Chapter Three
Roux
Fingers combed through my hair, pulling me from the depths of sleep. My mind was fuzzy, and my thoughts were slow. I struggled to peel my eyes open, and my bones felt heavier than lead.
A softly hummed song filtered through my ears as the last grip of sleep slipped from me.
But it wasn’t really sleep, was it?
Images flashed through my mind. The darkness, the stars, and the giant wolf.
The memory of the pain slicing against my bones.
I bolted up, completely awake, but I immediately regretted the sudden movement. The world swam before me, and my head felt woozy, like I’d drunk way too many margaritas.
“Atticus? Rafe?” Where were they? “Ray—”
“Calm yourself, Asteri. Do not move too quickly.”
The words came from the shadows, soft and sultry. A mere whisper on the breeze.
“Who’s there?”
“Do you not know me?”
It was a man’s voice, and there was something achingly familiar about it. That dark low tone with a deliberate slowness, like he was taking care over every word that passed his lips.
“Where are you?” I could barely see anything, even with my night vision. I seemed to be in some sort of bedchamber, but there was no light anywhere. Just darkness that permeated every corner. And where were the others? What the hell had happened?
“I am everywhere,” he replied mysteriously, his voice seeming to travel around the space.
“Where are the others?”
A low menacing laugh echoed around the room. “Those fools aren’t worthy of you.”
Anger sparked low in my gut. “You know nothing about them. Or me. Where are they?”
“I know more about you than you do,” he replied cryptically, his voice fading to a creepy echo.
“What do you want?”
He laughed, a smoky rasp that vibrated against my skin. “Freedom.”
I went to call my scythe to me but thought better of it. I didn’t know what kind of creature I was facing, and he hadn’t moved to attack me yet. Maybe he was actually friendly and was keeping to the shadows so he wouldn’t blind me with his radiant beauty?
Probably not, but a girl could hope.
“Freedom from what?” I asked, hoping that I could keep him talking long enough that I could make an escape.
He gave a depreciating laugh. “From this place. From the pain, the suffering. The sheer monotony.”
There was a bite to his words that made my heart clench.
I didn’t understand why this man affected me so much.
Maybe something in his sorrow resonated with me on some level.
I still didn’t know why I grieved, only that I knew I’d lost someone.
That hollowness had followed me into this life, and no matter how hard I tried to forget it, the feeling lingered.
It caught me off guard sometimes and would send waves of sorrow so powerful that they threatened to drown me.
“I’m sorry that you’ve suffered,” I said as I stood from the bed. I stumbled forwards, my hands out in front of me feeling for objects and furniture but finding nothing.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice full of warmth for the first time, like he was amused by my fumbling in the dark.
“You could put a light on,” I hissed as I moved further into the room.
“And spoil your fun?”
I snorted. “You mean your fun. I’m not having fun.”
Silence hit my words, and it was deafening in the darkness.
“Hello?” No response. “Are… are you still there?”
I suddenly felt very alone. Had he gone?
Slowly, as if the dawn was breaking through a cloud, the shadows pulled backwards until a soft glow filled the room, and I got my first look at the space.
It was elegant and old-fashioned, like something out of a period drama.
The lighting was still low, like candlelight, but I couldn’t see where the light was coming from.
It was just… there. There was a massive dark wood four-poster bed with thick black brocade drapes hanging on each side, and the rest of the furniture was dark and masculine.
Jeez, I bet Dracula would feel at home here.
I craned my neck upwards to the high vaulted ceiling and was instantly mesmerised by the twinkling stars hovering overhead.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
My head snapped to the corner of the room where there were still some shadows lurking. I could just make out a faint outline of a normal-sized man behind the dark veil, and I was grateful that he wasn’t troll-sized. I really didn’t feel like fighting a troll.
“Yes,” I replied, answering his question. “Who are you?”
“Someone who has waited a long time for you, little thief. A very long time.”
I peered through the darkness, but I couldn’t make any of his features out clearly. “Step into the light.”
“I’m not usually one for standing in the light, Asteri.”
Something about that word felt familiar, like a memory from long ago. But I could be imagining it. It wasn’t like I really had any memories of my time before being a Reaper anyway.
“Please,” I said as I stepped closer to him. I couldn’t explain it, but something was tugging me toward him. Like my soul recognised his, but that was impossible. I’d never been down here before, but he seemed to think I had. Did he know who I was?
“As you wish,” he said, his voice steady and sure.
Butterflies swirled in my stomach, and anticipation built in my veins.
He took a step forward, the shadows moving with him. They started to dissipate like smoke, fading from the thick dark shadows into a grey mist before finally disappearing completely and revealing the man in shadows.
Two black boots.
Sharply tailored black trousers.
A crimson brocade waistcoat.
A black silk shirt, open at his throat, revealing pale skin marked with dark shapes.
Then finally, his face.
I gasped. He was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. He was… I didn’t even have words. Black hair fell about his face, the ends choppy like he’d cut it himself. There were shorter bits that fell in his eyes, which were scarlet and glowing brightly, and his skin was pale and shone like moonlight.
He looked like he’d stepped out of some gothic horror movie about Victorian vampires, but there was no denying how good looking he was. It was almost otherworldly.
“Who are you?”
His lips, which were almost as red as his eyes, turned down in a grimace. “It breaks my heart that you do not remember me. I have spent every waking hour imagining the moment that we would see each other again, and not once did I ever envision that you would have forgotten me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and strangely I was. “But I have no memory of you. Have we met before?”
A sad smile curled his mouth. “Yes. Many times, but that was a lifetime ago. And once, fairly recently, but that was a very short interaction.”
There was such longing in his eyes as he watched me, and I wished I knew who he was. I wished I knew why he looked at me like that—with desperation and hope.
“When I was here before, did I take the Diadem?”
He nodded solemnly. “You looked a little different.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Your hair was not as vibrant; it was more like the colour of the first rays of a sunrise.”
Wow, this guy was poetic. And handsome. And I was totally keeping him. Would it be wrong of me to lick him?
And he knew something of my past. A million questions flew through my mind. Why was I in the Vault? Who sent me? Why did I take the Diadem? What was my name?
“It has been a long time since I’ve seen a sunrise,” he said, as he gazed up towards the ceiling, pulling my spiralling mind back into the room. “Since I’ve seen anything other than shadows and monsters, in fact.”
I didn’t get a sense of evil from him. His power was there, but it felt muted, like it was locked in a box. I suppose that was part of his prison as much as the marble walls were. Gods, my heart was breaking for this guy.
That was it. I was going to free him. “You’re coming with me.”
He gave me a sad smile. “I wish it were that easy.”
“Don’t you know the way out?”
He scoffed and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Of course I do, but that doesn’t mean it’s as simple as walking out the back door.”
“Um, it doesn’t?”
He laughed, a low dark rasp, and my insides melted.
Why did this guy have such an effect on me?
It was mad; that’s what it was. My body instantly reacted to everything about him.
Was this fate? Or magic? There had to be a reason why I felt connected to him, why part of me was irrevocably tied to him.
My mind knew it was madness, but my gut was telling me that there was something more at play here.
And if there is one thing I’d learnt to trust when having no memories of my previous life, it was my gut. It had yet to steer me wrong.
“No, Asteri, but with the help of the others, we might just manage.” He closed the distance between us, and I was hit with the scent of him.
All dark and woodsy, a promise of something delicious and decadent.
He brushed a finger across my cheekbone with a whisper of a caress.
“But be warned, this place is designed to keep in all the darkest things in the universe. If you set the Keeper free, then there will be no one here to guard them.”
Which meant all those dark things would be free to escape as well. Was I really going to risk all that suffering and turmoil for one man?
What if I could find another Keeper? Someone else to take his place?
“It is alright,” he said, with that damn sad smile that tugged at my heartstrings. “I earned this punishment. I will see it to its bitter end.”
I grabbed his hand, and electricity zapped up the nerves in my forearm. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes,” he replied a little breathlessly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I must admit, this is the first time I have felt much of anything.”
If I wasn’t already committed to freeing him, that would have tipped the scales. “Take me to the others, and let’s make a plan to get out of here.”
“As you wish.”