The screaming began again.
“Is this real?” Fiella asked, shaking.
“I think so,” Redd said.
Tommins asked, “How did you escape your cell?”
He gestured to the shadows curling around the room, andthey retreated, slipping into his shadow and then seeming to soak into his very being.
I shivered.
I suddenly felt exposed.
He didn’t answer the question. “I heard the arguing, and if I’m the topic of discussion, I should be involved in the conversation.”
“No offense, oh dark and mighty God, but we can’t just have a normal conversation with you here. You’re scaring everyone,” Kizzi said. I was shocked to see her being her normal, argumentative self after how shaken she had been just minutes ago.
Shade looked at Kizzi with a strange expression on his face. “There is nothing to fear from me. I mean no harm.” He glanced at me. “Under most circumstances.”
His voice was surprisingly steady considering he was just a bloody puddle on the floor.
“Can you get back in the cell? I would feel better if you were in there,” Fiella asked.
He held up the key, waiting for someone to take it. Nobody moved.
I hesitantly stepped forward to take the key from him. His eyes scanned my face.
He set the key in my palm with dramatic slowness, and when his fingers brushed my skin, a shiver of awareness traveled down my spine.
I had touched him before, when dancing with him at the ball, but this felt different.
I was touching a god.
Fear battled with a mess of other emotions. Confusion. Anger.Betrayal. Sadness.
Compassion.
And, buried beneath everything else, fascination.
His fingertips dragged over my hand delicately for long seconds and his gaze smoldered, as if he could read the thoughts on my face.
When he stepped away from me and broke the contact, a strange stab of longing pierced my gut.
I shook my head to clear my senses.
“Lock me up, then. But keep better watch of your keys,” Erebus said. And then he patiently returned to the dungeon, stepped into the cell, and took a seat on the edge of the cot.
I followed. The others slowly milled in behind me.
Erebus glanced at the puddle of blood with a pinched expression before returning his gaze to my face and leaving it there.
I closed the door of the cage, stuck the key in the lock, and turned it with a satisfying click.
He could clearly escape if he wished, but the bars were a mild comfort.
The god scrubbed his hands through his hair, shivering when he felt the blood clotted there. He wiped the residue on his dirty trousers.
Had nobody gotten him a change of clothes in the entire time he had been down here? I glared at Tommins.
