Page 132 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

Seb had promised to come find me this evening, but it had already reached 8:00 p.m. With a heavy heart, I pushed off the sofa. My feet carried me up the basement stairs, then the grand staircase, past peeling wallpaper and dusty portraits. Perhaps he’d be in his office, doing something important.

But I needed to see him. To drink in the sight of him, even if just for a moment. Even if neither of us acknowledged the crushing weight of tomorrow hanging over our heads.

I’d only had snatches of time with Seb over the past few days. A flash of his coat in the hallway. The brush of his fingers against mine at any opportunity.

Some nights, he’d managed to slip into my room. We never did much more than lie there, tangled up in each other’s arms. Talking a bit, or watching Buffy.

Last night, he’d appeared at my door just before dawn, his face drawn with exhaustion. Without a word, I’d pulled him into bed. He’d wrapped himself around me like a shield, his cool body pressed against my back, his arm draped over my waist. Since yesterday, the ice inside my chest had become a permanent fixture, pumping freezing blood around my permanently cold body. As I clung to Seb, I had to do my best not to shiver, in case he realised he was making me even colder.

Those quiet moments felt stolen, precious. Like fragments of peace in the midst of chaos. We didn’t talk about the date. Didn’t mention the demon magic eating away at me, or the negotiations with Vale’s coven, or the possibility that this—whatever this was between us—might end before it truly began.

Reaching Seb’s office door, I knocked. No answer.

“Seb?” I called, as if he might not have heard.

Still nothing.

My hand drifted to the brass doorknob. It turned without resistance. For all his gruff exterior and dark mystique, Seb trusted his team enough to leave his sanctuary open.

A twinge of guilt pricked at my conscience as I slipped inside. The office lay in shadow, illuminated only by the glow of his desk lamp. A notebook lay open, a fountain pen carelessly dropped beside. Though this wasn’t his usual notepad that he brought to meetings.

I shouldn’t have looked. I really shouldn’t have.

But my gaze had already snagged on the words, drawing me in like a hook…

30th October, 2025

Tomorrow is the day. The day the dark magic will have fully incubated within Flynn. I hope to return to my professional records at nightfall with a positive update—that Marcus Vale has agreed to the exchange. As it stands,he is still refusing to negotiate, spreading lies about Killigrew Street to his clan and the wider community.

If the worst does happen—and Flynn dies tomorrow—then I wanted to create a record of him here to look back upon. Presently, I hold the image of him so clear in my mind, and it feels as if he shall always remain that way.

My memories always do, until they fade like watercolours bleached by the sun.

Flynn Carter.

The depth of my feelings for him… They consume me. I feel so utterly unmade. As if he’s reached inside me and rearranged everything. I find myself counting the hours until I see him again, cataloguing every smile, every touch, every moment.

What was it that first entranced me, that first night?

Perhaps it was the way he moved on the dance floor—spinning circles around that foul cambion with wild abandon, completely unaware of how he drew every eye in the room.

Of course, a few hours later, he’d driven his knee straight into my groin. I suppose that caught my attention too.

And oh, his stubbornness—his stubbornness rivals even my own. I tried to push him away, warned him of the darkness that follows me, but he refused to listen. He says he wants all of me, even the parts I’ve spent centuries trying to hide. The blood. The violence. The monster beneath. It’s remarkable, really. He looks at me and sees… more. Something worth saving.

He thinks he can save me from my solitude. It is true—my carefully maintained isolation has been undone by his smile, his touch, his unwavering faith in me.

Though now, with tomorrow looming, I wonder if isolation wasn’t the safer option after all. A part of me still resists the notion of romantic love, still remembers the crushing pain of James.

Though James feels distant now, like a story I once read. Flynn has brought colour back into my world. He’s turned my carefully ordered existence into something chaotic and bright—like those red-chequered pyjamas of his I so adore sliding my skin against, likethe way he hums sea shanties under his breath, like the pink sticky notes with smiley faces he keeps leaving attached to my notepad when I place it down.

Tonight, I must

“I’ve been trying to find y—”

I whirled around, the diary slipping from my fingers and hitting the floor with a dull thud. As if dropping the evidence might somehow erase what I’d done.

Seb stood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide with shock. His mouth opened and closed, no words coming out.

---