I spend the morning napping and most of the afternoon as well. It’s on and off consciousness, a strange blur of exhaustion as my body fights free of sedation. Cain’s in the room each time I’m awake, but I’m not sure what to say to him. He’s unsure what to say to me in return or simply letting me sleep, either way he’s quiet. Silent, actually. He could be sulking, after I freaked out on him for trying to move Marcia’s body.
For lunch I split the remaining pastries with Cain. He seems doubtful of taking them from me, so I lie and tell him I don’t like banana nut muffins, I’m not that fond of wheat toast. I don’t want the food to go to waste, I insist that he’s doing me a favor by eating the rest.
Cain shoves cheek-bulging amounts of food in his mouth, barely chews before swallowing. He eats quickly like he expects someone to steal his food, or maybe that I’ll change my mind about him having it. I wonder if he’d growl at me if I tried taking the muffin from his hand.
I bet if I didn’t offer him lunch, Cain wouldn’t have done anything about it. Knowing Cain, he’d eventually complain so it wouldn’t seem like asking, but I could make him starve if I wanted. Cain’s relying on me to call the shots. He’s looking to me for what to do, both in the immediate moment and the long term.
It’s incredibly daunting to realize I’m in charge of Cain. I don’t even know what to do with that level of responsibility. I’ve never even had a pet before, much less a demon at my beck and call like this. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I’m certain I’m right about this. Everything Cain’s said and done confirms it. The moment I gave Cain a body, I gained control over what he does with it.
Currently the body I gave Cain is sprawl over the other hotel bed. On his stomach, pillows bunched under him, feet kicked into the headboard. He’s reading something. I’ve just woken up from a nap, restless and alert in a way that says I’ll stay awake, and he hasn’t noticed yet. Even though it’s late afternoon the room’s dim and quiet, curtains drawn. The bathroom light spills slim shadows to serve as an unobtrusive reading light for Cain.
Cain flips the page. He’s reading the in-room guide, a leather-clad three-ring binder of information I wouldn’t assume he’d be interested in, but Cain seems fascinated by whatever he’s looking at. His rapt expression curls into a smile as he leans closer. I’m desperately curious, but Cain thinks I’m asleep. He probably won’t like it if I pop up with a sudden question about what he’s doing, not when he thinks I can’t see him doing it.
To let Cain know I’m awake, I roll and stretch with a yawn. It starts as feigned and becomes actual hummed satisfaction. The luxurious hotel bed is delightfully cozy and warm. I’m worried about a lot of things and have a lot of things to worry about, but nothing seems too terribly urgent. Everything seems rather pleasant, and I don’t think it’s the drugs making me feel that way anymore.
I decide to start with that, something stupid, so Cain will know what to expect. “This is nice.”
Cain looks over with a sloped, smug smile. Out of the stolen suitcase he’s found a pair of boxer shorts and a shirt to wear, both a little too small for him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I sit upright. I’m dressed the same as Cain, only the pilfered clothes fit me better than him. “Yeah. It’s really nice not being in the hospital anymore.”
Amusement snorts out of Cain. His reply is a snarky-sincere, “I bet. That place sucked.”
Without being too obvious about it, I try to see what Cain’s looking at. It might be the room service menu, the vertical arrangement of text looks like a menu from where I’m sitting.
I wonder if he’s hungry. I glance to the clock. It’s pushing five o’clock, and Cain had a bite-sized muffin and two slices of toast for lunch. Who knows if he ate breakfast. I hope he did, but he wasn’t gone long and still had time to get towels, toiletries, and a suitcase. He’s probably hungry. I’m hungry, and the thought of food sets my stomach into greedy churning.
I nearly blurt out, do you want to order room service? before thinking better of it. I decide instead to say, “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah? Alright.” Cain pulls upright. His tone is brisk, bossy — undeniably eager. “What do you want?”
The enormity of the offer sinks deep. Not just what I want off the breakfast buffet or out of the room service menu, I’m being offered the world on a platter. He’d grumble and complain, maybe argue and tell me I’m stupid, but I could ask Cain for anything. If I asked for my grandmother’s Sunday roast, Cain would probably dig up her corpse to get the recipe.
“Room service sounds nice,” I say. “Do they have room service?”
A haughty, self-satisfied smirk crosses Cain’s face. “They sure do, princess.” He gets up from his bed and crosses the narrow divide to reach mine. He presents me with the open binder, obviously pleased with himself for having it ready so quickly.
I take the menu from Cain and spread it across my lap. Cain sits on the edge of the bed. I glance up with a brief smile before looking back down at the menu. I have no idea which italicized, snootily described item caught his fancy.
Cain expects stupid questions from me. I decide to go for it. I flash him a soft, uncertain smile. “How much can I order?”
Sharp, cruel laughter mocks me as Cain tosses back his head. He favors me with a wide-edged grin, a tiger sizing up prey. In the dim light of the room his dark eyes gleam. “Sky’s the limit, sweetheart,” he boasts. “You want one of everything brought up?”
The idea’s so ridiculous that I laugh. “What? No! That’d be too expensive.”
“So?”
“Won’t – won’t we get caught? How are we going to pay for this? You don’t have any money. I don’t have any money.”
Cain suddenly looks furious. Brows tight, arms crossed over his chest. I’ve fully annoyed him, nothing amusing about this now.
“Cain, I don’t have any money,” I repeat slowly.
He snarls in response. Did Cain think I could pay for this? I try to remember what happened at check-in, but I only remember making coffee. My memory is of stirring coffee even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t put any cream or sugar in it. No idea why, but I remember doing it at least.
My fingers curl over the edge of the binder. I drop my gaze down, rather than keep looking at the building stormcloud of anger darkening Cain’s glare.
“Fuck paying.” His response whips over me, crackling hot fury and scorn. “I’m not buying you shit. I’m not here to play nice. I’m taking what I want, fuck the rules. Got it? Fuck following the rules.”
This demon I command snaps and snarls like a caged animal. I understand the warning and ignore it entirely. I understand so much about Cain in that moment, yet stupidity blurts right out of me. I’m too excited to stop myself. “Is that really something I could make you do, follow the rules of my world?”
Cain’s eyes widen, the angry line of his brow slips into a waver of sudden fear. He leans back from me. A wordless growl tells me everything I already know.
“I could.” It spills from me with a bursting smile. “I could make you get a job to buy me things. I could make you go to college with me. I could –”
When Cain jerks toward me, I shriek. I clutch the leather-bound binder in front of my face like a shield. My heart bursts staccato terror that Cain’s going to hit me. Instead his fist closes over my elbow. Cain yanks me from the warm fluff of bedding.
“You’re not doing any of that shit.” His voice is a low, vicious insistence backed with the heavy threat of violence. “I’m not doing that shit. Got it?” He punctuates this with a bruising squeeze.
I’m wide-eyed, stiff with fear, tensed to push from him except I know it’d be futile to try. Cain’s stronger than me. He’s so strong, and quick, he could hurt me easily. He could kill me without breaking a sweat, snap my neck or choke me, beat me bloody with his fists. I’m a complete fucking idiot for thinking I tamed this demon just because he’s been nice to me.
I squirm and whimper. Cain snatches my other arm with a snarl, and I quit my meager resistance. He holds me tight and close, looming down at me with a fierce, determined glare and steady, furious rumbling. I stare up at him, my whole body shivering, somewhere between wanting to scream or sob.
I run my tongue over the bumpy scar on my lip and swallow. The words slip from me as a dry, thin whisper. “Okay, Cain. Okay.”
His grip eases by small fraction. I watch the bracketed lines at his mouth, the slow collapse of his brow. He’s scared. Through my own fear I realize just how terribly I’ve frightened Cain. I scared him.
Somehow I manage to shape a shaky smile. “We don’t have to follow the rules,” I tell Cain.
Tension slacks from him further. He starts to look doubtful, wary. I continue in the same soothing tone, “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Tch!” Cain releases me with a harsh shove. He sneers, “Dumbass fucking necromancer like you can’t make me do shit.”
It’s a lie. I can make him do whatever I want. I might have to hurt him, to make him obey, but I could make him obey me. I bet it doesn’t matter that Cain’s stronger than me physically. I could hurt him if I wanted to, I bet there’s a way for me to hurt Cain without hitting him. I could make him tell me. I could order he explain to me exactly what terrible things I’m capable of doing to demons. I bet I could do a lot of horrible things to Cain against his will.
Being a necromancer means I’m in charge of him. He’s a dead thing. No matter how many living, breathing bodies I summon from dark depths, it doesn’t change what he is. Cain’s a demon. He’s been trying to boss me around and scare me so I won’t realize how much power I have over him. He won’t give me any of the answers because he doesn’t want me using them to hurt him, humiliate him, dominate and control him.
The awkward, painful truth is Cain has to serve me, if he wants a body. If he doesn’t want to be a dead thing stuck on the Otherside, he needs a necromancer. He needs me. I’m the only necromancer he knows how to find, the only one stupid enough to listen.
That I’ve figured out the truth must be all over my expression. Understanding floods the tender look of sympathy I give Cain. It heats my cheeks and neck, sets my heart into slow-thumping ache.
He leans from me. His subtle retreat toward the headboard accompanies the wide flare of his nostrils, the lift of his brows. Now I have truly frightened Cain, because I’m not afraid him. There’s nothing scary about this demon, other than the fact he doesn’t trust me.
“Cain,” I say quietly. “Cain, it’s okay. Really. We can talk about this. We can figure it out together. Whatever we do, we should both agree on it. Okay?”
“Fuck off,” Cain snaps. “Fuck you.” He jerks to his feet, fists clenched and ready.
I flinch my hands into the comforter to keep from bolting off the bed entirely. I’m pretty certain Cain won’t hit me, but I think he could. I might be able to hit him back somehow, might be able to prevent him from hitting me, but I don’t actually know how. Regardless I’m not going to fight Cain. It’s a fight I’m pretty sure I won’t win, a fight that’ll only hurt us both. It might kill one of us, and I don’t think Cain will let that be me.
“Cain,” I say gently. “Please sit down. Please. Let’s talk about this.”
I don’t think it’ll work, but it does. Cain eases back onto the bed. He moves slow and cautious like this might be a trap. When I reach my hand out to touch his arm, I get a wordless snarl from him, a wild and uncertain warning.
I keep my gaze steadily locked on Cain’s and shift closer to him. I draw the slow line of my touch up his arm and then reach for his face. He flinches, head twitching to the side with a sharper growl. I slow even further, move in a measure of whispers. My fingers bury into the dark, heated warmth of his hair. Tension ripples over Cain, works his lips into a silent, bared-teeth snarl.
“Cain,” I murmur. Almost a warning, not quite a reprimand, a gentle reminder to this wary demon that I won’t hurt him. Not on purpose, at least, not because I want to. I don’t want to hurt Cain. Last thing I want to do is hurt Cain.
I stroke my fingers through his hair. I try to convey everything to him with a tender caress, the pliable willingness of my body folded close against him. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say to Cain. “I’m glad you found me.”
The angry lines smooth from Cain’s forehead. His dark gleaming gaze searches over my face. He takes in the close and eager press of my body, clearly trusts nothing about what I’m doing. Cain’s right to be cautious, because this is a trap. A well-intended one, but a trap all the same.
I get my arms looped around Cain’s neck, cage him into sweetly-offered affections. Heat flares through the scar as I press my lips to Cain’s. His lashes lower. I hum softly, curl my fingers into his hair.
My kiss sparks an inferno into Cain, sets him into an entirely different kind of snarling. A rough-callused hot hand slides up my arm and cradles between my shoulders. He parts my mouth with the blunt insistence of his tongue.
I press close with an encouraging, near-desperate whine. Cain groans quietly in response, the sound reverberating into the tangled shared pant of breath. His teeth rake over the fast thrum of pulse at my throat. Demanding hands knead along my shoulders and back, they reach low and cup the rounded curve of my ass through the thin cotton underwear. I arch into Cain’s touch, moan and keen in the most embarrassing ways.
“Please,” I whisper to him between kisses. “Cain, please.”
He obliges me, shows no signs of doing anything else. Cain nibbles at my lip and runs his hands over my body. Arousal follows the exploration of his hands. The touch draws soft, mewling cries into my gasped breaths. He pushes up the hem of my t-shirt and then strips it from me once I shift to accommodate. I reach for the shirt he’s wearing, and Cain lets me slip it over his head.
I stroke my hands over Cain’s bare chest and feel strong muscles beneath the unblemished perfection of his skin. No scars, no bruises, no scrapes or bumps, the body I gave him is flawless. I glance up at Cain.
Surely I’m something Cain wants, something he desires. Surely this is something he wants, and not just something he thinks he has to give me. His dark gaze is hooded, his mouth curled. Stiffness between his legs demonstrates exactly how physically willing his body is for this. I can see his cock jutting into the thin cotton fabric of his underwear as Cain prowls over me. He knocks me into the bed just as much as I pull Cain on top of me.
I clutch at his hair as we surge into a kiss and tangle together. In the back of my head is a screaming voice of panic about the fact I’m a necromancer, he’s a demon. He has to do whatever I want, and it’s obvious I want Cain. I’m hot hard burning for Cain, eager hands and lips all over him.
“Cain.” It barely sounds like me speaking. Between kisses, pitched whines and moans threatening to obscure the words. “Cain, what do you want?”
It’s perhaps the stupidest question yet that I’ve asked Cain. His dry chuckle stirs the fine hairs on my neck. Sharp teeth catch my ear. “You,” Cain rumbles.
His hand glides along my thigh as a command and question, a warning. He hooks a thumb into the waistband of the blue striped boxers I’m wearing. For an answer I mimic him, pluck my fingers over the white striped match he’s wearing from the same stolen set, some stranger’s bland collection that we strip from each other in a hasty race.
More to see if he’ll let me than anything, I push at Cain’s shoulder in suggestion, rub my thigh to his hip as we reposition. I roll upright over Cain and straddle my thighs across the lean plane of his stomach. He lazes into the bed to watch, attentive and eager, eyes roaming the pale expanse of my body.
Cain’s hips thrust forward with a hungry growl, though he stays down. He lets me keeps him pinned with mere wanton suggestion, the soft squeeze of my thighs. Cain guides my hip in one hand, grabs a handful of my ass in the other. Under his suggestive demand I shift lower to rub myself over his cock with shameful, all-consuming need.
I don’t mean to sound so sultry. I’m some breathless, bewitching creature as I ask Cain, “Do you like me?”
“Yeah,” he pants. “Yeah. Yeah, you stupid fuck.”
Cain takes us both into the firm pump of his hand. His cock slides alongside mine, a matchstrike of sensation that sends fire tracing along my thighs. I moan and rock forward to match the roll of his hips. The sway of my body follows his commanding tugs. Ardent fervor tightens my breath into shudders as an inevitable peak approaches.
“Cain. Oh, Cain!” Pleasure pours from my lips in bubbled moans and cries. I jerk and thrash, cling and claw a useless scrabble of harmless thin nails over the sculpted strength of Cain’s chest.
“Please,” I beg him. Whispering, sweet desperation sharpening into a cry. “Oh, please!”
Cain bucks beneath me with a rumbling purr, a long drawn-out groan. Come slicks through his hand. The wet, steady pumps and tight, hot spurt of his cock pressed to mine overwhelms me into matched orgasm. Release claws my throat, shakes and shivers free the most humiliating small noises.
I fold into Cain’s chest with a flutter, nudge at his neck with my nose and kiss his throat, nip a light snip into the buried beat of pulse. I’m wild for him, a soft-snarling beast in that moment of unleashed lust. Everything about this is reckless and foolish, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted Cain since the beginning. He’s exactly my type — tall, dark and handsome, a punk rock idol of forbidden, foreboding desire.
The blazing intensity crescendos and fades to leave me stunned, sated, draped heavy and limp over Cain. My cheek rests into his shoulder, my fingers brave small, brushing strokes into his hair. The quiet stretches long after we’ve caught our breath. I wonder if he’s okay. If this is okay, if anything gets to be okay now that Cain knows I know the truth.
I listen to the steady, pounding tempo of Cain’s heart beating in his chest. I wonder how much of the truth he knows, if he heard any of the stupid things I whispered to him while hospitalized. There were nights I fully accepted that Cain was only thoughts and feelings, someone I’d made up to cope with the stress of my dull, normal life. I thought Cain wasn’t real and whispered to him anyway, whispered horrible things I only partway remember. I don’t know if he heard me. He didn’t say anything back if he did. I only remember Marcia sitting with me at breakfast, Cain suddenly there in the dead girl’s body. I don’t remember his voice in my head acknowledging the repeated, desolate pleas for him to be real, for him to come find me.
I think maybe I should get up, I should get off Cain and clean the mess. I stay rested into him instead because he lets me, he doesn’t stir at all to get free of my smothering collapse. Eventually the gloopy smeared wetness over my skin becomes uncomfortable enough that I lift my head.
A smug, satisfied gleam shapes the curve of Cain’s mouth. The thick, dark sweep of his lashes glides open as he feels me shifting upright. Our eyes meet.
I have no idea what to say. The lack of words scalds my cheeks. I pull my lower lip into my teeth, worry gently at the scar. After a moment of staring at Cain, I decide to try for a smile. The longer he watches me with that same smirking contentment, the less concerned I feel, the more my smile becomes genuine.
“Alright.” Cain stretches some with a low, reverberating hum. His voice picks into brisk, bossy demand — “You still want room service?”