Page 47 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Despite how my throat, my eyes, my whole being burns, I hold my husband’s stare as I tell him on a whim, “I am going to go to Greystone. Do not come to me. Not until you’re ready for us to finish what we started with the Heartstones.

Or until our bond demands that you have to.

If you try to come to the manor before then, I swear to the deos, I will slit my own throat while you watch.

And keep doing so any time you raise me back to this side of life. ”

Our stares hold.

As everything it means to hurt and to hurt the people you love passes between us, I wait for his indignation.

His fury. His delusional rebuttals that we are meant to be.

I wait for the determined, nearly petulant set of his jaw.

For my husband to tell me that I will accept him.

That all of his actions were noble. Justified.

That we belong to each other.

I wait for him to tell me that I’m not leaving.

But none of that comes. Instead, Val does something that shocks me all the way down to the marrow of my bones, further than anything he’s said or done so far.

Val turns on his heel—and without uttering a single word—he leaves.

Anxiety has been paramount in the last hours.

It doesn’t help, I’m sure, that I’ve kept myself locked away in my room. Walking circles through the space.

It’s increased steadily with each minute that the day slid by.

With each item packed in my trunks, conflicted in how my sudden absence in Omnitas will be perceived.

With each sound I hear that is not my husband coming to argue my departure.

It’s loud in my ears, buzzing like a swarm of wasps.

Present in my breaths, rich and burning.

It squeezes my stomach. Hard enough that I can scarcely breathe.

Wondering when Val will barge into my rooms, force me into a goodbye. Or demand that I stay.

I’ve waited for it—all through a long, sleepless night. And all throughout the long, agonizing day.

Every noise drifting towards my room, I imagine it’s my husband, intent on confronting me, on defending himself.

It’s not like Val to let me go willingly.

For him to allow me to leave in a hush—not with how we left things last night.

Not when I told him I would rather end my own life than be in his presence.

But I suppose maybe that’s why he hasn’t come.

I want to lash myself every time those noises pass by, nothing but a shadow of unfulfilled want. Each spike of expectation met with disappointment leaves me more wound than the last.

I suppose I should be grateful.

I tell myself it’s nothing more than the craving to scream at him.

To rage. To let loose all the fury I didn’t last night.

I only want him in front of my face so I can bring my anger back to life.

Feel something other than this emptiness.

There’s nothing more to the hollow ache left in his absence than the loathing he bred, the one that I need to nurture.

True to my word, I’ve spent the day preparing myself to head back to the manor.

To live quietly and alone and do what I know so well.

Another shot of mourning rolls through me when I remember that now, I won’t even have my necromancy to keep me company, not unless I want to take a preventative capsule of anitletum.

But even then, the Heartstone would need an offering after using magic outside of my bond.

The thing that made me so undesirable and unworthy of what a parent should offer their child in the first place—gone .

No family. No husband. No owl.

And no magic either.

Trying to settle myself in some capacity before departing for my long journey tomorrow, I soak in a bath, the large pool sunken into the floor. Let it ease through my muscles, each layer of vessels and sinew harboring my tension, the sun having long since sunk off to sleep.

My fingers have pruned, tightening in the lavender scented water. Still, I can’t force myself to rise out of the tepid bath. Instead, I keep my head tilted back on the stone lip, eyes shut.

Clatters in the bedroom break through my foggy mind, not quite asleep but the closest I’ve been in too many days. Too tired. Too stretched thin.

I still, straining to hear, opening my eyes towards the row of stained windows like that would amplify my hearing.

At least my silly, irrational heart has given up its incessant hopes that it may be Val.

Coming to tell me that he hasn’t given up, and he still sees me as worthy of being the object of his affection.

His obsession. That he hasn’t brushed me aside just like everyone else.

Considered me a lost cause. Something to merely put up with.

Deos . I truly have gone mad.

Keeping my stare pinned at the window, glazing over the murky rooftops of Omnitas below, I wait for the maid in my room to finish their task.

Strange comfort accompanies the nearness of another person.

One that I shove away, as such sentiments have never done me any good.

Still, my heart eases to a normal cadence for the first time in far too many hours and I relish it with a deep, full breath, tilting my head towards the vaulted ceiling and tiered chandelier lighting the room, the ache on my ribs easing just a bit .

That is, until the en suite door swings open—hard enough it bounces off the wall, shaking a hung painting and knocking over a potted plant.

I yelp, jumping with enough force that a spray of water leaps from the tub.

So much for my peaceful heart rate.

There stands Val in the arched doorway, shirtless and barefoot. Wearing nothing but loose grey pants and a smoldering look of utter determination. He smirks, gaze roaming over my shocked face. “Good. You’re still here.”

We stare at each other for a moment while I recover myself, making sense of the fact that Val isn’t allowing me to go quietly at all. That he’s here. For me.

After allowing me to ruminate all day long.

And he’s impeding on my bath without invitation. Didn’t even bother to knock. Simply took it upon himself to waltz in as if he has every right. It occurs to me that the presence in my room that soothed me wasn’t a servant at all.

“Before you point out your express instruction not to seek you out,” Val warns, “I was told not to come to the manor . You’ll have to be more specific when telling me not to fight for you , ocellus. ”

The lack of tact, the sheer entitlement is so very bold, so very Val, a slow vine of fire climbs up my back, reinvigorating my weary heart. It spreads through my chest and snuffs out the empty cold of my mind and body in a single flare of flame and smoke. I grasp onto it like a lifeline.

Mindless, enraged, I push up to stand, water sluicing off my body in a loud patter. Val’s eyes widen a fraction, taking in my nakedness. On full display, same as he was in the graveyard. The sight wipes that infuriating smirk right off of his face .

“Do you mind?” I demand, hands resting at my hips. “I’m in the bath!”

My statement has the opposite effect of what I intended. Instead of apologizing, or leaving, my husband’s expression shifts to triumphant. Solidified in whatever ideas are running rampant in his mind.

Val doesn’t miss a beat, his heated stare locked on mine as he declares, “I don’t mind one bit, Delaney . In fact—this is fucking perfect.”

And then he’s moving in my direction, so fast I can barely register what’s happening.

“What—” I begin, but the rest of my words are punched from existence when Val scoops me in his arms, supporting behind my knees and my back. A rain of bathwater follows my feet, drenching the floor.

I squeal, kicking my legs.

Val is undeterred. Has no slip in expression before shifting his hold to toss me over his shoulder effortlessly, soaking himself further in the process. Our wet skin slides against each other. Val holds me tighter, my bare ass cold in the air.

“Valledyn!” I cry, my world upside down, wet hair trailing towards the floor.

“I do love how you say my name,” he says, marching us dutifully to the open door.

My mouth drops when I feel my husband’s warm lips plant a soft kiss to my hip. Sweet. Almost chaste—if I wasn’t naked, disoriented, and squirming in his strong arms after he yanked me out of a bath.

My mind is thrown deeper into a vortex by the sight of black ink covering his back right in front of my face, those intricately placed feathers and lines crawling deliciously across his body. I could push out my tongue now, trace the tattoo with its tip. Taste his skin .

I hadn’t even noticed we made it to my bed until I sense that Val is about to drop me on top of the dark grey covers. I gasp. “You’re going to get my bed wet!”

It’s a ridiculous observation. With everything happening at this moment, the dryness of my sheets should be the very least of my worries.

Especially when my husband ignores my concern, tosses me on my back, and throws a leg over my hips to straddle my body.

Sure and graceful. Giving me no room to move.

He settles on my hips, nice and heavy but not so much weight that it’s uncomfortable. On the contrary, it feels alarmingly pleasant.

“If you’re worried about this bed being wet, you can always sleep in ours tonight. Or I could stay here with you. Make a proper mess of things and then retire to our warm, clean sheets. Together. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

I gape at him, outraged. Frozen. Swallowed by soft down at my back and the heat of my husband at my naked front. “No! It doesn’t!”

“Very well then.”

Val is oblivious to my complete shock over the sequence of events over the last minute. My instincts waiting for him to come back to me today weren’t at all wrong. The denial I anticipated last night has come fully to fruition. Stronger than what I had expected.