A familiar presence

Lying back on the bed, Nyx shut her eyes overwhelmed with many emotions. There was anger, longing, and much more but she did not know how to express them or if it was right to express them at all.

Her thoughts drifted to the past, the last time that she saw him. It was on the night of her thirteenth birthday. He was dressed in his usual black form. He had appeared in her room and stayed with her the whole night. She even slept in his arms and no one knew he was there. She woke up to find herself in his arms, it should have been weird but she found it to be very comfortable, as if she belonged there.

Nyx never thought that the moment henpressed the kiss on her forehead and disappeared, she would never get to see him again. Since then, she had waited and hoped to see him again but he never came, not even his shadow was seen until today. He appeared to her mother and not her.

"Why…?" She muttered under her breath. Had he been around, she could have gone to him and avoided this marriage. He would have been able to protect her, she knew that.

"Is Something wrong?" Nyx got snapped out of her thoughts by the voice of her husband. She turned to find him standing beside the bed with a towel around his waist and one on his hands as he dried his hair.

"There is nothing wrong that hasn't gone wrong already," Nyx replied. She sat up and locked eyes with him. "You said you'll tell why when we are alone."

He maintained eye contact with her for a few more seconds before he looked away, his gaze directed outside the window deep in thought. "Allow me to get dressed first, would you," He said with a warm smile.

"Alright, but no m9re excused once that is over," Nyx said and he nodded.

"Thanks," he said as he walked into the closet to get changed into his robe.

Lacking what to do, she laid back down and resumed her earlier tho8ght if how things would have been had he come sooner or if he never left her. A while later, Skye returned to the room with a change of expression which she noticed immediately despite his attempts to hide it.

"Did something happen?" shebasked but he did not reply. "You won't give me the answer, is that it?" she concluded. "It is fine, I will use another room," she stood up and walked to the door before he stopped her.

"Nyx, wait," he called and she stopped, turned around and looked at him. "I want to tell you, but I can't. I am noy allowed to. I am sorry," he said. The guilt he felt could be seen in his expression but Nyx didn't need that right now.

"Good night, Mr. Morgan," she said as she opened the door as she left the room. "This is why you don't go marrying people you do not know," Nyx said to herself. She walked to the room opposite the one she left and opened the door. Switching the lights on she walked inside.

The room was small compared to the other one but it was fine. She didn't want to see him. It didn't matter whether she stayed in a small or bigger room anyway, a room was still a room and a bed a bed, no matter the size. She walked to the bathroom for a shower. She felt uncomfortable all of a sudden.

Meanwhile, Skye stood in the same position he was when she walked away with his head down, a hand tugging on his hair in frustration he cursed but that didn't change a thing.

"Do you really feel that bad for not telling her what she wants to know," a voice he was familiar with yet also dreaded reached his ears. He searched the room and found its source seated on the exact same spot that Nyx sat before, his all black clothes a perfect contrast with the white fabric of the bedsheets. His gold coloured eyes glimmered as if he had found his favorite thing in the world. "I forgot to use the door so I did not knock," he said with an innocent look that irritated Skye t9 his bones

"What do you really want from me?" He asked, ignoring the man's words. This was the man who had forced him to marry Nyx. Not that he didn't like her, she was a beautiful woman and unlike what everyone thought of her,l but he didn't think the same. He believed she was just different and a victim of circumstance. When he first met her, the look in her eyes was that of someone waiting for the return of a lover and at that moment he knew that her heart belonged to someone else already.

"Nothing, I just want to have a little gun and you are one of my play things," thean replied with a shrug of his shoulders. Falling on his back, he smiles. "Her scent is still very strong here, it is refreshing, wouldn't you agree?"

"Could you leave my bed?" Skye said. Although it was a question, his annoyance towards the man's words and action was visible in his expression and in his tone as well.

"Oh… she is dead now," he said and smiled. He looked at Skye, "Your mother in law is dead, just now. I mean right now, as I speak," he said as if trying to make a child understand what he was saying.

Skye froze when he heard that and looked at him suspiciously after regaining his senses.

"It's not me, I have been here with you, haven't I?" He stood up and walked to Skye. "Be careful not to make her cry, or angry, you just might die anytime if you do that, after all, he is back beside her," he said with a hand on Skye's shoulder as if he was talk8ng to a friend. "This is for next time, never tell me what to do, or they will get what is coming." He disappeared after saying that.

Sky took a moment to understand what he said, most of it made no sense to him, then again, besides his threats, nothing tha man ever says makes sense. But this time, there was one more thing he clearly understood and that was that Martha was no more. Quickly making his way out of the room, he thought of going to tell Nyx but he stopped. He couldn't tell her how he came to know that her mother had passed away so quickly.

**

Nyx walked out of the bathroom with a towel around her chest. She walked to dressing table and stood before the mirror, her eyws drawn to birthmark on her neck. She touched it and found nothing abnormal about it. Nyx thought it was unique and beautiful but that was what people used to label her a bad omen.

Nyx shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She froze, unable to release when she felt a very familiar presence behind her. She couldn't open her eyes either to be sure if what she felt was real or not. Or perhaps, she just didn't want to.

She felt the presence draw closer, unable to keep herself in the dark she opened her eyes and they were met with a pair of gold eyes staring back at her through the mirror.

"...." She opened her mouth to speaks but could not find her voice.