He’d been with her for five years, and Orpheus had cared deeply about her. For those few short years, Katerina had been his everything. His friend, his lover, his warmth, his light, the person who fought against his loneliness and made him feel undeniably whole.
She had been his bride, even though she hadn’t given him her soul.
He hadn’t minded her wanting and taking from him, because Orpheus had wanted to give. Her smiles, even though had never been directed at him, had been his goal, and they brought him pleasure in a way that didn’t touch his body, but his soul instead, his heart.
And yet, her touch now felt foreign to him. Her hands were just as soft and warm as Reia’s, they felt the same against
the bone of his skull, but it forced the waft of her scent into nostrils.
Her spicy scent wasn’t gentle like that of elderberries and red roses.
“Reia offered to take my place so that I don’t have to be with him anymore. She’s very nice.” Katerina gave him another smile. “She said that if I wanted to be back with you so much, that she would be with Jabez.”
Orpheus felt his heart sinking so deep it was like it was moving through his chest to sit painfully in his stomach.
She offered herself to Jabez? He felt the familiar crawl of betrayal beneath his flesh, but it was much worse than what Katerina had done this to him.
He didn’t want to believe this, that Reia would leave him.
She said she wanted to stay with me.
A quiet whine rattled his lungs.
“Where is Reia, Katerina?” he asked, wanting to talk to her, to speak with her, for her to tell him herself so he could remember the truth of this just as painfully as he had with Katerina.
It would help him turn away. It would help him leave.
Her eyes suddenly narrowed while her lips thinned tightly.
“Forget about her,” she demanded, pulling his head forward when it was obvious he was trying to search for her.
“She is not going with you.” Then she reached for one of his horns to grab a bell dangling from it. “Did she make this for you? How tacky.”
Katerina yanked it, ripping it from his horn so she could stare down at it in her palm.
“She put bells on you like a cat.”
Orpheus’ sight glowed to red, and he stepped back sharply from her as a light growl emitted from his chest. She broke my gift! Reia had told him she would be upset if he lost or broke them!
This was something the old Katerina would have done, something so careless and self-centred. Orpheus liked his
bells, he wanted to wear them. Yet, if she didn’t like something, she would make sure he knew of it.
But in her touching them, making them ring, she reminded Orpheus that Reia had made them. Katerina had never given him anything but her body, and she told him when she went with the Demon King that she’d hated it and every moment with him.
Her face had been filled with a glare, the same glare she’d worn while being with him often.
Orpheus didn’t trust her anymore.
Katerina had hurt him irreparably, whether that was by unwillingness or not. He trusted Reia, refused to believe she would be with the Demon King after everything they’d shared.
She hadn’t needed to give her body to Orpheus, but instead she had wanted to. She had wanted to cuddle with him, read to him, give him gifts, and sweet little kisses against his skull.
“Where is she?” Orpheus growled.
“I’m telling you that I want to go with you,” Katerina said, her brows creasing so deeply that her forehead began to crinkle. “I told you where she is. She is with the Demon King. Why do you keep asking about her when you have me?”
“Because I don’t want you.” He turned away from her to go after the woman who smelled like the sweetest garden.
“I want to find Reia.”
“You will regret that, Orpheus,” she said with a dark tone.
He didn’t care. He didn’t even bother to turn back and look at her, not when his brave little human was currently somewhere in this castle, possibly in danger.
Reia suddenly appeared out of thin air.
His heart warmed just at seeing her. She was running to him.
Actually, she was sprinting, and she looked angry.
She looked so angry, in fact, her eyes filled with hate and spite in his direction, that the warmth he felt suddenly left him. Had he been mistaken? Had Katerina been telling him the truth, and he’d mistakenly chosen the wrong path?
But he didn’t want Katerina anymore.
Even if it meant he was alone, he didn’t want the woman who had made him feel hollow all these eons. The person that, when he looked back in his memories after hearing the words of her forsaking him for another, had never looked at him pleasantly.
He wanted this woman, the one sprinting towards him like she was about to fearlessly fight him with spite in her eyes.
