Chapter 30
THIRTY
Ican feel his disapproval.
It hangs in the air, thick and choking. Deimos watches me from where he stands, arms folded, eyes burning into my back as I scrub at the blood on the floor. I already feel hollowed out. I do not need him making it worse.
I scrub harder than the stain deserves, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache. Why did I say it? The words bounce around my skull and refuse to quiet. We could have handed her over. I meant to stop the bloodshed, to end the fight before it started.
In that light my offer looked like mercy. In Lillien’s eyes it read like betrayal. The look she gave me—hurt and disbelief—settles in my chest like a stone. I betrayed her. As if someone had been waiting to prove I would.
Deimos moves at last, slow as a predator. He stops beside me and watches for a long moment before he speaks with casual cruelty. “After I fucked her, we fell asleep,” he says.
Of course he would say it that way. My stomach twists. I keep scrubbing, working the rag until my fingers numb, but his voice keeps going, calm and precise and pointed.
“I slipped into her dream,” he says, lowering his tone so that the words become knives. “The bond pulls that kind of thing.” I stop mid-scrub. “I expected her to dream of me. Or Bastion. But instead, I found you.”
The room narrows. I do not want to hear where this is heading, but I have always been a coward for truth. I look up and meet his gaze. It is a mistake. His violet eyes glitter with amusement and something else, a wounded possessiveness I do not belong in.
“She had you on your knees,” he says. “Tempting you. Breaking you.” He leans in, voice low, almost a growl. “Even in sleep, she wants to ruin you. Maybe I should let her.”
The image blooms and I want to crawl out of my skin. Her fingers sliding through my hair, the soft command in her mouth, the way I would fold into her and whisper myself away. My cock betrays me with a twitch. If she asked, I would do it. I would kneel. I would burn and thank her for the burn.
The thought is a sickness and an ache.
I slam the bucket down so hard the sound cracks the quiet and I stand too fast. “Enough,” I snap, and the word is sharper than I intend. Deimos tilts his head, and the pleasure he takes in my loss makes bile rise in my throat.
“You know,” I say through clenched teeth, “I already feel guilty enough.” My voice is small next to the weight of what I have done. I do not want his scorn. I do not need him to pry at the wound I made. But his smirk evaporates and something else takes him.
He steps in until his chest presses against mine. His hand grips my shirt like iron. He never loses his temper with us. Not like this. Not often. Now he is furious, and the fury is a physical beast. I could push him away. I could bend him backward and break the hand holding me.
But I don’t. I can’t.
“You think this is about your guilt?” he snarls.
“You were willing to hand over my mate to a Warden of Hell.” The accusation hits harder than I expected.
His words burn because they are true in the way I tried to make them not be.
“She was bonded to me,” he continues, voice low and dangerous, “she was ours. And you didn’t even hesitate. ”
Shame rips through me with the force of a gale. I try to shove past him but his grip is a tether. “I wasn’t thinking,” I manage. It is a poor defense. It is the truth and it is nothing.
“No, you weren’t.” He spits the words and then catches himself, as if the sound of them is small consolation.
“But you don’t need to apologize to me,” he says, stepping back and running a hand through his hair.
The motion scatters his anger into something that looks dangerously like fatigue. “You need to apologize to her.”
I nod because I know he is right. I will apologize. Later. For now Deimos exhales and the tension thins a fraction. “Right now, we’re going to Hell,” he says.
“Why?” I ask, though I already know the answer. We need answers. We need to know why a Warden of Hell wants Lillien, what ancient calculus tied her to promises she did not make. “Because the archives are the only place we’ll get them,” he says. His voice is dark and certain.
As we prepare, my head keeps circling back to her.
To the look in her eyes when I offered her up.
To Deimos’ words about her dream. To the little, impossible fact that I want that dream to be true.
I want the proof that she is the thing in my blood that breaks me.
It is disgusting and beautiful and I hate myself for feeling either.
We are going straight to Hell. I should be terrified, and in some ways I am. But hatred is easier there. In Hell I knew who my enemy was. In this house everything feels new and uncertain and worse.
I swallow and feel the old map of my life fold, then stretch. I am so, so fucked. But I move forward anyway because some sins are the only way to find the truth.