Page 97 of These Eternal Bones
“It’s okay,” I reassure him, but he won’t have it.
“You loved flowers. They will not grow here. I’ve taken the flowers from you.”
Flowers? Such a silly thing.
A small giggle erupts from my throat, mixed with a sob as this beautiful, broken god pleads with me for something he’s always had. His eyes widen as I place my hands over his, smiling at him. “If I miss the flowers, then I will paint them. Surely you can teach me again. I do not need to forgive you for loving me so fiercely. What else could I ever want?”
His tears are darker than mine as they slip down his cheek, his lips gifting me a soft kiss. There are no more words; there doesn’t need to be. We’ve got forever to talk about the things he told me tonight. To tell stories of our laughter, screaming, and tears. Soft stolen looks and every time we said hello, every time he said goodbye.
It took another two risings and fallings of the moon before I felt strong enough to emerge from our bedroom, my eyes widening on the grand castle splayed out before me.
Flashes of me pinned to the stairs, my heart beating so hard in my chest where it now lies silent. My core thrums with need as he hovered over me, his eyes inky and consuming.
My fingers trace over the railing, and Elric hangs back, giving me my time. The man who killed me, Cartiel, had gotten what he wanted in a way, I suppose. Elric had all but flown into a rage at the thought of him, but I have different feelings. Warm ones, laced with sadness. Forgiveness. I feel as though he’d asked for that; he has it. What little good it does him now. He’d spent his last moments undoing some ofthe hurt he’d caused. He’s tethered a soul I loved dearly, an act that was said to be sacrilegious for Nephilims. He was weak, but he still did it, knowing it would kill him. Even more so, he’d given Elric something he’d never been strong enough to give himself,peace. Although I know that was not his motivation for what he did all those months ago, the woman had used his grief, his regret against him like a well-formed blade. Very much the perversion of her own tragedy, becoming the very unnatural thing she’d wanted to stop. Her corpse hadn’t rotted, Elric said, it was trapped in some undignified state. He burned her alongside Cartiel, something that had made me furious when he told me. They were not the same.
Tien had long been friends with Elric and me in that very first life. An unofficial part of our clan, a family of vampires. I wish I could remember. He’d saved a baby; he’d chosen to honor a life given in the mists of horror and carnage. Caring for the child under the nose of Elric when he was lost in his grief. When she was old enough, when he’d realized the power she held, that she wouldn’t be a victim of her coven’s curse, he’d sent her away. Elric had suspected he knew that Tien knew she would come back, that her bloodline would demand it of her, corrupting her mind heavy with power, one single girl was never meant to have. Elric hadn’t understood why he’d let her go, knowing what it could mean.
I thought it was obvious.Love. Born from something cruel and terrible, but love all the same.
After the ship that had brought me here departed, communications with the cult where I was raised had truly stopped. They’d moved on. I am both relieved by that and hurt that it was so easy. Everything else that followed was a fabrication, a well thought out one, by her.
I peer into a large entryway, flashes of scaled hands and warm slitted eyes offering me my cloak.
The sound of featherlight footsteps, one that seems off kilter, dragging, hits my ears long before I see them, making my steps falter. My new senses are jarring, but Elric assured me I’d grow used to them with time. Energy cracks in the air as a flash of long, pale gray hair comes around the corner, her smile as wide as her overlarge eyes. “Mistress!”
Her limp is notable, but she doesn’t seem to mind it as she slams herself into me. “I thought I’d have to wait forever to see you again.”
Elric grumps behind me, a lone tendril wrapping loosely around one of my ankles as I hug the tiny selkie back, crushing her to my chest.
A savage growl builds in my mate as the front doors burst open, a shirtless orange haired man with a heaving chest, widening his eyes at me.
“The fox, I presume.”
My smile widens as he smirks at Elric, although I get the sense my mate's growl is more out of habit than genuine anger.
He pushes his black tipped hair out of his face, his smirk devilish as the selkie steps back, her eyes curious and eager, like she knows something I don’t. He leans in, offering me his hand. I hazard a quick glance at Elric, finding his eyes narrowed at the fox but…calm enough.
I place my hand in his, watching with parted lips as he tugs me closer, much to Elric’s sudden rage. His lips brush my cheek, making them heat in their muted new way. “You can call me Rummes, but only you,” he whispers at the same time the ground outside quakes, something horrible, hiding the sound of his voice.
Rummes…
“Yes, dear Molly?”
I startle, my eyes widening on his as Elric hauls me into his arms, seeing fit to grumble and carry me the rest of the way through our home, showing me everything. And that’s exactly what it is…our home. So familiar and yet so new, missing a few things, but I can feel them there, deep in the aged wood and the worn, lavish carpets and tapestries. Smiles and an arrogant glare or two from ghosts as we pass. The selkie eagerly tugs me away from the two bickering men a little while later, whispering her name in my ear in the utmost conspiratorial fashion.
When we reach the upper levels we’d started on, at the end of a long hallway, the others break off as if whatever is coming next, we should be alone for. There's no door, the framing of it broken off in chunks, a chill sweeping down my spine as flashes of molten metal flash in my mind. After that day, the house was repaired quickly. Why not this?
I don’t need to see the cage to know where we are, what Elric did to me here. He spared no detail in his retelling. Keeping things from me was something he said he’d never do again, no matter how painful; I don’t need to see it, but I still gasp when I do.
It is…not how I’d imagined.
Where I had pictured a beautiful tarnished golden birdcage eating up the vast size of the room, all I’m met with is…destruction, battered and bent, shredded metal.
“I was not feeling myself after I had awoken to find you still sleeping, my venom working its way through your veins,” he offers quietly from behind me.
The room is destroyed. Moonlight shining through the broken holes in the walls, smashed straight through the stone. I step further inside, taking it all in, frowning at the display. “Perhaps when we fix it, we should add windows.”
It would definitely be better with windows.
