“I’m sorry you’ve been hurting. I know I was human when we met, but you knew my struggles, and you were there for me. You helped me more than you know. I wish I would have known that you were hurting, too.”
In this moment all I want is to help him find happiness. My memories and my own future are important, but if darkness is all he has known for more than a century, then no one deserves freedom or happiness more than Ere. Anger ignites in my core and threatens to spill out into the world, my power thrumming within with a desire to fix things for him.
“I never wanted to lie to you. To tell you my pain was caused by another would have been absurd when the only one I have ever loved is you.” His smile is small, agony showing through, as he shifts on the blanket and faces me. “Every second without you has felt like an eternity. I will set this whole goddamn world on fire and watch it all burn if that is what it takes to get your memories back.” His glowing crimson eyes burn into mine, swirling and flickering with deadly promises.
“Your love for me is intense and slightly terrifying.” I laugh quietly. “Was the love between us always this way?” Pulling a leg up, I turn to face him, tilting my head and watching as his eyes dance with a darkness and fiery passion that makes my heart melt.
“Yes,” he whispers. “Always.”
There’s no questioning my feelings for Ere. I know my love for him runs deep and that if something were to happen to him, I would do whatever it takes for him, too. Being with him feels like coming home after not knowing where I belonged for too long. I need him to finally break free of Nyx so he can find the happiness he deserves.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, my pulse quickening as his heated gaze washes over me. “One last time before everything possibly falls apart.” Pulling myself to my knees, I run my fingertips along his jawline before clasping my hands around the nape of his neck.
He grips my waist and pulls me onto his lap, hands sliding up my thighs and then holding firm at the arch in my back. I lock my ankles behind him and he holds me steady. Tucking my hair behind my ear, his hand lingers, thumb caressing my cheek as he wraps his fingers around the side of my neck and brings his lips to mine. Our kiss is slow and gentle at first, unrushed and tender, until the world falls away and it’s just him and I and nothing else. Fisting his hair in my hands, his tongue moves against mine now with a newfound passion and desire like I’ve never felt before. This isn’t just a kiss, it’s us saying goodbye the only way we can, using lips and tongues to say what he can’t bring himself to admit, that one or both of us could die tonight. Hope and love radiate around us as his shadows meet the swirls of my blue and purple divine light, and they flicker and sway, combining as one. Darkness may have succeeded in extinguishing our light for a time, but the love between us reignites blistering flames of hope within both our hearts.
I don’t want to let him go, not now or ever. I want to stay here in the darkness with his shadows wrapped around us keeping us protected and hidden from anguish and pain. This feeling, this moment with Ere, this is the kind of love I’ve been hoping to find my whole life. Nothing will ever compare to what I feel for him. I’m no longer scared to find out the truth because I know the truth already. There’s no way he has been feeding me lies with all the nourishment he provides to my heart and soul.
Pulling my lips away from his is difficult. If it were up to me, we’d stay here like this forever. The gentleness of his forehead pressed against mine helps ease my racing heart and cool the fiery need pulsing in my core. I close my eyes and smile as he traces lines up and down my back with his fingertips.
“Our love is written in the stars,” he breathes, looking up at the sky with a mesmerizing smile and eyes golden and swirling with hope.
Following his gaze, my eyes widen and my mouth pops open in disbelief. The normally pitch-black sky shimmers with twinkling blue stars bigger and brighter than any I’ve seen before. An electrifying feeling of shock and awe shoot straight to my heart. I can’t deny that it’s a little like fate whispering down at me that prophecies and predetermined destinies are real, and that everything is happening as it should. The beauty of the stars, so out of place here in the Underworld, make the glow of them even more brilliant against the backdrop of the shadows and dreary darkness of this realm.
“How is this possible?” I shift in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and leaning all the way back to get a better look. “There shouldn’t be light here. No stars in the sky.”
“You are not one to believe much in fate, but how can you deny what you see with your own eyes? What you feel in your own heart. Fate will always make itself known, whether you choose to believe in it or not.” He smiles, brushing hair away from my eyes and tucking it neatly behind my ears. “No amount of darkness or passing of time could ever keep us apart. Our souls will always find their way back to each other.”
I shake my head. “I should have learned by now to expect the unexpected.” I untangle myself from him, standing and reaching for his hand. “I don’t want to wait any longer, Ere. I’m ready for whatever fate will bring.” I smile as he reaches for my hand and pulls himself to his feet, leading us away from the river.
We choose to not fly into our fate, not wanting to appear rushed, afraid and hopeless. We aren’t those things, not anymore. We choose to instead stroll hand in hand with our heads held high, carrying only hope in our hearts.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I Love You’s
KAIROS
Well, coming to the Underworld without a clear plan was a disaster we should have seen coming. If you’d have asked me days ago when Nyx and her hellhounds first captured Hekate and I if I thought we’d be alive four days later, I would have said fuck no. Yet here we are. Alive. Bound and kept near the flaming black pit, the heat of it scorching my neck and making my skin uncomfortably slick as shit, but we’re alive. There were too many of them to fight our way out. I can’t afford to die when I haven’t saved Mera yet. I’m getting her the fuck out of here even if doing so gets me killed. I just have to stay alive long enough to get the chance to. I will not fail her this time.
The demons’ growls fill the silence any time one of us moves or speaks, but it’s usually only me doing the talking. Hekate has kept mostly silent and dazed since we stopped at the River Mnemosyne before we were captured. She stared at the sign for a moment, mumbled something about the water looking familiar, and she drank from it as I sharpened my blades. She has been strange ever since. Now she’s just silently staring up at the queen on the throne like she’s someone she knows. But she does not know that thing sitting there smiling down at us. With the thick, curved horns, the leathery wings, and the glowing red eyes that make the light within me ache with the need to kill her, she’s as evil and demonic as it gets. Not to mention her little pets, the black serpents with beady glowing eyes like hers that she wears like jewelry around her neck. I was right. Hekate was wrong. There is no light left within her.
My knees burn from kneeling on them for so long, the dry, hot, scorched earth forming new blisters on my skin each time I heal the old ones. We tried to be civil with Nyx, or at least Hekate did. I threatened to rip out her heart with my bare hands while Hekate begged her to let Mera come home, for her to come home as well. Talking to her was useless, and Hekate has lost her godsdamned mind if she thinks she’s going to convince her to come back or that it’d be safe to do so. She doesn’t belong out there in the semi civilized world. This is where she belongs.
Nyx stands and sways her hips as she makes her way across the throne platform, the crumbling stone pillars on its four sides leaning dangerously like they might fall at any second. Her black horns cast eerie shadows across the ground as she gracefully descends the steps and makes her way over to us.
Using her sharp, demon-like claws, she slices through the thick rope tied tightly around our wrists and ankles, setting us both free. “It is time.” Her lips curl up into a beautiful but deadly smile, and the serpents around her shoulders hiss as they track my every move, heads weaving side to side.
I glare up at her, rubbing at the raw skin around my wrists and healing the bloody, torn flesh there. Nyx reaches into a hidden pocket on the front of her black, flowy dress, pulls out Mera’s amulet, and then dangles it in my face just to taunt me. My future is in there. My heart is in there. Everything I’ve ever wanted exists within that amulet and she fucking knows it. She lets it sway back and forth, hypnotizing me and reminding me of all that I’ve lost, of all I might never experience again if she controls Mera’s entire life. Taking a slow, cautious step forward, she bends and slips the chain around my neck, the amulet and the magic holding Mera’s memories within it humming against my chest like it’s home at last. It is. Mera is my home, and I am hers, and these memories belong to both of us.
“I think you should be the one to return Mera’s memories, Kairos. After pining over her so pathetically for a century, there is nothing I would love more.” Leaning in close, she grips my chin between her fingers, smiling down at me as she whispers, “You deserve this.” Turning her back and sauntering away, the demons who were hiding within caves carved into the mountains slowly creep out, eyes locked on Hekate and I, low snarls rumbling from their chests.
Fuck, there are so many of them. Too many. More than I could have ever imagined existed here, and much more than the number I’ve slaughtered in my time, which is in the thousands. The stench of their venom in the air alone might be lethal. Even biding my time, waiting for whatever fucked up plan Nyx has in store to end, how the hell we’re going to make it out of here alive is beyond me. Gods fucking save us all.
Groaning from the pain of my blistered knees, I push myself to my feet and pull Hekate close, a flash of white flickering as I heal both our wounds. She could heal herself if she weren’t so lost in gazing after the queen who stares at us with a devilish glint in her eyes.
“For what it is worth, Hekate, I think I did love you once. But the darkness you abandoned me to, it consumed me. Until you were nothing and my realm was nothing, until all I could think about was how badly I wanted to watch it all burn.” She shakes her head, meeting my eyes before dragging them back to Hekate. “You could have stopped this. You could have saved me. Now I wonder if the woman I once was exists within me at all. Maybe she tired of screaming for you to save her. Maybe the pain of knowing you would not come made her simply…fade away into oblivion. It has been quite a while since I have heard her in here at all.” She taps her temple, her red lips curving up into a smile that makes my skin crawl and my blood run cold. “So, if you are wondering if the woman you love still exists, dear Hekate, the answer is no. She does not. That poor, sad woman you abandoned died long ago.”
Hekate pushes away from me and charges toward her, palms out and blue lights flaring in her palms and all around her so bright I have to cover my eyes with my arm as I chase after her. Shit. It was her job to stay calm and rational, to keep the peace and talk me down from using thoughtless violence, especially before having Mera in my arms. I want nothing more than to rip Nyx’s head from her body and toss it into the pit, but not yet. Not until I know the woman I love is safe. I wrap my arms around Hekate and hold her back. Nyx crosses her arms over her chest, tilting her head and still smiling, glowing red eyes begging me to tear them from her skull.
