Page 8 of Daddy’s Muse (Bloody Desires #12)

Bodin

My bunny looked so precious fast asleep. My gods had given me such a perfect gift.

Curled on his side, one hand tucked beneath his cheek, his breath soft and even, Colby looked impossibly young and heartbreakingly sweet.

The flickering glow from his desk lamp—left on, perhaps out of habit, or maybe even fear—cast warm shadows over his face, outlining the delicate slant of his nose, the dainty auburn lashes that fanned against his pale skin, and the tiny creases at the corner of his mouth from the way he’d bitten his lip earlier in the day.

I stood at the foot of his bed, just watching.

After observing him at the library, I followed him at a distance, the way I always did.

He’d walked slower than usual, dragging his feet just a little, his head low beneath the weight of whatever sadness clung to him tonight.

I wanted to assure him that his cockroach of a roommate wouldn’t be bothering him tonight, but he would find that out soon enough.

I hadn’t been at the library the entire time.

While Colby was busy with his studies, I had been busy taking care of him .

The sound Bryan’s bones made when they met the edge of the stairwell—crisp, final—still echoed in my mind from earlier.

His keys had been warm in my palm, damp from where he’d fallen.

A quick trip to the hardware store, and then I left his original keys near the site of his fall, keeping the duplicates close to my chest. I’d arrived at the library about an hour before Colby ended up leaving.

I waited a few hours for him to fall asleep, then slipped into the dorm building through a side door that was propped open, and cautiously used the duplicate room key to unlock Colby and Bryan’s room.

I carefully checked without fully opening the door to make sure Colby was in bed before silently entering and closing it behind me.

I was so close that I could’ve reached out and tucked a stray curl behind his ear, or brushed the back of my fingers along the line of his jaw.

But I didn’t. I wouldn’t; not tonight—although it was really fucking tempting.

Instead, I knelt. Slowly, reverently. The floor beneath his bed was dusty, but I didn’t mind. I pressed my palm to the wood slats, grounding myself. Reaching into the small pouch at my hip, I withdrew the offering I’d prepared at home.

Birch bark, carved with runes for protection and death-warding, wrapped with red thread soaked in my own blood. Beside it, a sliver of obsidian, black as the night outside.

I whispered the words in Old Norse, low and fluid, letting them drip from my mouth like warm honey. Ancient, holy syllables. I felt the shift in the room—the slight pulling of air, the pressure in my chest—as the runes accepted their charge.

No curse would touch him here. No wandering spirit, no cruel thought. Even his nightmares would hesitate before crossing this threshold.

I placed the offering gently beneath the bed, then rose to my feet.

Colby murmured something in his sleep and turned over, brow faintly furrowed. The blanket slipped down, revealing the curve of his neck and the delicate line of his collarbone.

My hands tightened at my sides.

He doesn’t know you’re here. He mustn’t know.

Not yet.

But the time would come. Soon.

He would see me again—maybe in the library, maybe at the diner he worked at—and he would smile the way he had before—sweet and unaware. My little hare, darting through the woods without knowing that the forest itself loved him.

I turned away at last, stepping back into the shadowed corner of the room. One last glance over my shoulder. One last drink of the sight of him—warm, whole, protected.

I slipped out as quietly as I’d entered, locking the door behind me.

* * *

I checked on Bryan at the hospital, inconspicuously walking past his room to glance quickly through the glass window on the door. I couldn’t simply ask staff about his condition, so I gathered as much information as I could via observation.

He was on a ventilator. Perfect.

I’d expected a broken bone or two, but he had to have some severe injury to be in his current state. Maybe he had hit his head. Actually—let me rephrase— hopefully , he had hit his head.

Colby would be alone in his dorm for a while, free from his bully.

I took advantage of his roommate’s absence by visiting him every night as he slept.

Each visit was easier than the one before. The shadows in Colby’s room welcomed me like an old friend now, the dorm walls thick with my presence, my protection.

Tonight, the coat I’d left him the day we’d met back in December was bundled beneath his cheek like a pillow, his fingers loosely gripping the sleeve.

My chest ached with something I couldn’t name. It felt tight and unfamiliar.

He didn’t know how safe he was—how deeply and utterly guarded.

Once I was certain he was deep asleep, I allowed myself to move from the wall.

The air was still, heavy with the scent of laundry detergent and the faint vanilla of his shampoo.

I stepped to his desk, glancing at the neat stack of books and color-coded notebooks, each one labeled in a tidy scrawl.

He worked so hard. I’d seen the dark circles under his eyes grow over the last few weeks.

The stress etched into his too slender frame like a slow, bitter poison.

I hated that for him.

I needed to know more. To see what else weighed on him.

My eyes fell on his phone, face down beside his pillow.

I hesitated for only a moment.

With the gentleness of a lover, I lifted it and held it to his face. The screen lit up. Unlocked.

My fingers trembled slightly as I stepped back toward the desk, cradling the phone in my palm. I scrolled through his apps. Messages first.

Most were from classmates. Reminders about due dates. Questions about tutoring. Nothing personal. Nothing intimate. My sweet boy was alone even in his inbox.

There were some threads from his grandparents—loving, simple exchanges. His grandmother had sent a picture of a pie she’d baked. He’d replied with three heart emojis and “I miss you.”

A sharp pang went through me.

I moved to his photos next. He didn’t take many selfies. Mostly pictures of the raccoons on campus, the view from his dorm window, and coffee cups with foam hearts. There were a few of his tutoring notes. He’d also saved a blurry shot of a cat that must have wandered near the library steps.

And then—me.

Not clearly. Not directly. But I was in the background of one of his library shots. Out of focus. Framed by shadow. But unmistakable.

I stared at it for a long time, my thumb frozen over the screen.

So he had noticed me.

Or maybe not fully—not consciously, yet. But something inside him recognized me and pulled me into the lens, into the frame. That meant something.

It had to.

I closed the app and returned the phone to its place beside his pillow.

Then I moved toward his closet. I didn’t touch much—just looked. He was tidy, as expected. His clothing was soft and worn, mostly secondhand. None of it felt like him.

I returned to the foot of his bed and knelt once more. I reached into my pouch and retrieved a new rune—Berkano, the birch goddess, for healing and shelter. I whispered the stave’s name as I placed it beneath the mattress.

“You’re doing so well,” I murmured at him, the words barely audible over the steady hum of the heater. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. I’m going to take care of you.”

My fingers grazed the edge of his blanket before I forced myself to stand.

I would not wake him. Not yet.

I had time.

Time to watch, to learn, and to let him draw closer to me on his own.

The gods had led me to him for a reason. The dreams hadn’t been lies, and every night I spent in his room without him waking up and catching me proved it.

Colby belonged to me.

He just didn’t know it yet.

I clenched my jaw as I quietly left his room. It was becoming increasingly difficult to resist the urge to reach out and touch.

I desperately wanted to map every inch of his body with my lips, to paint his body with my blood and cum, and drown him in unimaginable pleasure.

But he was such a fragile thing, and I worried that going too fast would break him.

He needed to be tended to, not torn open. Nurtured like a sapling just beginning to stretch toward the sun after seasons of shadow.

I stood outside his door for a long moment after it closed behind me, just staring at the number stenciled on the wood.

As soon as it was possible, I would be moving him out of this dorm.

Obviously, it wasn’t very safe if no one had questioned why a full-grown man kept coming and going from his room in the middle of the night.

No one had taken care of him properly in years, maybe his entire life.

But I would.

I would learn what foods soothed him when he was anxious, what music made him hum under his breath, what colors he liked to wear, even if he rarely got to choose.

I’d already started.

The woman who worked the early shift at the diner said he took his coffee with hazelnut creamer and too much sugar.

One of the young cashiers working at the nearby dollar store had told me that sometimes Colby would buy a bag of caramels as a treat, but that normally he was buying granola bars and sports drinks.