Paragon - Chapter 57: Chapter 57

There was an unmarked package waiting at the foot of the door.
I ignored it entirely and carried Quinn into the living room. I carefully placed her on the large L sofa before going back for all the medical supplies in the car. An IV line for a few hours with solution would balance what she'd lost. Whatever the hell Paragon had left at my door could go to hell tonight.
It took me only a few minutes to get the line into her arm and leave her dreaming on the sofa.
I paced silently. When that wasn't enough I stormed to the front of the house and tore open the package. A phone slid into my hand reminding me of how my time was borrowed. I took a fair share of my control not to shatter it in my hand. They would only send me another less politely.
I decided on throwing it onto the kitchen counter and taking watch over Quinn in the corner of the room. The moonlight hit the sand outside us brightly. Her slow breathing kept me sane and her steady pulse kept me from breaking something.
In many ways it was like the first time.
Everything was so red. Nothing held its colour and every pulse was prey. I didn't know how I survived my wounds from that shell–yet here I was. Painted in blood and standing over a dozen of the mortals in the medical wing of a war that was over. They cheered beyond the tents completely oblivious. The noise meant little to me.
The pure desire for the rich lifeblood was the only thing.
I wasn't even wounded. Every sip from their necks made everything sharper, clearer–better. I inhaled deeply and the burning was no longer as bad. The red in my vision was fading. A voice spoke calmly above everything else invading my senses.
I snarled and whirled on it ready to defend my bounty.
"Now, now Stella... That's no way to address your elder."
I crouched low over the nearest body and dragged it behind me. The dark eyed man chuckled once without bothering to note the carnage around me.
"Believe me. I have no interest in that."
I made to swipe at the well dressed man but he moved faster than I could even form the next reaction. He was behind me. I swiped again and he was in front of me.
"I'm losing patience, Ms Matthews."
Another unintelligible sound left me before he tucked his hands behind him and glanced at his pocket watch.
"Meet me in London when you have control over yourself and you want to make sense of the world. I shall be at Bank station every day when the sun is highest."
That was the last thing my mentor had spoken to me for many months before I did indeed control myself. In those times deaths were not noted well after the war. News traveled slowly and blending in was a far simpler affair. He was much more pleased to note that it did not take me too long to find my senses again and return to London months after.
But as I would come to realise from his tutelage. I was a quick study.
He was an unforgiving bastard. But to this day I was glad it was him and not any other that had turned me. The man did not grant you an easy path into immortality–but that is why his immortals were the sharpest and the best. Only a few that I know of from his linage had fallen. Now that he himself had chosen to leave the world I felt at a loss sitting here in the dark.
I felt like I had betrayed his name by giving in so completely.
"Again!"
I gasped and fell to my knees shaking my head.
"I cannot."
"But you will." He retorted simply.
I dragged my red tinted gaze up to him with all the agony I felt. I may as well have suggested the napkins for supper for all the effect it had on his unbreaking gaze.
"If you want to quit, immortal. I can quicken the process for you."
He often drawled out different ways he would end my existence permanently like this when his patience was drawing close. I shut my eyes and snarled into my sharpened teeth.
"Yes! A little more vigour please!" He cawed with a white gloved clap before waving forward two more immortals at me. They smiled at each other knowing how this would end. But I had felt something snap in me. The months of beatings and lack of blood had driven my mind to a faraway place. When the first hit came I decided it would be the last.
My mentor rose from his chair for once in shock. Yet it was only an eyebrow raise.
The fight had lasted all of fifteen seconds.
Two immortals lay on the dirt floor of the training room unmoving.
Their heads severed from their bodies. I rolled my shoulders slowly and with all the grace of a street cat, I bowed to him deeply. For I knew my retribution would be beyond brutal for this. I had killed immortals. Rare and unbreakable as they should be. I had ended them in training. Now I would pay–
A loud laugh made me flinch out of my bow.
It was the first time I had ever heard that elder laugh. Yet he was bent over double on the balcony at the scene before him.
Then the clapping started.
"And to think I had chosen a dud..." He mused, dabbing a tearless eye. "Oh, Cordius. You have chosen a useless wretch they said. Bah!" He threw a hand wide. "Only when you are cornered do you truly see what you are made of. Do you give in to the end or do you break everything before you to write your own end?" He mused, smiling at me.
I remained wisely silent.
I received my first Paragon made suit that day.
Many other things followed. I not only passed my introduction into immortality but I obliterated the expectations. The word spread among the elites that two of Cordius' own had been broken by new blood. Unheard of. She is barely minted and has the strength of mature blood. We always knew there was potential–some claimed. Imagine what she will do with the correct teaching. An elite before her 200th year?
But my mentor said nothing to the others. There were no words necessary.
Cordius trained the best. He made the best. I would bring honour to his line. I would be one of the greatest assets Paragon ever had.
And I would throw it all away in one hundred years for a mortal lawyer named Quinn Adams. Hind sight was an amusing thing.
* * * * *
The phone illuminated at exactly midnight.
Paragon just couldn't resist a summons at the strike of midnight could they... I thought, humourless.
I watched Quinn's breathing move her chest for a few more minutes before standing. It wasn't anxiety or fear that clouded my mind as I loomed over the counter where it lay. Just the empty hole I felt coming now that I knew I would be away from her for an undisclosed amount of time.
A simple message opened upon my touch.
Nigeria.
Flight details attached.
Leave the girl.
I resisted a snarl at the patronising summary they attributed to a woman worth ten of each of them.
I had never intended to take Quinn anywhere near this work—and they knew it—but it was a backhanded jab. A reminder of their distain that a mortal was even in the cards at all.
"Come here."
I flinched out of my rage and whirled on her. A small smile played on her lips as she stretched her back like a cat and not a woman that had lost too much blood for a night.
"Quinn—how long—you're—"
She rolled her eyes as I tripped over more than words and lowered the phone. She didn't bother to glance at it. In fact she seemed to ignore the lurking future entirely and pointed to the sofa deliberately.
A palmed my face and exhaled heavily.
Then tossed the phone out of sight and strode to her. I dropped to a knee before her and left my hands on my knee to watch her intently.
"Get off your knees you're not marrying me yet." She deadpanned.
I choked on shock and a laugh at the madness of the idea. It was such an Adams comment after all.
"Would you prefer a courtroom marriage?" I drawled, schooling my features into calm.
She raised an eyebrow in challenge.
"A beach, actually. I have no patience for stuffy rooms or churches."
"Good. I think I'd combust into flames in a church—"
"Fletcher, just come here." She sighed, interrupting me and dragging my neck towards her. I complied and climbed around her carefully. I wrapped my arm across her stomach and drew her back in close. Her body relaxed into me and she thread her fingers through my own to press them to her chest.
"I know you won't let me apologise but—"
"So there's not much point in starting with one." She uttered seriously.
I moved my lips to brush the back of her neck slowly. She shuddered briefly against me before her breathing returned to normal.
"I was too far gone."
"You were amazing."
I froze. Then stared at the side of her face in the darkness.
"I'd use a different description."
She smiled ahead of her.
"I know. But it's true. I have to wonder how much it took from you—how much you had to endure just to get those people out. It's becoming much more clear to me that you're not indestructible Fletcher." She finished with a hint of accusation in her voice.
I flexed our fingers before resuming my tracing of her neck with my mouth. But it didn't distract her entirely. She wanted that answer.
As always.
"Fine."
She held her breath waiting.
"The blood keeps us as we are. Unbreakable. Strong. Ageless. When we ask too much of immortality—it needs a price. It will take that from us or the blood."
"So, all this time—these things could get you killed when you don't have enough..." She got out more strangled than anything else I've told her in months.
"I prepare enough." I said flatly, thinking of the chrome packets and then the mistakes when that wasn't possible.
"This is just perfect." She muttered, releasing my hand and the breath in her lungs.
"At least I'm not mortal." I quipped, smiling into her neck. But Quinn was in no mood for it and pulled herself away from my grip making me frown. She sat up in the darkness and pushed her hair back with a hand.
"It's fine, Quinn—"
"No, Fletcher. It's not. I know what that fucking phone over there means."
My blood cooled. Then I rolled off the sofa and sat silently beside her.
"It's this or... Or there is no us at all." I whispered, staring ahead of us.
"I know." She answered low.
I turned to look at her. Those intelligent eyes ran thoughts through her mind with no quick answer. I wanted to give her an easy one. How much I wanted to give her an easy life with me.
"Tell me what to do, Quinn."
Her lips twitched in a humourless smile. Her eyes devoid of the emotion.
"Make me a monster and we can both be soulless in some remote corner of the globe."
I waited.
But the emotion still didn't enter her eyes.
She met my own silently and I couldn't answer that sentence. Because it was too damn tempting. It was too damn real and possible. How could they stop us if we were both as lethal and unbreakable. As beautiful and intelligent. What would any of it matter if we had nothing but 24 hours of being together with no limits.
"Sometimes I think I will just stop saying no to that." I murmured.
She didn't break my gaze. But finally cracked a genuine smile that reached her eyes. I returned it with nothing but moonlight on half my face.
"You're a terrible liar, detective."
"Only around you it seems."
She grabbed my jaw and suddenly kissed me. I shut my eyes and focused on how she shaped her lips around mine. She drew back an inch and kissed me slower. Brushing her fingers up the sides of my face as she did. It was the most careful and intimate kiss she'd ever given me.
"Stop saying goodbye." I growled, pulling back from her.
"I'm not saying anything." She murmured lightly around my lips.
I stopped her next assault with my thumb. Her green irises watched me intently, suddenly more alert than the subtle calmness she kissed me with.
"You're going tomorrow aren't you."
I didn't reply. I didn't need to.
I couldn't read the next emotion on her face. But whatever it was, she hid it quickly. Because the next thing she said made all the analytical parts of me stop functioning.
"One night. No holding back." She stated, flickering between my eyes and holding tightly to both sides of my face.
If I had warm blood it would heat.
We had already crossed the darkest threshold. I had tasted the lifeblood singing in her veins and come back from it. I could come back from desire for her... couldn't I.
Could I?