Chapter 9
DEATH
Asharp, stabbing pain jerks me from the best sleep I’ve had in centuries. The golden goddess asleep on my chest stirs at my movement but doesn’t wake. I brush a blonde curl from her cheek, lingering on the freckles that dance upon it.
This moment—with her draped across me, naked, euphoric, and completely mine—is everything I have always wanted and never dared to hope for.
Eternity in an endless void has provided me with more than enough time to contemplate my abysmal existence.
I’ve spent years sitting on the once gray hills of the Eternal Meadows watching the souls yearn.
They call out, longing for things lost to them.
I used to wonder what it might be like to have something—or someone—worth that kind of eternal devotion.
But I do not wonder anymore. Selene is worth more devotion than my miserable, immortal soul will ever be able to provide her.
The pain radiates again and I know it will only get worse the more I ignore it.
Not yet. Please, not yet.
The tattoos across my chest realign, transforming to create a sunburst halo around Selene. They cradle her head, never leaping from my skin while they crown the goddess in onyx ink.
My gaze snags on a single lock of her blonde hair still tipped in red—blood that I must have missed when I bathed her. She still smells of the pomegranate soap I used to scrub away the evidence of our depravity. Every inch of her was washed and kissed clean, this queen who will hate me soon.
The pain stabs me again.
“No.” I defy it even though I know it’s no use.
“Dray?” Selene’s sleep-heavy voice whispers against my bare chest. She turns, lifting her golden eyes to mine. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“What do you mean?” Her wild curls cascade over her shoulder as she sits up. “Talk to me.”
Words dry up like chalk in my mouth. There’s so much I want to say to her but I can’t. The Under Realm won’t allow me to tell her the truth, and my feelings without that context will do nothing but hurt her.
“You have to go.”
“What?” she asks. “Why would I go?”
“We had a bargain, Selene. One day in the Under Realm. That is all you were granted.”
Her face contorts with confusion as she tries to sort through my carefully guarded words. “Then grant me more. If this is about the bargain, I’ll make another one.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Then tell me how it works,” she demands. “You made me your queen. Surely that means something to you.”
“That means everything to me, my light.”
“Don’t.” Selene shakes her head, sliding away from my touch. “Don’t call me that. If I meant anything to you, you wouldn’t do this. You don’t want me to stay.”
“That’s not true.” I try and fail to find a way around the rules I’m bound to uphold. “I could give you a million reasons why I want you to stay, but there will always be one reason that you cannot. And even I don’t have the power to change that.”
“Are you not the king?” she scoffs boldly. “Is this not your realm?”
“No,” I whisper, a single tear beginning to form in the corner of my eternally emotionless eyes. “I mean, yes, I am the king, but only in name.”
I let every emotion, every confession, fill my eyes as I grip her by the face and force her to look at me.
With every fiber of my immortal being, I will her to understand what I cannot say.
The Under Realm is a prison, and while I may be its warden, I am trapped all the same.
We may have made a deal, but I made my own with this realm centuries ago.
“You are alive, Selene. Only the dead can reside here.”
“You reside here, Drayven. You are not dead.”
Look at me. I silently scream at her. See me, my light.
“Is this about Taura’s vision?” she asks, still not understanding.
“No, it’s not about some fucking vision.” My fists ball in the silk sheets as she scoots away from me again. “I granted you one day so that you’d never ask about that again.”
“One day to what? To fuck me and drink my blood and play out some depraved fantasy before sending me home? Was this just a game to you?”
“I let you reshape this realm. I made you a throne and I bowed at your feet. I gave you my Creation-damned blood in return. Does that sound like a game to you?”
The confusion in her expression gives way to hurt, but it’s when that pain turns to anger that I know I’ve truly lost her.
“It sounds exactly like something a dark and wicked god would do for sport.”
“You want to talk about a wicked god, Selene? Then let’s talk about the one you are set on following into war.”
Tears streak down her starlit cheeks as her breath turns ragged. Fury builds with her every inhalation as she exits the bed. “You cannot play both sides in this. If you send me away, I will go to war.”
I bite my tongue until blood pools in my mouth. There is nothing I wouldn’t give to be able to tell her the truth. To stay here, she must give up her life. She will be forever held captive to the bounds of the Under Realm, never able to leave and never able to fulfill Taura’s vision.
Without Selene, the rebellion ends before it truly begins and the prince dies.
I wave my hand and a shimmering gold gown appears on the bed. The goddess dresses in a huff, her rage multiplying by the minute.
It was selfish to bring her here, to think I could grant myself one last desire. Did I really think I could show her my world, worship her, and then let her go? Did I think I could taste her, devour her, consume her, and not spend the rest of my dismal fucking eternity missing her?
“I told you that you would hate me.” It’s a miserable excuse, but it’s the only one I can muster.
She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands before moving toward the swirling shadows I’ve created to send her back to the god realm.
“That’s the worst fucking part of all of this. I don’t hate you, Drayven. But I do pity you. You can send me away, but you will never be rid of me. Every time you walk your realm or look up in your study, you will see my power and think of me.”
She steps into the black mass of magic, letting it spin around her feet. “And you will look back on this moment for the rest of your life and wish you had told me the truth.”
“I have told you the truth,” I lie, diverting my eyes as the tear threatens to crests my lashes.
“No you haven’t.” She sighs as the shadows cover her fully, her words piercing through the night. “You never told me you loved me.”