Page 60

60

Three

NYX

E ventually, we found our way out of the burning manor. The place was a fucking maze of narrow hallways and checkerboard floors. Stumbling upon the foyer was sheer luck, just as my fire began crumbling the walls.

Jed kicked down the door, which was large and red and dangling with what looked like voodoo dolls that gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.

The cool, winter night greeted us with wind and moonlight. We hustled forward, holding up Solaris, who could barely move his legs. The driveway to the Gothic estate seemed endless. Of course, we came to a daunting iron gate guarded by gargoyles which Jed and I had to use our power combined to force open.

We weren’t safe here. The fire raging behind us was bound to draw in a crowd.

We hobbled down the dark road. I kept glancing over my shoulder, expecting to be stalked by vengeful vampires. Surprisingly, none seemed to be following us.

“Where are we?” I panted. The streets were barren, no other gates, or houses in sight.

“I don’t know, but we need to get the fuck out of here,” Jed grunted.

“Goddess, send a car our way,” I said, glancing up at the bright moon.

Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer by the second.

“They’re gonna know,” I whispered, dread coiling in my stomach. “Celestials are going to find out—they’ll know it’s my fire.”

“Good,” Solaris growled, his voice quiet and rasped but full of volcanic fury.

My chest burned. I was so used to the sensation, I barely thought anything of it anymore. Nyx Morningstar, crybaby.

Then a lightbulb went off.

“Oh my Goddess!” I wailed. I reached into my top, plucking out the selenite stylus I’d hidden between my breasts. “I fucking forgot I had this. Wow.” This would have been convenient ten minutes ago.

Jed’s eyes narrowed at the crystal. “Where did you get that?”

“Long story,” I said, clipped. “Short version is I stole it from Jasper Lovett. Where should I take us?”

His face twisted. “So Jasper saw you?”

“Yup.”

“Nyx.” His voice was a growl, full of disapproval.

“The mountain,” Solaris croaked. “Take us to the mountain, Firefly.”

The music of ravens rang through the night sky as the portal spat us into the room Solaris had brought me to the night I’d run off and sealed myself in the tomb.

It was exactly how it had been that night, too. As if no time had passed.

Black marble floor. White fur rug lying in front of an ever-lit fireplace. Black candles alight on every surface, including the piano on the back wall. An enormous bed, drenched in ridiculously opulent sheets and quilts. A terrace overlooking the dark expanse of land that splayed between us and the city, which glittered in the distance like a grid of fallen stars.

My chest squeezed and contracted.

Jed and I held Solaris up. His head hung, and he’d fallen completely unconscious again.

“What do we do with him?” I breathed.

Jedidiah didn’t answer at first. His stormy eyes swept over the room, taking in every detail. Seeing how it had been made for me.

“Jed.”

Reluctantly, his gaze met mine. “He has a room here somewhere. I found him in it when I came for you.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. Here, let’s lay him down for a minute. I’ll go look.”

So we did. Carefully, we started lowering him to the floor, to lay him beside the fireplace, doing our best to be gentle with his broken wings. We tried to lay him on his side but he screamed in pain when his wings folded. Shakily, we settled him to the floor with his wings below him like a broken feathered bed. Solaris’s head rolled to the side. His eyes were closed, dark shadows rippling down his cheeks. His entire body was bitten and maimed. His mutilated wrists were still bound by the silver manacles as well—it was too much.

My vision swam as I took it all in, biting my lip to refrain from whimpering.

The lack of magic in his veins prevented him from healing. The venom was killing him.

“Will you be okay for a minute?” Jed’s voice was breathy. He stood over Solaris, speaking to me, but looking at him.

Crouched beside the fallen angel, I nodded. “Yeah. Just hurry, okay?”

Jedidiah gave me a curt nod before leaving the room.

Solaris’s broken wings twitched. He hissed in pain, but his eyes didn’t open.

The lump in the back of my throat hurt. I shifted closer to him, my hand reaching out. I pulled it back. I felt like touching him would make it worse.

“Is she dead?”

His voice startled me even though it was quiet, barely more than a whisper.

I leaned down to be closer to his face. “Who?”

His eyes stayed closed. When he spoke again, his voice was slightly slurred, like he’d been drinking. “My sister.”

“Oh.” I released a breath. “I don’t know. The dragon shot fire at her. I think she may have gotten out of the way in time. I don’t know for sure, though.”

“She wasn’t always like that.”

I swallowed. My heart throbbed. “No?”

“We weren’t always like this.”

I thought of the boy and the dog.

Something cool brushed my palm. I looked down. Solaris’s hand had found mine. He laced our fingers, and I—allowed it. The fire beside us flickered and cracked.

“You should have left me.”

I scoffed lightly. “Not my style.”

I closed my fingers over his. His skin was like ice. His eyes opened, the silver in them dull.

He was dying.

It hurt. It hurt. It fucking hurt.

My chest had a blade lodged in it. My throat too. I had never known a pain as visceral and nuanced as this. Both physical and mental. In my body and spirit.

Jed reappeared. He froze in the arched doorway, taking in our position on the floor. I glanced over at him, knowing my cheeks were tear-stained. I didn’t have the energy to flinch away from Solaris. I let my expression be open, unguarded. He could hate me if he wanted to. I deserved it.

When his expression softened, a sob wrenched out of me.

Jed stared at us for several long seconds. A thousand different shades of torture flashed across his face, but none of them were laced with envy or resentment. His gaze dropped to Solaris, and he winced a little. As if the sight pained him.

All of this was just so beyond confusing. Since when did we care about him?

“Did you find his room?” I sniffed.

Jed swallowed. “He should stay here. By the fire.”

I nodded.

With Solaris’s hand in mine, the torment in my chest began to wane. As if my closeness brought him peace. A peace that he shared with me.

So, I moved even closer. Shuffled my position so I was sitting cross-legged, careful not to touch his broken wings as they splayed below us like a feathered rug. I lifted his head into my lap.

The three of us released a sigh of relief in complete unison. My head spun.

Could Jed feel it? The pain?

Were they connected this way, too?

Solaris kept his fingers laced with mine, and that was the first time I noticed. “You’re not wearing your rings.”

He made a sound that could almost be taken as a wary laugh. “You burned them.”

Right.

I brushed a piece of dark hair from his face. My lower belly churned with something nameless, something that made me question my entire existence.

I gasped. “Your manacles!”

They had been cracked. Deep, jagged fissures through the iron.

Solaris said nothing.

“When did that happen?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer.

“When did this happen? When! Tell me!”

“When you were shot.” It was Jed who answered, his voice flat to hide emotion.

My lips fell open, but I came up with nothing.

The whirlpool inside of me was dragging me to depths I couldn’t fathom.

To make matters even more bewildering, Jed’s footfalls came this way. I felt him stop at my back. He sank to the floor behind me, placing a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder.

The world ceased to exist. Everything stopped and went silent. The thrashing of my heart and the crackling of the fire faded away. Solaris’s ragged breathing, too. All the turmoil, pain, chaos, hopelessness, disarray, fury, angst, fear—everything I’d been feeling—everything I’d always felt for my entire life—just…shut off.

A small mercy from the Goddess herself.

The reprieve only lasted a few minutes before the agony bloomed like a dark rose inside me once more.

“Heal him,” Jed murmured. “With your blood. I can’t bear it anymore.”

Tears dripped from my chin onto Solaris’s cheeks. He’d closed his eyes again, his long lashes casting shadows down to his jaw. His maimed chest rose and fell. The rattling sound of his breathing was jarring.

“You feel it too, then?” I affirmed.

He didn’t respond, but the answer was clear. It filled the room like a tangible thing.

“It will be over soon,” Solaris promised. His voice was sleepy, as if he were half dreaming. “Don’t try—to heal me. I won’t take anything else from you.”

I glanced back at Jed. My heart tumbled when our eyes met. His sharp features, the pain and darkness in them. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to realize they were brothers. Of course they were.

My jaw trembled.

I shouldn’t have felt this way. I shouldn’t have had an ounce of remorse or grief for Solaris. I had no business sharing his pain. He was not my friend. He was not my lover or acquaintance or peer. He was nothing if not my torturer. My jailer. My nemesis, the destroyer of my world. He had raked me over the coals with a cold smirk on his face. He had enjoyed my suffering. Hadn’t he?

Never once had he done anything to atone for his sins—against me or otherwise—yet my heart bled for him.

And I wasn’t the only one.

The Goddess had woven us together irrevocably. The three of us.

With Solaris’s head in my lap, my tears falling to drench his sharp, shadow-riddled cheeks, I surrendered to the truth.

Jed remained silent behind me, squeezing my shoulder. We stayed like that until Solaris died.