Chapter 18 #2
“Nod your head yes to keep your memories. Shake your head no if you want to be relieved of them. But know this: if I take them, while your essence will be free, it will be as if you never lived this life. There will be nothing left of who you are now.”
Like a monster peering out from the shadows, those too-large, too-dark eyes reflected the lumoonlight. Staring straight at me, her shoulders rose and fell with resigned acceptance. Her mouth trembled as it settled into determination.
She nodded.
“Alright. If you’re sure,” Baz said.
She smiled so mournfully, it was enough to break a heart as hardened as Rafaela’s. One final, decisive time, she nodded.
“Very well,” Baz said—and reached to clasp her hand.
Of course I expected his to glide through hers as mine had.
It didn’t.
His touch rested on the back of her hand, which he rubbed in comforting circles.
Her mouth and mine fell open. An “Uhhhhhhh,” slipped from mine. From hers, only silence.
Then she was scrambling forward to snake her other hand through the bars. She clamped both around his wrist.
When Baz cinched his fingers around her forearm, which was a third the circumference of his, I expected him to tug her toward him.
She’d somehow slip through the bars due to a facet of his fae power that I didn’t know about, that not even Rafaela or Alonso was aware of—and Rafaela especially prided herself on understanding her enemies better than she did her kin.
But once again, no. The ghostly woman didn’t magically tumble through the bars of her prison. She also didn’t suddenly solidify beyond where Baz was making contact with her.
As if she were a rainbow meant only to grace this world for a short while, her body began to shimmer.
Then, like a rainbow, she gradually vanished, beginning with the hand touching Baz.
Next came her torso, her shoulders, legs, and feet.
Her head went last, as if Baz’s hand were a straw that sucked her essence into his.
Her skeleton remained behind, forever locked away in the cell that had stolen the life from it.
When the very last of her ghost was gone—by all appearances, into the man himself—Baz shuddered violently. I watched without any idea what to do, or how to help, while his body racked. Just when I’d decided to tackle him, the jerking ceased, and his body stilled.
When I rounded to look at him head-on, he stared back. His eyes—his powerful ocean eyes—were as black as the phantom’s.
As black and endless and fucking unreachable as the abyss.
“Baz, no,” I gasped, before reminding myself that he wasn’t my lover. He certainly wasn’t my friend.
He was my enemy.
I owed him neither help nor sympathy.
Even so, I couldn’t prevent myself from reaching for him. My fingertips were about to alight on his arm.
“No,” he ground out. “Don’t touch me.”
His command cracked as harshly as a whip.
I started to reel back, then stopped. Pushing my feet farther apart, I settled my weight into my heels, and crossed my arms.
“What did you do?”
With those pitch-black eyes, I didn’t recognize the Baz I’d come to … hate just a tiny bit less lately.
“I did what needed to be done,” he said. “I always do.”
His voice wasn’t Baz’s either. This was the kind of voice I imagined Death must have and use for his final pronouncements, when no hope survived.
With his dead eyes and dead voice, this was how I’d imagined the warmongering general before meeting him. With his massive physique, here was the Ghalubu of lore. Here was the Razer of dreaded legend.
Here towered a fae and a s?nglure capable of conquering a world, no matter the cost.
Of all the men and women I’d assassinated, I’d never killed one I truly feared before.
For the first time, I feared Alobaz Hawxley.
I longed for the blades I’d arrived at the castle with and that the Bazrians had confiscated. Scorch, I’d happily accept second-best and take my poisons or magical amulets. Without access to my power, I needed some tool to wield against him.
But nothing separated the Razer from me. A bewitched rope bound me to him. An enchanted castle had separated me from Marina and any other possible support. I might be stuck in Mauldrene’s guts with him until one of us killed the other.
Because that’s the only way it could end between us.
A D’Arco and a Rubor.
Only one dynasty was allowed to remain standing.
He stalked toward me with steps so firm it seemed they should have shaken the cave’s entire foundation. Worse, they barely set to jiggling the flesh-like floor.
I backed up. He followed. I retreated more.
My back hit a slimy, damp wall that felt like it was breathing—ick.
I inched away from it, even though it put me closer to him.
I needed room to move. I would need to attack with my body.
My fingers clenched and unclenched, stretching, readying.
My knees bent slightly. I loosened my shoulders.
“Stop,” I said.
He didn’t. He kept right on bearing down on me. Those black eyes narrowed as if I were the only thing they saw.
“Knock it off!”
He did stop now, but only because our chests were mere inches apart. I had to crane my neck back to meet his eyes, those abysmal eyes.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“You,” that dead voice said. “I want you.”
When he crashed his mouth against mine, I pulled the dragon-hide book from my waistband, and smacked him on the head with it.
With a growl, he pulled back—seemingly just to glower at me. His mouth was zooming toward mine again when the cave around us began to vacillate and fade—like a sunrise creeping along shadows, obliterating them, more than that former rainbow.
I gripped the book against my chest as my feet were swept out from under me—and I found myself falling … upside down.