Chapter Sixteen
Magnus
Erebus was staring at the pictures in the gallery.
He stood like a statue, his face turned up to the sky, bathing in the warmth of the sun.
He was looking at the woman in the oldest picture, the one Thane had called from their resting place to talk to us, Sabine.
She had been lost like Roux, a fragment of somebody with missing memories and this grief that formed such a large part of who she was.
I’d seen it with Roux in the quiet moments when she was with me.
This stillness overcame her for a few minutes when she thought I wasn’t watching her, and she’d just sit there, hopelessly staring at nothing.
I wanted to help, but nothing I did touched that grief buried deep inside her.
It intimidated me, which was ridiculous, but there she was grieving a man she couldn’t remember, and I wasn’t enough to help her overcome it.
None of us were. It was like it was woven into the very fabric of her, stitched into her skin and carved into her bones.
Maybe Erebus was right, and maybe Roux was Nyx, or at least a part of her.
Although how, I wasn’t quite sure. And if Roux was part of Nyx, what would happen when that part came to the surface?
What would happen to Roux? I feared that Roux might be lost if Nyx resurfaced.
I couldn’t lose her, not now when we were making progress with reconnecting.
I knew she still loved me. I could see it in her eyes and the small smile when she looked at me.
She struggled with seeing me with her Hounds, though, and I didn’t know how to navigate that with her.
It was like I was bumbling along in the dark without a map and with no idea which way was the right way to go.
I’d just have to hope that the Fates hadn’t cursed us, and we would all make it through together.
I wanted Roux to have the relationship she craved with Rafe and Rayne.
There was clearly something more between them, and it broke my heart for all of them that they were forbidden from crossing that step due to some archaic law.
Hades needed his head checking if he thought that keeping Roux and the twins separate was a good idea.
They were fighting it, and it was making them miserable.
Any idiot could see that, and it made me so angry that Hades could be with her and not change the fucking law for her. It wasn’t right.
There was only so long that touch could sustain a shifter’s bond, but there would come a day when it would start to fester and die, potentially killing them in the process if their bond was as strong as I thought it was.
That didn’t always happen, but in rare cases, the mate bond was so strong that denying it would kill either one, or both, sides of the bond.
I wasn’t about to risk losing any of them.
Hades was going to change that law, or they were going to mate anyway, and we would deal with the consequences.
“I can feel you watching me, vampire,” Erebus said softly, his eyes remaining fixed on the portrait.
I’d forgotten I was in the gallery with the Primordial for a minute there, lost in my tumbling thoughts.
I huffed a laugh as I stared at him again and walked towards him, standing next to his shoulder and looking up at Sabine.
The guy looked more like a vampire than I did.
He stood there, with his billowing white shirt and fancy black brocade waistcoat, looking like some romantic hero, and I was in my usual tailored black pants and crisp blood-red shirt, looking like I belonged in an office.
A fancy and expensive office, but an office nonetheless.
While the others had been summoned to GRIM HQ, I’d put in a visit topside.
I was still a King, and I still had a territory to run.
Cyril hadn’t been pleased to see me. I think the guy had been hoping that I’d died so he could take over.
If I ever died, I’d put in my will that the power of choosing the next ruler resides with the Guild.
Since I didn’t have any offspring, they had to approve anyone that put themselves forward as the next King of the Vampires.
I’d taken the throne by force with bloodshed and death.
I wasn’t about to let the next ruler claim it in the same way.
“I’m just curious about you,” I said as I took in the features of Sabine. She looked exactly like Roux. It was jarring to see a picture of her—hell, a whole gallery full of pictures of her—and know that it wasn’t actually her.
Erebus turned to look at me then, his bright eyes roving my face with an intensity I could feel brushing against my skin. “What do you want to know?”
What a loaded question. “What your endgame is.”
“My end game?” He quirked a thick, dark brow, and it made him look devious.
There was something about him that made me distrust him. We didn’t know anything about him, and he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming. “Yes, what are you really hoping to achieve now you are free?”
Which was also something else a little disconcerting. Zeus had brushed past the fact that he was free, which meant he was either confident in his own ability to defeat Erebus, or Erebus didn’t pose much of a threat on his own. With Nyx though…
I’d heard the legends and the tales about the pair of them together, and it made me fear what would happen if Nyx did resurface.
Erebus tucked his hands into his pockets, his casual stance belying the power I could feel lurking under the surface of his skin. “I only want to be reunited with my love. Anything beyond that will be a gift.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. “And what happens if Nyx isn’t part of Roux? What then?”
The muscle under his left eye twitched, and his mouth pulled back in a snarl. “That is not an option. I will not stop searching for her, even if the world ends and there is nothing left but darkness.”
I wasn’t sure if that was dedication or obsession, but there was something dangerous lurking around him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but when I did, I was calling him out on it. “Love makes us do strange things.”
“That it does,” he replied and cast his eyes back up to the portrait of Sabine with a look of longing. There was something beautiful and dark about the desperation in his gaze, and it stirred something within me. Something that felt a lot like pity.
“I met her,” I said, looking up at the woman with the wisp of white hair escaping her gable hood.
“You did?” Erebus asked, a hint of hope in his tone. “What was she like?”
“Lost,” I answered honestly. Erebus’ brow pinched in disappointment. “But she was also full of spirit. She didn’t let the loss define her.”
Just like Roux. She didn’t let the loss she didn’t understand stop her from living.
“That’s good,” Erebus muttered. “It was never meant to be this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“We knew we were in trouble, and we knew that because we were so entwined with each other, the only punishment the Council of Gods would bestow on us would be to separate us. It was the only thing that would cause us pain, so we made a plan. A way that we could reconnect when the time was right.”
“When would that have been?” I walked over to the sitting bench beneath the long window, surprised when Erebus came to sit with me.
He smiled wistfully. “I’m not sure. We left it to Fate.”
“Seriously?” I gasped. “You left something of that magnitude up to the triplets? Have you met them?”
“Several times,” he said with a hint of a smile. “But the Fates were different back then. People believed in them differently. To leave your hand to the Fates was to ask for a blessing. Now it seems that they prefer to curse you or exact a high price.”
That sounded more like the Fates I knew.
I’d last seen them to seek advice on how to win back Roux and the twins.
They’d sent me here, and in exchange, I’d granted them a gift of their choosing.
The bind mark itched on my skin as I thought about them, reminding me of the oath that I took.
I just hoped that they didn’t ask for too high a price when the time came.
“So, if you left it up to the Fates, perhaps this moment is where you are meant to be?”
Erebus locked eyes with me, those bright red orbs flickering with something that looked a lot like hope. “Do you think so?”
I laughed nervously. Why was I nervous? Was it because he was looking to me for hope? No one had done that since that Christmas Eve when the twins had looked at me like I was their whole world. “Anything is possible with the Fates.”
“That’s true.” He swallowed, and then his brows dropped in confusion as a myriad of emotions flitted through his eyes.
They were a stunning shade of red, brighter than the blood-red shade of mine, and they were framed by thick dark lashes.
“I think… I hope that I find her. Without her, I don’t know how to live or how to be. I am nothing without her.”
“I don’t believe that. You are your own person, Erebus.”
A single tear rolled over the curve of his cheek. “I don’t know who I am without her, Magnus. I need to find her.”
Another tear rolled down his cheek, and he brushed it away angrily.
I grabbed his arm. “We will figure this out. We all will. We can help—”
He slammed his hands into my chest and pushed me away, halting my words.
“You can’t!” he roared and leapt to his feet.
He started pacing in front of me, whispering under his breath as shadows started to seep from his body.
They swirled around his legs until his feet disappeared into the dense blackness.
It slithered across the floor towards me, falling through the cracks in the floorboards like heavy fog.
I needed to get a handle on this, or it was going to get out of hand. I stood up and slowly stepped closer to him, my hands held out placatingly. “Erebus, look at me.”