Page 35 of Painless
"What's up?"
Noelle jerked her head to her bedroom, indicating I should follow. Her lips pressed into a tense line at the sight of Freyja right on my ankles, but she didn't comment.
Larkan was just putting on a shirt, smelling shower-fresh as we entered her room. The mess of sheets and pillows all over her bed indicated either restless sleep, or a highly enjoyable night.
"Hey, Mari," Larkan greeted me with a friendly smile as he pulled the shirt down over his torso. I caught a flash of a hickey low on his abs before he covered up.
"Hey, Lark," I returned, trying to keep my smile hidden.A fun night indeed, then.
He grabbed Noelle possessively, pulled her close, and pressed a deep kiss to her mouth. They murmured low, parting words to each other, then he released her with a swat to the ass, flashing me another smile as he passed me on the way out.
"I take it that's going well," I mused after his footsteps hit the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah." Noelle's face was flushed, her green eyes shining. "He's great. Perfect, even. It's all coming true."
"What is?"
Her smile fell again. She wrung her hands as she watched Freyja jump on the bed and began kneading her paws into the mattress.
"Has Reaper told you anything about our brother?"
"A little. He told me about how he died. When he took me to see the place you all grew up, he told me he came back and found you while everyone else was gone because of...some feeling Daren had."
"Daren was different." Noelle chewed her lip, still watching my cat make herself comfortable on her bed. "He knew things before they happened. But it wasn't like a good thing. He got headaches, had seizures. Our parents worried about him a lot."
"Noelle, do you want to sit down?" I wasn't sure what she wanted to tell me, but I got the sense it was heavy and important.
She lowered herself onto the edge of her bed, a few feet away from Freyja, and hugged a pillow to her chest.
"This is going to sound completely fucking nuts, but..." she took a deep breath, "Daren still talks to me. In my dreams."
A beat of silence passed between us.
"You heard the voice yesterday, while Tessa was in labor," I said. "Didn't you?"
She nodded, relief etched in her features. "It was your cat that spoke, or rather, the god that inhabits her." She swallowed. "I've heard Hades and Horus too."
My heart pounded. Finally, someone who understood how downright freaky all of this was. Reaper and Gunner played it off like,no big deal, weird shit happens sometimes.And to some extent, I could get behind that too. But Noelle's confession added a different angle I never thought of before.
"You think this has to do with Daren?" I whispered.
She nodded, reaching for my hand. Her fingers shook in mine. "He talks to me from...wherever he is, because Reaper won't listen to him. He shuts it down every time Daren tries to reach out. Maybe because it's still painful for him, the guilt over how he died. So Daren talks to me, because I let him in."
"What does he tell you?"
A dreamy smile crossed her lips. "That he misses us, but he's happy. He's not in pain anymore, he's let go. He's free of the pain his human body gave him. He's...outside of the boundaries of time now, so he can see the future much more clearly than before."
"Noelle?" I gave a gentle squeeze of her hand, trying to bring her focus back. "What's that got to do with the animals, er, gods?"
"He hasn't said this straight out, but I think when he was alive...fuck, this is nuts. I think they were allinsidehim."
“Inside him?” I repeated.
“Like how they’re inside the cat,” she nodded at Freyja. “The dog, the falcon. Using them as vessels, somewhat. Like, one and the same, but also separate.”
I gaped at her. "All of them? Like how many?"
"I don't know, but I'm almost certain that’s why he was different. He always talked about how his body didn'tfitright. That his head felt too crowded. He would scratch himself bloody in his sleep sometimes. And then when he died—"
