Chapter 39 #2
“And that’s it?” Every cell in my body seems to pause. “That’s the only reason?”
“ Yes .”
His reply is instant, the word a lash that severs something vital.
My eyes shutter, and I feel my heart do the same—the single word a needle that bleeds my bubble of uncertainty.
I lift my chin, watching his eyes widen as I harden my own. “Well. Consider this me formally releasing you from that pledge.”
I stalk toward the bed, but a hand whips out and snags my wrist, halting my retreat and making my head whirl around.
“Lai—”
“ Get your hand off me .”
He drops it with a sharp hiss, then snatches the other and yanks —pulling me so close I can feel the beat of his anger in the rise and fall of his chest. He dips his head and plants his face right in front of mine, so I’m assaulted by the draft of his icy breath.
“You’ll never be rid of me. You may not have a shadow, but you’re chained to mine for eternity.
You think this has any weight?” he says, waving my wrist around—the one shackled by Cainon’s cupla—and a vicious sort of chuckle rolls out of him that smarts my skin.
“You can run off and tie yourself to your pretty High Master, but I’ll hunt you to the four corners of the continent.
Not because I want to, but because I can’t fucking help myself. ”
My wrist is tossed at me with such force that I stumble back three steps. He traces those same steps until my back collides with one of the poles on my four-poster bed.
I suck a gasp as he pulls so close I can feel the press of all his hard angles, all the bulging pockets of muscle. His thigh slides between my legs and notches into place, pressing against my most private area ...
That bare, exposed part of me that’s suddenly flushed and aching.
I should be afraid, pinned to a pole by a man well over twice my size wearing eyes glazed with ire.
I’m not.
I’m trapped somewhere between wanting to claw his face off and wishing he’d lift his thigh—put a little more pressure on that hot, swollen spot between my legs.
His gaze cuts to the side, and he sneers, snatching Gypsy and the Night King off the edge of my bed.
“You want a fairy tale?” he spits, waving it in my face.
“ I’m your fucking fairy tale. I’m nailed to your soul, Orlaith, and believe me when I tell you there is no happily ever after. Not for me, and certainly not for you.”
He tosses the book on the bed and retreats a step, leaving me gasping for air and clinging to the pole.
My world has tipped on its axis. I don’t recognize myself, and I have absolutely no idea who this man is standing before me, looking at me like he despises me. Truly despises me.
Right now, the feeling is mutual.
I hate that he’s lied to me all these years—hurt me in ways that are unforgivable. And I hate that even now, after everything he’s done, my body is still hot and so fucking raw for him, my muscles throbbing with need for him to dig up into me.
I’m confused, scattered, and done.
I’m. Fucking. Done.
“Get out,” I mumble, barely loud enough to hear.
The words are fragile, dented things, and I watch something in Rhordyn’s eyes shatter. Even the sturdy breadth of his shoulders softens as he heaves a sigh and massages the bridge of his nose.
“Mila—”
“ Get. Out! ” I bark, and this time my words are no longer delicate. They’re loud and obtuse—boulders tossed to maim.
Shields harden his eyes, and I watch him detach. It feels like a slap to the face, but I relish the sting.
He nods, stuffing hands deep into his pockets as he moves away, keeping his gaze trained to me the entire time. “As you wish.”
He makes his way to the door strewn across the floor, picking it up and leaning it against the wall before pausing.
I glare at his broad silhouette, waiting for him to cross that line so I can fall apart in peace.
He peers at me over his shoulder. “The necklace. I need you to put it back on.”
It’s not a request, but there is a vulnerability in his stare that would burrow into my inquisitive heart if I let it.
So, I don’t.
Instead, I douse it with a bucket load of bitter.
“You didn’t use your manners .”
His eyes widen, shadows slithering across them as his upper lip peels back from his teeth. “I will not beg you to protect yourself, Milaje. Put the fucking necklace on. Now.”
His voice is thicker than I’m used to it being—more weighty, almost bestial. But I hold his gaze, refusing to blink or shift or soften, wondering how he likes the taste of his own medicine.
He wants me to hide—to protect myself—and I’d love to understand why. But he never tells me anything.
I, too, refuse to beg. To dash the remaining droplets of my pride at the feet of a man who left me in the dark for nineteen fucking years. And I will not put that necklace back on while he’s standing there, watching me. Perhaps the old Orlaith would’ve done it by now, but that girl is gone.
He made damn sure of it.
“ Leave .”
I swear I hear his knuckles pop.
He rumbles low, shaking his head in sharp, unbridled motions, before stalking out the door, leaving an encroaching emptiness that flattens my lungs.
I crumble to the floor, letting my head fall into the cradle of my trembling hands.
I’ve been living a lie.
No wonder it felt like my skin was too tight to fit my jutting bones—like my colors didn’t sing for my soul. How could they when I’ve been trapped inside the shell of a woman who isn’t me?
Rhordyn’s seen me struggle, yet he kept me wrapped in my barbed-wire skin.
Hands pushing through my hair, I stare across the room to the chain and stone and shell left discarded on the floor.
No concrete explanation or a single lick of remorse.
I force myself to stand on unsteady legs and walk toward the vanity, retrieving the necklace on the way, ignoring the pillow slip lying in a crumpled heap beside it.
All this time I’ve been fawning over this piece of jewelry as if it were Rhordyn’s heart hanging around my neck, but it was just a pretty ruse to keep me contained.
My fist tightens around the chain as I steal a glimpse of the woman in the mirror ...
She’s a masterpiece; the most exquisite rose given shape and life and a fluttering heartbeat. She’s the sun and the soil and light that bathes the world on a beautiful day.
She’s broken, lonely, and hiding from her past.
But it’s hard to keep hiding when I’m staring at the unveiled truth.
The shape of my eyes ...
The cut of my chin ...
The map of my freckles ...
I look like him. Like the little boy I’ve painted too many times to count—the one who lives in my nightmares.
Only in my nightmares.
Wide eyes that stare at nothing.
My lids flutter closed, twin tears darting down my cheeks as I sever the sight of my loss.
I survived. He didn’t. And something deep, deep inside is bellowing through the blackness that it should have been the other way around.
How am I supposed to handle that?
I can’t.
And I just know that tonight, while my consciousness is sleeping, my sub conscious will end up perched on the edge of that shadow-filled chasm that exists in my dreams, trying to force my hand. That it will threaten to jump.
Again, I’ll refuse because the monster you know is safer than the monster you don’t.
I open my eyes, lift the necklace, and yield to the invasive gulp that suffocates my skin as I drape the chain around my neck .
.. watching all my luster bleed away. It only takes a few seconds before the real me is gone—painted over by a plain ruse that chafes my soul and hides the person I really am.
The beauty.
The pain.
The coward.