Chapter 36 There’s No Confessing What We Do Now
There’s No Confessing What
We Do Now
Desdemona
I
burst out of the ballroom.
The corridor is dark, lit only by dim yellow sconces and bits of moonlight slipping through the rainclouds. My shoes skid against the marble as I run. I don’t know where I’m going—just away.
I should’ve left sooner. Staying has caused so much—
I stop. Not of my own accord. My chest aches, heart pumping fast, as Hogan steps in front of me. I can’t move. His brown eyes glow purple—light magic. No, no, no. I try to fight, to wiggle away from his magic. It’s no use. But… I can feel his heart.
He places a hand on my shoulder. I wait for him to speak—to threaten. I keep my mind on his heart. It’s a soft beat. I could make it more. I hope I don’t have to.
But Hogan doesn’t say a word.
His other hand rises, a syringe between his fingers. His heart hammers. Thump, thump, thump. Does he know what I’m doing?
The needle comes toward my neck.
Whatever’s in that syringe—I don’t want to know.
Thump.
Thump.
His heart is heavy, each beat faster than the last. But I try, again, to fight the hold of the magic. No use. The metal is cold as it sinks into my skin.
No. I’m not letting him win. He can’t do this. I’ve fought so hard to survive, to hide that I’m an Arcane.
He won’t change that.
I pull at his heart—hard.
Warm blood sprays my face as it bursts through his chest. A final breath escapes his mouth. He crumples to the floor. My heart races, echoing Hogan’s final moments.
For a moment, I don’t move. I clutch my chest, breathing deeply. But then, under my feet, the marble cracks. Fissures spread through the floor of the academy.
Is this what happened when the school collapsed?
I turn away, racing through the door that leads outside. Cold air slaps me in the face.
I run toward the woods, toward anything that can give me reprieve. I murdered Hogan. Everyone in the ballroom. What’s another ten to the thousands? Maybe those assholes deserved it. Or at the very least, maybe I don’t deserve to be sad over a bunch of assholes—
A streak of lightning tears from the sky, striking the nearest tree. The trunk cracks down the middle. Fire devours the wet bark. I step back, tripping on an overgrown root.
This is terrible timing. There’s a school full of people who want me dead or imprisoned. I push myself up. I have to keep running.
“Althenia!”
Lucian’s voice echoes through the treetops, a desperation in the shout—an order and a plea all at once. A sound only he could make.
I thought he would follow me. I hoped he wouldn’t. What am I supposed to say? Sorry?
I lean behind a tree, not hiding from him, but choosing not to be found so easily. He wants me for the same reason the rest of the school does.
Justice.
The sound of his footsteps comes closer, as if an invisible string pulls him to me, and he doesn’t even have to search.
For a moment, I’m scared for him, worried that if he comes too close, I’ll kill him too. But I know Lucian. He can handle himself. He can handle me. He was born to—even if he doesn’t know it. It’s almost comforting to know there’s one person I can’t hurt.
“I have to say something,” he whispers, like maybe he doesn’t want anyone to hear. But he hasn’t found me yet, either. “It isn’t right.”
The rain falls through the cracks of the tree, hitting my face. The smell of pine is heavy in the air. I don’t move.
His footsteps crunch against the wet leaves. Is he moving closer or farther?
Closer.
He’s still looking. I press myself harder against the tree. The rain makes the bark soft, but it still tears through the lace of my gown.
As Lucian rounds the tree, I take a deep breath.
We’re face-to-face.
For a moment, the wind whips around us at unnatural speeds, cold along my scalp. Then the wind stops, the howl falling silent.
Raindrops roll down my cheeks, spilling into my mouth as I say, “What isn’t right?”
Lucian’s wavy hair glistens like ink, dark and drenched.
He steps closer. He’s close now. Too close. The heat radiating off him is unbearable. I want to reach for him, but I’m afraid if I do, he’ll shatter.
His voice cracks as he says, “What I want.”
I swallow the rain. “And what do you want?”
Lucian shakes his head. His eyes widen, like he’s seeing me clearly—like he’s seeing those hearts I tore from people’s chests, the blood that stains my hands.
“I can’t—” He turns away from me.
I step out from behind the tree, the rain soaking my gown. A rumble of thunder shakes the ground beneath me.
“You can’t?” I shout. “Or you won’t?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I can’t!”
“Because you’re a coward?”
“Because I have morals!” Lucian shouts as he turns back to me.
His words sting, landing right in my heart. He doesn’t deserve to take the moral high ground.
“You killed people tonight, too,” I remind him as a branch, nearly the size of me, slams into the ground between us.
We both flinch, but when Lucian looks back at me, he steps over it. Whispers, “It’s not that.”
“Then what—”
“The problem is I would do it again!” He shakes his head, running a hand over his jaw. “I would do it all again,” he whispers, raindrops falling from his eyelashes. “They were trying to kill you.”
“Well, guess what?” I smile, but I don’t mean it. Not even a little. I try to sound humorous, but maybe I just sound insane as I say, “I can’t be killed!”
I wait for his reaction, always waiting for the day that he realizes I can. But only by him.
Today still isn’t that day, thankfully.
“They don’t know that,” Lucian says, pointing at the school behind him.
I wonder what’s happening in that ballroom now—the panic, the orders. They’re probably searching for me, planning to lock me up for life.
I nearly laugh at his response. He has to be the only one who would try to excuse what I’ve done.
“So the appropriate response was to rip their hearts out?” I ask—rhetorical.
The world shifts as if responding to me.
The trees around us tilt, roots straining beneath the dirt like they’re about to rip free.
But Lucian studies me, his expression unreadable.
I don’t understand why he’s studying me.
It’s like he’s trying to find a reason to absolve me. But there is no reason.
Lucian’s voice is almost too soft to hear as he says, “You didn’t mean to.”
That might make it worse.
“Don’t pretend I’m something I’m not,” I mutter, shaking my head.
Lucian steps forward. “And what are you?”
I almost laugh. He saw exactly what I was. “My actions.”
“You want to know what I saw in there?” he asks.
“Twenty bodies?” I shrug.
“I saw them trying to kill you.” His gaze drops briefly to the blood soaking my dress. “And I saw you hold back.”
I don’t even know who he’s looking at—because it’s clearly not me.
“How’d you figure that?” I spit.
Lucian steps closer. “Because you could have killed them the moment they grabbed you. But you waited until Aralia and I were hurt.” His hand rises, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.
His touch sends a shiver down my spine, heat rising to my palms—a sick and twisted reminder of what we are to one another.
With a frown, he says, “You could have killed me the moment I first attacked you.”
“Maybe I should have. It would save me the trouble.” I grab his wrist.
Sirens sound in the distance, coming from the school. I sigh. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
I look into the distance. Rain slips under my glamoured glasses and into my eyes, turning the world into a blur. “Are you going to turn me in, Aibek?”
His voice is soft, dangerously so. “If I were going to betray you, I wouldn’t have followed you.”
“Why did you? Follow me?”
He shakes his head but says, “Because I’m a fool.”
“For justifying my massacre?” I say, glancing at his lips. When I look him in the eyes, he’s looking at my mouth. “Or something else?” I whisper.
His gaze is still on my lips. “Clearly the latter.”
I step closer. “I don’t see what’s clear.”
At Lucian’s side, he clenches and unclenches his fist, but he says nothing. I don’t have time for this; they’re definitely looking for me now. I can’t wait for him. Not anymore.
I turn away, walking further into the woods. I have to find somewhere to hide. Forever.
But he catches my wrist, and my heart drops.
He holds me tight, spinning me into him.
My chest hits his hard, and I look up at him, looking down at me.
Lucian’s fingers move up my neck, scorching every inch of skin he touches, just like always.
His fingers glide through my wet hair, scratching my scalp and tugging my braid loose.
He stares for a long while, tension in his eyes—like he’s trying to pull away and give in all at once.
“Go ahead,” I whisper. “Clarify.”
His eyes seem to pierce straight to the back of my skull. He says nothing, his hand gripping my head tighter. He could crush it if he wanted. I could kill him, too.
We’re inches apart.
We’re equals.
My mind is on his body—but also his blood. It would be easy to turn it into a weapon, just as it would be easy for him to steal the shadows of the night.
His rough hand moves from the back of my head, fingers gliding over my cheek, his touch soft—a caress. My eyes soften in response. My lips part—then his do, too.
Warmth runs down my neck from his touch, all the way to my toes.
Until, finally, he mutters, “Fuck it.”
His lips find mine with such fervor that I have no choice but to part my own, to kiss him back, to open my mouth wider until my teeth hit his.
Strong hands slide down my back, propping me up as I fall into him. My hands search him, too.
Even though I like his words—and his lips—I want him to know who I am. I’m not easily fooled, and I won’t let him think otherwise.
My hands peruse his body, searching. They find the dagger at his waist, and I pull away. Lucian falls forward, his lips stained pink, raindrops tangled in his eyelashes.
My shoes sink into the muddy ground. The ground buckles, roots tearing up through the mud behind him.
Then I press the dagger to his throat. He flinches. His pulse races under my fingertips. But he doesn’t recoil. His breath becomes shallow as he glances down.
“You want me?” I ask. “That’s what you had to say? That’s what isn’t right?”
“I want you,” Lucian breathes against the dagger. “Gods, I want you so badly it feels like torture.”
I smile. I’m wrong to him—the same way he’s wrong to me. The same way he’s the prince of a regime that would see me dead before they saw me powerful. The same way he was designed to destroy me.
Above us, the canopy splits. A burning limb crashes through the branches, but Lucian holds my cheek in his rough hand, glancing at the blade against his throat.
“You’re smiling,” he whispers.
“You still want me, now?”
His hand glides down my side, gripping my waist tighter. “I want every awful part of you.”
A branch slams into the ground behind me, the tree groaning overhead.
“Yeah?” I lean in closer to his lips. “What else do you think I am?”
“Terrifying.”
I smile wider, my lips hovering over his. “And?”
The fabric tightens around my waist as Lucian bunches my gown in his hand. “Torturous.”
“You already said that.”
Lucian leans into me. The rain hits the leaves in a violent thrum above us. It’s louder than any rain I’ve ever heard.
Until he says, “Haunting.”
His lips meet mine again, and somewhere behind us, a tree gives with a violent crack.
The ground shudders beneath us, yet neither of us pulls away.
The blade remains pressed to his throat, but he lifts my chin, tilting my head back.
He steps closer, a leg wrenching between mine as he pushes me back.
I’m pressed against the wet bark of a tree.
Rain drips between our mouths as we kiss, and mud shifts under my feet.
The bark bites into my skin as Lucian bites my bottom lip.
Then he winces.
I open my eyes just a sliver. Blood trickles down his neck, beneath the blade.
“I’m not moving it,” I say.
Lucian’s hand slides to the back of my head, holding me in place. His other hand tangles in my hair. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“You killed me once,” I breathe.
Lucian shrugs. “I might do it again.”
“Is that what turns you on?” I ask. “Do you like the knife?”
His mouth moves closer. “I like that you’re the one holding it.”
He grabs my thighs, lifting me. My breath catches as he holds me up.
I’m staring at his lips, just an inch away, but he doesn’t move closer.
Instead, he goes for my neck, his mouth pressing against me as if I taste delicious.
That same damn spot as the first time we kissed, and suddenly I’m seeing stars—but not the real ones.
I moan. And I swear he does too when his name slips past my lips.
“Say it again,” he whispers against my neck. “Say it until it no longer sounds like a prayer. Say my name until I am no longer intoxicated by the sound of it on your lips.”
I pull away, throwing the dagger to the ground.
“Lucian,” I whisper.
His head tips back, and he smiles, showcasing his dimples. I hate that I love them. I lean into his ear, saying his name again—
A sharp crack cuts me off. It takes a moment for the pain to press into my skull and move to my temples. I raise a hand to the back of my head. It comes away bloody.
Lucian looks over my shoulder as he sets me down, but he doesn’t look surprised.
“Aibek?”
I twist. The weapon smashes against my head again. This time, darkness overtakes my vision.
I fall into nothingness.