She reached for him in the darkness, found his face, and captured his jaw. “Don’t. I liked it.”
He stilled and stared down at her, shocked and even more the hell confused. “I left marks. Like he did.”
“Yes, but the difference is I enjoyed it.”
He cringed and looked away.
“I never did with him.” She turned his face back to hers. “Not once. And you gave me a choice. I felt it when you freed me. He never did that. You’re not like him, Nick. Not at all.”
He studied her eyes in the silence. Again searched for lies. And found…only truth. Or at least a truth she foolishly wanted to believe.
His eyelids fell closed. He didn’t know what he was. All he knew was that he was tired of trying to figure it out. Tired of everything. Tired of hatred and misery and most of all, tired of the never-ending struggle.
Her fingers grazed his cheek. “Let me help you.”
He didn’t think anyone could. And that scared him more than anything. Because for the first time in forever, he felt like she might have been the one to do just that.
If the fucking Fates had just for once been on his side.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“It has to be here.” Seated at a table in the great library in the heart of the castle, Callia flipped a book closed and reached for another from the mountain of ancient texts she’d pulled from the stacks. “There has to be some documentation somewhere.”
Demetrius felt the female’s frustration as strongly as if he were seated next to her. And he was living it too. He was going nuts each day watching Isadora grow weaker and more tired for no apparent reason. Every time he tried to talk to her about it, she brushed him off with excuses about the Misos and the Council and Elysia. She might not want to face reality, but he knew in his heart something was wrong. Something Callia couldn’t find medically but which was draining her of her very life force.
He tried not to dwell on the fact she was shutting him out. Tried not to think about what he’d do if he lost her. He wasn’t losing her. She was the reason his heart beat. And he was determined to find a solution. Even if it meant hour after hour sitting in this dusty library, reading every damn word that had ever been written.
From the corner of his eye, he watched Zander close the book he was searching, move to stand behind Callia, and gently massage his mate’s shoulders.
“We’ll find it,” he said to her. “Don’t worry.”
“I can’t help but worry.” Callia flicked pages faster. “You saw her this morning. I think she lost another five pounds overnight.”
“Thea,” Zander said softly. “Careful.”
Callia’s auburn head came up, and she slanted a look Demetrius’s way, then cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. She’s—”
“You’re right.” Demetrius closed the book he’d finished and pushed to his feet. His hands were shaking, his stomach a tight knot, and he felt that pull to close himself off from everything and everyone, but he wasn’t giving in to it. Isadora needed him, and he wasn’t regressing back into old habits. “She’s not sleeping and barely has an appetite anymore. Whatever’s affecting her is drawing a physical reaction, even if you can’t find it.”
Callia sighed and looked back at the book in front of her. “Okay, let’s run through what we know.”
Demetrius moved closer and leaned against a table while Callia whipped out a notepad and started jotting notes in furious scribbles.
“She was fine a month ago.”
Demetrius thought back. “I don’t know. Physically, I started noticing her lack of appetite about a month ago, but the restlessness, the sleepless nights… Those have been going on for a couple of months at least.”
“She chalked it up to the strains of being a new mother, which it could have been,” Callia noted, “but looking back now—”
“It was probably linked to whatever this is,” Demetrius finished for her.
“Yeah,” Callia said. “That’s what I’m thinking too.”
“So what changed over the last few months?” Zander asked.
“Well, she had a baby,” Callia said.
“People have babies all the time,” Zander pointed out. “And they continue to every day.”
Callia squeezed his hand at her shoulder, and Demetrius saw the look of worry that passed over her features. Worry for her own unborn child. She nodded. “Yes. True.”
“The Misos came to Argolea,” Demetrius said. “They were living in the castle until just recently.”
“Yes.” Callia jotted another note. “It’s possible one might have passed a virus to her or that she might have come in contact with some kind of bacteria. But if that were the case, I would have seen it in my scans.”
Silence stretched in the library. After several long seconds, Zander said, “Hades’s contract on her soul was broken.”