#vampire darlin

Darlin had been standing right next to David when their phone rang, when they frowned at the number and then answered, their voice so bored at first and then he’d spoken and their whole body tensed.

“What if I don’t want to see you?” they’d asked, trying to sound sharp but there was a wobble that screamed of gut fear. “No. I’m nowhere near there. Dahlia. What? Why not?” They were arguing, rolling their eyes and trying to look annoyed but David could see tears gathering. He wasn’t even sure if they realized they were forming—if they realized what they were feeling under all the invocations. “No. Can’t you just come—Fine. Fine! Tomorrow?” They’re shoulders dropped but they nodded and mumbled something affirmative before hanging up.

David had tried talking to them. They’d said Quinn was a bastard, after all. No reason to go running when he called, right? Only Quinn had said he was in trouble and needed help. Darlin couldn’t ignore that. David tried telling them the truth. Asked them to trust him even though he knew it was impossible. It took longer than a week to get Darlin’s trust, even when they thought their name was Misfit.

So, he’d stopped them.

Stopped them with a fist to the face.

He walked in the den with Darlin still over his shoulder. It was a couple hours to sun-up. They’d be trapped then.

Milo looked up, brow pinching at the sight of his cargo. Everyone knew to play along with Darlin’s memory issues this last week. “What happened to them?” he asked, coming closer, but David didn’t stop walking.

“I happened. Get the door.”

Milo saw where he was going, his jaw flexing with something like disgust or anger, but he still moved to grab the back door and pull it open and then followed David down the hall, to another door. “David…”

“Now.”

Milo punched a code into the keypad and unlocked the door, pulling it open and standing back.

The room was big and the lights flickered on. It was all steal plated with a drain on the floor and a prison cell taking up half of the space. He put Darlin down on the cot in the corner. Their cheek was already healed from his punch. He hesitated for another second before backing up and closing the barred door between them. It locked automatically.

“David,” Milo said again, voice harder now. “You know how they feel about being caged…”

David closed his eyes and nodded. He did. It was one of Darlin’s greatest fears. They’d rather take a beating than be closed in. He straightened and forced his expression to harden before he turned to look at Milo. He had to be certain because no one was going to feel okay about this—especially not when Darlin woke up. “Do you think they’d rather we let them go back to Quinn? Let him put his teeth in them? Fuck them? Make them tell him all the things he wants to hear? Make them hurt other people for his amusement?” Any of the nightmarish things they’d all imagined and dozens of which had been confirmed in casual conversations with Darlin this last week. They had no idea what they were even telling David half the time—they believed they’d had a choice.

Milo’s eyes had widened a fraction and then sharpened with contempt and certainty. His gaze slid past David, to where their vamp was laid out on the cot. “We’re going to need blood bags. I’ll contact the Solaires.”

David nodded and watched Milo head down the hall. He didn’t step out of the room and close the door though, because he felt them wake up. He cringed to himself before stealing his features once more and looking into the room.

Darlin stood there, having risen soundlessly. Their eyes were big with shock and betrayal, staring right at him. It twisted a knife in his gut. How many times had he feared that look? He had been so careful with Darlin for so long because he never wanted them to think, even for a second, that he would be a threat to them. And now he’d proven he was.

Darlin touched the bars, fingers curling around them, arms tensing as they tested their hold without breaking eye contact. “What are you doing?” they asked, voice strained as they tried to keep their terror in check.

He could hear all their suspicions in that one question—trying to imagine all the terrible things this pack of wolves could have in store for them? The betrayal deepened in their eyes, and he knew they were thinking that this whole last week had been a trick and they had been the fool.

“You’re going to be okay,” he promised.

They hissed, baring teeth. “Let me out.”

“I can’t.”

They thrashed at the bars, but they wouldn’t budge. “Let me out!” they screamed.

David didn’t let himself wince. There was real fear in their voice. “I’m sorry. You’re going to be okay. I promise,” he said again and then stepped out and closed the door.

Darlin screamed so loud that he could hear them through the plated door. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the wall.

 -

 David called Asher. He wasn’t far from Dahlia, checking out a club where a rogue vamp had started a fight with some elementals after nearly draining one. David told him what had happened and that, wherever Quinn was, he would probably be on the move soon.

And then he called Vincent.

And then he waited in the den. He wasn’t going to be able to leave as long as he had Darlin caged up in there. He couldn’t risk someone getting soft and letting them loose. There was no way to predict what they could do if they got out thinking this pack had abducted them. Darlin was not to be fucked with on the best of days. They’d spent the first hour screaming and beating the wall loud enough that he could hear the thud even from the main room. He hadn’t been back to talk to them again.

The phone on the table rang. Not his phone, but Darlin’s. He picked it up and held it to his ear. That voice was a silk noose. “How far out are you, Misfit? You better put your foot on the gas if you’re going to make it before sun up…”

He was close. A few hours out from Dahlia. The city Asher was in was that close. He really had been catching up to him.

“Misfit?” Quinn’s voice sharpened, the threat so clearly there.

David sat back in his chair. “It’s done, Quinn.”

Silence, tense and heavy, and then, “Shaw,” Quinn seemed to realize, laughing darkly. “It was bad luck that they went back there…”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Is this where you tell me that if I release them from the invocations, you’ll call off your dogs?”

“No,” David said. He might have been willing to make that deal if he thought for a second that Quinn could keep his word—or if he thought that he could keep his word not to kill him now. No, they were past that.

“Really? Because you’ve got to be sitting on my Misfit to keep them from me now. How long can you do that? How long before you let them go and they come running back to me? A month? A year? A decade? I’ve got time…”

David felt cold at the idea of having to keep them prisoner that long, but he knew he’d do it for a lifetime if he had to. He’d be right there with them, in this den, captive, until he could save them both. He would not, absolutely not, let Quinn put hands on them again. It was a hard decision and an ugly decision, but he knew he could trust Darlin to do the same for him if things were reversed.

“You’ll fold,” Quinn said, but David heard the doubt in his voice now.

“When you were messing with their mind,” David mused, really just keeping him on the line now to see if he’d give anything else away. They’d never spoken before, he realized. “Why didn’t you make them hate wolves? That might have saved you from this moment…”

Quinn was quiet.

David smiled slowly. “You did. It just didn’t stick.”

“You don’t know anything. We belong together. They wanted this life, Shaw. They’re happier, freer, safer.”

“Safer? With you?”

“No one else can hurt them now. They don’t need a pack. They’ll never grow old and weak. They’ll never have to sleep with their back to a door, so they’ll know if someone tries to get in. They’ll never go hungry or be homeless because their parents threw them out,” he seethed, words rushing out.

David sat forward, holding the phone tightly. He knew those things about Darlin’s life, but how did Quinn know? Had he invoked them to tell him? No. That didn’t seem as likely as Darlin having told him once, before all of this, when they had been friends. And that was the cruelest part, wasn’t it? There had been a moment, when Darlin and Quinn had been friends. Real friends.

“Do you know where their parents are, Shaw? No. You don’t. You don’t know where I dumped those bodies. Neither you nor your daddy went looking for them. You just let them treat my Misfit like shit and then abandon them. You let them leave…just like you let my Misfit leave. What right do you have to keep them now? None! They belong to me. I made them. I took care of them. And now, they will never be alone because I will always be here.”

“Quinn,” David said, not soft but not angry anymore. “You want to protect them? You want to be the person that killed their abusers?” His voice was deep and dark in the silence that stretched between them. Quinn was still there. He had to be putting the pieces together too. “Then finish it, because you’re the last one left standing.”

The silence stretched.

David waited.

Finally, Quinn whispered, “I will never let them go.” He hung up.

David sat there for a while, listening to the thumping of Darlin in that prison cell start up again. It would be smart of Quinn to run—to buy time with distance and test their resolve. But Quinn wasn’t thinking with his mind. He was thinking with his heart, as rotten as it might be. David understood him better now. He called Vincent and when he answered he said, “He’s coming.”

 -

 Sam stood outside the door, staring at the keypad.

He hadn’t really thought David would let him see them. Honestly, he’d been more than ready for David to kill him the moment they walked into the Shaw den. He wouldn’t have blamed him—wouldn’t have fought him or even tried to escape. It would have been justice. David had walked up to him and Sam had stood ready, head down but back straight. He felt the other man looking him over, deciding something. How to kill him? When he lifted his hand, Sam didn’t even close his eyes. He was ready for judgement. He was prepared for pain.

But he hadn’t been prepared for that hand to settle so gently against the side of his neck, palm covering the old bite mark that had turned him like it was nothing but clean skin. David leaned in and touched his forehead down to Sam’s head, the way Sam had seen him do a hundred times with his pack. It was confirmation, affirmation, and affection. David dragged a breath of relief. “You’re okay,” he said, and it sounded like it was both to reassure himself and to tell Sam.

Sam cried. He didn’t mean to. He just wasn’t ready for that. It had never occurred to him…

David hugged him. “You’re okay. And they’ll be okay,” he’d said, and it sounded like truth then—like this man was going to make it true.

But standing in front of that door, he wasn’t so sure. He tapped in the code for the door and heard the locks slide back. He took a breath and then stepped into the room. The motion activated lights came on and there they were—his Darlin. Not a wolf anymore, but a vampire. He couldn’t help but think about their death, about how he’d felt nothing when he helped drain them, when they thrashed and begged.

Darlin rose from where they’d been sitting so still in the corner, gaze flicking over him. They rushed forward, grabbing at the bars, hoping lighting up their face and it was a stab in his heart to see it directed at him. “Sammy?” they exhaled hard, relief so clear they were almost smiling through their panic. Darlin had never called him Sammy before all of this—before Quinn went playing in their mind—before they died. “Open the door.”

Sam took a step closer. The door to the hall swung shut but he made no move to touch the door of the cell. He just stared back at them. His beautiful Darlin. They usually had bruises and scratches from throwing themself at life, but not now.

“What’s going on?” Darlin demanded now, distrust edging into their voice. “Is Alexis here? Is Quinn?”

He winced at the other man’s name, baring teeth before he could stop himself.

Darlin didn’t miss it. They reached suddenly through the bars and snatched at the front of his shirt, dragging him in. Sam didn’t fight, his chest hitting the bars hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. Darlin hissed, baring long fangs and wrapping their other hand around his throat. “What have you done?” they snapped in his face.

Sam didn’t know where to start. He almost laughed. Should he start with failing to protect them? Or with how he had treated them when he was invoked and they were so confused? Or with how he helped Quinn get them back? Or maybe when he sank teeth into their arm and helped the other man drain the last of their life?

Their fingers bruised his neck, and as much as he wanted to let them end him right here and now, he remembered suddenly and violently that they were still in there. That his Darlin would remember this moment with the clarity they did not have now and have to live with it—the way he had to live with all the things he had done when he wasn’t in control.

He moved fast. He grabbed their hand on his neck and twisted almost to the point of breaking bones to get loose. But then he held on to their hand, even when it wasn’t around his neck, he held on because he wanted to cry out and cling to them the second he had contact.

Darlin flashed teeth at him again. “You shit! Are you working with them? Is this one of her fucking games?”

Sam sighed, thumb stroking Darlin’s wrist on instinct and Darlin didn’t seem to notice either—like it was normal to their bodies even when Darlin’s mind couldn’t possibly know that. “Alexis is dead.” His gaze trailed down Darlin’s arm, to the bite scar near the inside of their elbow. His bite. The one that had ended their life.

He let go of Darlin’s hand and jumped back a step. He had no right to be touching them. “Quinn’s going to die,” he promised. He wouldn’t leave them like this, and he would face them when it was done. He wouldn’t run. They deserved better than that—better than all of this.

Darlin’s eyes widened, confused and upset. “Don’t you touch him!” they shouted, slamming the bars and reaching for him again. He was just out of reach now. “I will kill you!”

He took another step back. “If you really want me dead when this is done, I’ll make it happen, Darlin.”

“Darlin? Who the fuck do you think—”

Sam had taken another step back and out of the room, the door thumping shut between them again.

Darlin screamed and raged inside, muffled by the heavy walls, and Sam clamped a hand over his mouth and cried.

 -

 While Quinn was sneaking into Dahlia, calling on favors, and plotting to make David regret taking what was his—Asher was closing in on him from behind. Quinn was so focused on that den and the wolves he thought he could make targets out of, that he didn’t even notice the ones missing.

There was no waiting when they caught up. When Asher found the basement blood club, the wolves surrounded it. It wasn’t dawn yet. They didn’t have the advantage of daylight. But when Stealth came back from taking a look inside the club and gave him that nod, Asher sent off the text to the Solaires and the rest of the pack. Before it could be answered, the wolves shifted on the dark streets of Dahlia and descended on the club.

The vampires that had nothing to do with Quinn fled fast, any that stood in their way met with teeth and fury.

This hunt had brought Asher home at last, and he meant to stay.

The club was a blood bath by the time the Solaire’s arrived. Wolves chased leaches through underground tunnels, flushing them out to the wolves that followed above. Quinn had really been amassing an army. Bold. Stupid, but bold.

Asher caught the scent at last, not the lingering stink of Quinn on other vampires, but his own trail. Asher rounded a corner and caught sight of him. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t shift to have a conversation. There was no conversation they could possibly have. He had killed Darlin—turned them and invoked them and… No. Nope. His teeth snapped but caught only air. Quinn was fast, shoving away and making a run for it.

Asher would have laughed if he had the throat for it. He was fast too.

He chased the vampire, literally snapping at his back. The hallway narrowed and Asher realized the fucker was trying to go where a wolf wouldn’t fit. Another turn. The walls were going to tighten again up ahead. He could see it and hear the way Quinn’s heart pounded with the thrill of escaping. The other man barely fit, twisting sideways to get through. Asher never lost a step, shifting human and tackling him right through that corridor and into the mouth of the next room. His shoulder scraped against the stone walls, tearing shirt and skin, but he didn’t feel it. He had hands on Quinn.

As soon as Quinn’s back hit the floor, Asher brough his elbow down into his face, cracking his skull back against the floor.

And then he shifted and finally sank teeth into that vampire.

 -

 Sam got to that room just as Quinn’s screams turned to gasps.

He stepped through the naked doorway and stared at the mess of blood all over the stone floor and walls. The ceiling had a big hole, letting in moonlight and the smell of the woods. Quinn had been so close to getting away… but then again, not really. Sam knew Asher wouldn’t have stopped chasing just because they hit grass. Nor would the wolves and Solaire vampires on the ground above, circling and hunting the rest. Tonight was going to be branded into the history of Dahlia—a moment that reminded everyone who the kings of the city were.

“Wait,” Quinn groaned.

Sam stared. The wolf was standing in the shadows on the other side of the room and the ravaged vampire was on the floor between them, looking at Sam—reaching toward Sam. Why? Did he not know that Alexis was dead? Did he think he would help him?

Quinn looked up at him with the one eye he had left. “Help me, Sammy, and I’ll make it right,” he offered, words wet with blood. He swallowed at it, like his own spilled red could help him now. “Right now, they don’t remember. My Misfit has no idea what happened to them—what you did.”

Sam groaned deep in his throat, deep in his soul.

“Do the dogs know?” Quinn coughed, smiling. Asher rumbled a growl behind him, but Quinn kept his focus on Sam. “You remember, right? How you and I killed them together? Your teeth are a mark in their arm forever and it’s not the only mark. Kill me, and they’ll know. Right now, they’re just a vampire out there enjoying the night. Blissful and free of all that pain and past. Do you really think they want it back, Sammy? Do you want it back? You could find them. You could meet them all over again, without the guilt and the weight. I can make that happen. They’re happier now. You could be happy with them.”

Sam felt sick.

But Asher waited, his attention sliding from Quinn to him. Maybe he hadn’t known the part Sam had played? Or maybe he was waiting to see what side Sam picked?

Quinn thought he was making headway with him, so maybe Asher wondered too? “You really want them to remember what you did, Sammy? How your teeth felt in their arm while mine were in their neck? You watched them die and did nothing! You let me take them and did nothing! Fuck, before that you were already turning cold on them. Do you remember the things you said?”

Of course, he remembered. He remembered every word. He remembered every time they asked if he was okay and he gaslit them, using their inexperience with relationships to twist the situation in his favor. He remembered the sex during those weeks too, when he was cold and distant, when he was rough and taking without giving. He remembered cutting their shoulder with his teeth—not an accident but a curiosity to see how far he could push before they finally left. No one had healed that. If he looked now, he’d probably find a scar. Just like he’d find the scars of his teeth in their arm. Of course, he remembered.

Quinn had crawled toward him, away from Asher who hadn’t moved and inch. Sam knew when Asher moved it would be to kill one of them—he just hadn’t decided which one first. Sam loved him suddenly for that—that if he faltered here, now, Asher would put him down. He might even tell Vincent and Darlin that Quinn had done it to save them from the shame of his weakness because Asher would always care most about the results—about the living.

Quinn dragged another soggy breath. Asher had been playing with him—dragging out his end. He was a mess, on the brink of death but nothing he couldn’t heal from with time. “Sammy, I promise. We can share them.”

Asher flashed teeth but managed not to make a sound.

Sam looked down at Quinn for the first time. Share them. Like they were a possession—a toy? Share them. Take turns? Share them. Like the had when they killed them together? Sam didn’t realize he was talking out loud until his voice raised loud enough to bounce off the walls and hit him. His breath was coming fast, his teeth long. “I didn’t come to help you. I came to collect your body before it was ripped to shreds so that they could see you were dead with their own eyes.”

Quinn’s breath caught, panic washing his features. “They’ll never forgive you. They’ll never be with you after this.”

Sam shook his head slowly. “That’s not the point. They don’t have to forgive me or be with me. I love them and I would rather die than take those choices from them.”

Quinn flashed teeth, dragging down a breath to say—

Sam moved fast, snapping his neck and then dropping him dead at his feet once more.

The room went still, Asher still in wolf form and watching, waiting. Considering?

The wolf took a step forward but instead of attacking, he lifted his head and howled. It was nearly deafening, echoing in the stone room and up into the sky, soon joined by other calls that continued to ring out through the night long after Asher had stopped. He shifted back to human, blood still on his face and all down his front. He put his hands on his hips, catching his breath and spitting some of that red on the floor like it tasted bad. “So, you really going to carry him? Because that would be awesome.”

Sam nodded. As much as he didn’t want to touch Quinn more than he had to, he knew Darlin would want to see the proof even if they could feel the collapse of the bond. And after all the work Asher had done, it didn’t seem right to make him carry the asshole back too.

Asher nodded too and then looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “Let’s go this way. Seems faster than dragging his dead ass down those halls again.” He started climbing out. “Sooner we get this done, the sooner I can go home.”

Sam watched him easily hoist himself up and out of the ground, realizing that Asher and the rest of the pack had spent months hunting for Darlin and Quinn—taking turns away from their loved ones. Even if Darlin wasn’t a wolf anymore, they still belonged to the pack. And so did Sam.

Asher turned around and reached down. “Pass the leach up.”

 -

 Darlin sat on the edge of the cot, staring at the floor.

Someone would come soon.

Or maybe they wouldn’t? Maybe Quinn had let go of his invocations but no one knew? They didn’t look up at the bars or the small room. It would freak them out and they had plenty of that going on already. Their mind was a mantra of, ‘You’re okay. You’re alive, sort of. Same as Sam. And Sam’s alive and with the pack. You’re with the pack. You’re okay.’

The door to the room opened but they didn’t look up.

There were drops of water on the floor between their boots, like it was raining but just in that one spot.

“Darlin?”

Their vision blurred and they started rocking a little.

Something clanked loudly. The cell door?

David was on his knees in front of them, hands on the sides of their face, thumbs stroking at their cheeks to wipe away tears.

They held onto his arms, like they could anchor themself in that moment rather than being swept back to the last several months. Oh god. He had turned them. They weren’t a wolf anymore. They couldn’t catch their breath. Which was sort of hilarious since they were supposed to be undead.

“You’re okay,” David said, holding on like he knew he was an anchor. “You came home. You’re home.”

They nodded slowly, trying to drag deeper breaths.

“He’s dead,” David said.

Darlin tried to believe that but it seemed impossible.

“Sam’s safe. Alexis is dead.”

Darlin cried harder because this asshole totally knew them—knew exactly what they needed to hear.

“You are still pack. And you came home. I’m sorry I had to lock you—”

Darlin pushed forward, off the cot, and wrapped their arms around his big stupid shoulders, burying their face in one of them. “Don’t fucking apologize. I would have rather been in this box for the rest of my life than be with him for another second. Thank you for finding me, David.”

He sighed and hugged them to him tight. “Always, troublemaker. Always.”

 -

 Sam dragged Quinn’s body to the back door of the Shaw den, dumping it on the concrete. Asher stood there with him, outside, listening to the night and the river rolling nearby in the dark. It would be light soon. The sky hadn’t quite started to turn but Sam could feel it.

The back doors of the den opened and David and Darlin walked out, a few more wolves in human skin flanking them, holding the doors and watching.

Darlin’s gaze flicked over Sam only briefly, almost nervously before turning down to Quinn’s body. There was no sign of feeling one way or the other when they looked at his remains—proof of his death. But they exhaled hard like they hadn’t been sure until that second if he really was gone.

Asher came over to them and David leaned in to thump the sides of their heads together briefly before messing up his blood wet hair. “Thank you,” Shaw whispered, before shoving Asher a step back. “Go home to your mate and clean the hell up.”

Asher flashed a big grin but it tempered when his gaze moved to Darlin, lingering. How long had it been since Asher had seen Darlin? Not since they were a wolf… He took a step toward them, something uncertain in his body language but hopeful. Darlin leaned in like second nature, head tipping to touch his. Asher sighed and palmed the back of their head to hang on a few seconds longer.

When he let go, he was grinning big again, visibly exhausted but happy as he turned and walked away.

Darlin nodded to themselves, still looking at Quinn’s body. They rubbed at the back of their own neck, the way they did when they were deciding things. And then they gave David a little shove. “Go home.”

David lingered, watching Darlin.

Darlin didn’t have to look back. “Go home to your angel. I’ll lock up the den and stay here tonight.”

David grunted but looked at the body on their doorstep.

“The sun will clean it up,” Darlin said. This wall always cooked on a hot day, bathed in direct light.

David seemed to consider that again, or maybe something else, but he nodded once. “I’ll see you later?”

“Yes,” Darlin replied, and it sounded like a promise.

David’s shoulders visibly sagged in relief and the weight of his own exhaustion. No one had been able to relax since Darlin disappeared. He nodded once to Sam and then turned and left back through the den, the other wolves with him, the door still open behind Darlin.

Sam didn’t move, just studying them. “I’m so sorry, Darlin…”

Darlin shook their head once, hard, still looking at the ground between them.

Sam bit off the apologies that wanted to come tumbling out of him. That wasn’t what they wanted right now. If they gave him the word, he would leave. If they told him never to come back, he wouldn’t. If they told him to sit there with Quinn’s body and wait for dawn, he would do it. So he said the things he needed them to know first. “You are the most incredible person I have ever known. You are kind and strong. You did nothing to deserve what Quinn did to you. You deserved so much better than what you got in life and in death. You deserve to be happy and safe, Darlin, and I hope you find that now, however you want. I know this isn’t the life you chose, you know I get that, and I never wanted this for you,” he had to pause, to catch his breath and fight the tears. “I wish I could have protected you and I will respect any choices you make now. But I need you to know that none of this was your fault. Nothing he made you do was your fault. You know who you are, Darlin.”

Darlin’s gaze met his, eyes brighter than they used to be before the change, but still all them. “You mean that, Sam? I did some really bad things…” Their voice was tight and quiet, like they were fighting to get words out without crying.

It took everything he had to stay right where he was and not step closer, not put his hands on them and try to hold them. What if they cringed back? What if they flinched? “Those were his choices, not yours, Darlin.”

Darlin nodded slowly. He could see them still thinking. “Do you still love me?” they asked.

His knees almost buckled. It was the last thing he’d thought they’d ever ask. Darlin would have been afraid to ask that even when they were at their best and he saw the nerves in them now, the way they forced themself to hold his gaze despite that fear that he’d reject them. “More than anything,” he promised. “I love you, Darlin. I will always love you.”

Darlin stared at him, unreadable for long seconds. “Why does that sound like a goodbye?”

Sam stared at them, heart aching. Did they actually want him to stay? After everything?

Darlin looked away, to the ground, to Quinn, then out at the lightening night. “Yeah. I mean, I get it. Everything’s changed. I’m not… I changed. And we did a lot of stuff to each other and…with them.” Their words were tumbling, tripping out of their mouth, catching on their teeth and making them flinch.

Sam’s shoes scuffed the ground when he lurched a step closer before stopping. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Darlin. And none of this changes you, not really—not who you are. You’re a good person and this was a bad thing that happened to you.”

Darlin nodded, but it was tight, eyes still down and jaw tight. “Yeah. Okay.”

It was so quiet. So far from okay. Sam wasn’t even sure what parts of this were getting through.

“So, we’re done?” Darlin got the words out and they were somewhere between a question and a choke. “You’re…We’re breaking up?”

Sam’s whole heart ached. How could it still be breaking, after everything? “Darlin…” How could they think he was breaking up with them when they should be screaming at him? He’d hurt them in so many ways. He’d failed them in so many more. There were scars left by his teeth in their skin. “I killed you,” he reminded, the words cutting their way out of him.

Darlin’s gaze snapped up to his, staring. Surprised, confused, and then, finally, a flicker of anger. “So, you didn’t mean what you said…about me not being responsible for the things he made me do? To other people…to myself…with him.” The words got quieter, darker, as they forced them out.

They both knew.

He bared teeth and bit back a growl. “No. That’s not your fault. None of that is anyone’s fault but his. Those are things he did to you.”

Darlin blinked, on the edge of a decision, he realized. “But…You and Alexis are different?”

There was a horrible familiarity with how his Darlin said her name now. He opened his mouth to say it was different—that he had to hold the weight of the things he had done and the way he had treated them even when he was invoked—but was it different? He had no choice. He would never have touched them like that, used fists and teeth against them, or let Quinn take them away if he had been in control of himself. Tears cut down his cheek before he realized they were gathering. Alexis had told him to love her and he had. She had told him to hate Darlin and he had. No. It wasn’t different. And if he drew that line just to feed his guilt now, he wasn’t sure Darlin would ever believe him when he said they weren’t responsible for the things Quinn had done.

He took a step closer, breaths struggling, but he finally stood right in front of them. He had missed them every moment since Alexis first invoked him. His soul had been screaming out even when he smiled for her. “No. It’s not different. Those were her choices, not mine. It’s over now. We’re both free. And I love you so much. But it’s okay if you need time, Darlin. It’s okay if you can’t just forget what I—”

They threw their arms around him, cutting off his words with that desperate hug. Their breaths came staggered just like his, their tears on his cheek. His arms came around them and just that connection sent a wave of relief through him that almost knocked him out. “I missed you,” they whispered, so tired that he wanted nothing more in that moment than to carry them to bed just like he might have before all of this happened.

“I missed you too, Darlin. So much,” he said.

They held each other for a long time, until the sky grew shades brighter. Sunrise was close but he still couldn’t will himself to break this moment.

Darlin finally did, leaning back but not completely letting him go. They caught his hand and tugged him gently toward the doorway behind them, toward the den. He was more than happy to let them lead him in, the door closing hard behind him with an automatic lock. They went around the building, checking locks and lights before going to one of the temporary apartments upstairs. They had a lot to talk about, despite being tired down to their souls. Everything came out in whispers, in the shower and then curled up in bed in the dark. But they never let go of each other.

They would never let go of each other again.