"I started feeling comfortable, actually. Like maybe that was the life I’d been missing this whole time. Then a few days ago, everything changed. I got careless, got carried away in a fight, and she got hurt because of it. Badly. Someone else had to step in and save both of us."

Lara finally pulled back, licking once across the wound she’d left, and it began closing over almost instantly, skin knitting shut beneath her tongue. "Dune. That’s her name?"