Chapter 6 Meryn
MERYN
This is a dream,” I whisper to myself, staring in growing horror at the man who betrayed me so thoroughly.
Who stole my throne.
Destroyed my sister.
Not to mention everything he did to me…
My shoulders start to shake in anger.
Just a dream. People wake up from dreams.
Killian’s lips curve into a dangerously familiar smile, his fangs on display. “If this is a dream, why am I having it, too?”
My muscles strain so tightly that my joints hurt.
Killian takes a step and disappears into the shadows. He reappears several feet from where he vanished, eyes tracking me as he strides smoothly through the swirling black mist.
I suck in a sharp breath, staggering back, disgust flooding my veins.
Wake up. I scream the words in my head. If sheer force were enough, I would be free.
Killian pauses. Finally, his eyes leave me. They dart around the shadow-filled space we inhabit. He cocks his head, going unnaturally still. And then he turns to look at me.
“We’re alone.”
I don’t know what that means. Does he mean the voice I’ve heard in this place? He’s silent now, but—
Killian sighs in relief, some of the predatory tension leaving his body. “Wherever we are, Alistair isn’t here.”
Oh. Killian is alone in his mind.
He steps through the shadows and reappears closer to me. His gaze is soft and imploring. He looks so much like the man I thought I knew. The man who would take care of me after my fights, who looked after my mother.
The man who won my heart. Who kept it and then shattered it beyond repair.
I hate him. Rationally, I know that I hate him. But being this close to his intoxicating presence—to his beautiful face, to those lips that have traced every curve of my body…
My head is spinning.
“Hear me out, Mer, please,” he begs, reaching a hand toward me.
I swat it away. “Fuck off,” I seethe.
I fell for this shit once before. Not again. Especially not now.
He raises his hands in defeat. “I won’t touch you.
I just need you to know—what happened today, with the pack communication.
That wasn’t me. It was Alistair. He’s so strong, so powerful in his blood magic, and he has a millennia of knowledge about the Sturmfrost line’s powers.
He knew your ancestors. His control over your magic is incomprehensible. ”
I raise my wrist, face burning, and shake the engagement bracelet at him. “So that’s what this is, right? He’s taking my powers through it, corrupting the Bonded magic.”
Killian inches closer. “Yes. It’s not entirely working the way he expected, but still. You will never be able to defeat him.”
My stomach twists. I might be sick.
“But now that we’re alone, I can tell you that I’m on your side. If only you’d come back to me, give me a chance.”
It’s a fucked-up retread of a conversation we’ve already had. How many times does he expect I’ll fall for this? How many times does he believe I’ll forgive him?
Killian mistakes my disgust for contemplation and edges closer again. “I had no choice in this. I was raised for this role.”
My heart pounds in my ears. I can’t forgive him, but—this, an unwanted role… If he’s being earnest, I can sympathize with it.
“Together we can destroy him, kitten.”
The nickname snaps me back into myself.
No. I have no sympathy.
I shove him away from me hard, and he stumbles back. “Stop calling me that, you vile piece of shit.”
Killian blinks at me in confusion.
The shadows around me begin to writhe, slithering over my legs, my arms. It’s just as it was in the arena. The darkness hears the silent screams I normally keep buried deep in my chest, and it draws them out.
Gives them power.
“However you brought us to this place, stop,” I order. Each syllable sends shadows writhing and lashing, but Killian stands untouched.
The corner of his lips lift.
And there he is again. The Killian who came to my bed, my fingers tracing his cheekbone, his lips lifting just like that. And I kissed that little tug of amusement. It’s carving a hollow space in my chest that I don’t think I’ll ever fill.
Mere days ago, he was my whole world. It hurts; it hurts.
I want to slam my hand through his rib cage, pull out his beating heart, and feed it to Anassa.
“I’m not responsible for this shadow realm,” he says eventually. “An unintended side effect of your beautiful engagement bracelet, I think. I assumed you were drawing me into this space intentionally.”
Revulsion raises the hair on my arms.
His smile deepens, stretching into something cruel. “Perhaps your subconscious is telling you that you miss me, too.”
It’s like a freezing hand is stroking up my spine, wrapping around my throat from behind. I open my mouth to scream at him, but I can’t.
I don’t know what words I could use.
I can’t admit to what’s happened.
He was my whole future. It all seemed so real. I swallowed every lie greedily, desperately. The things he did to me.
The things I… begged him to do to me.
My hands start to shake. It’s a warning that I need to stop. I can’t let these thoughts free.
I can’t think about how deep his betrayal really goes, running like channels of rot through my bones. If I let it spread, I might never recover.
Stop, I command.
And once again, the shadows respond. They rise up like a tower of darkness, then lunge furiously for Killian.
For a moment, I’m triumphant. I didn’t want this in the arena, but here—good, fine. A worthy opponent. If I strangle him with shadow, so be it.
Then Killian lifts his hand, takes hold of the torrent of darkness, and wrenches it aside. He does it so easily, barely looking at it. His eyes are too busy swallowing me up and drowning me in a sea of cutting blue.
Chills race up my spine. It’s horrifying. The darkness is my power—my anger incarnate, it seems—and he manipulates it with little effort.
He always has manipulated me expertly, though, hasn’t he?
Killian’s smirk widens, and he steps closer. “I understand that you’re upset with me right now, Meryn, but it will pass, I’m sure. You’ll come back to me. You think you could be a queen without me ruling by your side? You’ll never be able to lead a whole country.”
Killian’s arm whips forward terrifyingly fast. He seizes my chin with the same easy ruthlessness he used to grip my magic.
I try to wrench away from him, and his long fingers tighten, squeezing painfully.
His face is so close to me now, his lips barely a breath away as he says, “You are mine. I’ll fight for us, forever. And I will never let you go.”
Once again, I shove him violently away, and then I turn, sprinting into the darkness. The shadows coalesce around me, tightening.
I’m spinning.
My head knocks backward against something violently, and I see black.
When I open my eyes again, the dreamworld is gone. I’m back in my room, back in my bed, tangled hopelessly in my sheets. I fight against them, twisting, my heart beating so fast that I can’t quite catch my breath. And then I look up and nearly scream.
Someone is standing over me, bathed in shadows.
“Meryn,” Stark says roughly. His expression is tight. Concerned, I think—lips drawn into a thin line.
My face is wet, and I taste salt. I’m crying. Goddess, why am I always crying these days? As my heart starts to calm, I realize I’m drenched in a cold sweat.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not sure how I should feel. My stomach is a writhing mess from that encounter with Killian, and yet something about Stark’s stern presence in my room calms me. Instantly.
After everything we’ve been through together in the past couple of days, my body seems to recognize something my head struggles to understand: Stark makes me feel safe.
“Anassa felt fear through your bond, but she couldn’t get through to you. She told Cratos,” he says stiffly.
I wonder if that was all. If maybe my emotions were strong enough to leak through all the way to him, too.
Swallowing, I glide my hand over my hair. He’s breathing hard, too.
“And you came.” I eye him and lift a brow. “Running?”
He shifts his weight to his other side. His hands are in tight fists. “Are you all right?”
“It was just a bad dream,” I reply instantly, not wanting to talk about it or relive it. All the same, my blood warms. Can he tell I’m lying? Can he sense it through the bond?
He’s standing so close that his musky amber scent fills my senses, washing the foul sting of Killian’s memory out of my mind. I have the strangest urge—perhaps my own, perhaps from our wolves’ bond—to lean up toward him, to wrap my arms around him, and to accept his strength, his protection.
He’s here, and Killian is not.
Stark straightens. His fists don’t uncurl, though. He clearly doesn’t believe me.
“I see,” he finally says. He looks away, glancing around the darkened bedroom, and I see it through his eyes. This has been my space for all of twelve hours at most, but already the surfaces are covered in discarded clothes, maps, journals.
I didn’t bring much with me from the Rawbond quarters, but what I do have appears to have exploded into a mess everywhere.
I’ll clean it up in the morning. Or I won’t. Whatever.
Stark’s nostrils flare in obvious disapproval, and my momentary fondness for him evaporates. He would be a neat freak.
He clears his throat and says, “I apologize for disturbing your sleep. You should try to get more rest.”
I realize suddenly that my arm is warm. There’s a sensation of lingering sensitivity. I think Stark touched me to wake me.
“Right,” I say distractedly. “Well… good night?”
There’s no responding emotion on his face. He just turns on his heel and leaves quickly, like he can’t wait to flee my chaotic pit.
The room feels bizarrely empty without him in it.
After he’s gone, I stay there, sitting up in my bed and staring. I stare until my sweat cools and turns sticky. I stare until Stark’s presence fades and Killian’s returns, creeping closer along the edge of my bed and pooling in the shadows at the corners of my room.
I rub my arm and lie back down, but I refuse to let myself fall asleep again.
I never want to find myself trapped in that strange space with Killian again, vulnerable to his taunts and unable to escape.
Never.
The rest of the night passes fitfully. Every time the drowsiness starts to drag me down, I startle myself awake. Eventually, I decide that my bed is problematic—too tempting—and I get out of it entirely.
Then I dress myself in my leathers and pace. Sit down at the desk, study some maps. Stare out the window, waiting for the sunrise.
I’m still staring out the window when Anassa approaches the large glass doors, so I let her in. I’ve already filled her in this morning on what happened with Killian, the bizarre dream that wasn’t.
Now she takes one look at me and butts her nose pointedly into my side.
“Ouch.” I swat her away. “No assaulting me before breakfast.”
“I sense your emotions. Do not let fear subsume your anger. Remember your rage, your desire to destroy him. Complacency is how evil wins.”
I nod, knowing she’s right. Still, the lack of sleep and the lingering vision of Killian have both wormed their way under my skin.
“He said something that I can’t stop thinking about—that I can’t be a queen without him and that I’ll never be able to lead a country. And logically I know he was trying to make me self-conscious and weak, and that I shouldn’t let him get to me.”
I look up into her golden eyes, the words pouring out of me now.
“But isn’t he right, at least a bit? I haven’t trained for this.
I don’t know how to oversee an entire nation.
My only real qualification is that an ancestor of mine from five hundred years ago was the queen.
I’ve always resented the upper classes for having everything handed to them by virtue of their bloodline, and here I am, doing the exact same thing. ”
Anassa nuzzles her head closer to me, gently this time. I reach out, finding comfort in her fur.
“Yes,” she tells me bluntly. “It is hypocritical.”
I laugh.
“However, you cannot deny the magic that now thrums through your veins,” she continues.
“Who should lead the country instead? Killian, who is entirely unfit? One of the nobles, who have been complicit in the royal family’s misdeeds?
You can earn your crown by learning how to deserve it.
Shut him out, and focus on becoming a good leader. ”
“Okay,” I tell her. “I can do that. And can you please not tell Cratos about this? I am not ready for others to know about this mental connection that Killian and I appear to have. It’s too… fresh.”
“Fine,” Anassa says. “I will not share this information for now. But—” She cuts herself off and perks up, ears turning as if she can hear something that I cannot.
“What is it?”
“Saela is awake.”