Page 46 of In Death’s Hands (The Threads of Fate #1)

Liv

I can’t believe this. Where is he?

Where is he, where is he, WHERE IS HE?

Did something happen to him? Did the Novensiles get to him somehow? Or worse, another Origin that has a score to settle? My heart is pounding, but no longer because of his touch, his warmth, the steel of his body beneath mine.

No. After everything that’s happened to me, I imagine the worst. The vision of him lying on the floor bleeding out in that cave haunts my mind. I run to the bathroom, to the door that is still closed.

Nothing. Not even a speck of dust moved.

I’m about to run out the door and find someone to alert, anyone to help me find him, when I see three figures sitting on the beach under the moonlight.

My breath leaves my body in a rushed exhale. Hurt blooms deep inside me. All the heat he brought, he stole right back. Leaving me feeling colder than I ever did.

I curse him. Loudly.

There I was, so stupidly scared for him, when he just ran . He ran from me.

I don’t care that a small part of me is happy to see him getting closer to Turan and Atys when he seems to be so alone all the time. I squash the wonder and replace it with burning-hot rage.

“How dare he?” I yell in the empty room, quickly wrapping the flag around myself again. How dare he make me feel those things and then run?

Now that he’s safe, the smart thing would be to go to sleep and forget about the whole thing. Taking the high road and shit, right?

Well, I’m not fucking built for the high road. Low road all the way.

I open the door and let it crash against the wall as I barrel down the hallway and the numerous stairs. I don’t feel anything other than this fire in my heart.

How dare he kiss me, touch me like that, and then disappear.

I wonder for a second if I did something wrong, if it was too fast and I somehow pushed him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with.

But no, he was as desperate as I was. As in control, if not more so, than I.

He chose this. And then chose to let me crash into the emptiness he left in his wake.

If he regretted what he did, if he didn’t want more, he could have told me so.

I’m not a fucking child. I’m a grown-ass woman who’s about to kick his Origin ass.

I catch a few raised eyebrows and ignore all of them as I fly through the remnants of the party. It seems quieter now. At least, the music is lower and the lights are softer, but the moans and giggles seem to have taken a life of their own.

I walk and walk and keep walking through the sand, ignoring how nice the soft grains feel, until I reach their merry little group.

Well, as merry as a group with Nathan can be since I swear I can feel him frowning while Turan and Atys chuckle mercilessly next to him. No doubt at Nathan’s expense.

“You dick-wit,” I seethe.

Nathan jumps to his feet, facing me instantly but refusing to meet my eyes. I scoff.

“Hey, Liv.” Atys greets me smoothly as he gets to his feet and offers his hand for Turan to follow suit.

I ignore him and his little smirk, instead pinning my stare on Nathan’s face, willing him to just look at me, to say something, anything that would explain his callous behaviour. But nothing comes.

“Come, Atys, I have a sudden craving for some of Cook’s spicy mango sake.”

I throw Turan a grateful look as she unceremoniously drags Atys away.

“Fine, rum will do,” he sighs. “Although this seemed more interesting.” I hear a yelp and then Atys grumbling about Turan’s violent ways but stay focused on Nathan. Who still says nothing.

“Why?” I ask, ignoring the way my voice cracks.

“I’m sorry,” he answers tightly, still avoiding my eyes.

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry ?” Is he serious?

“How dare you!” I don’t notice I’ve moved forward until I’m a hair’s breadth away from him.

The moonlight deepens the shadows of his face, creating hollows and valleys I would love to lose myself in.

I close my eyes against the onslaught of him, against the unfairness of his beauty.

I feel the breath he releases dance across my own face, and fight against the images of his mouth on mine that it brings back with the force of a hurricane.

“I know. I made a mistake. P-please, forgive me.”

He sounds earnest. When I open my eyes, he looks earnest, with his shiny black eyes finally fixed on me. So why is my heart still in pain? Why do I have to tighten my fists to stop them from shaking?

“Why?” I ask again despite knowing better. I shouldn’t ask questions I don’t want answers to. He left. He may be sorry now, but he still left. I know I deserve to know why, but I learned long ago that one rarely gets what one deserves.

He lets out a rough laugh, looking away again as he rakes his hand through his hair. “I wish I could give you a better reason than ‘because I was dying to’, but I’m afraid I can’t. I lost control. It won’t happen again.”

“Wait, what?”

When he looks back at me, I’m afraid I understand. “I know I messed up, Liv. But it doesn’t change anything. We can still work together. I can still help you. I need to help you. Please let me.” He goes to grab my hand, but I evade him.

“So you’re sorry—”

“Yes!”

“—that you kissed me.” It’s not a question. It can’t be a question when I already know the answer. An answer that sits on my chest, refusing to let me breathe fully.

I must look as I feel, for when he sees my expression, doubt crosses his features. The furrowed eyebrows, the slightly parted lips, all call to me to smooth those creased lines down and bring a smile to his face. He has such lovely smiles, so rarely offered to the world.

“You—” He shakes his head as if to clear it.

For a second, I swear his eyes dip to my mouth, but he quickly turns away and swears viciously.

I don’t think it’ll never not surprise me to hear those words coming out of his soft mouth.

As if he’s too good to have such vile things rolling off his tongue.

A tongue I am begging my mind to burn from my memories.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters. When he faces me again, his face is like marble.

Hard and cold. Millions of kilometres away from the face that uttered such beautiful moans mere moments ago. “It won’t happen again.”

I let those words crash in my heart, smashing and burning. I don’t let anything show. At least, I hope I don’t. “Fine. I need to rest for the meeting tomorrow.”

“You’re not going.”

I snort. “Try and stop me.”

I turn on my heels and stiffly walk back the way I came. He calls my name but all I think about is the rum Atys mentioned. Not the best coping mechanism, I’m sure, but hey, when in Hawaii, right?

A ray of sunshine rudely interrupts my sleep. My head hurts. I’m in my dream vacation place and all I care about is shutting the blinds to go back to sleep.

Last night was a mistake. The whole night.

Kissing Nathan and letting him touch me, for one.

Which certainly didn’t feel like a mistake when it was happening, but the truth smacked me in the face too hard for me to deny it.

Drinking with Atys and Turan till dawn broke was another one.

I don’t know which is the biggest, to be honest, as the first still has my heart in a bind while the second is breaking my skull like one of those frustrated people with a bat in a rage room.

As for the rest of it, the fight for my life and what happened next, I’m just blocking it out, honestly.

Groaning, I get to my feet and head to the en-suite bathroom first, barely pausing at Turan’s body sprawled out on the couch near the window.

I don’t know what they put in their rum here, but it has that magic island taste that just makes you drink and drink and drink until you’re stumbling down the hallway, trying to get to your bed.

I distinctly remember Atys ditching us for a hunky dude, but I have no memory of how we got in here.

I wince as I recall us pounding on the door to the room Atys had disappeared into, laughing and making crude noises and comments.

After that it’s all blank, but I guess we figured out a way back to my room and Turan was too lazy to get to hers. Fair enough.

After attending to my needs and cringing at my reflection, I finally make it to the window and close the drapes before crawling back under the covers. There I’ll stay for the foreseeable future.

Or I should say, there I wish I could stay. But the she-devil that crashed here seems to have other ideas.

“Liv,” she yells.

Okay, maybe she doesn’t yell so much as talk at a normal level. I grab the second pillow and drop it on my head, hoping she’ll get the message and leave me the hell alone. No such luck. In seconds, she yanks off both pillows and the blanket and throws everything on the floor.

“Get your ass outta bed, we’ve got shit to do.”

“Idon’tgotshittodo,” I mumble, squeezing my eyes shut and praying to I don’t know who for just a day where I can wallow in my misery.

I’ve never been the praying kind. Never really believed in a big bearded guy looking after all of us.

But with the company I now keep, I guess I should take time to wonder about a few things.

Like Turan, for example. Did Nathan tell me what she was?

I ignore the pang I feel in my chest as I think his name and focus on her, the mighty being currently pulling on my legs as I grab the sides of the bed, refusing to be moved.

But when her own words come back to me, I sit up with a jolt. “You’re the goddess of love?”

She yelps as she loses her balance and falls on the ground.

And I’m almost too distracted by her dishevelled state to notice her wince.

She swallows hard, short of breath, and pushes a strand of golden hair from her sweaty brow.

I almost snort. My question and the state she’s in from trying—and failing—to literally drag me out of bed just clash for some reason.

But I keep looking at her, wanting an answer to my question.