24. CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

DANIELLA

There was no time to waste. The Earl would be taking Mylendra to Nerethien tomorrow, so we transferred to the vicinity of the Qierlan castle immediately. We couldn’t appear inside due to blocking spells, but Kryn knew how to get us in unnoticed.

The entire group—except for Shadow, Kalyll had ordered her to stay behind despite, or perhaps due to, her eagerness to accompany us—materialized in a patch of woods behind a tall stone wall.

As Kryn made his way toward the front entrance, where he could waltz in unbothered, the rest of us skulked behind the tree trunks until he appeared at a small private gate and let us in. Once inside, he guided us down several winding passages until we arrived at his chamber, and he locked the door behind us.

Exhaling in relief, I set down my messenger bag on a tall, round table adorned with a vase full of roses. Their scent brought back panicked memories of my time trying to climb out of the depth of my frozen sleep, and I had to step away in order to think clearly.

Kalyll walked up to me and rubbed my arms for warmth. “Are you all right?”

I had no idea how he always knew when I needed him. “I’m fine now.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his wide chest.

He pressed his nose to the top of my head and inhaled as if I were an infusion from an aromatherapy machine, and he was drawing peace and calm from me, which was exactly how I felt about him.

We pulled away from each other and smiled. I felt a thousand times better, and he looked as if he did as well. My arm wrapped around his waist and his around my back, we turned together to face the others. Arabis was looking around the room with wide eyes, eagerly drinking everything in.

I noticed Kryn rushed toward the night table on the left side of his bed and swiftly set a picture frame face down. I had enough time to notice it was a portrait of Arabis herself. A quick flick of my eyes in her direction told me she hadn’t noticed. She was too taken by a tapestry hanging above a small fireplace in the corner.

I caught Kryn’s eye and raised an eyebrow. He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, closing himself off. He tried so hard to appear tough and aloof, and yet…

Curious, I decided to ask Cylea if something had happened between Kryn and Arabis in Nerethien. I was never one to play matchmaker, but these two were killing me. They’d been pining over each other for so long, and it was time they let go of their past and started living in the now.

“So now we wait until dinner time,” Kalyll said, checking the clock on the wall, a small elaborate piece with a pendulum that hung freely at the bottom.

“Dinner is served at seven,” Kryn said. “Father and Mylendra should be in their rooms getting ready at least a half hour before that. We’ll make our move then as we planned. Now, I’ll go and make sure there are no changes to the regular routine.”

“Get us a bottle of wine while you’re at it, will you?” Silver said, throwing himself on the bed and resting his head on the embroidered pillows.

Kryn ignored him as he walked out, and I seriously doubted there would be any wine on his return. For the next twenty minutes, we took turns sitting and pacing. We didn’t talk much. In Naesala’s house, we had discussed ad nauseam what needed to be done. Now, we just needed the plan to work. If it did, we would prevent the potential destruction of the entire realm, and that made the risk worthwhile.

At some point, Kalyll reclined against the frame of the window and looked out at a dreary afternoon. I joined him and let my eyes sweep over the forest that surrounded the castle. Evergreens seemed to compete against each other for height. Some seemed to even tickle the bottoms of the gray clouds that threatened heavy rain but only managed a slow drizzle.

Absent-mindedly, I interlaced my fingers with Kalyll’s, and we regarded the scenery in silence.

“I spent a summer here once when I was a child,” Kalyll said at last. “In retrospect, I remember feeling very awkward around Earl Qierlan. I wonder, if deep down, I knew he was my father. Do you think that’s possible?”

I thought for a spell, recalling everything that had happened and everything I had learned in the books from his library. Finally, I said, “I believe so. Shadowdrifter blood is very strong. You already know that his blood calls to yours. It was how we hoped to…” I trailed off.

“… kill Wölfe,” he finished for me.

I simply nodded.

“But you didn’t manage it,” he said in a deep rumble as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him.

My back ended up flush against his chest, and pushing my hair aside he performed a quick nibble on my neck as if he meant to eat me.

“I want to rip off your clothes and fuck you,” Wölfe said, sending a shiver down my spine and a jolt of electricity to my core. Immediately, my panties were wet and images of his tongue on me flashed through my mind.

For a moment, I didn’t care that the others were there, and I nearly whirled around and started ripping my clothes off myself. I glanced over and was relieved when I noticed that Silver was asleep on the bed, Cylea and Arabis seemed lost in their own conversation, and Larina sat on the mantle, a place she seemed to prefer everywhere we went.

Wölfe turned me around to face him and possessively pressed me to him. He flashed his pointed canines, releasing an ache between my legs that made my knees wobble. I feared the male could make me climax if he just kept looking at me with such hunger and ferocity.

“Missed me?” he asked.

We had each other in the clearing only the other night, but I had missed him. “Yes.”

He smiled a crooked smile of satisfaction. “I won’t let anything happen to you, melynthi.”

He smoothed my hair tenderly and gradually his features lost some of their sharpness, and Kalyll was back. He continued almost in the same breath, the line that separated his dual personalities blurring even more every day.

“I will be glad to have you by my side,” he added, surprising me.

I thought he was mad for making him take me with him, but he sounded genuine enough. “Are you, really?”

“Yes.” He caressed my cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’ll be able to keep a good eye on you.” He winked.

“Oh, is that why?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I mock-punched him in the shoulder.

“I only jest. I’ll be glad of your company. You’re powerful. If you get close enough to Mythorne, he is done for, as you say in your realm. Though we have to be careful. We don’t know what his power is, and it’s rumored to be notable.”

My hands itched at the thought of draining Mythorne dry—not to mention Cardian. The feelings were strong, but they came from that dark side of me, the one that was a perfect match for Wölfe. I wanted those two to pay for what they’d done to Kalyll. Whatever torture they’d put him through, I could tell it had affected him. He didn’t want to talk about it and tried to hide it, but at times, he went still and quiet, his gaze lost in a faraway place.

On a previous occasion, Kalyll had asked me if I would kill someone if the situation demanded it. I said yes. Dark Dani had helped me come to terms with the awful and dire need to sometimes end a life. But there was something else I needed to come to terms with: the possibility of having to kill Cardian.

I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t want to kill anyone. But if it came down to it, I would do what I had to do to protect Kalyll. In the end, I knew he would understand. He would know that I had done it for him. But still, it was a hard thing to contemplate. I hoped it would never come to that. But if it did, I would be ready.

Kalyll tapped my nose, pulling me back from my gloomy thoughts.

“What are you thinking about?”

My words came tumbling down without my permission. “Would you forgive me if I killed your brother? I wouldn’t just—“

He cut me off, this time placing his finger across my lips. “We talked about this. Please, don’t worry. It may sound terrible to say this, but my love for you is greater than any love I have left for Cardian or anything else. If Wölfe destroyed the universe to save you, I would not only forgive him, I would applaud him.”

Wow. Once more, he left me speechless. It took me a few seconds to recover.

I wanted to say something equally romantic but what came out was, “But if the universe was destroyed, where would we live?”

He leaned closer and whispered in my ear. “In the void, where we could fuck in any position without the need to worry about gravity or much else.”

“With you, everything comes down to fucking?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

Smirking, he leaned down to kiss me, except Kryn came back into the room and the moment was broken.

“No changes,” he announced. “Everything shall continue as planned.”