Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76370 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76370 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“None of us like it.” Sara crosses their arms over their chest. “Maybe you should call your sister.”
Something I’ve been avoiding ever since I heard the news. What is there to say? To coldly detail how she’s failed, how disappointed our mother would be? Even after all these years, there’s no way Aisling hasn’t shared the same recriminations for herself. No matter what else is true, she’s a good leader. Most of the time. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Yes, maybe.” Sara’s tone says they know I won’t do it.
I glance at the clock. It’s late—or early, depending on how one looks at it. Avoiding going back up to my penthouse any longer is a delay reeking of cowardice. I chose this. I am the one in charge. Fleeing the space because Aurora occupies it is unacceptable.
Tomorrow. Things will be clearer tomorrow.
I glance at Sara. “Get some rest tonight.”
“Only if you do.”
That draws forth a small smile. “Consider it a bargain.”
We walk back to the elevator, and Sara clears their throat. “This might be out of line.”
“When has that stopped you?”
“A valid point.” They grin. “Stop thinking so much and playing out scenarios with that girl. You want her. You already effectively have her for the next two weeks. Take her and work out some of this stress.”
Deceptively simple advice. Easy to agree to. More difficult to pull off. “I’ll consider it.”
“Sure you will.”
I step into the elevator. “Sleep.”
“I will.” Sara turns and walks back down the hall as the elevator doors close.
I’m in danger of becoming a nag in order to avoid my own thoughts. How unforgivable. Sara and I have the history to let it slide, but I don’t have that same history with everyone I interact with. I have to lock it down, to push these uncomfortable thoughts away. It’s never been an issue controlling that before, but now they bubble up inside me.
It’s not even a choice to pause outside the door of the guest room. My body has taken over, even as my mind details the ways this is ridiculous. I can’t seem to help myself. My hand falls to the doorknob, and I turn it, silently stepping into the room.
Aurora sleeps the way I imagine a child sleeps. All tangled sheets and trusting abandon. She must have gotten out of bed when I left, because her hair is covered by a silk wrap in a pretty floral print. She’s only half beneath the covers, one long leg exposed, leading my gaze up to where her nightshirt has rucked up around her hips. It’s just an extra few inches of skin, but it feels like seeing her like this is sharing a secret with me.
A secret I most assuredly do not deserve.
I back out of the room as silently as I entered and shut the door behind me. What am I doing? Topping her, dominating her, fucking her. All those are reasonable courses of action. Standing over her bed and watching her sleep? Wanting to touch her, to stroke my fingers over her skin simply because? Unacceptable.
I stride back to my bedroom. This is ridiculous. Tomorrow, things will make more sense. I simply need some sleep to get my perspective back.
Yes, tomorrow will be better.
8
Aurora
I sleep late. Or maybe it’s not late at all. Working in the Underworld for so many years has turned me into a nocturnal creature. I’m rarely up before noon most days. It takes me several long seconds before I remember where I am and why I’m here. Malone’s.
Two weeks of kink. Revenge. Murder.
Damn it, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I fully intended to wait for her go to bed and then take a look around the penthouse to see what I could find. I stare at the ceiling, and I can almost hear Allecto’s voice in my head. You call that a plan?
“It’s better than nothing.” I feel so unmoored. It’s not just that I have nothing to do until this afternoon. For so long, the possibility of my mother someday waking up was what kept me going each day. But as the years ticked into decades, that hope became more fairy tale than reality. The truth is that the doctors were right when, three years in, they told us there was no possibility of her waking up.
I didn’t take that answer as truth then.
Now, lying in the guest bedroom of my enemy, I can’t help wondering where I’d be if I’d just…let her go. If I’d grieved her back then, at thirteen, instead of making the trek to the Underworld and throwing myself at Hades’s mercy. If I’d allowed myself to admit that she might be my mother, but she was barely more than a stranger to me, and the fantasy future I’d painted in my head was exactly that—fantasy. Would I have moved away from Carver City after high school? Maybe met a nice person and fallen in love? Had a couple kids and a white picket fence?