Page 137 of Spellbound
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
With my heart feelinglike it was in my throat, I waited for him to say something or turn and look at me, but silence deafened the room.
“You shouldn’t. I’m not good for you. You can’t have a life with me here,” he finally said and stepped out of the room.
I ran out behind him into a dark, empty corridor. Thalia moved out from a dark corner. If not for her cape swishing through the air, I wouldn’t have known she was there. “He didn’t mean that.”
My cheeks heated. “You heard.”
“You’re not the only one with strong hearing.” Her silver eyes took shape in the darkness as if tiny moons were reflecting back at me. “He’s afraid of your love, of what it means, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, because he does.” She smiled knowingly. “You didn’t see his face when he left the room. He’s used to being hurt, to being abandoned.”
“I know how that feels. I’m not going to leave him, not when he needs me,” I said. “Even if I have to show him a hundred times.”
The corner of her lips lifted. “He’s gone to kill Lucius.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to stay here?”
My stomach swirled. I had my sister back, my family, my coven... “I-I don’t know. I have people who need me too.” My heart tugged me in two directions.
“I understand.” She nodded and took a step back. “Down the staircase, four doors to the right is the main living area,” she said, answering my unspoken question, then slid back into the shadows. “I will see you there.” Her silky voice whispered, her echo caught in a thousand cries of the dead from behind the closed doors.
Lucius’s stare darkened as Freya stepped out from behind him, her painted lips curved into a sadistic smile.
“Son.” He gestured his arms out in welcome toward the marble room. It had couches of velvet green and a glass table with an ornamental snake upon it that coiled up in a shard of glittering white. The palace was the epitome of elegance, the type of place I could see Maddox owning in our realm. A music box played a sweet but eerie melody from the mantel over the fireplace, its fire with gray and green flames.
Freya traced a painted nail along her lips. “It seems you escaped yet another prison. Perhaps you’re not entirely useless after all, not unlike your brother. How is Aziel?” Her laugh cackled.
Raiden’s gaze fixated on Freya’s. Blood was splattered over his face from the demon whose head he had taken off with his bare hands. A muscle in his jaw twitched, his fingers curling into fists.
Lucius’s deep robes flicked out when he stepped forward. “Have you come to try to kill me again? You always were reckless, like your brother, never thinking with your head.”
Raiden gritted his teeth, and the muscles in his back and arms tensed. “I’m glad you’re both here. It’ll make it easier to kill you both.”
She rolled her eyes, letting his words roll off her as if they meant nothing. With a tilt of her head, she moved her attention to me. “I would say being a goddess suits you, but I definitely wore it better.” She moved her gaze to Raiden’s, a smirk on her mouth. “Isn’t that right, Raiden? Although, you never did get to enjoy my immortality.”
“Immortality you stole,” he snapped.
She looked back at me, a flash of green crossing in the reflection in her eyes. “Has he told you he loves you yet? Has he whispered your name in his sleep like he did mine?”
My jaw clenched.
She grinned in response. “Oh it seems I hit a nerve then. You’re not really his type. Raiden always did like women with more substance.”
He stepped forward, fists clenched. “Don’t fucking talk to her like that.”
She laughed. “She killed me, honey. Do you think I would let her simply get away with it? Play nice?”
