SWNOVELS Phantasma: Chapter 35
The rest of the level was uneventful, a somber silence settling over the room from everyone except Cade—whose rage was still rolling through the air around him. Each of them climbed onto one of the stone pedestals, and when they were all in place, a single door appeared before them.
No one hesitated to exit, and they were promptly deposited back into the dining room where they had begun, albeit with even more paranoia than they had started with. Everyone watched each other with apprehension, but they especially kept an eye on Cade. His true colors were out for everyone to see. Blessedly, Cade didn’t bother to stick around for long, Beau hot on his heels.
“That guy is a bastard,” Charlotte commented, then looked at Luci. “Did he call you his cousin?”
“Our mothers are sisters,” Luci confirmed reluctantly. “We were never close, though. I’m sure you can guess why.”
Ophelia snorted.
“I just feel horrible about Edna.” Luci bit her lip. “Her little brother Michael… this was her only chance to bring him back.”
I’m so sorry, Michael, the girl had sobbed. Ophelia’s chest tightened with empathy. She knew all too well the feeling of being helpless at the death of a family member. She hoped the girl found peace.
Luci turned to Ophelia now. “You… turned invisible.”
“Yeah, I suppose that cat’s out of the bag,” Ophelia muttered.
“I knew your family were Necromancers, but I didn’t realize you could do something like that,” Luci said. “Genevieve never liked when we asked questions about magic and such.”
“Sounds like Genevieve. But in fairness I didn’t even know I was capable of such an ability until a couple of days ago,” Ophelia admitted.
“Well, you did a good thing, you know,” Luci said. “When none of the rest of us did.”
Ophelia shrugged. “The idea of Cade getting something he wanted didn’t sit well with me. And no one deserves to die like that.”
Luci nodded and then without another word, they all trickled out of the room. Ophelia lingered. Partially because she was absolutely ravenous since she missed dinner, and partly because she felt a familiar gaze settle over her and did not have any intention of luring the owner of that gaze back to her room to be cornered in the one place she felt semi-comfortable in this manor.
She plucked a bunch of grapes up from the table, popping one of the sweet green spheres into her mouth as she said, “Hello, Sinclair.”
Sinclair faded into view on the opposite end of the dining table, leaning forward, hands gripped atop one of the chair backs as he watched her eat. “Please, darling, call me Sin.”
She glared at him.
He flicked his eyes over her lazily. “I see you made it out.”
“Of the level? Or your tricks?” She tilted her head, popping another grape between her lips.
“Both,” he allowed. “Can’t blame me for trying, though, can you?”
“Keep that sentiment in mind for the day I try to banish you to the pits of Hell,” she quipped back. “Although, I truly hope you’re tied here for the rest of your miserable eternity.”
His answering grin was vicious. “As long as Blackwell is tied here with me.”
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Just thought it’d be fun to be the one to inform you that if you’re looking for our aforementioned Phantom friend, he ran off with Rayea shortly after you went through the portal. Did he ever tell you they were lovers, for quite some time?”
The jealousy was back in full force. She set down her grapes, appetite gone.
“Ah, I see he didn’t.” Sinclair laughed. “Rayea always claimed he was one of her favorites, in fact. Something about the way he eats her—”
“Stop,” she snarled. “I don’t want to hear this. Leave me alone.”
Sinclair shrugged. “Just thought you should know who you’ve been sharing your bed with and who he’s been sharing his bed with. You have been sharing your bed with him, haven’t you? I saw the two of you in the hallway that night.”
She blushed furiously but didn’t dignify any of that with a response.
“You may think the two of you are close,” Sinclair warned. “But nothing in Phantasma is ever as it truly seems—I’m pretty sure I taught you that lesson well enough already.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she quipped. “You seem like an utter bastard and that’s holding up so far.”
He glowered, opening his mouth to return her biting remark, she was sure, but a telltale whistle began to carry down the hall just outside the room and the Devil disappeared. As predicted, Jasper passed by the entryway moments later, only halting when he spotted her standing there, alone.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Jasper roved his eyes over her, head to toe, as he leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “I heard you nearly missed that last trial after an unfortunate scene in the library.”
“And who did you hear that from?” she asked. “Is there some sort of Devil gossip mill here?”
“Us Devils enjoy following petty mortal folly just as much as your kind does.” He smirked. “But this I heard from the horse’s mouth himself.”
“Blackwell?”
Jasper shook his head. “Sinclair. Blackwell’s… occupied.”
She froze. “Occupied?”
The Devil’s three eyes assessed her closely, scrutinizing her for something she hoped he didn’t find. “Yes.”
He was going to make her ask.
She made her tone as nonchalant as possible. “Occupied with what?”
“It’s not really my business to tell,” Jasper answered. “Which is my favorite kind to tell. He’s with Rayea, I believe. Not unusual.”
Her stomach churned. The jealousy was writhing beneath every inch of her skin now, and she didn’t know what to do about it. This was bad. So, so bad.
Blackwell possibly fucking a Devil somewhere should not elicit this sort of response in her. In fact, it should be a relief. The more time he spent pleasuring someone else, the less time he spent distracting her. Unfortunately, the ache in her chest was not soothed by that logic.
“I have to go,” she muttered.
Stalking back to her room, she wanted nothing more than to climb into a scalding hot bath and scrub away the feeling of betrayal she had no right to claim.
The water in the bathtub was not nearly as hot as she wanted it to be, but it would have to do. She sank into the porcelain tub, submerging herself up to her chin, letting her dark tresses float out around her. For a sweet, blissful moment, her mind was quiet. The only sound was the calming lap of water against her skin.
But the Shadow Voice never missed an opportunity to disrupt her peace.
He’s probably fucking that Devil against a wall somewhere in the manor, the insidious voice cackled. If you knock on the side of the tub three times, maybe you can stop it from happening.
Her fists clenched by her sides. She refused to give in to such a ridiculous compulsion. If Blackwell was fucking someone against a wall right now, why should she stop him? He didn’t belong to her and never would.
Did you see how pretty she was? the Shadow Voice continued. Ebony hair, violet eyes, sinful smile. What do you think her name sounds like on his tongue?
Shut. Up. Go away.
Knock three times and I will, it demanded.
Her hand twitched and she gnashed her teeth together. No. She would not give in.
Knock, it continued to growl. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
She gave in.
Three quick taps of her knuckles against the porcelain and the voice dissipated like smoke, making her rage. She hated that giving into it made it quiet. Worried that one day she’d slip and accidentally give in to something unforgivable it asked of her. She hated that she wasn’t strong enough to shut it out completely. And that she thought a little bit less of herself each time she didn’t.
Now, she submerged herself fully beneath the water, letting her eyes stay open to watch the bubbles drift to the surface above. She stayed like that, hair floating all around her, tickling her skin, until her lungs burned and screamed for oxygen. Just before she pulled herself up, a face appeared above the tub. One with piercing green eyes.
Pulling herself to the surface, she gasped for air, droplets rolling down over her skin and falling from her thick lashes, her hair pasted down her back, heavy from the water. Blackwell was standing beside the tub, arms crossed, shielded expression on his face as he roamed his gaze over her naked form.
“Glad to see you made it out of another trial,” he commented. “Were you planning on letting me know?”
She raised her brows at his audacity. “Letting you know? I didn’t realize that was an obligation of our bargain.”
He didn’t react to the bite in her words. If anything, he looked bored. “The last time I went looking for you somewhere, I found you ensnared in Sinclair’s illusion, dancing around the library, alone, in a complete trance. I don’t think it’s unjustified that I might like you to check in and let me know that you’re still alive after completing a level you didn’t summon me to help with.”
She sighed heavily and gestured down at herself. “You can see I’m alive, can’t you? As for not summoning you—I didn’t need your help. So, I didn’t summon you. See how that works?”
Her tone was dripping in sarcasm, and a flicker of something she couldn’t quite pinpoint went through his gaze. “Are you going to refuse to talk about what happened with Sinclair?”
“I don’t see why that matters,” she said.
“You don’t see why it matters?” he scoffed. “You were lured into one of his tricks because you needed space, and damned near got disqualified because of it.”
“But I didn’t,” she pointed out, shifting forward in the tub to sit up on her knees and sloshing water out over the sides as she moved. “And if you really cared about me getting stuck in Sinclair’s trick, you would have come one of the three times I tried to summon you!”
Her voice cracked at that last bit, and his expression finally broke, morphing from apathetic to pained.
“Where were you?” she demanded. “Where were you?”
“I couldn’t hear your summons through Sinclair’s magic,” he told her, head shaking with regret. “He’s… he’s much more powerful than I am.”
“We’re supposed to have a bond,” she sniffled. “That’s the deal. I call, you come.”
He kneeled down before her and grabbed her face in his hands, eyes piercing into hers with sincerity. “I need you to know if I had heard you, there would have been nothing that could’ve stopped me from getting to you. Hell, nothing did stop me from getting to you. I went looking for you because I got the strangest feeling that something was wrong. I had every intention of respecting your request for space until then.”
“I was scared,” she whispered. “When I realized he trapped me. I called and called for you, and you didn’t show up and…”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry, angel.”
The truth of his words was palpable in the air around them.
She swallowed. “Where did you come from? Just now, I mean.”
She knew she shouldn’t have asked, but here she was—naked, vulnerable, and on the verge of asking him to hold her closer—unable to get one little thing off her mind.
He pulled back, searching her face for the underlying motive behind the question. “Why?”
She sat back once again, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them to hide herself—a move that definitely did not escape his notice. “Sin said you were with the Devil from level five. I forgot her name,” she lied.
“Sin?” he practically snarled. “Have we not learned our lesson about listening to Sin yet?”
“Jasper confirmed it as well.”
Blackwell rolled his eyes to the ceiling, muttering something that sounded like nosy bastard under his breath, before fixing her with a pointed look. “Rayea only said those things in front of you because she knew she could get a rise out of you. Teasing mortals delights her—don’t give her the satisfaction.”
“So you were with her.”
When the slow smirk began to curl up at the corners of his mouth, she knew she’d made a mistake. “Jealousy is a sexy color on you. Almost as sexy as blood.”
I’m not jealous, she wanted to scream, but it was too late. She had already given herself away. Instead, she said, “Please go away. I need to finish bathing.”
“With what soap?” He glanced around. “And what washcloth?”
Her face heated with frustration. Of course he couldn’t just spare her some dignity.
“Don’t worry, I got it.” He winked as he snapped his fingers and a small glass vial of liquid soap appeared in his hand, along with a washcloth. He kneeled forward on the ground and reached over the lip of the tub to dampen the cloth before pouring some of the soap into the middle of it and lathering it up. “Give me your back.”
For a moment she didn’t move, wanting to protest that she did not need to be bathed as if she were a child. But when he waved an impatient hand at her to turn, she sighed and caved in. She curled her torso forward and rested her chin atop her knees while he gathered her hair and twisted it out of his way over her left shoulder. He began rubbing the washcloth over her bare shoulders and down her spine, sending a shiver through her at the intimacy of the moment. The sweet floral smell of magnolias hit her, and she recalled the walks into town with her mother, the scent of the trees drifting alongside them. As he continued his ministrations, her body relaxed, the emotional exhaustion of the day finally sinking into her bones.
“Rayea owed me a favor, and I called it in to pay Jasper back for lending us the contestant logs,” he began.
She began to pick at her nails as she said, “I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Rayea and I haven’t had an intimate relationship in a very long time,” he pressed on as if she hadn’t spoken. “And even when we did, it was purely physical.”
She twisted around to give him a hard look. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to talk about. I don’t need the details of your past debaucheries, thanks.”
He shrugged. “There aren’t many details for me to give anyway. It was all very forgettable; I can hardly remember anything other than being distracted from the consuming loneliness of living eternally without a single person who knows me. Because of my limited recollection, I barely know myself.”
The sadness in his tone made her heart bleed. She faced him fully now, and he brought the washcloth to the side of her neck, running it down to her shoulder, across her clavicle, then lower, between her breasts.
“But you…” he told her as he brushed the rag beneath the swells of her chest and over her smooth stomach. “You are apparently anything but forgettable.”
“You forgot the first time we met,” she reminded him.
“Did I?” he murmur. “Because I felt you the moment you stepped into Phantasma. It was an undeniable, magnetic pull that led me to finding you that first day. Yanking on that door, making conversation with a cat, dressed in blood.” A soft smile began to curl at the corners of his lips at the memory. “I wanted to offer you my bargain then and there, but I knew I had to be patient. So, I made myself leave you, determined to give you space for the rest of the night—and then you found me. Because it seems that’s what we do. We find each other.”
The corners of her eyes began to prick at his sweet words. “You only felt my presence that first day because you recognized the essence of my father. Not me.”
“No, that’s just what I let you believe,” he told her, determined. “I didn’t want to scare you further with the intensity of it all in such a vulnerable moment. The familiarity of your bloodline helped with the part of connecting you to your father, yes. But it’s you I am drawn to, Ophelia. You claim that I told you to stay away from here the very first time we met. Then you were erased from my memories and yet…” he shook his head with slight disbelief, “… yet we still found our way back to each other. Because even with my memory gone, you marked me somehow.”
“You don’t have to sugarcoat anything,” she whispered. “I know whatever it is we’re doing has an expiration date.”
His hand stilled for a beat, his jaw clenching at her words.
“I saw you save that girl,” he told her, meeting her eyes. “When you didn’t summon me, I became worried and went to the Other Side to watch the trial play out. You saved that girl when not a single other soul would. You joined this competition knowing it would cause you harm not because you want money or fame or a stupid fucking prize, but for your sister. There are times that you’re afraid of yourself, but you’ll look a Devil right in the eye and insult them. You have learned so much about your magic in just a few days than people do in months, even years. You… you figured out that imposter in level two wasn’t me and you had barely known me for three days. I can’t think of any other person who knows a single thing about me. I am honored that I have gotten to spend this time with you. I only wish we had more.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “I killed someone.”
“I know,” he told her as his eyes tracked the tear over her skin and into the tub.
“The voice in my head has told me to do worse,” she confided. “It’s always telling me to harm someone no matter how much I beg it to stop.”
He tilted his head. “And do you?”
“No,” she whispered. “But it makes it easy to think anything good about myself is simply neutralizing all the darkness in my head. I’ve done nothing extraordinary—all of my energy goes toward trying to atone for the negative energy I put into the world every time the voice awakens.”
He huffed a laugh. “That’s not how things work, angel. Life is not measured in good or bad thoughts—it’s how you treat the world around you despite them. All the people who only do good deeds because of what that might gain them in the afterlife are no better than those who indulge in a little sin every once in a while.”
“Eric died because of me,” she reminded him.
“He was trying to kill you,” he deadpanned. “That is what I call neutralizing.”
He continued lathering every inch of her skin until it was covered in suds. Cupping his hand into the water, he scooped it over her pebbled flesh to rinse away the soap.
“Blackwell?”
“Yes?” he murmured.
“Part of me wants to ask you more about my father. But another part of me doesn’t want to know what it’s missing if I never get to meet him. I’ve never really thought about him this much before. My mother and sister were always enough,” she told him.
Something in his eyes dulled a bit at her words. “Not asking is probably for the best, then.”
She nodded. Then, “I’m sorry that I fell for Sinclair’s tricks so easily. And for… getting jealous. I know I don’t have a right to be, especially after I said we needed space. I don’t own you.”
His expression heated, and he stood, offering a hand to her to help her out of the tub. She took it.
“Is space still what you want?” he asked, roving his eyes from her crown to her toes as she dripped water onto the floor before him.
A shaky breath. “I shouldn’t have a choice at this point.”
“But since you do?” he implored.
“No. I don’t want space,” she breathed. “I want anything but space.”
Their collision was earth-shattering.