“You didn’t keep me,mother. So you don’t deserve whatever world Hemlock promised you.” I pressed my palms to the dark walls and closed my eyes, begging Ravenswood to take me to Mathias, wherever he was. Pleading to be any place other than in front of a woman I never wanted to see again.
Cold air swelled around me and whatever words Mary was saying behind me, blinked out like someone had just flipped off a radio. I didn’t care what that woman did from then on. I was done with her. I was positive she would spend as much time as she could with Hemlock, keeping him busy for the next few hours, at least until the bells tolled and everyone faded.
Everyone but me.
And in the meantime, I had a few immortal beings to set free.
* * *
“Raine.”Mathias’s voice was a soft sigh.
The sharp words my mother just sliced me with were a lump in my chest. “Mathias?” I said, my voice broken and trembling. I looked up from the shadows I just emerged from, a shaky breath away from sobbing. “My mother…” No, I didn’t want to call her that. “Mary. She’ll be keeping the king busy.”
“What did he make you do?” His voice was a hard sharp-edged growl.
A moment ago, I was listening to my mother as she slowly ripped my heart from my chest, but now hearing the pain and torment in Mathias’s words gutted me. My eyes darted to his, “Nothing. Nothing, I promise you.” I stepped out of the shadows and closer to where he stood, my breath leaving me in a rush. “I dressed Mary up to look like me. A decoy to keep him busy so I could look for the captured gods.”
Mathias let out a heavy breath, “He didn’t make you…?”
“No. And I would end my life before I let him touch me like that,” I said.
“Thinking you were with him…” he began to whisper as he stared at me.
Heat spread across cheeks. “Never.”
“Never?” he asked.
“He is not who I belong to.” I wanted to cry out for him to touch me, beg him to hold me.
“Who is it you belong to?”
“You,” I whispered. My face felt like fire—the rest of my body an inferno as well—burning and burning.
He stepped forward, bowing his head. For a brief moment I wondered what he was about to do—the ash and swirls covered me, he wouldn’t dare touch me until I was free of the marks his father put on me. His fingertips touched my cheeks and I lost my train of thought, of why it was supposed to be wrong, his hands on me. Of what would happen if we were caught. His fingers were more than a simple touch, they were a soft heat against my skin and a slow unraveling through my entire body. We were no longer two people, there wasn’t a Rainey or Mathias, but heat and need and something bigger, something much, much more.
His eyes closed. His lips brushed lightly over mine.
“Ask me to kiss what’s mine,” he whispered close.
My body burst into flames. “Kiss me.”
His mouth was hot and soft against mine, and I trembled with need to have him touch me everywhere all at once. My whole body melted into his, my whole existence consumed in his kiss. Emotions and chaos rushed through me, but one word—more of a feeling really, was louder than everything else—finally.
I didn’t know how long we kissed, but I knew when our lips finally did part, the loss of his touch was overwhelming. His forehead leaned down against mine, his chest breathing heavily. “I would stay on your lips, I would ask for more, more than your kisses, but if we don’t stop—”
“I know,” I said, having to clear my throat a few times before I could speak. “I know. We have to find the Tartarus.”
He pulled his head back and glanced into the dark shadows of the room. We were in the music room in the tower, the piano a silhouette in the mist and gloom. “I need to play for Ravenswood, right? The gods, they’ve been the ones who are singing to me, aren’t they?” I swallowed hard and glanced at the piano keys.
“All we need to do is follow their voices.”
* * *
It tooka few measures and the choir of what I always thought were angels began singing along with me. My hands left the keys and my voice hummed the rest of the tune as we headed out of the music room in search of the echoing voices. We headed down the great stairs and rushed over dust and debris, trampling our way through. Down, down, down we descended into the deepest, darkest parts of the castle as Ravenswood lit the way with flickering torches.
We pushed through hidden doors covered by mist and ash, climbed down tunnels of pitch black until the voices became a storm of thunder and lightning and howling winds—so loud they were deafening.
All at once the sounds stopped, and nothing but abrupt silence blanketed us. We stood side by side in an empty room, one small torch flickering dim shadows across its four walls.
