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Or why he would be in these chambers.
“Okay,” I whispered hoarsely, glancing around and seeing only Bele lingering by the couch, swathed in the gray of the guard. “Thirsty.”
“Bele,” Rhain called out. “Will you do me a favor and get us some water and juice, please?”
“Do I look like I want to do you a favor?” Bele countered.
The answer would be no.
Rhain shot a sharp glare at her over his shoulder. She sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. “Whatever,” she muttered. “I’ll be happy to.”
The god’s lips twitched as he watched her stomp toward the doors. “Thank you.”
Bele flipped him off.
Rhain’s soft laugh faded as his attention returned to me. “Do you have a headache? Any jaw pain?”
“No.” Trepidation mounted, joining the rising confusion. “Should I?”
“Not sure.” He shrugged, and none of that was exactly reassuring. “You want to try to sit up and see what happens?”
“I don’t know.” I stared at him, even more confused. “Do I?”
A grin appeared, one I hadn’t seen since he’d learned of my betrayal. It quickly faded. “Let’s try it.”
I had a lot of questions, starting with what had exactly happened to me under the palace and ending with the one I didn’t want to ask. Where was Nyktos? But I didn’t want to know where he was. Planting my hands on the soft mattress, I pushed up.
“Slowly.” Rhain leaned forward to help, his hand brushing my arm—my bare arm. A flicker of energy buzzed from my skin to his, drawing a hiss from him as he jerked back.
“Sorry,” I gasped. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” He blinked rapidly. “Just wasn’t expecting the charge of energy to be that strong.”
It was similar to what I felt when my skin came into contact with…with Nyktos’s, but this hadn’t felt that strong to me. The blanket slipped as I sat up, falling to my waist and revealing that I was completely nude. I hastily yanked the soft fur to my chin as my eyes flew to Rhain’s. “Why am I naked? And please tell me it wasn’t you who undressed me.”
Rhain smirked. “Don’t worry. I’m not even remotely interested in what you just flashed me. Now, if you were Saion or Ector, I would’ve been all into the peepshow.”
“I didn’t flash you,” I grumbled, clenching the blanket. “On purpose.”
He watched me lean against the tufted headboard. “By the way, it was either Aios or Bele who did that. You were coated in dust and dirt, and Nyktos didn’t want you to wake up covered in filth.”
My heart gave a too-sharp twist. “How thoughtful of him.”
Rhain’s head cocked once more, his eyes narrowing.
I glanced at the doors again, then to the one leading to the bathing chamber. Both were closed. I refocused on Rhain. “What in the hell happened?”
“I was hoping you could answer that for me.”
“I just woke up, so how am I supposed to know?”
“I was talking about what came before you lost your shit and nearly collapsed the entire palace,” he replied, and I tensed. “Never seen anything like that—not even from a Primal in their Culling.” His chin lifted slightly. “You’re powerful, Sera.”
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Not sure if it’s a compliment,” he replied. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
It took a couple of moments to put the panicked, disjointed memories into order. “I…I shattered a table, and the whole palace was shaking. There were these roots coming out of the ground.” I shook my head. “Then…Nyktos was there. So were you. I was…”
“Losing your shit?”
I arched a brow. “That’s one way of putting it,” I muttered. “I didn’t mean to lose control and do whatever I was doing. It just happened, and I…” My face warmed further. “I panicked.” There was more, faded memories of Rhain telling Nyktos something. “That’s the last thing I remember.”
Bele swept back into the chamber then, carrying a glass in one hand and a pitcher in the other. The daggers strapped to her hips and thighs glittered darkly under the nearby sconces as she came closer.
“I feel like I missed something,” I said, eyeing the cup Bele held, wanting to snatch it from her hands.
Bele snorted.
Rhain sent her another disgruntled look I wasn’t sure she even noticed—or cared about if she did. He took the cup from her and handed it to me, careful not to let his hands contact mine.
Which made me even more concerned. But Rhain’s behavior left me all the more u
Bele let out a loud laugh as Rhain leaned back a good foot. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“You don’t like me. We both know that,” I pointed out, watching the slopes of Rhain’s cheeks turn pink. “But you’re here, and you’re being sort of nice. So, did I almost die or something?”
“Well.” Bele drew out the word.
My unease grew as I lifted the cup to my parched lips. The first swallow of water was bliss. I drank greedily, my eyes closing as I gulped down the cool liquid.
“Slow it down,” Rhain advised softly. “It’s been a while since you ate, and I don’t want you to get sick from drinking too fast.”
A while since I ate? I’d had a rather large breakfast, and that couldn’t have been that long ago. I glanced between the two. Unless it had been longer than I realized. I sipped the water. “Exactly how long have I been sleeping?”
“For three days,” Bele answered.
I choked, spitting water all over my chin and onto Rhain’s arms.
“Could you have waited until she finished swallowing?” he asked the goddess.
Bele shrugged. “Considering how much she is drinking, that would have been an hour from now.”
“I’m sorry.” I dragged my arm across my chin. “I’ve been asleep for three days? How is that possible?”
“The Culling.” Rhain took my cup, placing it on the nightstand. “And it’s not really a sleep. It’s stasis. It can happen when the body is overworked. Basically, your system shuts down to give itself time to rebuild the depleted energy required for when you’re in the Culling. It doesn’t always happen,” he said, and I remembered Nyktos mentioning it before. “It all depends on how much energy you’ve been using, and what you’ve been doing to replenish that energy.”
“I slept once for four days.” Bele crossed her arms. “It was like hibernating. I kind of wish I could do that now, to be honest.”
Rhain sighed as I dragged my gaze from her and reached for my water. He grabbed the cup, handing it over. I finished the contents, wishing it was whiskey. “Anyway, you exhausted yourself, so your body gave you time to recover.”
“You’re lucky it was only three days.” Bele went back to the table to grab the pitcher of what I hoped was juice. “You could’ve been knocked out for weeks.”
“Weeks? That can happen?” I mumbled.
Rhain nodded. “It’s happened to gods who haven’t been feeding. But most in their Culling don’t survive that kind of energy depletion.”
I frowned. “The roots that came out of the ground? Is that what happens normally?”
Rhain scoffed. “Hell, no, it’s not. That only happens when Primals go into stasis. The roots—they’re meant to protect a Primal as they rest. They were protecting you.”
“They were choking me.”
“They were trying to cover you, to keep you safe. Okay, let me explain it this way,” Rhain said when he saw my look of disbelief. “Primals are a part of the very fabric of the realms. The roots keep them co
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Rhain squinted. “You don’t understand.”
“No.” I turned to Bele. “But either way, I’m not a Primal.”
“But you have Primal embers in you. So, yeah, you’re basically a Primal in their Culling.” Bele refilled the cup. “You’re a little ball of specialness.”
Rhain looked a little less than impressed by that statement.
“You just need to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Rhain said as I took the cup from Bele. “Because the next time you go to sleep, you may not wake up.”