Chapter 23 #2
"I know." My thumb brushed over where the queen's diamonds had been, now replaced by a simple velvet ribbon she'd tied around her throat. "The way Tobias looked at your scar—"
"He recognized it," she signed, her hands trembling slightly. "I saw his face. Just for a moment before he controlled it. He knew what it meant."
"How could he recognize a scar?"
"I don't know." Her frustration bled through me. "But he knows something about my past. About the attack that left that mark. And if he knows that, then he either witnessed it or—"
"Or he was part of it." The words settled cold and heavy in my gut.
I felt her certainty, her conviction that Tobias was the key to everything—the attacks, Elias’ control, her missing past.
But conviction wasn't proof. And without proof, all we had was suspicion.
"We'll figure it out," I promised, though I had no idea how. "Together."
She leaned into me, her exhaustion worsening. The headache had faded but not disappeared. The strain of reading the dying vampire, then Elias, had taken its toll.
"Come on." I kept my arm around her as I guided her back toward my private chambers. "You need rest. Real rest, not just an hour between interrogations."
"I can't just rest while—"
"Yes, you can." I cut her off gently. "Because if you collapse from exhaustion, you're no good to anyone. And I need you sharp, Merrit. I need your... impressions. But I can't use them if you're running on fumes and bleeding from your nose."
Her reluctant agreement hit me square in the chest. She was exhausted. Still hurting from pushing too hard earlier.
My chambers were quiet when we returned, the sun setting outside the windows and casting everything in shades of amber and shadow. I locked the door. Spelled it for extra measure. Then turned to find Merrit standing in the middle of the room, looking lost.
"I almost lost you today." The words came out rougher than I'd intended. "That blade—if it had been an inch closer—"
"But it wasn't." She moved toward me, hands reaching up to cup my face. "I'm here. I'm alive."
"This time." I pulled her closer, needing to feel her solid and real against me. "But next time…"
"There won't be a next time. We'll figure this out before—"
I kissed her, cutting off the reassurance we both knew might be a lie. Because whoever was hunting us had gotten closer today than ever before. Had orchestrated an attack in broad daylight, in front of the entire Court, and nearly succeeded.
The kiss turned brutal fast. Her hands fisted in my shirt hard enough to tear fabric, pulling me closer. Her need matched mine—raw, desperate, the kind that had nothing to do with softness and everything to do with survival.
I walked her backward until her legs hit the bed, and she yanked me down with her, nails scraping down my back hard enough to sting.
"Don't be gentle," she whispered into my mind before her hands went to my buttons, ripping them open. "I don't want gentle right now."
"Good." I caught her wrists, pinned them above her head with one hand while the other worked at the laces of her dress. "Because I don't have gentle in me tonight."
She arched into me, fighting my grip not to escape but to get closer, and I released her wrists to tear at her clothing properly.
The dress came off in a tangle of fabric and frustration, her hands just as rough on my clothes, both of us moving with the graceless urgency of people who'd almost died.
When we were finally skin to skin, I didn't take my time. Didn't worship her gently. My hands mapped her body like I was checking for injuries I knew weren't there—rough, possessive, needing to confirm she was whole.
She matched me, nails dragging down my ribs, teeth finding my shoulder hard enough to leave marks.
"You're so fucking brave," I growled against her throat, one hand fisting in her hair. "You shouldn't have to be. But you are, and I—" I stopped, the words catching.
Through the bond, her love flared bright and warm—and it fucking terrified me.
Not because I didn't feel it back. I did. That was the problem.
I loved her. Completely. Impossibly. After barely a week of knowing her, after blackmailing her into this life, after putting her in danger over and over.
The bond wasn't my fault—that had been fate, magic, something neither of us controlled. But everything else? That was on me. I'd taken her from her home, used her abilities, put her life at risk, fucked her, and then tried to push her away like I could undo what we'd started.
And now she loved me, anyway.
I pulled back enough to meet her eyes, my hand still tangled in her copper hair. "I blackmailed you."
“I know.” Her hips rolled against mine. “Keep going.”
"I took you from your home. Used you. Put your life at risk—"
“I know.” Her mental voice was steady, fierce. “And I'm still here. Still choosing this. Still choosing you.”
"That doesn't make it right."
“No.” She wrapped her legs around my hips, pulling me closer. “But it makes it ours.”
I kissed her then—brutal and claiming and tasting like hunger. This wasn't the love of fairy tales or ballads. This was the love forged in fire and blood, built on raw need and the absolute certainty that losing each other would destroy us both.
When I finally pushed into her, the bond exploded between us. Her pleasure was mine, mine was hers, and the intensity of it was almost violent. We moved together without grace or tenderness—all teeth and nails and the kind of rough urgency that came from almost dying.
I felt everything. Her fear mixing with pleasure. Her anger at being put in danger tangled with her need for me. Her resentment of the situation wrapped around her choice to stay, anyway.
And underneath it all, her love. Messy and complicated and real.
“The bond wasn't your fault,” she projected as I drove into her harder, both of us chasing something we couldn't name. “But the rest? Yeah, you were an asshole.”
“I know.”
“And I love you, anyway.” Her nails raked down my back. “Deal with it.”
The honesty of it, the absolute acceptance, broke something in me. I let my own feelings flood our connection—my love just as messy, just as unearned, wrapped in guilt and need and the terror of losing her.
“This is fucked up,” I projected.
“I know.” She bit my shoulder hard enough to draw blood. “Say it anyway.”
"I love you." The words tore out of me, rough and desperate and completely inadequate for the tangle of emotions behind them. "Saints help me, I love you."
Her answering surge of emotion was triumph and relief and love so fierce it hurt. She pulled me closer, deeper, her body demanding everything I had to give.
We fell over the edge together, the bond flaring so bright it whited out everything else. For one perfect, terrible moment, there was only us—two souls bound together by magic and blood and a love that had no business existing but refused to die, anyway.
When we came back to ourselves, we were tangled together, both breathing hard, sweat-slicked and marked by each other's hands and teeth.
"That was..." I started.
"Messy," she finished, signing against my chest with a tired hand.
"Yeah."
“But ours.”
"Yeah." I pressed a kiss to her forehead, gentler now in the aftermath. "Ours."
She traced a finger over the bite mark she'd left on my shoulder, her satisfaction at marking me filtered through my chest. “No taking it back now.”
“Wouldn't if I could.” I caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “We're fucked up together.”
“Better than being fucked up alone.”
Her exhaustion finally caught up with her. The adrenaline crash, the headache that had never fully faded, the bone-deep weariness of almost dying and choosing to love, anyway.
Her fingers traced lazy patterns on my chest, and I began to drift off, too, sleep pulling me under like a tide.
But underneath the exhaustion, underneath the satisfaction and the love, something nagged at me. A flicker of thought from her. Not quite hidden, but not quite shared, either.
Determination. Purpose. Planning.
I tried to focus on it, to ask, but sleep was already dragging me under. The warmth of her body, the safety of locked doors and spelled wards, the bone-deep exhaustion of the day—it all conspired to pull me into darkness.
My last conscious thought was a question I didn't have the energy to voice: What are you planning?
But then I was asleep, Merrit safe in my arms, and the world narrowed to just her heartbeat and mine, beating in sync.
Tomorrow. I'd ask tomorrow.
If only I'd stayed awake.
If only I'd pushed past the exhaustion to read that flicker of determination in her thoughts.
If only I'd known what she was planning to do.
But I didn't. And by the time I woke, it would be too late.