Chapter 13
The Destination Justifies the Path Forged
His ocean eyes were hooded by long shadows cast by his lumoons.
With their bright colors muted, it should have been easy not to stare into them as he waited for me to do …
something, but I couldn’t help myself. Now that he wasn’t Teo’s killer, they drew me in as surely as a wave retreating back to the sea, where it belonged, a part of a bigger whole.
This cave within the castle was so massive it was if it had been carved by giants.
It should have made the man appear an insignificant speck in comparison.
But Alobaz Hawxley, with his delicious manly sexuality, and the blood pulsing through his strong body that had no equal in its exquisiteness, was larger than life—even an immortal one.
He was the physical embodiment of what a s?nglure should be, the finest of specimens, muscled yet limber and fast, sculpted perfection.
Eventually, when I failed to provide whatever he expected of me, he scoffed. “Shouldn’t it be a good thing that I didn’t kill your brother?”
I backed away from him the length of the enchanted rope.
The silk stretched some so that I was able to stand far enough away from him to resist his orbit—barely.
Whatever force was responsible for drawing us together was nearly stronger than I was.
The faithum-fueled object was just the reason for our physical closeness—a fine excuse—when I suspected I would want to be near him regardless.
Even though it seemed he truly hadn’t killed Teo, he remained my family’s archenemy, my subjects’ foe, the wicked conqueror of my world. All that made him, extremely decisively, my enemy.
I should still want to wipe the scourge that he was from the Opalese.
I should punish him for the creation of the Domdurron Empire, which would not exist save for him.
He was too competent, too skilled a fighter and a leader.
He transformed the entire world in a way he had no right to do, all in his father’s name, yes, but that didn’t absolve him of his misdeeds.
There was no forgiveness for s?nglures like him—or for those like me.
We were too good at killing to ever stop for long.
“You’ve been blaming me for something I didn’t do,” he said. “You stabbed me for it, for fuck’s sake, tried to carve my heart out. And now that you believe me that I didn’t do it, all I get is a, ‘Well, fuck?’”
I blinked, shoving aside the brutal relief that he hadn’t been the one to kill my brother, and gathered my defenses around me like a shield. “What do you expect, a parade with dancers and wizards shooting magic out of their asses?”
“Obviously not. Their robes would get in the way. But an apology would be nice.”
I snorted obnoxiously. “An apology? You’ll die of natural causes before I apologize to you.”
“S?nglures don’t die of natural causes.”
My mouth tipped up in an, Uh-huh.
He laughed darkly. “Of course. Why would I expect you to give a fuck about the harm you caused?”
My head jerked backward. “The harm I caused?”
“Yeah, Velle, the harm you caused.”
My mouth dropped open as I searched for the foulest insult I could engineer.
“Who told you I killed Mateo?”
My mouth snapped closed.
“You said it was someone you trusted, someone beyond reproach. So? Who was it? Who blamed me?”
My thoughts raced. Rafaela and Alonso had been so certain that I never doubted.
I didn’t know who their spy was who’d pinned Teo’s murder on Alobaz, but that hadn’t mattered at the time.
Alonso would never lie to me, not about anything.
Rafaela might lie to me if she had very good reason, but she would never deceive me about my brother’s death.
That was a line not even Rafaela the Ruthless would cross.
She was fond of saying, The destination justifies the path forged, but never when it came to our family’s survival. Everything Rafaela and Alonso did was for the strength of the family. Though born a Tulon, Rafaela’s priorities had long aligned with those of the D’Arcos.
My parents believed that Alobaz had killed Teo. That made either their spy a liar, when the person had to know it would precipitate their death in a horrible way, or Alobaz a liar—the more likely scenario, really.
I sidled to one side of the lumoons so I could better study his expression. “How can I be sure you aren’t lying to me?”
His eyes widened before narrowing dangerously. “Are you scorching serious right now?”
“Deadly.”
He spun around, muttering under his breath.
“I don’t fucking believe it.” He tossed his hands in the air, the rope tugging me closer.
“This scorching woman! I should’ve sentenced her to death and been done with it.
” He shook his head, his thin braids plonking against the rest of his tied-back hair. “Fuck!”
“Jeez, okay, okay. Don’t go getting your britches in a tangle.”
He faced me. His ocean eyes sloshed like a storm. “You are unbelievable, you know that?”
At hearing his disappointment, my heart thudded, something it shouldn’t be doing, not for any reason, and certainly not for him. I bared my teeth in a brittle smile.
“Why yes, I do know I’m unbelievable. But thank you so much for making sure I know it. Wouldn’t want someone as fabulous as me to miss sight of my awesomeness.”
“History tells of your legendary beauty ad nauseam, but what it really should have been focused on was your arrogance.”
“My arrogance?”
“Yeah, Velle, your arrogance. It’s so thick I can practically taste it.”
He glared at me then growled fiercely. Had my eyes been closed and had I not been able to smell him, I would have guessed he was a changeling if not an outright animal.
“How the dragonfire do we get out of here?” he snarled, still sounding like he was at least half beast.
My heart thudded again. “Why? I thought we were talking.” What a stupid thing to say.
“We aren’t talking. To talk, you have to take me seriously, and clearly you don’t. So I’m done.”
“Done … with what?”
“You.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I’ve wasted enough time on you. I have better things to do than go around entertaining the woman so determined to hate me.”
My brows shot up my forehead. “Entertaining? You think you’re entertaining me?”
“No, I really don’t. It doesn’t matter either way. If after doing your damnedest to kill me—and you got a lot closer than most, I’ll admit it—and then realizing you’re wrong about me—”
“That’s what I’m—”
He growled some more, barreling over me. “And even after I’ve treated you better than your actions deserve, while my friends give me constant shit over it, like I’m being weak—”
“Ah, yes, of course. The starve and force into bloodlust treatment. So kind of you.”
Another growl, so beastly this time that the monster deep inside me uncoiled from its slumber and rose, curious.
He closed the distance between us and lowered his head to mine. “By rights, I could have done so much worse.”
My fingers clutched the book I gripped so hard that my nails would leave dents. “By rights? You mean, by the rights granted you by your father, who, by the way, just declared himself emperor. No one agreed. No one wanted him.”
“This isn’t about him. This is about you.”
“No, I’d say this is about us.”
“There is no us.”
“Oh yeah, then why’s your cock growing stiff?”
“My body’s reaction to you doesn’t matter, not anymore. You’re bad for me, bad for everyone I care about, bad for this empire. So how the fuck do we get out of here? I want to know now.”
This was what I wanted. He was supposed to hate me just as much as I hated him. It was the way of the D’Arcos and Rubors, and always had been.
So why did it sting?
Like tumultuous ocean swells, his eyes pummeled me.
I sighed. “I really want to believe you didn’t kill Teo.”
Shit, was that true?
“I thought you already believed I didn’t do it.”
“How can I know for certain?”
He shrugged. “Either trust me or don’t. I truly don’t give a shit anymore.
I’m not doing a single thing to prove myself to you.
We’re in the guts of a castle that hates me, possibly as much as you do, which as we know is a whole fucking lot, and I want out.
I want away from you, away from this place. I’m done, and I mean it.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Lev and Moncho are putting themselves on the line for me, and I’m not going to stay down here a second more than necessary with such an ungrateful bitch while they do it. I owe them so much more than that.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t a bitch—though maybe I was acting a bit like one?—but hesitated. “I do think now … that you didn’t kill my brother. But my source for the information wouldn’t lie to me, so you can see my concern here.”
“No thanks.”
“No thanks?”
“I’m not on your side. I’m not your ally.
You tried to kill me, and still I tried to help you.
Even after that, if I’d given you the chance, you would’ve set me on fire.
So no thanks. I’m not interested in seeing anything from your point of view.
From here on out, I only look out for those who’ve earned my loyalty. ”
I could be worthy of your loyalty, I almost whispered, which would have been a travesty.
“Don’t cross me or you’ll regret it. I’ve earned every one of my awful nicknames a thousand times over. Every horrible story you’ve heard about me is true. They’re all true. Now, what’s that book about? How did it bring you here? And can it get us out?”
My gut churning with all the things I was tempted to say but knew I’d regret later if I did, I finally offered him his first real look at the book.
He leaned down to read gilded flourishes across a cover so old it was impossible to discern how bright of a hue its burgundy might have once been.
The book was the size of some of my favorite novels back at the palace.
“Ee-syb-ar Euw-trof,” he sounded out. “What’s it mean? What language is that?”
“I don’t know, but it looks ancient. I think it’s meant to be read from right to left.”