Chapter 7
Iris
Groggily, I open my eyes and rub the sleep cobwebs from my mind as muffled voices filter through the room. I must have fallen asleep. Wrestling out of the tangled sheet trapping my body, I pat my hand on the mattress in search of the sketchbook and finally find it under the pillow.
Magenta and lilac stretch on the indigo sky, casting the room in a faint, dusky glow.
Holding the sketchbook in one hand, I push myself off the bed and shuffle toward Kaiden’s voice.
A sliver of light spills into the dark corridor through the crack in the library door.
He’s talking to someone on speakerphone—Malik.
I halt, hug the sketchbook to my chest, and mentally prepare myself to confront Kaiden.
When I’m about to open the door, I hear my name and pause.
“How’s Iris?” Malik asks.
“She’s sleeping. She’s healing faster now because of the weakened barrier. Her bruises have almost faded entirely. That and her witch friend is really skilled; the healing potion she brewed helped a lot, but I still want you to come by and mend her ribs,” Kaiden replies.
“We’re on our way back. I’ll be there by midnight. Did she remember anything else?”
“I don’t think so. If she did…she hasn’t mentioned it.”
There’s a long pause before Malik speaks again, his voice grim.
“There’s only a matter of time until she does, given the cracks in the barrier—if what happened at Sin didn’t obliterate it completely.
What are you going to do when she remembers you were the one who locked her powers away, alongside her memories? ”
What the fuck.
I can’t hear Kaiden’s response because the singe of betrayal takes hold of my body one cell at a time as my heart breaks into a million jagged pieces that scatter all over the floor.
I drop the sketchbook. The broken sob ripping from my lungs swallows the loud thump.
Whirling around, I sprint toward the dressing room.
In the next second, I crash into a hard wall of muscle as Kaiden materializes out of thin air. The force of the impact makes my teeth grind as a stabbing ripple travels through the entirety of my torso. Still, the physical pain has nothing on the way I feel my chest crumbling within itself.
“Iris, what happened?” Kaiden asks, alarmed, his fingers wrapping around my shoulders.
I jerk out of his hold and take a stumbling step back. “Don’t fucking touch me!” I scream.
Kaiden’s eyebrows knit. He takes a tentative step toward me. “What’s wrong?”
I shuffle backward again and almost step on the sketchbook I dropped earlier.
“You lied to me! You fucking lied to me! I can’t believe I trusted you.
” Glass shards impale the back of my throat.
It takes everything I’ve got to stop the dam of emotions from bursting and sweeping me away in the devastating, murky torrent. I can’t—won’t—let him see me cry.
His expression is crestfallen as his gaze flits to the sketchbook on the floor, then back to me. “Whatever you think—”
“I know you’re the one sending me flowers and chocolates every year for my birthday. I saw the receipts. I also heard Malik loud and clear. Don’t even try to gaslight me.”
His Adam’s apple rolls on a hard swallow, regret brimming in his tormented eyes. “It’s not what you think.” God, even in this moment he’s so damn beautiful it hurts to look at him. Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun. No wonder I got burned.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I can’t believe I let a demon touch me like no other man has before. The worst part is that I have not only given him my body, but I’ve served him my heart on a silver platter, and he crushed it to smithereens.
“You’ve got five minutes. I want the whole truth. Start by explaining how you have what I’m sure is my sketchbook and how we really know each other,” I demand.
Kaiden works his jaw. “I can’t.”
I huff a derisive laugh. “How convenient.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Then explain!”
His fingers clench and unclench at his sides, and a bottomless pit forms at the bottom of my stomach that is filled by soul-crushing anxiety. All I want to do is curl into a ball on the floor, but the feeling is weird, foreign—as if it doesn’t belong to me. But how could it not?
Kaiden’s words snap me out of it. “There is a barrier on your powers. It resembles a mental shield or a wall. The memory loss was only a side effect. We knew it might happen, but I decided it was worth the risk at that moment. I wanted to tell you everything. You don’t even know how much…
” He lets out a trembling breath. “But any spell that tampers with the brain is of the most dangerous and damaging out there. If I had told you anything…if I tell you anything about your past, it might put you into a coma. That’s why it’s important that you remember everything yourself. I can’t risk it.”
I suck on my teeth. “Who’s we? What powers are you talking about?”
Kaiden remains silent.
I expel a frustrated huff. “Is it the seeing ghosts and rotting people? Did I do this before? Are the shadows from the alley a part of it?” Again, I’m only met by a blistering silence that makes my skin itch, but I don’t give up. “Why did you lock my powers?”
Our gazes engage in a silent war. “I can’t tell you.”
“You were there when my mother died, weren’t you?”
Nothing.
“Did you kill her?” I seethe.
A flash of anger bounces in the confines of his irises. “How can you ask me that?” he spits.
“How? HOW? You refuse to tell me anything. It’s a fucking valid question!”
“You know me, Iris. Do you think I would be capable of something like that?”
A manic laugh bubbles up my throat, but only a strangled whimper comes out. “That’s the thing. I DON’T KNOW YOU. What I know is that you’re a demon, and a demon killed my mother the day we fell into the canyon.” A new wave of nausea hits me.
Fuck me. What if I fell in love with my mother’s killer?
“You know what hurts the most, Kaiden?” I shake my head.
“That I bared my soul to you, told you all about the accident—how much losing my memory hurt. And you didn’t say a fucking word.
You moved into my apartment, and we spent every second together for weeks, yet you chose to stay silent.
” I suck in a jagged breath. “Even if you’re telling the truth about not being able to come clean…
you could have at least tried to explain that we knew each other when I asked.
Fuck. You could have said something. Anything. ”
“No, I couldn’t, because I couldn’t risk you. I will always put you first, Iris.”
I will my legs, which feel heavier than two blocks of cement, to move. “This—whatever the fuck this thing between us is—ends now,” I clip out before shouldering past him toward the dressing room.
Kaiden is hot on my heels. “You can’t leave,” he tells me, desperation coating every word and seeping out of his pores until I almost choke on it.
“Watch me,” I snap and strip out of his T-shirt, which, like a fool, I slept in because I fucking missed him and his intoxicating scent, even after finding the hidden sketchbook and the receipts. I couldn’t be more pathetic even if I tried. I throw it to the floor as if it’s poisonous.
“It’s not safe,” he says at my back, so close his warmth seeps into my bones.
I bite the lining of my cheek until I taste blood to stop myself from leaning back into him, and I grab the first shirt on the shelf in front of me.
“My safety is no longer your concern.” I slip on the random tee over the shorts and slide my feet into a pair of sneakers without socks on.
“I can’t let you leave,” Kaiden tells me, whirling me around and crowding me against the shelf. “I already let you go once, and it nearly fucking killed me, Iris. I can’t do it again. I won’t survive it this time.”
“I said don’t touch me!” I send my palm flying at his face.
There’s a loud crack as it connects with Kaiden’s stubbled cheek, catching him by surprise.
His head snaps to the side. His nostrils flare as he whirls his head back, then he steps forward, caging me in.
He slams one hand on the shelf at the side of my head, the other wrapping around my throat possessively.
The silver rings adorning his fingers are cold against my heated skin.
“I don’t care if you slap me. Fuck. I’ll hand you the knife to stab me myself. Just. Don’t. Leave. Me.” The last word comes out in a broken whisper. “Please.”
It almost shatters my resolve. Almost.
“Let me go!” I grit out through clenched teeth. My eyes throw angry daggers at Kaiden as I stare at him, face hot. The air sparks and sizzles between us, and fireworks crackle between my ribs.
He ignores me as his gaze darkens. “I’m sorry, angel…so fucking sorry for not being able to say a thing. I can’t stand the idea of you hating me,” he rasps, tone rougher than sandpaper.
My breath hitches when he inches forward, his lips hovering dangerously close, his eyes glimmering obsidian fire.
“I can’t let you leave because I love you, Iris.
I’ve been in love with you since the first moment I saw you.
You came into my life like a blazing sun and pulled me out of the pitch-black night I’ve been lost in for years.
You’re mine. Fucking mine, and I’m never letting you go. ”
Next thing I know, his lips bruise mine in a soul-searing kiss. Our tongues lash against each other in a fiery dance of destruction.
Then Malik’s words start playing through my mind in a loop.
They cut through me like a million razor blades, each slice drawing more blood.
So, I let Kaiden incinerate me from the inside out, my fluttering pulse heavy against his fingers, for just a few seconds.
Just a few seconds of indulgence to burn his touch and scent into memory because this is the last time I will ever allow Kaiden Black to kiss me.
With a muffled sob, I use my hellseeker strength to push at his chest. Kaiden stumbles back. A deep frown knits his eyebrows.
“That’s funny, because you were nothing more than a mistake to me.” The lie burns through my lead-filled tongue like battery acid. Still, I continue, “I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Kaiden’s face falls. Akin to a hurricane, hurt ripples through his features. “You don’t mean that. I know you feel something for me.” Again, the foreign, jumbled emotions bounce in the confines of my ribcage, bruising my lungs and heart.
I force a brittle laugh from my lips. “Yeah, I feel something for you all right. It’s called hate.
Did you know that after the accident, I stayed in a mental facility owned by the Order for a fucking year?
It should have been only a few months for me to adjust to the world without my memories, but losing them made me spiral into a depression so deep I tried to”—I swallow thickly—“to kill myself. I took an entire bottle of pills. If they had found me five minutes later…And you know what the worst part is? If they hadn’t kept a close eye on me, I would have done it again. ”
Kaiden flinches as if I hit him. Slams his eyes shut.
Then rakes a trembling hand through his hair as he lets out a sharp curse.
When he opens his eyes, and his gaze finds mine again, shame and guilt flood his features.
A silent tear rolls down his cheek. “I’m so sorry, angel.
So fucking sorry.” He crumbles to his knees, and I have to tear my gaze away because I can’t look at him.
“You’re the only person I have ever loved in this world. ”
My hemorrhaging heart is urging me to go to him, but I can’t.
I fucking can’t. “If you really did take my memories, then you took everything from me. I was nothing more than a shadow of a person for years. I blamed myself to the point where I didn’t want to be alive anymore, and that’s something I can never forgive you for.
” A trembling breath saws out of my lungs.
“Goodbye, Kaiden. I wish I never met you. Stay away from me and forget I exist, because that’s what I’ll do. ”
He doesn’t come after me as I storm out of the dressing room into the bedroom to snatch my phone and my mother’s journal from the bedside table.
I fly down the stairs and into the elevator.
As I enter it and jab my finger into the button for the ground floor, Kaiden appears in the middle of the penthouse.
His shoulders are slumped as if weighing a thousand pounds.
He’s only a few feet away, but it feels as though a chasm deeper than the Mariana Trench stands between us.
I cast him one last glance. Our gazes hook and snare—mine resolute, his shining with defeat—and the sorrow on his face is almost too much to bear.
The doors slide closed, breaking our connection.
I stagger backward, hitting the mirror wall.
I can’t break down right now. If I do, I’ll never be able to leave this elevator.
I square my shoulders and shove everything down, down, down—until I’m nothing more than a walking corpse.
It’s all a blur as I exit the elevator, stride outside, hail a cab, and find myself at Sam’s door, banging on it as hard as I can.
A sleep-rumpled Sam opens the door. “What the…Holy Hecate! Iris, what happened? You look like shit. What are you doing here?”
I throw myself in her arms and finally lose it, sobbing my eyes and heart out.