Page 15
Saeran
We used to play our own version of hide-and-seek. I would make him a gift and hide it among the hundreds of others he has. He always found it. What I wouldn’t give for one more game. One more triumphant look on his face when he finally gets his prize.
Softness surrounds me as I slowly come back to consciousness. I roll into it, the scent invading my senses and warming me from the inside. A completeness that I haven’t felt in centuries washes over me. Contentment. Happiness. Fulfillment.
I already know what I’ll see when I open my eyes.
I’m in the heart of Gluttony’s domain. His bedroom, surrounded by his hoard.
What am I doing here? What happened? The last thing I remember is—
The chimeras.
I sit up with a jolt, a tremor rising into my throat. Is Gluttony okay? All I remember is aiming another shot at the chimera’s head to wear it down so that Diarmuid and Riordan could finish it. And then nothing.
My fingers glide over the soft sheets. Gluttony’s scent is all around me, and I wish I could pause time to roll around and take it in. To enjoy it and refresh all my memories. Give myself something new to hold onto during the lonely nights.
A twinge of pain at the top of my spine stops my pointless, and dangerous, daydreams. My wings. They sit lifeless underneath me, dull even in the barely there light spilling in from the open window. My magic is almost gone. That explains why I blacked out. I thought I had more time. It’s only going to get worse until I don’t wake again. It won’t be long now, and I can’t hold off from telling Tiernan and the others anymore.
Not exactly a conversation I’m looking forward to and one I’ve avoided for too long.
The lights flick on suddenly, blinding me. Wincing, I shut my eyes and twist away from them. Maybe if I keep them closed, reality can’t intrude.
Gluttony’s scent tickles my senses when he walks further into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. I tentatively peek out, wanting a glimpse of him. He’s wearing dark suit pants, a white shirt open at the throat and tantalizingly teasing the hair on his chest, and a navy vest. He’s mouthwateringly handsome.
He lowers himself into the armchair directly in the middle of the room. It wasn’t there the last time I was here. Not in his bedroom. From the outer suite? Was he using it to watch me while I slept?
“You’ve been keeping secrets, Tenebris.”
Everything in me stills and then deflates. They told him. Why would they do that?
“Why do I know you, but I can’t remember you?” Gluttony asks. “I’ve heard your family name, but I didn’t recall yours specifically. I know what you are and how long you’ve reigned. Why don’t I remember your face, or you? You would have ruled when we were there. I’ve met you before.”
“Everything about me was erased from your memory. The important bits.” Someone took everything from the Sins.
Gluttony’s eyes narrow. He stands from his chair, and my heart jumps into my throat. He can’t come closer. We can’t be here, in this room, together, with nothing to put between us. He has the lights so bright that there are no shadows to hide in. Nowhere to run. I know he’s done it deliberately. His way of trapping me here.
It wouldn’t matter even if I could find a way to escape. He’ll follow me everywhere now. I’ve already created too much of a link. Healed parts of the broken link that should have stayed in pieces forever.
“By you?”
“No.” Nothing in the world should have had that power. To wipe out an entire culture overnight, erase so much of it and make it unrecognizable to those who once called it home. The Light certainly don’t have that behind them. Wherever they got it, whatever evil they used to destroy everything I love, I don’t know. I wish that I did. It would make fighting against it that much easier. Right now, we’re chasing ghosts and building ourselves up in the hopes that something we do will allow us to turn the tide. That anything we do is always a step closer to getting our home back. It’s the only thing keeping us going.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Which one?” I want to give him everything he asks, but I can’t. Not all of it. Not if I still want to protect what little I have left. Gluttony threatens all of that even before the trust issues. He’s my savior and the one that will herald our doom if I take what I want. I haven’t allowed myself to be that selfish. I can’t.
“We’ve met before.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
He doesn’t respond to that, his liquid-gray eyes boring into me. So sure that I’ll give him an answer.
“We have.” That much is safe to admit, at least.
He scowls, shifting in his chair. It drags my gaze to his large thighs. He’s so magnificently built. Once upon a time, all that had been mine. Mine to touch, to taste, to pleasure.
Now he’s like an exquisite centerpiece. I can look but never touch.
“Why do you remember, and I don’t?”
He knows the right questions to ask. Always so clever. A trait I admire. A little less right now when it’s directed at me like this.
“I escaped.”
You saved me. He sacrificed himself and forced me across the shroud. I’d moved so many across myself and had planned to stay until the bitter end to protect my court. I’d have stayed and died with those already gone and felt fulfilled, knowing that others were safe. Instead, I got saved, and I thought Gluttony had died that night.
Instead, he and his brothers appeared on this side, stronger than ever, ruling over this newborn world ever since. I know why the others are suspicious of them, why we’ve steered clear of them for so long. It’s not as though they don’t have good reason. And yet, after everything that’s happened, my gut says we’re only seeing what someone else wants us to see. That blind faith in who they were to us, who they are to me , is what will save us. Except that my intuition isn’t enough, not when being wrong means risking the last of us alive. I’m too close, with too much of a personal stake on both sides, to be neutral enough, rational enough, to truly know the right answer here.
“During the battle?” Gluttony questions.
“Battle isn’t the right word for it. We didn’t get a chance to respond, to prepare, or to fight back.” Massacre is the only way to describe it accurately. Or slaughte r . Anger ripples inside me at just the thought of how horrific it had been. It haunts me, like so many memories from back there do.
“Why didn’t my brothers and I fight?”
Fear and desire in equal measure tighten my muscles when he stands, moving closer and hovering over me. His dark look only makes both feelings so much worse.
I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m in his bed, under his sheets. In his private space. No one else is here, the attraction that crackles between us impossible to ignore. Memories bombard me, of hands gliding across warm skin, lips against curves, sighs of pleasure, and cries that are for us alone.
“You did,” I say brokenly. “You lost. We all did.” Lost is such an inadequate way to describe the devastation. How much was ripped from me. I shudder to think what my court looks like now. Did the Light take over or leave it to fall into disrepair? The forest can’t “take it back;” it is the forest.
“How?”
“I told you; we weren’t prepared. It was so quick. Even I don’t know what really happened.” I was there, but that doesn’t mean anything. The reason behind it still eludes me. Anyone that may have the answers is either dead or not on our side. It’s not viable to ask them.
Gluttony leans a knee on the bed. I swallow hard around the sudden lump in my throat. He needs to move away before I do something incredibly stupid. My mouth opens to tell him that, and nothing comes out.
“There’s more to it than that.”
There always is. “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.”
He presses a palm to the wall above the headboard, leaning down to crowd me. “I don’t believe that for a second. You’re lying to me, and I don’t recommend that you continue to do so.” His palm rests above my collarbone, a subtle threat, and he lifts my chin with his thumb. “Why do you call to me, when no one ever has?”
Because I’m yours. I can’t tell him that. Can’t let him know just what we once meant to each other. A step too far into the path of destruction. I don’t have enough resistance against him. “You want more gifts.”
He leans in close, lips whispering against the curve of my throat. “Do you have more?” His voice is meant to seduce, and it works too easily. “Give them to me.”
“I—” He’s too close to think properly. And I don’t have enough energy to even conjure that much, not without concentrating and depleting myself further. “I can’t.”
He bites down, sucking hard. A moan slips out of me, and I arch into his touch, my hands helplessly gripping his vest and pulling him closer.
“No?” he growls. “I want them, and you won’t deny me.”
I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. He doesn’t understand that when I say I can’t, I mean it physically. My eyes flutter closed, and I attempt to still my breathing. Pull out the energy from deep within. He wants his gift, and I’ll give it to him even if it kills me.
It just may.
Slower than it ever should be—newly transitioned Fae would have an easier time than me right now—an orb forms in my palm. A basic one, without Gluttony’s magic within. Without mine. It glows and would illuminate the room if the lights were off. A simple guide in the dark. One of the first things we’re taught.
He pulls back enough to see it, then takes it from me, our skin brushing. My breath hitches at the tiny contact, so sensitive to all of him. He notices, our eyes meeting for a single heartbeat.
“Not like the other one.”
“No. It doesn’t take you anywhere. It won’t show you the way, only light it for you.”
“How long?”
He means how long will it last. “Forever.” A lie. It’s still tied to me. I still created it. Once I die, it will no longer work. The storms I gave him, the ones with him in them, should stay. I hope they do. I hope that he’s enough to sustain them. A memory of me that even this version of him will keep.
“It’s cold.”
“Yes.” Light itself is cold. Nothing like the sun or being too close to an inferno. The shadows blend, they comfort and wrap around those they wish to protect. The light reveals too much; it doesn’t protect, only reveals and flushes out its prey.
He presses it to my temple and rolls it down across my cheek. I shiver as the cold settles against my skin, a shock against the heat pouring from me. He continues gliding it over my skin, down across my shoulder and then my chest. “Does that feel good?”
I shouldn’t answer. A dangerous path to walk. “Yes,” falls from my lips.
His lips twitch smugly, something knowing and dark in his gaze. As he slowly pulls the sheet from my chest, it dawns on me that I’m naked. So focused on him that I hadn’t noticed. Gripping tight to the sheets to stop him from revealing me does nothing. He’s too strong, and I’ve been too weak for years. I have to admit that I don’t try very hard; a big part of me wants this.
“Don’t ever hide from me.”
It’s suddenly hard to breath, my lungs forgetting how they work.
Don’t ever hide from me. The past coming to haunt me, the way it always does. My hold loosens, and he tugs the sheet down to pool at my hips.
He moves the orb down my chest, the tips of his fingers brushing my skin. Tingles like lightning follow in its wake, bumps rising as though seeking more. My own hands clench the sheets, scrunching them into my palms. To stop myself from reaching out and exploring as well. As though I don’t already have every inch of him memorized. He invades my dreams and my every waking thought. I never imagined I could have him this close again.
Even now he’s still so far out of my reach that I can’t bear it.
The orb lingers against a nipple, causing it to pebble. When Gluttony’s large hand takes over, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, I can’t help the sounds that come out.
He searches my eyes, and then his lips are against mine. What little strength I have left leaves me, and I willingly open my mouth under his onslaught, surrendering. Why did I think I could ever do anything else?
I’ll end up being the cause of the extinction of my court, and I’m too weak to say no. “We can’t,” I moan brokenly even as I seek his touch. If he continues to push, I know that I’ll give in, and everything I did to protect my kind will be for nothing. Even at full strength, even with Gluttony feeding me, I’m no match for the Light. Not alone and not with the warriors we’ve honed into the sharpest weapons. Gluttony may want to sleep with me, but would he and the Sins fight to protect me and mine?
I don’t know the answer, and that frightens me. I could take the risk and doom us all because I was wrong and thought with my heart and not my head.
He doesn’t understand what’s at stake and that lust has nothing to do with the connection between us. He doesn’t understand why I can’t let it go down this path.
He stops when I push at his chest, even leaning back enough that I can breathe and think for a second. Except it isn’t to give me space. Instead, he shifts, and then his mouth is closing over my nipple, his tongue flicking out.
Instead of telling him to stop, all that comes out as I slide my hands into his thick hair is, “ Please .”
He hums and then tugs at me with his teeth, strikes of pleasure racing through me. He may not remember how talented a lover he once was, but something in him remembers. He’s seeking out the parts of me that are most sensitive, like following a bright beacon. The way his fingers trail over the curve of my hip. The way he gives just enough pressure to cause nothing but pleasure. He knows what I like. Pure instinct guides him.
His hand twists into the sheet, and he pulls it away from my lower half. Or tries to. This I keep hold of. “Wait.” I can’t let him do this. Not without knowing.
His gray eyes meet mine, sparks of lightning in them revealing just how much he’s feeling even if his face shows none of it. This is affecting him the same way it is me; he’s just better at keeping it behind a mask. He always has been. His love is a feeling, not a look.
“Ready to tell me all your secrets, Saeran?”
The way he says my name sends another shiver down my spine. Like a secret just between the two of us. An undercurrent of everything we once were to each other.
“Yes.”
Be careful what you wish for.