by Elena Monroe
Carefully, she cracked the door with a hand over her eyes to make sure she was polite. “Nyx?”
I could still see bruising slightly healing, blooming, around her hand covering her eyes. Still, leaning over the counter, I was trying to regulate everything, when she asked, “Are you okay? Panic attack?”
Luna would think heavy breathing meant a panic attack.
Her eyes were still covered when I closed the gap, standing so close to her I felt the heat pouring off her. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to her exposed neck. She might not be able to be mine yet, but we had done this before without her being mine.
Her hand fell from her eyes, and her hands pressed against my bare chest. “What are you doing?”
That stung.
“You're in my bathroom, Luna. I'm in a towel.”
She looked disgusted, and I had to force my features to look bored instead of pissed off or confused.
“We've done that enough. Dorian probably feels whatever this is,” waving her hand between us, “and that's probably why he's ignoring me.”
He's ignoring you because Kate has his phone, and he's chained up for me to torture.
“Here… there's something right there...” I pointed to her full lips, which I couldn’t actually be mad at when she looked confused, and I pushed my fingers around her satin skin. “A little... bullshit leaked out.”
Pushing past her, I dropped my towel, well aware she wasn't covering her eyes. I didn't care. I wasn't having this conversation naked or in a damn towel.
“We can't keep doing this. He's my boyfriend.”
“Really good one, I hear.”
She actually looked scared, and her brows caved in. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, Luna. Next time, fucking knock, or I won't politely stop jacking off.”
Opening my bedroom door, I waited for her to leave, while standing there my boxers, all the stiffness long gone with the mention of her boyfriend, making my mood that much more hideous.
Nyx
I was cruel to the one girl who didn't deserve it.
I was a lot of things, but cruel to her was one thing I never did until now.
Not even one slip.
Until today.
I threw on whatever clothes I could find, not that there was much variety—same shit, new day. Pushing my chunky ring back on my finger, I already felt less vulnerable.
Being near Luna always required some level of protection, love or not.
The whole crew was already posted up in my living room, too comfortably. I stared down Jasper, who was sitting in the chair in the corner away from everyone. With a loud sigh, he moved, and I let my body fall into the velvet material with a thud.
Luna didn’t count her blessings the way I thought she would.
Instead, she went to Dorian’s house daily to dust, bake, keep up his life for him in his absence.
She was acting like a fucking widow, not a girl who just lost the weight of one abusive boyfriend.
I knew better than anyone that making the world right didn’t make it right for you.
I slayed her fucking demons, and she still couldn’t stop holding out hope the demons would find her again.
That’s why I don’t try to be the good guy or correct people from thinking I’m the thing that goes bump in the night.
That’s why I don’t try to find some molecule of good inside my dark ass soul.
That’s why Luna’s constant battle within herself never made me lose interest.
None of us are what we seem, and the world doesn’t give a damn about wrong or right, only selfishly.
Selfishly, something in me didn’t look at her the same way as I did before. There was nothing like the women you love, mourning another guy, to take the wind out of your sails.
Selfishly, I couldn’t bring my tongue to hiss obscene sentences at her. Not a chance in Hell I was going to whisper for her to sit on my dick when she looked so abandoned.
Selfishly, the world was right, and it felt so goddamn wrong for me.
Caellum was pacing in front of the tv on the wall, when he spat out something no one expected, “I'm just gonna say it... Is anyone else having fucked up nightmares?”
Everyone looked around at each other, curious and nervous, all at the same time.
Luna was sitting in front of Arianna with her one elbow on her thigh, leaning back, when she raised her hand like we were right back at Arcadia.
Arcadia... fuck! I should probably feed him or something.
“I've been dreaming of Omari...” Luna’s confession made all the oxygen in the room seem suddenly stale.
Caellum stopped moving with anxiety to sit on the coffee table. “I've been having fucked up dreams about Omari. I don't think he's gone. That's just problem one...”
The girls crowded Luna like they were just becoming aware of her constant struggle since the ritual’s fallout.
They cared when they wanted to, when it was convenient, around their lives and boyfriends, when I was stuck caring every second of every damn day.
“Onward to problem two Caellum,” Kate quipped.
“Henry Jon started The Cloth to avenge his daughter, Rosalia... We all know that. Her death was our fault, blah, blah, blah… We didn't know she'd die. It was the first ritual we ever did…”
“Gods, Caellum. Just say it,” Bolton spat out like acid.
“Dorian is part of The Cloth.”
Caellum tried to cushion the blow, have some sort of lead, but he didn't pull any punches. Not around the truth.
I snickered to myself at his blunt-ass sentence. At least, he figured something out while slaving over his clues.
He sacrificed a life just to solve the mystery. What was going to preoccupy his time now?
Kate spoke for Luna's shock with a harsh gaze, “Excuse me? Heard of treading lightly, asshole?”
I was watching Luna’s face the whole time shift from nervous to downright shocked. I watched the tears get stuck on the rims of her eyes, while Caellum explained, “Stay with me... he had all of Henry Jon’s journals and the weapons. I drew it all back to The Cloth. He has no family or friends. We haven't seen any personal items or even met anyone from his life. He knows shit no one should know.”
Luna looked up at Caellum with the same fire I knew she was trying to extinguish, “If you all hate Dorian so much, then say it. Don't play these games, Caellum. Let me guess, Nyx put you up to this?”
Her gaze grilled me, and I didn't flinch. I didn't know he was going to drop bombs in an already active war zone, and I wasn't making my opinions known when she already looked deadly.
“He had nothing to do with this, Luna. We have a bigger enemy than The Cloth. They aren’t the ones in charge. I found ties to Clave International Holdings—”
For once, her soft features turned hard, chiseled, and focused, cutting his words off at the source.
Throwing my hands up in a “not guilty” way, I had enough to be guilty for, but this wasn't one of those times.
“Silence isn't your friend. Speak!” she barked my direction.
“You don't wanna push me, Luna.”
“I'm not scared of you, Nyx.”
She stood up, shaking off the girl’s pawing at her wounds—wounds you couldn't see at all now.
“Is him hitting you supposed to make me like him?”
The girls weren’t shocked at all, but the guys all stewed in their anger learning that someone hurt us more than allowed.
Cruelty? Foreplay.
Crude words? Flirting.
Pain? A necessary evil.
Luna’s face turned sunburn red, and I almost felt bad about the truth—almost.
Truths like those are what had been eating at her morality, her identity, and she needed to live with the truth, instead of hiding it.
“Stop…” Her voice was wobbly at best.
Caellum cut through us like a sharp knife. “We need to handle him.”
My eyes drifted to
Kate, who very well knew I already “handled” him. She knew telling me that he had hit Luna was signing his death certificate.
The discomfort in the air was heavy and thick—even I felt uncomfortable waiting for the rest of the opinions to filter out or Kate’s silver tongue to say something about his current state chained up in Arcadia.
Kate got up and pushed her head to one side, signaling me to follow her. For some stupid reason, I slipped out of the conversation being led by Bolton and Caellum about how best to handle Dorian.
In the kitchen, Kate pulled on my arm, dragging me further in around the island, when she whispered in close proximity, “He keeps getting weird texts and phone calls from an anonymous number.”
Staring at her without much care, she got frustrated and grunted at my boredom. “Seriously?! Caellum is figuring shit out. You just outed how bad Dorian really is, and obviously someone is looking for him. Spoiler alert: It’s not Luna’s number.”
She pulled out Dorian’s phone and handed it to me, like it was on fire. “It’s seriously keeping me up at night, Nyx. I don’t want it.”
I circled her, looking over her shoulder. “Show me the messages.” Letting my arms weigh down her shoulders, I waited for her to show me what she was complaining about—an endless stream of texts from a mystery texter.
Huffing as she pulled up the messages, I saw the thread with Luna’s texts, and I was tempted to make her go back so I could read her fucking message about how much she missed him or if he was sorry for what he did to her.
The messages were all short and sweet, riddled with ADD and assaulted my vision.
Text: Where are you? Dropped by the house, and you weren’t there.
Text: Not making any headway with him.
Text: ANSWER THE PHONE.
Scrolling further down to the end, she stopped when the messages ran out, and my eyes read it more carefully.
Text: He just hung up on me. Get your girlfriend in line. She’s ruining shit.
I reached over Kate and plucked the phone from her hands, but I made no movements to stop forcing her to hold the weight of me up. I re-read it and re-read it, trying to come up with a better conclusion: This couldn’t be my casual fuck, dubbed Cotton-fucking-Candy.
“What’s wrong?”
It was written all over my face; denying was pointless. In some sick need to justify my bad decisions of Cotton Candy, I pressed the back button to Luna’s text messages.
Knowing Miss Innocent was making bad decisions too was the only antidote to how stupid I was feeling right now.
Unwrapping myself from Kate, I pushed my elbows into the countertop of the kitchen island and hunched over reading their private conversations.
Luna: I miss you. I know you’re busy, but text me when you can.
I scrolled up further to read their exchanges instead of her deranged Stockholm syndrome.
Dorian: Stop teasing me baby. I’ve been good to you.
Manipulation.
Dorian: So you’ve never done anything with Nyx? I see how he looks at you, like he’s seen every inch of your pretty skin under those clothes.
Bargaining.
Dorian: Can’t tell who's your boyfriend… me or Nyx?
Threats.
Dude hit every type of tactic to get his way. I never contemplated why he hit Luna, other than chalking it up to me. Now it made more sense. She wouldn’t fuck him, and he couldn’t live with her saying yes to me.
“It doesn’t feel any better knowing the truth.” Kate wasn’t the coddling type. Sure, if you were sobbing… maybe.
“Get out,” I demanded. Grabbing her wrist and yanking her back, I forced my eyes off their messages. “Stay away from my dad. I mean it.”
I had never seen Kate blush until now. Through her cheeks heating up, she snapped, “Keeping Daddy all to yourself?”
“He isn’t yours, Kate. To be specific, he was your sister’s. You picked your own poison, and it’s no one's fault you don’t like the aftertaste.”
Kate wasn’t the backing down type, never had been.
“Luna isn’t yours to protect, to kill for, to keep caged up so none of the damn innocence wears off!” she shouted into my face, and Bolton rounded the corner and demanded answers, like he always did.
“What the fuck is going on with you two?”
Looking only at each other, Kate folded her arms against her chest, ready to not back down and send me down the fucking river by telling them where Dorian really was.
“Nothing, mind your business.”
Purposely putting himself in my way and making sure I stopped to listen, he said, “We aren’t at Arcadia anymore, but I’m still king. Everything is my business.”
Crashing my shoulder into his, I pushed him out of my way. “King of what, Bolton? Arianna isn’t a fucking badge of honor. King means nothing when there’s always been three.”
His king routine was getting old.
There had always been three kings for every point of Olympus: water surrounding, sky above, and punishment below.
Poseidon’s son, Austin; Zeus’s daughter, Arianna; and Hades, my obscene dad.
None of us had accepted what being a ruler actually meant. None of them knew what that meant; the gods had died while we were stuck at Arcadia.
Hades groomed me my whole life to wear his crooked crown and wear the heavy ring that gave me the right to everything unsavory. I denied the throne over and over again, not entirely sure I ever wanted it.
Now, I did, out of spite, to shut up all the false kings.
With the phone in my hand, finding out why he thought hitting Luna was a good idea and how Cotton Candy knew Dorian was all that mattered right now. The rest was just annoyances.
“Luna,” I said to her, in the corner of the room, waiting for her to look at me.
Her big doe eyes almost broke my heart with a knife that looked like guilt. She was silent, waiting for me to speak.
“We need to talk. I gotta be somewhere, so let’s go.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere with you. We have proved time and time again that we can’t be trusted alone.”
“Luna…” I spoke her name into existence, hoping she would tread lightly.
“Don’t Luna me. You can’t just bat your eyes and get me to do anything you want.”
I smirked, remembering all the times it worked before.
“I can say your name or fill our friends in… your choice.”
She got up from the couch and dragged her ass over to me like a walking tantrum.
??
Making a stop at the store, I had to get supplies for keeping Dorian alive and dead—all at once. It was a fine line to walk.
Rounding the corner, I found the rope I needed. “Why did he hit you, Luna? I need to know.”
Luna looked around at the empty aisle, still embarrassed. “He was just angry… I wouldn’t apologize for what we did.”
“What we did?” I popped an eyebrow not sure if she meant fall in love or the sex. Neither should have happened, but it did.
“You know what we did, Nyx. I’m not saying it. Why are you getting rope?”
“Art project. Has he mentioned any girls? Cotton Candy?”
She shook her head, with a look of contempt at me mentioning her at all.
“No. He isn't like that. I was the only bad seed in the relationship.”
She didn’t know what he was like. Clearly, he did enough damage to jumble up her sanity; she was fucking brain washed and made to believe she deserved it.
Deep down she knew better.
My favorite parts of her knew better.
After my pitstop to the store, we were headed back to Arcadia, and I saw her face get even more pale, knowing the destination. “Why are we going to Arcadia? I don't want to go back there, Nyx.”
“You're staying in the car, while I handle business.”
Coming here, any time of day or night, was a dream gone wrong. Once beautiful and now destroyed. Onc
e our home and now gone. Once a lot of things that are no more. I grabbed the bag from the back seat and made sure I made eye contact. “Stay in the car, Luna.”
She grumbled to herself and fell back into the seat, while I disappeared into the dark and rubble.
I found Dorian sitting on the floor with his ankles crossed and playing with the cuffs that were anchoring him to a pole. At least they were when I left here last.
“Relax. I'm not trying to do this all over. If you wanted me dead, I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem delivering, demon spawn.”
“Demon spawn? Little harsh…” I tossed the take-out burger and fries his way.
“Son of the Devil, right? Just as evil.” Staring down at the bag that landed in front of him, he looked up at me, “I'll pass. I'll die a different way.”
Squatting down, still processing that he knew Hades was my dad, I unwrapped the burger and took a bite. “Our mouths have been in the same places…” I had to try not to smirk as I looked at the death in him balancing my remark.
Hungry he snatched the burger out of my hand and ate slowly trying to always prove me wrong.
Still squatting down to his level, I fished the phone out of my pocket and showed him the screen with Cotton Candy’s messages. My fist yanked his hair, and I pulled his head up, while he was distracted by food. “Who is she?”
He laughed, like nothing was going to make him confess, and I tugged his hair harder, jarring his head back.
“Who is she? No games.”
“Don't know. Seems nice though.”
“You have a partner or something? Does The Cloth ring any bells?”
His face smirked, and I took it as a direct insult to my intelligence... well, Caellum's. He had been neck deep in research and information; he was never wrong.
Thinking about that small fact, it finally clicked why he left Arcadia so abruptly. He must have known Alba and Omari weren't on the right side of shit.
“You'll be stuck here, while I'm outside... with your friend.” Grabbing the rope, no more faulty handcuffs, I made sure they were tight enough to be uncomfortable.
Dorian’s blank face wasn't giving me anything to go on. I couldn't discern who Cotton Candy was to him, or why she would be texting him, or if it was even her.
Not a chance in Hades some casual fuck was getting the best of me.