Chapter 32 Sweet Numbness #2
Ere. My Ere. The man I loved. The man I still care about, though if I’m honest, my feelings for Kairos were beginning to eclipse them.
But I love him, still. I can’t deny it as he stares down at me, warm golden eyes begging me to calm down and give him a chance to explain.
How the hell could my truth be his salvation? I need to know.
He reaches out, caressing my cheek with his fingertips.
The charming smile on his lips I’ve always adored makes my heart flutter.
“Please listen to what I have to say, then decide for yourself if you might still like to kill me. I only want to help you. It is all I have ever wanted.” His leathery wings shift behind his back as he walks past me, heading to the dark light spilling in from the crack under the door on the far wall.
I swallow, taking a deep, calming breath as his shadows leave with him and I’m able to think and move and feel once again.
I reacted harshly and I feel it now, now that the simmering rage of my power has slipped away.
But my power reacting was out of my control.
It wanted him dead. Not me, the power within.
It’s beautiful, my power, but hopefully one day I can learn to—or remember how to—control it before someone gets hurt.
In a way, Ere and his shadows are quite beautiful as well, but I push the thought away.
I cannot trust him. I can listen to what he has to say, but it doesn’t mean I have to believe a single word of it just because of our history.
The door is wide open now and he glances over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold. I need the truth. If this will get me closer to it, then I’ll follow him wherever I need to. And then I will decide if he deserves to die.
Now that his power has left the room, the numbness it brought goes with him.
Fear tries to burrow its way in, but I force it down as I step into the hallway.
I follow the sound of noise down a long, dark corridor with candelabras along the walls and chandeliers with more black flames hanging from the high, pointed ceiling.
This place looks like an old, gothic castle and I hold my breath as I admire it.
It’s dark and creepy but it has a beauty of its own, a beauty that I’m sure couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world.
Stepping into the kitchen, the open area is less shadowed because more flames line the walls and hang high above us from the black diamond chandeliers.
The living room has a large, dark stone fireplace with more black flames and bookshelves that line the walls from floor to ceiling, each of them cluttered with old, worn books.
No marble or golden swirls or bright celestial light exist here like in the Realm of Darkness.
Ere’s home is all dark stone and black floors that look like they could have been crafted from obsidian, peaking between dark shadows.
Glancing over his shoulder with a smile, he comes to me, pulling out a chair at the dining room table and gesturing for me to sit.
I can’t peel my eyes away from his horns.
I try, but they’re all I can focus on when I look at him despite the huge, almost translucent black wings that take up so much space behind him.
Darkness swirls around him as he instantly appears back in front of the stove to finish plating food and setting it up at the table.
I’ve never seen a celestial or witch move the way he does, as if he’s tearing through space and time and flittering through motions in fast forward. My head spins watching him.
His eyes don’t leave mine as he places food on my plate and then on his, and I can’t bring myself to look away from him either.
I have so many questions, thoughts, and feelings racing through my mind at once and can’t seem to focus on just one.
Fear exists, but so does an underlying intrigue and pull toward him that I can’t deny, like I’ve never been able to deny when I’m with him.
Hope exists as well, but there’s a sense of hopelessness entangled with it, like no matter what he says or what we do it won’t matter when it comes to Nyx and what she wants.
Pain pushes its way in at the thought of the hurt Olivia, Kairos, and Hekate will feel finding out I’m gone, but then his shadows reach out and brush against me and a layer of numbness wraps around my mind until the thoughts disappear.
A smile briefly flashes across his lips as he takes in my still wide eyes full of shock. “My full name is Erebus, by the way. I only used the name Ere to seem a bit more human for someone who was human at the time. Ask whatever you’d like. I will tell you only the truth.”
I place my elbows on the table and lean forward. “What the hell are you? How did you get here? And is this who you’ve always been?” I swallow, my hands in fists, my nails digging into my palms.
It’s not fear that has me angry with him in this moment.
I’m not afraid as his icy, numbing energy courses around us to push those feelings away, keeping my heart steady and my mind calm.
I’m tired of the lies the people around me keep feeding me in hopes of saving me from any added confusion since I can’t remember a damn thing about my past. I just want the truth.
“Yes.” His smile I’ve grown to love, the one full of kindness and charm and dark secrets flitters across his lips.
“I have been this way since you met me. Much longer than that, but that is a story for another time.” Scooting his chair forward and staring down at the glass in his hand, the one full of a dark liquid that looks like poison, he whispers, “I am the king of The Underworld. Nyx grew tired of ruling her realm alone so she forced this transformation on me in hopes that I would follow her blindly and do as she says.” He takes a sip, then slams the cup down, his grip on the glass making me worry he’ll shatter it to pieces.
“She is not just the Queen of Darkness and demons or the queen of this realm. She is one of the forgotten goddesses. If I refused the life she offered me, I could have been slaughtered.”
“Nyx is a goddess?” I breathe, leaning back against my chair and gazing up at the ceiling, hopelessness pushing its way in even further.
“If she is in fact a goddess, and she did this to you, then how are you able to resist her power? The demons can’t.
They do exactly as she says when she says to do it, from what I’ve been told.
How are you able to leave and live a pretend happy life with a human she’s haunting and hunting for power?
Why doesn’t she just kill you if you’re so disobedient?
” I cross my arms over my chest as I wait.
Finally releasing his grip on the glass and pushing it to the side, he tells me, “I have grown good at fooling her over the past century. My power numbs my mind and heart in a way that lets her believe I am under her spell. That I feel nothing. I have also watched Nyx slowly lose her mind down here. The whispering to voices that are not there, and the darkness she claims will not let her go keep her occupied. She has been too distracted falling into madness to notice or even care what I am doing most of the time.” Smiling he pushes his chair back to prowl around the table and stop beside me.
Pulling out the chair and facing it in my direction, he takes a seat, his thighs spreading apart slightly as he leans back, raking his eyes over me.
I try not to stare at how large he is, or think about how tiny I feel sitting here beside him, or how he looks so much the same as he used to and yet entirely different. I look away.
“Nyx believes what she wants to believe, Nora. She has one goal only and that is to control you and wield your power. My one goal since I met you has been to help you not see yourself as something weak or broken that needs to be fixed. You must be strong to stand against her. The power she possesses will eat at your mind until there is nothing but her thoughts and desires left within you, but,” he leans his elbows on his knees, the warmth of his body much too close.
“I can help you fight her because as much as she has tried, I have accepted the darkness she forced within me and have learned to use it to my advantage against her. Darkness cannot rule a mind that is numb or drag its claws across a heart that feels nothing. But I fucked up.” His eyes meet mine.
“You gave me hope while I was stuck here with her. You were always my flame within the darkness. My escape. With you I allowed myself to feel after a century of feeling nothing but emptiness. She sent the demons to attack me that night at the club because she found out I was sneaking away and spending time with you. I was always so damn careful, but my feelings for you could not simply be numbed or forced from my heart.” He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest, glaring into the emptiness beside him.
“That’s why you let me go. Nyx found out you were spending time with me and neither of us would have been safe any longer.
You could no longer protect me.” I swallow, my heart lurching at the thought of how easily I allowed it, at how hard it must have been for him to let me leave with Kairos. “So you let him protect me.”