Chapter Thirty-Seven
“It was yours.”
If Bash hadn’t blocked her, he would have been stuck like a pincushion. As it were, he gripped her wrist. The hairpins clattered onto the tile.
“Alora! Stop! What the hell has come over you?” He gripped her opposite wrist now, too, worried she’d slap him. Which she’d been about to; his anticipation was infuriating.
“Let me go!”
“That doesn’t seem a safe choice for either of us. Are you ill?”
Alora gritted her teeth. “No, you cretin. I remember. You said Madam Feebledire is not above you? You’re right!
Your management of your evil Urchins gave you power over me.
Your little desire called straight into my enchantment!
And thank you! Thank you for reminding me of what your true nature is.
Wicked artifacts are subjective, are they?
Well! I don’t think that ruby-eyed”—her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth—“thing is subjectively evil. I’d say it definitely is!
” A gray cast stole into Bash’s complexion.
A damning if there ever was one. She could have sobbed. “You gave it to him. How could you?”
“I’m so sorry, Alora. I’ll never quit being sorry.
He’d sent me out to retrieve it months ago.
An old crone was rumored to have entranced her entire family, including her great-grandchildren, into spending every minute of the day with her.
Even to follow her along in death. They put up quite a fight.
” He touched the scar on his eyebrow. “I’d no idea he’d ever think to use it on you.
I’d no idea you were to become the performer behind Door Twenty-five.
Fuck, I didn’t know all you were capable of!
That you could even deliver what he wanted.
I told you once before—I would never do anything to hurt you. ”
When she ripped her wrists from him this time, he allowed it. Her eyes welled, which infuriated her further. “Then why do I feel like my chest is carved open?”
“I’m—”
“Stop. I thought I could look away from it, your past, even your present, leaning into how much I’ve come to care, but I can’t.
You have hurt the people of Enver and beyond time and time again, and if you didn’t do it directly, you commanded it done.
Maybe they haven’t all been innocent, maybe you’ve saved a few, but it isn’t enough to condone every other evil.
Bash,” His name broke her last thread of control.
She felt the warm wet of tears on her cheeks.
“You went from a child who hurt another to a man who leads a vindictive mob. Do you even understand what you’ve become? ”
His eyes were wide and pleading as he closed her in.
His hands came to rest on either side of her hips, his face level with her own.
“Yes, Alora. I know exactly what I’ve become.
Believe me when I say I am not proud of it.
That I wish to change it.” His forehead pressed to hers, and Alora couldn’t help but close her eyes at the feel of him. She shivered.
“Please,” he murmured, and his voice broke. “You are my tormented dream.”
This isn’t fair. Her breaths mingled with his, tortuous. She whispered, “I need to be free. From it all.”
The pressure abandoned her as Bash pulled away. Alora opened her eyes to his, in time to see the veins of black as they returned, snaking across his irises, blatant anguish in his expression. “I told you I’d see it done. If you believe nothing else of me, believe that.”
“Do it then. Desire me out of this.”
“Of entrancement?”
“Yes, why not? You brought back my memories when I’d lost them. I’m bespelled; desire me free.”
She avoided focusing too much on the hope blooming inside her. Or on Bash’s hands, coming away from the vanity to rest against her thighs. But his touch was a sweet agony; she could never ignore it in a hundred years.
“I desire for the entrancement upon you to end.”
Alora held still with bated breath, but seconds passed, and no feeling of opening returned. Her mind remained shut away, dark and contained. She couldn’t access it. Her shoulders slumped.
“It didn’t work?”
“No. My contract… There’s a portion in there. It must prevent it.” Apparently, to drag her from entrancement was to harm her. At least in Marshall Merridon’s eyes. She swiped at her cheeks, where the tears had begun to dry, pulling at her skin. “I’ll have to think of some other way.”
“Maybe if it was against your own will. What if I bound you? Tied you to Necros and kidnapped you from the grounds?”
The imagery bombarded her. At once, a sharp pain twisted inside her abdomen. Alora gasped, hunching over. In some faraway distance, she could feel Bash’s hand on her bare upper back, the robe having slipped farther. Felt him drop to a knee in front of her.
“Alora! What’s happened?”
She righted herself, albeit slowly and shaking. She sniffed as the pain ebbed. “No. I think it would kill me.”
“That goddamned bastard,” he seethed. “We’ll think of something else.”
He adjusted the robe on her shoulders, and Alora, despite everything, relished the feel of his touch. Though it didn’t stop her from shrugging it off. His nearness distracted her still, but not enough to prevent a seed of an idea from beginning to grow.
Maybe it could work.
More than maybe, even.
Her eyes found his, determined and sure. “I’m allowed to move through the grounds with an Opulence escort. Escort me then, and right now. I need to find Lennox Flowers.”