Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
He’s the reason I’m drunk.
Again.
The reason I can’t stop drinking. I tense, like a predator ready to pounce. He may think it’s from fear, or the surprise of someone holding a blade to my back, but no. It’s from something far deeper.
Hatred.
The dagger in my wristlet drops before I twist around and knock his hand away.
Dust kicks up with the quickness of my steps.
I muster all my strength and shove him against the other wall of the alley.
My blade is up before he can blink, and arcs down, straight through the leather of his jacket and into his chest.
“Mikael.” I seethe, spitting his name out like the foul thing he is.
He chuckles. Laughs.
Like this is a game.
Fury like molten lava weaves through my veins as I bury the blade deeper, forcing it into his heart.
Not that he has one.
It won’t kill him, being a vampire, but making him bleed is a small vengeance. Too bad I no longer carry wooden stakes like I did during the battle. There was no longer a need after the Wastelands divided our lands and the vampires never returned.
“Did you not think I’d know it was you?” Chest heaving, I follow my question with a vow. “You’ll never surprise me again.”
Each silent breath burns my nostrils as pain blossoms along my jaw from how tightly I clench my teeth. I haven’t seen him since the battle—since he betrayed me—and never expected him to show his face in my presence again.
The breeze tousles his dirty and disheveled white-blond hair, no longer the neat, controlled style he used to keep.
It frames his perfect fucking face, even better than it did before.
I now hate those full lips that whispered promises against my skin, which are currently curved in an infuriating almost-smile.
I used to love that smile and he knows it.
I want to punch his strong, chiseled jaw, the one I used to pepper with kisses. And I want to gouge out those stormy gray eyes that are assessing me.
My anger spirals even further because he’s still as beautiful as the last day we were together, naked in my bed and wrapped in each other’s arms.
I see how I fell for him. But he’s no different than any other brute of a warrior—strong, beautiful, and full of empty promises.
He’ll never understand the depths of pain he caused. His betrayal is the cage I cannot break free from; it affected so much more than just our relationship.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. Yet, you didn’t kill me. Even though you very well could have, my beautifully vicious warrior,” Mikael says, his playful smile faltering as he stares down at me, his gaze shifting to one of tormented hunger.
He lifts a hand toward my face, but I knock it away. He hasn’t touched me in over two hundred years, and I won’t be allowing him to do so again.
Why am I even entertaining his presence? I should’ve slit his throat and ripped out his heart.
“Don’t touch me,” I command. “You’re not allowed to expect anything of me. That privilege was lost long ago. If I killed you, I’d lose the pleasure of stabbing you if you try to come around again. It’s quite cathartic.”
I’d rather see him dead, but it does feel nice to have my blade buried in his chest, his blood sliding over my hand and dripping onto the cobblestones at our feet.
“I’d let you stab me every day if it meant you’d be mine again.” Mikael leans his head down, and as he does, his pupils catch in the lantern’s light. There is no deceit within them. No lie in the way his face slowly gravitates closer to mine.
His height is something else I used to love, and now it just pisses me off.
I put more pressure on the blade. He grunts and I close the gap, my lips so close I can feel his breath. “Not tempting enough.”
I wrench the blade from his chest, cruel and unforgiving, conveying everything he needs to know. He has no right to think there is anything left between us.
Just because we’re bonded doesn’t mean I still want him.
Blood drips down the steel before I flick it, then wipe it on his jacket. I take a step back and bring the blade up and point it at his throat.
I can’t tell if I’m shaking from anger, how much I’ve had to drink, or how cold it is. Whatever it is, he cannot be here.
“Get out of my city before I cut your head off.”
“We need to talk.” Mikael’s tone shifts, emphasizing his seriousness, as he takes a slow and deliberate step closer, pressing his neck into the tip of my blade. His pale skin indents under the pressure until a single bead of blood wells.
“No, we don’t.” I step to the side, ready to remove myself from his presence, but he grabs my wrist and pulls me into him, locking an arm around my waist.
I scowl, trying to twist out of his hold, but he’s still stronger than me. I’m pinned against his body.
He brings his free hand toward my face, and I flinch, jerking my head back. “Let me go.”
His fingers hover over my skin, the air charged with hesitation, before he sweeps a few loose strands of my hair away from my face and tucks them behind my ear. A featherlight caress lingers at the pointed tip.
I suck in a sharp breath and look down the alley to avoid his gaze.
This is too familiar, bringing back memories. When we’d playfully spar and it’d end with him holding me this same way, brushing his fingertips against my ear so tenderly before kissing it, moving down to my lips… leading us to more intimate play—stop.
He cannot be here right now. He shattered me.
My breath comes ragged as I fume and jerk my body, trying to loosen his grip. “Let me go.”
A cold hand grips my chin, moving my head so I have to look at him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
He’s staring at me like he wants to devour me.
My core tightens, my traitorous body reacting to the memories of what it led to. No one else has ever had the same effect. I hate him for still looking at me this way after all these years.
Especially after he betrayed me. It’s like I’m some prize he lost and now wishes to reclaim. I shake my head to remove myself from his grip, but his hold is strong.
He tilts my head to the side, exposing my neck to him. My pulse is erratic, and I know he can feel it beating out of control.
I think about all the ways I could kill him, so that I don’t think about other things that would make me a fucking puddle right now.
I hate him. I hate him. I fucking hate him. He broke me. Fuck him.
I force my hands up his chest as I lean my neck further to the side, letting him think I want him to bite me. Instead, I use my new anchor—the taut, defined, impossible-to-ignore muscles of his chest—and shove out of his arms.
I throw that punch I wanted to make earlier.
“How did you find me?”
Mikael’s hand goes to the blood trickling down his chin from his split lip. He removes a cloth from his pocket and wipes it away. “It wasn’t easy. How did you shield yourself from me?”
“With ease.” I lift my tunic and proudly display the matching bond tattoo we share on my left ribcage.
His expression darkens when he sees the hideous, scribbled-out mess over the once-beautiful double infinity sign.
I hadn’t even wanted something designed over it. I told the artist to scratch it out like the mistake it was. It now represents the scar etched into my soul. A rotting black mark that holds no beauty.
“Why did you do that?” Mikael’s voice deepens, a guttural sound emanating from his throat.
“It was a stain that couldn’t be washed away, so I covered it up.”
His eyes roam up my body before meeting my stone-cold gaze. His jaw clenches as if he wants to say something more. When he doesn’t, I remove myself from whatever farce this is and grab the handle of the door of the tavern.
“Do not go in there,” Mikael commands.
“Or what?” I throw him a scathing look and step inside, leaving him in the shadowed alley. I don’t know why he thinks he can dictate my choices. He never has.
I go back to where Peylin is and sit on the chaise next to her.
“Bryn, what happened?” Peylin puts a hand on my knee, a look of concern flitting across her face. I must look as rattled as I feel.
I take a moment to breathe. Was the liquor that strong? Did I conjure that interaction? Unfortunately, not. That was too real to have been imagined. I pull in one slow breath after another to calm my nerves before telling her.
“He happened.” I pull in a deep breath and exhale it slowly. “Mikael’s here. He said we needed to talk.” I scoff and roll my eyes.
“What?” she exclaims. Then her expression turns deadly. “I’ll kill him. Where is he?”
“The alley.” I lean back and drop my head against the back of the chaise.
Not a second later, she rises and storms out the door. I run my hands down my face.
What the fuck.
Now that the adrenaline has settled, I consider why he would ever show his face around me again. Especially since he betrayed me—betrayed us.
We bonded ourselves, a soul-deep and ancient magic. It is not taken lightly and was meant only to be done among fae couples. But I didn’t care because he was my everything. I would have died for him.
Instead of protecting me, he took a slipped secret of my people and turned against me. He used something I said during a sparring match, a weakness of the fae, as a weapon against us in the Battle of Hollow Reckoning.
The now infamous battle that resulted in the loss of hundreds of fae and vampire lives and led to the creation of the Wastelands.
Those who survived claimed the bloodshed and devastation of the battle ruined the magic the land carried. The place now serves as a deadly divide between our kingdoms. A warning to other creatures that the loss of magical life at such magnitude will not be tolerated.
But no one knows I bargained with the Fates, agreeing to be their vessel if they could stop the fighting. It was the least I could do after my slip-up, and Mikael’s subsequent betrayal.
I could not allow the pointless fighting of a greedy ruler, especially when it was my fault the vampire king started the conflict. No one deserved the land that we once peacefully shared.