Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Roux
Ihated the feeling that I’d left Lila behind, but I knew that she’d be in her element looking after the rest of the ghosts. She was happiest when she had a project to manage, and keeping track of the ghosts was going to keep her busy and her mind distracted.
That thought didn’t stop me from feeling like shit, though.
She’d only been in the Cemetery District because I wanted to investigate the ghosts.
It was my fault she was there. I should have just gotten over myself and asked the twins to join me.
Then Lila wouldn’t have been in the district, and she wouldn’t have gotten trapped.
I was so stupid. I kicked the side of the building I was passing and instantly regretted it.
“Fuck!” I yelled at the night sky as tears formed in the corner of my eyes. That really hurt. “Goddamn dickwanking shit!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Bollocks. I forgot Erebus was there.
“Charming,” he drawled as he watched me with an arched eyebrow. “To be so inconsequential that one is completely forgettable.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I just…” Crap, now I was going to cry.
This was all my fault. Lila. The Games, the Vault, hell, even Nyx not being here was probably my fault.
I sank onto the low wall, feeling exhausted and drained, and I felt the weight of the world sink onto my shoulders and practically crush me.
I couldn’t do this.
“This isn’t your fault, Asteri,” Erebus said softly.
“But it is,” I sobbed. “How can it not be? If it wasn’t for me, the Vault would still be there, Lila wouldn’t be fading, and—”
“And nothing, Roux,” Erebus interrupted. He crouched down in front of me and took my hands in his. “We are all adults, and we all made our own decisions. You can’t take the blame for that.”
I sniffed and brushed away a tear. “But how am I supposed to fix everything? What about you? What about Nyx? And the mark in the sky?”
Erebus tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and dragged his finger down the length of the curl. “We deal with things one step at a time. You are not on your own, Roux.”
“I know,” I said with a sniff. “I just wish things were simpler.”
“I know it hurts right now, Roux. I know it’s tough and you feel like everything is against you, but I promise, you’ll look back on this moment and realise that you’re stronger because of it,” Erebus said as he traced a finger along the rise of my cheekbone.
His eyes roved my face, lingering on the curve of my cheek, the line of my jaw, and the shape of my mouth. “You look so much like her.”
“I’m not her.”
He smiled sadly. “I know, but every time I look at you I expect her to speak to me. I expect to see her smile and hear her laugh, but I see you.”
A single tear rolled down my cheek as I took in his sadness. I could feel it, all that grief and suffering, like it was my very own.
I trailed my fingers along the length of his jaw and into the soft strands of his black hair. I smiled at the chopped ends. There was something so charming about the way it looked like he’d cut them himself that it warmed my heart and sparked heat in my core.
Erebus brushed my tear away from his cheek. “You are different from Nyx, but I can’t deny that some part of my soul recognises you.”
His gaze was intense as he continued to stare at me, and it made my heart lurch in my chest. I swept my thumb across his full bottom lip, and he hitched a breath. I wanted to kiss him. Whatever part of me it was that yearned for him, it wanted to kiss him too.
He didn’t move. Didn’t back away. He just knelt there in the dirt and let me touch him.
All the while he watched me, those brilliantly bright eyes filled with yearning and hope and something else I couldn’t place.
I didn’t know when I’d get him on my own again like this after seeing the mark in the sky.
Days? Weeks? Would the others keep interfering?
Would we ever be alone again? Excuses. That’s what they were.
Because I wanted him. Wanted to kiss him.
Whether it was right or wrong. Or idiotic or Fate or whatever other reason it might be. I wanted to kiss Erebus.
I leant forward slowly and brushed his lips with mine in a butterfly kiss.
His mouth parted beneath mine, a breath of sheer relief ghosting past his lips.
My body hummed as I did it again, revelling in the madness because that’s what this was.
Madness. This was Erebus. The man who looked at me and saw his lost wife.
But maybe, just maybe, he saw something more. Maybe he saw me.
I let my mouth linger, moulding to his and savouring the taste of him.
He tasted sweet and fierce and achingly familiar.
Memories bubbled in my mind, but I couldn’t make sense of them.
They disappeared and slipped through my fingers before I could understand them.
I flicked my tongue across the seam of his mouth and gasped when his tongue met mine.
He let out a ragged moan and surged forwards, wrapping his arm about my waist and dragging me onto his lap.
He crushed me to him as he took over, deepening the kiss, and my soul came alive under his touch.
It was savage, dark, and dangerous. Tingles spread across my face, down my neck, and all the way to my nipples, where they hardened into peaks behind my bra.
I slid my hands into his hair, twisting the strands to pull him closer.
I wanted to crawl under his skin, align my soul with his.
The connection between us hummed and throbbed, powerful and ancient, filling me with need for him.
Desire tore through me, hot and potent, and I moaned deep into his mouth.
Erebus tore his mouth from mine, slamming the door on the intense connection between us. Slowly, he unfurled his hands from me as if he were worried I might explode if he made a sudden movement.
“Roux… I’m sorry. I can’t…”
Irritation flared in my chest, but it was closely followed by a stab of guilt. “Because of Nyx?”
“It’s more complicated than that. You know that. Until we know how much of you is you or Nyx, how can we be sure that I’m kissing you for the right reasons?”
Gods, why did he have to make sense? And be kind and sweet. It just made me like him more. Made me want to kiss him again, dammit. He was right, though. Could I be sure I wasn’t influenced by anything other than my own desire?
“I’m sorry I kissed you.”
“No,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I’m not.”
The heat in his eyes definitely agreed with him.
“You need to stop looking at me like you want to eat me,” I breathed, barely hanging onto my restraint.
“Why?” he asked, a sly grin curling his mouth.
My gaze dropped to his lips, swollen from my kiss. “Because there’s very little holding me back from kissing you again.”
Erebus chuckled and stood, pulling me up with him. “Let us go home, and we can figure this all out together. Would you like to travel by shadow?”
“You mean…?” I could barely hold back the excited squeal. There was something beautifully enticing about his shadows, and I’d longed to feel their touch again since we were in the Vault.
Shadows poured out from him, sinking to the floor like heavy fog and swirling around my feet.
Erebus grabbed my forearms and wrapped them around his waist. Gods, he smelt good.
Like wild, dark forests and log fire cabins.
I pressed my nose to his chest and took a deep breath.
There was something instantly calming about his scent and his presence.
Erebus wrapped his arms around me, sliding his hands up the length of my spine, settling one between my shoulder blades and the other curled possessively around the back of my neck. “Close your eyes and hold on tight. You don’t want to get lost in the shadow world.”
I peered up at him through my lashes as the world around us faded. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and then pulled me closer. Tucking my head under his chin, I closed my eyes and let him carry me away in his darkness.
The mansion materialised through broken shafts of moonlight as the wisps of Erebus’ shadows peeled away and faded into the night.
It took a minute for my limbs to feel solid again, and I enjoyed the sensation of Erebus playing with the ends of my hair while my body reformed.
“You can let go now,” he hummed softly into the top of my hair.
“Just another minute. Please.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to let go of him yet.
My soul seemed to find comfort in him, and now that I had him in my arms, I didn’t want to let him go.
It should worry me that the familiarity I felt with Erebus was becoming stronger; perhaps that was the part of me that was Nyx, but this didn’t feel wrong.
Hugging him didn’t feel wrong, especially since he held onto me just as tightly as I held him.
As if he needed the touch and comfort from me just as much as I needed it from him.
“We should find the others,” Erebus whispered.
He was right, but standing here in his arms, I could hide myself away from the world just a little longer.
“You can’t run from this, Asteri,” he said as he pulled back and looked deep into my eyes, like he was searching for something. My backbone, maybe? Lord knows I needed to find it for whatever was going to happen next.
“I know.” I sighed and stepped away from him. “I just wanted a minute where I was a person enjoying the warmth of someone else, skiá. Come on. Let’s find the others.”
I turned to walk into the mansion, but Erebus clasped my hand, holding me back.
“What did you call me?” he asked, his voice breathless, his fingers tight around my wrist.
“Erebus?”
He stepped closer, and his expression darkened, his shadows moving beneath his skin. “You said ‘skiá’.”
Had I? I didn’t remember saying that. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means shadow. Nyx used to call me that. I always called her Asteri. My star.”
Panic squeezed my chest. How could I say something and not remember it? My blood turned to ice as fear crept in. Was I slowly turning into Nyx? Without even realising it?
“Are you alright?” a male voice said, interrupting my tumbling panic.
I turned towards the top of the stairs to see Rayne staring at the two of us with a worried expression.
My mouth felt like sandpaper. “I’m fine.”
I pulled my hand from Erebus and walked up the stairs. I needed a minute away from him. From that look of hope and desperation burning in his eyes. The hope and desperation that I was someone else.
Frustration flooded my mind. How could he be so sweet to me one minute and then hope I was someone else the next? The emotional whiplash was doing a number on me and made me want to scream the place down.
Rayne instantly tried to pull me into a hug as I reached the top of the stairs, but I couldn’t take it.
Couldn’t deal with the bittersweet feel of being in his arms. Not right now, anyway.
I needed a special kind of strength to walk the fine line with the twins, and right now, my head was a mess. I needed a distraction.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I brushed past him. “But I can’t.”
His face was pained, but he let me go, understanding what I needed more than I did probably. I leapt up the stairs, following the pull of the mate mark on my chest. I needed to be with someone who wanted me for me, who could touch me because they were free to do so.
Someone who could love me without restraints.
I barged into Atticus’ room without knocking, my eyes instantly landing on him as he lounged in the window seat, his gaze pouring over some ancient looking book.
Gods, he looked good, his midnight blue hair draped around his face, his brow dipped in concentration. Who knew studying could look so sexy?
“Kitten?” he said as he glanced up at me, worry pinching his mouth. “What is it?”
“I need you,” I gasped, barely holding it together. “I need… I want…”
A slow smile spread across his face, and his eyes darkened with need. “I know what you need. Come here.”
He patted the top of his thigh, and I instantly walked over to him and straddled his hips, the raging range of emotions instantly settling as I curled up in his lap. Atticus gripped my chin and pressed a soft kiss against my mouth.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” he asked, ghosting his lips over mine.
I tried to demand more of him, but he smiled and held me back.
“Ah, ah, kitten. Tell me what’s the matter.”
“Later,” I moaned. “I just need to get out of my own head for a minute. I promise I’ll talk later, but for now, I need you.”
“As you wish.” Then he crushed his mouth to mine. It was pure fucking bliss. A cool touch against my fevered skin, like diving in a lake after being burnt by the sun. His tongue flicked across the seam of my lips, and I let him in, opening wide under his gentle touch. This was what I needed. Love.
Atticus hooked his hands under my coat and pushed it off my shoulders. I grabbed the hem of my vest and pulled it off in one swift motion, needing his touch on my skin.
“Gods, you're beautiful.” Atticus hummed against my mouth, his fingers trailing over the mate mark on my sternum. Tingles spread across my chest and down my arms as he touched the thick black runes that swirled on my skin.
I slipped the buttons open on his white shirt and peeled it from him. His pale skin shimmered like it was coated in stardust, and his chest was covered in runes like my mate mark. With his nebula eyes and dark marks, he looked like he’d stepped from another world. “So are you.”
Atticus slid his hands down the length of my spine, over the curve of my ass until he hooked them under my thighs. He lifted me into his arms and carried me backwards over to his bed.
Together we tumbled onto it, and he nestled his hips between my thighs, rolling his cock against my core. Heat pooled in my belly as my need climbed higher.
“I need you, Atticus,” I moaned, scoring my fingers down the magnificent lines of his back, pulling him in closer.
He fisted his hands in my hair and crushed his mouth to mine in a kiss that devastated me. It was teeth and tongue, and he owned me with it. Body and fucking soul. In this moment, I was his, and I lost myself in him completely.