“I don’t know who the fuck that is.”
You might if you paid attention in class,I want to say, but I don’t. Instead, I just shrug. “Still, I can help if you’d like.”
“Nah.” Cayde shuts his laptop. “I was just about done for the night anyway. But you can tell me why the tough little Athena Saint is cowering in my bed right now over a nightmare.”
I hesitate, and he picks up on it immediately. “I’ll kick you out,” he warns. “Send you straight back to your room or one of the other guys if you want to chance it. I’m not playing, Athena.”
I don’t doubt that he’s telling the truth. And I don’t particularly want to test him on that. The last person in the fucking world that I want to be vulnerable with is Cayde St. Vincent, but what are my options? Tell Dean, who would probably find some way to use it against me or make me more of a prisoner? Jaxon, who would probably be understanding, but who rips my heart out every chance he gets? Or not say anything at all, and go back to my room alone, with no one aware that someone really, really seems to want to fucking hurt me?
I don’t really feel as if I have any other option. So I take a deep breath, and I open up to the last person in the world that I ever thought I would.
“There was a letter addressed to me in the mail this morning,” I say quietly, my hands clenched between my knees. “Well, it had my name on the front. No address, no return address. And it wasn’t even like—a real letter, just a lined sheet of paper with some messy handwriting on it.”
Cayde frowns, his lips pressed together, and for once, he actually addresses me like a normal person, his voice eerily calm and even. “Do you remember what it said?”
“I can’t fucking forget,” I admit, wishing my voice was anywhere close to as calm as his is. I lick my dry lips nervously and recite what was on the lined sheet of paper.
Get out, little pet.
Get out before you regret it.
The devil’s coming, and he loves a good sacrifice.
Cayde’s eyebrow raises. “Well, they’re as shitty at poetry as I am. The devil, hmm? You think it’s something to do with the biker gang?”
The Devil’s Sons. Just thinking their name sends a shiver down my spine, so different from the days when I used to hang out in their clubhouse, coming with my mom to bring my dad a packed lunch or dinner or just for her to see him for a few minutes, or during the events they’d sometimes have—the kid-friendly ones, anyway. They used to be like family to me in a way—rough, inappropriate, problematic family. Still, they were what I had, along with my parents. I would never have believed that anything could happen to change that.
But it did, and now the same guys who used to ruffle my hair when I was a kid and later make vaguely inappropriate comments and try to set me up with their own sons want to kill me. Not just kill me quickly, even, but probably do some of the worst things imaginable to me. Things that would make what I’ve endured in Blackmoor House look like child’s play.
I try not to think about it too much because if I do, it really fucking hurts. And I’ve had enough pain already.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I don’t want to think that, but I do. I don’t really see what else it could be.”
“Someone who figured out your connection to them trying to spook you.” Cayde shrugs. “Look, Athena, I know you don’t want any part of all of this, and you think you’re too good for our game, but there’s plenty of girls who would cream themselves to be in your position. They’d bend over any way we asked them to, and they’re probably really fucking jealous of the fact that you’re here and they’re not. So it’s probably just some jealous bitch trying to spook you.”
But even I can see the concern on his face. It’s faint, but it’s there. He’s worried too, and it should make me feel better, less like I’m making this all up in my head, but it doesn’t. All I can think is that if Cayde is worried about this, about me, maybe that means it’s really fucking bad.
“Come on,” he says, and it’s the gentlest I’ve ever heard him speak to me. “Let’s go to sleep, so you’re not exhausted tomorrow. I don’t fucking cuddle,” he warns, glancing at me. “Stay on your side of the fucking bed. But you can stay.”
I nod, just glad to be in a room with someone else, where every scratch at the window and creak of this old house doesn’t make me wonder if someone is sneaking in to kill me—or if they are, at least I’m not the only one in the room.
I make sure that I’m well on my own side of the bed. However, still, I’m acutely aware of Cayde’s heavy, muscled body as he climbs into bed on his own side, the mattress shifting, the heat of him radiating from under the covers. I can smell his soap, the hint of sweat from the laundry hamper, the fresh detergent scent of the sheets, and I suddenly feel a wave of exhaustion washing over me, dragging my eyelids down. I’d never have thought that I would feel safe in bed with Cayde St. Vincent—but here we are.
He’s almost so quiet that I think I might have imagined it. But I’m pretty sure that I hear him say, just as I’m drifting off to sleep:
“I won’t let anything hurt you, little Saint.”
Except for you.