Chapter 77 Serena #2
“You’re right. I’m free now, Serena. There is nothing standing in the way of us being together.
” He angles himself toward me. “But somehow, I don’t feel hopeful.
Because I know that wasn’t the only thing stopping you.
I came to you last night. I begged you to run away with me.
When I asked you to marry me—you just stood there, pretending like I hadn’t said a word.
And now you’re about to run straight into the arms of our enemy.
So do I feel hopeful for the future? No. I don’t.”
My throat tightens as I push to my feet. “You know I couldn’t go with you. Running from our problems won’t solve them.”
“Even if it weren’t for all that, I still don’t think you would be with me.”
He’s right, but still I ask, “Why do you say that?”
“Because for all that bravery, all that reckless wildfire in you—you’re afraid.”
I scoff, leaning against the tree. “Afraid of what?”
“I don’t know. Afraid to let yourself fall.”
“Well, the ground isn’t the most comfortable place to be,” I admit, nudging the moss with my foot. He stands, walking over to me.
“I’m not going to try to convince you. But everything I said last night—look at me.” He reaches out to tilt my chin up. My heart skips half a beat. “Everything I said, I meant. I was afraid of you. Of this. I’m not anymore. I’m done being anything but yours. Whether you want it or not.”
I meet his gaze, a mixture of devotion and desire. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I’m just trying to get by—day by day.”
“Then maybe you need a little reminder.”
“A reminder?”
With one more shift, his hand slides beneath my hair to cup the back of my neck.
“A reminder of how you make me feel. Every second”—his hips push into mine, cool breath coasting over my neck—“of every day. It gnaws at me. It’s so sweet, but so…
.painful. To want someone this much and not be able to touch them.
” His pointer finger glides over my throat, eyes devouring every detail of my face.
“You touch me all the time.” I swallow hard. “In training.”
He lets out a quiet laugh. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Then his mouth is at my throat, and I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t see reason if it were a high beam in the middle of the night.
“I want to touch you so deep you feel it in your soul.”
Shit. I just lost feeling in my legs.
“What about being friends?” I rasp. He pulls back, giving me a soul-melting look.
“Serena. I could never be your friend.” He leans in, close enough to taste. “If I got down on my knees and begged you to stay, to give up this insane plan, would you?”
“Jace,” I caution, clutching his jacket.
His hands trace a scorching line from my neck to my waist as he lowers himself to the ground. And the look he’s giving me—his eyes blazing up at me with a near-religious reverence—
“Here it is, little witch. I’m begging. I am begging you not to go. Stay and let me fight for you. Stay and fight with me. Stay and break me if that’s what you desire. But I am begging you. Stay.”
“You’re not playing fair.” His callouses glide down my leg as he lifts my heel onto his shoulder. My dress parts over my thigh, revealing a flash of moon-kissed flesh.
“I will play as dirty as I have to in order to keep you.” He presses his lips to my calf. “Tell me you ache for me the same way I ache for you.”
Oh god.
“I—” I’m confused. Why does his touch feel so good? I struggle to maintain focus with his lips on my skin, with the sight of him, a mighty warrior on his knees, begging me. Wanting me.
His hands wander higher up my exposed leg, hooking around my upper thigh. My heart thunders loud enough to shake the tree behind me. I should stop this. I really need to stop this.
“Show me,” he whispers, nipping at my thigh with his teeth. His breath against the sensitive flesh there has my stomach curling. “I’ll give you everything. Just take what you want from me. Take what’s yours.”
What’s mine? That word triggers the faintest glimmer of reason in the back of my mind. My hands dart out to hold his face, stopping him from going further.
The sound of musical laughter shatters the moment.
Our heads whirl toward the curtain of vines as it parts to reveal our friends drunkenly stumbling toward us.
Their mirth dies when they see Jace on his knees before me.
A bottle of wine slips from Zadyn’s hand as he goes completely rigid.
His fists clench, knuckles bleaching white.
“Well, you two certainly wasted no time,” Cece remarks, breaking the heavy silence.
I can only imagine how this looks. Jace drops my leg, rising to his feet as I smooth my gown.
Golden curls fly over Cece’s shoulder as she turns and slides her palm up Zadyn’s chest. “See, I told you.”
I see red.
“Get your hands off him.”
Instead, she snakes that stupid hand up his neck. Her liquor-glazed eyes widen as I march over and rip it away myself.
“How dare you—”
“What did you tell him? Please share it with the class.”
“Serena—” Zadyn starts, but I hold up a hand.
“I told him the truth.”
“What truth is that?”
“That you’re fickle as the wind and that the two of you will never stop salivating over one another.” She sneers, tossing a glance over my shoulder at Jace. “And that he shouldn’t waste his time on things that are beneath him.”
“Beneath him?” I laugh. “The only thing that’s beneath him is you.”
“I have been beneath him. More than once. And let me tell you”—she leans in so that her lips are pressed to my ear—“you’re missing out. Little tip? He has a sensitive spot two inches below his ear. He absolutely lost it when I—”
My hand shoots out to grab a fistful of her hair. Her shriek is like music to my ears.
“Let go, you fucking animal!”
“Gladly.” I yank hard, and she falls back on her ass in the mushy sod.
The shock on her face is priceless. She’s on her feet in an instant, launching herself at me with bared fangs.
“I will flatten you,” I threaten as we grapple.
Cece is scrappy, using her long nails to latch onto me and gouge red lines into my arms. I can feel my power rising to the surface—begging to be unleashed. Its call is seductive.
Kai stands off to the side with Mar and Dover, his whoops and whistles echoing through the midnight expanse.
I manage to land a satisfying punch to Cece’s face before Zadyn and Jace pull us apart.
“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Jace hooks an arm around my waist and throws me over his shoulder. Cece wails upon seeing the blood pouring from her broken nose. Zadyn and Mar crouch beside her, attempting to settle her down. “My nose! She ruined my nose!”
“Get off of me!” I kick and squirm as Jace drags me from the scene of the crime.
“Not a chance.”
“Damn it, Jace, let me go!”
“I enjoy a girl fight as much as the next guy, but I know you. You’ll kill the poor girl. You need to control your temper.”
“Like she didn’t have it coming?”
His stride doesn’t let up. “She was trying to rile you.”
“Well then, mission accomplished. Put me down.”
“Are you calm?”
“No, I’m not fucking calm, I want to claw her stupid face off,” I say as we reach the steps of the terrace and he lets me drop to the ground.
“So possessive. You’re worse than your guard dog.” He leans against the stone railing, sounding slightly amused.
“I am not,” I huff, dusting myself off and smoothing my hair.
“If you’re going to lie to my face, then at least be honest with yourself, little witch.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re attracted to him,” he mutters, lifting a shoulder. The others appear in the distance, ushering a sniffling, blood-drenched Cece toward the castle. “Or you wouldn’t have tried to rip Cece apart.”
I glance away, wondering if I should even bother denying it.
My feelings clash. I want Jace, but I—we can’t go there. And it’s tough to keep pretending that there is nothing between Zadyn and me. Something that’s getting harder and harder to suppress.
I don’t know when it changed. Maybe that kiss in the alleyway, maybe the night I met Margot.
But somewhere along the line, I started seeing him as more than my familiar.
More than my friend. Seeing him with Cece after the few moments we’ve shared—I couldn’t bear it.
Couldn’t bear to think that, like me, he might have conflicting feelings or that I said the wrong thing and basically drove him into someone else’s arms.
“It’s alright.” Jace pushes off the railing and walks up to me, tilting my chin up. “I want you to explore it.”
“You want me to explore things with Zadyn?” My brows shoot toward my hairline.
He shrugs. “Do what you have to. Fuck him if you want. Get it out of your system. So when you choose me, I’ll know it’s because there’s no one out there who can love you better than I can.”
Without another word, he walks up the steps. I stare after him, baffled, my feelings a tangled-up knot in my chest.
“How’s her face?” I ask as Zadyn walks me to my room.
“I think it will make a full recovery.” He strokes the stubble along his jaw. “You didn’t have to break her nose.”
No, you really did not, Furi chuckles. Why did you feel the need to maim the girl?
I toss her a mental scowl.
“I know, I know. I just lost it, okay?” I slide my eyes toward him and take a deep breath. “I saw you two dancing, and it got me upset.”
He glances down at me. “Serena, we were only dancing. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It did to me. You guys have history.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re in no position to talk.”
Furi snorts.
“Excuse me?”
“The way we found the two of you—” A muscle in his jaw flutters. “Not exactly the portrait of innocence.”
He’s not wrong. Furi agrees.
You. Bed. Now, I order.
She grumbles something that sounds like, fine, and then gives us some privacy.
“He was just trying to get me to stay. To give up this plan with Kylian.”
“Yeah, and he needed your leg hooked over his shoulder for that?” He scoffs, shaking his head. My cheeks heat. I glance from the disgusted smirk on his mouth down to his clenched fists.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to say. Everybody thinks I’m this big whore, guess I just keep rising to the occasion—”
Zadyn pivots toward me, tugging me to a stop.
“Don’t say that. You’re not a whore. You know that. I know that. I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks.” My breath hitches. “And neither should you.”
Regrettably, he releases me and forces himself to step back. I hadn’t realized we’d stopped outside my room. I’m not quite ready to say goodnight.
“You want a nightcap?”
His eyes are on my door as he responds. Like he’s forcing himself not to look at me. “I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
Leaning against the wall, I say, “Does Cece need a night nurse?”
I’m only half kidding.
He, however, is not when he moves closer and braces his arms on either side of my head so that I’m sandwiched between him and the wall. His head dips down.
“I’ve made my feelings for you very clear. And you should know that everything that came before is inconsequential. There will be no going backward for me. And no going forward. I’m here. I’m here until you make your decision or order me away.”
My heart stutters. He sighs, dropping his voice. “Jace isn’t engaged anymore.”
“And your point is?”
“This doesn’t change things?”
“You think because he’s not engaged I’m just going to run straight back?”
“I don’t know, are you? Based on what I saw under that tree? Can you honestly say you aren’t relieved Sorscha married Eaton? That it doesn’t matter? I know it does. I know exactly how you’re feeling.”
My body strains toward him, hyperaware of his presence looming over me. I bite down on my lip to keep from driving them into his. But I allow myself to stare at them.
Like a dog looking at a bag of bones.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” I whisper.
“Yes, I do. Your shield is down.”
“Then what am I thinking now? Because I can promise you it has nothing to do with him.”
He smirks, shaking his head as his eyes gloss over me. His thumb smooths over my lips, tugging my bottom one down with taunting slowness.
“Then hold that thought.” He leans down and brushes the softest kiss against my cheek. My stomach does a double back handspring. “Hold it until you’re ready for me.”
* Cue: End of the World by Searows