Page 177 of Lost in the Dark

“You are safe,” he whispers. “All is well, female.”

“Naomi,” I choke around a half-giggled sob, reminding him as I clutch him tighter. “Thank the gods you’re here, Gralius.” I shiver against him, barely able to process his body against mine. “What the fuck was that?” I ask as I press my face firmly against his chest.

His arms tighten around me in an offer of comfort that I readily accept.

“Destabilization,” he gravely replies. “It is beginning to bleed into your reality at a progressive rate. We ought to leave this place. It will only get worse.”

I frown and pull back from his embrace. “Wait, leave? This is my home. I can’t just up and leave. Not even taking into account how expensive that is and the fact that I live on little more than a shoestring budget, whatever is going on has to be fixable. I’ve lived here for years with nothing happening. A good purification may just be in order,” I insist as I drag in a calming breath and shake my head. “Leaving is out of the question. I will figure out something.”

His chest expands with a deep sigh, but I don’t know what he expects from me. I can’t accomplish the impossible. Theoretically, packing up and trying to run from whatever freaky shit is going on here sounds great. On the other hand, I have nowhere to go. As I don’t think that this is a topic an entity such as Gralius can understand, I drop it. Hopefully, refreshing my wards and some heavy-duty purification will resolve the issue now that it’s migrating out of my nightmares. I don’t need to be drawn into visions guaranteed to freak my ass out. I just need to pull myself together.

Tipping my head back to peer up at him, I bite back a surprised gasp as I get my first good look at his face. The hood that usually covers his face had been knocked back, revealing the full view of his alabaster paleness, his silver eyes almost like living cold flames set within a black sclera. Half of his face is marred with wicked scars that form a skeletal pattern that I am sure someone out there would envy. His black horns, however, are shiny under the hall light like polished obsidian, though they almost seem to disappear against his long mane of coal dark hair that gets lost amid his hood and inky wings. He is such a study of contrasts that I could easily picture him set against a gothic cathedral backdrop.

His brow furrows and his lips pull back in a faint grimace, revealing disturbingly sharp teeth. Darting a worried look in my direction, he reaches back, hunting for his hood.

I know it’s not my place, but I act before I can think better of it, my fingers curling against the shockingly thick muscle of his bicep hidden beneath his robe.

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t need to do that,” I rush to reassure him.

The look he gives me is incredulous. “This visage is not fit for your eyes,” he insists in a hard voice.

My eyebrows fly up, and my eyes run over his face slowly, taking him in. I purse my lips and shake my head. “I don’t see why that would be. It’s kinda badass, actually. There is probably someone out there would throw a large chunk of change at an artist to get scarring so artistically done.”

A memory of pain makes a fleeting appearance in his eyes that instantly makes me feel guilty. Me and my big fucking mouth. It never fails. I start having a moment with a guy and it goes straight to open mouth, insert foot.

“Sorry,” I begin. “I didn’t mean—”

“No,” he rasps, the word sliding slowly of his tongue, interrupting me. “Do not apologize. This ‘badass’ quality must be a good thing if you consider it artistry rather than something frightful. This,” he gestures to his face, “is contrary to how my kind wishes to be perceived when we endeavor to appear as pleasant as possible. Even so, I could bear the scars better if they were the result of an artist’s hand rather than the consequence of my own foolishness. To suffer for art is far nobler than suffering for one’s mistakes.”

“Do they still hurt?” I ask softly.

His gaze burns into me. “Always. It has lessened enough that I can bear it these days without difficulty, but it is always there.”

I wince, unable to imagine the pain he went through for them to have been cut that deeply. “That is an awfully steep price to pay for being foolish. What did you do?”

A look of self-loathing crosses his features. “I attempted to steal the mate of another male. I was too proud to let her go, jealous for what he had and I did not.”

“And what was that?” I ask, puzzled.

He drops his eyes and withdraws completely from my grasp until there is a small gulf between us. “He had her love. I only had her fear,” he rumbles, and immediately my over-sentimental heart hurts for him.

“Seems like an awfully big price to pay for wanting love,” I murmur.

His silver gaze is unfathomable as he peers at me. “I terrorized her. I hunted her,” he bit out. “And when I saw that she would not relinquish her love for him, I sought to kill him.”

I blink at him, at a loss for words. “Wow, thatispretty extreme.”

He huffs a dry sound of amusement. “Demons tend to run hot in our emotions. Fortunately, most are wise enough to curb juvenile jealousy. I was not. I never knew that it could be that way, and I obsessed over having it. I was cruel and did things that were counter to the ways of my kind in a desperate need to acquire my obsession. It was unbecoming of me to inflict such pain and because of that I spent some time being torn apart and consumed bit by bit by the chimera, given only the smallest of reprieves so that I might regenerate enough to suffer again, until I escaped it.”

I wince. “Sounds like maybe you’ve paid enough. It may be a good time to stop beating yourself up about it. Everyone does stupid shit for love, though being a creepy stalker is probably the worst idea you could have,” I admit. “But not irredeemable,” I hasten to add when his expression shutters to conceal his obvious misery. “You paid for your mistake quite literally with a pound of flesh. Don’t you think you have suffered enough?”

He tips his head as he regards me, and there’s something almost tragically beautiful about him if one stripped everything soft and human away. The sharp angles of his face have a haunted quality, and the black sclera and grayish eyelids make it appear like he has dark eye sockets in place of eyes with cold flames dancing within their depths. He appears almost wraithlike in his intensity, and I can’t decide if that is what I find most appealing about him. Even the scarring gives him an otherworldly look that fascinates me despite its morbidity.

“I was not released from my punishment,” he growls at last, his dark brows slashing down angrily. “I was not pardoned. Can I truly deem my suffering enough of a payment?”

I shrug. I know nothing of chimeras or demonic punishments. “It seems to me that it did a good enough job keeping you that you shouldn’t have been able to escape, especially not weakened as you must have been—unless it allowed you to.”

He stares at me for a long moment as he considers my words. Suddenly his brows fly up and he regards me with a widened gaze. “That… that is something I will need to give some thought to,” he admits slowly.

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