Page 63
The knife slipped from my fingers, clattering against the tiles.
“It’s okay, Lyra,” he rasped, wrapping his hands around mine. They were steady and warm. His thumbs brushed over my skin in a slow, almost soothing rhythm.
But it wasn’t okay.
“Am I evil?” I whispered, staring up at him through wide eyes brimming with tears. My chest heaved violently.
I looked down at what I had done. Cuts carved across Helion’s chest in endless angry lines, his ruined tunic hanging from him in blood-soaked shreds.
“That depends which side you’re standing on,” he said slowly, carefully choosing his words. “But no one is truly evil when they believe they are doing the right thing.”
He let out a low chuckle, brushing his thumb beneath my eye to catch a stray tear before it fell. “This,” he murmured, glancing down at the ruin of his chest, “was meant to make you feel better.”
But I didn’t feel better. I somehow felt more broken. The rage was still there. The grief. The shame.
Rythos’ face flashed through my mind so vividly it made something inside me fracture. The rough warmth of his laugh. The way he had looked at me like I was something worth saving even when I was drowning in my own monstrosity. And here I was. Naked in another male’s lap. Covered in blood. Letting Helion hold me together while I shattered apart.
Tears spilled down my cheeks uncontrollably, hot and humiliating as sobs tore free from somewhere deep inside my chest. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying desperately to contain the unravelling, but it was useless.
I hated Helion, but I hated myself more.
Without a word, Helion carefully took the knife from where it rested beside us and tossed it across the room. Then his arms slid around me, steady and unhurried as he lifted me effortlessly against his chest.
Still fully clothed, he stepped into the bath and lowered us both into the steaming water with me cradled against his chest. The heat curled around us instantly, turning the water dark grey as the blood washed from our skin.
The shadowed bond in my chest flared.
Pain tore through me so suddenly my hand flew to my sternum, fingers digging into the place it burned. I blinked, and I was no longer in the bath.
I was on a ship, staring out over dark, turbulent waves. Rain misted against my face. The wind snapped through sails overhead. For one impossible heartbeat, I felt him.
Rythos.
His grief. His rage. The brutal ache of his heart cracking open across the bond.
Then he vanished.
The bath rushed back around me. Steam. Blood-dark water. Helion’s arms around my body.
They tightened around me while I cried. One hand moved slowly through my damp hair while the other rested against my back, grounding me each time another shudder wracked through my body.
As the tears dried on my cheeks, a sense of clarity washed over me. I needed to find a way to get my memories back.
Minutes passed before Helion finally spoke, voice rough and quiet against the top of my head. “We need to get dressed for dinner, Sunshine.”
I squeezed my eyes shut harder. A part of me did not want to leave this washroom, or the warmth of Helion’s embrace. Not that I would admit that to him.
“If we don’t go,” he murmured softly, “Astaroth will fetch us himself.”
My silk slippers padded against the cool marble as I smoothed my hands over the pristine white dress clinging to my skin. I’d found it laid across the armchair after I dried myself and left the washroom.
Helion’s white button down and grey dress pants had been left there as well. The thought that someone had come in and laid them out for us while we bathed was unsettling, though I wasn’t sure why it had surprised me. It was daft of me to expect some semblance of privacy as a prisoner in Hell.
Helion led me through the crisp white halls of the manor, and I tried not to look too closely at the pastel art of torture decorating the walls, wondering how many eyes watched me through them
“Where do you go when the games are not being played?” I asked, my voice echoing off the cold white walls.
For a moment, Helion said nothing.
