Page 49 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)

I crossed the room in several strides to the piano bench. I sat down, running my fingers over the keys without pressing down.

Aside from Pellix and my family, I had also missed playing music. It was the only acceptable talent at which I excelled and also didn’t loathe. I’d spent hours practicing, reasoning that if I couldn’t be outside or curled up with a good book, it was the next best place to be.

Music, like books, carried me away to places beyond Emrys.

“And now I’m somewhere else, and maybe it can take me home,” I whispered to myself.

“What do you think?” Orion asked, still walking the room’s perimeter and looking around.

“I can feel it. We’re in the right spot. You can tell, right?”

His head tilted, brows furrowing over his eyes.

“I definitely feel something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“You don’t think it’s the piano, do you?” I fretted. If it was, we’d never be able to carry it.

“I doubt it. At least, Death didn’t indicate it could be something that large. Although … what if it’s inside the piano? The baton was inside a stone box; perhaps the piano is the container.”

He checked around the instrument while I looked underneath the bench, then each of the pedals. There were no strange notches or markings.

Orion came back around behind me.

“Maybe we need some sort of code before the item will reveal itself?”

“Maybe … could it be the music? We had to read the box, and we have to play the music?” I guessed.

“The Shades have song, and he left sheet music.”

“It’s worth a try,” I agreed.

“Can you play?”

I nodded, a strand of hair falling across my cheek before he reached down and tucked it away again.

“Passably well. Actually, more than passable.” No need for feigned modesty in the Ether. “I’m really quite good. As part of his negotiations with Ambrose, Bellamy assured him that a piano and music room would be made available to me.”

Orion’s look darkened, his brows drawing down.

“Yes, your fiancé.”

“He’s not my fiancé anymore.”

Even if Bellamy tried to reignite our engagement upon my return, it was too late.

I had survived the Unseen Hour, I was allying with Death, and I was sneaking through the home of a god.

I would not be cowed by my brother’s negotiations or Bellamy’s desires.

I didn’t agree to the engagement, and therefore I considered it null and void.

When I returned, my life would be my own. That wasn’t up for negotiation, no matter the consequences.

“I suppose I should thank my mother for all those lessons,” I grumbled as I flexed my fingers .

For the first time, I paid attention to the actual notes written on the sheet music in front of me and was surprised to find they were familiar.

It was a classical song. The original had been composed centuries ago, but the song had become popular again after being featured in a theatrical production within the past few years.

The piece would be difficult. I had played it before and knew that it had been written for someone with larger hands.

The spread between the notes was tricky for me, but I was determined not to miss a single one.

If this really was the key, who knew what the consequences would be for messing up the song?

After another deep breath in, and slowly out, I began.

The moment I hit the first note of the sheet music, I knew I was right. My fingers flew over the keys, as drawn to the music as I was to Orion’s singing.

When I’d previously played the piece, I had created cheats and trills to bypass having to play some notes so far apart that I could not reach them easily. This time, I stretched the span of my hands wide, just managing to hit all the right notes.

As I played, something warm lit up within me. Not whatever magic the gods exuded. This was just joy.

The song reached a crescendo, and I followed the dizzying set of notes up and back down the keyboard with enthusiasm. As I neared the end of the piece, only then did the notes slow.

The melody grew clearer, simpler, and ended with a sweet refrain.

It was a piece written about the intense passion of a love affair, and then the moment of a proposal. At least that’s what we’d been told when seeing the production at the theatre. That was just the first movement, though.

There was a second section, and a third. Only the first movement had been revitalized, and the sheet music in front of me ended on the first movement as well.

When I hit the last note, I held it, letting the sound linger. Without thinking, I’d closed my eyes on the last bit, when the melody was easiest. I’d let the music and memory carry me.

I opened my eyes as I released the note and looked to see Orion’s gaze locked on me. The blue in his eyes blazed with heat. I ran my tongue along my lip, trying to find my voice again.

“Well, what do you think?”

He leaned down, one arm circling behind me and pulling me across the bench until my face was mere inches from his own.

When he spoke, his voice was rough, and breathless.

“That was beautiful, Starlight. Just like you.”

My breath caught.

“Orion.”

The last note from the song continued to echo.

“Wait! The key!” I twisted back around and looked for the last note I’d played, an A. I’d looked at all the keys before, but this time, when I touched the A, I was able to move it. The key slid off, and rolled tightly within was another piece of paper, tied in pink ribbon.

“Orion, do you think?”

“Death said you should carry this one. Can you unroll it and check?”

Carefully, I slid the ribbon off the paper and placed the A key back on the keyboard. I unrolled the paper. There were more musical notes on it, stretched horizontally across what turned out to be a narrow, but long, strip of parchment. Just a single note at a time, in one continuous melody.

“I think … I think it could be sung,” I said, letting my right hand reach out to the keyboard .

I played the first few notes, and then Orion joined in with his voice. There were no words, just smooth, clear tones.

Shade song had pulled me in before, but this intoxicated me. The warmth inside me became a raging fire, and it took all I had to keep playing the melody instead of reaching for Orion to pull him toward me.

Something told me it was important to finish the piece. Just to be sure. To feel that we had the right item.

This time, when I let go of the last note, the music went silent almost immediately.

I turned to look at Orion. He was practically panting, and one of his hands was braced on the edge of the piano.

His pupils were wide.

I licked my lips again, hungry for the Head Shade.

He leaned down, his hand moving to the bench to steady himself as he sat beside me. His other arm wrapped around me, pulling me as close as I could get without climbing onto his lap.

“Celia, Starlight, I—” His voice was tense, desperate. I felt it as well.

His lips found mine, insistent and needy. One of his hands tangled in my hair as I moaned into his mouth, flicking my tongue against his, then pulling back to suck on his bottom lip.

He groaned.

“Ry, should we? Charon?”

“Is gone. Death made sure of that. And if he’s searching for treachery, his eyes are on the other gods. This is the last place he’d look.”

“But Charon?—”

“I don’t want his name on your lips again, Starlight. Just mine.”

His hand moved from my hair to my waist, then slipped beneath my borrowed clothes. His fingers swept over the part of me that most longed for his touch. Need tore through me as he continued, building that sweet but unbearable tension inside me.

He leaned back in to kiss me again. His tongue swept across mine, and I was lost.

I could only hope he was right. We’d been promised that this place would be empty, and up to now the location had meant only suffering for Orion. Maybe a better memory would help.

One of my hands twisted in his hair, tugging him even closer, needing more. With Orion, I would never get enough.

When his hand moved away from my clit I groaned in protest, but then he grabbed me around the waist and hauled me into his lap without breaking our kiss.

One of his hands slipped underneath my shirt, trailing up my ribs and then lightly squeezing one breast. Each touch sent bolts of lightning stronger than Death’s through me. When he ran his thumb over one nipple I sucked in a breath at the sensation that rocketed through me.

I moved my legs so I straddled him, rocking my hips against him, driven entirely by the desire to feel every inch of him.

When he matched his movements to mine, I felt his cock, hard and rubbing against me.

I made a sound in the back of my throat that was involuntary and desperate.

I reached between us, tugging at the waistline of his trousers.

Orion grinned at me.

“What are you thinking?”

I knew what he was asking.

“That I need you. Please, Ry.”

He carefully slid out from under me, removing his own trousers, and then mine. They were thrown in a heap on the god’s stone floors. Orion lifted me onto the keys, discordant music filling the room.

“Orion,” I whispered, gazing into his eyes.

He thrust into me, hard and fast. I gasped, doing my best to match his rhythm. Something told me the piano should have been uncomfortable, but I was driven by desire for Ry, and if it was, I didn’t notice.

The notes changed with every movement, and I clung to Orion, my own voice adding to the strange melody.

With one hand, Orion braced himself on the instrument, and with the other he reached between us.

His fingers swirled over my clit as he continued thrusting, and I nearly came apart right then.

He flicked and swirled over the spot until my need mounted and I was practically whimpering, my hands digging into his sides.

“Ry, please!”

He added pressure with his fingers, and drove even deeper into me.

Release crashed through me, and I screamed his name again as it broke into waves of pleasure. I still hadn’t come down when Orion screamed my name, all his muscles tensing, shuddering as he found his own release.

He lowered us both back onto the bench, looking around the room.

“We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t look like anyone was in here.”

He’d tossed our satchels alongside our clothes, and from them he retrieved some torn strips of cloth he’d thought to pack in case one of us was wounded. We got dressed, and then wiped down the piano. I rolled the music back up, wrapped the pink ribbon around it, and tucked it into a pocket.

We started to make our way back to the entrance.

A shot of white lightning illuminated Charon’s home.

Orion looked at me, eyes as wide as my own.

“But she promised,” I started.

He grabbed my hand .

“It could be we took longer than she expected, or something went wrong. Either way, we’re out of time. We need to go. Now.”

We were still in the hall, but once we made it to the entrance we’d be exposed by the wall of windows that lined the front and back of Charon’s home. We’d be sitting ducks.

“We need to hide,” I insisted, pulling Orion back in the hall.

“He can’t find you here. We have to get out. Wait!” Orion led us to one of the rooms on the upper floor that we’d searched. It was near the center of the house and had large doors on the back of the room, looking out at the falls.

“We use the balcony, and go around the side of the house,” Orion said.

We made our way outside and even found a staircase that led down from the upper to the lower balcony, but it was quickly apparent that the plan would lead nowhere.

Once downstairs, we’d be exposed to more windows. If Charon was down there, he’d see us for sure.

There was only one other means of escape.

I gulped.

“Orion, you’re not going to like it, but we do have one way out. If we jump … “

He followed my gaze over the railing, to the falls.

“We barely survived the rapids! We’d have to be out of our minds!”

“I don’t like it any better than you! Charon is here, and the front of the house is floor-to-ceiling glass.

Even if we made it down and around to the front, he’d be sure to spot us before we made the gates.

We have to chance it, unless you think Charon would forgive us for this.

” I pulled the rolled-up music from my pocket.

That was our only other problem. We had to protect what we’d found, or the entire endeavor was for naught .

“Here, use this.” Orion pulled out a waterskin, one holding regular water, not the supply from the cavern. He turned the waterskin and poured the contents over the balcony, shaking out the final drops. Then he handed it to me.

“Damp is better than destroyed,” he reasoned.

I tucked the music into the waterskin, shoving the stopper on tight. The waterskin had its own strap, and I wrapped it several times around my forearm, tying it there and then tucking that arm against me.

The other, I held out to Orion.

“We go together!”

He nodded.

“Together.”

He helped me over the railing, and I teetered on the thin ledge on the opposite side.

Orion was barely over it himself, hand clasping mine again, when he shouted.

“Now!”

The two of us leapt.

The roar of the water was deafening, and I prayed to all the gods, except Charon, that we wouldn’t strike a rock on the way down.