A Storm of Flames and Deceit

33. Painless

Nephele

I'm catching up on reports in the study when Eris arrives back home, an ember of dying rage as he pours himself a drink, taking a massive sip before he sits in the chair across from me, his fiery gaze burning out the window. Guilt twists in my gut.

I should've known.

He wouldn't have even gone to see Helion today if it weren't for my insistence, and I should've known that he wasn't ready for that sort of thing yet. I love Eris, but he isn't friendly. He isn't good with bonding. I shouldn't have pushed him to do this so soon.

Standing, I slowly cross the room, slipping into his lap as he pulls his arm numbly around me, holding me closer. Gently tipping my head against his brow, he kisses my hair, as if exhausted. "I fucked up," he mutters.

I down at at him as he gazes out the window, his amber gaze cold and disappointed. Ashamed. "What happened?" I lay a calm hand on his thigh, rubbing it soothingly.

He shuts his eyes, sighing out. "He was trying," Eris says vaguely. "He was trying, and I behaved like my fucking father."

"Eris..."

"I've been a liar my whole damn life," he laughs hollowly, glancing up at me. "And, for whatever reason, I couldn't pretend that everything was okay for one afternoon. I made it all about me."

A frown crosses my face before I banish it. "Helion is a grown man," I remind him. "I'm sure he'll find a way to forgive you no matter how bad you think you might've yelled at him."

He takes a deep sip of his drink, shutting his eyes as the alcohol resonates in his system. "I had a father, you know?" He laughs hollowly. "Even if I wished that he never existed... even if I killed him myself, I had a father."

He sets his empty glass down on the ground beside him, raking his fingers through his hair. "And now that he's dead, that doesn't mean there's a vacancy. That doesn't mean that I ever needed a father, and it certainly doesn't mean that I want one now," he explains. "Even if Helion is good and right and the father I always should've had. He's Lucien's father, not mine."

I take his hand, shutting my eyes. The bitterness in his voice... it could match how I feel about my own father. The despair of losing something you never had, even though my father is still, unfortunately, alive. "Do you think some part of you still misses your father?" I ask him cautiously, reminding him that it's okay to miss someone who was cruel to you. It's okay to miss someone who you're better off without.

He looks unsettled by that question, as if hadn't considered such a thing until I spoke it. "When I was little, I used to think that my mom was supposed to be black and blue," he says quietly. "That it was normal for her tell me bedtime stories with blood dripping from her nose."

I squeeze his hand, trying not to feel sick as he looks out beyond at the land. "That's before he beat me for the first time, and I realized where blood and bruises really come from," he laughs incredulously. "But some sort of sick happiness washed over me that day because as my mother sobbed, taking me to the healer, I noticed that she, for the first time since I could remember, was unmarred by bruises and cuts."

Sometimes I could forget how protective Eris is. It's a default, a stimulus response to the hostility he was raised in. That's why he is obsessed with making sure I'm okay all the time, always throwing himself over the sword for me.

"I couldn't have been more than six when I started purposely invoking father's wrath, making sure it was me he choked, he cut, he whipped, he beat," he explains, shaking his head. "And I guess some part of me start associating pain with success."