Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

E mil's voice is as angry as mine. "No!"

Wrenching back from him, I strike, not with my fists but with my feet.

My right foot connects with his chest, a hard hit that propels him back along the hallway.

I rage after him with a scream, my fists landing on his chest and then his face in a combination Anarchy taught me that would have taken off any other creature's head.

He ducks and angles his body to absorb the impact, veering left until he hits the wall with a thud .

I'm suddenly aware that it's the only wall in the immediate vicinity that isn't broken.

The other side of the hallway is pure carnage. Wood and glass and metal are strewn everywhere on that side.

Having registered the mess, I don't pay it any further attention, my focus back on him.

"Fight back!" I roar. "Show me that you really are my enemy. Prove to me you're the monster who killed my mother. Show me what a liar you are. Show me! "

Throwing myself forward and leaping to gain air, I fully extend my claws and drive them at his face.

He jolts to the side, and my claws crash through the wall. The surface rips apart beneath the force of my strike. Shards of broken wood fly across the floor, away from Emil's position since I was wrenching my hand in that direction.

I swing back to him, throwing my fist at his face again, but he ducks, and my claws catch the wooden support that's still intact on that side of the hallway.

Another batch of wood shards flies through the air, this time not entirely away from Emil, who leaps even farther to his right to avoid them.

"If you're my enemy, then be my enemy," I shout at him, retracting my claws and going after him with my fists instead.

"No," he roars back at me, but his refusal only makes me angrier.

My fists fly, each attempted hit harder than the last, and my strikes grow faster, more aggressive until my arms are a blur and Emil is breathing hard.

He manages to evade every blow, but his agility is decreasing, and his movements become more sluggish.

I don't know why and, dark saints, I don't stop to wonder, even though I probably should.

My next hit lands squarely on his chest.

I must have split my knuckles at some point because my black blood splatters across his torso and up across his chin.

Which I aim for next, an uppercut that hits his jaw.

Smack!

The force of the blow knocks him back into the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen—the one room I didn't want to go.

As his back hits the doorframe, his eyes fly wide, and then their shape and colors change.

There's a flash of amber in his eyes and his irises become more wolfish than they've ever been, even in his many personas.

At the same time, his hands come up.

Dark light flickers around his left hand where he wears his crown, and he moves with a burst of speed that defies me.

He catches my hands and spins me around, gripping me from behind.

His arms feel like iron wrapped around my torso as he propels me forward—not along the hallway but into the kitchen where the curtains flutter and the room smells like home and I can hear my mother humming to herself.

"No." A broken gasp is all I can manage before my remaining rational thoughts desert me.

I shove myself back against him, desperately trying to push him through the doorway and out of this room.

But he was already moving at an angle, and I only succeed in shoving him against the wall next to the door.

We've remained inside the room and now I'm facing it.

"No!" I cry, struggling against him.

"I won't fight you!" His dark light streams around me, coiling like chains that propel me around to face him again.

If the light were solid, I could cut through it, but it's energy—dark energy—and I have no defense against it.

"Stop, my Veda." His arms rise around me, and now I can't tell if he's using his dark magic or his arms to pull me closer.

"I can't stop," I say, fighting the tears flooding my eyes. "I won't stop until I understand why you did what you did."

He shakes his head, the strands of his hair falling across his eyes, clinging to his forehead and cheeks, where sweat has gathered.

"You aren't what I thought you would be," he says. "I thought you would grasp the power that has been given to you and instead, you rip it up and throw it away."

"Power? What power?" My voice is suddenly bleak. "Do you know why I reach for control as hard as I can, Keeper? It's because I've never had any. My life was dictated to me. Captivity was my constant. And you?—"

I try to breathe. Try to speak.

"You walked out of the darkness with me. You did that. Out of the darkness. With me. And now…"

He considers me quietly. The ropes of dark light disappear from around me, freeing me, even though all I want is for him to rage at me.

Rage like he did when he tore through the cottage only minutes ago. Tear me apart like an enemy would.

Instead, he's silent.

It makes me realize that it's his silence that I hate the most.

When I first escaped my cage, it felt like we didn't stop talking.

We were both discovering the world around us. He gave me the night sky and the beach and hamburgers and a too-soft bed and hot showers and he made me believe my wings were beautiful and he convinced me there were such things as shark shifters.

But now, he gives me silence.

And for the life of me… it feels like it means something.

This horrible silence around him.

Just like his presence no longer feels real and that must mean something, too.

"I've lost you," I say, tears welling in my eyes. "You were my enemy all along, and I didn't know it and now, the person I thought you were… I've lost him."

All of the fight drains out of me as I realize…

I am not okay.

It's an insight I probably should have had before I tore through an unassuming apple orchard and tried to pick a fight with the keeper of dark magic.

I am not okay.

But of all the situations where I could safely break down, this is not it.

He leans toward me, inching closer with every heartbeat, and I know I should probably step away.

"If I could change the past, I would," he says.

He lowers his head to mine and his lips brush my cheek, pressing where my hot tears have had the audacity to trickle down my face.

His touch is gentle. Soothing.

He moves to my other cheek, pressing kisses to the multiple tear tracks there, too.

His head is bowed, one cheek against mine. "I did not want this pain for you."

I prepare to push him away, because he has no right to comfort me right now, but before I can make a move, there's a sharp pain in my shoulder.

I lurch away from him, my claws snapping out again.