44
KYLO
T he ride back to Etherdale was not an experience I was keen to repeat. The air was impossibly heavy, settling on my shoulders with some unbearable weight.
I’d made the right call.
I glanced to my left and then my right. Blade’s forehead was creased, his lips curving downward. Tears flowed freely down Harmony’s cheeks as she sniffled and stroked her firebird.
She caught me looking and nodded at me. I read the expression on her features, the unspoken insistence that I extend myself compassion and grace.
I’d made the right call, but I felt like the worst person in the world.
Zander’s cell of turned hadn’t blamed us for the choice we’d made. They would’ve done the same in our shoes. But they weren’t in our shoes; instead, they refused to leave the land under their protection, the land where they would fight and die together.
King Earle loved making an example of turned clans who dared rise from the underground. So far, this had only occurred on a small-scale. Once Earle realized our true numbers and declared war, everything would take a turn. Earle clearly cared far more about wiping our kind off the face of the earth than he cared about the reasons we arose in the first place.
The corruption, the slave trade, the religious extremism. Earle and his out-of-touch council turned a blind eye to a realm on the verge of unraveling. They said one thing—that relationships and reciprocity between mortals and immortals were the most important institutions to upkeep—but their actions, or, rather, their inactions, told the opposite story.
King Earle cared more about protecting his legacy than his own people.
We hadn’t brought enough numbers to face his forces. And more than that, it would’ve disrupted decades of careful planning and foresight.
My clan was the future. And the unfortunate reality was that not all of our allies would survive to fight by our side when the war began.
Making rash decisions would guarantee our demise. I would not build my new, better world on a rocky foundation, where we were disadvantaged and exposed from the start.
Yes, I was obsessive. Ambitious. Protective. Relentless.
To everyone outside of my inner circle, I was cold and cutthroat, unquestionable.
But the masks I wore served a purpose. And so too did every single method I’d employed and decision I’d made since I decided I was to become more of a monster than the ones who terrorized us.
Vera made a low, mournful call, her body vibrating in a low purr. It was common for firebirds who bonded to their riders to attempt to comfort them.
She was a very good girl.
My other very good girl was clearly asleep, her heart beating slow and measured through the blood bond. I hadn’t missed the period when it had tumbled all over itself, as if she were cornered and stressed. I hated the feeling it evoked, the panicked desperation to go to her and protect what was mine.
I had to trust that my clan would protect her, especially when I’d made clear the wrath that would befall anyone who failed to keep her within sight and out of harm’s way at all times.
But I didn’t trust anyone to take care of Evie the way I could. And with the way she was finally looking at me—with those big, hopeful gray eyes—I could tell she was coming around to that idea as well.
When we landed in a remote part of Etherdale in the dead of night, the city was quiet, lights flickering against the darkness.
Any other day, I would’ve gone straight to Evie. But not tonight, not when I felt this heavy, this weighed down by duty and grief and helplessness.
Ghosts from the past reached for me. It was such an uncommon occurrence, that I couldn’t help but shudder at their cool fingertips along my spine.
I checked our bond, following that invisible tether that placed Evie exactly where she belonged in her princess cottage.
Then I went home, so I could be alone with my torment until it passed.
The next day was a different kind of hell. I had countless correspondences to answer from turned clans in other regions and mortal allies here in Etherdale.
Then I had to attend meetings with commanders, new recruits, and my broader circle.
All the while, guilt was eating me alive. Useless, irrational guilt that would impede my ability to lead effectively.
Guilt over making the correct decision. The decision to let Zander’s clan die to preserve my own.
Then there was the guilt over making Evie wait an entire day to see me. I’d of course already sent word that I was alive and back in Etherdale, but I hadn’t seen her yet.
I could lie and say that being busy was the only reason I’d delayed so long. But the truth was, I didn’t want to give her this lesser version of myself. I wanted her to feel safe with me, always. To know she could rely on me, that I would be a solid, immovable rock—physically and emotionally.
She deserved only my best.
After the longest day in decades, I met with Princeton.
He took one glance at me before the mischievous glint in his eyes evaporated. He nodded. “Grief is good, Kylo. Means your soul is still human. That’s what we wanted, remember?”
My face fell. We sat together in his home above ground, the sun descending, candles scattered across the living room. Their flames lowered in tandem, responding to the mood.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m grateful for it all.” I stared down at the coffee table between us.
I remembered the face of someone I lost, long ago. A girl with strawberry blonde hair and dark freckles scattered across her fair skin. I remembered the sound of her laugh, the way she made me feel less alone in a world in which I’d once considered myself alien and unbelonging.
My hands balled into fists. Hatred attempted to wash the grief away, to take up all the space in my mind so I didn’t have to experience any more pain.
“Don’t do that,” Princeton said. “Feel it. Thank the pain for showing you just how fucking alive you are. Alive enough to take that suffering and alchemize it. Absorb the blows, then use every last one.”
My mentor knew everything about me, as any good mentor did. He knew what I needed. He knew what motivated me. He knew what had the power to destroy me.
“Let’s get to the root,” he said, clasping his hands together and leaning back in his chair.
“I’d rather not.”
Princeton grinned. “Too bad.”
I wasn’t entirely myself when I finally found Evie sitting in her garden, at a black wrought-iron table. But after my emotional healing session with Princeton, I was far better off than before.
For a while, from the comfort of my shadows, I watched her read that mysterious ancient text—the one that shocked the hell out of me every time I touched it. She’d conjured a witch light to illuminate the pages amid the darkness, even brighter than the strings of lights above. Every once in a while, she jotted down notes. And more than ever before, I could sense her buried magick emit a low hum of power.
She grew stronger every day, and I wished I could be proud of that, but selfishly, all I felt was dread. Especially when she had no control over such forces.
“I can feel you watching me, creep,” she said softly without lifting her head.
My shadow glamour evaporated, and Evie looked up at me from her tiny table filled entirely with books. A bird bath with a fountain gently flowed beside her.
Her irritation was a thinly veiled facade, and she couldn’t hold it for longer than two seconds after she saw me in the flesh.
She leaped up and into my arms in the next blink. The intoxicating, sweet scent of her enveloped me. I held her tightly, struggling not to wrap her head to toe in shadows.
“Hi, angel,” I whispered.
I was hit with sudden emotion, this wave of relief and gratitude and adoration that made me want to squeeze this precious girl far too tightly than her fragile body could handle.
Feeling her heart beat against my own chest was infinitely more comforting than what I could hear through the blood bond.
As if she shared the sentiment, Evie burrowed further into my hold, inhaling deeply.
“You free for a late-night date?” I asked softly, a chuckle rumbling through me at her endearing clinging.
“No. I’m clearly very busy right now.”
Brat . I’d allow it, given how much she’d likely been worrying, and how long I’d made her wait to see me.
“You know, with my current state of unemployment,” she added.
I let her go and kissed for forehead. “I have full faith and confidence that you’re doing beautiful work, regardless. And you know that I’m ready when you are to figure out a way for you to still live out your dreams.”
Her brattiness melted, and she gazed up at me sadly. For a moment, her face shifted into something troubled, as if she were holding back additional words. But she remained silent, merely nodding instead.
“It’s getting late,” she murmured. “What are we going to do?”
I rolled my eyes. “Evie, it is 9 o’clock. You are twenty-four years old.”
She appeared indignant, defensive. “So?”
“ So ,” I said, one of my shadows escaping my human glamour to coil around her wrist. “You are far too young to be concerned about how late it is.”
“Ew, Kylo, please stop reminding me that you’re basically elderly.”
I laughed. She squirmed with discomfort, and I relished every second of it. “I’m immortal, baby. I’ve left the constructs of time and age entirely.”
She grumbled something under her breath. My shadow coiled around her throat next, where it grew quite content.
Evie’s eyes widened, and the scent of her arousal did ungodly things to my body.
“You sure you’re disgusted, angel?” I whispered, lifting her into my arms. Her legs wrapped around me, and I captured her lips with mine. I teased and nibbled, slowly easing deeper into the kiss, demanding more from her like I would forever. My tongue found hers, and she released a contented little moan into my mouth.
I slowly retracted. “There’s my good girl,” I praised softly, feeling the way she melted against me.
“I missed you,” she finally admitted.
“I missed you too. Terribly.”