Please note: THIS STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGH THE END OF THE MIME ORDER.
AU that spins off a year or so before the events of The Bone Season begin. HUGE SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING THROUGH THE END OF THE MIME ORDER. Wild conjecture about a great many things.
I have written other stories in this fandom which exceed the ratings levels that allows. If you want to see those stories, they are available at Archive Of Our Own.
It took years to find him, the coward who traded all the lives in Sheol I for his own freedom. Arcturus had sworn, as his former betrothed flayed his physical form, that he would have his revenge. He would avenge every last Ranthen who died under the Sargas tyranny. He would avenge the humans who were sacrificed so callously by one of their own.
It appeared that Jaxon Hall had learned well while kissing the feet of Nashira Sargas. The White Binder had the potential to actually beat the bitch at her own game. As voraciously as Nashira's bone-grubbers hunted voyants, Jaxon Hall bound them under the dubious protection of his blackened wings. Hall had written the pamphlet, of that, Arcturus was certain. On the Merits of Unnaturalness striated the human voyant population more effectively than decades of Scion's persecution. Hall learned from Nashira how to separate the amaranth from the chaff, how to hold the precious close and achieve dominion on the backs of the forgotten.
Jaxon Hall's betrayal cost Arcturus dearly. It cost him everything. The Warden of the Mesarthim was a blood-traitor, hunted by the Sargas. He was forced to hide from his fellow Rephaim, to hide from Scion. He was forced to beg amaranth from the few Ranthen who survived the culling. He was denied the Netherworld, forever. He was denied her.
Arcturus had few advantages over Hall, but the one thing he did have was time. He watched Jaxon Hall for years, watched him manipulate and maneuver. He watched him coddle and coerce. He watched him kill. He saw Hall bring new voyants into his fold, shining them up like new jewels. Only to then treat them like slaves who took pride in the quality of their shackles. Arcturus watched Hall parade his Seals right under the nose of Scion, unconcerned with the very mortal danger they faced.
Jaxon Hall was a man without a soul. There was no moral center to his being. But in some ways, that made it so much easier. Like Nashira Sargas, Jaxon Hall betrayed himself in the things he coveted, in the people he coveted. As amused as Hall was with his new Unreadable, and the Unreadable's venomous sibling, there was one Seal whom Hall craved above the rest. His Pale Dreamer.
Arcturus understood why Hall was so enthralled. Jaxon Hall had a storied history of taking his captor's methods and honing them to razor precision. Nashira Sargas had always wanted, and failed to find, a dreamwalker to subjugate. Hall beat Nashira at her own game, and he had no intention of letting his precious jewel fall into other hands. But Hall's little dreamer was reckless, far more reckless than Hall realized. The Pale Dreamer was so very young. Tonight she was in pain. And Hall was oblivious.
It wasn't in Arcturus's nature to be vindictive, but in this case, he would make an exception. Just for Jaxon Hall. Besides, Arcturus was a predator by nature. And Hall's little dreamer would be such sweet prey.
Paige tottered out of the buck cab, unsteady in the ridiculous shoes. She ignored how the biting cold cut through the lace dress. It would be warm enough inside, though she wasn't sure anything could ever melt the ice in the pit of her stomach. The bouncer let her in, eyeing her as she passed.
The flash house was dark and packed with sweating, straining bodies. Most of them were amaurotic, but there was the occasional voyant, like the bartender who narrowed his eyes as she asked for real wine. The idea of dancing her cares away still played heavy on her mind. She wasn't sure it was possible. She had no idea how to dance. But she would try. Anything had to be better than this misery.
She downed the wine quickly and tipped her head for another. She didn't particularly like alcohol, but tonight she would make an exception. Nick was in love. He just wasn't in love with her. And right now, she would do anything to bury that pain and humiliation. She would do anything to be seen. For everything that she was.
Paige was poised to buy another round when a hand stilled her arm. "Hey," he said, with a gleaming white smile. "Can I get this one?"
He was amaurotic, attractive and he had money. Paige nodded. They had a drink together, conversing unevenly over the deafening music. His name was Rueben. He was self-assured and unfettered in ways Paige would never be.
Their glasses were empty, and Paige's heart felt lighter. She let him lead her onto the dance floor. They were surrounded by writhing throngs of amaurotic college students looking for adventure in a rough part of the Citadel.
The amaurotic boy pulled her close, urging her hips to his as they swayed to the driving beat of the music. In heels, she was nearly two inches taller than him, but that made no difference. The alcohol made everything hazy and she didn't even try to concentrate on what he was saying.
This beautiful, sun kissed boy didn't know anything about the inner workings of the mime syndicate. He didn't have to watch out for NVD patrols or spend hours in front of the mirror perfecting his accent. He was free. And he wanted her for no other reason than that she was willing. He didn't know or care that she was a mollisher or a dreamwalker. He didn't owe her anything or need anything from her other than her body.
He tipped her chin and kissed her hard, pressing his tongue past her teeth. He tasted of the wine they'd both consumed. Paige didn't like it. She twisted in his grip, grinding her hips back against his, leaning her head back against him. He didn't seem to mind the change in position as he gripped her hips tighter, as his hands ran up her ribcage and brushed the sides of her breasts.
Paige knew he was touching her. She knew he wanted her. And yet, nothing inside of her responded. The wine made her slow and sluggish, made her more tolerant of his pawing. But for all the freedom she felt in his embrace, she didn't want this.
She shook her head and pushed away, staggering the few steps until she could put her hand out against the wall. Bodies crashed into her, too mindless in their own pursuits of the flesh to even notice she was there. Rueben started to follow and Paige gave a fleeting thought to how she was going to get rid of him - when she realized she didn't have to get rid of him. He was gone. And no one was running into her.
She sensed him long before she looked up. She'd never felt anything like him before, the sheer weight of his dreamscape in the aether. She looked up, and up. Even in heels he still towered over her, no mean feat. She blinked at him, slowly.
He was the most beautiful and terrifying thing she had ever seen.
Arcturus stared down at the girl. Paige. Jaxon Hall's shining jewel. He didn't know what he had expected, but she just blinked up at him. He was reminded of a chol-bird, fearless but curious, able to be compelled, but keeping its own counsel.
He watched as, with great concentration, she reached out and placed her hand against his chest. He watched the sensation hit her, the way her head snapped back slightly, the way her nostrils flared and pupils dilated. Open mouthed, she stared up at him.
"What are you?"
He looked down at her. "That's for you to find out."
The stranger took Paige's hand. He looked like a wealthy Scion denizen, dressed in dark, richly texture fabrics. The exquisitely cut pants, shirt and jacket were undoubtedly bespoke. With those proportions, he couldn't buy something off the rack. Not that she could imagine him in a boutique - or anywhere really, other than this hazy fog that currently swathed her mind.
He drew her deeper into the fray. The writhing bodies parted easily before him. She could feel the beat of her pulse in her hand where they touched. What was he?
She closed her eyes, allowing him to pull her along, following him with only her sixth sense. It wasn't so much following as being pulled toward his gravity. She was a seventh order voyant, one of the rarest and, potentially, most powerful human clairvoyants. She knew other powerful voyants, mime-lords, mime-queens and mollishers. Jax and Nick were among the strongest she knew and even they were flickering matches next to the scorching spotlight of this stranger's wake in the aether.
He found a dark corner and pulled her close. The sheer bulk of his body blocked out most of the rest of the club. She waited, expecting him to pant and paw like the amaurotic boy, but he did not. She looked up at him again and noticed how his eyes glowed faintly yellow.
She was never going to drink alcohol again.
Ever.
Paige Mahoney, Jaxon Hall's mollisher, was tall, but willowy with pale pinky skin flushed from alcohol. She was so different from a Rephaite, in ways he hadn't considered. He'd never been this close to a human. It would have been so easy, in that moment, to hurt her. She was fearless, this one, but scrappy. He understood why Hall spent years grooming her. She was truly a jewel.
"You're not one of Hector's," she said, swaying slightly. Her words slurred.
He shook his head. "No, little dreamer. I am not one of Hector's." Arcturus was aware of Haymarket Hector, the current Under-lord of the Scion citadel of London, but he'd never had reason to interact with the vile creature.
She blinked up at him again and then with great deliberation, touched him again. Her fingers skimmed up his chest, to the open neck of his shirt. Both of their breaths caught as her fingers brushed against the beat of his pulse near the hollow of his throat.
She leaned in closer, pushing herself on tiptoe, swaying against him. Unbidden, his arms wrapped around her, gathering her close. He wasn't prepared for the sensation of touching her - of touching any human. Her flesh was so cold, but he could feel the frantic beat of her pulse so clearly, nearly taste the life burning inside her fragile form.
This was forbidden. Even for an outcast such as himself, touching her - touching any human - was an unthinkable crime. He held her carefully, willing her to sense the danger he presented, willing her to fight.
Her fingertips played over his jaw, drawing his face down. She pressed her cheek to his, rubbing against him. She giggled, a sound he was fairly certain he had never heard her make in all his months of watching.
"Touching you is like touching the aether," she whispered, her voice feather light and filled with wonder.
His eyes fluttered shut. How long had it been since any being had deliberately touched him? How long had it been since any being had spoken to him as if he was something other than rot? He could feel the fierce beat of her heart. He could feel the fire within her.
"I told Jax he was wrong," she said, curling herself against him, tucking her head under his chin.
"Wrong?" he asked.
She made a smug, contented sound, nodding. "My numa," she said. "Jax says dreamwalkers don't have numa, but I do. It's you."
Paige felt him go very still. She pulled away and stared up into his features. He looked more like sculpture than living flesh. Even in the dim light, she could see the metallic sheen of his honey golden skin, the faint light of his irises. His eyes didn't contain colobomas, but she sensed he didn't need them to view the aether. He was the aether.
"What did you say?" he asked, so quietly that she shouldn't have been able to hear him over the music, but she did.
"My numa," she repeated. "You're my numa." Not entirely true. It wasn't like she needed him in order to touch the aether. But being in close proximity certainly helped.
He just stared at her, unblinking.
She smiled. "I'm really drunk."
"I know, little dreamer."
She frowned. "You know who I am."
"And you know who I am," he replied evenly.
Her brow puckered in a frown. She most certainly did not know who he was.
"Your numa," he said evenly.
She giggled again, curling up against his broad chest. He was so very large. It was wonderful. She did tire of towering over men, of having to hunch to spare their precious egos. She took one of his hands in both of hers and studied it. He was unbelievably warm. His knuckles were calloused and his hands were easily twice as large as hers.
She ran her fingers over his scarred knuckles. "These are fighter's hands," she said. Chat had hands like this.
He nodded.
Jaxon Hall groomed this girl for years - a decade at least. The poltergeist attack that springboarded her voyant abilities and Dr. Nygard's serendipitous intervention, both of those reeked of Hall's machinations.
But how could Hall have known? He wasn't an oracle. And it was unlikely that Dr. Nygard, for all of his loyalty to Hall, would knowingly go ahead with a plan to harm a child. No, Jaxon Hall had known about Paige, known about her abilities before they even existed. But what ties could Hall possibly have had to the child, Paige? She hadn't even been born until a year after Jaxon Hall traded hundreds of lives for his freedom from Sheol I. Paige wasn't even -
Arcturus stopped cold and stared down at the girl. She blinked up at him.
"Dabih?"
She frowned. "What?"
He shook his head. "Come, dreamer," he said. "Let's get you home."
They walked along the darkened alleyways, hand in hand, staying to the shadows, away from the prying eye of Scion. Paige didn't sober up, but the novelty of being drunk was waning quickly. She was shivering and without a word, he shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. It looked ridiculous, at least twice too big for her, but it did ward off the chill. Warmth, however, wasn't enough. By the time they hailed a buck cab, her feet were aching and her head was starting to pound.
He took up most of the seat and she slumped against him, feeling decidedly sick. She didn't question when he directed the driver to the Barbican Estate in I-5. She still officially lived there with her father, though she mostly resided at the Den in I-4 with Jax.
The cab hadn't even stopped moving before Paige was stumbling out, retching on her hands and knees in the shrubbery. She knew he was standing there and she wished he would just fuck off. She didn't need an audience for this.
But he didn't fuck off. He was there, helping her to her feet. He handed her a handkerchief, which she accepted wordlessly, using it to wipe her mouth. Her knees buckled and he immediately scooped her into his arms. She felt ridiculous, but she was too sick to care.
Thankfully, Vic was out on rounds when they entered the lobby. Paige really didn't want anybody to see her being carried around like some broken doll by this stranger. He took her keycard from her clammy hand and swiped in.
The apartment, blessedly, was empty. Her father must still be at work. She had no idea how this stranger knew where she lived, but she didn't feel like there was much use in asking. He was clearly a man of few words. And she was rather terrified at the prospect of find out just how much he knew about her.
Besides, if he'd wanted to kill her, it would have been so much easier to dispose of her body outside that flash house in II-6.
As they entered her room, he set her gently on her feet. She stood there for a moment, swaying, before she bolted for the bathroom. She didn't know how long she sat there on the bathroom floor, arms wrapped around the toilet bowl like a drowning man clinging to a buoy. She started crying at some point. She didn't know why. Crying over Nick. Crying over her wounded pride. Crying because her head pounded and her knees were all skinned to hell. Crying because she probably barfed all over his fancy jacket.
He flicked on the light and she didn't fight him as he urged her to lean back against the cold, tiled wall. Her hands were limp at her sides as he wiped her face with a warm flannel. She watched him in the unflattering glow of the fluorescent bathroom lights. When he offered her a glass of water, she took it.
He helped her to her feet and followed her back to her room. He turned his back as she dropped his jacket to the floor and shimmied out of the ridiculous dress and pulled her softest nightshirt over her head. It was ridiculously childish, with giant pink flowers and dancing kittens. She sat heavily on the bed and he turned back toward her, urging her to get under the covers. He sat there, looking at her, but not touching. Despite feeling like death, her head was clearer. She'd expected her perception of him to fade along with her buzz, but it didn't. He seemed every bit as unreal now as he had in the club.
"Who are you?" she asked, her throat scratchy and sore.
"You may call me Warden," he said quietly.
She studied him. She had no idea how old he was. His features were so smooth and flawless, but he didn't strike her as someone particularly young. His eyes were heavy lidded and still faintly luminous. His coarse brown hair just brushed the tops of his shoulders. In the dim light filtering through her windows, his skin looked like polished bronze, every bit as perfect and cold. But he wasn't cold. She knew that. She'd felt his warmth, far warmer than any human was capable of withstanding.
"And if I ask around about Warden?" she asked.
He looked down for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I would advise you not to do that."
She studied him in the silence. When she left the apartment hours earlier, she wanted to bury her pain, to find someone to lose herself with. But she didn't feel lost. She felt seen. Perhaps for the first time in her life. It was terrifying.
Without a word, he pushed himself to his feet. He stopped at her door and glanced back at her.
"Will I see you again?" she asked.
He smiled. "Undoubtedly, dreamer. We haven't had our dance."
END CHAPTER.