Chapter 15

Stryker

A burning pain scored the side of my face and my eyes popped open to find Rosaline straddling my hips as she hovered over me, her moon-streaked hair curtaining her face. She held an onyx dagger with blood dripping from the tip and an expression of hatred I’d never seen on her face before.

I didn’t understand what was happening. We’d fallen asleep the night before wrapped in each other’s arms, whispered words of adoration lingered on our lips as we drifted off, so when she lunged for me I didn’t react fast enough and her blade scraped against my face again, carving a path through my eyebrow and narrowly missing my eye.

With a shout I shoved her off me and she fell onto the floor as I staggered from the bed. My body felt like it was walking through quicksand. Blood dripped down the side of my face so freely it half-blinded me, but through my limited vision I saw the unmistakable green swirls of a dampener rune on my chest.

Fear gripped me and I pulled for my shadow magic to no avail. The rune was blocking it.

Stumbling into the nightstand, I grasped for something to stanch the flow of blood running into my eyes, but she came at me again with a piercing shriek. I spun just in time to grab her wrist before she could impale me with her blade. I was about to twist the weapon out of her hand when she started chanting something and the cuts on my face began to burn with the intensity of a thousand suns.

With a gasp I released her and lurched away, my body refusing to obey me as I fell to the ground, clawing at my own face.

A husky chuckle sounded and my gut clenched. It was the same sound that had driven me wild with desire more than once.

“Magic activated poison,” she said. “Without a healer it will burn through your bloodstream, making it feel like blades are running through your veins.”

That was an accurate description, for even as I tipped my face up to see her standing above me through my bloodied vision, I felt the poison moving down my neck and into my chest. The pain was so intense I couldn’t move, my body spasmed as the poison continued its trek through me. And the worst part of it all. She was a healer. She could end this all now.

“Why?” I choked out, feeling the hurt of her betrayal ten times more than the poison.

“Why?” she echoed, her eyebrows shooting up. “Surely you’ve figured it out.”

When I just stared at her, twitching on the ground, she chuckled again and the sound ran over me like razor blades.

“You’ve spilled all your secrets. I know everything about your riches, all your mines and the combination to your safe. With you gone, I’ll be the wealthiest fae in all of Ethereum.”

Through the agony I looked up at her, my heart shattered into a million pieces. “You’ve betrayed me for my riches.” My traitorous voice cracked.

The look she threw me said she thought I was the most foolish fae to ever live. And maybe she was right.

“Why else would I pretend to love you?” she said matter-of-factly and then lifted the blade above her head, aiming it for my heart.

Before she could strike I reached under my pillow and pulled out the blade I always kept there. She fell into me, and at the same time my hidden blade sank into her shoulder.

Fighting against the dampening rune I gathered all the strength I could muster and threw her off me with a strangled roar. She flew across the room.

In my tortured and half-blind state, I’d reacted like I would to any threat, protecting myself at all costs. Rosaline’s body hit the opposite wall, but rather than sinking to the ground, she stuck there with her toes hovering above the floor.

The blade dropped from her hand, clattering to the stone floor. Her eyes were wide with shock as she slowly lowered her gaze. My own traveled from her face down her body and the blood froze in my veins.

The pointed brass end of the wall mount where I usually hung my sword protruded from her middle, just below her breasts. A bloom of red was already spreading on her white nightgown.

No.

Through the excruciating pain, I pushed myself off the ground and rushed to the wall, still wobbly and feeling like I was treading heavy water. Even though it only took a moment to reach her side, blood already saturated the front of her gown and dripped to the floor.

Ripping the sheet off the bed with shaking, agonized arms, I tried to cover the wound, to stop the blood flow, but it was no use. It was too late.

When I looked up at her I could already see the light dimming from her eyes, but what I read in them was regret.

She tried to say something and a trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth.

“No,” I said, taking her hand. “Hold on. I’ll go find a healer and we’ll fix this.”

I didn’t know what I was saying. Even if the best healer in the world had been standing there with us, he wouldn’t be able to save her. She was a healer in her own right, and knew this was beyond something fixable.

Besides, she had just attacked me, had admitted to only wanting me for my money. Why would I want to save someone who wanted me dead?

But I knew the answer to that. Because I’d loved her. I’d loved her with a depth I didn’t realize I was capable of.

Yet my heart and my head weren’t synced. I knew I wasn’t thinking right. I couldn’t reason correctly through the pain: physical or emotional.

She moved her mouth again and I leaned in, frantic to hear her final words. I so desperately wanted to know that this had all been a horrible mistake, that she regretted attacking me or some blood magic had made her do it, but instead the barely audible words she spoke were, “This should have been you.”

My eyes popped open and I found myself twisted in bedsheets with a layer of sweat drenching my body. I blinked several times, trying to anchor myself in reality after reliving that nightmare.

Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare, I chanted over and over to myself as I tried to wrangle my breathing and heartbeat.

Not a nightmare though. A memory. A flashback. Because everything about that had been real, and I feared I was falling into the same trap again.

It was impossible to calm myself completely, but when the panic dropped to a manageable level I glanced over and spotted the slight form sleeping soundly next to me.

Even knowing it was Aribella and not Rosaline, I was flooded with terror again.

My body moved jerkily as I slipped from the bed and practically tripped to the window, flinging it open to let the fresh air in. I desperately ached for a cold slap against my overheated skin, but unfortunately the temperature never really cooled in my brother’s kingdom, even at night, and so I was hit with muggy warmth instead.

As I stood at the window I gulped the moist air in like I was starving for it. I took in lungful after lungful of it, but no matter how much I inhaled, it didn’t feel like enough.

It was this room, it was stifling. I had to get out.

Trying not to make too much noise I shoved my feet into my boots and threw my shirt on, not bothering with my coat, and stumbled from the room. I didn’t want to wake Aribella, but I felt like if I didn’t get outside immediately, I was going to die.

I tripped down the stairs and staggered through the dining hall we’d been in the night before. When I pushed out the exterior door, practically flinging myself out of the inn, my heart finally stopped feeling like it was going to explode.

Bending over, I braced my hands against my knees and forced myself to take in slow breaths, focusing on inhaling for five counts and exhaling for five counts.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, bent over in the middle of the street, until I was able to straighten again.

Luckily, it was well into the night and there weren’t any fae loitering around. I glanced over my shoulder, tipping my gaze up to the window of the room where Aribella still slept. The slight breeze from the open window caused the curtains to flap inward gently.

My heart sank. I couldn’t do this.

I wasn’t ready for a new relationship and I wasn’t sure if I ever would be. Even with a woman as perfect as her.

Just thinking of Aribella made my insides simultaneously clench and rejoice.

It was like she’d been created just for me. She knew how to handle my sharp edges and smooth them away. I’d never laid eyes on a more beautiful creature. The first time she appeared in front of me I’d sworn my heart stopped beating. Everything about her, from her soft voice to her kind heart, called to me.

And when we kissed …

She was my mate.

There was no denying it. I felt it and saw it with my own two eyes. The icy fire to my heart. The silver mist that surrounded us. But even as I’d stared in awe at the stardust particles that had hung in the air between and around us while the taste of her still lingered on my lips, dread had filled me.

And that was not the feeling that should have dominated me at that time. I was broken, and it had never been more obvious than in that moment.

Cold hard truth settled into my bones as I stood alone in the street, chilling me despite the humidity in the air.

I might never be able to trust in love again.

As much as I cared for Aribella, as much as my arms ached to hold her and something inside cried out for her when she wasn’t near, I couldn’t be the man she needed. The man she deserved. I was too broken. Ruined beyond repair.

My relationship with Rosaline had ended in heartbreak, scarring my body and soul.

Fate might have been pushing Aribella and I together, but I already cared too much for the redheaded beauty to risk spoiling her with my darkness. She’d fall in love with me and then I’d leave her broken, unable to commit. So I did the only thing I could to save her. To give her a chance at a life that didn’t include the ghosts of my past.

I re-hardened my heart of stone, and resolved to cut her out of my soul, one bloody slice at a time.