Page 148 of House of Lilith

But now I’m feeling myself start to fume. Comforting, I’ve just found myselfcomfortingher.

“As I said,” I reply, a touch of roughness in my voice again, “it’s fine.”

I see a frown crease her forehead and I feel all my efforts at channeling the rock start failing, so I add, more coldly than ever, “Now, thanks for stopping by. See ya.”

“When? Where?” I hear her ask, in a weird little voice, as I lift the flap of my tent.

It makes all my muscles tense up and my teeth grit, but I finally throw her a look over my shoulder and say, “Don’t know. Around.”

And I disappear into the tent without actually looking at her. I can’t bring myself to. So I don’t know how she takes it, with a shrug or a frown or whatever. I just hope she did take the hint, because I’m not sure I could bring myself to literally tell her I can’t see her anymore.

But once I’m inside, I cling to this determination. That I won’t even be thinking about it.

And I throw myself on my bed, preferring the darkness over the sun glaring outside.

And I know what it is that I’ve just now decided and I know he’ll probably only get memoreworked up, but I fail to stop the urge to poke at my fox.

“Do you approve?” I demand, bitterness lacing my every word. “Are we good now?”

And I know he heard me. He was present, his ears pricked up, the whole time she was here. But now, there’s only silence. Silence that’s fucking pissing me off.

“I thought you wanted me to act,” I say, my teeth gritting.

Silence.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I demand as I push myself off the bed and start pacing the tent, my chest heaving with rage. “In the name of Lycan, last night, you were foaming at the fucking mouth about this.”

I’ve sobered up,he finally says, the touch of ice in his voice making me stop midstep.And besides… it’s helped me realize something.

And I’m still standing there, panting with rage, but I find myselfneedingto know what the fuck he’s talking about. “Yeah,what?”

There’s a second of silence before he says, simply,It’s out of my hands.

“Out ofyouralmighty hands?” I snap at him, letting out a low, frustrated laugh.

Silence.

“Nah,” I say with an angry wave of my hand, “don’t believe you. This has happened before.” And I keep pacing, growing angrier by the second. “You went nuts after Aisling cheated on me and I couldn’t speak to you for a week.”

To my surprise, he lets out a bitter little laugh.Did you ever have to literally hide me fromAisling? Fromanyone, for that matter?

There’s a second of tense silence as my anger dissipates, leaving this hollowness behind. I stop pacing, feeling my throat close.

“I won’t be seeing her anymore,” I finally say, my voice low and breathless and dull somehow.

Fine, he snaps.You won’t.

His voice turns pensive when he adds,But it’s too late now. What I feared most… It’s already happened. And you know it.

My heart skips a beat, leaving this vague but all-pervading fear behind. I don’t say anything. I don’t even move. And he slinks back into the shadows, but I just keep standing there, my shoulders slumping and my eyebrows pulling down as his words keep echoing in my head, over and over and over again.

Just not the ones he said just now. The ones he said quite a while ago, back when her and I had our first ever rendezvous.

Chapter 25 - Nyx

ThedayoftheGame, I wake up in such a terrible mood, it’s all I can do to stop myself from unraveling. I busy myself with doing my rituals, cleaning out my room, organizing my class notes.

And it’s been almost twenty four hours since I went to his tent to apologize, but the words refuse to stop echoing through my mind.

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