18. Leni
His hand is whip fast, snaring my throat, pushing, shoving me until the back of my thighs collide with the solid edge of the dresser. As if possessed, Cross utters something thick and Slavic under his breath, a command, a curse, a last effort. The prayers hadn’t worked.
Power ripples off him in sheeting black waves, lifting the hairs on my arms.
I offer no resistance as he pins my hands behind my back and squeezes my neck, grip so tight I can’t breathe.
“Why did you have to remember?” Tears gather in his eyes. He’s furious, but his arms tremble.
I try to tell him, mouth opening, fail.
He groans, harsh and raw, loosens his hold, granting me a moment to catch my breath.
“I didn’t,” I rasp. “I didn’t kill Kadmos.”
It’s not enough.
Cross’s hold returns to punishing, and I lift a leg between us, slide over the top of the dresser and kick him square in the stomach, send him rearing back. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s fighting against the violence in his blood. I’d never manage to thwart him if he were truly untethered.
“I wasn’t—” I swipe out again when he charges closer, blood on his lip. He grabs my ankle, yanks. I slam my palms into his chest, try to ram him with my knees, give him everything in me.
He doesn’t budge.
“I wasn’t even alive when the king was!” I shout.
He catches both my wrist in one hand, lets the other clasp high on my thigh.
“I didn’t do it,” I pant. “Please. Cross.”
He kisses me. The abrasion of his mouth achingly familiar.
There’s not a half second between my leaning in and the crush of his body. Cross’s mouth is brutal against mine, prying my lips apart and assaulting me with sweeps of his unrelenting tongue. Taking without restraint.
He’s controlling and tortuous, fingers pressing on my throat, body a heavy, greedy weight on mine. I grasp his elbow to keep him close, to trust this is real.
It doesn’t feel real.
He’s cold. Practically endothermic against me, sucking out heat he’d only just poured into my skin.
His power is heat, and for him to feel like ice—I wonder how ferociously he battles it.
His hands sink into my hair, fingertips caressing my scalp and then he’s not on me. Instead, I’m in the air, clutching him, his arm anchored around my waist, my feet dangling at his sides. He gives me a single look of fascination, looses a breath of frigid air against my lips, but I don’t feel the sting before he’s tasting me again.
Differently.
Not gentler. This version of Cross doesn’t understand gentle.
He kisses me more deeply.
As if he’s shattered the ice on the lake and is now plunging us into its frigid waters. His hold on my waist borders on painful, but he dives deeper, plummets us further, pulls me with.
Then my ass is on the windowsill, my knees hitched at his thighs, head tilted back as he exhales icy air on my neck like he’s mad he has to breathe before submerging again, before engulfing us both in the harsh, freezing pressure of this kiss.
It’s not enough.
The thought invades my mind like a spiked vine. This kiss. One night. It’s so short.
Never in all my plans did I consider wanting to stretch time for this. Yet here I am, dreaming of more time, of other rooms, of locked doors, and flimsy do not disturb signs, ocean views and black overtaking all of it.
A flash of pain as his teeth nick my lip, and I pull back, hard, squeeze the little cut between my fingers.
We’re breathing noisily at each other.
His steel eyes are hooded, lips swollen from mine. The spots of exquisite red have returned to his cheeks.
His voice, filled with smoke, strikes the remaining air from my lungs. “We need to stop,” he says. “We have to get you out of here. I’m sorry.” He kisses my cheek, my nose. “I’m so sorry, I fought it … I—you should’ve run.”
His soft shirt beneath my hands, the sound of our heavy breathing mixing, our intertwined bodies. It’s not enough.
My body locks up.
This can’t be more.
He’s planning to set me free. “You thought I assassinated the king?” I accuse without any heat, licking the taste of him from my lip.
“Natural conclusion.” He’s panting, and a small part of me thrills as he watches my mouth. “He failed you, you said it. You referenced the royal library. Your grandmother was hurt in his war. You were on the run.”
“And you were just going to let me leave?” I ask, genuine confusion twisting my mind.
You should’ve run. He said that before.
“Since the beginning …” I close my eyes, the truth dawning. “Since the moment we met, you suspected me of the king’s murder.”
His gaze is searing, tone torn between votive and wrecked. “Wouldn’t it be just like the Gods to send me heaven on a silver platter and force me to kill her?”
Heaven. I bury the compliment deep within me to scream about later. “Why didn’t you ask?”
As if it’s rhetorical, he responds with, “I was afraid.”
“Yeah, and I’m afraid chocolate marshmallows won’t be gooey over a campfire.”
The smallest curve to his brutalized lips. “You’re right.” A kiss next to my mouth. “Not afraid. That’s the wrong word. I was … terrified. Because if you answered yes, I knew I’d hunt you like a rabid wolf. I wouldn’t be able to resist it. I’d rip you apart with my teeth and be glad for it. The curse of the Blackguard is vengeance. We must always be hunting for Kadmos’s murderer or the curse strikes, uses the tattoos to torture us.”
“Always meaning …”
“Distractions are deadly, the bands ignite if we stray, if we’re not vigilantly searching for the murderer.” Another kiss. Sweet. “I’m prone to blue distractions, specifically.”
“So, all those times, when you were blacking out, that was all—”
“The curse.”
“—me.“ I finish, choking down the rush of exhilaration such a secret gives me. That I could wield so much power over such a dark knight.
“No, not you. At least, you don’t get the blame. It was my own doing.”
I could throw gasoline and a lit blowtorch on his bed and he’d find a way to take the rap.
And he was prepared to fight the curse for me, take the pain. Suffer the consequences.
My heart swells two sizes in my chest like a tiny medical marvel. I press my forehead against his.
A fist pounds on the door. “Last call. Bodies in seats.”
Cross drops his hands from me, already chewing on his mouth again. “I need to talk to Atlas. I’ll figure a way out of this. I’ll convince them …” he trails off. Won’t look at me.
I wish I didn’t understand. He doesn’t know what to do or say. The Blackguard doesn’t need another reason to be hunted by the royal family, and harboring a runaway will only lead to more problems. Especially if the runaway is a distraction.
Heaven.
Brows furrowed in thought, Cross presses a final kiss to my temple, murmurs for me to wait for him, and leaves, striding bare footed down the hall.
I count to five, six, seven before following him.
Crash into a giant with purple eyes and the best hair in the world—Sin, my mind pieces together, the panty melter. He flashes me a smile that could liquify bones, fumbling an electric guitar and three pairs of sunglasses, as he shouts, “Who the fuck moved my leather pants?”
The blonde from earlier, stocky, neatly dressed, squeezes past me, frayed wires clutched in his hands, muttering about hard drives and backups.
Despite the urgency in the chatter of voices, the pound of hurrying feet, there’s a calm determination in the air, as if this is standard. Leaving at the drop of a hat. Another Wednesday. Grab your hair crimper and go.
It strikes a sense of longing within me, to be so ready to move. Down another hall, and through a living room, I find Cross standing with Atlas beside a mahogany door, reinforced with metal grating. The leader of the Blackguard is bent at the hips, zipping up cargo bags of gear, guns, and more cash than the GDP of Australia.
“It’s finished?” Atlas asks Cross, tone aloof, detached. I’m not even sure it’s a question.
Cross’s eyes are stuck on the middle ground between them, endlessly riddling out a way for me to get out of this mess.
Atlas straightens, thick black hair sliding to reveal twin points on his ears. Chire. Prey. Like me. He pats Cross on the biceps. “It’s forgiven, brother, do not worry. She was making you weak, you weren’t in your right head. In the end, this will be useful. Kleio will owe us for returning a princess.”
Kleio, I recognize the name of the Queensguard commander well. If they’re negotiating my return, then …
It’s good. For Cross.
The end for me.
I slump against the wall, the weight of failure like hot wax pouring over my bones, suffocating me.
“Look, Atlas …” Cross begins, raking a hand through his silky curls.
Lev appears, dragging Sin by the arm, another of the guard behind them—judging by the absent glazed look on green eyes: Zeke, the witch hunter.
“Where are we off to?” Sin drawls.
“Fire,” Zeke mutters in an eerie half here, half insane voice as he throws the hood of his trench coat up over his head.
“Black smoke,” Sin translates, hooking a gaudy orange and green Biermeister Ball buckle onto his belt. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Is that all we’ve got?” He sighs, purple cat-eye sunglasses riding down his nose. “Hades, is that really all we’ve got? Fuck.”
A tip of Atlas’s head. “The Argos once used fire to control—”
“Fuck the Argos,” Lev interjects. “We’re going dragon hunting.”
They devolve into a debate on the legitimacy of dragons (of which, I can confirm, are real, scaled, and currently nesting in Loch Ness) as they haul bags to the black SUV idling on the street.
Like I have for weeks, I watch Cross, whose stuck still, a line etched in his forehead, and not for the first time. A horrible thought occurs to me.
This male is not a heartless monster. He’s a Nemean lion trapped in a cage, getting prodded and provoked for trying to protect his family.
And I could help him.
Do not take the risk, little bird.Yaya’s voice infiltrates me. Run. Run and survive. Let the lovelorn male protect you.
Better alone.
The motto burns against my skin, blackened from the rough suck of Cross’s mouth.
He’d released me, even if it meant he’d never be free of his curse. He’d thrown his weapons out the window, he’d strangled his power.
For me.
And I’m debating saving him? When I know precisely what they’re searching for. I’m the monster.
A horn honks on the street.
“I’m not going,” Cross calls, sad, rubbing his temple. “I’m not … I can’t leave without her.”
My stomach clenches. He hasn’t found a reason, and he’s still putting his foot down.
“Vinia won’t harm her if that’s what you’re worried about,” Sin says, checking his nails, lobbing a bulky bag of clanging metal across his shoulder. “That’s why her kids are so fucked, not a female who disciplines. Certainly not deadly.”
As if the queen would care if I died. I step out of the hall and plant my feet.
“Restrain her,” Atlas snaps, slamming the door behind him, dusting his palms.
“You don’t want to do that,” I say, not looking at Cross, not at Sin, who’s reaching for me, but staring right at Atlas, at a fellow creature of prey. One who stole back power. “I know what you’re looking for.”
His eye twitches. “You don’t.”
I force my voice steady, strong. A bold move. A check. “I do. I’ve read through the entirety of the royal library, and I know there’s only one creature who produces black flames.” I fold my arms, jutting my chin high. “And I’ll tell you everything so long as you agree to hide me from the prince.”
An exchange. My last, most damning secret. For Cross.
The air around me turns heavy, as if a storm is about to break. I can sense Cross’s muscles tensing in anticipation as he subtly shifts his weight, creating a barrier between me and Atlas, a spark of resolve in his glare.
Judging from the dart of the Blackguard leader’s eyes, the gesture does not go unnoticed. Atlas grabs Sin’s elbow, and demands quietly, “Get her to talk and—”
“He’ll never outrun them,” Cross states, not cocky, just assured. He doesn’t look at me, but a tendril of black slinks across his knuckles, and I know he’s thinking of me. “If we honor her terms, it has to be me. I’ll be her escort.”