Chapter 44
A calloused hand wrapped around Lunara’s arm and yanked her back.
She’d been so ready for the fall, for the ground to rise up beneath her, that the sudden backwards movement was somehow more jarring than anything else.
“What are you doing?” Brand snarled, setting her back on her feet and pinning her body against the balustrade.
Pure, unadulterated rage, as she’d never seen in him before—and it was all directed at her.
A fissure cracked open within, her heart stuttering and stopping and starting again. Why wasn’t she feeling it? Why couldn’t she find his anger in their bond?
It doesn’t matter. You should’ve run a thousand times before this, but you didn’t because you’re a hopeless eejit. Now you have reason, so get out of here. Go!
“Tell that whispering gobshite to fuck off. This is between you and me, not the deceiver in your head.”
It’s not a fucking deception if it’s the truth.
His markings whorled, hand still like a vice around her forearm, the other snapping up to snare her jaw. “You would dare harm yourself, mate, just to get away from me? Did it tell you to do that?”
Brand’s voice was scarier for its softness, the accusation in his tone slicing through her like a hot knife.
“No, that’s not what I— No! You don’t understand.”
“Explain, then. Immediately.” When she didn’t respond right away, he flashed his fangs—not a threat, but agony. “Have I not earned an explanation from you? Do I not deserve that, at least?” he whispered, eyes glassy with unshed tears.
His face was twisted with something akin to disgust, and she hated that expression being directed at her. Not because he didn’t have every right to scorn her, but because Lunara knew she was everything the look implied.
Filth.
Brand tightened his grip and shook her. Not enough to hurt—just enough to bring her back to reality. “Answer me, Lunara!”
“Of course you do!” she cried. “You deserve everything lovely and blessed in this world. Everything that is good!” She wrenched herself from his grasp and shoved him back, shocked she was strong enough.
“But I am none of those, Brand. I am poison and death. A thing to be paraded through Nachthelliae amidst cheers and banners, and they will welcome me with open arms. Me! A fucking bane!” Her voice had pitched higher and higher until she was screaming, pouring every ounce of her anguish out into the world.
“I am… I am the thing that destroyed a city and murdered hundreds. That has to be put down like a rabid animal.” She collapsed to her knees. “I am the same thing that slaughtered my parents.”
She caved in on herself, the admission too much.
Too much. Too much.
She’d spent fifty-two years running from that night, from the Elder Council and whatever latest monster they’d found for the end of their leash, and it had been her all along.
Fucking stars, she’d been the villain all along, and she hadn’t even realized it.
One word, nonchalantly uttered by an irreverent Wolflord, and her life was over. One word that meant nothing to him, and everything to her.
Misted.
How could she have misted through the ether without knowing?
Three fucking times.
“I am Illamiata’s Keeper,” she whispered through her tears, spitting the last word as a new emptiness opened up inside, gnawing and gnashing as she tipped sideways and crumpled to the ground.
Shite. Even the cold, unwelcoming floor of this terrace might be too good for the likes of you.
She vaguely noticed Brand moving in her peripheral vision. Barely acknowledged it when his own knees hit the stone in front of her except to try and find the strength to fight him when he gathered her up against his chest and gently rocked her back and forth, but couldn’t seem to manage it.
The world tilted and swayed around her with his movement, and she imagined this was what it was like to be lost at sea.
She started to protest when he stood, lifting her with him, but he cut her off.
“No speaking. Please, just… not yet.”
Fine with her. It didn’t matter what he had to say anyway—she was merely biding her time. There were no words in all of Bordoroth that would convince her to stay here and put him in danger.
She had to disappear. Utterly, completely disappear.
Brand carried her back through the chamber to the washroom. Warm light flooded the space as they entered, but it did nothing to thaw the ice pumping in Lunara’s veins.
He set her on the long counter between the basins at either end.
Her heart clenched when he leaned forward and placed a soft kiss against her brow before moving to a drawer in the vanity and withdrawing a cloth.
Steam rose and warm water flowed over his hands as he wet it, wringing out the excess and turning to her once more.
Apparently, bath time when you lose control has become a thing…
Wedging himself between her knees, he gripped her nape, tilting her face higher.
With gentle strokes, he mopped the evidence of her despair away.
Smoothing her brow, swiping her cheeks. She didn’t miss that he lingered on her lips, stroking the wet fabric back and forth before moving to her chin, her neck.
The only thing it accomplished was to make her love him more, which—
Shitting stars.
She loved him.
Soul-crushing, life-ending kind of loved him. The kind where she’d rather burn their future down and break both of them if it meant he was still alive in the world, making it more beautiful just by being.
Piss-poor time to realize it.
When he finished, Brand tossed the cloth into one of the sinks and knelt down, his face only slightly lower than hers.
He stroked the column of her throat with his thumb, using his other hand to tame a rogue tendril of her hair as he stared at her.
But then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her jaw, her nose, each eyelid… and she broke.
Tears welled along with her shame. “I don’t deserve this.” Her throat was raw, voice ragged. “I’m not worth your kindness.”
“I decide what is worth my time,” he snapped. “I choose, Luna. No one else may dictate my actions for me, not even you.”
“You don’t under—”
“I swear, if you tell me I don’t understand one more time…” He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closing before his next hushed words. “No, I wasn’t there when your parents died, but I relived every second of it through you and our bond. I understand bloody well enough what this means to you.”
It was odd.
For a split second—as she faced saying words that had somehow become the most terrifying thing she could ever utter—she wasn’t Lunara anymore. She was just a passing breeze. A shaft of moonlight. A moth flitting by as it looked down on two lovers in an intimate moment.
She watched them from above. Beheld them breathing one another in and out, and wished she could stay like that forever.
But she crashed back into herself all too soon, reality with her, and she couldn’t put it off anymore. He’d stopped her before, but she hadn’t made herself clear enough.
“Then you also understand why I have to leave you.”
There, you’ve said it out loud. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you get the fuck over it.
“Now that”—He sat back and pierced her with a searing look—“I absolutely do not fucking understand. Not if my life depended on it, which it bloody well does.”
“I am the Keeper, Brand. What else is there to say?”
“You can start by telling me why you’re suddenly so fucking sure you have to go! How it could be so easy for you to walk away!”
The tiniest trickling of emotion finally broke through whatever barrier was separating them.
Agony. His.
No. You have to be strong.
She brought her hands up between them and pressed her fingertips into her eyelids, sending golden sparks across her blackened vision. It was easier that way, as if she was speaking to nothing but darkness. Easier when she couldn’t see the betrayal on his face.
“There are exactly two Sorcerit, at most, that possess the ability to mist.” Tears pricked, the wound so fresh that it physically pained her. “Whichever Imperial is High Ambassador to the Evesong, and the Keeper.”
“So Araxis finally informed us—apparently a very well-kept secret among Nachthellians. That doesn’t answer a damned thing, Luna.”
She looked up at him, lip trembling. “Doesn’t it?
You heard what happened. You know the history of the Keepers.
We already know the Elder Council is comprised of snakes and liars.
I was terrified enough of being one of them!
Instead, I’ll be their fucking pet, Brand.
And as I slowly go mad, they’ll have more and more control until I can’t remember who I used to be before they owned me. Until I finally snap and they cull me.”
Lunara started to reach out, to cup his face and feel him beneath her hands, but stopped herself shy of contact.
“When it gets to that point, it will be because I finally crossed a line not even they can ignore.” Her head drooped.
“I can’t remember doing it. I m-misted thrice, and didn’t know?
I’m… I’m already losing it, and I don’t even have Illamiata as an excuse. I won’t put your life in danger.”
Brand stood with a snarl. “What about you?” He surged towards her, gripping her upper arms with anguish in every biting finger.
“You are my mate, given to me by the Sisters, and you’re telling me you are going to die.
Your life is in danger, whether by their hand or your own!
You expect me to just accept that? I cannot. I will not.”
Why were whispered words sometime so much worse than bellowed ones?
He swept her hair back, as he always did, gripping it behind her with both of his hands. “The only madness I see here is that you believe there’s any life I’d want to live without you in it. That you’d ever think stepping off of a fucking balcony is something that would be good for me.”
“I just wanted to protect you. I still want to. I will.”