Caelum was bustling today with all the souls Endymion and Seraphine had dropped off this morning. I didn’t condone Seraphine working in her condition, but she refused to listen to my nonsense and insisted on doing her part. I had no roomto argue with her and chose to bite my tongue instead of make things worse. Xenobia and I followed behind Odysseus like lost puppies, both of us blinded by the incredible lights of life Elementals shooting through the sky to their next tasks.
To my displeasure, Odysseus walked straight up to Yuri, who beamed when he saw him, but frowned heavily when he caught wind that I was here as well. Odysseus chose to ignore the awkward air. “Hey, Yuri, I need a major favor from you.”
“Anything, friend,” he chimed politely. Odysseus whispered his request in Yuri’s ear before Yuri nodded once. “I got you. Give me fifteen minutes, max.”
“You’re a life saver, Yuri!”
“That’s you, handsome!” Yuri dissipated as a ray of light, but as he beamed away, he flashed me a scandalous sneer.
As soon as he was gone I stepped on Odysseus’s foot, which made him yelp and bring the leg up to hold his abused appendage. “Oww! What the Gehenna was that for?”
“Handsome? Who the Gehenna is he to call you handsome!” I demanded.
Odysseus scoffed once before pressing on the line in my eyebrows. “Nicodemus Crawford… are you jealous?”
“No, I’m territorial.” I latched onto his arm with a massive pout. “No one calls my man handsome but me,” I whined.
Odysseus gave Xenobia a shocked look that she giggled at. He took my chin and tilted my face up so he could get a good look at my pout, and when he saw it, he burst into hysterical laughter. “Oh my Gods, could you be any cuter!”
“I’m angry. Shut your pie hole.”
“You’re so jealous it’s insane!”
“I don’t like sharing, ok!”
“Love…” He puckered my lips to kiss me tenderly. “Do you really think I would ever consider anyone over you?” he sexily whispered against my mouth.
I flushed pink to his delight. “I dunno… I kind of cause a lot of trouble for you…” I said shyly as I kicked my leg.
He bit my lip softly and tugged on it. “I like trouble,” he replied before kissing me again, this time more passionately and longer. I didn’t realize that Yuri had returned right before the kiss, and that Odysseus was doing this on purpose, but I was also glad he did.
Fuck Yuri.
“Ah hem. Sorry to interrupt your…” Yuri pretended to throw up, “canoodling, but I have the reports you requested, Odysseus.”
“Ah, yes, thank you so much.” Odysseus took the reports and began to scan the pages rapidly. “Just as we thought.”
“What is it?” Xenobia gulped.
“Seraphine has only requested a handful of doors over the centuries, mainly for family members and other friends that have passed. There is a few, though, that remain unmarked.”
“It’s got to be one of those then, right?” I asked hopefully.
“Only time will tell. Let’s start searching.”
Odysseus flicked through thousands of doors in seconds, his eyes moving so rapidly that I was sure they would boggle right out of his head. I had never seen someone so focused and so skilled at one task, and envied him insanely for his tact, but knew this was not the time to praise him.
Xenobia gripped my arm as she watched him flip through doors, her entire body trembling with anxiety. I kissed her curls to try and ease her even slightly, but that wasn’t doing the trick this time, so I resorted to rubbing my thumb over the hand she had suctioned to my arm.
Odysseus had already checked fourteen doors by this time and was growing increasingly frustrated with the task at hand. He was just as anxious as us, as he had no clue what we were going to face inside this doorway, and there would be major consequences back home for us tampering with Seraphine’s Realms like this.
Odysseus was not a rule breaker. He was, to a fault, obedient and trustworthy, so this was completely outside of his comfort zone. He was denying his natural instincts to comply with the rules by entertaining our insanity, and I knew I had to make it up to him later.
How I would do that, who knew, but I was hoping good sex would suffice for the time being.
Odysseus finally got to the door he desired and slammed a hand down on it in frustration. The door shrieked under the weight of him making it come to a grinding stop, and once it was still, a single light glowed above it.
It looked like any other door in Caelum. There was nothing special or remarkable about the door, but that was probably Seraphine’s plan. It was best to blend in instead of standing out in this circumstance.
