Heart of Stone - Stone and Fire #1 [17+] (REWRITING)

Chapter 31

bye i wrote this on a study break if u dont like it i hate you

Nikolas's POV

I paced the room, the smog of unease now turned into a thick, dreary pit of tension. My collar hung loose around my neck, stretched out by my tense fingers over the span of the entire forty minutes Adriana had been in the shower.

Forty. Goddamn. Minutes.

I looked down at the watch.

Forty-one.

The spray of water had turned uninterrupted just five minutes ago, like someone wasn't standing under it- not anymore.

With one fleeting glance at the door, I walked back to my room, grabbed the bundle of house keys in my bottom dresser drawer, and returned with no more than a visceral urge to break down the door.

Even though being aggressive was a trait rooted in my blood, even I knew it wasn't the way to go. Not here, not now.

Not with her.

She's always needed time. Space away from people, because her red light flickers on when that first tick of annoyance shows in her scowl and threatening eye. But even though she was my wife, and an officiator had promised my undying fidelity to her, the sentiment didn't mean shit to me anymore.

I'd spent all those months believing my conscience, listening to that part of my brain that incited me to stab myself if my hands roamed any other woman's skin. Because even if I did, something in me would blind over my sight with Adriana, and Adriana only. Deep-cutting eyes. Full lips. Long, black hair. If I fucked anyone, it would be in reliance with the fact that it wasn't my wife, and then shit would double over.

She was anything and everything that brought me to this state, and now she was pushing me away.

Fuck if I let myself stand for it.

I twisted the key and pushed the door open, a haphazardly thrown pile of clothes crowding the floor. The air was cold, with a glass shower door sealed shut, and her inside.

I could feel the terror swarming off her naked skin like a shockwave of fire, each flame making the red in the back of my head pulse hotter.

Through the blurred glass, I could see her still body pressed against the back wall, the spray making no move to hit her. With a thundering beat in my ears, I paced to the door.

I pulled it open, and for a minute, it felt like my pulse flatlined, the air sucked clean out of my chest. For the first time, I didn't know how to navigate a sight.

All I saw was fucking red.

Her arms, legs, stomach, all rubbed raw and red from what I assumed was the loofah tossed onto the wet tiles. Color-less fingertips, and that raven hair laid in wet tendrils across her back and shoulders, adding much to nothing to the pale-ness of her skin. So, so pale. Small scrapes of skin opened up on the skin of her thighs, the tightness in my fists making it seem like she'd been stabbed ten times over.

It was like the Adriana I'd roamed my hands over an hour ago was no longer there. No, this wasn't even her. I was looking at some.. unexplainable clone,  her blank eyes feeding that pit of unease in my stomach.

I threw off my shirt before entering, hoping that any familiarity- fucking anything, would bring back the sentience in her eyes.

Whether that was irritancy, cold denial, even hate, I was willing to take it.

As I covered her sight with my form, not one blink crowded her eyes. No sense of recognition, no sense of realization. The cold water slammed into my back, each drop like a shard of glass that made me wonder how long she'd been rubbing her skin off.