57. Reyla
Resolution found its place in my heart, along with some skips that told me I was either completely out of my mind or decidedly eager to see this through. Merrick and I were going to consummate our marriage, a rather technical term for the hot, wild sex I had planned for my evening, but there it was.
Then I could settle on my throne beside the man I was falling in love with. I would put Lore and his “lure” behind me forever. I'd train myself in magic and avoid him. Before I knew it, the elder's prophecy would come true.
A mating mark meant nothing.
As the sun withered, encroaching on the horizon and slanting bitter orange and ominous red through the trees, I moved across the castle's stone exterior. Cool evening air whipped around me, pushing me this way and that, and for a moment, I considered stopping. I could climb back into my room and wait until morning.
But no. I had to do this now. He’d said to tell him when I was ready, and I was. I wanted to take this step with him. I craved him.
So I pushed on, slowly making my way across the precarious surface. Each block scraped my fingers, and my muscles already spasmed. Back at the fortress, this would've been nothing more than a thing done on a dare. My friends would stand on the ground below, cheering me on.
Despite knowing I was no higher in the air than when I rode on the back of a dragon, my heart battered against the cage of my ribs. I kept swallowing my rising fear and telling myself to take one shift to the right more, latch onto one more stone. Soon, I'd be in my husband's arms. He'd carry me to bed and . . . I couldn't wait to get started.
Gritting the blade in my teeth, I kept my focus on the next stone.
A gust of wind smacked my back, and my left hand slid. Falling. I was falling . . .
I caught myself by wedging my fingers between two stones and hung by one hand, my ragged breathing slamming into the rough stone in front of my face.
My fingers protested, but I made them drag me upward and to the right, slowly making my way to the open window.
A crow cawed overhead, diving toward me, making me flinch. By the fates, would the world just let me do this!
Wings flapping violently, it smacked against my head. Snarling, I wrenched my head backward, smacking the bird, sending it careening. Stay away, would you?
Finally, I reached the open window. My sigh of relief huffed from my lungs as I scrambled up to perch, my belly pressed against the sill.
Merrick lay on his bed, his deep brown hair glinting in the setting sunlight. I’d climb inside, stride across the floor, and stop beside him. I’d wake him, tell him firmly that I was done waiting, that it was time we were finally together.
He'd open his arms, and I'd fall into them.
My body throbbed in anticipation. There was no denying I wanted this man more than the air surging through my lungs.
Except Merrick wasn't asleep. His eyes were closed, but he smiled. And he whispered.
To whom?
A quick scan of the room showed me he was the only one there.
Such a cutie. Was he talking to himself? No need for that. We’d soon lie together, and he could share all his thoughts with me.
“You're ready?” he asked, and for an instant, I thought he was speaking to me. But he couldn't be, or he'd turn, smile, and beckon me closer. Maybe snarl at me for endangering myself to reach him, though I was sure he'd later laugh, shake his head, and kiss me until we were lost in moaning.
He flung back the blankets and stepped from the bed, striding over to stand in front of the mirror.
My husband slept naked, and seeing everything only heightened my anticipation. His long, thick cock lay flaccid—for now— and I couldn't wait to hold it. Grip it tight and stroke it until it smacked against his rippling abs.
He looked into the mirror, and I admired his tussled hair and the way his green eyes shimmered in the setting sunlight.
“It's yours,” he said to himself in the mirror. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
As the sun winked from view, usurped by the night, Merrick’s body began to shimmer. Swallowing and with my eyes as wide as they could be, I watched as he stretched, each beam of lingering sunlight winking across the perfectly sculpted muscles of his shoulders and back. His unmarred skin. His amazing ass.
That also shimmered.
Was this some sort of magic or . . .? I could not look away or finish climbing inside to demand he tell me what in all the fates was happening.
The sun slithered into the night and candles lit themselves inside the room, outlining my husband. In the mirror, Merrick's face . . . shifted.
No, it became . . .
Merrick turned around, but he was no longer my Merrick.
Now he was—he'd become —Lore.
Scars covered this man’s body, yet they . . . they . . . were one and the same?
Merrick by day.
Lore by night.
I slid off the sill, lowering myself from view, ignoring the scrape to my palms and the blood dripping off my fingers. Needing time to think, I clung to a long, flat stone, out of his possible view.
I tried to make sense of what I'd seen in Merrick's—Lore's— their room. The memory of Merrick leaving his bed and approaching the mirror, speaking to himself—no, to Lore .
Merrick and Lore were the same person.
Talking to each other before they switched.
Laughing about what one would do with me during the night before the other would take over in the morning to knot my heart even further.
Had they been playing with me all along? I’d . . . kissed them both. Let both of them touch my body. I’d come in both of their arms, and all the while, they knew .
Lore’s low laugh spilled out the window, finding me dangling against the stone wall, gouging me with his mockery. Their mockery.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This new pain would be hard to shove away. Poor Kinart, moved aside as if there was someone—no, two someones—better.
The rage pouring through me now for them both? It drove my anger to a boiling point. I climbed back up and slipped in through the window quieter than a dragon youngling asleep in its nest.
Lore stood with his back to me. Oblivious to me and the fury churning across my soul.
They’d played with me. Laughed at me. Used me.
My knife slipped into my hand with ease, a knife that . . . both of them had given to me .
I rushed toward Lore.
He spun, but it was too late. Much, much too late for them.
And for me.
With a shriek, I gouged my blade toward his chest.
Look for Lady of Cinders ,
the next book in the Kingdom of Shadow and Ruin Series
Bound by a love that defies reason and a curse that defies salvation, I must navigate a kingdom of secrets before the man I can’t live without is lost forever.