Page 48 of Nyx
“Please stay,” I breathe, my body already twitching in the early throes of slumber.
“I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” He pulls the blanket over my shoulders, still holding my hand. Reyes doesn’t give empty promises, never says what he doesn’t mean, so I cling to those words. Warm and comforted, I allow myself to rest.
Reyes
Nyxnapsforafew more hours, curled up in my blankets with those long, thin fingers gripping the material and hugging it around his neck. His face is different, even in sleep. During the days he spent unconscious, he felt empty. Relaxed and perfectly still on the outside, but there was a strange hollowness under his skin that made him eerily blank. Not like now, where his cheeks are tinged pink and his eyes shift under their lids.
I wonder what he dreams about.
I’m shaken by what he shared. There’s the obvious—the blinding anger that burns hot for the things he went through, and the desperate need for revenge. That voice that calls to me and tells me to hunt down anyone who ever hurt him, and make them suffer tenfold.
But above everything else?
Relief.
Not only that he made it through his hell, but that he trusts me enough to share these parts of his life. I devourevery little scrap he offers me as though it’s the only thing sustaining me. Like I could live forever if he’d just continue to grant me these pieces of himself. He claims he has nothing to offer, but he is blind to everything he’s given me since we met.
I resist the impulse to brush his hair from his face, and instead, I soak in his serenity. There are things I need to do around the camp. Duties I’ve neglected in my constant guard over his bedside, but this is more important.
And so I stay curled up beside his bed with a book, and I wait.
It’s early evening when he wakes again. A sharp inhale precedes a sweet, sleepy grunt, and as I set my book aside and turn to him, I can’t help my grin. His hair is wild, sticking up in places and hanging over his face in others. He stretches his arms over his head and arches his spine before melting back into the bed. Sleep makes his eyelids heavy as he bats his lashes at me a few times, but his sage green eyes are alert underneath them.
“Hi,” he whispers, and my grin widens so far my cheeks ache.
“How do you feel?”
The blanket falls away as he sits up and stretches again, his arms lifting high over his head as his eyes scrunch closed. “Better,” he finally says, then huffs when his stomach growls. “Hungry.”
“That’s a good thing. Would you rather have your muffin or a hot meal?”
“Both?” he asks, and he’s so hopeful when he looks up at me. Another lash strikes across my heart as I realize he’s asking permission. If I told him no, he’d listen. He’dobey. Whatever orders I gave him, whatever Iallowedhim to have, would be the definitive answer for him.
And gods, if that doesn’t incite my rage all over again.
I force a smile and keep my tone level. “Of course. You can have anything you want.” He seems pleased, those lanky arms falling into his lap. “Do you want to eat with the others, or would you rather stay here? I can go get your food if you aren’t ready to leave.”
A fraction of uncertainty crosses his expression as he chews on his lip and glances out the vine-covered window. “I should try to spend more time with them,” he says. “They try so hard. They care, and I worried them.”
An argument builds on my tongue, ready to tell him they know he cares, too, and that he shouldn't do anything he isn't ready to do, but I catch myself. Nyx is used to taking orders and being told what to do, not making his own decisions. He’s influenceable, and well-intentioned or not, I don’t want to influence him.
I want him to find his own path.
“If that’s what you want to do,” I say instead, and his brows pinch as his head tilts, confused and expecting an order. Despite the way he looks to me for guidance, though, I’ve never been a leader. Waiting for him to decide is easy.
And if it gives me an excuse to track the tiny, golden freckles on his skin, that’s no one’s business but my own.
“Could we get dinner together, but eat here?” he asks. “Or eat outside?”
“If that’s what you want.”
He stares at me for a moment before his lips twitch and he scoffs. “I know what you are doing. This is not sneaky.”
“Me?!” I hold my hand to my chest dramatically. “You think I am trying to be sneaky?” Another of those coveted half-smiles pulls at his mouth, and the barely there curve of his lips is all that matters.
“I think you are the drama queen now,” he says, and a loud, unrestrained laugh leaves me as he stands. He folds the blanket reverently and places it on the bed, and I watch him as he moves. He seems steady on his feet as he walks into the kitchen, but he pauses when he spots the clean counters.
His hands wring in front of him, and I worry I overstepped a boundary by cleaning. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the dishes back. You aren’t mad, are you?”
