Chapter 29 Shared Space #2
For a split second, I thought it was just my imagination bending the steam into something familiar. Shaping the heat into a silhouette, my mind wanted to see the most. Then the outline sharpened instead of dissolving, the distortion clearing as though the room had decided to let him through.
But it wasn’t my captor.
It was Bo.
“Bo!” His name tore out of me before I could stop it, half relief, half accusation. Because where the hell had he been while I was being dragged through gothic foreplay and possessive declarations?
“Where have you been?!” I practically shouted.
“I couldn’t get in,” he snapped back, none of his usual theatrical nonsense cushioning the words. His voice was tight and stripped of its usual swagger.
“He’s sealed the entire manor,” he told me, and I gasped.
“What… what do you mean sealed?” I stammered, turning fully toward him, the tap still running between us, steam coiling around his outline like it wasn’t sure whether to keep him here or swallow him whole.
“I mean layered wards,” he bit out, raking a hand across his bald head in agitation and pacing the narrow strip of tile like a caged thing.
“Old ones. Nasty ones. Not the pretty little witchcraft your mom plays with. Windows, doors, corridors, stairwells, I tried everything. It’s locked down tighter than a dragon’s hoard.”
A slow chill threaded through me, despite the heat gathering in the room.
“Then how are you here?” I asked the obvious, even as my mind whirled with the knowledge of what Oblivion had done to keep me here.
His eyes flicked toward the running tap as he told me,
“Water messes with the structure. Running lines create gaps in the pattern. Not big ones, not stable ones, but enough. This is the only place I could anchor without getting shredded.”
The implication pressed heavily against my ribs.
Everywhere in this building had been reinforced, not with iron or steel, but with spells layered so tightly they might as well have been walls.
No wonder he had been so careful not to let me feel like I was locked away in some gilded cage.
Not when he could replace visible bars with something far more insidious.
Invisible restraints. A prison you couldn’t touch, couldn’t see, couldn’t even point to, because technically, nothing was there…
and yet it was still one I couldn’t ever hope to escape from this time.
As clearly, Oblivion had learned his lesson, and he wasn’t about to let me slip from his fingers a second time. Which meant that the tiny sense of independence I’d felt when realizing the door wasn’t locked thinned to something fragile.
“He didn’t lock me in,” I said automatically, and even as I said it, I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or myself.
Bo’s eyes flashed.
“He didn’t need to,” he said as he stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“Eliza,” he said, and the lack of ‘girly’ made my stomach dip.
“He does not bring people into this part of the manor. Only those closest to him, his council are allowed inside his home. But as for mortals… fuck no. Not anything that breathes like you do.”
I crossed my arms instinctively, defensive without meaning to be.
“But why then… why me?”
“I don’t know, but it’s clear he’s marking territory,” Bo replied, and
I sucked in a quick breath at his words, making me step back and the edge of the counter hit my back.
“He hasn’t claimed anything,” I said, but the protest came out thinner than I intended.
Bo’s gaze dropped briefly to my shoulders, to where his jacket still remained as if this was proof enough.
“You’re in his room,” he pointed out, making me flinch.
Closing my eyes, I forced out,
“I know.”
“In his private space,” he continued on.
“Yes, I’m aware, Bo,” I spoke through gritted teeth.
“He doesn’t let go of things he pulls into it,” Bo pressed, stepping closer again, lowering his voice like the tile might betray us.
“This isn’t hospitality, Eliza. It’s control.”
The water roared too loudly between us, suddenly intrusive, and I twisted the tap off sharply. The abrupt silence rang in my ears.
“That doesn’t make me a possession,” I snapped, asking myself why I wasn’t yet willing to make Oblivion out as the villain that Bo was trying to paint.
“Then leave,” he shot back instantly, holding his skinny arm out toward the door.
“Just go ahead and walk right out of here. Tell him you’re done. Tell him to let you go. See what happens.”
The image rose before I could stop it… standing in that long corridor, saying the words, watching his face shift.
I didn’t know what would happen.
But Bo saw it in the hesitation I couldn’t quite hide.
“That’s what I thought,” he muttered, and it wasn’t cruel, just resigned to the facts.
Anger flared in me, but it tangled with something else, something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“You think he’s manipulating me?”
“I think that he likes you. And that’s fucking worse,” Bo said, dragging a hand down his face, and silence settled between us, thick and uncomfortable.
“He protected me,” I said quietly, because that mattered, whether Bo liked it or not.
“From what?” he demanded, and the question lingered.
Because what could I say? That he had protected me from statues? From my own fear? From my own foolish decisions, like when I put myself in danger the night I entered his club?
But that wasn’t what he meant. Bo knew as well as I did that the only person I needed protecting from was the one who had brought me here against my will… from Oblivion.
I looked at him properly then, really looked, and beneath the agitation, beneath the swearing and the bite, there was strain.
“You’re afraid,” I said softly.
“Yes,” he answered immediately, no deflection, no joke.
“And you should be too.”
A sudden knock at the door cut through the air. Three firm raps against the bedroom door beyond the bathroom walls made both of us freeze.
“Miss Shadowmere?” A voice filtered faintly through the wood, one I didn’t recognize, but my pulse spiked regardless.
We both waited, and the second there was another knock, I shot Bo a panicked look. Then I turned the tap back on and whispered,
“You need to leave.”
However, he didn’t move.
“Girly, come on now… don’t forget what this is. He didn’t reinforce this place because he’s bored. You’re not a guest here, no matter how soft he makes it feel,” he pressed, urgency seeping into his words, as if he was worried, I was falling for the dark side or something.
The knock sounded again, firmer now, and I felt it like a pulse against my spine.
“I’m not chained to the bed,” I hissed, though the words felt thin even to me.
“You don’t need chains when the walls won’t let you through,” he shot back quietly.
“Metal bars are obvious. Spells aren’t. That’s the difference here, Girly.” A pause followed, the kind that carried meaning neither of us wanted to say outright.
“He needs you, that much is clear, we just don’t know what for,” Bo added, lowering his voice further, and again, his words hit me like a punch in the gut.
But before I could make any more lame excuses, footsteps shifted inside the bedroom.
I shot Bo another panicked look, and he didn’t hesitate, darting behind the toilet and yanking the flush with exaggerated force.
But he didn’t stop there as he also threw open the shower door and started yanking at the fixtures.
The sound of pounding water soon filled the space and managed to, hopefully, provide the excuse as to why I wasn’t responding to whoever was at the door.
Then we waited as we heard footsteps move across the bedroom floor. There was a slight pause before it was clear they were retreating. The faint click of the outer door closing carried through the walls, and only then did I let myself breathe properly.
Bo exhaled too, though his outline flickered faintly as the steam thickened again.
“See?” he muttered.
“An invisible cage.” I leaned back against the counter, tension still thrumming beneath my skin.
“Fine, I get it, okay?” I snapped before then asking,
“Just how long do you expect me to stay here then?”
He released a sigh, as if now comforted by the fact that I believed him.
“Not long, because I found it.”
My head snapped up at this.
“The relic?”
He nodded, but when his jaw tightened, I frowned and asked,
“What is it?”
Once again, he rubbed his head in frustration and admitted,
“There is a slight problem.”
“Which is?” I asked, bracing myself for the complication.
“He has it. It’s here. I just need to work out how to get to it without losing my head in the process.”
My stomach dropped, and my whole body tensed.
“Come again?” I asked, shaking my head a little as if that would help when, in reality, nothing would.
“Oblivion has the relic.” I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. The weight of it all settled at once as the truth finally caught up with me, and I understood just how much more complicated this had become.
“Fuck… fuck, Bo.”
He tossed up his hands in defense, telling me,
“I know, I know… It’s not ideal.”
“Ideal?! It’s fucked, that’s what it is, as there is no way we can possibly…”
He cut me off quickly and said,
“I have a plan, okay? Just be at the ready to act fast when I need you to. So just don’t get comfortable here,” he warned, softer now but no less serious.
“Whatever this feels like, it’s still a prison. Just a prettier one… don’t forget that, Girly. Hell’s judge cannot be trusted.”
I swallowed hard at that and nodded, hating that he was right.
I couldn’t trust him, no matter how much I secretly wanted to.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he assured me, and I nodded weakly, something Bo took for another reason.
“Don’t worry, Girly, I will get you out of here soon, just hang in there.”
I nodded, words failing me for once, because I was afraid that if I tried to speak, something honest would slip through. Something that would expose the inconvenient truth that my feelings for Oblivion were growing, whether I wanted them to or not.