Lucien hesitated. "I hope you can understand. We need to talk. You were in no state to talk. Your heart is delicate. We cannot risk straining it. We have no idea what else"—his throat worked, and his dark hair fell into his eyes as he looked down—"they did to you."
Rin knew she should be mad, but she didn’t care right now. "Okay."
Her body ached, thrumming as if she’d tried to meet her training hours in one go and didn’t cool down after. She stretched, feet kicking out beneath the blankets. Her toes brushed something firm, and her dazed eyes traveled down,finding Cyrus sitting at her feet. His hands cupped her ankles over the blanket.
"Ves, my little doll. How do you feel?" Cyrus rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, just watching her.
She thought about it… "Floaty."
A wide smile stretched his plump lips. "Good. I missed you. I tried to hold you when you were sleeping, but the doctor got mad. He threw me out for a few hours after that. It’s not my fault, I was hungry. I only sipped a little. And it was just your nightmares—don’t get mad. I thought I could take them from you so you’d rest easier."
The floating feeling cut off anything else but the present moment. And all she felt presently was soft and tired. She nodded faintly.
Cyrus’s hands smoothed up to her calves, fingers tapping over her knees. "You’re sweet like this. Reminds me of how you used to be."
The effects of the drug quelled her thoughts before they could form, but sheremembered.
Rosy nightgowns in coastal closets. The faint fizz of sugar rocks as she dropped it into a cup of tea, the clink of a silver stir stick against the side of the cup as she stirred. Cyrus’s arms around her as they swayed before the large, open doors. The crash of waves against the rocks.
His pleas as he starved himself to earn her trust:
Make me stop. If you can. Hit me, knock me out—anything.
She hadn’t.
Rin had let him feed from her, and she had loved every moment of it, even when panic surged. He’d always treated her so carefully. Like a doll.
Rin met his purple eyes. "I missed you, Cyrus. Thank you for waiting for me for so long."
Cyrus’s eyes grew wide as he leaned forward, nearly falling into her lap. "What?—"
"Later," Auren cut in calmly.
At the sound of his voice, Rin searched for him. The Soul Searcher leaned against the wall, scythe near, as always. He reached forward and tangled his fingers in the back of Cyrus’s hoodie, yanking him away from Rin.
Cyrus sat back with a huff of indignation, hands reclaiming their spot on Rin’s legs.
"Vesperin, what did you mean, earlier, when you said Kiton—tortured you?" Lucien’s voice trembled with restrained pain.
"Kit was there, when I was taken. I was strapped down to a chair in a dark room… He hurt me. Over and over and over. I begged him to stop, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t even care when I asked him—when I begged him to—to just kill me already."
Rin swallowed thickly, mouth suddenly dry. She coughed. Auren moved to the kitchen, shoulder brushing Rhyden’s as he did. The soft thunk of a cabinet opening and the trickle of the tap water as it fell into the sink echoed her words.
"He wasn’t… himself," Rin settled on. "He didn’t care that I begged and cried. He was cold. Like a machine."
Auren appeared at Lucien’s back, handing her a glass of water.
"Here, Hunter. You need to ensure your strength grows. I do not wish for you to succumb to this. Promise me you will not let yourself?" The Star beneath his left eye seemed to glow. "Be strong."
Rin looked at Auren and saw flashes of him, images overlaid upon the immortal male standing before her, begging her to be strong.
She saw him on a dirty path, staring down at her with a bloodied handprint left on his cheek as cuts on her chest bled her lifeforce onto the cold ground. She saw him in a village, stealinginto her cottage and standing over her sickbed—so much like he was now. Except then, he bore his scythe, hood concealing his features as he waited for her to succumb to her illness so he could reap her Soul.
She saw him again, for their very first life, when she’d been attacked by a pack of wolves, intestines and gore spilling out from the hole in her stomach, dress ripped, her wicker basket of picked berries and herbs overturned.
He’d been called to reap her Soul, but right before she’d succumbed to death, he’d brushed the brown hair away from her cheeks. Bare fingertips drifting over her face, and they’d both realized, just before death had claimed her, they were Soulbonds.
Auren had tried to save her, but she was far beyond rescue. He’d sobbed, lamenting to the Celestials that his Soulbond should be on death’s precipice for him to find her.
