Ridley felt her anger flaring. “It’s none of your business.”
Nox was just as angry. “Was it a cage?”
Now she was furious. “What?”
He forced out the words, awkwardly, one at a time. “Love. Did it—does it—feel like a cage, too?”
She didn’t answer. Slowly, he pulled his hand away, pushing to his feet. He stood at the long wall of windows, staring out at the city.
“Did my mother ever feel anything else but trapped? For my father or my family?”
Ridley stood next to him. “For you?” she asked, softly.
Now Nox was silent.
Ridley took a breath. “He loved me. Link. I mean, that’s what he said. It’s so—it was strange.” It felt even stranger to try to put it into words, especially now. Especially to Nox Gates.
Did it feel like a cage? Is that why I ran? Is that what love is?
“No,” she said suddenly. “It’s not a cage, Nox.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Love is an open door.”
She reached around him until her arms encircled his chest and as much of his tall, broad shoulders as she could. He laid his head against her arms.
He didn’t speak for a long moment, and when he did, his voice was muffled.
“Ridley Duchannes, what could have possibly convinced you that you weren’t worth loving?” She could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
Curbs and cages. This is our world.
She didn’t begrudge it. She understood it.
It, and him.
Ridley shook her head. “Love, Nox, is awful. It’s painful and humiliating and it involves songs—horrible, sappy songs—about hearts breaking and tears falling and following people into dark places.”
“Sounds pretty bad,” Nox said. She couldn’t tell if he was smiling as he said it. There was too much darkness in the room between them.
It’s safer that way.
“It’s like a disease, Nox. A Mortal disease. A complete loss of spine. The emotional equivalent of projectile vomiting. And way too much acoustic guitar.”
He laughed, raising his head. “You’re killing the mood, Little Siren.”
“Exactly. But when you’re in love, you’re not in control of what you think or say or do. And there is nothing I love more than control, and nothing I love less than not having it. So you tell me—what is a person like me supposed to do with a feeling like that?” She felt her own eyes beginning to burn.
He sighed. “So you were lying. About the cage.”
It was true, and it would always be the problem. Love was the opposite of power, and Ridley couldn’t stand to not have both.
She pulled her arms away from Nox, staring out into the night. The city was so huge and so far beneath her, she felt like she was flying. She wished she could. She’d fly away and this would all be behind her.
Nox followed her. Ridley felt him move closer to her, taking her hand in the darkness. He held it to his lips.
She pulled it away. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?”
“I didn’t have to listen. I could’ve given that speech myself.”
Yeah, right, she thought. But she didn’t contradict him. Instead, she looked up at him. “I hate it. Feeling so weak.”
“And being so wrong.”
“What?”
“Little Siren. Did it ever occur to you that loving someone powerful only makes you more powerful?”
She shook her head. “No. Love is love.”
He pushed a curl behind her ear. “It’s not.” He tilted her face toward him, pressing his thumb against her chin. “It’s so not.”
His eyes were locked on hers, even in the darkness.
Dark eyes, Dark Caster, dark night. Not the safest of combinations, she thought. But she couldn’t help it, any more than she could help herself.
There was something that connected her to Lennox Gates.
Something powerful.
They stood together, looking out at the city, almost face to face. The lights sparkled in the distance, oblivious. He slid one hand down her bare arm. In that moment, she knew that she wanted him to kiss her more than anything.
Kiss me, she thought. I want you to kiss me again.
It was the feeling from the club, and it had returned full force. She felt dizzy and hot, and her lips began to burn, just as they had when he last touched them.
For our first real kiss.
It felt right. It felt like destiny.
And it felt strangely familiar.
Why?
“Nox.” Her voice faltered. “Have we done this before?”
What is it about wanting Lennox Gates that makes me feel like I’ve wanted this all before?
Something about him.
His face. I know his face.
But then Ridley’s eyes fixed again on the photograph hanging on the wall. On a different face. She could just see it over Nox’s shoulder.
The Siren family. The sister. The mother. Nox.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before.
She hadn’t been looking for it.
She hadn’t known.
The dark-eyed man.
“I can’t—” she began.
“Don’t think about the hybrid. Leave him behind,” he whispered in her ear. “Before it’s too late.”
Ridley wasn’t listening.
I know that man.
In the photograph.
She took a deep breath.
Then she couldn’t breathe at all, because she knew who the man in the picture was. It cut through her like a sharper blade than Necro’s knife.
The man in Nox’s family photo—right there, with Nox’s mother and his baby sister—was a younger Abraham Ravenwood.
Abraham Ravenwood.
Dead by Link’s hand, with my help.
Abraham Ravenwood is part of Nox’s family.
Abraham Ravenwood is Nox’s
Is Nox’s
Nox’s
She pushed away from No
x, moving directly in front of the framed photograph on the wall. “It’s him.”
Nox looked pained.
Ridley was stunned. “But Abraham only had John. John would have known you.”
“Abraham wasn’t my father. He could never be my father.”
“And you know that because?”
“He’s the one who kept my mother in a cage. He’s the reason my father ended his life. Abraham Ravenwood destroyed my family, and now he’s going to destroy yours.”
Ridley wanted to rip the photograph from the wall. “I don’t believe you. I don’t know what I believe.”
Nox grabbed her hand again. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late.”
It sounded more like an order than a request, and Ridley didn’t respond well to orders.
“Too late? Is that a threat?” She took a step back.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” He moved closer. “I only want you to get away from the hybrid before something happens to you. To both of you.” Now Nox sounded as cold as she did.
“What are you talking about, Nox?” She took another step back. “Link? Delivering a hybrid Incubus to your associates? Are we back on those threats again?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is with you.”
“I can’t explain it, but you have to trust me. Please. I can protect you. He can’t.” Nox extended his hand, but she didn’t take it.
“Actually, I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re the last person I should trust.”
“You’re wrong.”
Ridley turned away. “Exactly. What’s wrong with me? I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“You’re a Siren. You’re doing what you do best,” Nox said bitterly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ridley didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“First you will meet the Sirens, who cast a spell on every man who comes their way.” Nox was quoting Homer, his voice unmistakably dark.
He’s starting to sound like a raving lunatic, actually.
“Stop it, Nox.”
“Whoso draws near unwarned and hears the Sirens’ voices, by him no wife nor little child shall ever stand, glad at his coming home.”
“I don’t do that to people.”
“For the Sirens cast a penetrating song, sitting within a meadow. Nearby is a great heap of rotting human bones; fragments of skin are shriveling on them.”