Page 96 of House of Lilith

I turn to fix my eyes on the lake before me, its surface turning into a dark, shimmering disk. Yes, I repeat to myself, of course we’ll be allowed back here. We can’tnotbe, notnow.

Not now?I hear my fox ask, a touch of mockery in his voice as he rises from the depths of my consciousness to stare me down.Why not now?

I take a deep breath, saying, “You know why. We have the Games to win and I have my family’s future to take care of.”

As opposed to what, yesterday?he drawls.The day before?

“What, you don’t believe me?” I ask through gritted teeth.

Not with you focused on the girl and the sounds she makes while you fuck.

For a second, the little comment renders me speechless. Then I drawl, “In case you haven’t noticed, this is not my first time focusing on a woman. Sowhatis your problem exactly?”

This is different,he says simply.

My eyes narrow. “No, it’s not.You’remaking it different.”

He lets out a rough little scoff.So today, when you two were done fucking, you didn’t find yourself tongue tied?

For a second, I stay silent. “Not saying something right away isnotthe same thing as being tongue tied.”

There’s a moment of tense silence before he asks,Do you respect me?

“Of course I do,” I rush to say.

Well,he starts, his voice turning angry,maybe respecting me is not the same thing as straight-out lying to me.

Fuck. “Look,” I try to appease him, determination in my voice, “this is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s just a little obsession that I need to get out of my system.” I let out a scoff. “So how can it be a bad thing, that I’m given the chance to doexactlythat?”

Seconds pass as I wait for an answer.

When it finally comes, it’s strangely pensive.You can’t have it both ways, you do understand that, boy?

I blow out a frustrated laugh. “What in the name of Lycan are you on about?”

I guess I’ll have to let you figure it out on your own.

And with that, he slinks back into the shadows.

“Oh the fucking drama,” I drawl, rolling my eyes.

I don’t care, I decide as I go back to staring at the lake. I’m about to spend two whole weeks with my brothers and when I come back, which Iwill…

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and looking over the water with unseeing eyes.

WhenI come back, I have a little queen of indifference to hunt down and take back into that tower.

And I guess I might need a little more time than I thought, because there’ssomethingthere that I need to sniff out…

But once I do, I won’t just be making her come. I’ll be making her call my fucking name as she does.

Chapter 19 - Nyx

It’sJanuary21standin around thirty minutes, I think as I nervously glance out the car window, I’ll officially be back at the Academy. Outside, the trees are whizzing past us and I can almost imagine the sound of clumps of snow falling off the branches, buthere, inside, the silence is only broken by my driver’s cursing under his breath whenever he sees a squirrel darting across the road.

I’ve made it so I’m not driving with Nikolay, simply because I wanted to be alone. And I could be enjoying them, these last moments of privacy before I’m reunited with both him and our cousin for the rest of the year.

But now that the day has finally come, I can only think about one thing. I pull out my phone, for the hundredth time today. And there’s his number in my contact list, back from when my brother first sent it to me. ‘Nikolay’s Buddy’, it says.

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