Chapter 32 Reyes
Reyes
After a long night filled with tears, morning comes as it always does.
Nyx is awake before the sun, and Ronan never slept.
I decide I’m going to do everything in my power to keep Nyx in a good mood, but the world is working against me.
Our early start doesn’t mean more results, only more hours of work with no progress.
Nyx has paced the spot in front of the rift until the grass is trampled flat beneath his feet.
His frustration builds until he’s short-tempered, which is something I’ve rarely seen from him.
The agitation is foreign on him—the tension in his narrowed eyes, irritated mutters, and jerky, almost frantic movements.
Three times now, I’ve convinced him to take a break, but it doesn’t last. There are only so many snacks I can feed him or walks around the eerily abandoned camp I can lead him on before he marches back to that same spot and starts all over again.
“Are you alright?” I ask as he folds his arms over his chest.
“No,” he snaps, and turns his back to me. The action hurts, though I force myself not to react. This is a stressful place for him, filled with memories I can’t even begin to understand. He’s allowed to be angry.
“Okay,” I whisper, chewing on my lip as I give him space. My feet protest as I walk away, but I order them to move. Nothing positive ever comes of trying to coerce someone into a good mood. Too many heated words come from pushing a conversation that isn’t ready to happen.
I glance over my shoulder to where he stands with his arms crossed.
Nyx could be angry for a lifetime, and it would still be righteous.
After double-checking that Ronan and Xeni are close by, I step into the forest. The breeze is cooler here out of the direct sunlight, and it calms the sweat on my back and forehead.
I retrace our steps towards the van, and finally spot what I’m looking for.
A cluster of purple irises grows in a patch of sun where the trees are sparse, and I duck under some limbs to get closer.
I drop to my knees, a sad smile pulling at my lips as I remember Nyx’s attempt at the word.
It was before he could speak much of our language at all, and the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
I knew I loved him, even then, and that I’d go to the ends of the earth to protect him.
I lean forward to smell the petals when another memory flashes through my mind.
Clarity hits me so hard I jerk back and scramble to my feet.
Abandoning my plan to uproot a flower for Nyx, I turn and take off running.
I burst into the sunlight, shielding my eyes from its harshness as I look towards the rift.
But Nyx isn’t there.
Ronan and Xeni stand almost shoulder to shoulder, scanning the main part of the camp with their heads ducked together in conversation.
I search beside them, seeking that head of deep green hair, but he isn’t there.
He isn’t anywhere. Panic creeps up my limbs, clenching my hands into fists as I force myself to breathe.
Worst-case scenarios flash through my mind, visions of Nyx being taken from under my nose, or so frustrated he storms off into danger.
Or worse.
That the portal opened for him and returned him home.
Took him away from me.
I shouldn’t have left him… should’ve told someone I was stepping away. If anything has happened to him, it’s my fault, and the realization twists my stomach until I’m close to vomiting. I run to the others, and Ronan turns towards me, eyes alarmed as they meet mine.
“Where is he?” I demand, grabbing him by his armor and yanking him forward. He’s so shocked he lets me pull him closer. “Where the fuck did he go?” He stands tall, surprise smoothing his face as he realizes Nyx is nowhere to be found.
And, gods above, he looks terrified as his eyes find mine again. “I didn’t hear a thing. He has to be here somewhere.”
I throw him off me with a growl, shouting Nyx’s name into the wind. Both my hands shove into my hair, yanking and pulling, palms pushing against my skull as I try to make myself focus. Something deeply instinctual cinches around my middle, and my eyes land on that lone tent beside the trees.
His prison.
His home, for so long.
My feet are moving before I’m conscious of it, kicking up dirt as I sprint to the lonely tent. Before I even see him, I feel him. Feel his grief as I push the threadbare flap out of my way and find him standing there in the shadows of his former hell.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for this place.
It’s one thing to listen to the stories about his mistreatment, but to see it…
It turns those stories into a harsh, heartbreaking reality.
The cage that sits in the corner is rusted and filthy.
The ceiling is too low for him to even stand, and there’s barely enough room to lie down comfortably.
Stains cover the metal floor… blood, urine, and gods know what else.
Their stench has faded with the passage of time, but the unmistakable punch of squalor lives in this place.
It tells of a half-life lived in conditions no man should ever face.
Not for a single fucking day, much less a lifetime.
The story of his last moments here is told in frozen images as I tear my eyes from the cage and look around the tent.
A pile of keys sits beside the open door.
One still protrudes from the padlock that lies useless on the ground, its purpose served.
A bowl and an overturned bottle of water sit near the edge, and as my gaze drifts up the bars, my heart falters before it plunges straight to my feet.
It breaks, wholly and completely, until it's nothing but devastation.
Two sections are worn, polished until they shine and handled until the rough edges have turned smooth.
In a rush of images that almost brings me to my knees, I picture all the times Nyx has grabbed my shirt.
He holds on, rubbing the fabric between his fingers as he soothes himself.
I stare at those two shiny segments of bars, knowing in my heart that’s what he was doing.
I can see it, clear as if it were happening before me.
Nyx, locked up and terrified, grasping at those bars and staring out into the sunlight he’s so desperate to feel. Holding on like they’re his only tether to that precious outside world, and rubbing until the iron is smooth under his palms.
Emotion builds in my throat until it’s hard to swallow. My eyes drop to the clumps of grass underneath us, and a glint of metal shines from the weeds. The knife he once wielded as he stood in this place.
Such a small thing. Innocent, this weapon that almost took him from me.
“It is gone,” Nyx whispers.
“What’s gone?”
One hand gestures to a dark corner, barren of anything except dirt and cobwebs. “My flower.”
A shuddering inhale stutters into my lungs as tears burn my eyes, and I step closer.
I need to touch him, to feel him under my fingers and know he’s real—that he’s still here with me.
My hands land on his upper arms, but he doesn’t startle.
He doesn’t even move as I run my palms over his goosebumped skin.
“It’s not gone, precious. You told me once you believe I sent it to you?” He nods, leaning back against my chest as I close my eyes, comforting myself with his weight.
“Yes,” he whispers.
I press my lips to his hair, soaking in the closeness for a moment.
“After the attack on my camp, I was alone for years. No friends, no one to talk to… no one around to keep me company. I could’ve left.
Probably should’ve, if I’m being honest. But I stayed.
Call it fear, or guilt, or something beyond my control, because no matter how many times I packed my bags to leave, something made me stay. ”
“Ronan and Cameron came, and I should have gone with them. I wanted to, was dying to plead with them to bring me along. But I didn’t, because that same voice told me to stay.
The night after they left, it was all too much.
The loneliness… the fucking silence. I went outside and just screamed.
Until my throat felt like it was bleeding, until I was lightheaded and on my knees, and I didn’t stop.
I kept screaming until I lost my voice. I was so fucking desperate for someone to hear me.
Maybe Ronan and Cameron would come back, or the raiders would find me, or the military.
Anyone could hear me, and I didn’t care who.
I just needed to be heard. I needed to know I wasn’t alone. ”
Nyx takes a shuddering inhale, and a tear drops from his cheek onto my arm.
“I think someone heard me that night,” I say, my voice quivering as a droplet rolls down my face as well.
“The gods, the fates, whoever is fucking left up there that’s listening.
I think they heard me, and they heard you, too.
They knew we needed each other, and they sent you that flower to tell you to hold on just a little longer.
That I was coming, and that I’d love you until it stopped hurting, and that once I had you, I would never, ever let you go. ”
“I will tell you I love you every chance I have. Make up for every day you never heard it, and even when that score is settled, I’ll keep going.
You’ll hear it until you never doubt it, and you’ll store all that love right here.
” My hand lands over his heart, fisting his shirt as I hold him.
“I’m going to love you until you forget what it was like to be alone. ”
Nyx’s gasping sob is tragic, and he spins in my arms to huddle against my chest. Thick rivers of tears soak my shirt as his body trembles. “Your flower didn’t leave you, sirrha. I’m right here, and I will never let you go.”
There’s always been a certain amount of healing whenever Nyx and I are together.
Those scared, broken parts of me become whole and brave again, because fighting his battles is something I refuse to do with anything other than my entire self.
But right now, even with the cries and sobs that shake him all the way to his very core, I feel it.
The healing is a physical thing that surrounds us, and I cup the back of his head with my hand.
“I’m so glad you’re still here with me.”
We stay like this, his hands fisting my shirt while his tears soak my chest, and my hand in his hair to hold him tight. Our hearts beat in time, two pieces of this broken whole. Eventually, his sobs slow to hiccups, and his tears become nothing more than dried streaks on his evergreen cheeks.
“Thank you for finding me,” he whispers with a sniffle, hugging me tighter for a moment before releasing me.
“We don’t have to stay,” I say. “We can load up and go home right now, and we never have to leave again if you don’t want to.
” Deep in thought, he only nods, but takes my hand and leads me out of the tent…
away from his past. Ronan and Xeni stand near the rift, observing us as we approach.
Nyx’s eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I’m sure mine are too, but neither of them comments.
“Is everything alright?” Ronan asks, and Nyx nods with another quiet sniff. “Why don’t we—”
“It did something,” Xeni blurts, and Ronan scowls at him. “While you were in there. When you were upset, just like before—”
“Xeni,” Ronan warns in a growl, but the Cavese ignores him.
“—on the day when Laurent hurt you. It’s your emotions, Nyx. They’re what’s making the difference.”
“We don’t know that!” Ronan shouts.
Xeni’s cheeks flush as he turns to face him, shouting right back. “Yes, we do!”
Nyx shuffles between his feet, staring at the rift, but it’s quiet and still. “But those times they brought me. I was upset then, too. Nothing.”
“But you weren’t mated,” Xeni says, softer this time. Nyx stares at him, lashes clumped with the dampness of his tears.
“That makes a difference?”
“There’s no way to be sure right now,” Xeni answers. “When we get back to the village, I’ll study the files that August and Elas stole again. There might be something there I—”
“What was that?” Ronan asks, holding up his hand to silence Xeni, who scowls at him with an exasperated scoff.
“Would you stop interrupting me? It’s—” He freezes, too, moments before a blue-skinned monster sprints from out of the treeline, headed straight towards us.