74
I blinked wide-eyed, terrified. I wasn’t sitting on the cabinet with the mirror, clinging to Mornon as if he were my only source of life. I was lying sideways on the bed, where he had found me when he appeared in my room, my fists still clenched around the tears-soaked blankets.
I looked down and touched my corset, unscathed. I rubbed my hand across my lips and chin, then inspected my fingers for traces of blood. I couldn’t find any, but its metallic, sweetish taste filled my mouth.
My sex was still throbbing, so sore that it was as if with every breath I felt Mornon’s erection slide into me again, relentlessly. I could feel his seed dripping down my inner thigh, and I had to suppress the instinct to pick it up with my fingertips to savor it.
Even my scalp ached from how much he had pulled my hair while kissing me, as if he wanted to rip my face off, punish me, dominate me.
Swiftly, I looked toward the mirror: It was intact.
Mornon had never really been here. He had gotten into my head. Just like the night we’d arrived at the palace, I suddenly realized with immense horror.
And just like that night, he had left me with a range of sensorial and tactile memories of what he had done to me.
Of what we had done together.
I covered my mouth to stifle a heartbreaking sob, pressing the nails of my other hand against my chest as if I wanted to pull out my heart.
“Sister?”
I jumped a mile, my eyes darting to the door. Araton was really outside my bedroom. His voice had not been part of the illusion; that’s why Mornon had broken it instantly.
“May I come in?” my brother asked.
I wiped my cheeks with frantic gestures. Then, holding the two flaps of the slit Mornon had created in my skirt together, I answered, “Yes.”
I lowered my head as he entered, so ashamed of that sort of mark I sported around my eyes, the mark of the evil that was consuming me from within like a disease.
Ashamed of the pleasure I still felt spreading through me like placid waves crashing ashore.
Araton dared to take just a step past the threshold, and through my lashes, I saw him nervously rubbing his fingertips together. “You must come with me.”
My brow pinched. “Where?” I asked hoarsely.
He couldn’t even look at me. “The Queen of the Witches summoned their elders. Father gathered them in the throne room with the druids. They’re waiting for you.”
I grew increasingly cautious. “For what?”
“To examine you.”
I shuddered, clenching my skirt in my fist. “Of course,” I muttered through my teeth. I sniffled, wiping away the tear that had dripped from the tip of my nose. “I need to freshen up first.”
I needed to wash away Mornon’s scent.
I needed to flay myself alive until I couldn’t smell him anymore.
I needed to stick my fingers inside me to remove every trace of his seed and rinse my mouth until the taste of his blood was gone from my tongue.
“Make it quick,” Araton told me before closing the door.
But I couldn’t do it, because as soon as I stood in front of the mirror above the sink in my bathroom, all stone and wood, I found myself staring at my reflection for what felt like an eternity.
Without making a sound.
Without the slightest grimace.
I was so ugly. Just like the beasts that the Abomination’s dark arts had generated. Black threads moved sinuously through the broken capillaries around my eyes, giving me the impression that I had been infected by microscopic worms that wandered undisturbed just beneath my skin.
Devouring all the grace the Spirits had granted me.
Tears began to run down my cheeks again. Mornon picked one up with his thumb, making me flinch. I knew he wasn’t physically there with me, that he was only in my head, yet I could still feel the warmth of his body behind me.
Suddenly furious again, I watched his reflection in the mirror as he sucked the tear from his thumb with a gaze so lustful that it made me feel disgusted.
A disgust directed only at myself.
I quickly moved away from the mirror, tied my hair into a tight knot, and took a cold shower, praying to banish the burning memory of how, in the illusion I’d had before, he had bent down to suck and bite my nipples while he possessed me.
Mornon’s deep, cruel giggle made me close my eyes and press my forehead against the wall, my shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Because that was Amlach’s same deep, mellow laugh.
Yet it wasn’t. At all.
Maybe that’s why, when I opened the closet to choose what to wear, I pulled out one of the simple gray organza dresses—adorned with gold embroidery along its modest square neckline and long bell sleeves—that I had worn during the mourning period for my brother’s mate.
I had lost the one who had gone from being an adversary to my ally, then my friend and protector, and finally my lover.
And soon I would find a way to kill my mate.