Chapter 19

That scribbled, scalding mess of black slashes the underside of my skin, my skull, but the intense pain pales in comparison to the flutter of fierce determination swarming through me as liquid warmth oozes from my nose.

Down my chin.

I hold Cainon’s inky stare—unblinking—watching him suck.

Listening to him swallow.

I refuse to let my face crumble. To unveil the cracks weaving across my heart, my soul, and my collection of crystal domes I frantically forged to keep from falling apart as I stripped myself bare. Fed my blood to the wrong man.

Don’t cry …

A tendril of sadness weaves through a fissure and coils around my heart, constricting, making each thump of the tender organ sting. A sob threatens to burst forth, and I snip the rogue weed, then pluck at my thinning luster to patch up the dome it spilled from.

A shiver rakes through me, and I rip my finger free of his mouth.

Cainon gasps, heaving, studying me with boggling complexity—mapping every fleck in my eyes like he’s drawing lines between them, trying to sketch a shape.

The Unseelie fed off the life force of others, Orlaith. Men. Women. Children. It bolstered them. Gave some of them yield over the elements. Filled others with unparalleled strength.

I watch, remembering Cainon’s buckling words, bracing for whatever comes next.

A crackle of power singeing the air? A surge of bone-crumbling strength? Maybe he’ll cleave a hole in the stone with a snap of his fingers, or forge flames like the Gypsy from Gypsy and the Night King.

Cainon continues to search my eyes with unsettling vigor.

“What is it?”

His head tilts, eyes narrow, and I’m forced to suffer through a pause. “I … was expecting something,” he finally says. “A pull, perhaps.”

A pull?

Shoving aside my confusion, I snatch the loose thread like it’s my salvation, flavoring my gaze with challenge—something I learned from a hard man who I’m certain would flay me if he were here.

Alive.

If he knew what I’m doing. What I’m about to say.

But he’s not.

I paint a pretty lie in my eyes and gather my soiled words. “Well … maybe you need a little more?”

The frown slides off Cainon’s face, and his features harden.

Sharpen.

“Are you offering yourself to me, petal?”

I open my mouth, almost spilling a prickly sprout of denial before I hack at its roots. Feel it wither against my tongue. “What if I am?”

He releases a deep, gravelly growl that lifts the hairs on the back of my neck, then threads his fingers through my sodden locks, gripping so hard I choke back a scream. “Why?”

That caustic thing beneath my skin swells to a splitting degree. Everything feels too tight.

Too small.

My heart thunders, head spinning, words clanking together like boulders, making it hard to pick the right ones.

“I said why?”

Because I need to become indispensable.

Because I need your trust if I’m to get out of here and save these people.

He steps closer, his hard, hot body again crushing me against the bars.

Too close.

Focus, Orlaith. Focus.

“Because I know how it feels to hide the monster within,” I rasp, pulling a strangled breath. “To wear a brave face while all that ugly stuff inside gorgeson everything you love.”

The muscle in his jaw bounces, his stare unflinching, penetrating—a tower of menacing brawn poured upon me, oozing arrogance and something … else.

Something that makes another tendril of sadness twirl up my ribs and peck at my heart.

There you go again, pushing me away.

Would it be so hard? To love me?

Her aim wasn’t as good as yours.

His earlier words strike me like a volley of stones, and that beating organ inside my chest spears itself on a rib as I piece together the fragments of his damage …

His bestial, broken father on the floor.

The way he spoke about his mother.

The scar on his chest.

I look into his hollow eyes, and all I see is a lost, lonely boy desperate to prove his worth. He’s reaching for a love that isn’t his, and I understand that brutal beast too fucking well.

I hung off Rhordyn’s every move since I came of age and noticed him around the castle. Truly noticed him as more than just the High Master who offered me refuge and took my daily offering. I noticed his stoic dominance and unflinching manner. His rich, rumbled words that bored beneath my skin and rattled my bones.

My soul.

I noticed the way my heart began to race every time he cast fleeting looks in my direction, like a single word from his mouth could will it to stop.

To start.

I grew in a pot of unreciprocated love, then went into shock when he came to Bahari, crumbled that pot in the might of his crushing fists, and shook all the soil from my roots.

So I pushed him away. Broke him down.

Hurt him beyond repair.

Listened to another man speak, then silenced the one I love.

This deep, heavy pain hangs off my ribs, making them bow from the weight … a pain I refuse to stuff away as I look deep into Cainon’s eyes, achingly aware of the cage at my back. The lives tucked behind the bars lining this curling wall.

My resolve hardens.

Cainon preyed on my vulnerabilities when he took me to that burrow and molded me into his personal assassin. Though I hate the thought of wielding those same ugly tools, I’m not above scrapping in the pit of moral mud.

Not here. Not now.

“I know what it’s like to feel undeserving of any sort of love but the one that’s unreciprocated,” I rasp, and his body locks.

Goes eerily still.

I settle my hand upon his scar, spores of self-hatred soiling my insides like an undusted mantle. “We’ve both been forged by a conditional love that broke us into crumbs people still manage to choke on. Perhaps there’s something poetic in that? In us.”

The words are vile, rotten things …

Cainon looks at my hand, studying it like it’s some sort of gift he’s not sure how to receive.

I’ll never forgive myself for preying on his weakness. But with that little girl’s sobs still echoing in my ears, I’ll do whatever it takes.

I’ll be a monster—for her.

For them.

I tap my cupla with the tip of my bloody finger. “I could love this,” I whisper, the sour, lumpy lie slipping off my tongue.

His eyes take on a devastating shade of black that spoils my insides, blazing across my face in a way I imagine the sun scorches the dunes of Rouste.

Perhaps that’s exactly what I deserve.

To burn.

I wipe my chin, dragging the silky, wet smear down the side of my neck. He hunts the motion—like he’s feeding off the crimson picture I’m painting. “Give me what Rhordyn never did,” I say, thoughts of his icy lips skimming my yearning pulse almost bringing me to my knees.

A pit-size lump swells in my throat …

Don’t cry.

“Give me what I crave.”

Another low, sawing growl rattles his chest. Runs me through with a strike of fear I’m swift to smother. “It’ll hurt, petal. My teeth … they’re not as sharp as a full-blooded Unseelie. There’s nothing gentle about my bite.”

A bold smile curls my lips.

I want him to make such a mess of my neck that I can never look at myself the same again—eternally reminded of this filthy act of survival that makes me want to shred my skin.

“Good.”

He grips the side of my face, a harsh assault I lean into as he smears more blood across my lips. “My pretty flower. So full of surprises.”

My entire body bristles.

If he only knew.

Eyes glazed with lust, he explores my neck in the same manner I do a rock before I swirl paint across the perfect, unspoiled surface. If I live to paint another, it’ll be jagged and split, full of holes for heavy truths to burrow from the light. I’ll use nothing but the grayslades and their varying shades of silver and ash.

Don’t cry—

“Where, petal? Where shall I bite this pretty neck of yours?”

Run!

Swallowing a whimper, I push my hair back from the right side of my neck and arch for Cainon. A flower that thrives in shadow tipping toward the scorching sun. “Here,” I whisper, and tap my thumping carotid, ripping the weeds of self-disgust blooming inside my chest.

Stuffing them beneath a dome.

His eyes ignite, his throat working, and I know I’ve pleased him with my rotten answer, building another dome for a thorny vine of shame that won’t stop pricking all my tender places.

Cainon rumbles low, dragging his thumb back and forth across the sensitive skin, and I close my eyes—hide somewhere happy. Picture a coil of stairs and cold, black stone.

The taste of honey buns.

The rich smells of the kitchen. Frost nipping at fertile soil, and a tapestry of fresh, vibrant shoots that often threaded above the surface a season before they were due. Destined to die.

I think of him.

Rhordyn.

Think of how his gaze sliced across my skin, making my heart lurch, like it was trying to leap from my chest to his. Think of how it felt to have his mighty weight upon my body, crushing me into the mattress.

Making me feel safe.

I can almost feel his icy breath pouring upon me with each rumbling exhale. Can almost hear his voice—a guttural grate that told me not to cry.

Don’t cry …

“Fucking perfection,” Cainon mutters, warm lips coasting my pebbled flesh, ripping a hole in the illusion like a punch to the face.

Suddenly, all I can smell is salt and citrus, those whispers inside me surging to savage life, a soft wail cleaving through the messy chatter …

Run, Serren!

My knees shake, a sick, squirming sensation wiggling through my chest, up my throat.

A deluge of dense, flourishing fear.

Too much.

Scrambling through my insides, I scavenge unripe grains of luster, like a litter of sparkly sand I crush, smooth—

He strikes, latching onto the taut stretch of muscle and flesh, and I rupture in a blunt blaze of crippling pain that rips through my jaw and spears across my shoulder. I shudder, the half-finished dome falling forgotten as I wrestle the yearn to curl my spine. To tuck into a small, protected ball while I pour free of the raw wound in a hot, bubbling rush.

He claws at my body, my hair, ripping my head so far back my neck feels like it’s going to snap, his thick, throaty moans curdling my blood. My mouth falls open, a scream bludgeoning up my throat, but my sound won’t come.

The only sound is that of him swallowing—again.

Again.

Again.

Panic flares, kicking, clawing at my ribs. It loses fight like a spent breath.

The world falls away, leaving nothing but paralyzing pain and the unyielding, gluttonous tug at my skin. Itchy bulbs pop across my shoulder, my clavicle, and I picture the fresh flush of blooms unfurling as my lungs fill with a heaviness that feels like liquid ice.

A stark chill seeps through my bones.

My muscles twitch and tighten, lids growing heavy, and I wilt against his arm like a decaying stem. The flaming torch heads blur until they’re a pretty smear of white, orange, red.

Black.

I drift.

Floating …

Floating …

Weightless, I tumble toward that seeing end, zipping through the inky forest with a swarm of glowing orbs. Again, we whizz past a decrepit castle that sits on the edge of a sheer cliff, and I’m hailed by the sweetest voice riding the wind’s current in lilting notes I want to chase:

A persistent warmth oozes through me …

A deeper, more demanding blackness catches me in a clawed hand and yanks me against the grain. I feel myself falling in the wrong direction, away from that soft, sad song I want to hear the rest of.

Wait …

Wait!

“No.”

I’m ripped into a watery embrace, tethered to an ancient, mighty unknown that electrifies me with icy rage and challenges me to draw breath.

Arctic hands cradle my face, a phantom kiss pressed to my lips that feels like a whisper given shape. Given life and love and a fluttering, thumping, hammering heartbeat.

A whisper for my wrongs. Another for my rights.

A whisper for the words that cut, the lies that struck, and for a love that took more than it had a chance to give.

A whisper for every stone I set amongst that curling wall. Bits of myself I purged to a man who kept everything safe but himself.

A whisper for …

Him.