Chapter Twenty-One
It was dark by the time Tem left her parents’ cottage.
She ran all the way to the castle, not stopping for anything, keeping a breakneck pace even when her legs began to scream in pain.
No amount of physical activity could distract her from the torrent in her mind—nothing would quell the panic rising in her stomach, closing in on all sides.
By the time she reached the castle, she was out of breath.
Caspen was standing outside the front door waiting for her. Tem could hardly bear to look at him.
“Tem,” he said as she approached. “What is the matter?”
Tem only shook her head. There were a hundred things that were the matter. But she wasn’t going to discuss them now—not outside the castle, not right before dinner. There would be time to process everything later. For now, they needed to be a united front. For now, she needed him.
“I’m just tired,” Tem said, which was technically true. She’d just sprinted all the way here, after all.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You do not look well,” he said, reaching for her. “I should take you home.”
Tem shook her head. They both knew he only wanted to take her home to avoid what was about to happen. “I’m fine, Caspen.”
He pursed his lips, but didn’t answer. They faced the door together.
“Are you ready?” Tem whispered.
“I will never be ready for you to bleed.”
“It’s for the best, Caspen.”
“Not for you.”
“It’s not about me. It’s for Gabriel and for the villagers and for you.”
He furrowed his brow. “I did not ask for it.”
“I know you didn’t. That’s not what I mean. I just mean…” She grasped for the right words, settling on. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Caspen just shook his head. Tem sighed. He would never be convinced that this was right.
And perhaps “right” still wasn’t the correct word—perhaps it was simply doing something instead of nothing.
At this point, Tem was willing to try anything to bring peace, even if it meant hurting herself in the process. Better her than any other basilisk.
“If this is too hard for you,” she whispered, “you don’t have to come inside.”
“Of course I do.”
Tem flinched at his tone. At her reaction, his voice softened.
“I must come, Tem. I must protect you.”
They both knew there was nothing he could do to protect her. Tem had already made her choice. It didn’t matter what Caspen said now—the night would end with her in the dungeon, bleeding.
Tem reached for the door. Before she could open it, Caspen’s hand clasped down over hers. He leaned in. “Do not do this, Tem. It is not too late.”
She shook her head. “I have to do this.”
“You do not,” he insisted. “We will figure out another solution.”
Tem closed her eyes. If she backed out now, everything would fall apart.
“Tem,” his voice was low. “I will do anything to stop this. Anything.”
But that was exactly what she wanted to prevent. Tem knew there was no end to what Caspen would do for her—no limit to the people he would hurt. She couldn’t allow it.
“I’ve made my peace with this, Caspen. Why can’t you?”
“Because you are precious to me,” he said roughly. “When you are in pain, I am in pain too.”
“I’d rather be in pain than watch anyone else get hurt.”
“That is a beautiful quality, Tem. But you forget that I am the one watching you get hurt. And it is unbearable.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
Caspen’s grip tightened. “Do not do this, Tem. Please.”
He was begging her. It wasn’t a tone she heard from him often. But he used it now, his golden eyes staring deep into her soul.
“It’s my choice, Caspen,” Tem whispered. “You have to respect it.”
Then they knocked, and a butler opened the door and greeted them in the foyer before directing them to the dining room. Tem was about to sit down when Caspen caught her arm. She looked up at him in surprise.
What is it?
Before he could answer, Evelyn and Leo entered. For a moment, nobody spoke.
“Tem,” Evelyn said silkily, “I hope you’re well.”
Tem nearly snorted. She was positive Evelyn hoped nothing of the sort.
“I figured we could enjoy dinner,” Evelyn continued. “Before…”
“We are not hungry,” Caspen said, his tone nonnegotiable.
Evelyn trailed off. Tem understood suddenly why they hadn’t sat down. They would not be enjoying dinner. She was here to bleed—nothing more. There was no point in pretending that this was a regular evening.
Tem’s eyes flicked to Leo’s. “How does this work?” she asked him.
She wanted him to say it—to spell it out in front of everyone. But it was Evelyn who answered.
“You will go downstairs,” she said carefully. “And you will provide your…sample.”
So that’s what they were calling it: a sample.
Tem fought the bizarre urge to laugh. It was all so clinical. In Evelyn’s mind, Tem was merely doing them a service—giving something that her body was meant to give. But nothing could be less true.
“Will it hurt?” Tem asked pointedly, again directing the question at Leo. She already knew from her father that it would. But again, she wanted him to say it. She wanted anyone to say it, to acknowledge the inhumanity, to put a name to the cruel thing she was about to endure.
Utter and complete silence fell. A slow, sickly expression twisted Evelyn’s face. “I…do not know. Surely…it will not?” She looked at Leo.
He looked at the ground.
There was nothing more insidious than cowardice, and that was what Leo was demonstrating in this moment. He had the power to stop this. And yet he stood there silently, staring at his shoes as if they held the answer.
Beside her, Caspen rolled his shoulders. Tem did not condone violence, but right now, she wished wildly that Caspen would rip everyone in this room to shreds.
Do not tempt me, Tem. One word from you and I will kill them both.
You know I would never say that word.
In reply, Caspen closed the corridor to his mind.
Tem knew that his thoughts had likely become so furious that he chose to shield her from them, rather than subject her to them.
Finally, Evelyn broke the silence. “Well,” she said. “If we’re not going to eat…you…know where to go, I presume?”
Her voice was higher than usual. She was avoiding Caspen’s eyes. Perhaps she was afraid the Serpent King would hurt her. The thought cheered Tem enormously.
“Yes,” Tem answered. “I do.”
Without another moment’s hesitation, she stepped toward the door. The second she did, Caspen and Leo spoke simultaneously:
“I will come with you.”
“No, you won’t,” replied Tem and Evelyn at the same time.
A testy silence fell. Both men stared at Tem. Tem stared at Evelyn.
“Darling,” Evelyn said through gritted teeth, wrapping her fingers tightly around Leo’s arm. “You can’t go down there.”
“Darling,” Leo said just as tightly. “Why not?”
“Because…” She paused, clearly grasping for an appropriate end to her sentence. “You shouldn’t be around your father.”
Tem frowned. It was odd reasoning. She’d expected Evelyn to say that Leo shouldn’t be around Tem. Leo seemed to think so too because he asked, “And why shouldn’t I be around my father?”
Another pause. For the first time since Tem met her, Evelyn looked nervous. “I…”
But the rest never came. The three of them stood in stasis, locked in place.
Leo’s eyes slid to Tem’s, asking a silent question she couldn’t identify. Was he wondering, like she was, why Evelyn was acting so strange?
“I will accompany Tem to the door,” Leo said finally. “But no farther.”
Evelyn rolled her shoulders as if this compromise caused her physical pain.
But rather than make a scene—which Tem strongly suspected she was too afraid to do in front of Caspen—she twisted her mouth into a strained smile and said, “In that case, I will retire for the evening. I’m feeling rather tired. ”
Without a backward glance, Evelyn turned and swept from the room.
A beat passed. In it, Leo and Caspen looked at each other. They wore the exact same expression that meant the exact same thing: Are you really going to let her do this?
Tem didn’t wait for their answer. She brushed past them both, stopping only when she reached the door. Leo followed. Caspen didn’t.
“Caspen?” Tem whispered.
No reply.
Suddenly, Tem understood. Now that Leo was accompanying her, Caspen was not. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But it still hurt.
There was nothing else to say. Without another word, they left.
There were a hundred things Tem wanted to say to Leo now that they were alone.
But he looked so defeated that, despite her better judgment, Tem decided against it.
The last thing she wanted was to make this harder on him.
But the threads of resentment were beginning to pile up inside her.
Tem was the one who was about to bleed out in the dungeon.
That was her burden to bear, not Leo’s. He should be comforting her.
The rest of their walk was silent. The only thing Tem heard was the pounding of her own heartbeat—and Leo’s. His body was warm beside her, his blood pumping steadily through his veins. In the dim lighting, he almost seemed to glow.
Tem couldn’t stop thinking about the crest. Her basilisk side called to him like predator to prey, daring her to consummate, daring her to satisfy her urges.
Tem stared at the back of his head as they walked single file down the staircase to the dungeon.
The urge to touch his white-blond hair was monumental—nearly irresistible.
Tem even went so far as to lift her hand, reaching toward him in the darkness.
What would happen if she ran her fingers through that beautiful hair?
What if she gripped it—hard—and yanked his face to hers?
Would he resist? Or would he close the distance, pin her against the cold brick wall, and kiss her back?
They reached the door to the dungeon.
Tem thought about how the last time they were standing here together, before they annulled their marriage. Was Leo thinking of it too?
“You shouldn’t have to do this,” he whispered.
It was an empty sentiment. “Then why are you making me?”
Leo’s face fell. He almost looked as if he were about to cry. “Tem…”
Her name evaporated between them.
Tem had never wanted to touch him as badly as she wanted to right now. She wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.
“Leo,” she whispered. “You’re the only one standing here. You are the one letting me walk through that door.”
He opened his eyes. They bore into hers. “If I ask you not to walk through that door, Evelyn will leave me.”
Tem heard the agony in his voice.
It was horrible. All of it. This entire situation that both Tem and Evelyn had created.
Leo was trapped now. Perhaps he always had been.
Tem thought back to the day she’d found out she was a Hybreed, how she’d come to Leo for shelter.
She’d found him in the graveyard that morning. Waiting for Evelyn.
“I don’t want this,” he said.
“It seems like you do.”
Leo closed his eyes.
Tem stared at his blond eyelashes. They were standing so close, she could count them.
“Tell me to stop this,” he whispered.
“What?”
“When you ordered me to calm down, I did it. So tell me to stop this.”
Tem stared up at him for a long moment before realizing exactly what he was saying to her.
All it would take was a single order from her, and Leo would have to obey.
If she told him to stop this, he would. It was Caspen’s solution, and it was a shortcut, a lie.
She was not Caspen; she would not play Kora. Tem was no god.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Please, Tem. Please.”
“No.”
He reached for her, and she flinched.
Unfathomable pain flashed over his face. Surely, it mirrored the pain on hers. But the time for negotiating had passed. Leo hadn’t fought for her last week, and he wasn’t fighting for her now. He’d made his choice.
“You don’t get to take the easy way out. You don’t get to cheat. That’s not how it works.”
“Tem—”
She leaned closed, ignoring her body’s scream of desire. “You chose this, Leo. Now you have to live with the consequences.”
Tem lived every day with the pain of her decisions, and it was time Leo did the same.
Perhaps she had been shouldering the guilt of her choice for too long.
Perhaps, despite what her conscience tried to tell her, she had made the right call when she told Leo to go find Evelyn.
Perhaps he deserved her, in every sense of the word.
The silence between them was absolute. There was nothing left to say anyway. Tem was prepared to accept this part of Leo—the part he got from his father.
“I will wait for you,” he whispered.
Tem didn’t believe him, so she didn’t reply. Instead, she walked into the dungeon, ready to face her fate with her head held high. The air was freezing—even colder than the staircase. There was a guard here, and he walked over to Tem the moment she entered.
“I’m to assist,” the man said.
“I’m sure you are.”
“Right this way.”
Tem followed the guard down the long row of cells until the very end. It wasn’t until she turned around that she realized the cell across from her was occupied.
“What brings you here, Temperance?” Maximus asked.