Page 126 of Hellbound

Marian held the ends of her towel together with one hand while the other pushed some of the hair he’d toweled dry out of her face.

How bizarre that a creature so cruel could be so tender.

Open your fucking eyes.

She’d kept him at arm’s length all these months. She’d erected a wall—one he pelted with jabs and needling questions. And what did he do when she lost a battle of wills with him and dislodged yet another brick from her defenses?

He’d taken care of her. As much as she’d let him.

He had an ulterior motive. He lied to you.

But he’d won that game. She was right where he wanted her, even if she’d done a piss poor job following orders. Still, there was no reason for him to be here, holding her through her terror. Stroking her back. Assuring her she was safe. For so long, she’d weathered this storm alone.

Vale’s eyes catch her before the tide takes her away. His gaze grounds her. “Eyes on me, Meyer.”

“Breathe for me.”

“Your life is worth more than this.”

Marian’s heart thumped in her chest as a knot of emotion formed inside her, each thread so taut, she couldn’t disentangle one from the other. Vale met her gaze, striking her with the same uncanny feeling she struggled to name every time they were together.

Like she’d known him for far longer than she should have. Like there was something else in the room with them, and Marian was the only one who couldn’t see it.

The inclination to reach for him—to trust him—when she had no reason to grant him that faith.

The question drifted up from within her languidly. She already knew the answer. It should have enraged her. It made such terrible sense. It filled in the gaps and brought with it the odd calm that so often came with the acceptance of a grim certainty that manifested the moment Paul unwittingly dropped the final piece of the puzzle in her lap.

“I knew once, didn’t I? About what Hell really was.”

A rigid silence sealed the room. Standing against the wall, enveloped by smoke and shadow, Vale was little more than a pair of monstrous eyes lost in a plume of night. A broken, stray god lurking in the corner of her room like a ghost.

“Yes.”

Her heart seized weakly.

“I knew what you were and what you were doing here.”

Silence. Then a low rumble. “Yes, as well as the Remnant. And what you endured when it subsumed you.”

Another sharp tug at her heart.

“I knew the truth,” she said softly. “But you took it away.”

More silence as Marian stared into his darkness.

“Paul said you can erase human memories.”

“I remove them, but I don’t erase them. Yours were not memories I wanted to take.”

“So then why did you?”

His eyes extinguished. Had he closed them?

“Because you begged me to,” he replied so quietly and with such conflict in his voice that it made her heart ache.

It was Marian’s turn to stew in the quiet. The floorboards creaked as the pillar of smoke stepped forward, his eyes lit once more.

“My power here is not what it was in my world. I tried to take away the pain of knowing. Too much and not enough. The Remnant held you for so long”