Raven's DarkNess | ✔

Chapter Twenty Four

Enzo kept looking at me while I did nothing but sit there and stare back at him.

The wildness of his hair, the indiscreet glow his eyes fell into. All of them had an effect on me until he sat back and took some visible distance away from the piano. He didn't answer my question and for some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to ask again. A part of me wanted to run away from him, from myself. I wasn't so sure.

"I didn't know that you played so well," was what I said instead as I reached up to rub the side of my arm. The glow in Enzo's gaze died down and he ran his hands through his hair and pushed it back, exhaling in the process. "You're really good,"

Enzo nodded when he clasped his hands into each other. I stared at him awkwardly, not knowing what else to do with myself.

"How did you find my private library?" Enzo asked suddenly as he stood up, straightening out his clothes.

"I was exploring the house and this was a part that I had never been to before then I heard the music and was drawn in. I'm sorry, I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to be in here,"

Enzo's gaze softened. "It's fine. I just don't like people in the room whenever I play,"

I walked towards him. "Why? You're pretty good,"

Enzo didn't respond. Instead, he only smiled and tried to calm down his wild hair. I found myself staring at the grand piano. It was gorgeous. The polished black shone despite the dimness of the room. I wanted to touch it, to play and maybe try to re-create the same masterpiece that Enzo had honoured me with just minutes before. A masterpiece that brought somewhat suppressed memories rushing back to my mind.

I shuddered and clenched my fist.

Leave it in the past, Raven.

"I think that I should leave now," I told him and he came towards me.

"You don't have to go," his voice stops me and I look back at him as he strides towards me elegantly, his hands tucked securely in his pocket. "How are you?"

I look from him to the piano and then back to him not knowing how to answer that. I was fine, in truth until I heard his piece and now I feel defiled all over again. Neil was not a memory I liked to remember. Neil was something that I wanted nothing more than to condemn to the deepest parts of hell for all the shit he put me through. For the way he ruined me. For the way that even after nine years, every part of my skin still crawled when I remembered waking up in that room and realised what had happened to me. What was done to me. How he took advantage of me.

Neil was the reason why sex for the rest of my life after him was ruined for me because in every lover I took to my bed for work or pleasure, I searched for an escape I simply never found. I searched for a touch that won't ignite my trauma against me. I tried so very hard but other than two people, one of them being Mak, I never felt any true release from anyone else in my bed. I hated that.

So no Enzo, I am not fine. And I haven't been fine in years, either. No, let me rephrase. The last time I was fine, I hadn't been born into this world yet. My fate was cursed and even the fact that I have to be here today in front of you with the intention of seducing you was a part of that very unfortunate fate.

"Aoife," Enzo calls out to me, a hand brushing my shoulder as concern clustered around his forehead. He brought me out of my dreadful thoughts of that evil asshole. "Are you okay?"

My gaze met his concerned one. "I'd like to ask you the same, Alpha. Are you okay? Your piece seemed pretty powerful and in all honesty, all that emotion had to have come from somewhere,"