Chapter 62 #2
Samkiel nodded compassion and understanding in his eyes. The wind rustled the nearby trees, and the sun cast a violet glow across our path.
“When did it change?”
The snort that left me was as disgusting as the images that followed.
“I don’t remember the exact time. Kaden grew distant.
I don’t know why. Then I caught him with someone else.
After that, I was an object of sex and power to him.
I was merely a weapon. He never loved me.
” I shrugged. I knew why my insecurities and jealousy were so damn bad.
Kaden had broken my heart, but worse, he had destroyed my trust not only in others but in myself.
A pained expression passed across Samkiel’s face, and I realized just how much I had opened up, how vulnerable I’d made myself. Kaden had put wounds on my heart and soul that had never really healed and still festered.
“I have felt that way, too.”
My head whipped toward him. “You have?”
“Not to the extent of what Kaden has done to you, but similar, yes. I am a king by birth. I was not chosen or picked. It was mine because I was born into it, not because I earned it. I didn’t work for it.
None of it. Some people worship and need me, but they don’t see me.
They see a ruler and someone meant to protect them.
I am a crown, not a man to them.” He lifted his hand, lightning dancing across his fingertips before bursting into a silver ball of energy.
The forest bent and quaked around us, the wind picking up and spinning into a few small tornadoes of dust near our feet. “I am power, a guardian, nothing more.”
“I…” Knowing I had said the same vile, mean things to him, I didn’t know what to say.
He extinguished the power from his hand, and the forest returned to normal. “It may sound humorous given how The Hand acts, but a part of me has wondered if the only reason they are with me is out of duty….” His voice trailed off, and he looked at his feet.
“Sam—”
“My apologies. Perhaps that was too much. It’s easy for me to talk to you.” He forced one of those devilishly handsome smiles. “It always has been.”
I felt the corner of my lips twitch. “No, it’s fine. I just told you something personal, too, so I guess it’s easy to talk to you, as well.”
The tension in him eased, and his expression lightened at my words. “Yeah?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged playfully. “Other times, I think about strangling you.”
“Ah.” He nodded, a deep chuckle rumbling from his chest. “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t wish it any other way.”
I didn’t know why, but his comment tugged at my heart. This is what we used to share, and I had missed it so damn much. I felt the small tug at the corners of my lips, but until his gaze dipped to my mouth and hope flared behind his storm-colored eyes, I hadn’t realized that I’d smiled.
“Your smile, Dianna, is only one of the most beautiful things about you.”
Beautiful. It was such a stupid word and one I had heard plenty of times before. Yet he said it, and I damn near melted. I cleared my throat, but my voice still sounded husky. “Do you always flirt with homicidal killers?”
His smile was bright, making him impossibly more gorgeous, and a part of me ached. “Only the really pretty ones.”
I rolled my eyes and quickly changed the subject. “You know, you never asked me how I killed Tobias.”
I didn’t like how his words made me feel, and I wanted to change the subject. He made me hopeful as if my world wasn’t in ruins, and that guilt came sweeping back.
“I assumed you’d tell me, eventually. Well, I hoped you would share,” Samkiel said, his gaze focused on the overgrown patch of trees ahead.
“Really?” I asked, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. The winding path in front of us continued to grow. “Well, funny story. It was actually you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I remembered what you taught me back at the Vanderkai’s mansion about large beasts and soft spots. Then I kind of let him swallow me and cut him from the inside out.”
Samkiel stopped and turned to look at me. “That’s—”
“Reckless?” I winced.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Astonishing. I have done that only once in my very long life and regretted it immediately.”
I laughed. “I have to admit, I also regretted it immediately.”
His wide smile was infectious, and I couldn’t help but return it. “Well, I suppose we now have something else in common.”
“Besides being stubborn, ancient beings?”
“Besides that.” Samkiel nodded and turned to lead the way. He held back a few branches and extended his hand, gesturing for me to go ahead of him. I walked down a small hill, wading through tall grass before my feet touched soft sand.
“This is what I wanted you to see.”
“Another pretty lake off the beaten path?” I slipped my hand into his, the warm calluses scraping against my palm, sending a bolt of electricity straight through me.
The simple contact made both of us falter.
I looked up into his devastatingly beautiful face.
He focused on me, the heat of his power winding around us, touching me with soft feathery caresses. I had missed this so much, missed him.
He tightened his hand on mine and spun me, wrapping his arm across my front and pulling me back against his chest. I froze, the sound finally registering.
The ocean stretched to the horizon, where it touched the sky.
Sun-kissed waves crashed against the shore in a rhythmic pulse, sounding like the planet’s heartbeat.
Sand rose in small dunes on an untouched beach.
My world tilted, tossing me back. I stood on that cliff again, the remnants of her fitting into a jar.
All she was and ever had been in my hands and then spread across the world as I emptied it into the ocean, sending her remains into the wind.
No.
Pain radiated from my core, and nausea rose. My chest heaved, and my breathing turned ragged.
No.
Agony, pure and blinding, ripped through my head. Tears filled my eyes, his arms the only thing holding me up.
“No!”
I wrenched myself out of his arms and spun away from the ocean, running from the sound of the waves that felt like acid across my nerves.
“Dianna!” Samkiel called after me.
“No, I am not doing this.”
He appeared in front of me, his eyes scanning mine wildly as he held me at arm’s length. “I see you. Every single part. I see the part of you that you are trying to bury along with her.”
I slapped at his hands as hard as I could.
“You see nothing,” I hissed, wishing I had more power and venom to throw at him.
Without my powers, I was like a moth threatening a hawk.
“You know, for a second, you had me. I’ll admit that.
You say things and make me feel. The flirting and the listening, you’re good.
Gods, you’re good. Was that your plan all along?
To make me a miserable, lonely mess so that when you showed up, I’d suddenly talk? ”
“What? No. I am trying to help you, but you must also work with me. Dianna, I have never met or heard of a god or goddess, let alone any other powerful being, suppressing their powers as thoroughly as you have. I don’t know the consequences of them returning or how violently they will, but we have to try. We have—”
“We don’t have to do anything.” I jerked at my arms, trying to get him to release me.
He held me with ease, which was only fuel on the fire of my rage.
I pushed so hard I probably would have twisted my arm off.
I’d heard stories of wild animals chewing through their flesh to break free, and I was tempted at this point. “Let. Me. Go.”
He did.
I turned away from him, uncaring of the direction. All I cared about was getting away from here, escaping the pain and memories. Every crash of the ocean against the shore battered at the place I’d hidden away the memories of her. It was physically painful and threatened to swallow me whole.
“Running away from what you feel solves nothing.” He called out.
“Oh, and you would know, wouldn’t you?” I spat and spun around, kicking a flurry of sand at him.
“Yes, yes, I would.”
“Why are you doing this? Are you really trying to help me get my powers back? Do you really want to help me, or are you just that desperate to fuck me?”
“No!” he snapped. “Gods, Dianna, why is it so hard for you to believe that someone just genuinely cares about you?”
“Because they don’t!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “They don’t. I have lived a thousand years as someone’s weapon, someone’s thing . Everyone wants something from me, and the only person in the whole world who didn’t is dead!”
My chest heaved, a dam threatening to break tenfold. There it was—the brutal, agonizing truth.
“You’re wrong.” His voice was like cold, hard steel.
“She was not the only one. But you are also right that I do want something from you. I want you to be happy, healthy, and alive. I want the best for you because gods know you deserve it after every fucking thing you’ve been through.
One day I want you to smile again, really smile.
I want to help you heal as you helped me. ”
My eyes burned this time, emotions crashing through me, mocking my anger.
Samkiel’s words, my feelings, her death, memories of her, and my pain threatened to overwhelm me.
My face crumpled, tears sliding down my face.
I didn’t see him move, but Samkiel was suddenly before me, cupping my face and wiping away every single one.
“You knew about the ocean. You knew because I told you everything, and you brought me here, anyway.”
“I know,” he whispered, “and that’s why I did.”
I pushed at that ridiculously muscled chest. The impact hurt my wrists but didn’t budge him. “How could you?”
“Because I will not have you hate a memory so precious to you as my father did.”
Shock made me pause, my tears drying up as I stared up at him. “What?”