Page 47 of Rotanev
Part of me wanted to demand he tell me the things he’d done. The smarter part of me refused to know.
A child?
An infant?
Twenty-four different lives?
“Now, for my favorite part,” he continued, refocusing on a very silent Nero. “Your bond may have stopped her from aging, but as you can see, she’s still very human and can therefore die easily. And the only way to return her to her siren state is by forcing her soul to merge with her mind. Which would unleash all of her memories. Every horrible, vile thing that’s been done to her, including men who have used and abused her body in the worst ways you can imagine, every death she’s experienced, all the horrors inflicted on her child forms. Every. Single. Detail.”
He paused, letting that sink in.
And it did.
Deep.
A tunnel had engulfed my vision, closing the room in around me, making it impossible to see Nero’s reaction. But I felt his reassurance surrounding me, his energy rippling over my skin in calming strokes. It was all that kept me standing.
“So, now you have to choose. Would you like a fragile bride or a mentally weak one? Because I can guarantee you, Rotanev, the horrors she’s experienced willdestroyher if you force her to remember them all.” Corban sounded so pleased with himself. Excited, even. While all I could do was focus on remembering how to breathe.
He’d damned me to an eternity of pain.
For what?
Why?
What had I done to him to deserve such a fate?
Oh, but the only way to know was to merge my soul with my mind. How did I even begin to do that? Wait, no, he impliedNerohad to do it by force.
Would he do that to me?
I shook my head, alarmed, confused, mortified. He’d said anything involving my body would be my choice. He wouldn’t thrust that destiny upon me without my permission. Right?
An arm braced my lower back as my knees collapsed beneath me. “Take him to Mythios,” Nero demanded. Gurgling sounds—coming from Corban, maybe?—mingled with Nero’s words, causing them to muddle in my mind. “Keep him there for me until I return.”
I had no idea whom he was talking to. Morpheus, perhaps? And what was Mythios? The place he was from? I sort of recalled that from my not-a-dream.
A shriek followed, the high-pitched frequency indicating pain.
But I couldn’t see, couldn’t focus beyond inhaling and exhaling.
I swallowed, the world swimming in shades of blue and black. Someone spoke, but I missed it, the rhythm in my ears too loud. It was reminiscent of a waterfall gushing over rocks, or how I imagined it would sound, anyway. I’d never actually seen one.
Or maybe I had.
In a past life.
Oh, God.I had all these generations, histories, that I knew nothing about. Horrible, terriblememories.
My equilibrium shifted, my head landing against a solid shoulder.Nero. His arms were around me, one beneath my knees, the other at my back. They reminded me of hot steel bands, warming my chilled form and providing me with a semblance of safety I craved.
This being owned me in the best way. I didn’t need time to know him. My heart already did, and I trusted him on an instinctual level.
He wouldn’t hurt me.
Would never force me to harm myself.
No, he cherished me. I sensed it in my very soul—a soul I now knew to be a powerful being in herself.
