Chapter 78
Seventy-Eight
Iaspis
I haven’t been able to stop watching Graylen since he pulled me behind the throne.
Things have been mostly uneventful since Daimon’s display of vicious torture—partygoers now speckled across the room as a dark and deep melody sweeps throughout.
Instruments are set up in the corner, moving of their own accord without a player to pluck strings or press keys.
Opal and Graylen have joined the throng of dancers, more and more people filling the dance floor from seemingly nowhere. A sharp heat pokes at my chest as I watch my oldest friend and my…Graylen…spin around the dance floor together.
With each passing song, my rage burns hotter. It’s as if my anger doesn’t know what to focus on—Daimon being the son of a god, Graylen still beneath Vidaris’s hold and his strange behavior behind the throne, or my closest friend’s betrayal.
The weight of a hundred questions presses on my shoulders as I watch Graylen’s hand slip around to Opal’s lower back.
My nostrils flare as she laughs, her hand reaching up to rest on his neck.
“Dance with him,” Daimon says lazily from beside me.
I snap my gaze to him, but his is set on the crowd, as if he wasn’t speaking to me at all.
“Go,” he urges, not looking away from the party.
But I don’t move, refusing to give in to whatever game he’s playing at.
Daimon sighs, shifting in his seat. I can’t make out his expression—his skull mask still in place with the violet blood of the beetle staining it. With it on, no one can see his mouth moving.
“This is your only chance, Lunaria,” he growls. “Go to your Aegis and ask for a dance.”
Something in his voice causes my feet to start moving, descending the stairs and pushing into the throng of grotesque creatures.
Even as confusion sparks in the back of my mind at Daimon’s words, I don’t stop. Beings with sharp beaks and leather wings look my way, my skin prickling as their eyes follow me.
But no one approaches me.
Pushing my way through the now-crowded dance floor, I finally see a flash of blonde blur in front of me.
Graylen spins Opal a few paces away, angling her so that her gaze lands directly on me.
She smiles, and my chest tightens. It’s a smile I used to look for in the muddy camp, an expression that would brighten my day and chase away the heaviness of our lives.
But now it sickens me.
“Daimon told me I have to dance with him,” I grit out.
Graylen looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes encased in darkness, making it hard to tell where exactly he’s looking.
He grins, his features brightening. “What the Lord of Shadows commands, he gets.”
Opal juts out her bottom lip, but when she sees my frown, her pout dims. “Have fun,” she sings, disappearing into the crowd.
I don’t know what Daimon is up to, but if Opal and fake Graylen are happy about it, then I’m not.
Graylen slides both of his hands around my waist, the feel of them like ice through the leather top. His hands have always been warm—inviting. But I don’t know this grip. It’s nothing like him, nothing like the touch I love so much.
“Enjoy the show?” Graylen murmurs, and my skin prickles.
I look away from him, but my eyes find more soulless gazes staring back at me, so I opt to stare at Graylen’s collar instead.
He’s wearing a black jacket with a ruffled white shirt beneath. It’s unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing the scars beneath. It makes it harder not to stare, even though I know the real him would hate this outfit.
His fingers press into my flesh, the rings on them pushing so hard it feels as if they’re bruising my hip bones.
“Probably not as much as you enjoyed it,” I snap.
Graylen chuckles, his breath spanning across my face as he leans close to my ear and whispers, “It was rather entertaining, I’ll admit. Though it might’ve been better if I were the one getting to do the killing.”
I swallow, hating each and every word that comes out of his mouth.
The Graylen that pulled me behind the throne earlier is gone, an impostor in his place.
There’s still no sign of Vidaris, nor any understanding of why I’m actually here. This ball—this supposed introduction as the heir of Daimon—is like a twisted version of the gatherings in Crea.
Though at least the attendees here aren’t pretending to be someone they’re not. They’re evil inside and out, no fake smiles and pretty make-up on their faces to disguise the ugliness beneath.
My gaze lifts to Graylen’s, those depthless seas seemingly looking straight through me.
“Drink from me, little princess.” His voice fills my mind, causing me to blink rapidly at him.
I rear back, nearly jerking out of his hold.
He smirks, tightening his grip around my waist and yanking me against him.
I shouldn’t be able to hear him, shouldn’t be able to communicate this way with my magic now in Nightfall.
“Graylen?” I nearly sob with relief, but I try to keep my face calm.
His jaw clenches, but his eyes remain the same soulless void of black. It’s as if his body is still trapped, but I can hear him now.
“Do not trust my body, not yet,” he murmurs into my mind. “But if what Daimon is saying is true…then drink from me.”
If what Daimon says is true?
The base of my neck prickles at his words. Daimon is the last person we should trust. He’s only shown me time and time again that he isn’t on our side. First nearly killing Brielle, then bargaining for the shard—only to give it back to me so I could end up a prisoner here.
“I don’t understand,” I send back, trying to make sense of why he would trust anything Daimon says. “We can’t trust him.”
“You have to hurry,” Graylen pleads. “All you need is a willing host. I know this doesn’t make sense, but it will.”
I swallow, trying to connect what I’m hearing in my mind with the harsh face of the man in front of me.
“A willing host,” I repeat.
Warmth fills my chest, a feeling that doesn’t seem like my own as confusion and chaos swirl in me.
“Am I not the most willing?” Graylen’s voice grows distant, slowly fading away. “Lunaria, do it now. The second you feel your magic, bind my body so I can’t fight back.”
My chest squeezes at the thought. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m hurting every second this fucking thing controls me.” His face remains passive, the snake still wound around his feet. “Do it. Now.”
An image of Daimon drinking from the chalice flashes into my mind, the cup filled with blood. He told me I would come to enjoy it one day, too.
But I’m not my father.
His blood may run through my veins, but that doesn’t mean I have to be like him.
Daimon brought me here tonight—all to name me as his heir. If his subjects know he drinks blood, what better way to solidify the claim that I’m his than to do it as well?
I won’t hurt Graylen, not even when he isn’t himself. If he’s trying to get me to harm him—or worse…
I clench my teeth, grinding them against one another as Graylen’s arms cage me in.
He spins me, the movement quick and dizzying. It’s nothing like the gentle way he twirled me in the taverns, or the heated touches when we danced together in Crea. This is brutal—uncaring as he flings me around the dance floor.
I almost lose my balance, my foot slipping before he catches me.
“One would think you’d be better at dancing with all that time in Crea,” he breathes against my cheek.
I flinch back, hating that I know this isn’t him.
“Graylen,” I send into his mind as his body pulls me against his chest.
Silence answers me.
“Graylen?” My voice pushes against a wall, the connection between us now silent.
He’s gone—the virus in him is the only thing staring back at me.
Panic crawls up my throat as we dance, my stomach clenching and palms sweating. I rack my brain, trying to figure out how he got through to me in the first place.
The blood.
When his eyes were clear, he cut his hand—making me taste his blood and asking me to drink. Only I didn’t drink; I shoved him away.
But then I could hear him, if only for a moment, and he used that minute to tell me to drink from him again.
Graylen—the fake him—grins at me and says, “The terror in your eyes is so beautiful, my darling weapon.”
Heat surges through me as rage takes over the panic in my chest. It courses through every vein, pumping my heart faster until I’m doing something I never thought I’d do.
I lash out.
My teeth sink into Graylen’s neck, the soft flesh bending and breaking from the force of my bite. He fights against me, but I pull him close and catch him off guard. Thick, metallic liquid seeps onto my tongue, and at first, it makes my stomach turn, the taste sour.
But then something changes.
I feel it in my fingertips first, a faint tingling that sizzles into my palms and up my arms. Then, a thousand pinpricks tap against the bottom of my feet, and that begins to spread, too.
Soon, my entire body feels as if I’ve jumped into icy water.
My fingers and toes clench, while the rest of my limbs tremble at the shock in my system.
Every nerve ending is awake. Alive.
Magic swells inside of me like a tidal wave cresting, and I gasp. My knees buckle from the sheer force of it roaring back to life, as if it never left me and was just waiting to be called back.
Graylen jerks against me, the demon inside of him trying to get away.
I call on my shadows, my chest tightening as I wait for them to respond. They’ve been quiet for so long, ever since I used the shard.
Almost instantly, my shadows respond. Without opening my eyes, I can feel them leak from my body and wrap around Graylen, holding him snug against me. I don’t have time to feel relief, because as his blood fills my mouth, a delicious and intoxicating haze settles over my body like a fuzzy blanket.
I feel the air shift behind me as someone moves closer, and as if on instinct, a wall of shadows forms around Graylen and me. The world falls away; the only feeling I can focus on is the taste of his blood as it flows across my tongue.
Then, it’s just him and me.