Chapter 41

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I recall the way Lucian described me in the vision he'd seen in The Book of Dark Magic .

"In the book, my eyes were dead," I say. "I had no heart. No soul."

I fight the sick, clawing feeling wrapping itself around my chest. A cold chill fills my bones.

I speak rapidly as an awful panic billows in waves through me. "This is how it happens, isn't it?" I ask. "You die, I lose my heart, and I take the crown without hesitation. Then, I wreak justice on every dark creature who was complicit in my mother's imprisonment. Everyone who profited from my father's regime while I was caged. The entire Nostra Empire. Human and supernatural. I raze it to the ground in cold-blooded murder."

I give a bleak laugh. "But why stop there? The Book of Dark Magic could only reveal the fates of dark magic creatures, yes? What's to say I don't tear through other beings too? After all, with that kind of power, I can kill anything. Dragons, angels, witches, shifters, old gods. Who would stop me?"

I'm gripping the keeper so hard that my claws must be biting his back and sides, but all I can hear is my father's question when he trapped me in his lair.

"Have you ever seen true darkness?"

"Who would stop me?" I ask again, my voice like stone. "Some red-winged creature who doesn't get to me until I've taken a thousand lives?"

The keeper has remained impossibly calm, letting me speak all of my fears, as if he knows I need to voice them.

But now, he says, " You will stop you." His gray-blue eyes are suddenly piercing. "Because before I die, you will take back your heart's power."

I jolt away from him, but he doesn't let me go. "But that will kill you instantly. Just like taking the crown will kill you." My voice is a snarl now. "Both of those acts will kill you ."

"Yes."

I bare my teeth at him in all my wolfish fury. "No."

He gives me a gentle smile. "You must, Caera. Just as you must take the crown. Keep your heart. Take the crown. You will do these things?—"

"No!"

"You will do these things." His voice remains calm. "Because your heart tells you they are right."

"Not right for you."

One corner of his mouth hitches up in a crooked smile. "Even so." Then his smile fades. "I want you to see something."

I don't like that he's veering our conversation in another direction, but I can't deny the solemnity in his expression. "What is it?"

"Will you come to the mirror?"

I answer him by wrapping my arms and legs more firmly around him. "I like it here."

In response, he presses his cheek to my face again, the corner of his lips brushing the corner of mine for the briefest moment, before he gives a grunt, repositions his hands, and pushes himself to his feet while I cling to him.

"Then you can stay here," he says, ambling toward the bedroom.

He carries me through the door and into the large dressing room next to the bedroom, keeping me close as he approaches the floor-to-ceiling mirror that sits against the wall at the end of it.

From the corner of my eye, I make out the treasures I left on one of the nearby shelves: a row of makeshift blindfolds from various sources, including my mother's old shirt; the two feathers my father tore from my wings; and the jewelry box in which I deposited the page from The Book of Dark Magic that my mother left for me.

I wonder if the page has become blank or if, somehow, it survived the death I wreaked on the rest of the book.

I'm not sure it would be wise to check.

I slide my feet to the floor as the keeper turns me to face the mirror.

Now that he's standing behind me, I'm struck by how tall and muscular his new form is. More imposing than any other persona he has taken on before.

It's astonishing to me that I don't feel any sort of uncertainty or worry around him.

"Do you remember the first time you saw yourself?" he asks.

How could I forget?

"I thought I was looking at a stranger," I say. "No, actually, I thought my reflection was an attacker."

It was nearly impossible to recognize myself. Not only because I'd never seen my full body in a mirror before then, but because it didn't match the way I'd pictured myself.

My legs were longer than I'd thought they were in proportion to my torso, and my body was skinnier at the waist and curvier at the bust. At the time, I wasn't wearing much more than a ragged bra and underpants. Along with the black sash I took on impulse from the angels' stronghold and now sits on the shelf next to the jewelry box.

"You were fierce then," he says as he meets my eyes in the mirror. "Now you are even more so."

"I feel more broken," I say. "There are pieces I don't know how to pull together. Family, that isn't what I thought it would be. Adversaries, I didn't think I'd face."

"A pack who loves you," he murmurs. "A life to make your own." And then, he adds, "There is value in broken things."

Like the weapon in the longhouse.

"Except a broken heart," I say. "There is only devastation in that."

"Maybe." He tips his head. "Or maybe it can lead to new things. A new life."

I squeeze my eyes closed. "How long do you have? Before I have to choose?"

"I can hold on for another day. Maybe a little more."

I turn to face him, no longer able to contemplate that too soon, he won't be able to stand beside me in a mirror anymore. Not if I don't do something about it.

"How bad are your wounds now?" I ask. "The ones you aren't showing me."

He doesn't evade. "Not good."

"Then you need to rest."

I wrap my hand around his and tug him toward the bedroom. Those too-soft pillows and blankets aren't so repulsive to me anymore. Especially when I catch the way he stumbles just slightly as he follows me, along with the little hitch in his breathing.

Damn . I'm not sure how he's functioning at all.

With a jolt of fear, I remember the way my mother woke up before she died. That last burst of strength.

"You should have stayed resting," I scold him, pulling him toward the bed and lifting the covers with my free hand. " In ."

"I got tired of the cold." He gives me another crooked smile before he lowers himself to the edge of the bed.

"Well, you should have thought of that before you created a freezing landscape."

"I liked it," he mumbles as he slides into the bed, boots and all. "Did you see the wolves? They were some of the last…"

His voice fades as his head hits the pillow and, before I can answer, his eyes are closed, his breathing even.

I reach under the bedsheets to tug off his boots and straighten his tunic, only for his arms to wrap around me and pull me down to his chest.

"I think there might be a little bit of wolf in me," he murmurs as he slides his hands across the back of the sash, keeping my dress tied together, and nuzzles the corner of my lips.

I scowl down at him, trying not to lie too heavily on his chest. "You should sleep."

"Fuck sleeping."

He pulls me closer, the desire in his eyes heating my body, as his hands stroke up my back to tangle in my hair.

I respond by dropping a kiss to his lips. It's a light touch, even though I want more.

"You're in control, Caera," he says, his voice husky when I break the contact. "As much or as little as you want."

He continues to stroke my back up to my neck, his fingertips grazing the skin beneath my earlobes.

I'm still nestled mostly beside him and now I slip my legs to either side of his hips, straddling him, a position that could mean power but doesn't feel that way.

I want him to survive. I want to give him vengeance—even though that vengeance is, at its heart, against me. I want his body. I want to let go of my fears, worries, and my control. Just once.

"I want everything," I say.