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Chapter Twenty-Four: Rhea

I wake with a start, sweat beading over my temples and drenching the back of my neck at the nightmare. Alexi and Bella’s deaths replayed in my mind, only this time twisted into something somehow more horrific.

Dragging my hands down my face, I force the burning in my eyes to stay there. Would it always be this way? Would every thought of her—of Alexi—always feel like a wound made anew? Maybe it is better to try and not think of them, but that gaping sensation of loss always rears its head when I least expect it to. Asleep or awake, it doesn’t seem to matter. Grief is like trying to fight an invisible enemy. There’s no way to prepare for it—no lessening of the savage way it further pulls me apart. It’s a scar ripped open over and over again.

I turn over onto my side and blow out a breath. Nox and I had decided to call it an early night after the staircase incident with the goal of talking in the morning. I don’t know if I’m ready to see where that conversation will take us, if I’ll end tomorrow even more alone than I feel tonight.

My fingers drag along a skirt the color of twilight. I pick it up and hold it to my body, its flowing fabric—not quite cotton but something softer and more gauzy—drifting down to my knees. I look through the tops, settling on one that matches the fabric of the skirt with buttons that go down the back and sleeves that hang off the shoulders.

After dressing, brushing my teeth, and combing through my hair, I wash my face with cold water, hoping to brighten up the dullness that has taken over my complexion. My hand grips the edge of the counter as I stare at myself in the mirror, little light flares glinting off the glittering gray stone in front of me.

I had wished for a life outside the confinement of a different, colder gray rock. In every fantasy scenario of how I could live if I ever became free, they were always so simplistic. Being free meant being happy; I didn’t know how to dream more intricately than that. It wasn’t until I was trudging through the forest in bloodstained boots with Nox at my side and a cloud of sadness still blanketing me that I realized that changing my surroundings didn’t change who I was . That it isn’t quite as easy as just leaving and suddenly feeling complete and whole.

Looking back, that oversimplified way of thinking had done nothing but leave me pockmarked with regret. Regret that I didn’t question things about Nox sooner—though there is an understanding now that, even if I had, it probably wouldn’t have changed where I ended up. Regret over not appreciating my time more with Alexi. With Bella. For thinking that they would always be a constant in my life. Those choices still felt malleable, despite being fixed points in my past. Like I could somehow go back and scream at myself to find another way—to make a different choice. But Selene’s words rush back into me, reminding me that the outcome might have always been the same regardless of the path taken to get there.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

I look into my green eyes and try to rally myself for this conversation with Nox. I feel as if I’m sifting through sand, searching for something to convince him that I’m worth fighting for—that we are worth fighting for. That I forgive him. I forgive him . But the sand keeps caving back in on me, covering up my attempts. Though it was second nature to lock everything up before, to try to move through my existence as numbly as possible, Nox had shown me what it was like to have someone to rely on. He begged me to give him some of my burdens, and I had.

Now, as I chew on my lower lip and my reflection blurs from the tears filling my eyes, I hope that he still wants to fill that role. Because I don’t know if I can go back to who I was. That version of myself, though only months old, feels like someone I shed. I may not have emerged from this as a beautiful butterfly, but I am no longer a caterpillar hiding in the shadows, hoping to survive long enough to taste freedom. Even if I know now that freedom isn’t always sweet.

Selene said I should focus on finding out who I am and everything that might entail. I would like to know more about my magic, and like it can hear my thoughts, wintery cold seeps into my chest, flaring out into my ribs and making me shiver. It is immediately followed by welcoming warmth, the feel of it allowing me to take a deeper breath. These two halves within me are so at odds; how in the world am I supposed to navigate the divide?

And where the hell did I even get magic to begin with?

If the type of magic I have is mage, if by all intents I am considered mage, then it stands to reason that one of my parents was as well. Or they at least had enough mage blood within them to carry magic down their family line. Was that how it worked? Magic descended through blood? King Dolian had said that my mother had just shown up in Vitour. Could she have traveled from this kingdom? If so, why?

With one last glance at my reflection, I stride through Bahira’s room and out into the hall. My steps are heavy, each one feeling more like they are taking me away from a future I hadn’t known I wanted and closer to one I don’t know how to survive in. Then again, maybe I had to give myself some credit—surviving despite my circumstances was my entire existence.

Nox’s sitting room is empty as I step inside, the dark blue curtains blowing in the breeze that comes through the open balcony doors. It smells of forest and him, and I inhale both deeply into my lungs.

The door to his bedroom is closed, noises of water running in a sink and something clattering on the counter filtering through it. I silently walk to one of the windows and look out at the densely packed tree line. I smile at the thought of him growing up here, playing and running in the woods. Maybe chasing Bahira or his best friend, Cassius. Or maybe his childhood wasn’t as carefree as I am imagining. As the heir to the throne, perhaps he had too many responsibilities to simply play. Sorrow thrums against my heart at the thought that, in a different life, we might have learned these bits of information about each other like any normal, courting couple.

The door to the bedroom opens, and though the sitting room is large, the space between us seems to shrink as we stare at each other.

“Food is over on the table,” he says, gesturing to his right.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” Not with the way nausea from my nerves roils within me.

He nods, his damp hair glistening in the sunlight trickling through the treetops and windows. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you. It’s less jarring to see you in all black,” I tease as my hand gestures to his body and the color he’s dressed in head to—almost—toe. Only his feet remain bare. I realize then that I didn’t put any shoes on either.

“I told you I was boring,” he responds with a half-hearted shrug.

Daunting silence settles over us, and I grip my fingers together to fight off the feeling that screams at me to run. That this is too hard—too much work. That I am too much work.

“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?”

“Which part?” I ask, taking a step towards him.

“All of it if you want.”

All of it . It’s the answer I wanted to hear, yet I wonder if the truths I am about to give him are what he wants to hear. I had asked him to be completely honest with me and vowed to do the same. The first thing I needed to be honest about is that I am tired . I am tired of denying myself the only thing I have ever chosen. I am exhausted from straddling the line of self-imposed guilt and all-consuming love.

He mistakes my lingering silence for a refusal to talk and begins to turn away. “We don’t have—”

“Nox,” I breathe, noting how his body stills at the use of his name. His real name. “I forgive you.” His eyes widen, and his lips part, shock a palpable thing between us. I’m not sure he’s breathing, like the act of doing so might erase the words I’ve spoken. So I say them again, my voice hard with resolve. “I forgive you.”

He runs a hand over his face, holding it on top of his mouth. Finally, he takes a step towards me, reaching as if to tuck my hair behind my ear or cup my face only to drop his hand back at his side. “Rhea, you don’t have to forgive me. At least not yet.”

Disappointment strikes me hard when he doesn’t respond like I thought he might. “I understand how forgiveness works.”

“That’s not— Fuck ! That isn’t what I mean. My fear,” he says slowly, calculating each word, “is that you will feel like you have to forgive me. Because of who we are to each other and how I helped you. I’m terrified you will offer me forgiveness before I’ve earned it, before you mean it, out of some sense of obligation to make me happy.” His chest rises and falls quickly, a determined look morphing his features as he drops his voice lower. “Let me be clear. I have earned your anger. I will bear the weight of your silence, even. But don’t think for one godsdamn minute that I want your false happiness, Rhea. That I want you to give me something I haven’t earned.”

“But you have earned it,” I argue as my voice shakes. “And I do mean it.”

He doesn’t say anything, instead allowing his gaze to fall from mine. The way he acted yesterday and what he’s doing now, he is purposefully building a wall between us.

“Why are you pushing me away?”

Nox’s shoulders drop, his expression a composition of remorse and uncertainty as he shakes his head. “I just want you to be happy. You have more than earned that.” My responding scoff has his eyes snapping to mine. His jaw hardens, and he runs a hand through his hair again, holding the strands there. “Rhea, I will not become a second cage for you. I don’t want to suffocate you. You are free now to explore all your options. Just because I brought you here… It doesn’t mean that you’re beholden to me. I won’t be the reason you hurt, not again.”

“And I suppose it doesn’t matter what I want?” Logically, I understand what he’s saying, and there is a part of me that even recognizes how devastating it is for him to say those things and mean them. But it angers me—this idea that I could want anybody else after knowing what it is to be loved by him. “You have already ruined me,” I accuse quietly as a tear tracks down my cheek.

He watches the tear fall, a small frown forming at my insinuation.

“You have completely and utterly ravaged my heart so that it will not beat for anyone else. I could not even conceive of another marking it the way that you have. It is a broken, jagged thing, and still , it beats for you.” I take a step towards him, forcing him to hold my gaze. “You broke through the many shields I had placed around myself because feeling hurt too much. Exposing myself to any kind of love only resulted in my further ruination. Until. You !” I gasp the word out, sucking in air through my clenched teeth as I point at him. “And despite everything , I find myself unable to stop loving you. Unable to imagine an existence without you in it. You have thoroughly ruined me, and for once, it is an invisible scar that I am happy to carry. That I want to be marked with. And you’re telling me now that you don’t want me?”

His face softens, his shock morphing into something else—an emotion I can’t exactly identify. “Rhea—”

“I’m not done.” I begin to pace as I cross my arms over my chest. “There is a place called the Middle. It is space between worlds that, somehow, my magic gives me access to. In this place, I can see billions of stars, millions of galaxies swirling all around me. I’ve even been told gods walk among them. That’s where I was—where my consciousness was—these past six days. I was in a space within universes, a magical place not seen here on Olymazi, and still, I thought of you. ” I wipe my tears roughly as I try to gain some composure. It feels like a dam has burst and now I’m awash in the flood, everything I want to say rushing out of me all at once. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like anything less than what you are—my protector. My friend. The only person I have ever wanted to own my heart. The only one that does . You are my home. You are my haven. And I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry because I understand. I do,” I cry, gesturing around the room but referring to the kingdom as a whole. To the people he spent the last four years of his life in a foreign kingdom protecting.

I crave the attention of his star-flecked eyes and the desire I know he can ignite within me. For the touch of his hands and softness of his lips. But even more than that, I ache for the way he looks at me like I truly am the sun. The moon. The stars. I’m desperate to be everything he thinks of me. That desperation defies logic and paints my world in a frantic shade of gray instead of clearly defined black and white. Nox had hurt me, and yet I loved him. He had lied, and yet I understood. He is giving me a chance to walk away for something he perceives to be better, and yet I want no one other than him.

My words are spoken more softly as I tell him, “I understand why you lied, why you kept secrets, because I have kept them too. But loving you is the easiest decision I was ever given, the easiest one I have ever made.” My eyes hold his as I notice the faint tears gathering in them. “ I forgive you .”

I expect those three words to have a cost when I speak them. The broken and defeated part of my soul says that I need to put myself in a new prison, one where the walls are made up of Bella and Alexi’s sacrifices and held together by my need to make sure they weren’t all in vain. I know that they wouldn’t want that for me though. They would want me to live and to love and to be selfish about both in ways I don’t understand but intimately crave. There is only one other person who has ever wanted those things for me too.

“If you still want me, I am yours.”

Nox doesn’t move—doesn’t take his eyes off of me while seconds drip by, each one more painful than the last. Maybe I’m too late. Maybe he has already made up his mind and— He closes the distance between us, his warm hands gently framing my face while my own reach out tentatively towards his chest, our bodies hardly separated by an inch.

“Say it again,” he rumbles, the sound sending shivers down my spine. “Say that you’re mine.”

“I am yours. Only yours.” I intone it like a prayer—a benediction to a man I’ve thought was godly on more than one occasion.

His lips only graze mine at first, their softness drawing a small whimper from me. Then his restraint snaps, and we crash together in a maelstrom of pent-up desire and longing and love—so much love. Like the striking of a match, I ignite from my toes to the crown of my head under his touch. It had only been days since we kissed, nearly a week while I was in the Middle, but doing so now is like finding water in a drought. I need it, need him. Nox guides my lips with his own, his remorse evident with every movement. He’s relentless in the way his tongue slides into my mouth and against mine, like he’s trying to map out every single part of it. I’m drowning in the way he makes me feel as if there is something worth living for when all I’ve ever known before him is the opposite. But I’d happily suffocate for this—for him. My hands slide up into his hair and grip tight as I pull him even closer, a soft moan vibrating from my throat.

We separate for just a moment, my lips tingling and chest heaving. “I love you,” he says, leaning back in to softly kiss me before his mouth slides over the curve of my jaw. My head tilts back while I arch my neck, giving him access to any part of me he wants. He can have it all. “There is only you, Rhea. Only you. ”

“I love you,” I rasp back, my hands sliding down from his hair to dig into his shoulders. “Nox, I love you.”

His teeth find my earlobe, a growl—low and deep—rumbling in his chest. It sends a shock of desire through me, my thighs clenching together as an ache builds in my core.

“My name from your perfect lips is a godsend.” His warm mouth moves down my neck, this fervor growing between us the longer he teases me with his teeth and tongue. Each touch from him is kindling to that burning fire within me—even my magic pushes against my skin like it’s being drawn closer to him. His hands grip the backs of my thighs, and he picks me up with ease, my legs wrapping around his torso as he squeezes our bodies together. He kisses back up my neck and over my jaw at an unhurried pace, his lips then hovering above my own.

I cradle his face with my hands, each rush of air past my lips fanning the flames of my desire. But looking at him is like peering out at the ocean at night, the stars reflecting on its surface. It’s easy to get lost in his beauty.

We’re being honest, so though my heart kicks up its rhythm at the thought, I give voice to the words dancing in my head. “I want you.”

His smile is so soft, so full of affection, that it draws out one of my own. “You already have me.”

“No,” I reply, my head shaking. “I want all of you.”

His brows draw together for a moment in confusion but quickly give way to understanding, his eyes darkening with hunger. “Rhea, are you sure?”

I know he won’t continue unless he believes that I’m absolutely positive, and I don’t want him to doubt this moment at all. So, forcing myself out of his hold, I grab his hand and guide him into the bedroom. Soft golden light from the morning sun filters in through the windows that line the wall adjacent to his bed, shining directly onto the dark green comforter there. I don’t take in much else about his room, my attention fixed on him as I motion for him to sit on the bed and then crawl onto his lap. I kiss his cheek. His jaw. My hands sliding down to his neck and over his shoulders.

“I want this. I want you ,” I say against his skin, my tongue darting out to drag along it. I moan at his taste—earth and spice and him . “I wanted you in the tower, when I dreamed of your body pressed against mine. I wanted you when I touched myself and fantasized it was your hands instead of my own.” My cheeks heat at my words, at the way my voice doesn’t sound like myself.

“Fucking gods.” Nox draws me closer to him, the movement giving friction to my core and making me gasp.

Lifting my gaze back to his, my nerve-endings alive and tingling with desire, I push every ounce of certainty I can into my voice. “I wanted you when you gave me my first kiss and showed me what it was to be consumed by passion. On the bank of the river, I wanted you to take me right there on the ground. And at the inn, when I could feel your desire for me so strongly, I wanted you so badly that I would have given you anything in return. I would have bargained away my very existence if it meant having you in the way I so desperately wanted. None of those feelings have changed. If anything, I want you more. ” My eyes bounce between his, and I hope he can see it in my gaze—the depths to which I love him. “Explore me,” I whisper. A summoning. A statement. A plea .

Nox breathes out slowly, his hands moving up the sides of my body and resting just beneath the curves of my breasts. I have kissed him so many times, and each of them have felt like a new beginning, but now, as his tongue glides into my mouth and my breath falters with each gentle swipe, I know that this moment might be more pivotal than them all. Desire licks up my spine and entangles with my humming magic.

When we separate again, I’m ready to push him down on the bed and undress him myself. But his expression turns serious, and his eyes become uncompromising. “We stop at any moment you want to. No questions asked.” I nod in response, already knowing he will only continue as long as I am enjoying it. His throat works before he leans in close, his lips grazing my ear. “I am going to worship you as thoroughly as you deserve, Rhea, and I am going to take my time doing it. I want to touch you—to taste you—so desperately that I’m willing to give up things I never imagined I would.”

My heart batters my ribcage at his words.

“But you should know two things. The first is that you are in control here. Always .” His eyes hold mine, specks of silver shining in them like a shattered star. “Your first time can be painful.”

“I know.” I may not have had sex before, but I had read enough books to at least understand the physicality of it.

“The second,” he continues, slanting his mouth over mine, “is that I have been taking a preventative tonic. But that changes nothing. I’ll come when and where you tell me to.”

Gods above.

“I want you everywhere.”

His smirk is entirely devious as he lifts both arms, bending one and grabbing the back of his collar to pull his shirt off in one swift motion. Words leave me, my mind completely blank, as I stare at the expanse of his tanned skin. My fingers trace over him, moving down his collarbone and lower until they dip into every curve and divot of his abdomen. His sharp inhale fuels my desire to explore him further.

“I can’t believe you are mine,” I whisper.

Nox smiles before leaning in to kiss me again. “I am yours, and you are mine.” I reach back to begin unbuttoning my top, but he halts my hands and replaces them with his own. His voice is a midnight caress against my skin as he murmurs, “I have thought of undressing you slowly more times than I care to admit.”

Then he begins to do just that, popping each button free of its loop one at a time. The pace is torturous, and I would think that, as he releases me from the confines of the top, it would get easier to breathe. However, when he reaches the last button, air feels impossible to pull into my chest.

Mistaking my anticipation for nervousness, Nox freezes. “Tell me to stop.”

I kiss him hard until he groans, encouraging him to keep going. When the last button is undone, with delicate slowness, he slides the straps of my top down—farther and farther—until I can pull my arms through them, and then he tosses the garment to the floor. I become acutely aware of how naked I am, as if there is a way to become even more so.

There is nothing to hide behind, and as he takes me in, I hold my breath and hope that, when reality crashes into the fantasy of me he has in his head, I will live up to the expectation.