12. Checkmate #3
"No," he said, the word heavy, immovable. His gaze never left hers. "I cannot. I will not take you back to them, to the ones who would pull you from me, who would fill your head with thoughts of leaving. You are mine, Allora. My soultether, my life. Do you not see that?"
He leaned forward, his hand brushing her cheek, his touch reverent, almost pleading.
"Everything you need is here with me, in this house, in our bond.
I will give you comfort. Safety. A place where you never have to doubt your worth again.
But I will not take you to those who would remind you of a world without me. "
His thumb traced her jaw, his voice soft but absolute. "Your family is here now. I am your family."
The words fell between them like a lock sliding into place.
Absolute. Finite.
Her chest rose with a steady breath as she asked him, "If we're truly husband and wife, if we are bonded like you say…
then why are you afraid of my family? Why wouldn't you want to know them?
To meet the people who shaped me, who loved me before you?
Why would you keep them from me when you've never seen them, never even tried to understand them? "
Even as the words left her lips, her mind churned with harsher questions she dared not say aloud.
She needed to know what rooted his refusal.
Was it fear, that fragile and desperate kind of love that suffocated because it could not let go?
If so, she could understand it, even if it still trapped her.
Fear could be softened, coaxed, reasoned with.
But if it was selfishness, if Malec was nothing more than a stubborn and unyielding mule who thought only of his own desires, then there was nothing left to salvage.
She had been raised better than to settle for someone who valued possession above love.
Malec's face shifted, his composure cracking as though her question alone had torn through his armor.
"Allora," he said hoarsely, his voice trembling at the edges.
He leaned toward her, gripping the sheets as if they anchored him.
"You do not understand. It is not fear of them.
It is fear of losing you. The moment you see them, hear them, you will remember what it felt like to live without me.
And I cannot..." His throat tightened, his jaw clenching hard.
"I cannot survive you choosing them over me.
I won't allow it." He caught her hand and pressed it against his chest, over the frantic pounding of his heart.
"You might see me as selfish. Perhaps it is.
But I would rather be damned as selfish than risk you slipping from my grasp.
You are not merely a woman to me. You are my life.
If I must bar the world itself from you to keep you, then so be it. "
His sun-scoured burned with anguish and devotion, absolute and consuming. "I would rather you hate me here in my arms than love me once and vanish from them."
And there it was. The answer she needed. The true reason, the final push. His words should have softened her, should have made her heart ache with pity, but instead they settled over her like a cold shroud. They were proof that what she was about to do was not betrayal but necessity.
Allora lay very still, her face composed, her eyes gentle as she looked up at him.
But inside, her chest hollowed. He had confirmed it without realizing.
He would never bend and never allow her to be more than what he wanted her to be.
His love was a prison disguised as devotion.
His vows were chains gilded in tenderness.
He spoke of life, of flame, of bond, but all she heard was possession.
She could not survive like this. Not cut off from the very blood that had made her who she was. And though her body still remembered his touch, still burned with the memory of last night, her soul recoiled at the cost of staying.
This would be the last time. The last night. The last kiss.
He looked down at her as he leaned over, desperate to make her understand him yet refusing to understand her.
His words were final, immovable, and when he asked if she understood that this was how it would always be, she only nodded.
Her eyes were glassy, her expression soft with feigned submission. It was enough.
A smile curved his lips as he cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "I love you more than life itself," he murmured, his voice trembling with conviction. "And I will make you happy. I will show you that life with me will be peaceful and full of joy, I will make sure of it."
He kissed her, slow and reverent, but when he lifted his head she caught it: the heaviness in his eyelids, the lag in his movements. Inside, her gut burned hot with rage, but her lips curved in a smile. At last. She had won. He would pay for every crime against her.
He lingered above her, still smiling softly, then began to rise. But Allora's hand caught his collar, tugging him back down. "Stay with me," she whispered, her voice tender. "Until I sleep."
Malec's chest tightened at her words, believing them to be a breakthrough, a sign she was finally yielding to him. But she needed him near her to know when it was time to run, to know when the last light went out so she could slip into the darkness. This had nothing to do with affection or need.
His eyes shone with triumph as he bent low. "Of course, my love. Anytime. All you need do is ask."
He slid into the bed beside her. His arms gathered her close, gentle yet firm as iron.
Gods, she feels so good. She is finally coming to me.
The thought blazed through him, the quiet mantra of the Silver Fox.
He had persevered through every battle, and now victory was his.
The fox always claimed his prize in the end.
Allora lay still in his embrace, watching him as his lashes lowered and his breathing slowed, steady and deep. She knew the moment his body surrendered fully, the drug dragging him down into oblivion.
Her lips curved in a final, victorious smile. "Checkmate, Fox," she whispered.
The cold hit him first. An abrupt, biting chill that crawled under his skin and set his breath smoking in the air.
Malec looked around, his boots sinking into snow that glowed faintly in the darkness.
The forest stretched endlessly, tall birch trees with pale white trunks surrounding him in perfect, unnatural stillness.
Their leaves, impossible and shimmering gold, rustled faintly though there was no wind.
Above him, the sky was pitch black, a void without moon or stars, a suffocating dome of emptiness.
His jaw moved. He hadn't been in a dreamscape since boyhood, since before the weight of war and blood had pressed every trace of childhood magic out of him.
And yet here he stood, not of his own making.
He knew instantly that this wasn't his. The pulse of it, the texture of the air, smell of the snow and the trees: it all belonged to someone else.
He had been dragged into it, pulled like prey into a snare.
His voice cracked through the silence, harsh and commanding. "WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
His words were devoured by the void, swallowed whole.
The forest shivered around him. The golden leaves trembled against the black sky, as if the trees themselves were cold or afraid. His teeth bared, a growl rumbling from his chest. Then movement caught his eye: a shimmer of gold in the corner of his vision.
A dragonfly. Tiny, delicate, its wings glimmering like molten coins. It darted around his head, circling lazily.
Malec swatted at it, furious. "COME OUT, COWARD!"
The insect only flitted faster, humming near his ear before landing on a branch inches from his face. It perched there, still, its impossible golden eyes fixed on him. Waiting.
Malec stared back, his fury mounting. Recognition flared hot in his gut. This was no insect. It was a familiar. One of the meddling little messengers that had been sent to Allora. To tempt her and take her from him.
"No." His hand shot out like a striking viper. He seized the delicate thing between his fingers and crushed it. Its tiny body burst apart, dissolving into a spray of golden light that scattered like dying embers into the snow.
His chest heaved, his fury spilling into words. "WHOEVER YOU ARE, YOU WILL NOT HAVE HER. SHE IS MINE. I WILL END YOU IF YOU TRY."
The forest answered only with watchful stillness. The golden leaves trembled again, falling like coins onto the snow.
Then a voice.
High, silvery, childish. It rang out from between the trees, every syllable honed and dripping with mockery. "So loud. So certain. Do you think that shouting makes you master here?"
Malec's head snapped toward the sound. The endless birch trunks stared back at him, pale as bones.
"Show yourself!" he snarled, his voice crackling with power.
The voice giggled, a sound that skated between innocent and cruel. "Why should I? You were summoned, Fox. You are the guest here, not the host. You are not the one in control."
Rage split through him. His hands trembled as his magic surged, hot and violent.
The air snapped with static. He lifted his arms and unleashed it, white lightning ripping from his body in jagged arcs.
It struck the trees, splitting their trunks, setting the gold leaves ablaze.
The snow hissed and steamed, the forest burning with his wrath.
"I AM ALWAYS IN CONTROL!" he thundered.
For a moment, the blaze filled everything: the roar of fire, the acrid sting of smoke, the crash of falling trees. His chest swelled with the triumph of destruction.
Then blackness.
The flames snuffed out as though they had never been. The forest dissolved. Malec stood alone in a void so complete it pressed against his skin, smothering even the echo of his own breath.