Page 29 of Something Worth Keeping
The fury drained away, replaced by something far worse. Terror.
Cillian’s form contracted, pulling inward. The tendrils retreated. The excess eyes closed and vanished. He forced himself back into the human shape Julian had seen at the restaurant, at the coffee shop, but he was covered in blood. It dripped from his hands, was soaked into his ruined suit, and splattered across his face.
The alley was an abattoir. Body parts littered the ground. The walls were painted red. The smell of copper and voided bowels saturated the air.
And Julian stood in the middle of it, staring at him.
This was it. This was the moment Cillian had dreaded since he’d first seen his beacon in a similar alley. Julian had maintained his composure when Cillian was hunting criminals, when the violence was theoretical and distant. But this was different. This was immediate. Personal. Julian had watched him transform into the monster he truly was, had seen him slaughter three men in less time than it took for a person to order a coffee. No human could witness that and not run.
Cillian’s shadows curled around his legs, anxious. They wanted to reach for Julian, to check him for injuries, to wrap around him and never let go. But Cillian held them back. If he moved now, if he touched Julian while covered in gore, it would only make everything worse.
“Julian.” His voice came out wrong - too many harmonics, too deep. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Are you hurt?”
Julian didn’t answer. His eyes tracked across the carnage, cataloging. Always cataloging. His breathing was rapid but controlled. His hands were pressed flat against the brick wall behind him.
Cillian’s chest constricted. This was the end. Julian would run now, would scream, would finally show the fear that any sane human should feel when confronted with an Eldritch Guardian’s true nature.
And Cillian would have to let him go. Because forcing Julian to stay, keeping him through fear rather than by choice, would destroy the very thing that made him a beacon.
“I…” Cillian took a step forward, then stopped. Blood squelched under his shoe. “They touched you. They hurt you. I couldn’t… I had to…”
Words failed him. How did he explain that seeing Julian in danger had shattered something fundamental in his control? That the need to protect, to destroy anything that threatened his mate, had overridden millennia of restraint?
His shadows writhed around his ankles, desperate. They could feel Julian’s beacon-light, could sense the warmth of him just ten feet away. But they didn’t understand why Cillian wouldn’t close the distance, why he stood frozen like a supplicant awaiting judgment.
Because that’s exactly what he felt like. Julian would judge him now. He would see Cillian for what he truly was - not the slightly eccentric businessman who brought him stolen books and took him to nice restaurants, but the void-creaturewho ripped men apart and bathed in their blood.
“I know what I am,” Cillian said quietly. The words tasted like ash. “I know what you just witnessed. I’m…I’m sorry you had to see that.”
But he wasn’t sorry he’d done it. Even now, with Julian’s potential rejection looming, Cillian couldn’t regret protecting him. He would do it again – hell, he’d slaughter a thousand men if they threatened his beacon.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? He was exactly the monster Julian had just watched tear three humans into pieces.
Cillian’s hands curled into fists. Blood dripped from his fingers onto the pavement. He wanted to go to Julian, to pull him close and check every inch of him for damage. The bruise on Julian’s jaw made Cillian want to resurrect the leader just so he could kill him again, slower.
But Julian was staring at him with those sharp, analytical eyes, and Cillian couldn’t read the expression behind his crooked glasses.
The silence stretched. Cillian’s shadows coiled tighter, feeding off his anxiety. They formed defensive patterns around him, old instincts rising. If Julian rejected him, if he ran, Cillian would let him go, would walk away. He would spend the rest of his existence knowing he’d found his fated mate and lost him because he couldn’t deny the violence written into his very nature.
The alley stunk of death. Cillian’s other shadows maintained the barrier between this scene and the street beyond, bending light and sound to hide what had happened. No humans would see. No authorities would come. It was just Cillian and Julian and the pieces of three men who’dmade the fatal mistake of laying hands on a beacon.
“Julian.” Cillian’s voice cracked. “Say something. Please.”
He hated how desperate he sounded, hated that this small, mortal human had the power to unmake him with a single word. But Julianwashis beacon, his fated mate, and Cillian had just demonstrated exactly why most guardians never found theirs.
Because what kind of person could look at this - at him - and not flee?
Chapter Eleven
“You came when I called.”
Julian heard his own voice cut through the silence, calm and as factual as he was capable of, given the circumstances. Cillian flinched like he’d been struck.
“Of course, I…”
“No, listen.” Julian pushed away from the wall, his legs steadier than they should have been, again, given the circumstances. Adrenaline was a predictable chemical response, but his hands weren’t shaking. Interesting. “I texted you approximately seven minutes ago. You arrived in under four. That suggests you were already enroute when I sent the message, which means you either anticipated the threat or were monitoring my location.”
Cillian stared at him. Blood dripped from his jaw onto his ruined shirt. “Julian, you’re in shock. You need to…”
