Ch. 88 – A Stranger in His Own Home

Rhys rose from the bath for the second time tonight, moving with the sluggish, mechanical dread of a zombie. His soul, battered and hollowed out, was screaming out for only one name in particular: Lira. He couldn't care about the heinous, self-destructive acts his body had just yielded to. He couldn't afford to care right now.

He looked down at the two women. They looked breathtakingly gorgeous in the ruined aftermath of what he had subjected them to. Rhea was still softly curled up, smiling faintly with her eyes closed, while Vespera wrapped an arm around her protectively as Rhys stood up to vacate the space. Vespera looked up at Rhys, her slitted amber eyes shining with absolute, undeniable pride—looking at him as if he were the only man she had ever truly loved.

Rhys didn't say a single word. But Vespera knew the signs loud and clear. She had gotten to him this time. His lifelong shield of detached cynical armor had finally cracked clean through.

Without looking back, Rhys stepped out of the tub, grabbed a towel, and hurried to dry himself off. He dressed in frantic, clumsy silence, then caught his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

He didn't recognize the face staring back at him. It was like looking at a stranger—a ghost of a man he had forgotten a long time ago.

Behind him, he saw Vespera rise up, slouching lazily over the edge of the tub with her tail flicking in slow motions. She met his eyes in the mirror with a completely blank, unreadable face.

"You can keep running, Rhys," Vespera whispered softly, her voice carrying over the sound of the dripping water. "But I will always catch you eventually."

Rhys looked away from her in absolute horror. He looked back at his own reflection, and the final shockwave hit him. Standing directly behind his reflection in the mirror was the dark, towering figure of Omen—unshaken, unrepentant, and utterly devoid of shame.

You knew it had to be done, the dark persona murmured inside his skull. For your household.

Rhys bolted from those words.

He stumbled out of the bathroom frantically, nearly tripping down the hallway and half-jumping the stairs to escape. At the bottom of the steps, Durin was waiting for him, pacing anxiously with a hopeful, expectant expression.

"Rhys! Is everything alright?" Durin stammered, stepping forward. "Vespera told me not to go up no matter what... but I heard noises like last time. And—and I thought I heard someone shout out a strange name, something like... Omen?"

Rhys didn't even break his stride. He shoved past the confused dwarf without a word, slammed the front door open, and bolted out into the dark night.

He ran from that stain. He ran from himself.

When he finally reached his own porch, he stopped dead in his tracks, his chest heaving. The crushing, suffocating weight of guilt and shame came crashing down on his shoulders with the full, unadulterated gravity of the entire night.

Shula had thrown him into an inescapable emotional and physical tailspin. Then Seraphina had emerged from the ghosts of his past—his old hero crush who had once despised him, now begging to be claimed. And just when he thought it was over, he had to deal with Rhea, whose desperate longing had nearly made her rust away into nothingness. Finally, there was Vespera, prowling in the shadows like a master predator, striking the exact second his armor was weakest.

Rhys felt like he was about to collapse. He wasn't a virtual god like the titans around him; he was just a man. A tired, broken man.

Yet, he had no time to sit and pity himself. The dark figure had followed him all the way home, waiting patiently behind him in the shadows off the porch, reminding him silently of what it wanted.

Rhys squared his shoulders, swallowed the bitter lump in his throat, and stepped inside his house.

Marcus and Lira were still sitting in the living room. Marcus looked significantly more worried than Lira, especially the moment he realized Vespera hadn't followed Rhys back through the front door.

Lira immediately stood up and walked over to Rhys, her eyes soft and filled with concern as she took in the pale, haunted look on his face. "Rhys... honey, are you okay?" she asked gently.

"It's alright," Rhys forced out, his voice raspy. "Rhea... she's going to be okay."

Lira and Marcus exchanged a slightly confused look. Marcus shifted uncomfortably, wringing his hands. "Where... where is Vespera then, man?"

Rhys was entirely too numb to invent a believable lie. "She's still back there," he muttered flatly.

Marcus, the eternal, lovesick fool that he was, immediately stood up, muttering a hasty, shy goodbye to his two friends. Driven by a desperate need to find her, Marcus rushed out the door to go fetch Vespera—completely oblivious to the fact that she was likely still picking herself up off the floor of a bathroom after what Rhys had done to her.

There was no devil or angel left on Rhys’s shoulders to chime in with commentary. There was only dead, suffocating silence.

Rhys looked down at Lira as the house finally settled into a fragile, hollow peace. He pulled her close into a tight embrace, and Lira accepted him lovingly, wrapping her arms around his waist. She had missed him all day, too.

She leaned up softly to press a kiss to his lips.

By pure, involuntary reflex, Rhys violently flinched backward.

Lira froze. Her hands dropped to his shoulders, her eyes searching his face with sudden, aching confusion. "Rhys... what's wrong?" she asked softly, desperate for an answer.

Rhys couldn't look her in the eye. "It's just been a very, very long day..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "And... I don't want to get it on you. Sadly."

Lira absorbed the words like a slow-acting, bitter medicine. The understanding in her eyes didn't soothe him; it only made the fracture in his chest widen. She slowly nodded her head. "Okay... if you say so."

"I just want to end the day with you," Rhys murmured, a hollow lie.

Lira managed a weak, fragile smile, but Rhys caught the sudden, shimmering tear welling up in the corner of her eye.

His heart broke a little more.

Unable to bear looking at her face another second, Rhys gently let go and walked down the hall to the bathroom to clean himself. He showered off thoroughly, scrubbing his skin raw, but the irony only made him feel more filthy. Standing under the hot water didn't wash away the memory of the two women; it only made him feel sick at himself, terrified that he might accidentally bring the lingering phantom of Omen into this bed, into Lira's pristine sanctuary.

When Rhys finally stepped out of the bathroom, he saw that Lira hadn't come to bed yet.

He walked quietly back out to the living room and found her sitting alone on the sofa, holding a glass of untouched water. "Are you coming to bed?" Rhys asked softly.

Lira didn't turn around. "I'm sorry, honey... I think I'm just going to sit here and think for a little bit."

Rhys stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the gentle slope of her back. He wanted nothing more in the world than to cross the room, hold her tight, and beg for forgiveness for sins she didn't even know he had committed. But he knew he couldn't. He couldn't blame her for keeping her distance.

Defeated, Rhys walked back to the bedroom alone.

He crawled under the sheets, curling up tightly into a ball on his side, trying desperately to shut out the world and ignore the dark, suffocating presence inching closer and closer behind him in the dark.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of staring at the blank wall, he heard the soft rustle of the mattress.

Lira slipped into bed behind him. Without a word, she curled her body around his, holding him close and firm against her chest—acting as if she were anchoring him down, making sure he wouldn't float away or break apart in the night.

"I love you, Rhys," she whispered softly into the shell of his ear.

Rhys stared into the blank distance, his mind completely numb. He didn't say it back.

He couldn't.

Slowly, helplessly, Rhys closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep in her arms, a stranger in his own home.