Chapter 42

I couldn’t breathe.A hand squeezed around my neck, invisible to the eyes but I felt it just the same. I felt it squeezing the air out of me little by little, and it wasn’t going to stop until I did something to silence the voices in my head.

My fault, my fault, my fault. It was all my fault that Grey almost killed Tristian. That Valentine challenged Grey to a duel come dawn.

My fucking fault, and I couldn’t live with it.

Gone were the memories of sunshine on my face, of Faeries’ Aerie, of freedom. Gone was the need to find my way back to the human world, far away from the Seven Isles.

Now, I just wanted this nightmare to end. I just wanted the Evernight brothers to stop turning on one another. They were brothers, for fuck’s sake, not enemies.

And I was going to make this right.

When I walked out of the room, my legs were numb, for which I was thankful. I didn’t want to know how badly they’d shake when I came face to face with Valentine. I’d find him, wherever he was. I’d find him and I’d talk to him, make him back the hell off.

Was he out of his fucking mind to challenge Grey?

Greyof all brothers, when he himself told me how dangerous he was!

I had no clue how duels really worked. All the brides had mentioned was that the Evernights fought with their dragons, but Grey had killed his father in a duel, hadn’t he? And that meant death was an option.

No, Valentine wouldn’t go through with it. It was still not even eight p.m., and I had the whole night to convince him to withdraw the challenge.

So, I searched for him in every room of the fifth tower, sure I’d find him somewhere. Sure he’d be waiting for me or that Shadow would show up and lead me to him.

But I reached the ground floor again and Valentine was nowhere to be seen.

Only Cynthia and Paris were passing by, possibly on the way to the lounge room where they drank tea or wine or whatever they pleased with the other brides.

At first, I was relieved to see their faces. I could use a smile, a kind word, some fucking encouragement right now—but no. I stopped, and they did, too. I smiled, and they fucking flinched at the sight of me. They flinched and moved away like I’d assaulted them.

If I still had enough energy left to be shocked, I would have been. As it was, I just watched them walk away from me, hurrying like they were afraid I might follow them or try to stop them, and disappeared from my sight.

I don’t care, I told myself. They could flinch and frown and do whatever the hell they wanted—I could not care less about anything other than Valentine withdrawing that challenge.

So, with that thought in mind, I searched every single hallway that I knew and others I’d never been to before, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Or anyone else who could tell me where he was.

An hour must have passed, and I was lost in the maze of corridors on the ground floor without a clue where to go next, or even where I was. I sat at a corner to rest my legs, to breathe, to try to come up with a plan. To stop wanting to call for Grey, scream my lungs out to him so he could come and get me and take me to bed and make me feel at home again.

Fuck, the way I wanted him was senseless. Completely fucking senseless. Missing him had turned into an ache deep in my chest, like I hadn’t seen him in days. Weeks. Months.

Silly, silly Fall…

“Are you okay, Miss Hayes?”

I looked up to find Vinny pushing a small silver cart at the end of the corridor I was in.

“I’m…I’m fine,” I muttered, pushing my hair away from my face, trying to seem more presentable. What for, I had no idea.

His brows shot up. “Are you sure?”

“I think so.” I was awake, wasn’t I? I hadn’t passed out yet, so…

“Oh. Would you care for some fruit salad, perhaps?” And he reached for something in his cart.

My stomach growled loudly, as if on cue, and though he was on the other side of the hallway, I felt like he heard it.

“Actually, that sounds…” My voice trailed off as he came for me with a white bowl in his hand and a fork covered in a napkin in the other.

“The brides requested them, but since you’re here, you can have yours right away.”

The brides. Of course, they requested fruit salad. They were probably drinking and gossiping about me. After all, a few of them had been there in the main hall that morning. They’d heard everything, had seen everything, just like me. And they were the ones who’d taken me to my room on Romin’s order.

“Thank you, Vinny,” I said, grabbing the bowl from his hands. The smell alone had me wide awake within a second. Fuck, I was starving.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, looking down at me like he wasn’t sure what to make of me yet. “Is there a reason you’re hiding in the corner, Miss?”

“I’m not hiding.” I attempted to smile at him. “I’m just looking for Valentine and I sat here to rest.” How long had I even been there? I couldn’t be sure.

“I think I saw Master Valentine in the theatre last. Do you need me to deliver a message?”

Theatre. “Are you sure?”

“I am, yes. Do you?—”

I jumped to my feet, the bowl in my hands still. “Thank you, Vinny. Thank you so much.” I turned around and I started to run around the corner, when?—

“Uh, Miss Hayes? The theatre is that way.” Vinny was pointing behind him, at the hallway he’d been coming from.

“Right, right, of course,” I muttered, turning back. “Thanks again!”

I stuffed my mouth full of banana slices and strawberries as I went, eating like I really had been on the brink of starvation. When I finally found my way to the theatre, I was only halfway done—and that was a good thing.

Because when I opened the door to the corridor that led to the theater’s stage, and I heard the sound of the piano playing, my stomach turned violently, and I almost threw up.

Leaving the bowl on the floor, I made my way down the dark corridor and to the door I knew well. I pushed it open with my breath held, knowing what I’d find behind it.

Valentine was sitting alone in front of the piano, a hand on the fall board, his forehead resting on it, and with the other he played a song I knew well, very slowly.

Fuck, he broke my heart without even looking my way.

“I picked up a few notes while I watched you play,” Valentine said without stopping, but I no longer even heard the music.

I moved to the middle of the stage. “I’m sorry.”

His fingers fell on the keys and the melody came out twisted. Valentine straightened his shoulders and slowly turned toward me. He looked as composed as ever, his hair out of place, but he smoothed it behind his head instantly. His dark eyes glistened, and his lips were parted as he shook his head.

“You came back,” he said in wonder. I flinched, looking down at the floor for a second. “You came back from Faeries’ Aerie, Sunshine. You came back.”

For a second there, I could have sworn he was accusing me.

“Of course, I did. You were gonna get banished, and you didn’t even tell me.” How could he put something like that on me? Did he really think I could live with myself knowing I’d cost him his life?

“You weren’t supposed to find out,” Valentine said, closing his eyes. My heart broke even more.

I went to him and squatted in front of the bench.

“But I did. And I’m glad I did. I could never live with myself, Valentine.”

When he opened his eyes, he didn’t seem half as mad as a second ago. “Of course not,” he said.

“I know you’re mad,” I whispered. “I know you’re mad about the Blood Call and…and Grey?—”

“You think I’m mad because you chose him?” he cut me off.“Out of all my brothers—him?” But he didn’t really look mad right now. More…disappointed, and that was even worse.

My eyes squeezed shut. “That…that wasn’t…I wasn’t aware of myself,” I choked, feeling so stuck so suddenly I could explode.

On the one hand, I was talking to Valentine, but on the other, I was talking about Grey.

My God, when did my life become so damn complicated?

“I know that, Sunshine. That’s the point of the Blood Call. It strips you of rational thought because your most primal needs know best.” Slowly, he raised his hand to my cheek. “And the most primal part of you chose him.”

Yes, it had, and even now, even looking in his eyes, I didn’t regret it. It hadn’t been a mistake.

“I’m sorry,” I said again because what else could I say?

Valentine shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. I’m not mad about that at all.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really,” he said.

I raised my brows. “So, you don’t care about me at all?”

“Not even a bit,” he said, but he was smiling a little.

I rolled my eyes—he was full of shit. “You were going to give up your life for me.”

He thought about it for a second. “Maybe I do care a little, but not in the way you think.”

Throwing my head back, I laughed. “Well, I’m glad you came around.”

Valentine had talked to me like he was in love with me when I first got here, but soon he realized that there wasn’t any kind of a spark between us.

“Yes, that kiss was very…eye-opening.” He grinned.

Of course, it had been. We’d kissed in the mirror room, and it hadn’t come even close to the real thing. I knew that because I’d kissed Grey now. I knew how a real kiss was supposed to feel—and apparently, Valentine felt the same way. Thank God.

I smiled at him, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you were going to put your life on the line for me like that. You shouldn’t have sent me to Faeries’ Aerie.”

“But you came back,” Valentine said, and when he made to take his hand back, I held it to my cheek with both mine.

“Valentine, you have to withdraw that challenge. Please. Just withdraw it, okay?” I whispered.

He leaned closer to my face, smiling. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why? I don’t want you to get hurt!”

“Really? Is that the only reason why you’re begging me, Sunshine?” he asked. “Or are you afraid Grey will be hurt, too?”

My heart fell all the way to my heels.

I let go of his hand and moved back a little. “Both.” That was the truth—I was afraid for both.

Valentine sighed, but he was still smiling. “You will no longer be staying in my tower—you know that? You’ll be relocated to the third now.”

“Valentine,” I said, but he stood up from the bench and turned his back to me. “Please, Valentine, listen to me. Shadow is just a hatchling. He can’t match Storm in any way.” He knew this. He fucking knew exactly what Storm was capable of better than me.

“Well aware,” he said with a nod, staring out at the empty seats of the theatre.

I went to stand beside him. “So, why would you do such an absurd thing? Why would you even challenge him? Why?!”

“Because I had no other choice. It was either that or spending the rest of my life being mocked by all of them. A man’s reputation is his everything, Sunshine. I’d rather be banished than live my life labeled a coward.”

I laughed and it came out so bitter it scratched my throat. “You would rather die than accept something you had absolutely no control over?! The Blood Call is tied to the curse—not you, not me, not Grey. Nobody could control it, and you know that!” That he even needed me to point that out for him was insane.

“I do know it. And I don’t expect you to understand, Sunshine. It’s okay that you don’t. I will never be a coward. I wasn’t meant to live my life under the shadow of my brothers. This was never going to be my destiny.”

I shook my head as I looked at his profile, his eyes ahead on the seats, his hands folded behind his back.

“Valentine, please,” I whispered, even though I already knew in my heart that nothing I said here tonight was going to change his mind.

Because I understood, even if he thought I didn’t. I made a similar choice once, too, though not with such fatal consequences. I chose to work for Mama Si, chose to become a prostitute, just so I didn’t have to go back home a coward and admit defeat.

“Come dawn, I will either come out on top, or I will be gone,” he said, turning to look at me. “Exactly as it should be.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” I choked, as warm tears slid from my eyes before I even realized I was crying.

He turned to me with that sad smile that was so full, catching a tear with his thumb. Then he brought that thumb to his mouth and licked it.

“Then don’t look,” he said.

“Valentine—”

“I’ll be fine, Sunshine. I’m always fine.”

“Just withdraw it! Nobody’s going to think you’re a coward. Withdraw the damn challenge!” I said gripping his arm, desperate now.

“I will do no such thing,” Valentine said, stepping closer to me, framing my face in his hands. “This is not my destiny.”

For a moment there, it felt like I was looking at someone else. A different person altogether. Not the Valentine I knew. Not the Valentine I considered a friend.

“I’ll do anything you want,” I whispered, feeling more hopeless by the second.

But in typical Valentine fashion, he ignored my words completely and said, “You’re the little sister people describe in books, I think.” He paused for a second. “Yes, exactly that. You could have been the little sister I’m never going to have. We would have fought so magnificently all our lives over the most trivial things.”

“I’ll take it. I wouldn’t consider you a brother right now, but you are my friend. Possibly the bestest friend I’ll ever have.” I laughed, even though tears still came out of me.

Valentine smiled—a genuine smile, too. “I like that.”

“Then stay alive.” I grabbed his shirt and tried to shake him. “Call off the challenge, Valentine. Please.”

But he wouldn’t hear it. “You will be okay. Whatever happens tomorrow, you will be just fine.” He grabbed a few strings of my hair between his fingers, looking at it like he was still infatuated by the color like that first time. “If I don’t see you again, know that I’ll miss you, Sunshine. I enjoyed your company most nights. And Grey will take care of you the best he knows how.”

“Valentine, please. Come on—please, stop this. Please,” I begged, even though I already knew it was a lost cause.

“Be careful of the others, though. They usually don’t dare to cross Grey, but you saw what happened this morning. They might be willing to risk their necks if it means getting close to you. It’s nothing personal—just instinct, you understand? The forbidden has a way for getting to even the most noble man—and my brothers are not noble.”

“Valentine, come on. You can’t do this!” I held onto his wrists for dear life.

“Just be careful. Keep your eyes open,” he said, and it felt like he was saying goodbye.

Fuck, I didn’t want to hear it.

“What about Emerald? What about what I heard in Faeries’ Aerie? Have you talked to someone about it? How about you focus on that instead of challenging your own brother?!”

His face changed instantly. “Sunshine, I told you—forget about it. There are rebels everywhere in the Isles. They’ll try to overthrow us, and then halfway through they’ll realize it’s impossible and they’ll give up or get caught. There’s no need to worry,” he said, almost in a breath.

“Except you sound afraid.” I squinted my eyes at him, waiting for a reaction.

He laughed. “I’m not afraid of some common rebels who have nothing better to do with their lives but pretend they have a higher calling,” he told me. “I’m not even afraid to challenge Grey.”

Ice-cold chills rushed down my back. “They didn’t seem like common rebels, Valentine. They were talking about me. They knew who I was. They knew I had the ring, when Genevieve told me it was undetectable by anyone or anything. They knew.” And now that I was thinking about it again, I was terrified.

How had I forgotten about Emerald and those two men? How had I forgotten that I’d run from them and came back here?

“Listen to me.” Valentine raised my head until I met his eyes again. “Even if they are not just common rebels, Romin will handle them. He always has. He’s good at what he does, okay? There’s no need to worry about this.”

“But we have to tell someone. We have to?—”

“And they’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you—do not worry about things that have nothing to do with you,” he cut me off.

Except it did have something to do with me, didn’t it? Emerald had been talking about me. I’d heard her with my own ears.

“I have one last thing to ask you, though,” Valentine said.

“Of course,” I said, holding onto his hands.

Fuck, it hurt to just look at him. To doubt everything I knew. Everything I didn’t know.

“Play for me one more time?”

My eyes closed and another wave of tears hit me, spilling down my cheeks. “As long as you want.”

“Good. Now stop crying and sit on that bench, Sunshine. I promise you…” he said, leaning closer and closer until the tips of our noses touched, and he was smiling. He really wasn’t worried in the least. “I promise you that I will be just fine.”

Every word he said rang true. I had no choice but to believe him.

But even when he jumped off the stage and sat in the middle of the auditorium just like always, and I sat in front of the piano, stretching my fingers, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That the world was going to end soon, and it would be more terrifying than I could ever imagine.

I played for Valentine anyway, and with each new note I reached, I prayed with all my being that we all made it out alive through whatever was going on here.

Valentine didn’t walkme back to my room, and Shadow was nowhere to be seen, either. It looked like I was no longer in need of protection, so he didn’t waste time with me. Probably out there enjoying his life instead of babysitting me.

Good for him. I just wished I hadn’t felt so damn sad about it.

I begged Valentine to reconsider another three times before we said goodnight. I begged him to withdraw the challenge, and he no longer even told me he wouldn’t. He only smiled and said that I shouldn’t worry so much, that I should rest instead. That I shouldn’t bother with thinking about Emerald and those men, and what they said about me.

But I did bother. I did worry—so much it made me sick.

Hours later, I pulled the window of my room open to get some air and to let the small raindrops fall on my face. I was suffocating and I was burning with the need to go find Grey, but I also didn’t want to bother him. He hadn’t come back to me, so he was probably preparing for the challenge at dawn. Or maybe he was out drinking or something? Maybe resting?

Where the hell is he?

I had no idea, but drowning this urge to see him, to talk to him, was getting harder by the minute.

And then I saw it.

The Whispering Wood was so dark that I sometimes couldn’t tell where the trees surrounding the castle ended and those angry clouds began.

But even in that darkness I saw the shape of him, holding onto the tip of a large tree, his wings spread wide to the sides.

He was watching me. I felt it in my bones that he was watching me, those grey eyes on my face, even though we were too far apart for me to see him with any clarity. I could barely make out the shape of him, and I stopped breathing altogether.

“Grey,” I whispered into the night, as if his name was going to be my salvation.

He moved.

Those large black wings on his back were beating fast, and Grey was flying in the soft rain toward me. Forget breathing—I couldn’t even move a single inch if I tried while I watched him come closer.

He wore nothing but a pair of sweatpants, barefoot, his chest naked, the wings on his back something out of a fantasy—membranous, black, and with big, curved claws all around them. I was tempted to think he was just a figment of my imagination, but my imagination could never come up with such perfection, so he had to be real.

He was flying right in front of me now, in front of my open window, face and body and wings wet with the rain, his hair standing in all directions.

I couldn’t care less that my heart was about to beat right out of my chest or that he could hear it. Grey was here, and right now, everything—everything else vanished in the dark clouds over us.

I reached out my hand to touch his face and he flew closer instantly, the rain coming off his wings spraying me a little, but I didn’t mind.

“Come here,” I whispered, completely hypnotized by that face, those eyes, those wings.

Grey stopped on the stone ledge outside my window, and like that, he was just a bit lower than me. He grabbed my hand and put it on his cheek, and he looked up at me like he had no clue what to expect.

Silly, silly Grey…

“Where were you?” I asked, and my whisper was almost lost with the sound of the rain.

“Out there, learning to use these wings.” He moved them a bit as they folded behind his back, so naturally, like they really, truly belonged to him. Like to be a man with a pair of wings attached to his back was a very natural thing.

“Why didn’t you come find me?” I’d been waiting all day, damn it. And I hadn’t planned to even ask him that, hadn’t wanted to sound so pathetic, but he was here now, looking at me like that, and within seconds, my resolve was washed away by the soft rain.

“I didn’t want to bother you.” Bother you, he said. “I know you were regretful this morning. You needed time to?—”

“You’re fucking crazy.” The words slipped from me before I could bite my tongue. Grey clamped his mouth shut, shocked, but I didn’t care. I raised my other hand to his face, too.

“I was not regretful. I do not regret choosing you. I do not regret anything that has to do with you—did you not feel me last night? Did you not feel me this morning?”

His thick brows narrowed. “I did.”

“So why would you think I regret you?!” It seemed so absurd to me.

“Because I saw your eyes,” he said, rising on his tiptoes to get closer. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

And he’d still threatened his brothers on my behalf.

I shook my head with a deep sigh, and when he touched my face with those wet hands, I breathed a bit easier.

“I didn’t. I won’t,” I said, the words loaded, coming straight from my soul. “I don’t even want to change my mind. I don’t want anyone else, you fool.” And just the fact that he thought that made me furious.

He looked so confused it was almost funny. “But you said you needed a moment.”

“Yes—because I was sad, Grey. Being sad is not the same as being regretful.”

Slowly, his brows rose a little, and the corners of his lips turned upward, transforming his beautiful face.

My heart jumped instantly.

“Nobody’s ever called me a fool before,” he said, touching the tip of his nose to mine.

“Well, you are. You’re the biggest fool in the Woods,” I said, breathless already because our lips were so close.

His grin spread wider, and the sight was a breeze to my burning soul. “I’m not very good at this, I think.”

I had no choice but to laugh. “No—I’m not very good at this. You suck.” I was bad at communicating my feelings, always had been, but he, apparently, was worse.

“I don’t suck,” he muttered, but his smile didn’t falter.

“I get sad and I need a moment to gather myself, and the first thing that pops into your head is that I don’t want you? Yes, Grey, you absolutely suck,” I said. “You know, you should know this already—you’re fifteen years older than me.” And that was a big number, wasn’t it? Pretty sure that should have scared me, except it didn’t, and not just because Grey looked like he was in his twenties still. “Really, you should?—”

He crashed his lips to mine before I finished speaking.

My arms wrapped around his neck fast. His wings spread wide to the sides, blocking the rain from splattering us as he devoured my mouth.

There were things I needed to remember; I was pretty sure of it. A lot of things.

But things could wait. Things could wait hours and days and weeks if needed because I couldn’t get enough of the taste of him, and everything else had already paled in comparison.

Again, must have been magic.

Grey wrapped those strong, wet arms around my waist and pulled me to him hard, knocking the breath out of me. “I agree, baby,” he whispered against my lips. “I suck at this, but I’ll do better. Just tell me how.”

“Not thinking I don’t want you when I’m sad or need some space is a good start,” I muttered, struggling to remember why I thought this was such a big deal just a few moments ago. It wasn’t—easily fixable.

“Done,” he said the next heartbeat, biting on my lower lip. “I feel like I already suck less.”

Laughter burst out of me. “I feel it, too. It’s in the air.”

He pulled me to his chest until I was all the way outside the window. “You know what I don’t suck at, though?”

“What’s that?”

“Flying,” he whispered, and my heart skipped another beat.

“You have wings,” I said, as if I was just seeing them now. As if I was just realizing that they were touching my forearms while I held onto Grey’s neck.

“I do. And I’ve been testing them all day while I waited.”

“Waited for what?”

I thought he’d say for dawn or for the challenge, but… “For you to come to your window.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Hours.”

I leaned back to look at his face. “Why didn’t you knock?”

He grinned. “Because I suck.”

I closed my eyes, chuckling. “Yes, you do.”

“Will you let me make it up to you, baby?” Grey whispered, and I was starting to really love it when he called me that.

Fuck, yes, I thought. “Make it up to me, how?”

“Do you trust me?”

The word slipped from me so fast it shocked me. “Yes.” I did trust him. Call me insane, but I trusted him more than I’d trusted anybody else in my whole life.

His eyes lit up again and he smiled. “Hold on tight.”

“Wha—”

Grey pulled me out of the window and his wings stretched wide, beating the air, taking us higher.

I screamed at the top of my lungs and he laughed his heart out. My eyes squeezed shut, though he held me by the waist as steadily as I’d been with the floor beneath my feet. Still, I couldn’t fucking breathe. Rain splattered me everywhere and the wings kept on moving, and I heard how powerful they were as they took us higher and higher and higher…

“Open your eyes, baby,” Grey whispered in my ear.

“No,” I choked. “Just don’t let me go. Please-please-please don’t let go!”

“Never,” he said. “I’ll never let go. You can trust me. Open your eyes, Fall. Take a look at your kingdom.”

The words shocked me to my core. My kingdom, he called it.

My eyes popped upon involuntarily, and I found him looking at me, like always.

Darkness all around, though I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face yet.

Grey really had wings on his back.

And I was fucking flying.