Chapter Two
Atticus
“Roux!” I shouted, but she was unconscious, her face pinched in pain. What the hell was that?
I shook her gently and patted her face. “Come on, Roux. Wake up.”
“What the hell happened?” Rafe snarled as he dropped next to me. I glanced over my shoulder, noting the other Lycaon had fled with the other beast.
“I don’t know. She touched the wolf and then collapsed.”
Rafe’s eyes darkened as he snarled in my face. “You let her touch the wolf?”
“Hey!” I snapped as I twisted my fingers in the front of his t-shirt and pulled him towards me. “Watch it, pup. I didn’t let her do anything.”
He held my gaze firmly, trying to force me to submit, but I wasn’t going to let him.
I pushed a little bit more of my power into my gaze to get him to back down.
Surprisingly, he held my stare despite how uncomfortable it was clearly making him feel.
His jaw clenched, and I could almost hear his teeth grinding.
I directed a little more power towards him, knowing full well that I could push him into a sleep filled with nightmares if I wanted to. He knew it too. Eventually, his gaze stuttered, and he blinked and looked at the floor.
I was being an asshole; I knew that, but we didn’t have time for dick measuring contests.
I scooped Roux up into my arms and headed towards the door.
“What are you doing?” Thane asked as I walked by him.
He was still in his Reaper form, and it was unsettling to look at.
I was a nightmare demon, but the God of Death made me feel small and insignificant.
It was also difficult to reconcile this version of Thane with the aloof, adorable and sometimes na?ve version of him.
A prickle of heat curled low in my belly as I stared at him.
We were soulbonded, which was a fancy way of saying our life forces were connected for eternity.
I had been at death’s door, and I’d requested the Death Rights, but instead of just saving me, Death had claimed me as his own.
We were still figuring out what that meant, and since neither of us had been in a soulbond before, it was going to be an interesting journey.
Especially since we could feel what each other felt.
“I’m walking into the next room in the hope that there is some more light, or at least somewhere to lay her down where she’s not on the floor,” I said, answering his question before stepping over the threshold into the next room.
It wasn’t exactly bright in here, but I was relieved to see there were none of those wisps of shadow lingering and darkening everything.
It was filled with all sorts of items. Furniture, chests, suits of armour.
On the far wall was a shelving unit full of glowing jars and floating orbs.
It would probably be wise to avoid that particular corner.
What little I knew of bottled magic was that it was temperamental and explosive.
“Over here,” Magnus called out as he cleared a table that had been littered with old papers and scrolls.
I placed Roux down onto the surface gently and brushed her hair from her face. She whimpered and moaned, and her eyes moved rapidly behind her eyelids. What the hell had her in its grip?
“What is this place?” Rayne asked, his voice echoing around the large room.
I found it strange that I could tell them apart so easily without even looking at them.
When I’d first met them, it had been impossible, and I hadn’t had any inclination to try and work them out.
They’d been assholes, and I was pretty sure they’d sabotaged the coffee machine just to fuck with me.
But everything changed when I mated with Roux.
I became part of their little unit, and I was starting to enjoy messing with them.
Part of me wanted to see how much I could put them through before they broke.
They interested me in a way that nobody had before, and that was a dangerous thing.
The last time I’d had an obsession, it didn’t turn out well at all.
For them.
“Judging by the combination of highly dangerous objects and artefacts, I’d say we were in the heart of the Vault,” Thane said matter-of-factly as he shed his Reaper form.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I chuckled.
Thane frowned at me like he didn’t understand, and I had to hold back a smile. I was starting to learn that Thane didn’t understand sarcasm and had the habit of taking everything literally.
“What do you think used to be here?” Rafe asked as he stood staring at a tall pedestal in the centre of the room. It was waist-height and had a dark red velvet cushion with gold braiding perched on top.
Light glittered and shimmered above Rafe as he stared at the empty display.
I followed the little shafts of twinkling lights upwards until my gaze rested on the high domed ceiling.
Set into the roof were hundreds of tiny stars that flickered and glowed like a real night sky.
“I think that’s where the Diadem should be. ”
“How can you tell?” Magnus asked.
“Because it was set beneath the stars.”
Rayne went to stand next to his twin. “Where’s it gone, then?”
“It would appear that our mysterious thief actually stole it,” I said as I peered up at the stars. There was something bothering me about the stars. They didn’t look right, but I couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with them.
“Do you think it was Roux?” Thane mused as his shoulder brushed against mine, electricity zipping through me where we connected.
“It’s entirely possible,” I replied, glancing back at her over my shoulder. “But if she stole it, why can’t she remember?”
Thane’s blue eyes met mine. “And where is the Diadem now?”
And wasn’t that the question? I had the unshakeable feeling that these wisps of memory Roux kept feeling were from a past life that were merging with the previous incarnations of Nyx. My fear was that if they resurfaced, would I lose Roux?
There was a low groan from behind me, and Roux shot up from the table. Her head was thrown back, her eyes staring up at the sky, and her mouth was moving, as if she were speaking, but there was no sound coming from her. It was like she was transfixed by something in the starry mirage above her.
I approached the table slowly, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Roux?”
Still nothing.
I reached out to brush my fingers against her.
“Be careful,” Thane said behind me. “We don’t know what this is.”
No shit, big guy.
I rolled my eyes at him, not that he could see. I could feel the twins looming behind me as well, ready to defend their Reaper from whatever had her in its grip.
“Roux?”
The minute my fingers touched her shoulder, her face shot around towards me, the movement like something out of a horror movie. Her lips pulled back in a terrifying hiss, and words poured from her mouth in some ancient tongue.
“What the hell?” Magnus exclaimed. “Look at her eyes.”
Instead of the forest green I’d come to love, her eyes were like two black holes at the very edge of existence.
The twins rushed for her, but she recoiled, and more foreign words spilt from her lips.
“What’s happening to her?” Rafe asked, his voice a little unsteady.
There must be something unusual happening with their bond. “Does your link with her feel normal?”
Rayne growled, low and menacing. “No. It feels strained.”
“Like something is pulling against it,” Rafe added as he rubbed the spot above his chest.
My own bond with her felt strange as well. It was there, but it was being smothered. Cloaked by whatever it was that had Roux in its grip.
“I think we may also have another problem,” Thane said coolly.
Did anything bother that guy? “What?”
Thane pursed his pink, pillowy-soft lips. “We’re not alone.”
The room plunged into darkness, thick and dense like the shadows had been in the corridor.
My heart rate skyrocketed with the surge of adrenaline.
“Rafe? Rayne?” Magnus shouted.
I created an orb of light, but it barely made any impact on the shadows. They swirled and swam around me, pulling at the tails of my coat and whipping my hair around my face.
“Atticus?”
That was Thane, but I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. It seemed to echo around me, distorted and distant.
“Roux!” I shouted, but she didn’t shout back. Was she okay? Were the others? I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t get a sense of my bearings. The world was spinning around me, making me dizzy.
A low rumble sounded around the room. Deep and soft. Like someone was enjoying playing with us. What the hell was down here?
“Foolish creatures,” the rumbling voice whispered right by my ears. “You should never have come here.”
A flash of light exploded in the room, shaking the ground beneath my feet. My ears rang, and I slammed my hands over my eyes to shield them from whatever the hell was happening.
For a few seconds, I couldn’t catch my breath.
Not that I needed to breathe anymore, but old habits died hard.
I wondered when I’d stop breathing. I was dead and walking around with Thane’s death magic keeping me alive thanks to our soulbond, and apparently, that meant I didn’t need normal bodily functions anymore.
Would I just wake up one day and discover my body didn’t want to breathe? Would I even notice?
Hands wrapped around my face, and I flinched at the sudden touch.
“You can open your eyes now,” Thane said softly.
I pulled my hands away from my face and blinked my eyes open. Two pools of impossible blue filled my vision. Thane’s eyes really were mesmerising, like oceans caught beneath a cloudless sky.
His blonde brows dipped in concern. “I can feel how uncomfortable you are through our connection.”
“Sorry,” I grumbled. The last thing I wanted to do was make him feel uncomfortable.
“Don’t be,” he replied casually. “I like that I know what you feel.”
That took me by surprise. “Why?”
“Because you’re mine, and I want to know everything about you.”
He said that like it was the most normal thing to say in the world. It wasn’t. But I couldn’t help the flutter of my heart in my chest at his words. Shit, would I still feel those flutters when my heart stopped beating?
Thane’s blonde eyebrows dropped into a deep frown, and he looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “What was that thought?”
I stepped away from him and tried to ignore the confusion in his eyes. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
He stepped closer. “But—”
“Where’s Roux?” Magnus asked, thankfully interrupting whatever Thane was about to say. I wasn’t sure I was ready to open the can of worms that were my thoughts on my own mortality. Or rather, the lack of it.
The table where she’d been sitting was bare. My stomach dropped. “Where is she?”
I spun on the spot, frantically looking around the room, but there was no sign of her.
And worse, the door to the vault was closed.
That couldn’t be a good sign.
I ran to the door and pulled at the handle, but it didn’t move an inch.
“Roux!” I yelled as I slammed my fist on the wooden surface. “Roux!”
“Atticus,” Thane snapped. “That’s not going to help anyone.”
The twins and Magnus seemed as frantic as I was, but Thane just looked like Thane. Impossibly calm and fucking aloof. “Do you even care that she’s gone?”
“Of course I care,” he replied, his brow pinched.
“You don’t look like it,” I spat. I was so worked up and angry. At Thane, at being here in the Vault, at myself for turning away from Roux for a second. Now she was gone, and Thane just stood there, looking like an emotionless statue.
Thane frowned at me, as if I were the one being difficult. “I’m not wired like you, Atticus. I don’t feel things the way you do.”
I knew that, but it didn’t do anything to diminish the fact that I was agitated and pissed off and clearly taking it out on him.
“Look, this is entertaining and all, but I do think we should focus on the task at hand,” Magnus said, his arms folded across his chest, a single dark brow arched reminding me that the guy was a king.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Rafe said as he turned towards the door. His twin followed and the pair of them started trying to find a way to open it.
“I’ll look over here.” I walked away from everyone, needing some space to think and calm down.
I’d never been this agitated before. Was it because of the bond with Roux?
We were still connected, but she felt like she was worlds away from me.
It flickered and sputtered between us, and there was nothing I could do.
Stay strong, Roux. We’re coming.