Chapter 6 #2
I held my head high as I walked away, forcing down the lump that was rapidly forming in my throat, warning me that Rae might be right.
* * *
By the time I arrived back at my apartment—Rae’s warning still ringing in my ears—I felt like I’d run a marathon. Not that I’d been particularly physically active—I’d driven the short distance between the shelter and my apartment—but my heart was racing, lungs burning, breath coming in short pants.
I climbed the staircase feeling like there were lead weights in my shoes, dragging my feet down. Usually I didn’t touch the bannister because germs , but today I was prepared to risk it and douse myself with sanitizer because I couldn’t physically climb the stairs without pulling myself up.
What was happening to me?
The moment I stumbled inside, within reach of Riot, surrounded by his scent, some of the panic eased. I could hear him moving around the kitchen and a huge breath whooshed out of my lungs.
He was here. He was real. The past 24 hours hadn’t been some kind of fever dream.
“Hi,” I breathed, after ditching my coat and shoes and hovering in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Hey.” Riot glanced at me, his thick black hair falling into his eyes, the corner of his mouth kicking up in an almost smile.
I almost melted into the floor. I’d always assumed women in romance movies were overdoing it with the swooning and sighing, but I was swooning and sighing with the best of them.
He was just so… swoony. All dark hair and cut cheekbones, like the movie villain with the tragic backstory who you hated as a kid, but were curious about as an adult.
“I’m making dinner, I hope that’s okay,” he said, gesturing at the cutting board in front of him. He didn’t look much more energetic than I felt on closer inspection. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his hair was sticking up everywhere like he’d been shoving his hands through it.
“Was there anything to cook?” I asked, cringing at the state of my fridge. I usually bought exactly what I needed every Sunday, since it was hard to keep fresh food from going off cooking for one.
“Well if canned soup and grilled cheese are okay, then yeah we’re good,” Riot replied with another soft smirk. How did he make that expression so effortlessly attractive? He really had the bad boy heartthrob look down pat.
“Sounds amazing. I was going to order in, but I wasn’t sure what kind of things you ate as, you know…”
“As a daimon?” Riot asked, cocking a brow at me. “We prefer raw heart in the evenings to replenish us before our shadowy nighttime activities. Washed down with the blood of virgins, naturally.”
My eyes were as wide as saucers, I could feel it. I was pretty sure my eyeballs were about to fall out of my skull.
“I’m kidding,” Riot replied with a raspy laugh, giving me a sidelong look. “Though you totally believed me, which is…alarming.”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly, feeling my face heat. Obviously they didn’t eat raw hearts or drink blood. Get it together, Grace.
“No need to apologize,” Riot said easily, far more forgiving than I would have been if someone had entertained for even a second that I drank the blood of virgins for sustenance. “It’s not like I know much about the agathos. But daimons are vegetarians, just so you know.”
“Really?” I asked, eyes widening.
“The Goddess of Night has very few expectations of the daimons, but that is one of them. She feels that we shouldn’t hold ourselves above other creatures by consuming them,” he explained casually, removing the saucepan of soup from the heat.
“Unlike humans. Your goddess’ creation, as far as I know. ”
“That’s right,” I volunteered, grabbing cutlery from the drawer and taking it out to the small white circular dining table I rarely used, sitting just outside the kitchen area. The two rattan dining chairs had mostly been for aesthetic purposes since no one visited me here.
“Let me finish up here and we’ll talk,” Riot said, looking thoughtful.
I turned to walk away, wanting to change into comfortable clothes when I felt concern.
His concern. It slid uneasily against my skin, somehow feeling both faint and entirely clear.
I could identify the emotion instantly, even if it was only the echo of it.
“Everything okay?” Riot asked, brow furrowed as he looked at me, frozen in place.
“I can…I can feel you,” I replied, stunned.
Riot’s features softened slightly. “Yeah, I noticed that this morning.”
“Oh.” Way to be observant, Grace. “That’s…unexpected. It seems sort of…”
“Soul bond-y?” Riot suggested, lips quirked. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Riot resumed making the grilled cheese, remarkably unphased, while I walked to my room in a daze.
He seemed to be taking this development better than I was.
Perhaps because he’d had the day to consider it.
I was only vaguely aware that I’d pulled out a blush-colored loungewear set from the drawer, and changed quickly before returning to the living area where Riot was sitting at the table waiting for me.
Was it soul bond-y , as he’d so eloquently put it? I shook off the thought, conflicted by the bubble of hope it caused in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I sat down to join him. “I already feel like I’ve ripped you out of your life, and now you’re cooking for me.”
“I have a lot less going on in my life than you think,” Riot replied wryly.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I protested.
“Seriously,” Riot deadpanned. “I was living with my dad, but he kicked me out due to an… employment disagreement. I was on my way to a friend’s place last night.”
I almost asked what kind of friend. The question was on the tip of my tongue, jealousy churning uncomfortably in my gut.
I’d never been the jealous type before, not really. I’d felt some envy that my friends had met their soul bonds and I hadn’t, but I’d been more sad for my own future rather than begrudging their happiness.
Riot looked puzzled for a moment before grinning broadly at me. Sugar, that expression bordered on sinful.
“I felt that,” he said, a teasing lilt to his voice.
“You felt what?” I asked, my voice a little too high to sound natural. Please don’t say jealousy.
“You’re jealous.”
Fudge. Had I given out any luck today? Because I certainly felt like I was getting some bad luck back.
The amethyst in Riot’s eyes seemed to sparkle with amusement, and I felt my face grow hot under his attention.
“That’s absurd, isn’t it?” I asked nervously, not having any experience with this kind of thing.
Riot scoffed. “I know you don’t have any soul bonds, but I’m hoping you don’t have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Whatever. A little jealousy wouldn’t even begin to cover it.”
I almost shivered at the possessiveness in his tone. It definitely didn’t frighten me the way it probably should have.
“I don’t,” I breathed. “Agathos don’t date.”
“Ever?” Riot replied, reeling back in his chair. “The soul bond things…that’s it?”
“Well, there are four for most women,” I replied, trying to understand his question.
“And you don’t date before that? Casually? I guess if you can’t feel attraction...” he trailed off, looking disturbed at the idea.
“No,” I said instantly, feeling my eyes grow wide at the very concept.
“It would be considered the height of disrespect to our future bonded to date. It…it couldn’t happen, there’d be cleansing ceremonies at the temple and prayers to Anesidora.
..” I shook my head, finding it hard to even articulate how frowned upon it would be.
“Okay,” Riot drawled, still looking vaguely unsettled. “So, you meet your soul bond and you’re connected and that’s it? No questions asked?”
“Yes.” I blinked, trying in vain to see what the issue was. Perhaps I hadn’t explained it properly?
“The Goddess herself assigns soul bonds,” I added slowly. “They are a gift.”
Riot laughed humorlessly and just the sound of it bordered on wickedness. Everything about him was so wicked, and it scared me how much that appealed to me. Not just the monstrous darkness in me, but all of me.
“Some gift, Gracie—”
Riot paused, the nickname taking us both by surprise. He looked like he was waiting for me to correct him, but I sort of liked the sound of it on his lips.
“A gift doesn’t come with conditions,” Riot continued eventually. “If someone gives you a…a purse , and you don’t like it, you can just shove it in the back of your closet and forget about it.”
I listened to his patient, judgment-free tone with increasing discomfort.
“You can’t gift a person, Gracie. They have their own free will, goals, dreams that may be incompatible with yours.”
“Anesidora doesn’t make mistakes,” I replied instantly, the words rolling off my tongue with practiced ease. After all, they’d been drilled into me from birth.
“Unless we do end up being soul bonds,” Riot said wryly, sitting back and spreading his arms wide as if to say look at me . “That would seem like a pretty big mistake, since you’d never want a daimon for your bonded.”
I nibbled nervously on the edge of my grilled cheese, wondering if I should tell him that I’d asked the Goddess of Night for help before I’d left the house last night. Maybe Anesidora hadn’t been involved in this at all.
At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling like this was out of the Goddess of Night’s powers—I wasn’t a daimon, surely she didn’t have jurisdiction over me? Maybe Riot was different from other daimons, and Anesidora wanted me to draw him towards the light.
Or maybe…maybe I was just bad. I’d often struggled with thoughts less pure than I should have. But I’d always apologized to Anesidora for my failings, and strove to do better.
Surely, she wouldn’t punish me when I was trying to do better?
I looked at Riot leaning back in his chair, the pain in his eyes impossible not to see no matter how much he tried to deflect, and I loathed myself.
How could I even entertain the idea that he was a punishment?