Chapter 39

ChapterThirty-Nine

His heart shattered the moment hers did. It broke him to hold her as she cried, and he knew there was nothing he could do to fix this. Her family didn’t want her. She’d grown up with the fear that no one would ever want her. She’d been abandoned, forgotten, and then told she had no value other than her use to her family. And she’d no longer been useful.

If he could take the pain, he would. He would rip Minerva to shreds and feed Selene her still beating heart if it would make his little sorceress feel better. And yet, he knew it wouldn’t.

This was a wound she needed to heal for herself, and all he could do was wait.

Time wasn’t on their side. He let her rest in their room for a few days while he scoured their library for whatever answer he could get. Minerva would try to kill her. The mark on her neck was the key source of that, and he’d already sketched it while she was asleep.

There had to be some explanation in his library. Some book to help him understand what spell Minerva had used and what might help him prevent that spell from ever taking life.

Except there wasn’t. Lust spent hours every day trying to figure it out, and when he couldn’t, he tore pages out of books and shattered windows in his rage.

He had to save her. He had to do something other than just sit here and wait for the others to attack her. And some part of him knew that if he didn’t do something, then he was waiting for her to die.

A small mist fluttered out from underneath the door and then stood. Affection. The little spirit had grown yet again. It straightened its spine and stood as tall as his waist, though it didn’t look like a child. It appeared to be a smaller sized... person.

With a mop of hair on top of its head, lips and nose all in the right places, Affection looked very much like one of his court nobility. Although, it wasn’t male or female. Apparently, it hadn’t chosen yet.

“What are you doing in here?” Affection asked, its voice soft.

“She’s dying.” He slumped in his chair, legs spread wide and chest still heaving. Pages floated in the air around him, still fluttering down onto the floor with the quiet hush of the earth anticipating a storm. “And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

Affection’s eyes wandered over him and the mounds of paper nearby. “So, you are destroying the library?”

“I am destroying every book that doesn’t have the answer I seek.”

“What if it contains an answer for later?” Affection stepped over one pile, and the movement of its body was unnerving. “Books have lots of answers, and not all of them are for the present.”

“I don’t need your philosophical scolding right now.”

“I’m not scolding you. I’m telling you that you need to talk with her.” Affection sighed, and then grumbled something under its breath that sounded like, “For two people who are so fond of each other, you both ignore the other a lot.”

“Excuse me?” He stood up, pacing from one side of the library to the other. “I don’t think you understand what I’m doing here. It’s my job to fix this. I was the one that took her in from the sorceresses. If I hadn’t done that, then she wouldn’t be cursed. I could have saved her if I wasn’t so selfish.”

“But then you never would have known her.”

“At least she would have been safe. She’d be alive, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have to be afraid that she was going to die at any second, and she would be back with her family, who likely would love her more than I can.”

And there it was.

His greatest fear.

By the seven kingdoms. A hole opened up in his chest and he suddenly felt like he could fall into it at any second. She deserved someone to love her, more than someone who just needed or wanted her. She deserved a man who would feel the entire island shake every time she looked at him.

He didn’t know how to love. He didn’t know how to feel much of anything other than lust, and that wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair for him to keep her.

A small hand slipped into his, and he looked down at Affection with surprise. “You are putting a lot of responsibility on your own shoulders, Lust. You need to talk to her. To tell her how you feel and what you know. Together, you can fix this.”

“I broke her,” he whispered. “What right do I have to beg her to put herself back together after what I have done?”

“It is not your fault. It is not hers either. Bad things happen in this world, and all you can do is rely on each other.” Affection squeezed his hand before the sensation faded and it returned to a being made only of light. “You have given me much strength, Lust. That is a beautiful thing.”

“Are you going to take mortal form, then?” No other spirit had in a very long time, but he wouldn’t mind having another like himself. A new spirit who would experience new things might liven the place up.

“I don’t think that is my destiny,” Affection replied with a soft smile. “I think I’m needed more like this.”

“You will always be welcome here, my friend.” He patted his hand through the bright mist. “Now where is she?”

“The gardens, last I checked.” Affection shrugged. “But I think it’s likely she’s near the edge. She’s been finding herself there more and more lately.”

A spike of fear shattered through his chest. “Why?” Was she thinking about throwing herself off it? He wouldn’t allow that. He’d plunge into that darkness with her and he didn’t care if the beast underneath their kingdoms devoured them both. At least they would be together.

Again, Affection shrugged. “She said it makes her feel small. And I don’t know why she’d want to feel like that, but I think it makes her feel better.”

Of course. She didn’t want to feel like herself. All she wanted was a distraction from the emotions she’d hidden for years. At least she was feeling them, though. And at least he could help distract her when she needed it.

He left the library and the glowing spirit behind. Instead, he turned his attention to the gardens and to the spot he’d brought her when they first decided to trust each other. That memory felt so far away now that he thought of it.

He remembered how feisty she was. Selene hadn’t wanted to trust him in the slightest, and she’d fought him tooth and nail the entire time they worked toward that trust. But he had gotten through to her, just as she had gotten through to him.

Lust wasn’t alone anymore. If he needed her, Selene would come running, because that was what she was good at. In knowing that she was there for him, even through the hardest part of her own life, he had become stronger. So much stronger.

Though it took him a while to find her, Lust paused when he finally did. Selene stood on the edge of the cliff, the wind whipping in her hair and the jagged thorns of roses surrounding her. The sky beyond disappeared into the darkness below her feet. Dark hair tangling around her shoulders, she wore a dress from his own closet. Ropes twisted around her shoulders and hips, holding the pale lavender fabric against her skin, though it revealed every inch of her lovely curves.

So many words were left unsaid between them. He knew he had to tell her everything that he knew, and yet he wanted to taste her again. He wanted to lay her out on the barren ground that prepared for winter and pepper her frozen skin with kisses until she glowed with heat.

This woman meant more to him than he’d ever imagined. And he didn’t know how or when that had happened.

“Selene,” he said, his voice quiet and whipped away by the wind. “Come away from the edge.”

Her toes curled over the stone as her eyes stared down into the nothing beyond. “I’m not going to jump.”

“Good, because I would follow you.” And he didn’t like the thought of it. He took a few more steps closer and then wrapped his arm around her waist. “I don’t believe Wrath would enjoy the company.”

“Is he really down there?” she asked. “I thought the islands floated around each other. Like planets around stars.”

“Some of them do.” He rested his chin on her shoulder, holding her back to his chest so he could feel her heart beating. Even that wasn’t close enough. “Pride is above us all. His kingdom is the clouds, while Wrath’s is in the underworld.”

“Neither of those sound pleasant,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’d want to be in either kingdom. I want to be here, with my feet firmly grounded.”

That was enough flirting with certain death. He dragged her away from the edge, keeping her pressed against him because he was so afraid that his words would be the end of this. Of them.

“We have a lot to figure out,” he said, allowing her to turn in his arms. “Your mother provided me with a complicated problem and I have discovered I do not know how to fix it on my own.”

Selene looked up at him with those night sky eyes and he almost lost all his breath.

She knew.

Her entire body simmered with sadness and he knew without a doubt that she already knew the words that were about to come out of his mouth. His little moon was so intelligent, he shouldn’t be surprised that she’d figured it out on her own.

“She cursed me,” Selene said quietly. “I don’t know the words or the spell, though. So I don’t think there’s much we can do.”

He shook his head in denial. “There is something. We will figure it out. One of your sisters gave me a letter that claimed the symbol on the back of your neck is the marker for the curse.”

And because he couldn’t not touch her, Lust tunneled his hand underneath her hair and traced the dark mark. He knew exactly where it was. The damned mark was one he’d looked at many times. He’d even imagined tracing his tongue over it, wondering if that would give her pleasure.

Now he hated it.

“How long have you known?”

Oh, and he hated that expression on her face. The one where she disappeared from him. Dipping into the darkness of her own mind as she struggled to get away from these emotions. “Not long. Otherwise, I would have figured out how to break the curse.”

“It’s not your job to do so.”

“It is.” He surprised himself with the ferocity in his voice. “It’s my job to keep you safe. You are mine, Selene. And I would do anything to keep you.”

“You might not be able to.” She seemed so resigned. As though the words were all she had been waiting for before her soul could let go of all the pain. “Minerva wants me dead because I disappointed her. We should make good use of the time we have left.”

The snarl that erupted from his chest wasn’t human. Not at all. “You will fight this, Selene. You will battle and rage and tear at the world until this curse is broken. Do you hear me?”

Her features smoothed, the vacant expression he hated so much like a mask of ice over her face. “I’m tired of fighting, Lust. I’m tired of all this.”

Panic turned his heart into a drum. He framed her face with his hands, smoothing his thumbs over the high peaks of her cheekbones as his thoughts scattered to the winds. “No, no, that’s not you. You’re the sorceress who stood in the wake of a demon king and bent him to your whims. You’re far too brave to give up that easily, Selene.”

He expected some kind of reaction. Tears. Anger. A fight in her that should be there even through all this. But there was nothing left at all. She’d hidden herself from him again.

And it made him angry.

After all he’d done, all he’d proven to her, she thought she could recede into her mind? No, he wouldn’t let her. He’d drag her kicking and screaming into this world if he had to, but at least she would be here.

“You’re not dead yet,” he snarled. “I know Minerva wants you to think that she has everything planned out, but all she did was give us another obstacle.”

“Some are too big to crawl over.”

“This is one we can beat together. You’re a sorceress. You grew up in her home! Selene, you have to know more than I do.” Had his voice become frantic? He couldn’t focus on what he was saying in his desperation to reel her back in. “Get mad at me. Hit me if you wish, because I brought you here. I showed you what this world could be and broke through that ice in your heart. I made you want to change. So take it out on me.”

“I don’t want to be mad at you, Lust.” Finally, something in that gaze softened, but it wasn’t the way he wanted. She didn’t look like she was coming back to him. If anything, this felt like goodbye. “You showed me what I really wanted, Lust. You made me feel like a person again.”

“You aren’t this,” he whispered, drawing her forward so he could press their foreheads together. “Where did you go, little moon?”

“Somewhere you cannot follow.”

“There is no such place. I will shatter this realm if I lose you.”

“Don’t put that on me.” Selene shook her head, slowly rotating back and forth against him. “Don’t make me the reason this kingdom falls.”

“It’s already at your feet.” Didn’t she understand? How did he tell her what she wanted to hear? How did he use words to explain to her that she was his heart, and it only just begun to beat?

After a thousand years of life, he had finally started to live. He couldn’t lose that. Not now.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I do not know of a way to fix this. There is no spell that can remove the mark on my neck, just as there is no way we can convince Minerva to spare me.”

“I will give them the castle.”

“You will do no such thing.” Her voice deepened, snapping with anger as he’d hoped. Selene ripped herself away from him.

His arms fell empty at his sides as she glared at him, the wind thrashing her hair against her cheeks like the lashing of whips. Her eyes sparked like an avenging goddess and he’d never thought her more beautiful than in this moment.

“Your kingdom comes first,” she said. “Your kingdom over a single subject. Your court above one person. You cannot, and will not, give up everything that you have fought so hard to build.”

“I would lay it at your feet if it will keep you alive.”

“Then you are a fool,” she hissed. Selene wrapped her arms around her waist like she needed someone to hold her. His fingers itched to do just that. “Let me die, Lust, if that is what it takes to keep them away from your castle and your throne.”

He shook his head. “Tell them everything about me, then. Give away all my secrets and let me shoulder the pain.”

“You do not know what they would do to you.”

“After a thousand years, I don’t care.” He took another step closer and touched her again. He slid his fingers along her strong jaw and deep into her hair. “I can finally feel more than just lust. I can feel you, Selene. No sorceress will change that. No pain could end that. We’re connected, you and I. I know you feel the same.”

Her breath shuddered in her chest. Selene stood on her tiptoes and pressed their lips together, a soft kiss that seared him to the bone. “I have always known who you are, Lust. And I have accepted that you can feel nothing more than what you were made to feel. You don’t have to lie to me just because I’m dying.”

She slipped out of his arms and disappeared back into the castle, leaving him standing on the edge of the world. The tattered edges of his heart ripped open in the wake of her words.

He hadn’t realized how afraid he was that she might be right.