The door is wide open now and he glances over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold. I need the truth. If this will get me closer to it, then I’ll follow him wherever I need to. And then I will decide if he deserves to die.
Now that his power has left the room, the numbness it brought goes with him. Fear tries to burrow its way in, but I force it down as I step into the hallway. I follow the sound of noise down a long, dark corridor with candelabras along the walls and chandeliers with more black flames hanging from the high, pointed ceiling. This place looks like an old, gothic castle and I hold my breath as I admire it. It’s dark and creepy but it has a beauty of its own, a beauty that I’m sure couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world. Stepping into the kitchen, the open area is less shadowed because more flames line the walls and hang high above us from the black diamond chandeliers. The living room has a large, dark stone fireplace with more black flames and bookshelves that line the walls from floor to ceiling, each of them cluttered with old, worn books. No marble or golden swirls or bright celestial light exist here like in the Realm of Darkness. Ere’s home is all dark stone and black floors that look like they could have been crafted from obsidian, peaking between dark shadows.
Glancing over his shoulder with a smile, he comes to me, pulling out a chair at the dining room table and gesturing for me to sit. I can’t peel my eyes away from his horns. I try, but they’re all I can focus on when I look at him despite the huge, almost translucent black wings that take up so much space behind him. Darkness swirls around him as he instantly appears back in front of the stove to finish plating food and setting it up at the table. I’ve never seen a celestial or witch move the way he does, as if he’s tearing through space and time and flittering through motions in fast forward. My head spins watching him.
His eyes don’t leave mine as he places food on my plate and then on his, and I can’t bring myself to look away from him either. I have so many questions, thoughts, and feelings racing through my mind at once and can’t seem to focus on just one. Fear exists, but so does an underlying intrigue and pull toward him that I can’t deny, like I’ve never been able to deny when I’m with him. Hope exists as well, but there’s a sense of hopelessness entangled with it, like no matter what he says or what we do it won’t matter when it comes to Nyx and what she wants. Pain pushes its way in at the thought of the hurt Olivia, Kairos, and Hekate will feel finding out I’m gone, but then his shadows reach out and brush against me and a layer of numbness wraps around my mind until the thoughts disappear.
A smile briefly flashes across his lips as he takes in my still wide eyes full of shock. “My full name is Erebus, by the way. I only used the name Ere to seem a bit more human for someone who was human at the time. Ask whatever you’d like. I will tell you only the truth.”
I place my elbows on the table and lean forward. “What the hell are you? How did you get here? And is this who you’ve always been?” I swallow, my hands in fists, my nails digging into my palms.
It’s not fear that has me angry with him in this moment. I’m not afraid as his icy, numbing energy courses around us to push those feelings away, keeping my heart steady and my mind calm. I’m tired of the lies the people around me keep feeding me in hopes of saving me from any added confusion since I can’t remember a damn thing about my past. I just want the truth.
“Yes.” His smile I’ve grown to love, the one full of kindness and charm and dark secrets flitters across his lips. “I have been this way since you met me. Much longer than that, but that is a story for another time.” Scooting his chair forward and staring down at the glass in his hand, the one full of a dark liquid that looks like poison, he whispers, “I am the king of The Underworld. Nyx grew tired of ruling her realm alone so she forced this transformation on me in hopes that I would follow her blindly and do as she says.” He takes a sip, then slams the cup down, his grip on the glass making me worry he’ll shatter it to pieces. “She is not just the Queen of Darkness and demons or the queen of this realm. She is one of the forgotten goddesses. If I refused the life she offered me, I could have been slaughtered.”
“Nyx is a goddess?” I breathe, leaning back against my chair and gazing up at the ceiling, hopelessness pushing its way in even further. “If she is in fact a goddess, and she did this to you, then how are you able to resist her power? The demons can’t. They do exactly as she says when she says to do it, from what I’ve been told. How are you able to leave and live a pretend happy life with a human she’s haunting and hunting for power? Why doesn’t she just kill you if you’re so disobedient?” I cross my arms over my chest as I wait.
Finally releasing his grip on the glass and pushing it to the side, he tells me, “I have grown good at fooling her over the past century. My power numbs my mind and heart in a way that lets her believe I am under her spell. That I feel nothing. I have also watched Nyx slowly lose her mind down here. The whispering to voices that are not there, and the darkness she claims will not let her go keep her occupied. She has been too distracted falling into madness to notice or even care what I am doing most of the time.” Smiling he pushes his chair back to prowl around the table and stop beside me.
Pulling out the chair and facing it in my direction, he takes a seat, his thighs spreading apart slightly as he leans back, raking his eyes over me. I try not to stare at how large he is, or think about how tiny I feel sitting here beside him, or how he looks so much the same as he used to and yet entirely different. I look away.
“Nyx believes what she wants to believe, Nora. She has one goal only and that is to control you and wield your power. My one goal since I met you has been to help you not see yourself as something weak or broken that needs to be fixed. You must be strong to stand against her. The power she possesses will eat at your mind until there is nothing but her thoughts and desires left within you, but,” he leans his elbows on his knees, the warmth of his body much too close. “I can help you fight her because as much as she has tried, I have accepted the darkness she forced within me and have learned to use it to my advantage against her. Darkness cannot rule a mind that is numb or drag its claws across a heart that feels nothing. But I fucked up.” His eyes meet mine. “You gave me hope while I was stuck here with her. You were always my flame within the darkness. My escape. With you I allowed myself to feel after a century of feeling nothing but emptiness. She sent the demons to attack me that night at the club because she found out I was sneaking away and spending time with you. I was always so damn careful, but my feelings for you could not simply be numbed or forced from my heart.” He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest, glaring into the emptiness beside him.
“That’s why you let me go. Nyx found out you were spending time with me and neither of us would have been safe any longer. You could no longer protect me.” I swallow, my heart lurching at the thought of how easily I allowed it, at how hard it must have been for him to let me leave with Kairos. “So you let him protect me.”
“It killed me, Nora, to walk out your door that night and pretend I wanted nothing to do with you. If I told the celestials the truth then, they would not have trusted me. Hell, they probably would have killed me. Kairos taking you away was the only thing that made sense. If I lost you, if Nyx got her hands on you, I might as well be dead myself. I’d have no reason to go on living.” He stands, making his way back to his original seat and picking up his fork and knife, no longer focused on me. I can’t pull my eyes away as I take in everything he’s just told me. He has been stuck here for a century with her? A century of forcing only numbness into his heart to avoid any pain she might like to cause. That’s torture. It’s cruel on so many levels I can’t even begin to understand. I hate her. More than anything, more than the lies I’ve been fed and the pain she has already caused me, making Ere suffer and holding him captive here for an entire fucking century might be the worst thing she has done of all. I want her dead.
“Why you, Ere? What was her interest in you in particular? She could have forced this on anyone if she really wanted to hurt me or get me here. Kairos who is my fated mate or Hekate who was my best friend even in the past. What is it about you—or was choosing you a random, thoughtless decision by her?”
“It was not random,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing as he thinks for a moment. “She loved Hekate and I believe deep down a part of her still does. And Kairos,” he growls his name like it’s the worst sound to ever pass over his lips. “Torturing Kairos, she believed, would have done little to hurt you. If only she knew how you’d fall for him this time around. You see, you never loved him before.” He scoffs, his head shaking slightly as he averts his gaze back to his plate of strange, blackened food. He sits his utensils down, sighing loudly and placing his head in his hands.
“What do you mean? Kairos believes we’re fated mates and Mio told me we spent fifty years together. The entire realm believes we’re meant to be. That we were once together.”
Slowly, he raises his head, pushing his shoulders back and tucking his wings in tight behind his shoulders. He takes a deep breath. “Kairos is not your fated mate, Nor. A few heartless, bitter gods have fooled everyone into believing what they want them to believe, but I remember the truth. Nothing happening within the realms is how it should be. It is all a lie. Once we get your memories back, you will remember, too. That is why helping you was so important to me. I need you to remember. I am tired of being king in a realm ruled by her and tired of being a pawn in the gods games. I am sorry for what has happened to you and what led you here to me, but what I am not sorry for is having you by my side now. With me is where you have always belonged.”
My light, my flame, open your eyes.
His whispered words within my mind wrap around me like a dark, sweet embrace, and I remember the night of my parents’ deaths and how those same words echoed in my mind then. Those words are familiar in a way that my heart can’t comprehend, but deep in my subconscious I know they once meant something special to me. This is all too much. I want to run. I want to scream. I feel tears brimming at the edges of my vision, but I force them away. I know I must be strong. Everything will make sense once I retrieve my memories and remember the truth myself.
“So, you can speak into my mind. That’s fun.” I smile, picking up my fork and cutting into the fluffy, black pancake on my plate. “So what you’re saying is that the celestials don’t realize they’re lying by telling me Kairos and I are fated mates because they don’t know the truth themselves. Because the gods are playing some cruel game with us all? I don’t know whether or not to believe you,” I tell him, taking a tiny nibble of the food on my fork and being thankful when it tastes exactly like the special recipe he used to make for me back home. It's delicious and not at all as poisonous or sickening as it looks. “You said we belong together. Did you mean something to me in the past, then?” I swallow and then poke at another triangular piece of pancake. I shovel it into my mouth, realizing that dying and coming back to life has made me ravenous and empty.
I wipe my lips with the back of my hand, looking up at him as he leans his chin on top of his clasped hands, his elbows firmly placed on the table. “Were we together before? I’m assuming so with how intense and raw your words come out.”
My cheeks redden when his eyes sear into me in silent confirmation.
I don’t know what to believe anymore. For him to tell me everything I’ve learned about my past is a lie is hard to take in, but would it really surprise me? I’ve been gone for a century. A lot could have gone wrong. There are gods and royalty and witches and separate realms and magic and no one seems to be who they say they are. I don’t know who to trust anymore or what the hell to believe. He still hasn’t told me why he would be forced to stay here with Nyx. Who was Ere to me?
“Nyx forcing me to rule by her side as king was another layer of pain she hoped to cause you. She knows what we are to each other. She knew it would hurt when you found out what she had done to me. Knew it would kill me having a front row seat to her destroying you and breaking you until you become nothing but a shell of magic for her to use as she pleases.” Shaking his head, his eyes meet mine, and the fear and heartbreak within them hint at all the pain he has already been through.
You and I are fated mates, my love. Your memories are just as important to me as they are to you. They are our memories.
I freeze midway through taking another bite of the dark, delicious food. I didn’t ask why Nyx forced him to rule, I only thought it. Not only can he speak within my mind, but he can read my thoughts, too. A part of me is utterly terrified by this, but another part tingles and blazes with excitement. His power is amazing.
I nod, setting my fork down and gazing across the table at him, really looking at him for the first time. I’m not sure if I’m hoping to see a hint of a lie there, or suspecting that I might, but there’s nothing but confident truth as he watches me. It scares me to think Kairos could be wrong, that any feelings we had for each other were a lie, but a part of me knows anything is possible in a world where magic exists. What if what we all know or think we know are lies? I can’t look away from Ere and his glowing eyes as they burn through my heart and soul. Here in this moment, a part of me truly believes him. If Ere is my fated mate, then it makes sense that Nyx would use him as a way to hurt me while my soul waited for reincarnation. If she could no longer torture me, then my fated mate would be the next best option to make me suffer. The pieces feel like they’re clicking in place, and more than ever I want to know the truth. With everyone else so far away, with no one here to stop me from going after Nyx or my mother’s amulet, for the first time I feel like my future and my fate are within reach. I will find my memories, and if what Ere tells me turns out to be the truth, then Nyx will fucking pay for what she has done to him.
On the other hand, if he is lying and deceiving me to get me closer to her… I will burn us and this entire realm to ash.
Chapter Thirty-Three
