CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CADI
When Elias pushed the door open, the familiar sight of his apartment greeted Cadi as it always had.
She stepped into the entry, but paused as the quiet of the room settled around her.
It had remained unchanged, frozen in time despite the thousands of lives she had lived and died over the past few hours.
Everything was the same: the furniture, the walls, the smells, the bowl she had left in the sink that morning.
It didn’t seem right that nothing here had been touched by the events of the evening, while Cadi felt them over every inch of her skin, in her bones, nestled deep behind her ribs.
No. The only thing that had changed was that this was no longer just Elias’s apartment.
It was the home of the high priest.
A soft click sounded behind her, then a steady warmth pressed against her back as Elias guided her toward the bathroom.
The sound of rushing water filled the small space, echoing off the tile to cut through the haze of Cadi’s thoughts.
She watched as Elias readied the shower, only taking his eyes from her when he had to, like he was waiting for any sign that she may dissolve again.
Her hands shook as she reached down to gather up the sodden fabric of her t-shirt, and a hiss slid past her lips at the pain that lanced up her arm; she’d forgotten about the fresh cut that marred her palm.
Elias stiffened and stepped closer to reach for her injured hand, cradling it with a familiar tenderness.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice tight.
She nodded. Pain she could deal with, but she knew from seeing countless patients that things got significantly more difficult with even a single hand out of commission, and she really wasn’t emotionally stable enough to face that added challenge. “I think I need help, though.”
Elias gave her a small smile, then released her hand to begin peeling away the sticky fabric of her shirt.
Bile threatened to crest her throat when he eased the shirt over her head and the metallic smell of copper assaulted her as it slid past her face.
Cadi shivered when she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
The thick layer of dark red that stained her skin reminded her of something out of a horror movie.
Elias carefully undid the buttons of her pants and slid them off her hips before lifting her feet to help her step out. His fingertips brushed against her body, but there was no fire in his touch, no hunger, only a gentle concern and the unfettered desire to care for her.
She studied the serious lines of his face as he stripped out of his own clothes, trying to reconcile the man in front of her with the man on the dais. The man whose dreams had been haunted by reminders of what fate had given him, and what had always been kept just out of reach.
Her.
But no matter how hard she tried, she only saw Elias. The man who had loved her, strengthened her, changed her. Maybe that was all he needed to be.
He guided her over the threshold of the shower and turned her to face him so the spray was at her back before he lifted her injured hand to rest it safely against the bare skin of his shoulder.
Cadi pulled in a deep breath and rolled her neck as the hot water slowly began to unravel the tightness that still clung to her muscles.
Elias leaned in to reach behind her for her loofah.
With his body pressed close like that, the familiarity of his presence eased something inside of her.
Without even thinking, she angled her head to rest the side of her face against his neck.
He stilled, and after a moment she felt his lips brush against her shoulder before he straightened.
Pink suds slid over her skin as he washed her, and the calming smell of her vanilla body wash gradually replaced the acrid tang of her blood.
Pain sparked in her chest, and she tried to hide the way the sudden sensation made her breath hitch, but the brief pause of Elias’s hand told her he’d noticed it anyway.
“Why does it still hurt?” she asked, unable to stand the silence for a moment longer. He didn’t answer right away, instead carefully shifting her arm back onto his shoulder from where it had started to slip.
“Because he wants it to,” he replied, his voice barely audible above the rush of water. He lifted his gaze to hers. “He wants me to see you bound to him, in pain … it’s why he let me go.”
Cadi swallowed past the lump that was quickly forming in her throat. Not only had Oneirios taken her, now he was using her, turning her into a tool to hurt the man she loved.
Again.
Something hard and fiery began to bleed into the pain that dominated her chest. “Can Sera really break the bindings?”
The muscles around Elias’s eyes tightened, and he gave her a shallow nod. “At full strength, yes.”
He turned away and busied himself with something over her shoulder. Cadi lifted her good hand to his cheek, forcing him to look at her again.
“This wasn’t her fault,” she said. “She did everything right. There was no way for her to know he’d split the power.”
Elias’s jaw worked as he shook his head. “Cadi, she—”
“No,” she interrupted, “promise me you’ll make it right with her. We can’t afford to be at each other’s throats. Not now.”
His eyes skimmed her face, and Cadi held firm, refusing to back down until he dipped his chin.
“I promise,” he agreed, “I will.”
“Thank you,” she said, then pulled his forehead to hers.
Elias ran his hand against her arm, holding her for just a moment in the steam-soaked air before he leaned forward again to shut off the water. Goosebumps erupted over Cadi’s skin as he led her out of the shower and wrapped a soft towel around her body to help her to dry.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
Cadi shook her head, exhaustion beginning to tug at her limbs. “I’m just so tired.”
“Okay,” he said quietly as he walked her to the bed and pulled back the covers.
The blankets settled over her with a grounding weight that continued the work of easing the tension that still hummed through her body.
Elias crawled in next to her and opened his arms to let her nestle into his side before pulling her the tiniest bit closer.
Cadi pressed her ear to his chest, wanting nothing more than to let herself get lost in the steadiness of his heartbeat.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
It all sounded normal. No strange rhythms, no missed pulses.
If she didn’t know any better, she would say everything was exactly as it should be, but she understood now that beneath the constant ebb and flow of each beat lay something unseen.
Something delicate and precious, with a beauty known only to her through its twin that lived in her own chest.
She winced when Oneirios’s violating presence uncoiled once more, his shadow determined to eclipse the soft peace of their bond.
Acid roiled in her gut as she thought about what it meant to be tied to him in this way.
How much of her had he already colonized?
Her soul? Her will? Her body? His binding had kept Elias contained for the better part of a decade; she couldn’t even bring herself to consider what sort of sick game he had planned for her now.
A thickness spread through the base of her throat as Elias traced his thumb against her shoulder. It was a small comfort against the growing cascade of fear and hopelessness, but she knew it was all he could offer.
Only once had she ever felt a despair so gaping, so oppressive that she feared she may never be able to lift herself out.
Her back shook with buried sobs, though she knew it was pointless to hide them.
The instant she felt their bond fully settle into place, she’d known the connection between them had changed.
It had become more solid to the point that even if he hadn’t been right next to her, with his body flush against hers, she knew Elias would have felt her sorrow the same way she could now feel the rawness of his pain.
His arms tightened around her and he rested his chin against the top of her head to bring her closer, but he didn’t say anything.
He just held her until her heart had wrung itself dry, and the last of her tears had soaked into his skin.
As her sobs quieted, a fresh wave of exhaustion swept over her, the kind that only comes from a body and soul so spent from trying to stay afloat that it just can’t bring itself to tread any longer.
The room fell quiet, and her eyelids grew heavier until Elias’s voice drifted through the silence. “I thought I could keep you safe.”
The tightness in her chest cinched, and she tilted her head to look up into his eyes, their depths shining with the beginnings of his own tears.
“None of this would have happened if I had been stronger, if I’d just let you remain a beautiful dream. Maybe he wouldn’t have—” He squeezed his eyes shut against the fracture in his voice. “Now he has his hooks in both of us.”
A fresh surge of dread settled into Cadi’s veins. She had seen him torn, seen him beaten, but she had never seen him fall apart like this. The loss of hope in his voice, the defeat in the way he pressed his head to hers …
“How do we fight this?” she asked, reaching to feel any sense that there was a way through the storm, no matter how hard. She needed that hope and so did he, but he only shook his head and looked back to her as tears began to stream down his cheeks.
“I don’t know, love,” he whispered. “Unless we get that ring, but … we won’t give up. We can’t.”
He twisted to face her and press a fierce kiss to her forehead.
She shimmied closer to fill in the space, then tucked her head beneath his chin to let the comforting smell of his skin mix with her senses.
Sliding her injured hand to his shoulder, she let her fingers relax against him, though it was a sad substitution for her growing need to cling to him with every ounce of her strength.