Chapter 37

I’m fine.

I’m fine.

I’m fine.

I repeat the internal mantra as I’m escorted back to my room. As Cainon bids me goodnight with a kiss to the knuckles I want to punch through the wall. I watch his back until he disappears around the corner, a pit of dread sitting in the well of my stomach.

Releasing a shuddered breath, I turn toward Kolden. I’m not sure what he sees in my eyes, but he mutters something about guarding from further down the hall. Only once he, too, is almost out of sight, do I move into the lobby, taking a few moments to stack myself with bricks of courage.

I open the second door and step into my suite, moonlight casting shadows around the room, making every inch of gold appear sterling. Every inch of blue stone appear black.

Castle-Noir black.

His scent hits. A blow to my brain, my heart.

My fucking soul.

I spin, closing the door with a gentle thud, settling my forehead against the cool grain. “I thought you said you’d seen enough?”

The air shifts, and I feel him everywhere.

His icy breath hits the side of my neck, his hands landing on the door either side of my head, casting me in a cold cage that should make me feel trapped.

But doesn’t.

I’m not sure why my eyes sting at the realization, but they do.

I’m fine.

“I know what you’re doing, Milaje.”

The words are uncharacteristically soft, unlike my answer—hewn from that hard and scarred space within.

“No. You don’t.”

I feel him shift closer. Feel his body align with my spine—a balm to the scalding slither I can’t expel. That disgusting, vile thing inside me.

The truth.

His lips skate the shell of my ear, his whisper a hushed attack. “You want me to hurt?”

Yes.

I want to lash myself against him until I’m bruised and bent and broken. Until I can no longer hear their burning screams.

I want to hurt him so much I don’t even recognize myself.

Perhaps he’ll finally rip me to fleshy shreds in a way that serves my due. After all, he’s the only one who’s ever been able to leave a lasting scar to rival this hurt I feel inside.

The only one who truly has the power to ruin me.

“No,” he growls. A command and a pledge and so much more, as though he’s studying the fabric of my thoughts.

A flash of anger sparks in my chest, my upper lip curls, and that frosty hardness returns with a vengeance.

“Get out.” Of my head. My heart. “I have everything I ever wanted, and you’re ruining it.”

“A smart woman once told me that everything is nothing if you’re in pieces.”

I’m fine.

“Don’t lie to me.” The words are a grated snarl that shreds the silence and attacks the sensitive spot below my ear.

My heart races. Skin flares.

“Get. Out.”

“Is that what you really want?”

He moves impossibly close, crushing me in ways that make me feel held.

I don’t want to be held.

I don’t deserve to be held.

I ball my hands into fists. “Yes.”

He doesn’t move or breathe or speak, but the air around him screams—pleads with me in a way I don’t want to understand.

Fury erupts, and I whirl, snarling.

But he’s gone, leaving nothing but his lingering scent for me to choke on.

I look to the open balcony door, to the curtains billowing in the breeze, lit by a blade of moonlight piercing through …

He’s never going to stop.

I reach behind my arm and pinch an inch of flesh. Pinch harder than I ever have, tears welling in my eyes.

Perhaps he’s my penance for the monster I am inside—a hollow love that churns and burns and destroys.

Just like me.