Chapter 23
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Regretfully, I am still…me.
Castor
“Mine.” Breathless, nerves pricking, I rush through the still halls of my palace to greet the sensation of my soulmate as she steps through the trod into my garden. The second she’s within scent, my heart clenches.
Earlier, I left her with Zahra, for a girls’ day. They said they’d be going to a sushi place a town over from Mountain Vale. Remiss, I spent much of my afternoon mourning the distance between us—until she disappeared from my senses completely.
The tether between us that had been growing stronger since she accepted me as her soulmate snapped. Her heartbeat in my chest thumped into nothingness. She vanished. She vanished, and when in my panic, I went in search of her, Zahra wasn’t home, and Alexios wasn’t home, and no one was home.
She vanished, and I was alone.
In the silent fear, I found myself reminded of the fact I once stole Pollux’s soulmate, Kassandra, and put her in a place beyond his senses as a means to lure Pila from the dryad saplings for a scheme of mine.
In the quiet anxiety, I wrestled guilt over having submitted Pollux to the very same horror of existing without the sensation of his soulmate.
The past hour without mine in reach has been suffering.
Acute, all-encompassing suffering, and I know—logically—that my mate cannot die easily.
Pollux had no such comfort when I took his Kassandra.
And, yet, this past hour I have felt a remorse unlike anything I have ever witnessed before.
In the whirlwind of emotion, I may have texted Pollux an apology.
In the sickness of knowing an apology could never be enough, I abandoned my phone on the very bench that my soulmate is passing now.
She’s here.
She’s back.
She’s safe.
Reaching her, I fit my hands at her elbows and grip.
“Where have you been?” My voice rumbles, vibrating.
She smells… She smells like… I growl, “Willow.” Must that woman be the absolute death of me?
Of everyone in their perfect, loving little circle, she most resembles the chaos in my own skull.
I would so dearly prefer to respect and appreciate that instead of finding myself on the brink of insanity every time she enters the picture.
Maybe this is why Cael and Pollux discarded me. Maybe I was just as horrific to deal with. Maybe the stress of me also wasn’t worth it.
Oh, who am I kidding?
I know I was far worse.
I still am.
I’ll probably always be.
Inhaling, I flinch as a sharp, iron-rich scent pricks my nostrils. “You were bleeding.” Fingers shaking, I take her hand in mine, touch the spot that smells most like fire and blood.
Her fire and her blood.
My mouth dries.
Rage barely withheld, I whisper, “What have you been doing?”
She does not answer me. She instead settles something warm and powerful in my hand. It vibrates with condensed magic. Her condensed magic.
“I made this for you,” she says, light voice enchanting as ever.
Heavy, her power weighs in my palm.
Swallowing, I trace the shapes, come to the realization I’m holding a hairpin that she’s fashioned out of herself into the visage of a snake. Clutching it, I focus on what matters. “Who made you bleed?”
Again, she ignores me. “You aren’t going to thank me?”
A dry laugh escapes my chest. “My love, thanking someone is not regular behavior for a faer—”
“You’d die for me and let me torture you, but you’d not give me your soul?”
A thread of unease tangles around my heart. “My soul is already yours.”
“Then thank me.”
What has come over her in the time she’s been gone? It’s…terrifying. Beautiful. I am so deeply frightened, yet also enraptured. This is the first I’ve seen of her being truly at ease in my presence without the taste of my tongue on hers to cloud her judgment over with desire.
Unafraid still, she presses, “You won’t?”
Tone level, I say, “I do not believe either of us would be able to handle the sensation. You might surely pass out, and if you do not? If you take my soul in your hands instead? I would crumble in response to such an intimate caress. Best I not tempt fate by baring it to you like that, Mine.” Tangling my fingers in her hair, I grapple for something akin to control.
“Answer me. What have you been doing, and why do you smell like blood?”
“I think you already know what I’ve been doing.”
It hurts to breathe. My grip tightens, and a seductive sound slips from her precious lips. I hiss, “Why?”
“I don’t want to need you.”
Air saws from my lungs as heavy breaths rush to temper the fury building in my gut.
She doesn’t want to need me.
We were doing so well. Things were almost peaceful.
She seemed to want me. She seemed drunk on me.
She seemed to desire me near her. She was practically begging the last time I tasted her, and she has not wanted me to stop for a moment.
Every time we’ve touched since I brought her home from Cael’s palace, I have had to be the one to stop us and regain sense.
She has not wanted to.
But now, already, she’s determined to create a world where I’m not needed in her life?
While the final threads of my hope shatter, she lifts her fingers to my cheek, cups my skin, and so sweetly—stabs me in the stomach with her words. “I’d like to want you instead.”
Unrestrained, a raw laugh spills from me, and I back her into the bench with enough force to make her fall into the seat.
“I see. How romantic. You want to want me, not need me.” I grip her throat, feel her swallow against my palm.
“Do you think I’m good enough to care, Danielle?
I need you to need me. If you can live without me, I will forever assume that’s a choice you’re inevitably going to make.
” I’m shaking. And the harsh truth is spilling free. And—
A curse slides into my brain while I lose grasp on my control.
Because this is our deal.
Tonight, she has shown me a touch of the true fire within her, and now I am bound by our agreement to give her a horrible taste of…me. At my core. The fetid, rotting truth of who I am when I lose control.
And this is how the grotesque truth shows up—in unshackled possession laced with fearful insecurity. The truth is ugly, because I am ugly.
Leaning close, I hiss, “Your every thought, your every action, your everything should be mine. I want you helpless without me. I am not satisfied with the possibility of love alone. I want your craving. I require your obsession. I cannot help myself. I am doomed to love you disastrously.” Tears break free from my closed eyes to wet my blindfold.
“It is too late for you, my feather. You have chosen me. You have chosen the monster.” I steal a long, deep kiss, refusing to give her air until she grips my clothes and whimpers, then I break the connection and pull her to her feet, dragging her by the arm inside.
Voice rough, I repeat, “You have chosen the monster. You do not get to live without my claws in you now.”
Taking her to her cage, I toss her in on top of the giant stuffed bear I got her when I was playing the kind and good and considerate mate, then I slam the door closed, turn sharply on my heel, and leave to wallow in self-loathing until the conditions of this terrible deal are met, thus freeing me to grovel for forgiveness at her feet.