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I turned the first page. I didn’t want to, and Ihadto all at the same time.
Then the next, and the next, ice seeping through my veins at the words before me.
NINE
VEX
Scalding hot water streamed over my body.
It wasn’t enough to burn away the ghost of Zeus’s touch on me. The way he’d always held me close… I didn’t understand it. He found me vile, yet he’d barely left me alone. He’d been annoyed when Triton visited, and I’d felt vindication through the bond when he’d shoved him from the room, dripping with blood.
It wasn’t something I’d focused on at the time, but now I was standing beneath the water, trying to blitz him and his pack from my mind, it was all I could think about.
That and the book.
Zeus’s command was clawing at me. I needed to write in it for the pain Rook and Ebony had given me, but they still had it.
Would they all read it before I had it back in my hands?
A choked sob escaped my chest. They were going to see everything. Rook was going to read everything I’d ever written about him.
He… he already had.
There was a knock on the door.
“You doing okay, Vex?” Drake’s voice floated in, shattering my despair, if only briefly. I stared at the door through the glass encasing the huge shower. He was waiting outside. He’d told me he would be whatever I needed, but I’d been too much of a coward to ask him to come in here.
I’d just needed five minutes alone, to cry without making him feel worse before I could face him. It had been a long five minutes, and I felt the same.
I still wanted him.
I turned off the shower and all but stumbled out of it, wrapping a towel around myself and fixing my expression the best I could as I opened the door.
He was right outside, and the steam from the shower flooded from the bathroom, lifting his blackcurrant wine scent into the air.
Beautiful. Comforting.
Everything.
His violet eyes were worried and flutters of raven hair framed his face. There were dark bags beneath his eyes, and his skin was papery pale as if he were sick. He looked like he needed a good sleep. I opened my mouth, unable to rip my gaze away, and then realised I had no idea what to say. I didn’t even know what I wanted. The desperation must have been clear in my eyes because he frowned.
“Can I come in?”
I swallowed, then managed to nod.
He slipped into the room, taking me in with a frown.
“Have you slept?” he asked.
I shook my head. I’d barely got an hour at a time. Zeus barely left me alone, and I’d laid awake the whole time he was there, terrified.
“Then let’s get you ready for bed,” he said. He picked me up and set me down on the counter, then took a spare towel and began squeezing my dripping hair.
Once done, he fetched me a silken cream dressing gown, but I stopped him before he could help me into it. Instead, I tugged on his shirt gently, trying to find the courage to tell him what I needed.
I didn’t need to say anything else before he was tugging his top over his head. “You’re lucky Love forced me to freshen up last night or there’d be no way.”
I found the first moments of a real smile on my face as I clutched it to my chest. He began helping me dress, which included a set of ridiculously fluffy socks that I swear hadn’t been in here before.
