CHAPTER 41 #2
“If the Royals find out I am a shifter, they will kill me. They only allow Florian to live…” His fingers dig around the rocks, veins rippling in his arms and back as he lets out a rumbling, painful growl.
He takes a deep breath. “Florian is only allowed to live because he will be King. I am nothing. A bastard and because of that, this will grant them my death at last.”
“I need to get you out of here.” I scan the room frantically. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t have much time before I shift, I can feel it.”
The crack in his window catches the whistling of the breeze as my dragons soar through it and hover around us.
Their lights dance shadows across the darkness of his room.
But that’s when I notice the piano, and as if the dragons sense my feelings, they fly towards it.
I lift, and as I do so, the lights from my stones pulse.
Koen gurgles in pain, a teeth-shattering scream ripping from the darkest depths inside him. But I walk, my emotions are frozen, but I remember this. I remember his hands on this exact piano, the melodies he used to play me at night while I laid across his lap, his arms embracing me.
The way his lips would brush against my temple and his breath against my skin as he whispered, I love you.
I will not allow the Kingdom to rip him away from me.
“Koen, come play.” My fingertips glide along the cobwebs that wrap around the top of the piano, down to the keys. “This could help.”
He glances an outrageous, violent glare towards me. “I haven’t played since…” His eyes shut close, jaw clenching as he holds in the pain. “I haven’t played since you left.”
My weary eyes meet his. “Please try.”
He struggles to lift, his knees buckling out underneath him, but he steps towards me.
The dragons hover around him as he walks, the one of ice swiftly brushing against his bare skin, cooling his body off.
I hear his sigh as he stumbles to the dark bench, gripping the edges so tightly I can hear the crackle of the wood breaking inside.
His trembling hands hover over the keys as his breathing intensifies. I am losing him. If he shifts inside the Pyre, while the Kings of our Realms are here, they will have his head. I know it.
My feet touch the bench before lifting up to sit on top of the piano, leaning towards him without touching him. My fingertips beg to touch him. My heart is screaming no. I will not kill the man I love.
And I will not watch the man I love shift again. The blood moon can’t have him. My sister can’t have him, never again. I will not allow it.
“Koen, please try,” I whisper.
His eyes shut. He sucks in a deep, trembling breath as he places his fingers against the keys.
My heart plummets into my stomach as he begins to play.
Each note is as if a dagger twists inside him as he forces through the pain.
With every press against the key, creating a soft note into the air, he winces in agony.
The melody is ripping him apart, he is fighting so hard against the beast that wants to unleash from him, and I catch a single tear slide across his skin.
I stay quiet.
Allowing him to remember the songs he would play for us. I want him to remember the good, not the bad.
Then, finally, the torment gives way, and his fingers fly across the keys with a fierce grace, as if he never stopped playing. His head hangs low, and I watch his curls bounce as his body sways. The bones cracking under his skin stop.
And that’s when I hear the sounds clearly. The melody he is playing is the same one I heard in the caves. My chest rises and falls rapidly, watching his fingers dance across the keys, his eyes staying shut as he is lost in his own world.
I slide downward across the smooth surface of the piano, dust catching in the air as I sit beside him with eyes wide.
My bottom lip quivers as I recall this song, the same one that sung to me in the cave is the one he played the night I died.
This was the moment I knew I could never live without him.
I told him I’d leave the throne for him.
I remember it clear as day as my hands were on the piano with his over mine, guiding me to learn this exact tune.
I can hear our laughs as I stumbled across the keys, never catching the melody right but still, he never gave up on me.
This was the night we were going to leave together and never look back. This was the night my sister killed me.
“Do you remember this song?” I lean towards him as his chin lifts to the ceiling.
He nods slowly. “The night you died was the last time I ever played it.”
His exhausted eyes meet mine. A small curl rests against his forehead, catching in the slight breeze that trickles through the cracks of the window.
Was he calling me back to him this whole time?
And as he stops playing, my stones light up the room, creating a storm of light flashing through the darkness. My dragons whip through the air, entering the stones once more, and the room envelopes into pure darkness.
Thunder crackles through the sky, rain beating against the windows, which startles us both. His hand clenches my thigh without a second thought, fingers gripping the fabric of my dress, but he removes it just as fast.
He clears his throat, avoiding my gaze.
Goosebumps prick against my skin as bright lightning begins to flash outside, highlighting the beauty of Koen’s frame.
His eyes lock onto mine at last before falling to my lips.
My chest rises at the sight. Without hesitation, his arm slides around my waist, pulling me towards him in one swift movement.
His breathing, ragged and distressed. Our lips, too close.
I suck in a deep breath by his tight grip around me, knowing if his skin touches mine, he could burn to ash. But this is the side of him that always sets my heart on fire. He always makes me feel alive.
More than any throne could ever make me feel.
But he didn’t burn when he ripped my hand out from the blue fire.
Thousands of scenarios run rampant through my mind to why he didn’t burn. My only true thought—the blue fire must have protected him.
“Are you better?” My fingertips frantically pick at the material of my gloves.
“No.” He leans in closer, his breath warm against my skin.
What is he doing?
“Are you still in pain?” My brows furrow deeply. I shift away ever so slightly.
“Yes, but it's not the kind of pain you think it is.” The sky shimmers with lightning flashes as his eyes flutter shut.
“Do I need to take you to the Vitaei?”
He shakes his head firmly. “No.”
“Then what is it?”
His eyes lift, darkening. Not with the darkness that wants to unleash, but a burning desire of something more. “The pain of resisting the urge to sweep you onto the piano and make love to you right now burns deeper than my body shifting into a damn dragon.”
I swallow, eyes falling to his lips, catching the slight movement of his heartbeat flickering against his neck. The veins, definitely bold, traveling down towards his chest.
“I could kill you,” I whisper out, my heart screaming to reach out and grab his face.
“I know.” He leans forward. “I’m just unsure how much longer I can control this urge to have my hands on your body.”
I breathe in, savoring his scent before I pull away.
“I must go.”
His hand reaches out, intertwining his fingers into mine that are protected from the gloves. “I wish you didn’t have to.”
“Florian found Alice. She is alive.” I pause, watching his eyes widen in disbelief.
His elbow rests against the keys, creating a loud clashing of notes that echo in the room. “She didn’t kill her?”
“No.”
He shifts his body towards me, taking both his hands to wrap around mine. “Then Lykia has nothing over you.”
“You still lied to me about this, Koen. Lied to me from the start of what your purpose was with me. And that broke my heart. You have lived centuries without me and to me, it's only been years. I’m unsure what else you have done.”
“I will do everything I can to put it back together.” His eyes flicker between mine, cuffing my hand in his to place his lips against my glove. “One day, I’ll be that man you once loved, again. I promise you. I vow this to you.”
“You broke your vow to Lykia.” I slip my hand from his, his eyes following my movement. I can see the hurt in his eyes by my words.
“Lykia will never be you. I was hurt when I made that vow. I thought you were gone forever.” He shifts forward, allowing his legs to wrap around me as he sits at the edge of the bench.
He takes his hands, sliding them around my thighs as his eyes soften.
“I thought the Gods took you away from me for good. I never thought I would see you again.”
“And now?” I take my hand, gently brushing one of his curls away from his eye. “Now what do you think the Gods are doing?”
His chin lifts, allowing his emerald eyes to catch the golden light of the storm flashing outside.
“Now, I believe the Gods want us to break the curse we brought onto the Realms. And if we do that,” he takes my hand, resting it against his cheek before kissing it, “my hands shall never leave your body again.”