Chapter 35 #2
I brushed my hair back and shrugged before leaving the booth. Samkiel followed. “Sorry, it was just funny.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said as I reached for the pictures that the photo booth produced. “It’s a pleasant sound.”
“My laugh?” I snorted and lifted the pictures. “Yeah, right.”
He didn’t say anything, just leaned over my head to look at the pictures.
“Now what?”
I turned and placed the strip of pictures into one of his jacket pockets. Samkiel stayed perfectly still, but I could see the question in his eyes.
“For you to keep. So when you go back to your silver tower with your glowing goddesses and celestial army, you will remember that you made friends with an evil and wicked Ig’Morruthen while on Onuna.”
I smiled up at him and took another bite of cotton candy. He was quiet for a second, but another scream from a ride had him turning in startled alertness.
“I see.” He adjusted his jacket and took a deep breath before nodding behind me. “What other tortures do you wish to show me in this place?”
My smile was damn near wicked, and I could tell he knew he’d made a mistake by the way he shook his head.
“How do you feel about bumper cars?”
“Are you alright?” Reggie’s voice ripped me from the memory and back into the real world. I wiped at the tears gathered in my eyes and the moisture on my cheeks. I shook my head, trying to calm my emotions.
And a lock on a door in a house rattled.
“Peachy.”
My power flared, and I watched the flame eat away at the photos.
Our smiling images turned dark, burning to ash.
I wiped my hands, the dusty particles falling to the floor.
I could feel Reggie’s gaze on me, but I ignored him and continued my search.
The map sat on the table, underneath the book he’d tucked the photos in as if he’d placed it there for me.
I grabbed it and shoved it into my back pocket.
Reggie said nothing as I wiped one sleeve across my face again.
“I need my ring.”
“Perhaps he keeps it close to him?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, still searching the table.
“Well, it is a part of you, yes? Therefore, I do not see why he would not keep it close to him.”
I hadn’t thought about that, or maybe a part of me had, and I just didn’t trust myself to be near him one last time. I wanted his last memory of me to be this betrayal, this final blow to him and his friends. He needed to just let me go.
Fuck. My heart ached, and I tried to push those damn feelings back down, but they threatened to swallow me whole.
I strode toward the bedroom where I could feel both Samkiel’s and the dream eater’s power, Reggie at my heels.
A massive bed stood in the middle of the room, two large dressers covering a good portion of the walls.
A large window looked out over the tops of every building in Silver City and the clouds that rolled in between. It was a room fit for a god king.
Samkiel lay in the center of the bed with four dream eaters surrounding him. Two stood on the right and two on the left, holding hands as they fed. It looked as if they had placed him there. I wondered if the dream eaters had moved him to contain him.
“It takes four of my best to hold the World Ender,” the leader of the Baku, Garleglish, said.
I came to its side, folding my arms over my chest as we watched Samkiel toss and turn, a pained expression on his face. My heart twisted, and I had to fight my instincts to make it stop.
“You came,” I said. Like all of them, the leader of the Baku was bald with dark-speckled, pale skin. He wore a long black trench coat with a thick hat. “I’m impressed. I never thought you’d betray your precious Kaden.”
“We follow those in power, and you, dark queen, are dripping with it.” He looked at me when he spoke, and I suppressed a shudder, watching the slit of his mouth move.
I gave him a small smile and stepped closer. He swallowed hard, and I could smell his fear. I liked that. I stepped past him and walked toward the bed.
I ran a hand across the sheets. “Sure. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the severed heads I left on your doorstep as decorations, hmm?”
“I would prefer the rest of my family to stay alive, yes.”
My eyes narrowed. “Smart.”
Samkiel twisted again on the bed, a small moan escaping him. Nightmares. That’s what the dream eaters had incited to feed from, and I knew Samkiel had plenty.
“A thousand plus worlds he has seen, yet when he dreams, he dreams of you.”
My head snapped toward Garleglish, and he closed his mouth, glancing away.
I knew I shouldn’t get closer, but the part of me that remembered the feel of him pressed against me didn’t care.
The beast inside me seemed to purr as if it wished to say goodbye to the man we both had grown so attached to.
So, against my better judgment, I moved and sat next to Samkiel on the bed.
I ran a hand over his face, his skin clammy and pale. A piece of his hair stuck to his forehead as he tossed, and I brushed it away. He calmed, my touch seeming to soothe him.
“This would be a reasonable time to say goodbye,” Reggie said. “If this is the path you choose.”
“This was always the path.” My hand shook as I threaded it through his hair the same way I had coaxed him out of nightmares before. Only this time, I was the cause.
Gods, I was a monster.
Another reason in a long list of many why I couldn’t stay and be his. Or he mine.
I leaned forward, not caring about my audience or the pain that threatened to crack my chest wide open.
My hand traced the curve of his face, following the path to his jaw.
Warmth and the softest prickle of stubble greeted my fingertips.
My heart lurched. That damned face. The same face that, against all my fury and bitter rage, I still dreamt of.
How could life have been so cruel as to show him to me, tease me with even the slightest possibility of a future, and then spit in my face with a cold and brutal reminder?
He and I were not the same. Not an epic, sweeping tale.
Not one of the romantic stories Gabby so loved, but enemies.
One born from light, the other crafted from darkness.
Samkiel was right. The universe was cruel.
My eyes stung, holding back emotions I didn’t want to process.
By the time Samkiel woke up, I would be long gone.
I didn’t know why, and I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t keep from pressing my lips to his.
It was a soft, quick goodbye kiss to the man who, regardless of everything, kept trying to save me.
“Maybe in another life,” I whispered before pulling away.
As I lifted my head, I noticed my ring on the bedside table, the intricately designed bone material of the forsaken blades gleaming darkly in the low light.