Page 58 of Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones

I turned in the direction that the voice from my dreams sounded and saw a small speck of light. I walked towards it, hoping that I was dreaming and nothing terrible was going to happen if I walked towards the light.

It got brighter and bigger the closer I got to it, until it burst into an explosion of light, momentarily blinding me. I scrunched up my eyes and waited for the bright light to settle. Where the hell was I? The last thing I remembered was being with Rook, and then…

He bit me and everything spiralled. The pain. The darkness.

The voice.

“Raevyn?”

My eyes flew open, and I winced at the change in light. It took a minute for my vision to settle, but it became instantly clear that I wasn’t standing in the dark anymore. I also wasn’t on my own anymore.

A man stood in front of me, someone I’d never seen before, and my magic went haywire. It burst to life beneath my solar plexus, almost trying to reach him, to claim him as ours.

And he was beautiful.

“It’s you,” I said, confused by how I got here. Wherever ‘here’ was.

“How did you get here?” he asked, a confused furrow dipping between his brows.

“I don’t know… I…” I looked around the space, which was a large open space with no interior walls and no windows. A soft, sheer curtain lined one side where I could just about make out a bed beyond it and there was a wall of books, a small kitchen and a seating area big enough for two. A piano sat in the corner opposite the bed, and I had a sudden urge to sit down and play. Which was weird because I’d never played the piano in all my life.

“Raevyn, you shouldn’t be here,” he said again. “It’s impossible.”

“And yet here I am. Who are you?”

“No one important.”

I snorted at his response. No one unimportant had a living space that looked like a million pound apartment. “I find that hard to believe.”

His frown deepened into a scowl. There was a ruggedness to him that captured my attention and held it unrelentingly. His hair was blacker than pitch, so dense that it seemed to swallow the light, and it sat just above his shoulders in thick, messy waves. He had a fringe that obscured his eyes, but they seemed to glow beneath the shadows of his hair.

“You need to get out of here, Raevyn. This place should be impossible to breach.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “And how do you suppose I do that, Mr. Unimportant?”

He pursed his lips, and I noticed how plump and soft they looked. They were the only soft feature on a face that was all sharp angles and harsh lines. He shouldn’t be beautiful, but the combination of all those edges was quite breathtaking.

“I don’t know.”

“Mm-hmm,” I sassed and flopped down on the comfy velvet loveseat. “Well, neither do I. Why don’t you join me down here and you can tell me all about how unimportant you are.”

A small curl tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was almost a smile and I wondered what he’d look like if he laughed. There was a tension to him in the rigid lines of his shoulders that it made it seem like he carried a serious burden. I knew this wasn’t a luxurious pad I was currently standing in. Yes, it felt and looked beautiful, but a gilded cage was still a prison. I had been in my own long enough to recognise the signs of one.

“I’ll make us a drink,” he finally grumbled when he realised he agreed with me. I didn’t know how I got here. I still wasn’t sure where I was and considering there were no doors or windows, I didn’t think escaping would be on the agenda.

The space was neat and tidy, not that there seemed to be much here other than the books and a few simple trinkets decorating the shelves. I studied him as he poured the drinks and wondered what he’d done to end up here. He didn’t feel evil, but I’d clearly never been a very good judge of character seeing as how I was murdered by my own grandmother. He was dressed in dark slim fitting combat trousers and had a knee length sleeveless black tunic over his torso. He also wore a leather type harness around his chest and waist which cinched in the tunic to show his shape. He was slimmer than the other guys, slightly shorter too, but I could sense the power coming from him. It flittered around him and brushed against my skin with a cool touch, which reminded me of Hades a little. An ancient power that vibrated in the very fabric of the world around me.

“You’re staring,” he said as he walked towards me, a crystal glass in each hand.

“Sorry. Just trying to figure you out.”

“It’s okay,” he said as he handed me a glass and I got a waft of the most beautiful smell. “I haven’t had anyone stare at me in a long time.”

“How long have you been here?” I took a sip of the drink and holy mother of fuck. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. It was like a sweet honey doused in the spice from the whiskey. It both burned and soothed my tongue at the same time. I moaned as I swallowed it and cursed the gods for letting me live without tasting this before.

He sat down next to me on the loveseat and his thighs brushed mine. “Good?”

“So good.” I took another large mouthful, swallowing it down and feeling the warmth spreading through my stomach. It made me feel happy and cosy, like I was sat in front of an open fire and wrapped in the fluffiest blanket. “What is this?”

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