Chapter 13
Dripping wet, Elysia held unnaturally still. Water rolled down her neck and off her body onto the hardwood floor, making an ungodly amount of noise in the midnight silence.
She rested her hand on a wooden beam next to her, squinting into the pitch black.
Stacks of old ledgers. Half-finished cups of tea on every surface.
An enormous fireplace with one of the dogs sleeping in front of the still-smoldering embers.
Was she in his office? Her heart picked up as realization dawned.
No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. This was not the message she wanted to send. It was okay, she assured herself. She just needed to be stealthy. In and out like she had so many times before. He never even had to know.
She twisted away from the bed where the god of the dead slumbered. Her sea-drenched boots squeaked loudly, and she closed her eyes with a silent groan. Maybe she could just transport herself—
A sleep-heavy voice interrupted her.
“You’re in my room.”
Even riddled with sleep, the satisfaction was evident in his low voice.
Elysia resigned herself to her doom.
She attempted to run her fingers through her clumpy hair, and the exasperation shone in her voice. “Trust me, I didn’t mean to be.”
Aidan sat up, the blankets spilling down to pool in his lap.
His light skin stood out in the dark, the curves of his well-formed chest and the shadowy lines of his arms drawing her eye as he stretched the sleep away.
She hastily tipped her chin up to the ceiling before he caught her staring.
What was wrong with her life that this was the second time in one evening she was looking up at a ceiling in order to avoid seeing naked bodies?
“Is it that hard to keep some clothes on?” she grumbled, refusing to look down.
A moment later, a quiet, raspy chuckle had her chancing another peek. Aidan’s stomach flexed as he laughed, and hers clenched in response. Immediate regret, back to the ceiling. She flicked her eyes up.
“You’re the one who chose to travel into my room in the middle of the night.” Likely remembering where she had just been, concern deepened his voice as his feet swung to the floor. “What happened? Are you alright? Grim didn’t alert me, but they can’t always track you.”
Elysia waved him off, grateful to see he at least had shorts on. “Everything’s fine.” Goosebumps rose on her arms, and she rubbed them uncomfortably. Gods, wet clothes were terrible.
Aidan sank back onto the bed in obvious relief, his brow creasing in confusion now that he knew she was safe. “Then why are you here?”
She edged a few steps back. “Because I’m bad at traveling?”
Standing, Aidan waved a hand as he walked over to her, lighting the fire and several candles. He stood close enough that he could likely smell the fish on her and she grimaced, discreetly trying to sniff herself. Yep, fish.
“Traveling is very sensitive. You weren’t thinking about me, were you? Because if you recall, this happened last time as well.”
She frowned as if his insinuations were ridiculous.
“Hardly. I was thinking about how the fates must be complete assholes to make me go see Topp.” The truth was, she still hadn’t asked how traveling worked, which meant she was thinking of both locations and people’s names while hoping for the best. “Do you mean to say I can just think of…wherever and it would work?” She tried to keep her words casual, but Aidan didn’t seem to hear her question.
His blue eyes became harsh, but his faint smirk was telling. “You don’t want to see him.”
“Of course, that’s all you heard,” she grumbled. “But no, I don’t want to see him, obviously.”
“Because?”
Elysia yanked on her wet shirt, frustrated by his question, and simultaneously overwhelmed with the urge to rip off every stitch of wet, disgusting clothing.
“Because I loved him and he left me to die. Because I feel like the stupidest person to ever grace the realms every time I think of him. Because all I want to do is make him feel every bit as broken and worthless as I did when I finally realized he never cared about me like I did him. But that would be impossible. Because he would have to actually give a shit about me to feel anything.”
Her chest heaved, and she could only imagine how wild she looked standing there in her sopping, horrible clothes with wet hair plastered to her skull as she yelled about her ex-boyfriend.
“Now will you please explain to me how traveling works? I don’t want to end up in your room again.
” This was the second time he’d seen her soaked like a drowned rat and that was enough for her.
Aidan’s forehead scrunched, compassion and amusement contorting his face. “May I?” He gestured at her clothes.
She looked back at him in question.
“Fix your clothes. It seems like it’s bothering you.”
She flushed. “Oh, sure…”
In a flash, she and her clothes were completely dry and devoid of any sea stench.
Her body instantly relaxed, the high-strung tension fading, and making room for a sweeping wave of tiredness.
Wavering on her feet, she grabbed hold of what she had thought was a wooden beam but was actually his bedpost.
“Better?” Aidan perched on the end of his bed, looking her over as if he expected to find further ailments. “And yes, you can simply think of wherever you would like to go, but you need to be familiar with at least some detail. Traveling to people is still an option if it’s easier.”
Elysia nodded sheepishly, embarrassed she’d said so much. “Sorry.”
Aidan leaned back on one hand, completely at ease. As if he was fine with being woken up in the middle of the night even if it was just so she could rant about her ex. His low melodic voice held a note of confusion as if he couldn’t understand why she would be apologizing.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for—I want you to come to me like this. The fates are going to ask more from you than you could ever expect. None of this is meant to be done alone.”
She paused. Now they were both confused. He kept shifting between what she had deemed his hard, no-nonsense bookie self and his reasonable, even slightly soft, accountant self. The gentle reasonableness left her vaguely stuck, unsure if she could really believe the words coming out of his mouth.
“No,” she decided. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”
“I’m exactly who you should talk to about this,” he countered easily.
She kept walking backward, bumping into ledgers and stray decorative pillows as she tried to reach the door. “I’ll talk to Maya if I need to, it’s too weird for me to talk to you about him.”
“Elysia.” Aidan’s firm tone had her freezing.
“Yes?”
“You are not stupid because your ambition blinded you to his. You are not worthless because someone, who was never meant for you, didn’t choose you.
That man will regret leaving you on that beach till the day he dies, but you don’t have to carry the weight or shame of his mistakes. That is his burden to bear, not yours.”
It was a terrible thing not to be worth loving, but she’d already known that thanks to her parents.
Topp Blatz hadn’t stopped at reinforcing how difficult to love she must be—he’d proven that she wasn’t even worth keeping alive.
And yet, she had gone back to him. In the Lovestone Woods.
At the Raven Ball. Hoping to erase and drown out the voice that constantly reminded her of how horrible and pathetic she really was.
Aidan’s words found the barest sliver of a crack in her armor. The quiet certainty in his words stole in through the crack and pierced the dark hollow of her chest. A single silent sob choked her. Fending it off, she shuddered. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Aidan.
He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t say it was okay, or offer any of the other sweet but empty platitudes that people say. But he returned to her side, offering his steady presence, and the rhythmic stroke of his hand over her back as he pulled her into him.
With her forehead tipped against his bare chest, she allowed herself the moment, knowing it wouldn’t last.