Chapter 6

Béke Day One

Kazimir made Ruslan who had spirited me away from the Night Realm look as angelic as Zuriel.

The male who once made every effort to ensure I felt safe and cared for now slashed me with harsh words, intentionally, in our first conversation since the terrifying moment that I was ripped away from him in the ballroom of Este Castle.

How could he drop the deaths of those we both cared about so casually within moments of speaking?

His obsessive glances throughout dinner had my stomach in knots. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to focus on my conversation with Queen Viktoria. My body screamed at me to both run to him and flee from him every time I felt him look my way. My mother's words from the enchanted necklace Zuriel had given me echoed through my mind – a warning from beyond this life.

Then, he insisted we dance.

He did not care when I told him he hurt me; his fingers only tightened on my back and in my hair, ignoring the steps of the dance to keep me crushed against him.

Was what I had thought of as intensity and passion purely obsession on his part?

After all, he had spent a large portion of his life with me as his only and every thought. As much as I hated it, I understood where his mind could have gone twisted, exacerbated by our potential mating bond.

A potential bond that nearly tore me in two as I stood in the bathroom of mine and Ruslan's apartment in Ryza Citadel. I felt as if I were being ripped apart from the inside as one half of me was pulled to the adjacent bedroom, where the male who protected me lay, while the other called for me to run through the halls to find the male who hurt me.

I checked my back in the mirror as I undressed. A darkening mark lay across my lower spine, and I healed it before Ruslan could see. He was still so angry, it ate at my skin through the walls. He'd remained true to his word and given me space to work out my choice until it became painfully obvious that Kazimir was hurting me. I hated that my petite frame made me physically powerless against these large males. The ever-deepening well of power that came from my magic – that was the key to my survival.

Still, Ruslan intervened to protect me, not possess me, like Kazimir was so plainly trying to do. Their fight had been brutal, though not as brutal as it could have been. Ruslan absorbed a knife in his side like it was nothing, then stood, still ready to fight if only to see no harm come to me. If it hadn't been for Viktor and Vadim corralling Kazimir, one of them would have ended up dead.

Stabbing Ruslan with a knife hidden on his person during a feast to celebrate peace was not the way to win me back, and it was totally out of character for the male who'd rescued me from the cave in Vasvain, the highest peak in északi.

Had he gone so mad from loss that it warped his mind?

Grief and anger were intimately intertwined, dancing together as they skewed all sense of reason, space, and time. While my grief had turned into a thirst for vengeance, Kazimir's had morphed into something oily and sinister.

How would he have reacted if I'd finished my words and told him that I loved Ruslan?

I was too exhausted to think any longer. I turned my head to plait my hair, then winced as soreness from Kazimir's rough grip bloomed. I healed that too. The past two days had been a whirlwind of emotion, and more tension only awaited over the coming days.

Would the discord between them suck all the oxygen from any room where they were together?

And then there was the matter of uniting the realms. Ruslan didn't need my help – didn't want my help – until after I'd made my choice. The reality stung like a whip across my back, and it didn't occur to me until that moment how much I didn't know what I truly wanted out of life. I'd spent so long only thinking of the next moment, the next problem, that I hadn't considered what lay beyond solving them, especially what came after choosing between Kazimir and Ruslan.

Did Ruslan fear that I would oppose his goals if I did not choose him?

I was a Félvér, half Angel and half Night Fae with a hint of Crystal and Day, and I wanted to be accepted as I was.

Would my friends look at me the same once they knew?

My head throbbed as a barrage of questions pounded against the inside of my skull, and I shook it in an attempt to silence my inner thoughts. The white-knuckle grip I held over my emotions was all I could do for the moment because I needed to survive the next two weeks, figure out who the fuck my mate was, and then possibly destroy the world in the process.

No big deal.

Except, it was, and the thought itself nearly sent me into a panic attack. The room swam before me, and my breath caught in my chest. I gripped the counter beneath me with that same intensity, trying to force stillness where there was only chaos.

Too much too much too much.

I was suffocating; there wasn't enough air.

I can't I can't I can't.

My body was simultaneously freezing and sweating, and I wasn't sure if it was tears or perspiration that dripped down my cheeks.

No no no no no no…

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the tidal wave of overwhelm back into its typically tightly locked box.

But my inner voice screamed one phrase over and over again until I felt like it would deafen me.

I was not okay.

A truth I'd been hiding from myself, only accentuated when both males stood before me. The pressure of it all crashed over me, forcing my head underwater and drowning me.

I was shaking uncontrollably, and an anguished cry left my lips of its own accord.

"Sprite?" Ruslan was by my side in an instant, filling my nostrils with his cedarwood scent. I opened my eyes to see the panic in his own, and without thought, I reached for him, needing his warmth and comfort.

"What's wrong?" he asked gently against my hair, smoothing it down my back in soothing strokes.

"I-I-I'm not okay," I stuttered out through sobs that felt like they would never end.

How could I have thought I had a handle on this?

His arms tightened around me, providing pressure, warmth, and stability to my unmoored state.

Sobbing, hiccuping, gasping, the waves of emotion crashed through me, and I panted out everything I was feeling, needing to free myself from the burden of my thoughts. "I can't do this. I'm so scared. Why is this happening to me? I don't want - I don't want this. I can't, I can't… It's all so much. The choice. The feelings. I don't want to feel anymore. I've hurt so much for so long, why is this my life? Why can't it be easy? Haven't I suffered enough?"

Ruslan said nothing, allowing me the space I needed to feel.

But I didn't want to feel, not when every emotion was like a stab to my soul, more painful than any whipping I'd ever received.

"Please, make it stop… I hurt so badly." My voice cracked and shuddered as I begged someone, anyone, to hear me and do something about it. Because I was not okay, and I was powerless to it.

Grief burst from the depths of my pain, so acute that it was as if someone stuck their finger in the raw wounds that had once flayed open my back, and twisted it.

I grieved for the loss of my friends – Kriztof's jokes, Zekari's kindness, Kirigin's silliness.

I grieved for the loss of Cazius, who treated me with nothing but the utmost respect.

I grieved for my mother and her suffering at the hands of King Zalan.

I grieved for Ithuriel, my father who lost his wings for wanting to be with his mate.

I grieved for Ruslan, forced to fight and kill for his place at the Iron Realm.

But most of all, I grieved for myself.

For growing up without love and safety. For doing what I had to do to survive the cave. For my identity and power being stripped from me. For not knowing my name or what I looked like until I left. For believing everything I was told because Kazimir showed me kindness for the first time in my life. For a life filled with one impossible decision after another.

I was not okay.

My empath magic had opened up a rawness in me I hadn't begun to process, or comprehend, and I knew, deep down, that this pain wouldn't go away until I felt every last drop of it, and let it go.

Kazimir's cruel comments had been the key that unlocked the floodgate and left me shattered on the bathroom counter, breaking so violently in Ruslan's arms I wasn't sure I could ever piece myself back together. I hated Kazimir for it, just a little.

Would I ever be okay again?

The pain felt infinite, as if the time I sat there had no beginning and no end, and this would be my existence forevermore.

"It hurts… it's too much. It's too big, I can't handle it on my own. I can't do this, Ruslan, I can't do this." My nails dug into his back and I pulled him as close as I possibly could, the sobs wracking my entire body, despite his firm embrace. My cries echoed off the walls around us with the force with which they left my body, barely muffled by Ruslan's chest.

"I'm so sorry, my sprite," Ruslan murmured, puncturing my thoughts and grounding me into his arms again. "You don't deserve this pain, to hurt like you are. I would gladly take all of it on, for you."

If only it were possible to transfer the wounds on my soul to another; but I would never give them to Ruslan, whose soul was just as scarred as my own.

"Please," I begged, though I wasn't sure what for. I only wanted the pain to stop.

"You are safe, here and now, with me, Izidora. I've got you," Ruslan replied, beginning to gently rock us back and forth.

Tears carved paths down my cheeks as he hummed a tune I didn't know, and my mind latched onto it, anything to slow the tide of emotion still washing through me. His heart beat strongly against my ear, and I listened to that too, trying to anchor myself amid the storm that raged within.

"You are safe," Ruslan repeated, then returned to his song, creating deep rumbles in his chest to soothe me.

Exhaustion from fighting and gripping my emotions finally washed over me. My breaths slowed, and I was able to suck down one ragged breath after another. "Ruslan?" I whispered, needing to hear his voice.

"Yes, sprite?" he murmured, still not releasing me.

A light sigh released the last of the air in my body, and my eyelids drooped as I relaxed into his embrace. "Why are you always so warm?"

"Because I am a Dragon. Fire runs through my veins. And it's a good thing too, since you are always cold," he huffed a laugh into my hair. "Do you want to go to bed?"

"Tell me a story until I fall asleep?" I murmured.

Ruslan chuckled; this had become our nightly routine when I couldn't sleep, and he was always willing to oblige my requests. I wrapped my legs around his waist, still tucked into his chest, and he walked us into the bedroom, laying me gently down and then crawling in next to me, pulling me beside him once he settled. I curled into him, needing every inch of my skin to touch his. A deep exhale slipped out, and my heavy, swollen eyes began to close.

Ruslan cleared his throat, then launched into a story for me."Once upon a time, a Dragon fell in love with an Angel…"

A small smile settled on my face as I listened to his highly embellished tale, losing myself among his words, until finally, I began to fade in and out of the story, drifting away to the land of sleep. I barely woke when he shuttered the lights in our room and turned us to the side so his entire body could sleep flush with mine.