Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
luna
loving him was like swallowing hellfire.
I stare back at myself in the mirror. It’s times like this when I find it hard to imagine a life where things are different. Gone is the little girl who wished to ride dirt bikes and loved her best friend, and here stands the woman who was promised skulls and suits in exchange for the one thing that’s irreplaceable in this world.
Time.
Perfumed flowers that bloom at midnight balm the scent of a vacant home. It reminds me of him, yet I’ve never been able to let it go. It was like wearing the memory of him.
With one more swipe of crimson, I twist the lid back on my lipstick and place it near my makeup on the vanity when the valleys of L’embruix light up my phone screen. I tap answer.
“Hello, friend.” I smack my lips and cut the edges using my nail.
River’s relief blows through. “Wow. I wasn’t sure you’d answer me.”
“Why would I not answer!” I push up from my chair and head to the other side of the bedroom, straight to the walk-in closet. In an illumination of unpacked boxes and discarded hangers, I consider backing out of the space to save my perfectionism the heartache. “We were both there to do what we were supposed to do. I’d never be mad at you for that.” I’ve not seen her since, but has she already forgotten who I was? Or that I rarely care for the normalities of general human nature.
“Still…” A car door slamming closed in the background blends with the clapping of her heels. “I should have reached out, fought more, done better, I just—” She pauses. I need to change the subject.
“You couldn’t have, River, and I wouldn’t have let you if you tried.” I give up on my closet.
She’s huffing and trying to catch her breath. “Well, I guess at least I had it wrong, and he didn’t kill you.”
I swipe a fresh grape from the fruit basket, where Mom’s note sticks out. A well-fed lioness doesn’t crave to be feasted by the kingdom. It smells of freshly painted walls and candied popcorn-scented candles. “Where are you? I was going to say the gym, but the heels threw me off.”
She breathes out a sigh. “I’m so glad you asked. Open the door.”
Placing my phone on the counter, I peek through the hole in my door. My cheeks ache from my smile when I swing it open.
River launches at me, her arms flying around my neck. “Oh my god, I’ve missed you!”
All the tension that's coiled through me eases as I step to the side and rush to close the door, half-tempted to lock it behind her.
“I wanted to see you before the party tonight.” Her long blonde hair flows down the slender curves of her back like oat milk, and her bronzed skin glows beneath the warm light.
“Party?” My brow curves, resting my hip against the kitchen island. “I know it’s been a while, but I’m much the same. Still despise parties.”
River waves me off. “I promise you it won’t be a wild one. It’s at Priest’s, so I’m sure people are too scared to attend anyway.” She reaches forward and plucks a grape, popping it into her mouth. She flinches, sliding up to a barstool. “Tactless. Sorry.”
I shrug, tightening the silk tie around my robe. “Don’t be. It’s history. But I’m not coming to this party.”
River holds my stare, the corner of her eye wrinkling and her smile turning sarcastic. “Yes. You are.”
* * *
This house is a vessel for the dark and damned. With bleeding black walls and flooring paved for hell, it’s like stepping through time instead of the front door. A chandelier of fire rains down above, and the checkered marble floor of the entrance shifts the hands of time back to the young girl who stumbled over them like a lost lamb waiting for slaughter.
A shiver moves over my spine the longer I stand, so I grab onto River as she pushes us through the swarm of people. Locked in an alternate universe, it’s eerily similar to my birthday party all those years ago. Will people be mad that I’m here? I haven’t seen Halen and Stella since the ritual, and gathering Halen’s lack of knowledge with everything that went down, how much longer until she finds out and hates me all over again.
Halsey and Post Malone play through the house as River shoves a group of guys out of our way, separating their meaningful conversation about who they were going to lay tonight.
She pulls out a velvet stool beneath the kitchen island, grabs a bottle of—something—from the fridge, and places it on top of the obsidian countertop. I can’t help it. My eyes find the corner where my cake once swallowed the space.
“Do you remember our old friend?”She rubs the tall amber bottle as if it were something else…
I squint at the label.
Someone passes behind me, but River doesn’t shift her focus from me. She rolls her eyes. “Don Julio!”
I click my fingers. “Right!”
I don’t remember. Probably because of the Don Julio.
She fills both our glasses and slides mine across the counter. I take a sip, the aged barrel smokiness of vanilla and caramel stirring my memories. Now I remember…
“Thank you for the birthday party.” I choke on my whisper. “But you didn’t have to do this.” My fingers itch to touch the velvet texture of his skin and the sculpted lines of his lips. The party can be heard on the other side of the door thanks to the heavy bass line, yet here we are. In his bedroom, after I found myself running away from the knowledge that he’s in fact, allowing other girls on his lap.
I reach up, and my hand is on his cheek before I can stop myself. Mortified, I’m about to pull away when he stops me, his eyes closing and the bloodstains over his face a brilliant shade of slaughter.
“When will you get it, Madness? It’s not only in there—” He gestures over his shoulder with his head. The fire in his tone burns through his throat when his eyes drill through mine. “It’s every. Single. One of them.”
It is the first time we’ve ever been this close together for this long. Twice in one day I’ve seen a different side to him, the one I suspect lives beneath the pile of corpses he leaves behind.
His arm slips behind my back, seizing the air in my lungs when he pulls me close. “Fuck.” He buries his face into my hair. “You’ll leave soon.”
Confused, my neck aches when I bend to look up at him. Ridiculous since he’s built like a beast yet radiates controlled elegance. Everything he does is deliberate.
Something trickles over the base of my foot, but I ignore it.
“I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes darken as they drop to my mouth, probably making sure I said the words and he wasn’t imagining it. “Unless you don’t want me.”
A blizzard gusts through my veins when the corner of his mouth curves up in a sneer. It isn’t a beautiful one. It’s feral, animalistic, and reminds me of the monsters I’d been told about as a child.
“Don’t you see the problem? It’s not that I don’t want you.” He steps away from me as if he’s realized what he’s done. The muscles in his jaw tense. “It’s that I can’t help that I fucking hate you.”
“Earth to Luna!” River clicks her fingers, snapping me out of the blurred memory of my birthday party. When I had found the girl that was so comfortable on his lap, dead on his bedroom floor. I’d watched him kill. Daily. But that was the first time he didn’t do it for a reason. He didn’t kill people in some twisted lesson to teach me something. At that point, I knew he did it because he had to. It was also the last time we ever went near each other again until Madison’s charity event.
I lower my glass to the table. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Her smile drops. “Look.” She rests her hands on my shoulders, moving closer until her forehead rests against mine. “I get it. With yours and the Mad Prince’s history, but you’re free now. You’re out of his psychotic grip. You can leave whenever you want. Just not right now.”
I laugh, the tension in my neck releasing. “Fine!” My laughter stops when the familiar weight of his attention holds me in place. My smile slips. The beating of my heart pounds louder than the music when I see him.
Sitting in the same spot he was in all those years ago, his black T-shirt stretches over his muscles, but not in a way that looks tight, only that he’s too big. His black hair is a mess, and his dark gaze holds me hostage, refusing to let go. Crimson-colored fingernails brush through the strands of his hair, and I force myself out of his invisible hold by breaking eye contact. I need to see who it is that's touching him.
Tanned, long legs barely covered by a tiny, white skirt. Her lace top hardly covers what the leather jacket doesn’t.
She moves to his side, skimming her lips over his jaw and whispering something into his ear.
River’s disgust is loud when she shoots back her drink, her fingers forcing my attention to her. “Don’t even stress that. I wish I could say that it’s Aunty Madison’s new way of trying to see if her son really is a sociopathic lunatic by loaning—yes, loaning—a family friend, but that isn’t it. What it is, though…is something that you…” She taps the tip of my nose with her finger. “Do not have to worry about.”
When I don’t answer, she rolls her eyes and rests her glass on her lap. “You and I both know she won’t last. Though I am intrigued to see how long this one will since the last one barely made it past the first meeting.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t bother me.” My heart rate drops low enough to flatline.
“Good! Because—” The lights cut, leaving us in darkness and the sound of Lily-Rose Depp singing about not being one of his girls. I fumble across the counter to find my phone.
“Ugh!” River growls, sliding off the bar and landing in front of me. I direct the weak light of my phone screen toward her. “I’ll be right back. It’s a fuse issue and since I’m guessing the boys are distracted!” She waves her hand in the air and bellows, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” Slowing her steps, she turns over her shoulder at the last minute, flashing me a lazy smirk before disappearing through the darkness.
I exhale, resting my head against the cabinet. What was that about, and why did she look so damn smug.
Tequila burns its way down my throat as the talons of a dark shadow form around me. I could feel him in any room, in any lifetime. Even in barely any light, it’s ridiculous hot he is. I hate that. I hate that the worst person I know is also the most interesting to look at.
He stops, his mouth set in a straight line. He’s mad.
With sharp cheekbones and eyes that tear through your soul, his beautiful exterior is merely a shield to the many layers that mold Priest Hayes. I wouldn’t know how to peel them back. Even if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to. The thought kind of scares me. Which is probably what he wants.
His head tilts, allowing me to glimpse the tattoo that curls from the back of his neck. “Go upstairs.”
“What?” I slide my now empty glass toward the sink, crossing my arms in front of myself. It’s bad enough he’s within arm’s length. He can’t come any closer. “Why?” It’s not the time that's passed between us, because it never feels like it does when it’s him and I, but because even after all this time, he still thinks he can throw orders around and I’ll listen.
I hiss at the connection of his fingers curling around my chin as he forces my head back. I don’t like this angle. Now he has direct access to my soul.
His brows drop inward as his frown deepens, but then he grabs me by the arm and forces me through the main foyer. If he wants to do something, he’s going to do it. I learned that a long time ago.
We haven’t even reached the stairs when the lights flicker back on, exposing the familiar sense of being watched. It doesn’t take long for me to find her. The redhead from earlier who had her hands on Priest. She watches me with cool regard. It appears desperate since it’s obvious she’s talking herself into not reacting.
She sees a girl with her hair half tied back in a ribbon, innocent black stockings, Docs, and an oversized knit sweater, and thinks…huh. She’s not his type.
Loosening the grip on his biceps, my fingers slide down the rippling muscles of his arm. I didn’t intend to take it far, but then my hand landed in the palm of his. Shit. This is risky. He could retract— and her eyes drop in time to see his hand close around mine protectively. Her eyes whip back up to my face, balling her fists at her sides. The corner of my lip curls up in a slow declaration of triumph.
River steps into my line of sight, not bothering to hide the smug smirk as she rests her glass on her chin. Before I can see what happens, we’re already up the stairs and he's dragging me down the hallway. Ornate frames decorate the wall, even more than I remember. Passing the teacup and black sunflower, I try to slow to check out the art that wasn’t there when I left, but he forces me past the room I spent so many years in, around a sharp corner, and down to the only door on this side. He kicks it closed once we’re inside, and suddenly the room is too small, despite its size.
“When I tell you to do something, Madness, fucking listen.” He tosses his wallet and keys onto the blacked-out bedding.
“Why?” My feet carry me closer to him, and I lose my train of thought on the teasing of a tattoo that sneaks out the back of his neck. I wish I could see what it was.
I reach up to touch it, but he spins around and stops me with his hand. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nudges me away. “No, you’re not.” When the bedroom door slams closed, I’m sucked back through the vortex of time…
It isn’t that he admitted he hates me. I already know that. He doesn’t need to say the words for me to feel it.
“Why’d you kill her?” I lift my foot out of the puddle at my feet, wiping the residue of blood off my hand and onto my dress. There’s something about murder, as if it holds a haunting truth. As if their pulse continues to pump through the blood that stains your skin.
He pins me in place without lifting a finger. “You know why.”
Copper clings to my tongue when I chew on my bottom lip. “Do you kill people at every party? With so many witnesses?”
He reaches forward, swiping something from my chin. “Only when the lights go out.”
Pushing myself out of memory lane, I run the palms of my hands over my arms when the temperature drops. The California king bed looks out over the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a room decorated with simplicity. Tinted windows fade the radiant lights of Riverside as my fingers dance over the black dresser, grazing the cologne sitting on the top. Floorboards creak to the side, and my movements halt as shivers billow down my spine.
I try to shut the memories of him out. All that makes Priest Hayes the monster he is, but the sound returns. The door farthest away and hidden in the corner widens on its own, exposing a darkness that swallows everything whole. A single light flickers against the depth of the hole, only enough to offer an endless path.
The plush carpet transforms into hard concrete as I creep in further.
The door slamming shut causes me to jump, and I spin around to find my way back. Absent of life, the room is void, suffocating anything that resembles light and replacing it with the invisible weight of evil that marks you the second you walk through the door.
The temperature drops to the familiar level needed to help preserve his secrets.
“Fascinating.” A voice echoes through the concrete. I stop walking. Why the hell did I think it’d be a good idea to find my way back down the rabbit hole?
In a sad attempt to find my balance, my hand lands on the wall. “Who is that?”
Laughter crows through the dark, and it’s enough to force my foot back a step, with the urgency to run, clawing its nails up my back.
Run now.
And fast.
“I’m kind of insulted, Luna Nox…”
As soon as my middle name leaves her mouth, the blood drains from my body. My fingertips quake with unrelenting electricity, and I shift forward again, the internal battle of running and facing who knows me enough to say my middle name. In all the years I’d been in his room of terrors, none of them so much as knew my first name, let alone my middle one.
My persistence wins out. I step forward, but a hand lands on my arm, pulling me backward. The darkness in the room draws back like an ebbing tide at the presence of its master or someone even worse, and I’m back in the low light of Priest’s bedroom.
I blink to adjust my vision when I find Vaden standing opposite.
“What are you doing in there, Lulu?” His tone was distant, but I let him pull me to my feet after wiping my eyes clean. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen to the ground. What the hell was that…
The grip he has on my arm stops my attempt to step backward. I’ve not heard of boys like Vaden and Priest. I know them.
Well.
“I got lost,” I whisper, searching the mysterious tint of his eyes. Both are different shades, yet…the same.
He chuckles, but it does nothing to calm me. At least not the way he used to. “You and I both know that you can’t keep falling down the hole.”
I shove my arm out of his grip, turning to the door that lets me out of this hell. I didn’t want to come to this party tonight, but I did. Damn River.
Vaden doesn’t bother stopping me, and when I’m out of the bedroom and back down the hallway, I slow my way back to the stairs. There have to be hundreds of pictures hanging now, all framed by dark elegance and elaborately carved frames.
A girl standing alone, staring back at a blank canvas.
A cathedral made of candy.
A blank white page filled with nothing. Strangely comforting.
Warmth spreads over my chest the further I walk, taking in each piece with a careful eye. I don’t know what they mean, but whoever did them is talented. Why didn’t Priest use this person to paint the damn pictures during his murder-fest instead of me?
I hold the railing as I continue down the staircase, the music now a subtle pulse of Korn. It’s like the mellowing end of a party where everyone is passed out, or in this case, maybe dead. I need to find River and leave. I shouldn’t be here.
My phone vibrates in the palm of my hand, but I ignore it, pushing through people to find River. It’s useless. I’m not going to find her. When my phone vibrates again, I answer the call without checking to see who it is.
Nature breathes life back into my lungs as I press the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Checking in on you?”
I hold my tongue on what I want to say. You threw me to the wolves, knowing they’re famished. “Good. I’m fine.”
“Luna.”
I lower myself onto the front steps, checking over my shoulder that no one is listening. Riverside has ears everywhere.
“It’s been testing.”
Silence.
Warming my hands by running them up and down my thighs, the contour of my holsters jar each movement. “You knew that was a possibility. It’s going to get worse.”
I cross my arm around my belly, tightening my sweater to stop the shivers. “I know.”
“Good. You know nothing is ever easy for us.”
I do. I know that better than most people assume I do.
“I know.”
“Are you free?”
“Am I?” I reply, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
“You are now. A car will be there soon.” The line goes dead. I stare back at it, ignoring the generic home page Apple installs on every phone.
“Leaving so soon?”
My stomach dips, causing my finger to pause over the screen. He's close. Enough to feel the brush of his words at the nape of my neck. Too close. Too much too soon.
“Parties aren’t my scene.”
Panic crawls down my spine. Priest never attacks when your back is turned. He likes to breathe in your last breath and watch as the life drains from your eyes so the last thing you see is him.
Combat boots come into my peripheral when he steps down, subsiding some of my fear. When I lift my head, I’m reminded of everything he is. The hatred, torment, and pain. The way I’ve only ever seen him smile once, showcasing the two dimples on either cheek. It was at the exact moment when he thought I was about to die.
He lowers to the spot below me, resting against the railing. “That hasn’t changed then.”
“It won’t.” Like a firestorm through a forest, he leaves his destruction behind everything he touches. “What about you?”
“What about me?” It’s harder to breathe when he looks at me this way. “What, Madness?” he repeats with his mouth in a flat line.
“Are you the same?” I roll my eyes. “Locking me away in your bedroom aside.”
Heavy silence weighs us both down. He won’t answer.
His eyes shift from me and out to the front, in time for headlights to illuminate features so sharp there’s no mistaking they’d been carved by the demons he hides. “Always.”
I push up from the steps when the car rounds the concrete fountain, brushing off the dirt from my butt. Reaching for the door handle, I turn to look over my shoulder, catching Priest glaring into the driver’s seat.
“Tell the girls I got a ride.” My poor attempt at trying to interrupt his gawking fails.
“To where?” He has a lockjaw with what he wants, and right now, he wants to know who’s driving this car.
“Home.” I slide into the back seat and shut the door. Closing my eyes, I count to five. It doesn’t matter if he did see who was driving. What was he going to say?
The separator lowers, and friendly eyes meet mine. “They await you.”
My blood warms as I relax into the leather. “Thank you.”