Page 5 of Daddy’s Muse (Bloody Desires #12)

Bodin

He spoke to me. He smiled at me.

The moment was still suspended in my chest like a breath I hadn’t yet released. His voice still echoed around my head, soft and melodic, beautiful.

He had stood behind the counter at the diner, hair slightly mussed from his work, and seen me. I had been close enough to see the faint constellation of freckles dotted across his nose. I wondered if he knew the power that lay in the innocence he exuded and the calmness his words brought on in me.

This was progress. I had spent months learning his patterns, walking just behind his life like a shadow cast by no sun.

I knew the routes he traveled on his way to his classes, to his dorm, to the diner, and to the library where he tutored other students.

I knew the way he likes to sit with his knees drawn up when he reads alone under the trees near Woodburn Circle.

I knew the way he always chewed his straws when he was nervous, and that his smile could be either hesitant or unabashed.

I already knew him better than any of his regular acquaintances.

But earlier was the first moment I had actually existed inside his world. I was not a ghost. I was a man sitting directly in front of him, conversing with him.

I decided, as I had left the diner, that I would make another sacrifice tonight. I would thank the old ones for this small mercy, this quiet turning of the tide—this gift.

Let others rot in the earth.

Let the bones pile high in the hills behind me.

He had no idea the shadows bent for him now. No idea that I had traced his name in Elder Futhark on birch bark and soaked the runestave in my own hot blood so that every lurking and insidious thing in this town would leave him alone.

After the first time I had seen him that night he’d slept outside in the snow, I’d begun to keep an eye on him. It had started with just watching him for a few minutes here and there. Just to see if I could figure out what his purpose was in my life.

After two weeks of the answer eluding me, I concluded that whatever his true purpose was, it was crystal clear that he would never be prey. And with him being so small, so weak, so helpless , I became sure that I was supposed to protect him.

Once I got home from the diner, I lit the black-salt candles and laid out the offerings: a crow’s feather for sight unseen, a twist of yew for death deferred, and a fragment of quartz to hold the boy’s light.

I smiled as I thought of the last man whose begging had turned shrill within these same walls only a few nights ago.

Colby would never know of the things I’d done for him.

He was too pure for my darkness, my desires.

I hadn’t planned to get close to him; in fact, I had initially wanted to stay far away while still watching over him.

But I was selfish, and that’s why I’d gone into the diner, knowing he’d be working. I figured that talking to him for a little bit would quell my thirst, and then I’d be able to continue my work from the shadows.

Now that I’d gone and done it, though, I was worried that it had only made my thirst infinitely stronger. I wanted more of him. More talking, more times when I could see each individual hair on his head, more sweet smiles, and flushed cheeks.

He reminded me of a baby bunny—a kit.

Kits can die of fright if a wolf so much as brushes the grass beside them.

The thought knotted itself around my ribs as I set the yew branch to smolder and watched the smoke curl like serpents toward the rafters.

One misstep, one careless surge of hunger, and the warding runes I cradled him with would turn to binding chains instead.

Tomorrow, before dawn, I would leave a tithe outside the diner’s back door—three juniper berries strung on red thread, Algiz burnt into the knot.

Harmless, pretty, and easily dismissed as some Appalachian charm.

If he pockets it, the protection will deepen; if he throws it away, no harm done.

That is how I must move: small, almost invisible ripples.

I could return during his slow hours, feigning confusion with the menu so he leans closer, allowing his sleeve to brush mine, just to feel the warmth of him without taking anything more.

Conversation should be safe, as long as I don’t push any boundaries.

Yet I know that the closer I stand to his light, the darker my own edges will feel.

I wanted him to graduate, find a place where the sun stays long on his shoulders and feeds his freckles, maybe even find a lover, and never learn about what I’ve done. And as much as I wanted to join him in that life, I worried about tainting his innocence.

Sighing heavily, I left my altar and ambled towards the bathroom.

After turning the shower faucet to the hot setting, I stripped and stepped under the spray of water.

As I soaped up, I thought of how Colby would view my body.

I was considerably larger than he was in every way.

Maybe he’d appreciate our size difference?

I shook those thoughts away as quickly as they came, not wanting lust to get the best of me.

I scowled down at my hard cock. I wasn’t against jerking one out, I did it all the time, but I knew if I tried now, someone’s face would come to mind, someone’s sweet doe eyes and pouty lips. So instead, I turned the faucet to cold and focused on washing, willing my erection to wilt.

* * *

I went about the next few days as usual, staying out of Colby’s sight as I periodically checked in on him.

He’d taken the tithe I’d left outside the diner the other day. I was starting to wish I’d recorded his reaction, because it just wasn’t the same replaying it in my head.

He’d almost stepped on it, only noticing it as his foot was off the ground. He’d stepped back, tilted his head a little, and knelt to pick it up. His lips had made a precious o-shape as he turned it in his fingers, and then he’d said to himself, “Whoa, I wonder if a bird left this here?”

He’d smiled brightly and carefully placed the small offering into his coat pocket before unlocking the back door and stepping inside to start his shift.

The next few days seemed to have gone okay for him as far as I could tell. It was apparent how tired he was, but his classes were going well, and he hadn’t had any issues at work.

I had been cutting through the alley behind his dorm building when I’d heard his voice. Muffled. Uneven. The kind of voice you only make when you’re trying not to cry but failing. I froze where I was, sharpening my ears to hear what was going on.

“You don’t pay for anything, so shut up and be grateful you’re even here , ” someone snapped harshly. A familiar voice. It took only a few seconds for me to place it.

Colby’s fucking roommate.

“I’m sorry,” Colby quietly murmured.

I crept closer, seeing that he was half-shadowed beneath the hazy blue glow of the security light outside the side entrance to the dorm.

He stood with his shoulders curled inward, spine bent like a child about to be punished.

Across from him, the roommate—Bryan or Brendan or B-something—I was sure it started with a B—towered over him, arms crossed and voice laced with smug cruelty.

“You think you’re smarter than everyone else just because you tutor losers all day?” he sneered. “Maybe if you spent less time acting like a kicked dog, people wouldn’t walk all over you.”

Colby didn’t say anything. Just stood there, clutching the strap of his withered backpack like it might keep him from breaking apart entirely.

I couldn’t believe that I’d forgotten about his roommate. A pest was gnawing at the foundation of the life he was trying so desperately to build, and I’d allowed it to continue.

That would change.

I waited until his roommate had disappeared back inside, watching as Colby lingered a moment longer, wiping his sleeve across his eyes, head bowed. He then turned and walked toward the library, alone, smaller than I’d ever seen him.

I followed him silently, frustrated at myself.

I’d been too focused on observing from a distance, making sure he stayed safe from me, when what he needed… was more .

It clicked into place in my head: he needed me. Not just in the shadows, but actually in his life, walking beside him, making him smile.

Colby was trying to carry everything on his own, and clearly, no one around him was doing anything to help.

I clenched my hands in my coat pockets, my pace steady as I tailed him toward the library.

What kind of gods allowed this kind of suffering to go on unnoticed?

No. They hadn’t. I could not doubt them and their ways.

For the past few months, I’d understood that they had put him in my life, although I kept questioning the why .

Jaevla idiotisk. Fucking idiotic.

He was mine, of course.

Not just mine to watch over from a distance.

But my fated.

And I was meant to end his suffering. That was why they had presented him to me.

Colby had gotten into college on his own merit. He worked himself raw. He said “thank you” even when people were cruel, and “I’m sorry” when they didn’t deserve it. That boy needed someone willing to bleed for him.

I watched him disappear into the library as I remained across the street in the shadow of a vacant building, heart beating slow but steady, like something ancient and certain was moving inside me.

Maybe it was the gods. Maybe it was just instinct.

Either way, it was time to shift the current.

I couldn’t just watch anymore, especially not when I now knew what he was to me. I’d been careful—so careful—about staying on the fringe of his life, about not touching anything too directly.

There wouldn’t only be more anonymous offerings left like breadcrumbs for him to smile at from now on.

Instead, there would be gentle weight lifted from his shoulders, unseen favors, accidents bending in his favor, and protection he didn’t even realize was being paid for in blood and devotion.

When the time came, I’d introduce myself properly.

But not yet.

Not until he was ready.

For now, I’d simply begin building the life he deserved—starting with the slow dismantling of the things that hurt him. And maybe, just maybe, he’d come to understand that some people weren’t here to use him or break him.

Some of us were made to keep him.