Page 10 of Nemesis

Maybe the tattoos stop mid-thigh. Except when he scratches his leg and drags up the hem of his shorts, and the ink just keeps going up and up and up…

I shake myself out of that line of thought. What helps is to picture Nyx’s face, particularly how soft her eyes got when shelooked up at Saint. She was tall and thin, like a graceful willow, and absolutely covered in tattoos.

But when I first met her, she had none. The artwork she displayed was all Saint’s handiwork. And then she died, and Saint fell apart. Which is how he ended up here. In my condo.

Annoying the shit out of me day in, day out, while I try to keep him alive.

It’s been an exhausting year.

“Who told you?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Who told me what?”

“That I need watching.”

He shrugs.

I grit my teeth and move past him. It’s late. Late enough that he should be sleeping. But, no. Instead, he waits up for me like some sort of psycho. Just to aggravate me.

“So?” he questions. “You’re not really a fainter. Although I can picture it. I’ve seen you pass out before, when you lose your fights at Olympus…”

I’m going to kill whoever told him.

I yank open the fridge and peer inside. I’m starting to hate this place. Like, serious hate. It’s more than just the decor is wrong, or the couch is uncomfortable. Both of those things are untrue anyway. I love the way I decorated the unit.

It’s the giant motherfucker sitting on my barstool that makes it unsavory.

“Do you still think about killing yourself?” I ask, bumping the fridge door shut with my hip. A long coat zipped up to my throat covers my gold dress. While I’m starting to overheat, I don’t want to reveal what’s underneath.

Saint has a problem with a lot of things, and the way I dress is high on the list.

He glowers at me. “Why the fuck would you ask that?”

“To see if you still actually need to be here.” Theobviouslyhangs unspoken between us.

“That’s not up to you or me.” He rests his chin on his hand, smiling slightly.

Fucker.

He’s right, though. Jace King, my brother’s best friend, asked if Saint could move in. There was no stipulation on howlongSaint would have to stay, or who would decide when it was time for Saint to fly the nest.

Although he might need shoving at this point. I’d love to be the one to do it, too. Just a quick, hard nudge…

He’s got a mug in front of him and a black metal water bottle beside it. The more I take him in, the more I realize he might not have been waiting forme, and just drinking himself into an oblivion.

That only happens when he dreams about her.

God, the dreams. Nightmares, one might classify them as. One of the first nights he was here, sleeping on the couch because the other room wasn’t ready for him, the sounds of his hoarse yelling woke me.

And when I woke him up? A hand on his shoulder?

He nearly took my head off. The moment his eyes opened, I’d never seen such hatred. And that was only the beginning of our war.

But living with Saint is like stepping onto the platform at Olympus. We wear our masks, and we do our best to inflict mortal blows.

And after a year of it… I fear the lashes have turned to scars across our backs. Irreparable damage.

I drift closer to him, until my hips press to the counter and we’re within reach of each other. There’s no chance of us touching, though. Jace knew he was putting Saint with the one person he couldn’t hate-fuck his way out of his emotions.

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