14. Ruen
Chapter 14
Ruen
W hite lines mar the inside of my forearm. Only slightly paler than my skin, each slice was cut with a shaft of brimstone sharpened to a fine point. Each of them is so faint that most can’t even perceive them. Just in case, though, I almost always manage to cover them with my clothes. The ones on my back are different. Deeper, whiter, more noticeable.
I remember each and every one of them, though the reason for them has long been lost to me. Instead, I merely recall the way that the blood had welled up from beneath my flesh as it poured down my skin and smudged across the blade and my fingertips.
I drag a washcloth covered in soap over my arms and chest absently. It takes a concentrated effort to ignore those markings. There are dozens on each forearm, more than that if you count the scars I’d repeatedly cut open and made deeper to … well, I’m not entirely sure what I’d wanted to do when I started the process.
I grab handfuls of water and rinse away the suds before standing and getting out of the tub. Water sluices down my body, running between crevices and indentions made by the muscles I’ve packed on since I was that skinny, half-starved child when Azai tracked us down. The room is colder now that I’m no longer sitting in the waist-deep water. It had cooled significantly since I’d first gotten in but it was still warmer than the air is now. I ignore that and reach for a drying sheet, wrapping it around my waist and tucking the end into itself before I swipe a hand up my face and shove the dripping strands of my hair out of my eyes.
My fingers still over the one mark that was not made by my own hand. The slightly raised line that dissects my brow and skips my eye to taper off on my upper cheek is tight with age. I close my eyes and let my hand drop away. I itch to go back to my room and find the brimstone blade I keep hidden beneath the floorboards and use it on myself. It would distract me from the very sensual and dangerous woman now sleeping in my bed. It would … be useless, I ultimately decide with a shake of my head.
Opening up old wounds won’t do more than create problems. I’d stopped for a while after Theos had found the blade—forcing me to change my hiding spot for the damn thing. I’d intended to start back up just when I needed it, but then she’d come into our lives. Like a storm bent on wrecking freshly built cities, Kiera Nezerac had torn through our mundane reality and ripped large gaping holes in our foundation. No, perhaps, it would be more apt to say she’d merely unsettled things enough for our foundation to be ripped from its roots. Caedmon had done the actual ripping with what he’d revealed.
The Gods are not Gods at all but creatures from another world.
I can safely say I had never seen that coming.
With slow steps, I pad across the bathing chamber to the mirror against the far wall and to the waiting pile of clean and dry clothes on the stool next to it. I quickly finish drying my body, ripping the sheet away to use it against my skin with rough movements, ridding myself of the water droplets still clinging to me before sliding into fresh black trousers and doing up the row of buttons. Beyond the window, a low hum of thunder echoes closer. I pause on the final button and lift my gaze to the glass and the skies beyond. Another rumble sounds in the distance, and almost as soon as I take a step toward the window, the clouds part and rain begins to pour. Just a perfect fucking shit ending to the perfect fucking shit week.
The smattering of clicks and taps of the rain slapping the side of the tower fills the room and the lights in the sconces on the walls flicker as if they can sense the wind of the storm on the outside. For several long moments, I stand there, letting the last of the water on my skin dry in the too cold air as my eyes find my face in the window’s reflection. Down, down, down my eyes sink until they’re, once again, fixated on the scars smattering along my arms. I close my eyes briefly, shutting out their image before turning away from the window and moving to finish dressing.
I rip a long dark tunic over my head and yank it down my arms, covering the evidence of my pathetic weakness before leaving the bathing chamber. The main floor is empty. Quiet. Dark.
The others are either asleep or closed off in their rooms. As I reach the hearth, I pause and for the longest moment, I debate making a bed for myself on one of the lounges. A rustling sound draws my eyes towards the stairs again and I spy, with no small amount of disgust and unease, one of Kalix’s familiars slithering over the bottom step and moving its way up to the railing for easier grip as it makes its way up to his room.
Yeah, guess I’m not bedding down out here after all.
I head for my bedroom door and crack it open to peer inside. The room is dark. No candles are lit. I take that as a good sign and slip inside before letting the door snick shut behind me once more. It takes only a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Almost as soon as I do, though, thunder rumbles in the distance and the whole space lights up with a flash as lightning cracks beyond the barrier of the Academy grounds—likely somewhere over the seaside.
A figure is sitting up in the bed, pale and smaller than I’ve ever noticed before. My breath catches in my throat.
“Sorry,” I say immediately. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.” The lightning is gone in another instant, but my eyes adjust quicker than before and I can still see where Kiera rests with her back against the headboard and her legs drawn up to her chest. The evidence of her claim—that I hadn’t woken her—seems accurate because she’s no longer wearing the dress she went to see the Council in.
I scan the room once more and find it in a heap in the corner, near one of my reading tables. Staring at the dark wash of fabric crumpled there, I try to recall if she’d been naked when I looked at her last—her skin is as pale as her hair, but had she been wearing something else other than her flesh?
A desire that I know I shouldn’t feel beats at me like the winds outside the tower.
Don’t fucking look, I urge myself.
It’s like telling a dying man to keep breathing. Impossible.
I look and my breath catches in my throat, freezing there as I look over the long, white limbs of her arms delicately draped over her knees. She’s not naked. At least, there’s that, but she’s certainly got a lot of skin revealed by the tunic she’s dressed in. My tunic, I realize a moment later when she shifts on the bed and straightens her legs out, dropping her arms. That fact doesn’t seem to help the sharp stabbing pain in my chest.
It’s big on her even with the sleeves pushed and folded up to her elbows. It covers her lap, but the skin of her thighs remains available for my eyes to peruse. They lock onto her legs and picture what they’d look like wrapped around me, hooked at the ankles as I drive my cock between that hot, wet place that’s hidden from view.
I swallow roughly, a low growl threatening to spill out. I turn back to the door. “You can sleep here tonight,” I snap. “I’ll?—”
“Why would I sleep here?” she asks before I can finish. “I have a room below.” Rustling follows that statement. The muscles of my back bunch and tighten with each sound that slithers through my ears like one of Kalix’s serpents.
Then her words catch up with my thoughts and I turn, slowly, to face the woman in my bed. “You’re not going back to your old room.”
Kiera turns and slides her legs away from the rumpled covers and sheets. Long pale legs appear over the side of the mattress and her bare feet touch the floor.
Eyes up, you fucking prick! I tear my gaze away from her flesh and settle on her face.
“Why?” Stormcloud gray eyes stare at me.
Why? I repeat her question in my head, trying to recall what we’d been talking about. I blink at her. “Because you are a Mortal God, and that is a Terra room.”
Kiera stands up and as she does, another flash of lightning breaks through the room. Holy … fucking Gods.
“Why does that matter?” Kiera asks as she moves closer.
If I thought it was a struggle to tear my gaze away from her before, it’s impossible now. Not only had she chosen an old tunic of mine, but this one is so pale and thin that when the flash of light takes over the darkest parts of my bedroom, illuminating everything in its path, it does more than just … shed light on her. It peers through the fabric and casts a glow around her form, outlining every curve beneath the cloth.
What might have been—in the once dark room—a somewhat overly large night dress on her becomes practically nothing in an instant. The image burns into the back of my mind through my eyes and I know that this moment, this memory will be etched into me forever.
Thunder fades over the sound of waves crashing in the near distance—disturbing the cliffside outside of the Academy walls. The light disappears, fading from existence, but not the image of Kiera standing from my bed in little more than transparent fabric. Volcanic heat pours through my veins, directing a pathway straight to my groin.
“Ruen?” Kiera’s voice is curious, not angry as it usually is when directed to me. I’m standing here, beating back my internal beast with each passing second and forcing myself not to rip that damn tunic from her body and she … knows, I realize when I raise my gaze to meet hers.
Even in the dark, my eyes sharpen on her face, my sight far better than mortals as I now know hers is as well. The corner of her lips is curved upward and her brow is lifted. The challenge in her expression sends the growl I’d been holding back up my throat. It unleashes and, in an instant, I spring forward, grabbing her with both hands on her too-skinny waist. No, perhaps, not too skinny. She’s not a delicate woman, her body is built for athleticism. Her muscles are obvious under my palms.
Still, she doesn’t fight as I catapult her back onto the bed and land on top of her. Her back presses into the mattress and I come down hard, my legs encasing her thighs. I’d wonder why were it not for the fact that, a moment after we collide, she’s rearing up to clasp my shoulder and canting her hips into mine. The damn woman uses my momentum to push me onto my back so that she can swing a leg over my hips when we flip and she falls against me in the dominant position.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked, Ruen,” she says. “You were practically begging me to kick your ass with the way you were eyeing me.”
My hands grasp her hips. Instead of lifting her up as I know I should, I grip her tighter and bring her down further into my lap. I know the exact moment she feels my problem because Kiera stiffens all over, her head turning down where my cock is straining against the inside of my trousers, pressing up against the center between her thighs. The taut silence in the room is disturbed only by the sounds of the storm outside and still, that’s not enough to break the spell that has somehow found itself cast over both of us. I have to be the one to do it, I know, but it’s quite possibly the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life just to clear my throat and speak.
“I want to see it,” I tell her.
Gray eyes widen. “What?”
I sit up, and to my surprise, Kiera doesn’t lean away from me as I expect her to. Instead, she remains right where she is until my chest is a hair’s breadth away from hers. “I want to see where the brimstone was in your neck.”
She blinks and then, slowly—as if she’s not sure I’m telling the truth—rises up off my lap. I know only a moment of peace as she gets off the bed and allows me to move forward. She turns away from me and just as I’m about to stand, she’s back again. The round globes of her ass settle over my lap. My heart stutters to a stop in my chest.
“Go ahead,” she murmurs.
Is this a dream? It must be. Or is she … perhaps, teasing me?
Women go after Theos, and a few of the crazier, masochistic ones go for Kalix. They do not come for me. They had—long ago—when the three of us had first entered the Academy, but I’d shut that down quickly. Despite the herb we’re forced to take annually to mitigate Mortal Gods procreating, other than a few dalliances here and there with discreet women who knew where they stood with me, I don’t seek out females.
I don’t understand them, I don’t trust them, and I don’t wish to. The damage my mother suffered because of her relationship with my father will always remain in the back of my mind, reminding me just why it’s a damned bad idea. Females cause complications and this one is no exception. In fact, she’s likely worse than other females and far more dangerous to me and my brothers.
I don’t order her to stand up though. I catch the heavy wave of her silver hair in one fist. The strands slide between my fingers like the finest of spider webs. The material is stunning, not sticky like a web’s strand, but silky to the touch and devoid of any viscous sensation.
Slow, calm breaths, I tell myself. I force them out of my lungs even as they seize against the inside of my chest. I lift the mass of her hair and move it to drape over her shoulder. The corner of Kiera’s mouth is in near shadow to me, but just once, she turns her head in my direction and I spot the way it lifts.
She is teasing me. Devious little wench. My cock hardens impossibly further. I close my eyes and pray for patience. Though, I can’t say who I’m praying to. The skies are empty and the Gods have all descended.
The moment her hair is out of the way and I can see the thin raised line at the back of her neck that marks where the brimstone had been buried beneath her flesh, the flames of my desire dampen. My lips press together as I ignore the throb of my cock and lightly brush over the skin beneath her hairline. The silence in the room is heavy and thick. Light flashes outside of the window, illuminating everything again, but if there’s thunder, I’m too focused on the woman perched on my legs to hear it. What I do hear, however, is her voice as she speaks in a raspy, obviously uncomfortable tone.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she tells me.
No, I don’t imagine it does. I touch the pad of my thumb to the top of the mark. “It’s a scar now,” I tell her. “Even if it doesn’t hurt, you won’t heal from this.” Not like she had from the whip marks, I notice as the back of my tunic gapes away from her spine and I can see straight down her back through the wide-open neck. The flesh over her spine is as pristine as it had been before her punishment. Carefully, avoiding the heart shaped ass just beneath her back, I lift the tunic back up into place even as my cock throbs against the inside of my trousers, begging me to do something about its condition.
“Scars don’t bother me,” Kiera says. “I’m surprised you care though.”
I don’t . The lie freezes on my tongue, and I swallow it back.
The scar is a pretty pale pink and I know from experience that it’ll whiten over time, fade, and become barely perceptible unless she repeatedly opens it up and lets it form fresh scar tissue over and over again.
“…Ruen?” My name comes from Kiera tinged with a bit of confusion and frustration as if she’s already said it several times with no response.
My hand falls away from her neck and Kiera leans forward, her head turning back to peer over her shoulder at me. I clear my throat and reach for her waist. My hands grip her there for a moment and though I had intended to remove her from my lap, my fingers freeze against the warmth permeating my palms through the thin fabric of the borrowed tunic. My mouth goes dry. Even with the cloth of the shirt separating our skin, I can still feel the heat of her and it makes me realize—perhaps, for the first time—just how fucking cold I am. She is fire and life and I’ve never wanted to burn as much as I do in this moment.
Let her go , I urge myself. Release her waist. Stop touching her . The words are commands stabbing through my skull. I want to make myself listen to them, but my hands don’t seem to care. They act on their own volition, tightening against her and pulling her closer.
“Ruen, what are?—”
Kiera’s words dry up as my head sinks down. I can’t let her go, I realize, but I don’t need to perform the vile actions I’ve got spinning through my mind. I can distract myself with something else. Words. Talk. Yes, I’ll do that.
As images of Kiera on her back against the darkened sheets of my bed and my hands drawing the tunic up and off her to reveal her naked flesh dance through my mind, I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead to her shoulder blade.
“Tell me what the Council said,” I practically beg her, needing something to distract me from the insanity of my own thoughts and desires.
She’s stiff in my arms. I don’t blame her. I’ve caused her nothing but damage and pain. She doesn’t trust me and she shouldn’t. Even I don’t know what I’d be willing to do to save my brothers. Even knowing how deep we all are with her lies and secrets—with Caedmon playing puppet master alongside that fucking … mortal woman who has kept Kiera indebted to her for the last ten years—I cannot be trusted. We both know that, she and I.
At the end of the day, my brothers are all I have. I will protect them even if that means risking her, even if it’s not what I want.
A beat passes and I’m sure Kiera will deny me, but once again, she surprises me. Her body relaxes against mine and my cock takes notice, prodding against her lower back with decided interest. I bite down on my tongue and curse internally.
Vile. Disgusting. Pervert.
Kiera ignores it. “There were six Council members,” she says, her voice lowering to a whisper. Her head turns towards the window and I open my eyes to look up at her through my lashes. She doesn’t look at me as she continues. “They debated on how to determine my lineage—who my God parent is.”
Will they be able to? I wonder. According to what Caedmon had said, her father was also of Divine blood even if her mother was the Goddess that birthed her. I contemplate asking, but considering how new she is to much of the Academy’s inner machinations, it will likely simply distress her further. I keep my mouth shut.
“They decided on performing the ceremony around the Spring Equinox celebration.”
My muscles tighten at this news. Kiera glances over her shoulder at me as she feels that change. “I see,” I murmur against her body.
She arches one brow. “Is that a problem?” she inquires.
I shake my head. “Not a problem, exactly,” I say. “I’m simply surprised they would wait that long.”
Kiera frowns. “Could they do it sooner?”
I nod. “Yes. The ceremony can be performed whenever—they often do it, though usually with younger Mortal Gods who’ve simply been left by their mothers on the steps of the Academies.”
“Why would mothers leave their children on the Academy steps?”
With a sigh, I sit up and pull myself away from her heat. Kiera lifts herself from my lap and though I want to stab myself for the reaction, my body mourns the loss of her. I keep my gaze trained on her face as she stands and turns to face me. Her silver hair pours over one side of her chest, hanging in long waves.
The rumble of thunder echoes in the distance—sounding as if it’s growing further away despite the rain still slapping against the glass.
“Many mortal women leave children they believe are of the Gods on the steps of the Academy if they don’t wish to be acknowledged as their parents. Gods do not marry mortal women. Any relationship a God might have with a mortal is purely physical, rarely anything more. Many of the women become bitter or angry and don’t wish to keep their children.” Or so I’ve always been told. The lies of the Gods make me wonder if anything they’ve ever said is true, but then I think of Theos and I know, sometimes the truth is worse than the lie.
Kiera is quiet for a moment and then she shifts to the side and the mattress sags with her slight weight as she takes a seat next to me. “Your mother didn’t do that.”
It’s not a question, but I still answer. “No,” I agree. “She didn’t.”
“Did Kalix’s?” The lightning flashes have moved away, but even in the dim interior of the bedroom, I can still see her face and her eyes as they lift to meet mine.
“No.” Olivia had been obsessed with the idea of being Azai’s wife. Though she never cared for me, even now, I still feel a twinge of pity and sorrow for her and her end.
“What about Theos’ mom?”
I press my lips together and return my focus to Kiera’s face. “Why do you wish to know?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Well, this is the first time I’ve ever really been able to talk about being a Mortal God and ask about parentage with anyone that might actually have some answers—or be willing to give them to me,” she says.
“Your father never…” I let the question trail off when she answers before I’m finished speaking.
“No, of course not.” She snorts as if the very idea is amusing to her. She turns her eyes away from mine and looks down, picking at the hem of her borrowed tunic. I force myself not to stare after the initial look. “I think he still loved her—my mom, whoever she was—but he didn’t like talking about her with me. So, I don’t know what she did. If she stayed during a time before I can remember or if she left immediately. It’s also a little different, too, the fact that your God parent was male and mine was female.”
“I know there are places where young Mortal Gods are kept before their powers have manifested,” she continues. “I heard as much after I joined the Underworld, though I’d never seen them. Do the children who are left at the Academies go there?”
“Yes.” Cold, dank, dark places those facilities are. Disgusting and foul. My upper lip curls back from my teeth on instinct as I remember the hovel of a room Darius, Kalix, and I had found Theos in. “It isn’t a place fit for children—mortal or mortal god.”
Kiera’s head lifts. “You weren’t in one of those, were you? I thought Azai found you and your mother?”
Shock cuts through me deeper than any blade and my hands clamp into fists on the mattress’s edge in an effort not to rip her up from her seat and demand she tell me where she gained that information. Slowly, I turn my head to peer at her. “And how would you know that?” My words are colder than ice as they slice from my throat.
Kiera stares back at me, eyes clear of any fear as she answers. “The Gods talked about it,” she admits. “Your father is on the Council and it was mentioned that he was forced to track you and your mother down and…” She pauses, her brows pinching down as she bites her lower lip.
My eyes shoot to the little depression there—her white teeth flashing as they sink into the petal pink color of her mouth. I want to see those lips wrapped around my— fuck! No. My attention returns to her eyes and creased brow.
“And. What? ” I demand, growling the words as I feel something sinister curl through my gut. It’s the same darkness that lives within my brothers, a likely curse from our father’s blood—a cruelty that I refuse to acknowledge.
When I expect her to look away, she doesn’t. Her eyes lock with mine. Open and intense as if she’s testing herself to see if she can hold my gaze. I have to admit, she does a damn good job. “Your punishment,” she says, the words a near whisper.
A muscle jumps beneath the skin of my neck, right next to the pounding beat of my heart. As if she hears it, Kiera’s eyes move down to the side of my throat before returning to mine once more. Whereas someone else would be smug about that knowledge—might mistake knowing who I received the scar on my face from as a weakness—she doesn’t even seem particularly interested in that.
I let more silence pass between us, each second ticking by as the storm outside drifts further and further away and the shadows in the room shift as the clouds part and moonlight peers inside. Finally, I break that silence.
“No,” I tell her. “I was not one of the children left outside of the Academies. Neither was Kalix.” I release the edge of the mattress and stand, striding across the room to the armoire.
“What about Theos?” she asks as I open the door and reach inside for one of the many extra blankets kept there. I withdraw two.
“What about Theos?” I repeat, shooting the question back at her.
She growls in frustration and the sound makes my lips twitch in rare amusement. No wonder my brothers both seem so obsessed with her. She brings life back to the cold dead thing that resides in my chest and has since my mother let herself die for my sake.
“Was he or was he not abandoned on the steps of the Academy?”
At her words, I shut the armoire one-handed and a bit harder than necessary before carrying the blankets across the room towards the window settee. “That’s something you’ll have to ask him,” I reply coolly. “His story is his own and not mine to tell.”
“ You— what are you doing?” Her tone changes as I get to the settee and drop the blankets onto the thin cushions that stretch the length of the window.
I unravel one and lay it out along the cushions. “Getting ready for bed,” I answer her absently. “It’s been a long damn day and I’m exhausted.”
“Yes, but…” She drifts off as I take the second and shake it out. I bunch the blanket up at the makeshift foot of the settee and turn to face her.
She’s peering at me with her brow creased as she looks beyond me to the window settee and then to the bed. “Why aren’t you sleeping here?” she asks, gesturing to the mattress beneath where she’s half turned in my direction.
“You’re sleeping there,” I say with an arched brow. Did she think I would sleep next to her? With the way my cock seems to seek her out against my own wishes? I shake my head. No, that won’t happen. If I let myself sleep near her then there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll wake up to find my body moved against her, pinning her to the sheets with a knee between her pale thighs, and my lips devouring the skin of her throat as my hands move over her breasts.
As if encouraged by my mind’s supply of that image, my cock throbs against the inside placket of my trousers. If I could punch the thing into submission, I would. Unfortunately, I truly am exhausted and I have no wish to remain awake on what promises to be a too small settee sore from my cock and back.
I turn away from Kiera and climb onto the settee, reclining against it with both arms folding behind my head. One side is pushed against the cold glass of the window and the other just barely manages to keep from hanging off.
“Go to sleep, Kiera. We will talk in the morning.” I say the words, knowing that they’re a partial lie. Yes, we’ll talk again, but I have the feeling that without the storm and the darkness, the light of day will bring back my sense of propriety and—hopefully—dampen my desire to strip her bare and sink my cock into her hot depths.
I grit my teeth and shut my eyes against those thoughts, though doing so doesn’t cure me of them. A beat passes and though I listen to the soft shuffling sounds Kiera makes as she climbs back into the bed and under the sheets, I don’t sleep. Seconds tick into undetermined minutes, hours, and an eternity passes before I sense the soft breaths of slumber coming from her. Only then do I, too, allow myself to fall into oblivion and dreams of the woman who lies not but a short distance away.