Chapter 15
OATH
When Rin woke up, her head felt stuffed, throat sore, and limbs achy. She found herself covered by sheets, skin sticky with sweat. Her head pounded as she kicked the blankets off. Her foot hit something solid—a body.
She heard a grumble, then she lifted her heavy head to find Cyrus sprawled across the foot of the bed.
Someone shifted at her side, and she turned to find Lucien pressed close against her back.
His glasses were off, and his fingers were resting gently against her spine.
On her other side, Auren lay. His dark lashes fanned out across his cheekbones as his arm tightened around her waist.
Beyond the pulled curtains, sunlight streamed through the cracks at the corners. She heard the distant sounds of the city.
They were in Rhyden’s room?
The door opened carefully, and Rhyden himself entered, carrying a tray laden with water glasses and a plate of buttered toast.
When he saw her half sitting up, he paused. His red eyes swept over her battered body.
"How do you feel?" he rumbled.
"Terrible. What…?" she began, reaching up to rub beneath her swollen eyes.
As what happened crashed over her like suffocating heatwaves, she could only find that her eyes pricked with tears.
They spilled over her lash line and mingled with the old blood on her face—Rhyden had wiped away most, she presumed, but he hadn’t been able to get it all, not wanting to disturb her sleep.
Rhyden placed the tray down and walked closer. He stood by Auren’s side of the bed.
"Are you hurting? What do you need, wife? Tell me," Rhyden ordered, tone low yet possessive.
Rin just stared up at him. "You took care of me?"
"I wouldn’t just leave you there. Never."
Rin pressed her palms to her eyes. "I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t…"
"Don’t think about it. What’s done is done. Here, you need to get something in your stomach." Rhyden offered the tray to her.
She felt like she’d woken up somewhere different. How was the leader of Noctis bringing her breakfast in bed?
She saw the shadows beneath his eyes, his rumpled clothes. "How long did we sleep?" she asked.
"A day."
Rin’s eyes widened. "Did you? Sleep?"
Rhyden shook his head. "I had to watch you. Make sure you were okay. I don’t know what they fucking did to you. I didn’t know what to expect."
Cyrus’s fingers tightened around her ankle. "Got to say, doll," he said sleepily, "your adoptive parents don’t like me much."
"Cyrus," Rin gasped. "You’re okay."
He sat up slowly and stretched. "Are you? That’s what matters. I’m so sorry that I… My head still hurts. I don’t know what I was drugged with."
Rhyden plucked a piece of toast from the tray and held it out to Rin. She took it, her pinky brushing his. She took a small bite, humming at the flavor, but couldn’t manage much. Her limbs were still sluggish, though getting better.
"He’s been sleeping it off and leaving me to take care of you all," Rhyden said, pressing a glass of water into her hands. He tried to take the rest of the toast she didn’t eat, but Cyrus grabbed it from her hands, finishing it off, then licking crumbs from his fingertips.
Rin couldn’t keep her eyes open. She sank back against the pillows. "I should… shower."
Cyrus shifted up her body, collapsing against her thighs as he lay his head on her lower stomach.
Sleep tugged at her. "In a second."
When she was finally strong enough to shower, it was Lucien and Rhyden who helped her.
Lucien and Auren weren’t as affected by whatever Sabine had done. Auren shook it off the most quickly, then Lucien, while Cyrus, who had been drugged by a high dose of Somnocept—Lucien later surmised after testing his blood—played up his exhaustion, content to stay in bed with her.
Even the few steps to the bathroom left her winded. Rhyden and Lucien both helped her, and Rhyden made her keep the door cracked so he could hear over the sound of the water. She leaned against the counter with her eyes cracked as Lucien helped her take her clothes off.
Through the crack of the door, Rhyden’s shadow lingered. Watching. Listening.
Steam from the shower misted against her naked body as Lucien helped her inside. The rainwater showerhead felt brilliant against her, and cool-toned lights were embedded into the tile, not too rough on her stinging eyes.
Lucien’s hands were firm as he dragged a soapy cloth over her skin, washing every bit of what had happened away.
As he turned the water off and they stepped out, she shivered as her feet touched the floor.
Lucien wrapped a fluffy towel around her, patting her dry, and as his towel-covered hand brushed between her thighs, her eyes widened at the short burst of feeling. He didn’t linger.
"Where are your clothes?" she heard Lucien mumble.
"Here." Rhyden stuck his hand inside. He held a neatly folded bundle of her clothes out, which Lucien took.
Rin didn’t know how to feel about Rhyden listening in on something so intimate. Though she’d tried to forget, she remembered that he had been inside her—partly, at least. Her thighs clenched as she recalled the coolness of his piercings catching against her heat.
Lucien helped her dress in thin blush pink shorts and a soft, lacy tank. The heat of the city was chased away by the apartment’s air conditioner, but she was still overheated, not wanting to be stifled.
Rin fell back into the bed, barely feeling Lucien’s hands beneath her jaw as he counted her heartbeat. A glass of water was pressed to her lips, and she parted them, trusting whoever it was.
Her eyes cracked as the crisp liquid wet her parched tongue. Rhyden was staring at her intently as he forced her to drink.
Lucien had already done an exam on them—including himself.
Whatever Sabine had used hadn’t caused any long-term, irreparable effects.
It felt like trying to get over a cold—well, a terrible, hellish flu.
She didn’t want to remember the feeling…
Like her Soul was being forcibly ripped out of her body.
Rhyden clicked a button, and two doors opened on the wall adjacent to the bed, revealing a wide, mounted television screen. He flicked it on, the low hum of the news like white noise to Rin as she slipped her legs beneath the sheets and curled up.
"Record-breaking highs for the Solar City area. I’ll have more on the weather when we return," came the newscaster’s voice.
Rin tuned it out.
Cyrus wrapped an arm around her and held her close. His nose pressed to her still-damp hair.
Auren perched on the settee. Rin held out a hand, fingers curling as she silently asked—begged—him to come closer. She stared at his lips as he walked to the bed and settled on the edge.
Rhyden sat on the other side, the bed dipping as he stretched a leg out. "So, we have to talk."
"We do," said Rin. "About a lot."
And so they did. She talked until she couldn’t anymore, and she listened until her ears rang. Lucien told them about Jessa Nixo’s offer. Rin had barely been aware as Auren had reaped her Soul, but he told them how the Star on his cheek had flared, only cooling when he had answered the call.
She still couldn’t wrap her fevered mind around what Kit had done. She knew it just as well as she knew part of him was still in there: he had saved them all.
"I will not rest until I end her," Auren vowed quietly.
"Both of them," Cyrus interjected. "Talor Blackfall is a prick."
Rin shook her head. "The Hunter’s Guild, Blackfall Industries. My adoptive parents, President Shin. All of them will pay." She purposefully didn’t say Kit’s name. She’d save him—whatever the cost.
Violence lit up Rhyden’s face. "And I know just where to fucking start."
Auren jolted awake. The Star on his face burned hotter than ever before. It was excruciating. The pain awoke something within him. He rarely felt such an acute sensation. The incessant thrum stirred something untouched within him—a need to feel.
He sat up quickly, his scythe resting against the nightstand, pulsing with a white glow. It felt as though his flesh would melt away from his cheekbone from the growing intensity of the call. He had never felt anything like this, in all the centuries he had reaped.
He had fallen asleep in Rhyden’s bed, just as he had for the last two nights.
Vesperin slept soundly, her hands tucked beneath her chin.
The pillow was indented where his cheek had rested.
As he stood, she reached for it with a soft, sleep-drenched sigh, bunching the silken pillowcase under her fingers as she hiked her thigh over it and held it close to her chest. She pressed her face to the end.
Auren felt his heart squeeze at the sight of her. Did she truly find such comfort in his scent?
None of them seemed to wish to part from her and sleep in one of the guest rooms, so Lucien was sleeping on the large settee, while Cyrus still got the bed.
On the rare occasion Auren caught him sleeping, Rhyden usually did so on the floor, a lumpy pillow beneath his head, or nodding off while he worked at his laptop.
Now, the room was quiet in the night, and Auren could ignore the call no longer.
He tugged his cloak on, letting the white fabric settle over him as he hurriedly pulled on his gloves and shoved his feet in his boots.
He did not bother with the laces. Sloppy.
And very unlike him. He usually slept in his Soul Searcher garb in case he was called in the night—death did not shy away from the darkness.
It staked its claim upon Souls no matter the position of the sun or moon.
His sloppiness could only be blamed on the sluggishness of his bones, remnants of whatever Sabine Blackfall had done to them all.
He healed much quicker than they had, at the very least.
He allowed himself one look at Vesperin before he cut his scythe through the air. The glow was weaker without her touch; he was grateful, for he did not wish for the light to awaken her.