I care about what she thinks of me, how I make her feel, that she's protected from the things in my world no one protected me from. I care that she finally gets what she never did as a child, or as an adult, from an unprivileged background.
I care about her, and I forget about myself for once. It feels good. I appreciate things I never had before. In exchange, she gives me life. Hope. I feel so many things at the same time when she's around that I can't think straight sometimes.
Nyx took my heart, my sanity, and my power. Nothing’s better proof of that than the fact that it’s the morning after ourappointment at the Ear Institute, and I still haven't been able to get the truth out of her.
Why did she react the way she did? Why does she think she's undeserving of what I offer her?
I watch her sleep while sitting in a chair opposite the bed. The sounds of New York's traffic and constant police sirens don't reach our sky-high suite, but I can tell she isn’t sleeping peacefully either way. I plan on ordering her breakfast soon. We'll eat in the living room before getting ready for our meeting with the New York Philharmonic. If we're even going. I still don't have an answer from her.
The cigarette I smoked when I woke up fed no addiction. My excitement about having written new music has died down. Nothing,nothingmeans anything if I can't have all of Nyx. I can't have such little access to her thoughts and feelings. I need to be inside her, to caress her soul, to understand her pain.
And if she doesn't let me do it willfully, then I'm forced to play mean again.
I always get what I want. And that's an unchangeable fact.
My eyes drop to Hermes's post that came out half an hour ago. A picture of a few men I knowfor a fact were initiated into the Silent Circle last year. The picture is of them on campus, about to enter a secret door in the castle quad. A door that new Shadows have been using for a year, where they go and do unspeakable things to their Heras.
My gaze flies to Nyx again. I told her about that door.
All my friends have noticed that Hermeshasbeen closing in on the Silent Circle. There's no doubt about that. And it started when Nyx joined our university. They noticed that too.
It doesn't matter that I say she's been a victim of the account, or that she wasn't at our college when the account started.
It doesn't matter that posts are released when she's not on her phone.
Pictures are sent to Hermes all day long, Achilles. She can schedule a post whenever she wants to make it look like she's innocent. And it would be naïve of us to think the account can only be owned by an SFU student.
Chris Murray always thinks he has the answer to everything. It's rather annoying when he knows nothing more than anyone at SFU when it comes to Hermes.
"Mon trésor," I say softly. Somehow, it's enough to wake her.
Like a guilty person worried about being caught in her lie.
"Good morning," I carry on from the chair.
"What time is it?" she croaks, sitting up in bed. She's practically buried under the number of pillows the hotel puts on the bed.
She looks small. Breakable. Helpless. All the things I need her to be.
"It's seven a.m. Go use the bathroom," I tell her. "Then come back to bed."
"What?"
Still slightly confused, she looks around. That's when she notices the rope on the bed. The sex toy and the blindfold too.
Her gulp is loud, and it turns me on.
"What's that for?"
"It's for the girl who's keeping me out. I have ways to get her to let me back in."
"Achilles—"
"Bathroom, then back to bed. I don't think my request was complicated."
She's wearing nothing but a t-shirt of mine. My favorite kind of outfit for her, if you ask me.
I'm standing by the bed when she comes back, and I'm already holding the rope by the time she sits on it.
