Page 27 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 27
M addox lays on his back with one arm behind his head and the other wrapped around me as I lay across him. It’s this precise moment that I want to capture forever. The warmth of his body, the cool darkness of his room, the way I always feel loose and limber after we fuck.
The afterglow is bliss, I curl up closer into him and rest my head on his chest. I listen to his heart beat and the rhythm of his breathing while I close my eyes for a moment and take it all in. I still worry that somehow one day I’ll wake up and realize it was a complete hallucination.
His fingers slide up from my ass and he drags his claw in circles around the small of my back. Music quietly plays in the background, delicately soundtracking this dalliance.
He traces the shell of my ear, heat swiftly inching up my body to the point where I’m downright positive my ears are vermillion. I didn’t think I could flush more than I already am, and even the slightest touch from him, despite his dick being firmly lodged inside me, sends a shiver down my spine.
I reach out in turn, rubbing his velvety ears between my thumb and forefinger in a way that’s become so comforting for me. It’s a small piece of him that’s reserved just for my touch in these sweet intimate moments.
We’ve had more of them as of late. The flickering sparks of our earlier encounters have turned into a steady, warm flame. When I leave he kisses me and says the softest, sweetest goodbye. When I told him I needed to remake the chocolate torte and I showed up last minute on a Monday, he gleefully opened the door and allowed me to scribble changes to my recipe in a frustrated huff while he read on the couch. My mixer has a dedicated corner on his countertop, and my supplies have slowly overtaken his storage.
The second time I’d come over to bake I told him his tools were subpar, and he immediately came to my apartment with me to gather my own as a replacement. We snuck through the halls together, he dodged passersby and stood twiddling his thumbs in my living room as I hastily tossed items into a large bin. Which, of course, he carried down back to his place without a singular complaint.
He’s deep in thought now, I notice his jaw twitch as the words marinate. His choice of words are always hand selected and thoughtful when they need to be, despite his impish inclinations otherwise.
“When I was a kid my grandparents had told me about this old fae belief of fated mates,” he says softly. “It was thought that biologically you would know when you’d found the one you were supposed to be with. I’d written it off as old folklore, something that generations before would use as an excuse to coerce someone into marriage. Our kind had a bit of a history of trapping women in castles. Sigrid, there’s something about you, that the very moment I’d met you, I knew you were meant to be mine. There was this magnetic pull to you, as though I physically couldn’t stop it. And after all these years of writing off these antiquated ideas as complete nonsense, I think they’ve been proven correct.”
“…you think I’m your fated mate?” He’d brought so mething to light that I had yet to even consider. Though I’d been born without a molecule of fae blood in me, there was a way that I knew Maddox was the one. The times I ran I always wanted to turn around and go back to him. The way I could never get him off my mind. The nights I laid confused about why I’d been so drawn to this literal monster immediately made sense.
I’d been quietly ruminating on the idea too long and he quickly stammers to clarify, “I know, I know, it sounds like something you’d read in a fantasy novel. And maybe the old folklore is a bunch of bullshit but?—”
“No, no, I think I understand,” the idea brought about a sense of relief in a way. As silly as it sounded, maybe there was literal magic to whatever was between us, and maybe it was fate that brought me into the laundry room late that night.
“Even the fact that we had seen each other before we’d even met, it’s hard to deny that something bigger than us was at play there,” he says.
“So you really weren’t stalking me?” I laugh.
“No, I swear I didn’t even make the connection until you’d shown up in the laundry room the first time we actually met face to face.”
“Well, if you weren’t stalking me that night, what were you doing in that alleyway?”
“It would probably make a lot more sense if I showed you,” he says with a lazy smile.
“Right now?”
“If you’re up for it.” He takes my body in, no longer with the voracious lust as before, but with a delicate gaze. It’s like he’s an artist observing a landscape before deciding which stroke to paint on the blank canvas first.
“If it makes tonight last longer, then absolutely,” I raise myself from the bed and stretch when he grips around my waist and pulls me back onto the sheets. A giggle bubbles out of me despite my best efforts. He pins me down and gives me one more lengthy kiss while cupping my chin.
“You’re delaying our outing,” I say with a pout when our lips part.
“It was well worth it,” he replies with a smile.
Maddox leads me from the corridor below my building into the alleyway through a large steel door that swings open with little effort on his end.
“You guys leave so much shit unlocked up here, anybody could wander into anywhere,” he quips as he pushes the door shut behind him. I stand at the end of the alley, precisely where I’d seen him standing before. I look down at the sidewalk and imagine myself there. What was he thinking then?
He follows my gaze towards the streetlights and handful of passersby. “I didn’t come up here to watch people walk on the street, I truly wanted to avoid being seen at all.” I nod along, I wish I knew it was him that night, though freaking out in an alley could have had worse repercussions than freaking out in the basement.
“Anyways,” he says. “This is not what we came here to see.” He takes my hand and pulls me down an even narrower alley along the backside of a club I used to frequent with Perrie. I can clearly hear music from inside, barely muffled through the wall.
The music continues and he grabs a few crates and stacks them atop one another. He gestures for me to climb up and I follow, we’re now eye level to one another.
“Hi,” I whisper with a grin, I grab the sides of his face and pull it towards me and place a kiss on the tip of his nose.
“Hi,” he whispers back, then he grips my shoulders and turns me until I’m facing a window. From here there’s a clear view of the stage and the band playing on it from directly above.
“You just wanted to see live music?” I ask.
“I found the schedule online, looked up the bands, and then would decide if I wanted to watch them. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of live music in my neighborhood, but this is…different.” He didn’t have to continue for me to know exactly what he meant. There was a thrill of sorts doing something that feels forbidden, the same kind of rush you’d get when you’d sneak out of your parents house. He could dart between shadows, fully hidden, and enjoy something without a single soul knowing. And now, he’s sharing it with only me.
The music plays, some shoegaze indie rock that from this vantage point sinks directly into my bones. I don’t know the name of the band, or the song, yet there’s a familiarity to it. The chord progressions and beat feel like something I inherently know.
Maddox turns to me, “would it be bold to ask you for a dance?”
His glasses have slid down his nose slightly and I lean over to push them back up, “a lady wouldn’t refuse.” I whisper against his lips. Rough hands grab my waist and pull me off the crate.
“Follow my lead,” he whispers against my hairline.
He leads well, stepping gingerly across the sidewalk, despite his massive size. I spin out and pirouette back into the warmth of his arms, identical to how I’d seen every princess do so in movies from my childhood. I almost wish I wore a ballgown in this vignette of romance, twirling in taffeta in a girlish manner, playing a persona I’d never seen for myself. He sweeps me up with him as he steps and my toes graze the pavement as I float before him.
The song dwindles towards its end, and the wind picks up. It feels like the music is growing quieter, the sounds of our surroundings are trying to overtake the weepy vocalist. Small droplets of water begin dotting my shoulders, “I think it’s beginning to rain.”
“That doesn’t matter, a little bit of water can’t pull me from you now.” Maddox spins me out once more, and upon my return to his chest, he kisses me, almost stopping our dancing entirely.
It’s a teenage-dream sort of romantic, something from diary entries from over a decade ago. Swept up in the moment it's the stuff of fairytales, the self-conscious part of my brain quiets itself during these moments. It’s only the two of us here in this alley, I’m going to savor this.
The song changes from the slow yearning ballad to something faster, and Maddox sets me back on the crate. We’re eye to eye again, holding this bit of flickering magic between us like a precious gemstone. Light rain that would have driven me crazy just a few months ago now sends me into a dreamlike state.
Then the door to the bar bursts open and our moment immediately dissolves. Maddox grabs my hand and helps me down from the crates, then whispers, “run.”
I don’t necessarily run, instead I’m pulled by the wrist through dark alley after dark alley. The cold air and rain droplets whip at my face as we move.
After turning a few quick corners we’re right before my apartment building. The street is empty, and it’s dark enough that he won’t be seen.
“I need a change of clothes,” I state. “Come inside with me?”
We both know once he’s in my apartment he isn’t leaving. Like a lost puppy he follows me into my room as I peel off each layer of rain dampened clothing. Once I’m just in my bra and underwear two paws grab my waist and pull me onto the bed. I squirm atop Maddox, writhing against his damp sweatshirt.
“Not fair,” I pant. “You’re still clothed.” In a comical manner, he swiftly shoves me off of him and quickly begins stripping. He then throws himself onto my bed and stretches himself out like a cat would. I climb back atop him, not even caring that his fur is damp.
“You’re gonna rip my sheets apart,” I look behind me at his clawed feet digging into my clearance bedspread.
“I’ll replace them, what do you want, Egyptian cotton? Silk? Tears of your enemies?” Each suggestion of material earns a hot peck along my neck. “Whatever you want, Sigrid, as long as I get to do whatever I want to these sheets.” He plants more kisses along my neck.
“You’re a bastard,” I snort.
“A bastard you invited into your apartment, last I checked.”
When Maddox threatened to do whatever he wanted to my sheets, he certainly meant it. Coordinating sex in my full sized bed was quite the ordeal. It’s significantly smaller than his and our bodies are far closer than they are when I stay over at his place. But honestly? The closer proximity just made everything that much hotter.
We lay silently beside one another in my bed, both completely blissed out and soaking in the presence of the other. Given the lack of space, he chose not to knot me. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it. My hand wanders and rests atop his abdomen. His rippling muscles lay just beneath a layer of thick fur. I trail my fingers over it back and forth in a rhythmic fashion. It’s self soothing, the repetitive motions whirring the gears in my brain and remind me “he’s here, he’s not leaving.” He purrs and hums at the feeling.
Maddox turns onto his side and wraps himself around me, I stop at his movement, disappointed it had to end. “Don’t stop,” he mumbles as he pulls me closer. My hand rests on him again, this time his back, and the motion picks up again. In kind, he lightly grazes his claws over the thin cotton of my sleep shirt. The feeling sends chills down my spine and I shudder. He huffs out a few times in a sleepy laugh.
Something thumps against my leg as it tangles with his. Maddox’s tail has seemed to take on a mind of its own and twitches and pats the bed and my calf. He lets out a long sigh, relief settles through every one of his muscles.
Sunlight streams through my bedroom windows, only partially obstructed by the building next to mine. I stretch and feel a very solid, very furry chest next to me. Fuck.
Last night we’d been laughing and running through rainy alleyways together, of course neither of us wanted to trek all the way back to his apartment in the midst of that.
My mouth is drier than the Sahara and a steady pounding bangs against my temples. He and I had to stop living like two people who are young and have the stamina to stay up late and fuck like we did last night. I can’t handle sleepless nights at twenty eight the same way I could at eighteen. And from the slight aching between my legs I can’t handle that kind of sex multiple times in a single night.
He stirs a bit, still sound asleep. I can’t wake him. There’d be no point now, it’s light enough out that people in my building would be moving about, and he is incredibly difficult to move without making a scene.
One of his arms is crookedly laid across the top of my pillows. He started his night curled up into a tight ball and wound up splaying out throughout his slumber. There’s an open spot now directly up against his chest, and I gleefully insert myself into it.
He grunts a little at the presence of my body against his, then lowers his arm until it wraps around me. I drape my own arm across his chest and burrow myself into his side.
The dull headache and creeping nausea are keeping me from falling back asleep, so I watch him. I realize this is the first time I’ve seen him in true sunlight. His realm has a wonderful artificial lighting system, it just lacks the subtleties and nuances of the natural sun.
This entire time I’d assumed his fur was a solid deep brown, and now I notice a current of a red undertone to it. It’s a sweet flash of warmth over his entire body, like little flames within are hiding under that thick coat of his. Absentmindedly, my fingers stroke the fur on his ribcage. That purring noise radiates from his chest and vibrates against me. I glance up at his face and notice a lazy smile has spread across it. It’s a bold assumption to believe that I’m the one making him smile like that in his sleep, but with Maddox I don’t have a singular question about it.
My nausea finally quelled and I’d settled back into sleep for a few more moments when a loud groan wakes me up again. Maddox’s arms loop around me and tighten as they flex and stretch. I all but vanish beneath his fur and muscles. I push his floppy forearm off my face.
“We’ve fucked up here, huh,” a groggy voice whispers in my ear. My core slowly heats.
“It seems like you might be trapped for the day,” I turn and face him. “Unless you think you might want to make a run for it?”
“If I have to choose between sneaking down to the grimy basement in broad daylight or spending the day here with you, there’s really no contest as to what I’m gonna pick.” He stretches again across my mattress, narrowly missing punching me in the face in the process. I duck away from his flailing limbs and he pulls me back in with a gruff laugh.
“How do orange ginger scones and maple sausage and eggs sound as an apology?”
“Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more in love with you,” he moans contentedly, “but I want an appetizer.” His eyes narrow into something feral and wild .
I pretend to fight him flipping me over and relent all too quickly. Maddox spreads my legs with a haste that wouldn’t lead you to believe he’d been asleep a few moments ago. Wearing only an oversized t-shirt makes for incredibly easy access. He pushes the cotton up to my breasts and kisses the bare skin of my stomach. His scent mixes with the smell of my detergent lingering on my sheets. Each of his kisses sends stars to my eyes, his lips are soft and spread so perfectly across my skin. They’re supple, and warm, and contrast beautifully with the sharp fangs lingering behind them, the fangs that just barely graze my pores.
He moves down to my thighs, hoisting each of my calves over his shoulders as he continues sucking and kissing. My name slips out of him in needy moans, muffled as he presses his muzzle against my skin. The hum of his voice vibrates against me, and I feel my core heating and opening for him.
A long lap from a rough tongue spreads me open and I push my hips off the bed to press myself into his mouth. His fingers grip into my thighs, each of his claws press into divots of my skin that have already been claimed as his own.
I grind into him, urging his tongue deeper and deeper into me, begging him to practically devour me.
“Maddox, please, I need—” I whine, and he growls in reply, rumbling throughout my entire being. He moves a hand to circle a finger around my clit, and it sends me over the edge entirely. I crash over him, trembling and shaking and whining like it’s the first time he’s touched me.
“I’ll give you everything you need,” he mutters when he emerges from between my legs. “Everything you need, everything you want. Hell, I’d give up oxygen for you, Sigrid.”
I rest the back of my arm against my brow, still dripping with want and twitching from the orgasm he’s given me. “Being a little dramatic, no?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he crawls beside me again, “Is my willingness to suffocate between your legs off limits now? ”
“You know what I mean,” I trail my hand up and down his face. Spending the entire morning here, in my bed, with him, with the sunlight warming us is nothing short of a dream. But his stomach grumbles incredibly loudly, and I feel a similar hunger in my gut.
I plant a kiss on his forehead and slide out of bed. “You can grab a shower while I make breakfast, but be warned, it’s a little less spacious than yours and my products cost about a quarter of what yours do.”
“Is that a subtle way of telling me I smell?” He spreads himself across my mattress in my absence. Seeing him in my bed, in my apartment, feels so natural. Even though the bed is too small, the sheets aren’t strong enough to withstand his claws, and my door frames are barely wide enough for him.
“Like a fucking wild animal,” I tug at his ear and whisper closely, he flips me off and then raises his arm to verify my comment.
As I’m cleaning up from our late breakfast, there’s a pounding on my door. Maddox slowly raises from the couch, “should I go hide out somewhere?” He asks quietly, I nod as he crosses the living room and vanishes off somewhere.
I walk to the door to check the peephole, Margo is standing in the hallway, tapping her foot in frustration. She barges in the moment I unlock the door. “Oh so you’re not dead or dismembered, you’re just ignoring me,” she says flippantly.
My phone sits on my kitchen table, when I grab it I see countless messages and calls from Margo spread throughout the morning. “Sorry I’ve been…distracted…today. Is everything ok?”
“I mean, yes everything is fine, there’s a surprise show at the warehouse tonight and rumors that it’s going to be—wait.” She stops dead in her tracks in my living room.
“What?” I ask.
“He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Who?” I play dumb.
“The mystery guy? The one you are so coy about for whatever reason. Holy shit, you’ve been hiding out with him all day here, haven’t you?”
“No…” Something clatters in the bathroom, of all the places for Maddox to hide out he chose the tiniest.
“Oh my god, he is here,” she’s practically giddy with this information, bouncing up and down in delight nearly.
I shuffle my feet nervously, I could easily kick her out. Maybe that’s the best option here, but she’d be pissed. She’s my best friend, and the least subtle person I know. She will quite literally never let it go if I shoo her out the door now.
This meeting would be inevitable, right? I can’t keep dating Maddox without him meeting a single person in my life. And Margo may arguably be the most important one. She watched me sob at my desk for a full day after the Perrie breakup, she deserves to meet the one who’s brought me back to the version of myself I used to be.
I mean, sure, I’ve considered broaching the subject with Margo. There were a few instances where I’ve casually brought it up by saying, “remember when we talked about our ‘hear me outs’ and I named that one animated character?” Only for her to chuckle about it and mention Casper the Friendly Ghost again.
Maybe I could have shown her a picture of him and soft-launched it to her. Had I pulled her aside and flipped my phone around to show his gleaming white fangs and fur covered build would it have been easier?
None of it matters now. Because she’s in my apartment and Maddox is also in my apartment and two worlds are converging in a way that’s incredibly terrifying .
For a while I still had the benefit of playing up the anxiety of a new relationship, though this is the most secure I’d felt with anyone, ever. All the waffling, all the anxiety, poof, gone. Like it never existed to begin with.
“He is,” I inhale to prepare myself for the big reveal. “Listen, there’s something that you need to understand about him—” she’s already walking towards the bathroom, hand poised to knock.
“Margo,” I say firmly. I don’t know the protocol here, I don’t know if I should bring it all out in the open or let it come out slowly. She’s moving faster than my brain can catch up.
“Ugh, what?” She puts her hands on her hips.
“Listen to me, I need you to be really, really normal about this. And not freak out, ok?”
“Wait, oh my god, is he a celebrity?”
“No,” I anxiously rub my brows with my fingers.
“Then what’s there to freak out about?”
“His name is Maddox.”
“Ok, hot.”
“And he is…” the decision has been made for me. The bathroom door swings open and Maddox sheepishly sticks his head out, Margo’s mouth forms into a scream and I quickly run over and cover her face from behind.
“I told you not to freak out,” I say.
“Hi,” Maddox stiffly waves as he exits the bathroom and lifts his arm behind his head. “I’m Maddox. Also, Sigrid I, uh, broke your soap dispenser.” He offers a half smile in hopes of easing the situation, at present a broken thrifted soap dispenser is the least of my worries.
I lower my hand from Margo’s mouth, her eyes are wide and dart between him and I.
“You’re a…”
“Monster, beast, creature of the night, et cetera. Yes. And you’re the Margo I’ve heard so much about,” he grins widely and extends his hand. She just stares at it. I see the wheels turning in her head. Maybe this mystery made at least a little sense in the end.
“Margo?” I ask cautiously. Her eyes have nearly glazed over from staring in disbelief.
She gestures to him. “What the fuck, this is the mystery guy? The one that you’ve been sneaking around with?”
“Well, yeah, it’s a delicate situation,” I walk to Maddox and he wraps his arm around me.
“No, shit!” She exclaims.
My brows furrow. “Are you going to be cool about this or do I have to ask you to leave?”
“Sorry, right, where are my manners?” She reaches her hand out to recoup the shirked handshake from before, “Margo Savine, it’s a…pleasure.” She twitches a bit when his hand meets hers, Maddox pretends to not notice.
I turn to Maddox, “are your friends going to be this weird?”
“Weirder, probably,” he chuckles and pulls me in a little closer.
“Sorry!” Margo waves her hands and stammers to defend herself. “I’m obviously a little baffled, and are you always this…shirtless?”
He and I both look down at his bare chest and I part from him to scramble to find his shirt. After searching through the tangled mess of sheets in my room I return with his balled up white tee. I toss it to him and he nervously fumbles it over himself. It’s wrinkled from drying balled up on my floor, but it’s certainly a better alternative to his very bare chest. Not that I’d minded that view.
Just like everything with Maddox, it only takes a few minutes for it to become comfortable. Any unease that Margo had before washes away as she talks to Maddox more. The two of them are similar in their mannerisms. He loves Taylor Swift almost as much as she does. “Green flag!” She exclaims when she finds this out.
Margo asks if him and his realm being real means ghosts are real. Which Maddox and I respond to at the same time with a resounding “no.”
I watch her fall in love with him. Not in the same way I have, of course. It’s obvious that she sees him for who he is, and for what he’s done to me.
More bricks have been removed from the imaginary tower I used to hide in. Daylight has broken through and I think I’m fully feeling the sun again.
“Upon closer inspection, you’re right, he is strangely hot,” Margo says when he’s stepped out of the room, “and he’s really good for you, I can tell that much.” I watch him move about in the kitchen, another quiet glimpse of a domestic life I can’t wait for he and I to share.
“Good doesn’t even begin to cover it.”