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Nyx remained silent, intently listening to everything I had to say.
“This means I have to kick your brother’s ass.” Were the first words out of her mouth after I finished.
She didn’t laugh, so I couldn’t gauge how serious she was or not. It wasn’t an issue. I planned to fuck him up on sight. It had been a good while since we tussled. Sure getting into fights with men wasn’t real ladylike, not typical of a princess. That was pure bullshit around here.
I was the daughter of, Romero Deville and Calista; those two were a whole different type of crazy, why would I be spared that insanity?
I wasn’t born with a soul so the devil sold me his. This princess wasn’t soft, sugary or sweet. I was a self-contained hurricane of bloodshed, chaos, and beautiful macabre.
Right now there was a typhoon making a mess of things inside my brain, and it was named Zane Belial. I sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out as if that would send him away. It didn’t. It was just another thing circulating, demanding my attention—like Annie, Bella, and now this alliance.
“You two would have ended up together even without the deal,” Nyx added after an elongated silence.
“Why would you say that?”
“I just know,” she quipped.
“The way you two look at one another and knowing you as well as I do, you probably fell in love with the second he placed your own gun to your head. That’s like, destiny or somethin.”
I almost smiled at her mother’s accent popping out, but the L word had me ready to declare my best friend a traitor.
“L? Love? I can’t love him, Nyx. I just met him.”
“Love isn’t a can or can’t. It’s an emotion,” she retorted. “And, you can love whoever the hell you want to. Only you can decide what you do or don’t do. When it comes to matters of the heart, time is irrelevant and so is everyone else’s opinion. Don’t let anything or anyone make decisions for you that you’ll be living with the rest of your life.”
Wow. That was deep coming from her. I looked over and studied her face, the porch light showing her honey eyes were downcast.
I wondered how much of that spiel were words she wished someone would have said to her.
“Is that about, Braxton?” I asked softly.
She laughed humorlessly. “No, Adds. I’m not pining over the man who didn’t love me like I loved him. I’m not numb from having to kill a woman we considered a best friend. I’m the same Nyx I’ve always been.”
I looked away from her and stared down the barren street. “No, you’re not. You aren’t the same. After that, no one would be. Not even me.”
My words were a bitter truth even to my own ears.
I felt as if we’d been living in black and white, and now we were seeing the world in color. I hated that I had two lose twice to gain that knowledge.
I lost Annie—but it taught me none of us were invincible.
And I lost something to Zane—I had never been innocent, so the meaning mattered little, but it taught me to be more careful with my decisions.
“For me its death,” Nyx solemnly began. “I heard it since I was twelve. death’s daughter. I didn’t fully understand then, but I do now. It feels like everything inside of me is dying, and all that’s left is this…fucking demon that feeds on anger and pain, and gets high off everything dead.”
She stood up before I could respond to that, announcing she had to use the bathroom.
It seemed today was the day to make my goddamn heartbreak. I watched her go, staring forlornly at the front door after it shut behind her.
Chapter Seventeen
Septendecim
I was still sitting on the porch, massaging my temples’ when I caught sight of him. He was perched on one of the telephone wires. Had he not flapped his wings I wouldn’t have noticed him.
“Charon.”
He shifted a bit as if he understood. The silver charm around his tiny foot let me know I wasn’t officially bat-shit and conversing with a random crow. I’d honestly forgotten about him.
