Chapter 78
Valen
I was an idiot. A godsdamned fool.
It had been three days since I’d let Belle walk out on me. I’d said nothing I wanted to, and everything I hadn’t.
She thought I didn’t believe in her, but I did.
That was the problem. My hopes had been raised and crushed time and again, until that part of me had become a cowering animal, desperate for the blow it knew would come.
I’d become a scarred, degenerate soul, but with Belle, no matter how much I tried, she gave me hope, and I despised myself for it.
I should’ve run after her, but instead I’d stalked the castle, helping to clear the wreckage and attending to the aftermath of the general’s attack, finding every excuse I could think of to avoid facing her.
She didn’t deserve to be tainted by my presence. I was doomed. It was better to break things off now, to create distance, to push her away, yet nothing eased the storm inside me. The rising guilt drowned out everything, even the hunger of my dragon. I had to see her.
I found her in the library, bathed in the setting sun and surrounded by stacks of books and maps.
The bond of our blood had pulled me to her, thrumming and relentless, but I would’ve known where to look anyway.
The library had become her refuge, the one place of safety she had in the nightmare I’d constructed for her.
And then Sarkis had profaned it.
My gaze drifted to the remains of the table where I’d staked the general. It had been scrubbed clean and dragged to the side, out of sight. Claws of shame raked over me. How had I let her face this alone? I’d been so consumed by my own pity that I hadn’t considered what that meant.
I should’ve been at her side.
Her face was drawn with frustration and misery, and she wore her exhaustion like a cloak. How long had it been since she’d slept? She was pushing herself—punishing herself for failures that were entirely mine. My self-loathing deepened, sinking into me like a silver-tipped lance.
I might shift into a dragon, but the man I’d become was far more a monster.
Belle ignored my entrance, but the tension in her shoulders and jawline told me she knew I was here.
“You need to get some rest,” I said softly, breathing in her honey jasmine scent, noting how it mingled with parchment and leather.
“So everyone keeps telling me.” She didn’t look up, just paged forward in the book she was reading. “What I need is an answer. A way to trap a demon. A clue as to how my magic can stop this. Anything…and all my books are gone.”
“Let it go—just for a while. Please.”
“No.” Belle slammed the book she was reading shut and reached for another.
I pinned the volume to the table with my hand, meeting her glare. “I’m sorry that I hid the truth from you. I should’ve told you from the start.”
Her lips twitched, and hurt flashed in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. What’s important now is finding a way to break your curse.”
When she reached for a different book, I snagged it from her grasp, the leather still warm from her touch. “It matters to me. I need you to understand that.”
Pushing back her chair, she rose and crossed to the shelves. “If it mattered to you, you would have told me before Locke did.”
I swallowed. She was right, and I had no idea how to explain the things I needed to.
She glanced back at me, then continued to trace her fingers over the spines, searching. Dust motes swirled around her, golden in the fading light.
I stepped as close as I dared, afraid she would bolt like a wary doe. “There’s more you need to know—that you deserve to know.”
She looked at me with ferocious suspicion. “What now?”
My jaw ticked. I thought that by hiding the truth from her I could play the Fates, but instead, I’d only played myself.
“The seer said that you had the power to save me, but that it would cost me everything: my ambitions, my kingdom, my power. Everything I ever imagined I’d be or rule or protect.”
“So you have to pay a price for my help.”
“Not just a price. Everything.” I shook my head. “For a while, I thought that meant you might kill me.”
“I tried.”
“If you’d truly wanted to kill me, I’d be dead. I learned that much in the woods.” I shook my head. “But rather than tell you the truth, I hid it still, thinking I could find a way to control you—that if I learned enough about your power, I could beat the Fates at their own game.”
Pain flickered in her eyes. “You wanted to use me.”
I slammed my palm against the shelves, then walked away from her, unable to stomach the look she was giving me.
“I was a fool, blinded by my own ambition and greed, unable to see what was right in front of me. What do ambition and riches matter? What does my power matter? Or my throne? If I don’t break the curse, I’ll lose everything anyway. ”
Silence stretched between us. It was just another excuse. It wasn’t what I’d come here to say.
What I had to say.
She leaned back against the stacks with a sigh, clutching a book to her chest like a shield. “It’s okay, Valen. I know now, and we’re not out of time. Maybe I can find a way—”
“No,” I growled.
Even after what I’d admitted, she was still thinking of me first.
I stepped close, close enough to taste the warmth rising off her skin. “None of it matters. That’s what I need to explain to you. I could lose it all, and I wouldn’t care. What I can’t lose is you.”
Her breath caught, and I dragged the backs of my fingers along the curve of her jaw.
“You’re extraordinary, Belle. Fearless, kind, and relentlessly loyal—a better person than I deserve to have fighting for me.
I gave up hope years ago, but I can’t stop hoping now, because I believe that you’re capable of more than any one of us imagines. ”
She looked away, but I drew her face back to me. “You are what I fear losing now. You’ve become what everything means to me.”
Her shoulders rose as she sucked in a breath, her eyes searching mine for the truth, for an answer I still hadn’t given her. “What are you saying?”
“I know I haven’t given you a reason to trust me, but I swear, you’ll never have to ask me for the truth again, never have to doubt my faith in you.
It’s yours, all of it.” I reached up and unbuckled the mask hiding my face and cast it aside.
“No more lies, no more masks. You are all that I want, and all that I believe in.”