He sighed heavily. “That could be because we usually are.” He took a languid sip of his drink. “And yourself? Any siblings?”
She shook her head, keeping her gaze fixed on the task at hand. “It’s just me and my dad.”
“Well, I have a few to spare if you ever decide you want one, or three.”
Riley shook her head, laughing. “Something tells me Octavian wouldn’t be very happy being related to me.”
Gideon touched his wine to his lips, his eyes watching her closely. “Oh he wouldn’t. In fact, if you were related, this whole situation would take a very awkward turn for the awkward. ”
Just then, Octavian stomped back into the room, carting three cases of beer. Riley rushed forward to help, but he shook his head and set the stack on the counter with a resounding clutter of bottles. He stepped back and wiped his hands on his jeans.
“What are all those for?” she asked.
“Stocking the fridge,” he replied.
“I can do that,” she volunteered, needing something to do except stand there like an idiot.
Octavian opened his mouth, probably to object.
“Oh let her!” Gideon burst out, waving arm without spilling a drop of his drink. “For heaven’s sakes man, it’s just stocking the fridge. You don’t have to be such a control freak over everything.”
Octavian glowered at him. “Don’t you have someone else to bother?”
Gideon beamed. “Oh plenty, but they’re not nearly as much fun to bother as you.” He took a gulp of his wine.
Shaking his head, Octavian turned to Riley. “Make sure the labels are facing out for easier finding.”
Riley nodded, resisting the temptation to squeal like a little girl and clap her hands with excitement. It was a testament of just how bored she was.
Octavian lowered the cases to the floor for her and jerked back when she stepped forward. It made her want to sniff herself, just to make sure her deodorant was doing its job.
Ignoring him, she crouched down and popped open the mini fridge beneath the counter. She was on the last case when raised voices filled the dull silence. Even Octavian and Gideon had left when the final customer had, leaving her to finish the task as they disappeared into the kitchen. She’d partially assumed the evening was over.
“Hey, the gang’s all here!” she heard Reggie shout. “Whoa, where is everyone? It’s dead in here. HA! Get it? Dead in here?” He broke off in a fit of laughter.
“Shut up, Reg,” another voice muttered.
The approaching footsteps faded into the kitchen, leaving behind the clack of the doors swinging closed behind them. Riley sighed, going back to work. The place felt so large and empty when no one was there to occupy it. Gorje hadn’t been there when she’d arrived and she hadn’t seen Liam or Kyaerin all evening and the only customers who had walked in, providing momentary lapses in boredom, were now gone. Riley would have asked if she could leave, too, but refrained in fear of getting her pay docked.
With the last bottle stored away properly in its slot and the boxes crushed flat, Riley rose, rubbing the tips of her fingers into the middle of her back where a dull ache had begun to form from stooping for so long. She expelled a lungful of air that ruffled the tendrils of hair around her face before stooping down and gathering the mess she’d created. Her feet echoed in the silence as she shuffled across the room and ducked into the kitchen. The room was dark except for the light spilling out of the staff room and the single bulb hanging over the preparation table. She made her way to the storage room, a tad surprised to find the door already open. She jostled the recycling for a proper grip before moving deeper into the room towards the backdoor where the garbage was left. She set the boxes down and turned to leave.
“Riley?” Octavian appeared in the doorway.
“Here.” She wove her way through the maze of boxes towards the front. “Just taking out the recycling.” She reached him and stopped, tipping her head back to peer up into his face. “Did you need me?”
For a moment, he didn’t respond. He stood studying her as though weighing his next choice of words. “The weather’s getting bad out there.”
Had he really come all that way to update her on the weather? “Oh, okay. Thanks.”
He shook his head. “What I mean is that I’ll drive you home if you didn’t bring your car.”
“Oh!” She smiled at him. “That’s nice of you, but I don’t mind walking.”
“And risk the chance of getting sick?”
He had a point. She really couldn’t afford to take any sick days, not when she’d only just started the job.
“Thank you.” She glanced at her watch. “I still have another two hours—”
“We’re closing up early,” he said. “There’s nobody coming and I have things I need to do.”
She was mortified by the urge to ask him what. It wasn’t her business. “I’ll grab my things.”
The plan was simple. She’d would slip by him, get her things and go home. No idiot could mess that up. It was three little steps. But apparently when Octavian was around, she developed the powers of clumsiness she never even knew she had. It was like a gift, a completely useless gift that brought only humiliation and pain.
She took one step forward, misjudged her footing and caught the ground with the toe of her shoe. Her hands flew out to find something, managing only to grapple air as her body began to fall. But rather than meet the ground in what would surely be a world of pain, she stumbled right into a pair of callused hands that caught her bare arms just beneath her elbows. Long fingers guided her into a body wrapped in velvet heat and scented in night air and spices. But it was the explosion of unbearable and indescribable pain that registered before all else. It whipped her with steel studded barbs, tearing away flesh from bones. Her gasp barely registered as the whole world went up in flames.
It burned. Dear Lord, it was like brushing up against a scalding iron and having your flesh melt and fuse onto the metal. It was like getting stuck to a roaring campfire and being powerless to tear away. Images of anguish and turmoil howled like vengeful demons through her mind’s eye, paralyzing every nerve system in her body so she was caged in the horror. Men and women wailed as their bodies were torn to pieces by creatures with no faces. Their bloody mouths hung unhinged and gaping as their eyes, empty like the pits of Hell, stared unseeing into the unknown. Riley’s own mouth opened, a scream frozen on her lips when just as quickly, she was torn from the agony and engulfed in a shower of ice. Everything boiled to an endless black that licked the wounds crippling her body. It was almost soothing.
“Shit, Octavian, what did you do?” The voice seeped through her turmoil, sounding hollow and distant in her ears.
“It was reflexes… I didn’t mean to touch her!”
“Oh man, this is so not good.”
“Shut up you two.”
“Should we call Dad?”
“No! We don’t say anything about this.” She vaguely recognized that voice as Magnus’ harsher tenor.
“Uh, don’t you think they’ll figure it out? I mean, their son just freaking imprinted.” Gideon’s sarcasm was impossible not to recognize.
“I think we should tell.”
“Shut up, Reggie,” Magnus barked. “If we tell Dad, he’ll have to call the Summit. What do you think will happen then?”
“We don’t tell anyone.” She knew Octavian’s voice anywhere. “Not until I figure out what to do.”
“We need to get her out of here. Riley? Can you open your eyes?”
She hadn’t realized she’d even closed them. She’d assumed she’d gone blind from the pain.
Her lashes fluttered once before lifting to a murky world. A light swam through the hazy shadows. She blinked, drawing into focus the towering boxes, the crates and finally, the faces hovering just above her.
“What… what happened?” she croaked, her voice sounding unnaturally hoarse even to her own ears. “It hurts so bad…”
“It�
��s all right.” Gideon gently took her arm and hauled her to a sitting position. “You fainted.”
Her head looped the way it did when one was heavily medicated. Gideon rested a hand on her lower back, keeping the other wrapped loosely around her wrist as he kept her braced.
“I what?” She touched her brow with the hand Gideon didn’t hold. “Where’s Octavian?”
Her question surprised her as much as it seemed to take Gideon back. The irrational concern was only the beginning of what felt like an infinite list of coiling emotions waiting to spring, none which made any sense at all.
Gideon offered her a dim smile. “He’s fine.”
But that wasn’t enough. “Where is he?”
“Here.” He stood by the door, as far away from the small group clustered around her as humanly possible without leaving altogether. His presence and the seemingly miles between them wrenched something inside her, filling her with a sadness and hurt she couldn’t account for.
Damn it! What the hell was wrong with her? Why was he over there? Why did she care? Why wasn’t he coming closer? The conflicting voices sent a throbbing pain through her skull. But no amount of pushing dislodged the abandoned feeling welling up inside her. It was only a minor relief that her torment reflected in his eyes and in the hard set of his jaw.
“Are you okay, Riley?” Gideon brought her attention back to him.
“I… I don’t know. I’m so confused.” She furrowed her brows. “Were you guys talking just now?”
“No,” Reggie and Gideon said at once.
“You’ve been working too hard,” said Magnus as though that explained everything, but he was wrong. She’d been working hard her entire life. She’d never once fainted.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of this stuffy room,” Gideon said. “Magnus will drive you home.”
Riley opened her mouth to protest, but Octavian beat her to it. He took a step into the room. “No, I will.”
His brothers eyed him with a mixture of annoyance, interest and insistence.
“It would be better if Magnus—”
“I will,” he repeated, leaving no room for argument.
The trio exchanged glances, but said nothing as Gideon, with the help of Magnus, helped Riley to her feet. Gideon kept an arm around her middle as they guided her from the room towards the diner. Octavian jerked aside when they passed him, keeping his face averted.
True to his word, Octavian drove her home in absolute silence. Several times, Riley opened her mouth to ask if he was all right, but each time it seemed like he’d rather be alone in whatever purgatory he inhabited then talk with her.
After ten minutes, she couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong?”
He never took his focused attention away from the road, not even to so much as glance in her direction.
“Is it because of what happened in the storage room?” she ventured. “I swear that’s never happened before.”
Again, he shook his head, following it up with a burdened sigh that rang with pent up frustration. “That wasn’t your fault.” He paused. “Are you hurt?”
Surprised by his question, Riley glanced at him before shaking her head. “I’m okay. My arms hurt a bit, but I think that may be from the fall.”
“Are you okay to work? You can take tomorrow off.”
She shook her head. “I’m okay. I promise.”
They reached the warm glow of her apartment and she turned to him in her seat, trying to see into his face, but even with the light spilling through the night from the dashboard, he stayed cloaked in darkness.
“This might sound stupid.” She bit her lip. “Are you okay?”
His head shifted a fraction to the left. “Why?”
Embarrassed, she dropped her gaze to the console between them. “I just…” she faltered, wrinkling her nose as the weight of what she was about to say blanketed her in blistering heat. “I have this… feeling…” She rubbed the spot between her breasts where the thrum picked restlessly at her. “Like something’s wrong…”
It may have been the rain beating against the roof, but she could have sworn she heard him suck in a sharp inhale.
“I told you it would sound really stupid—”
“No.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “It’s not stupid.”
Feeling a little less self-conscious, she dared a peek at him. “So… are you? Okay, I mean.”
A second clicked by before he answered, “Yes.”
Not sure what else to say or do, she nodded. “Okay. Good.”
Without a word, he pushed open his door. Riley watched as he moved fluidly around the hood of the car to her side. Her door was opened a moment later. Riley climbed out, keeping her head ducked as needles of ice pierced down on them.
They hurried up her apartment stairs, huddling beneath the short awning as she fumbled through her purse for her keys.
She found them. “Thank you for driving me.”
He inclined his head. “Goodnight, Riley.” The way he said her name made the world seem just a little brighter. Not that she would tell him.
She gave him a smile. “Goodnight, Octavian.” But instead of heading inside, she narrowed her eyes. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I think you just did.” He offered a barely there grin. “But you’re welcome to ask another.”
Rolling her eyes even as her lips twitched, Riley said, “How did you not know you’d lost your wallet? I mean that thing was heavy.”
Even in the distance and shadows, she could have sworn his mouth quirked up into a grin. “I don’t like carrying a wallet and try to avoid it when I can. Plus my mind was preoccupied at that moment.”
“By what? What could have possibly distracted you so badly that you’d unknowingly lose that much money? Hell, I’d have hired a bodyguard to walk me around with that much cash on me.”
“Would you believe me if I said that at that moment, the last thing on my mind was money?”
She snorted. “No! People don’t tend to just forget that they have several thousand dollars missing from their pocket.”
“Trust me, I had bigger problems at that moment.”
She couldn’t imagine what could be more important than losing that much money, but he seemed so sure that she didn’t push him.
“All right, but I’m never trusting you with my money, just so you know.”
He smirked. “Goodnight, Riley.”
Not sure what else to say, she nodded. “Night.”
When he said nothing else, she turned the keys in the lock and let herself into the brightly lit foyer. She paused and glanced back. He was still there, watching her in a way that made her want to run back and do something insane, like throw herself into his arms.
Right, like that’s not going to get you seriously throttled. No, he would most definitely not appreciate that and she wasn’t sure she could stand the rejection.
Chapter 6
She dreamt that night of things that could only be procured in the world were reality didn’t quite reach. She dreamt of shadows dancing beneath the soft pale beams of moonlight, through branches twisted beyond repair, breaking in shards as they spilled to the ground. There was no sound in this place but the soft whisper of secrets kept hidden since the dawn of existence. Fireflies skipped over calm waters so black, they shone with blue ripples. Riley eased between exhausted trees, stooped and crooked like old men too weary to maintain their upright posture. Leaves trembled overhead, making no sound as the wind breezed past, carrying with it the sweet scent of honeysuckles, moist soil, lily pads and mystery. It was nearly as breathtaking as the tall, beautiful figure standing but mere steps from her.
“Octavian?” She closed the unforgiving distance separating them and stood before him.
Without a word, he took her hand, his skin warm and firm. They were the hands of someone not afraid of hard manual labor. They were the hands of a fighter, a champion, a lover. They were strong and capable, yet they held her with such gentlen
ess that she could have been crafted of precious glass.
“Where are we?” she asked, staring over the eerie silence.
“My home,” he said in a tone drenched in love and wistfulness.
Riley searched the outskirts of the pond, squinting through the murky blackness for some sign of the sprawling structure that was Final Judgment. “Where’s home?” she asked.
“Here.”
Bemused, she followed the inclination of his head towards the pond itself. “A person can’t live in a pond,” she told him, giving a chuckle.
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