Chapter 8 Rhiannon
RHIANNON
Eryx was an excellent cook—better than excellent, actually. He was good enough to be a chef. When I got drowsy at the table over wine, he sent me to bed early, offering to sleep on the couch. I let him, not really taking in what that would mean.
Now, I stood above him in the little blue sitting room, gloomy summer light filtering through the leaded glass windows, barely suppressing laughter.
The “couch” was an uncomfortable looking divan and Eryx was spilling off it.
His shirt was off, tossed to the floor, and I wasn’t sure what he wore under the crocheted throw blanket over his lap, but it couldn’t be much, because one of his muscular thighs was showing.
“This looks terrible,” I whispered, in an attempt to stop my salivating over the sight of his thick, beautiful body.
His eyes flew open and he grabbed my arm, as though by instinct. “Sorry,” he breathed, but he didn’t let go. “You startled me.”
I tilted my head to one side, unable to keep from smirking. “Are you comfy?”
There was a hint of amusement glimmering in his eyes. His eyes roamed slowly over me, assessing the situation. When he came to a conclusion of one kind or another, a bare hint of a smile played at the corners of his lips. “Perfectly. Do you want coffee?”
“Yes,” I answered.
He let go of my arm and tossed off the blanket, revealing that he was dressed only in a pair of tight black boxer briefs. My cheeks flushed hot. Now, he grinned. This man that had hardly smiled in all the weeks I’d known him was laughing and smiling in my presence.
I did my best to hold my ground, to not look away, but also not to look too hard as the muscles in his chest and stomach flexed as he got up.
“Great,” he replied, passing me on the way to the kitchen.
I caught sight of his absolutely perfect ass as he went and had to stop myself from groaning.
“You can look,” he called out, over his shoulder. “I don’t mind.”
All I could do was giggle. I clapped a hand over my mouth, tears forming in my eyes. I hadn’t giggled in decades. Laughed, sure. But this? This kind of mirth was something else. It was girlish. Sweet. Almost innocent.
All things I was not.
As much as he was changing around me, I was changing around him. Despite the pressure of being stuck here, of the incessant whispers, and the strange state of whatever haunted realm the house existed in, there was relief in feeling good. In accepting that even a few things could be good for me.
The sounds of water filling the kettle filled my ears, and I backed up against the wallpapered living room wall, clasping my hands to my chest. Tears flowed down my cheeks in earnest now.
I had no idea why I was crying. Just a little bit of genuine, unguarded emotion had triggered a torrent of feelings in me.
Something loosened in my chest that I had not known was tight to begin with. As my tears slowed, I wiped them from my cheeks. A wave of exhaustion, tinged with relief, washed over me. When I looked up, Eryx stood in the doorway.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded, only barely noticing his state of undress. “Yes, I think so.”
His face had gone back to its usual serious expression, but there was worry there too. “You’re not.”
“I—” There was no use in denying it. “No, I’m not. Everything has been a lot lately.”
He nodded. “You need to rest.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I would do that better though, I think, if you would sleep upstairs with me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Scared of the dark?”
I smiled. “The wallpaper up there is a bit disconcerting. I think it behaves better when you are there, and the bed is big enough for us both.” I paused, but he didn’t say anything in response. “We’re grownups, after all.”
Slowly, he nodded. “We are.” And like that, he was back to business. “Do you want cream in your coffee?”
“Yes… I can make it, if you prefer,” I offered.
He shook his head. “No, that’s fine.” He looked outside. “The rain has stopped. Shall we take our coffee in the garden?”
“Yes,” I agreed, following him into the kitchen.
I gathered pastries while he finished the coffee and we went together to the stone patio in the garden.
Nothing was on the wrought-iron table as we approached, but right before I sat down, I found a black silk scarf and a small leather datebook in the chair I was about to sit in.
I set the plate of pastries down and picked it up, half expecting it to disappear.
Neither the scarf, nor the datebook dissolved.
I sat down quickly, worried that the loop might end before I got a chance to examine them.
Eryx took the scarf from me as I sat. “C.N.,” he said, holding the scarf up to show me where the initials had been embroidered at the corner of the silk in bright pink letters.
I nodded, opening the datebook to the page marked with a green velvet ribbon. There was an address and a time, but no name. “This is close by, isn’t it?” I asked, showing the address to Eryx.
He glanced at it and nodded. “And look at the opposite page.”
I did, finding a brief handwritten note from the previous day that only said, “roses’ first bloom.
” I glanced around at the hedges that had closed in on us and watched the white roses bloom in real time.
The day was gloomy, but unbearably hot and humid.
The datebook disappeared, but the scarf remained.
“It looks like we have an appointment to keep,” Eryx noted. “At Triomphe.”
I let out a nervous laugh at the name of the famous atelier. They only made intimate apparel—and a few silk scarves. “I think I am supposed to wear the scarf,” I said, not knowing where the thought had come from.
Eryx swallowed hard, setting the scarf down across the table from us. “I don’t know how safe it is to do that.”
I took a deep breath. “I am practically impervious to harm, and you are a necromancer. The worst that can happen is that something frightens me.”
He looked at me for a long moment. It struck me that the two of us were playing through a rather domestic scene, him in his underwear and me in my nightgown, taking breakfast in the garden. When he finally nodded, I smiled, taking a long sip of my coffee. It was perfect.
“For the record,” he said. “I know that you are more than capable in a fight. It’s just obvious to me that you haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
It was one of the most straightforward, frank things that anyone had ever said to me. I raised my eyes to meet his with the same candor. “Correct. I am no good at that.” It felt good to be honest about it. “I could try to explain, but I think you understand my position better than most.”
After all, Eryx was second to Ares, as I was to Ember.
He might not have come from an ancient royal line of witch queens, but he had been raised by Roman Necroline, as his own son.
As far as I was concerned, that came with the exact same amount of high expectations as my mother had for me.
He and I were cut from much the same cloth.
“I do,” he replied. “More than you might think.”
I set my coffee down, keeping my gaze steady on his. “I think you understand perfectly.”
He looked down at his hands, which were clasped in his lap now. “Then let me be honest with you, Rhiannon.” My breath caught at my name on his lips. The trepidation in his voice was nerve-wracking. “I want you to let me help you.”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, my heart racing wildly. “And… how would you do that?”
When his eyes met mine again, they burned with a particular intensity I’d seen only a few times, and only when he was looking at me. “Any way that I can.”
The emphasis on the word any set my thighs aflame.
My mouth went so dry, I had to take another sip of coffee.
I knew I had to be blushing, because my cheeks absolutely burned.
I never blushed because I was never embarrassed.
But with him, it wasn’t shame that caused me to flush scarlet—it was desire.
I wanted what Eryx Necroline suggested so badly, my body threatened to combust there and then. The part of me that should say no was nowhere to be found. All I could do was nod.
“Thank you.” The words slipped from my lips before I could stop them.
Eryx kept his eyes on me. “I am fairly certain it is me who should be thanking you.”
My skin felt as though it might melt off in the heat of the garden.
Was he saying what I thought he was? It was so hard to tell.
A slight breeze caught the scarf and it blew across the table.
I bent to pick it up as it hit the ground and glanced across the table.
I hadn’t meant to, but I caught sight of the erection Eryx couldn’t possibly hide in such scant garb.
At least that cleared up where we stood. But now I was flushed so pink that all my feelings were obvious as well. When I sat back up, he just smiled at me. “Eat your breakfast, Rhiannon. We have lingerie to buy.”
I couldn’t die, but I was sure the anticipation was going to kill me.
Somehow, we managed to shower, dress and make our way to Triomphe without incident, or another word. For once, it wasn’t raining, but neither was it sunny. That same oppressive, green gloom hung over the city.
I wore Cassandra’s scarf draped loosely around my neck. The sidewalk was hot, and the sound of birds chirping surprised me as we approached the wisteria covered shopfront.
“It feels a little more real here,” Eryx said.
I nodded, staring through the front window of the shop.
An attendant, dressed in a gown that would have been fashionable during Cassandra Necroline’s time in Orphium, stood behind a marble-topped counter.
The interior of the store was a fever dream of seafoam green walls, white marble tile, and lush fabrics.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, as Eryx pushed open the door.
Triomphe smelled like a blend of the most expensive perfume possible, mixed with the heady scent of the giant bouquets that graced the table at the center of the shop.
While there were very few of the store’s intimate wares displayed here in the front of the shop, there was a vast assortment of silk scarves like the one I wore.
The attendant, a slender woman with sharp brown eyes and porcelain skin, smiled at us.
Her ebony hair fell down her back in cultivated waves, held back by mother-of-pearl combs.
“Mr. and Mrs. Necroline,” she said, in a deep, rich tone.
I dared not look at Eryx to see what he thought of her misidentification of us. “Your order is ready for viewing.”
“Viewing?” Eryx asked, not missing a beat.
“Of course,” the attendant said. “We know you like to view Mrs. Necroline’s items before purchase. There is sparkling wine waiting for you, and I shall show myself out.”
“Very good,” Eryx answered, following the direction she’d gestured in.
As I passed the attendant, who headed towards the front door with a set of brass keys in her grip, she touched my arm lightly. “Behind the mirror,” she murmured so softly I wondered if I had imagined it.
Before she reached the door, she was gone. Disappeared, just as the post-lady had. Eryx shook his head, almost in disbelief.
“What do we do?” I asked, not wanting to shatter whatever this was.
This appointment had been significant to Cassandra for some reason, and so far, this was our only clue to what might be at the heart of Oleander Cottage’s haunting.
“I think we need to do what they came here to do, originally,” he answered. “If you feel comfortable with that.”
“Try on the lingerie?”
A flash of tight discomfort passed over his face, a clenching of muscles. “If you are all right with it.”
I nodded. “I am. I just don’t want to make a mistake.”
The tightness in his shoulders receded a bit and to my vast relief, Eryx took a shuddering breath. He was as nervous as I was. I could take the lead here. As I passed him, I brushed my fingers through his, pulling him with me.
“Come watch me, then.” He frowned, glancing back at the front of the store, as though he could hear something I couldn’t. “What is it?”
He held up a finger. “The clerk. She’s on the phone.”
I listened, but couldn’t hear a thing.
Eryx’s eyes went cloudy. When he spoke, he sounded like himself, but also like the clerk that had helped us. “They’re here.” A long pause. “I made sure of it.” Another pause. “Don’t worry, she’ll find it.”
He blinked a few times, then shook his head. I couldn’t wait for him to tell me the details. “Could you hear who she was talking to?”
Eryx shook his head. “No, but I think you need to go back into the dressing room alone. Magnus wouldn’t have gone back there with her.”
The tone he used chilled me to the bone. Though I wasn’t entirely sure what he was implying, it was clear it wasn’t good. Slowly, I nodded. “I’ll go put something else on.”
His hand caught mine, his pale eyes worried. Eryx didn’t say anything, but I felt his unspoken words, Be careful.