Page 27 of SIN Bone Deep

Mal sank back into the waves, disappearing under the surface into the froth of lust, and Ender gripped my wrist, hauling me to my feet and dragging me out of the steaming, seething environment of the pool room, into the coolness of the night.

As I doubled over, gasping for air, Ender took off his cloak and wrapped it around me, pulling me against his chest, his arms around me, his gaze on the poolroom that we had left, and his heart hammering.

“Ender,” I said, looking up at him, shocked and uncertain if I had imagined the whole thing as I was feeling the drag of marijuana intoxication, alcohol, and something else…? Perhaps someone had managed to slip something into my drink despite my trying to prevent it.

“Nyx,” he looked down at me, his expression softening, and cupped my cheek with his palm. “I am sorry.”

“About what?” I was confused.

“I’ll…” His eyes went to the pool room. “I’ll take you home.”

He scooped me up into his arms as if I were weightless and began to walk into the night-dark gardens. I shivered within his cloak. His body had not warmed the cloth, and I was too wet to warm it myself. The cold sucked at my energy, winding in with the effects of the marijuana, the cocktail on an empty stomach that I was beginning to suspect had been dosed right under my watchful eye…

“I don’t know what happened,” the words were stuttered around trembling breath as I shook in a combination of reaction and chill.

“Things are… complicated, Elenyx,” he said softly. “You were caught in the game of those who care not for the innocent that they wound in seeking their desires. Do not let this night weigh upon your mind.”

We were walking through the gardens of Vossen House as if he had simply walked over the valley through the air. Some trick of magic, I thought, although I was fairly certain that such advanced magic was either impossible or forbidden. Perhaps grim reapers were the exception as they crossed the veil in the course of their duty and needed to travel vast distances in mere moments.

Or perhaps I was more affected by the night than I thought as we were suddenly in my bedroom without me having been aware of passing through any door into or room of the house. He stripped my wet clothes off me and slid naked into the bed beside me, wrapping his arms around me, his fingers tangled in my hair, cupping my skull as he held me to his chest.

“Sleep Nyx,” his voice rumbled through his throat and chest, a murmur that teased the focus from my eyes and the tension from my body. Without my wet clothes on, my body had heated the blankets and him, creating a warm nest. It was so wonderful to lie skin to skin with him, the incense that clung to his hair breathed in upon every inhalation and his heart under the palms of my hands.

“I’m sorry,” I remembered kissing Mal, not once but several times, the wicked spice of his tongue and the hard heat of his body against mine. I would have had sex with him in the water, I realized with shocked shame. I had been caught in the atmosphere of decadence and depravity, and for a moment it had seemed almost inevitable that we would join in.

Ender pressed his lips to the crown of my head and spoke into my hair. “There are things that… I cannot tell you.” He whispered. “Things that cannot be spoken of. You were not to blame for this night, Elenyx. You were the plaything of one who has reason to meddle in my affairs. It is best… To just forget what took place. Just forget and sleep, Nyx.”

I slipped into sleep on an exhale and woke in the morning alone with a bracelet of hair to match the ring on my finger. I examined it closely. It was so cunningly woven that there was no join that I could see and sat so close to the skin that I could not slip a finger under it. The only way to remove it would be with a knife, and slicing through the artwork of the braiding would be a travesty.

Ender’s hair, of that I was certain, the weavings made by magic. Were they the love tokens that I had first thought of the ring, or something more? Some sort of talisman of protection?

I felt my cheeks heat as I remembered the night at Pinegrove Academy, Mal, and the pool - and rolled facedown into the pillows before pounding my fist in sheer frustration into the mattress. “Damn it, Nyx,” I cursed myself.

So what? I asked myself. So what? I had kissed Mal. What had Ender said? “You were caught in the game of those who care not for the innocent that they wound in seeking their desires. Do not let this night weigh upon your mind.”

Was he implying that Mal wasn’t all that he appeared?

“Nyx!” Fennel called from below. “Breakfast!”

Shit.

His memory is longer than mine.

I had forgotten all about the time that my mercy took from him a soul and now my beloved will pay that toll.

And there is nothing that I can do,

But watch and wait with angst and rue,

And hope that he will be sated,

With the death that’s fated.

ELEVEN

Heed the flower, bush, and tree by the Lady blessed you'll be

– The Wiccan Rede

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