64. Chapter Sixty-Four
64
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
ELODIE
T he taste of Kaius still lingered on my tongue as I stood before the mirror. I had excused myself to the bathroom, needing a moment to clean up and change. I stared at the shining, polished surface instead.At the tangled hair and swollen lips. The smear of blood on my chin.
Something familiar about the light that glimmered in my dark eyes told me that there had once been a time it had been present, and I found myself searching my reflection for signs that the girl I was before was still there.
I wasn’t sure what before even meant.
Was it the time before I had been brought here, unaware of how my life was going to spiral out of control or the one even deeper than that? Before my mind—my memories—had been stolen away. Vital parts of me hidden behind walls I couldn’t possibly breach.
I was so tired, yet never had I been more awake. So much had happened to me, I was having a hard time putting it into order, of making some sense of it all, but I had no starting point in sight. Nothing to pinpoint when it all began. The lies and secrets, just a jumble of events I had to accept.
No longer interested in figuring it out, I turned from the mirror, changing into fresh underwear and a long T-shirt I had left in here after finding them folded in a drawer.
I left the bathroom as the main door opened, my heart dropping at the thought he had left, but Kaius was kicking the door shut, his hands full with food.
His gaze found mine instantly, like two magnets drawn together. The look on his face as he ran his eyes over me dripped in heat, reminding me what had happened in the very spot he stood. All signs of the vines he’d held me in place with, gone.
“Hungry?” Kaius asked, a smile pulling at his beautiful face that had me starving for more than the food he had brought, but as my stomach growled on an empty protest, I realised I hadn’t yet eaten.
“Apparently so.” I laughed, aware of how loud that rumble had been in the quiet, and a little thrown by how relieved I was he hadn’t left without a word.
I headed to the bedroom, holding the door ajar in an offer I needed him to accept.
“As long as you’re ok with crumbs on the bed?” he teased, walking through into the mirrored room.
“I think I’ll survive,” I replied with a smile so easy, it curved my lips with no prompting from me. Following close behind, I climbed onto the bed and pulled one of the grey silky blankets over my naked legs as Kaius moved to the other side, placing the food between us and kicking off his boots before he took a seat.
We ate in a comfortable silence that I rarely found with others, though considering I spent little time with anyone that wasn’t Nanna or Polly, that was hardly surprising.
I couldn’t stop from trailing my eyes over the tattoos that covered him, nor could I stop them from flicking to the small cut that marked his bottom lip.
I had done that.
Heat flushed my skin at the memory of that bite, and I looked down at my food instead, hoping he was too preoccupied with his own to notice.
It took little time for either of us to devour the chicken sandwiches and miraculously still-warm brownies he had brought from gods knew where. I savoured every piece of its chocolatey gooeyness until, happily full, I sunk back into the bed. Despite its huge size, it felt markedly smaller now that I was sharing it.
Though Kaius’ sizeable bulk still left me plenty of room, being here right now felt more intimate than any time we had been in the same bed before, as if doing something as simple as eating together had forged new tentative bonds between us.
We were choosing to be here, with each other. There was no nightmare that needed taming or agendas to fulfil.
Just us.
Never mind the other things we had done.
After moving our leftovers to the side table, Kaius settled back next to me, his long legs crossed at the ankles and one muscled arm tucked behind his head, the other only inches from where my own lay above the blanket.
“Can I ask?” Kaius says, breaking the quiet with his deep voice.
I sat forward, hands twisting within the folds of the fabric I had draped over me. My eyes met his in the floor length mirror that faced the bed, the surface duller in the muted light of the room than his shining irises that were fixed on me. “Ask what?”
“You know what.”
Breaking the contact, I focused on a thread in the sheets. He was right; I did know. He was after answers just as much as Bastian was, but unlike with Bastian, there was a part of me that felt guilty at not being able to give him them.
The mattress dipped as he sat up, adjusting himself so he was facing me.
“Did you see anything?” he pushed gently, none of the anger or demand that his friend's voice held. Just a soft request.
Nothing that would help.
I looked up, catching the storm in Kaius’ eyes, nothing within them suggesting he was asking for any ulterior reason. I could give him something, I trusted him enough for that.
“I saw my mum, heard her singing to me,” I told him quietly, unable to stop the smile at the hazy memories. “I saw her face. I’ve never been able to remember it properly before.”
I ignored the last vision of her that had invaded my mind. I wasn’t ready to unpack that.
“At all?” Kaius asked, a small frown of concern on his beautiful face.
“Nothing clear.” I shook my head. “I always thought I was too young to have any lasting memories of her. There were never any photos of her around the house either, which now I think about it is just insane. Who doesn’t have a single photo on display of their dead daughter? Especially when you’re raising her kid.”
Heat pricked the back of my eyes as I ground my teeth on my frustration, forced again to wonder why this had happened to me, and how Nanna was wrapped in it.
“Why has she done this to me?” I half whispered to myself, not realising I had looked away until Kaius’ rough fingers held my chin, angling my gaze back to meet his.
“I don’t know, Goldie. I’d like to think she had her reasons, but that doesn’t mean what she’s done isn’t a betrayal.”
I felt strangely relieved by his validation and hoped he was right, still caught in his grip as Kaius searched my face before he continued.
“What I’m also hearing is, Bastian actually did you a favour in getting your block removed.”
The sparkle of mischief in his eyes soothed me enough that I couldn’t help the weak laugh that left me. “You’ll never hear those words from me.”
“That’s fair enough, I’d never tell him either.” Reluctantly, he let go of me, eyes lingering on my lips a moment.
“There’s still so much that doesn’t make sense.” The half-truths that had been revealed were suffocating in their confusion.
“One day, Goldie, you’ll have all the answers.”
“One day,” I breathed, and Kaius nodded, making a silent agreement between us that somehow we would figure it all out.
We laid back down, my body aching after the magikal workout Marcellus had subjected me to. I did my best to tell him what I had seen when Arden had shifted part of the block, and with a grimace, Kaius agreed it didn’t appear to be anything that could help in the fight against The Darkness.
“Would you leave?” he asked hesitantly, voice quiet in a way I wasn’t used to. “If you could, would you leave?”
The fact that I knew the answer instantly threw me, and I waited for a moment before answering.
“No. I wouldn’t.”
Kaius’ body relaxed slightly, sinking into the pillows as I continued. “I want to know more, I need to know more. And I think… I think that this might be the only place I’ll get answers. I mean look how easy it’s been here so far.” I finished raising an eyebrow at him, and he grinned back at me, all traces of apprehension gone, his silver eyes lighting up his face, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“That doesn’t mean I’m happy being trapped here,” I said, needing him to understand that while I wasn’t locked in the dungeon, this room— gods, this entire palace —was its own cage.
“Of course not,” he agreed, a smile still playing on his full lips, and it took no small amount of effort not to lean in and taste them.
“And even though you’ve clearly upgraded my room, it isn’t mine. Nothing in here belongs to me.”
I didn’t think there were words for the way I longed to touch something of my own, to sleep under a blanket that smelled like home, to shuffle through my tarot deck, or use toothpaste where the level of mint it contained didn’t burn my mouth.
Kaius paused for a moment, eyes flitting around the room before landing back on me. “Noted.”
He reached for me, pulling me into him until we were both laid on the soft blankets, Kaius’ arm around me so I was tucked comfortably into the crook of his side. His other arm was resting across his stomach. Tentatively, I began to trace the patterns of the artwork inked there. Starting at his knuckles, drawing slow circles over each one, my finger brushed against the silver rings he wore before moving to the back of his hand.
Etched there was a circular shape that bore resemblance to a compass, only with seven markers and cardinal points that I wasn’t familiar with. Thickets of tangled brambles were woven around it, leaves layered one upon another, weaving their own patterns, and the thick veins that rose across his forearm stood in relief beneath the thorny branches.
The ink continued up his arm and my fingers followed, where they entwined with other plants and flowers. Most of which I didn’t recognise despite the intricate details that had been expertly branded on his skin. Every delicate petal, every vein on the leaves visible.
I traced them past the crook of his elbow, and over the curved muscle of his bicep until they disappeared under the fabric of his dark top, delighting in the goosebumps that peppered his skin in the wake of my touch. His hand tightened slightly where it was laid on my hip.
Slowly, I ran my fingers back down to his, and he clasped my hand, twining our fingers together so that my gold rings knocked against the silver ones he wore, his thumb tracing across the twisted metal and gemstones that adorned my fingers.
“They’re beautiful,” he murmured, following the patterns woven from gold.
“Thank you.” My pulse beat in time with each pass of his thumb, his body heat sinking into my skin. “I made most of them.”
Kaius pulled my fingers to his face as he studied them closer, pressing a soft kiss against an oval-cut ruby that went straight to my core. “Impressive.”
“I sell them, too,” I added, revelling in the lingering feel of his lips. “I’ve probably got a whole load of pissed off customers wondering why their order never turned up.”
He continued his examination. “Will you make me one?”
“I don’t really work with silver,” I blurted out, thrown a little by his request.
“I guessed as much, Goldie,” Kaius laughed softly before he shrugged against me. “I don’t mind what it’s made of, I’ll wear anything you make me.”
Something in my chest fluttered at his words, and I let myself consider the idea. As though it had been there all along, I could see the exact emerald I would use, knew which compartment it was kept in back home. The delicate leaves I would create to cradle it with thorny branches that wrapped around his finger would be as intricate as the art on his skin.
The thread of contentment I felt this close to him squeezed at the thought of him wearing something I made, and I decided that should the opportunity present itself, I would make him something. The quiet found us again as we lay together as my own question for him formed.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he replied instantly.
I only hesitated for a moment before I spoke. “Tell me about Blair.”
Kaius adjusted himself, pushing up onto his elbow and looking down at me with confusion wrinkling his brow.
“How do you know Blair?”
“Well,” I started, unsure how to explain this morning. “She kind of broke in here this morning, and I woke to her sitting on my bed.”
His laugh was deep and full as he laid back down next to me, the sound relieving a little of the tension I hadn’t known I still held over this morning’s revelations.
“Of course she did,” he said, more to himself than to me.
Kaius’ fingers found mine once more, and the room grew a little darker, the shadows almost reaching out to touch us. He remained quiet for longer than I expected, so long that I had begun to think he wasn’t going to answer.
“When I was born, I was appointed a Praecustos,” Kaius said, continuing before I had a chance to ask what exactly that was, his arm tensed under where my head rested against it. “They’re a type of guardian, someone who is supposed to guide you, teach you. It’s a practise mostly done by the Royal Lines and their relations, as their children are almost always guaranteed to be of a higher power level and need that extra bit of guidance.”
“My Praecustos, Eero...” He pulled in a slow breath lacing our hands together, the pad of his thumb moving in small, measured circles as I waited. “Was not a good man. There were others under his… tutelage, and we all suffered under his hands. Blair was one of them.”
There was more; I knew there was so much more to this story. I could feel the unspoken words that stayed trapped within him, but I wasn’t going to push. Something inside me cracked, an aching sadness that grew under his unsaid words, but his story was his own to tell or keep as he desired.
“That’s why she’s here.” Not needing an answer, I squeezed his hand with mine, knowing no more was going to be said today. He squeezed back, and I tucked myself a little closer as I thought back to my morning visitor.
“Not going to lie, the kid’s a little creepy.” His soft laugh was a rush of relief, and the room lightened, shadows slinking back to the far corners.
“I agree, she is definitely creepy. It’s one of my favourite things about her, though despite what she looks like, Blair’s not a child.”
“What is she then?”
“I have no idea, and neither does she.”
“Elodie.” Kaius’ whispered voice filtered through my sleep, and his finger skimmed down my cheek. As my eyes fluttered open, I found him standing next to the bed fully dressed.
“Put these on,” he said, pressing a bundle of clothes into my chest as I blinked in the darkness, trying to catch up with what was going on.
I pushed myself up, holding onto what he had given me, head craned back to look up at him as I rubbed sleep from my eyes.
When I hadn’t moved, he leaned down and pulled the cover from around me, before taking the bundle he had given me and shaking a black hoodie loose. Without warning, he pulled it over my head, and I automatically pushed my arms through the too- long sleeves, watching with sleep laden amusement as he rolled the ends so my fingers poked out. His earthy scent laden with cedar wrapped around me, and I knew he had given me one of his own jumpers to wear, though I was still none the wiser as to why .
Next, he swept my legs from the bed, kneeling down in front of me as he placed each foot into the legs of a pair of black joggers that were nowhere near my size. I could feel the tremble of my magik as it sought out his, eager to reunite as it so recently had.
I squeezed my thighs together as even the smallest of touches from him sent heat racing through me and straight to my pussy, which was currently right in line with his face, apparently not done from our earlier time together.
“What are you thinking?” Kaius asked quietly, as his fingers grazed my skin as he slowly pulled up the trousers.
“That I could get used to this.”
“Get used to what?” he paused, the tops of my thighs still bare and so painfully close to his lips.
“You, on your knees before me.”
He smirked before leaning forward and pressing a kiss against the soft skin of my thighs. I released a small sigh as the contact set me on fire with want, and I could feel his smile against my skin as he placed another kiss just a little higher. Instead of directing him further like my body was aching for, I lifted my hips so he could slide the black fabric all the way up. Kaius stood as I got down from the bed, the trousers which I guessed were also his, almost falling down as I did.
“This isn’t going to work.” I lifted the jumper, and we both knew that rolling them wasn’t going to help here.
Kaius pursed his lip, considering the problem before pulling the band from his hair and reaching out to tie it around the excess material gathered at my hip.
“I look stupid.”
He tugged down the hem of the oversized hoodie. “You look hot.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed as I watched him vigorously shake the shoes he must have brought in from the other room, before placing them in front of me.
“You do, plus if my plan works, no one else is going to see you anyway.” Kaius reached for my hand and began leading me out of the room towards the main door.
“And do you want to enlighten me on that plan?”
“Not yet.”