Chapter 36 #3
“I can control what created the realms. With practice, I have created boulders out of thin air using shadows.” Her brows rose. “A real boulder, not shadows shaped like one.”
“How?” She didn’t know what to say. It was hard to believe without seeing it for herself, but he wouldn’t lie.
“If I build my strength, I can create a way through the magic barrier.” His eyes implored her to believe him. “Did you think I would let anything keep you from me, knowing you’re in danger?”
Something felt wrong. Glancing back at the prophecy on the wall, she chewed on the inside of her cheek as she processed what he’d said. Caius was filling himself with rage-fueled darkness, but Turney said the son would explode. Whatever that meant.
Twisting around to look at the other walls, she searched for something to help decipher his riddles.
“What are you thinking?” Caius asked curiously.
“I will die by the Lux King’s hand if the son is not found in time,” she said quietly and flipped around to look at Caius.
His golden hair and eyes were the living embodiment of light.
He might wield darkness, but he exuded light.
“The light comes from the realm!” Caius looked thoroughly confused. “The son explodes!”
She wished Sam were here. He would understand what she discovered. The light coming from the realm was the son exploding. If Caius’ strength was fueled by positive emotions, would it be golden instead of black?
“Listen to me,” she commanded him, eating up the distance between them.
That signature smirk that drove her crazy made an appearance. “Yes, Miss Raven.”
“I’m serious. I don’t have time to fully explain, but I am telling you that you can only save me with light, not darkness.”
All mirth dropped from his face. “I cannot control light like Gedeon.”
“The prophecies aren’t literal,” she said. “Do these marks spread when you’re upset?”
“Yes,” he replied slowly. “If that’s what it takes to get to you, I will welcome the pain with open arms.”
“Stop talking like a poet. What if positive emotions had the same effect, but instead of blackening your insides, it brightened them?”
He wasn’t the type to roll his eyes, but if he was, she imagined he would do it now.
“My mother said you were the one to save me. She also said only the golden child can save me.” She waited for him to agree, but he didn’t. “Don’t poison your soul, or you’ll never escape Vincula. Please, trust me.”
His eyes bounced between hers, and the silence was deafening, but he finally blew out a breath and ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “I will try it your way,” he conceded. “But if I don’t progress, we go back to my way.”
She threw her arms around him as relief filled her to the brim. “Thank you.” Her lips pressed against his jaw. “I can’t lose you.”
Running his fingers through her hair, he gripped it tight, pulling her head back to kiss her gently. “I already lost you, and I’ll damn myself to hell before I lose you again.”
Every muscle in his body ceased movement, and his hand left her hair, trailing across the skin between her neck and shoulder. “You have a bite mark.”
She’d forgotten to tell him. “It’s from our last soulscape,” she said excitedly. “I was going to tell you tonight, but we were sidetracked.”
His eyes never left her neck. “It must be because it’s how I last saw you.”
“I woke up with it this morning,” she said, pointing at the bruise. “Did you know that if we are physically altered here, it stays?”
When his eyes met hers, they were filled with a predatory gleam. “I would like to find out. Mark me, Miss Raven.” His voice was husky, and it made heat pool between her thighs. “If I wake with it tomorrow, then we’ll have a definite answer.”
She traced his skin, wondering where she would leave her mark. Wait. “You have immortal healing. It won’t work on you.”
“I don’t have any of my immortal abilities here.” He lifted his arms wide. “Mark me.”
“Will it not heal when you wake up?” she asked skeptically.
“It depends on what you do to me.” He cocked his head to the side. “My body is yours, Miss Raven. Do with it as you please.”
She made a show of running her hand up his chest and around his neck as seductively as she could. “Even if I want to carve my name into you?” she asked innocently.
A scoff or a teasing laugh–those were the reactions she expected, not his eyes growing darker. “Do you know what the thought of walking around with your mark carved into my skin does to me?”
Her lips parted at his words. Their stare down lasted less than a minute before he reached his arm out to the side and leaned forward with his lips hovering near her ear. “Make sure you go deep enough to pierce every layer of skin I have.”
When he pulled back, he held a huge metal cookie cutter with an odd flat wooden handle that stuck out. The design looked more intricate than normal cutters, and she eyed it warily.
He dabbed his finger against the metal edge, yanked his hand back with a hiss, and stuck his finger in his mouth.
“Perfect.” The uncertainty must have been written on her face because he wiggled the object in the air.
“You’re going to hold this here,” he instructed, positioning the cutter over his heart.
“Place your palm on the flat part, wrap your fingers under it, and push.”
She recoiled. “I’m not fucking stabbing you!” she yelled. “Are you crazy?”
He looked between her and the cutter in his hand. “Yes.”
Gaping at him, she was too stunned to move or speak. He wouldn’t dare.
“If you won’t, I will,” he warned her.
He would.
“Fine,” she agreed reluctantly. She killed people as a hobby; stabbing her boyfriend shouldn’t be an issue. “What is the picture?”
“You’ll see,” he replied and positioned the blade over his heart. “Grab the handle,” Caius instructed.
With an exaggerated sigh, she stepped forward and grabbed the smooth wood. The organ in her chest was about to give out, and when she realized where she was about to stab him, she dropped the cutter like it was on fire. “You’ll die.”
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he picked up the cutter and placed it against his chest. “Don’t!” she screamed, losing her composure. A Royal could only be killed one of two ways, and one of those was stabbing them in the heart.
Caius hissed as he lodged the cutter into his skin, and Rory screamed as she grabbed his arm to yank it back. Blood dripped from the weaponized kitchen utensil, but it was nothing compared to her mate’s chest.
“No,” she cried as she yanked off her nightshirt to staunch the bleeding.
A warm hand engulfed hers. “I think I’ll live.”
The amusement in his voice brought her to a halt, and when she saw him holding back a laugh, she wished she’d been the one to stab him.
“It’s not funny,” she snapped. “What if you’d stabbed too deep?
” She motioned wildly to the cutter on the ground.
“Do you know how far into the chest a mystic’s heart is or did you eyeball that monstrosity and hope for the best? ”
“No,” he admitted, “But I know ribs exist, and while this cuts like a scalpel,” he said, grabbing the cutter to brandish the bloody blade. “It can’t cut through bone.”
The only thing worse than admitting you were wrong was having to admit you were wrong to your significant other. He afforded her the small mercy of not having to when he grabbed the shirt from her hand and cleaned himself off. “Come have a look.”
When she studied his chest, she gasped. Caius looked at her with such tenderness that it was hard to turn away from his gaze.
But when she looked back at the sigil marking him as hers, she couldn’t take her eyes off it.
It was cut with surgical precision, but the blood continued to flow, obscuring the design a bit.
“I can’t believe you did this.” He was quiet as she stared, letting her assess his handiwork.
It looked like an incomplete circle with a fancy ‘A’ in the center.
“It’s a really nice circle,” she joked as she straightened.
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he grinned at her. Oh shit, she knew that look. Looking back at the picture, she tried to figure out what the hell it was.
“It’s a moon,” he murmured, exuding raw sensuality; he always had, but the way he looked at her tonight was entirely different. “Do you remember the first Plenilune we spent together?” She shivered. It was impossible to forget. At her first Plenilune ball, he chased her through the garden.
His smirk grew into a devious smile as his eyes moved to the bite mark on her neck.
“It was the first time I heard you scream my name.” He leaned forward and nipped at her skin, and she bit back a moan.
“Now that I know what wearing your mark is like, I will never be without it. If it is gone when I wake, I will hire an Alchemist to curate a potion to keep it from healing when I do it again.”
No words came to her, only rapid breaths. It was the sexiest, sweetest, and stupidest thing she’d ever heard in her life.
He smoothed the hair back from her face with an affectionate smile. “Do you like it?”
“You’re ridiculous,” she breathed. She loved it.
He grinned and softly pecked her lips as the room shimmered. “Time to wake up.”