“What are you?”
“In which religion?”
I yawn again and mumble, “Which religion are you from?”
“That’s tricky. I have been here since before man was even a thought. Some might consider me a god. Others a demon.”
“Which are you?”
“If you want to get technical, you would consider me a demon.”
“Why do you live—?”
“That is enough questions for tonight,” he cuts me off gently. “We have quite a day tomorrow.”
My head pops off his shoulder. “Tomorrow?”
His face cocks ever so slightly in my direction. “Did you wish to wait?”
“No!” I blurt before he can finish. “I want to start.”
His grin is amused. “Well, I supposed we better get started then, shouldn’t we?”
Chapter Thirteen
Lenora
IlieawakeinMarcus’s… the creature’s arms.
It’s difficult to say when he brought me back to Marcus’s room and washed me in the tub before tucking me back into bed against his chest without another word.
It does make me wonder who I’ll wake up to in a few hours. I wonder if Marcus will know the difference. If he’ll ask … what? If I offered my virginity to a shadow demon in exchange for vengeance?
Perhaps.
Marcus is very intuitive.
Still, I don’t regret my choices. I never imagined that would be how I lose the thing. I suppose, when I had thought about it, I imagined my boys. But it was mine to give away. I would give up everything if the creature asked. None of it matters.
I shift and turn to my other side. Marcus doesn’t reach for me and I’m glad; I’m too restless to stay.
Too eager.
My heart is galloping as I push off the bed. My slip lies somewhere in the dank basement, and I’m left to scavenge through Marcus’s drawers for a top. Every step sends a sharp pang between my thighs. The muscles protest the motions, but I leave the room and the man on the bed.
I locate a fresh candlestick on a table in the corridor. The tiny flame dances as if excited to be chosen. I make a mental note to ask Mrs. Pym not to leave a lit of candlesticks about. Last thing we need is for the whole place to go up in smoke.
Though, I’m not wholly certain I would mind that. Not that it’s my place. The manor belongs to Marcus. It’s his family home. I suppose and mine, but it doesn’t feel like it without them.
I wander to the main floor, feet barely making a sound as I hit the bottom. They follow the familiar path from the solarium to the war room. Both lie in a heavy gravity of silence that keeps mein their orbit. An alignment I follow from one side of the house to the other like I might catch one of them waiting for me.
With the fifth pass, my tears begin. No sobbing. No sound. Just a steady flow that marks the floor beneath my feet like tiny breadcrumbs guiding my way.
“Linny.”
Marcus stands in the foyer, draped in the filmy hue of filthy light from the stained glass around the front door. The morning sun turns his skin a near translucent white. For that second, that heartbeat where my mind is still locked in the world between here and nowhere, I’m looking at Ames. At his unruly strands falling over his eyes, and that look he’d give me when he’d find me in a random part of the house.
My heart claps hard against my breastbone before I remember it’s not him.
