Kilthorne

CHAPTER THIRTY #2

I let out a soft breath. His impenetrable barrier splintered, and what seeped out was not so foreign to me.

For a moment, I could feel something from him, something I could relate to.

Something human. My world seemed content for my disappearance too, and now I certainly would be hunted. Extinguished.

“Alaric.” He stiffened at my use of his name.

“Do you want to know what I see?” At his lack of protest, I continued, “You have so much pain inside you. You’ve blocked it from moving, from living out its life, from dying out, and it’s only continued to build.

It has all piled up until it has finally spilled over, leaching out onto others.

Your pain is a tidal wave, and it’s taking out everyone around you. ”

A wisp of anger lit up his eyes until he concealed it with a smirk. “And what do you think I should do?” I did not miss the patronizing tone.

“Let your pain live. It will die eventually.”

My words wouldn’t get through to him. And why would they?

And why did I want them to? He had been the source of my suffering.

I should want him to hurt. But he used his pain as a weapon, and it only hurt everyone else around him.

And unlike him, I didn’t want my pain reaching out to others. I did not want him to hurt.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, you’re quite right. The only problem is, I know exactly what I am. It’s hard to look evil in the eye and not become evil yourself. I wasn’t strong enough.”

I was stunned for a moment at his confession. I didn’t expect someone like Alaric to admit to weakness, but he seemed fine to accept it, and all too willing to accept his dark path.

“Did you kill the king?”

His slow grin was all the unsettling answer I needed.

He had killed his own father. But his father killed his mother and was intent on killing him until he could use him.

Perhaps I could find some sort of warped comfort within the reasons, but he said it himself.

He melded into the evil he attempted to right.

“And you’re content with what you are?”

“I don’t have any other choice.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

There was a finality to his words. A finality I did not want to accept.

“And what will you do with the evil you have obtained?”

His eyes unfocused until he looked through me. “If I hold power over everyone, no one could ever take anything away from me.”

His words tugged at a fragile part of me. “You want control?”

I felt the moment his eyes set upon me once more. His lip twitched into the beginnings of a smile.

“The longer you sit in the dark, the more you will blend in until it consumes you whole. And you will think you have the control with all you have taken, but it’s the darkness that controls you.”

His smirk was as arrogant as ever. “A darkness I shall use.”

“You will never make it to the top because you will destroy yourself before you do. And if you do somehow manage to carve an irreparable path of destruction to get there, you will die on your throne in more ways than one.”

There it was. A hairline fracture. His stone-like features faltered, a slight disturbance, but I saw it. “You’re an ominous little thing,” he said flatly.

I dragged in a long breath and let out a heavy sigh.

Maybe if I just had more time. Everything eventually breaks under pressure.

Maybe that’s what he needed, to break. Hatred is nothing but glass after all.

Though it may seem to hold its form well, it’s easy to shatter.

His hatred had become a part of him, contorted and interwoven throughout his very being.

He would need to break completely and be reassembled differently.

“Who helped you open the portal?” I asked.

Though he was already staring at me, his gaze seemed to zero in, entrapping me within its inescapable path.

“They’re a lot closer than you think.” His words raked through me like an echo of a life lived long ago. A specter plunging the room into a deep cold.

“What is your plan, Alaric? You wanted to overthrow our king, rule over Kilthorne. What’s the next step?”

“Securing your obedience.”

I reeled back slightly, not expecting his answer. “What do you mean?”

“You’re quite familiar with being alone.”

A vise gripped my heart, pulling down roughly, quickly. A sudden submersion. “You want ... what? My help?”

“Your support.” He was practically laying out his heart before me, though that glassy, placid surface of his face refused to break. Not even the slightest ripple to signify any feeling. But I knew it hurt. He was alone, one of the many deaths of the throne.

“Alaric—”

“Darling.”

I sighed. “You cannot force people to be with you.”

His lips curled into a devious smile. “Oh, but I can.”

My eyes narrowed on him.

“I just need to make you a bit more pliable.”

“And how would you do that?”

“A bond would make you most agreeable.”

I lost my breath as my heart skipped over a beat. “I would never drink from you.”

The soft glow of the room faded at his grin. A chill slinked around me, taunting, pricking my skin. He glanced down to the empty crystal goblet before me, and his eyes bore back into me. “You already have.”

My mouth fell open. I blinked rapidly through the burning tears. I stood abruptly, shoving my chair back that toppled over with a deafening clatter. I barely made it a few feet before he was on me, dragging me down to the cold stone.

My scream reached up high to the arched ceiling before it came crashing back down on me. My horror was quickly cut off with a choked cry as his teeth sank into my throat.

His hand gripped tightly at the nape of my neck, entangled within my hair, immobilizing me as I laid limp beneath him. Shock seized my muscles, my mind far off somewhere I couldn't reach.

Fighting it was like outrunning a flash flood.

It consumed me quickly, violently. Golden warmth wrapped around my skin, erupting in sparks that awakened every nerve.

My legs fell open, wrapping around him as I held him closer.

He was so cold. I shivered, each tremble eliciting more sparks.

My mind slipped through my fingers as I grasped for it.

He continued to drink from me, and a haziness drifted past my vision.

Don’t close your eyes. Don’t fall asleep.

My bond with Sebastian was a warm embrace I collapsed into, it was falling knowing I’d land safely on the ground. This, this was born of hellfire, a burning, it was falling to the jagged rocks below, crashing through the earth, magma consuming in one greedy bite.

This was wrong. It was all wrong.

And he was reaching in. I could feel him taking a part of me, what I’d never get back.

As I clenched my fists, my thumb brushed across the ring on my finger. I grabbed hold of that tiny shred, that faint spark that ignited within me. I shoved him off. He leaned back on his knees as I scrambled away from him. His lips stained red. Warmth trailed down my neck in a sickening path.

His eyes were alight with something horrifying. As if he already stole the crown. I cursed myself for my stupidity, for ever thinking I could get him to change.

I shot to my feet, swaying slightly on unstable legs from the blood loss. As I ran through the room, a sharp pang shot through my chest. I clutched the doorframe to stay upright, gasping for an even breath.

“Escaping me will only hurt, darling,” he drawled from behind me. And silently, I wasn’t sure he meant for me to hear, he said, “And now you will know how I feel.”

I gritted my teeth as I passed through the threshold.

I walked in a daze out the front doors. He let me go.

I stumbled down the path between cypresses until it all hit me like an avalanche, bringing me to my hands and knees.

I saw it all. I felt it all. What had been locked away within him, it was all before me now.

And my eyes burned from the mirror I peered into.

A life I had lived, a pain long scarred within my own flesh.

I gasped through the revelation, from the man on fire I crawled away from.

I feel the need to protect you.

Clarity never hurt so much. He saw himself within me, and I saw myself within him.

He was the future that terrified me so much I had desperately tried to conceal it, run from its fruition.

The world I was trying to fit into was slowly picking me apart, and he wanted to stop it.

Because what came together from the broken pieces was born of the abyss.

I clutched handfuls of gravel as I continued to drag myself away. I couldn’t believe it. I was not him. We were not the same. We couldn’t be. Because if we were, what did that mean? He had torn apart all I had known, and I had to keep it together.

I stumbled to my feet, heaving in deep breaths. I didn’t even realize I was before my horse until she snorted, causing me to jump.

The earth rumbled beneath my feet. I looked up, searching through the dark at what approached quickly.

His black horse tore through the soupy fog like a hellhound.

His anger permeated the cold air, its claws reaching out as he neared closer.

And as I saw his face, I nearly stepped back.

He was not just a demon but the devil himself.

Sebastian leapt off his horse before it slowed to a stop.

He closed the distance between us, taking hold of my jaw, tilting my head to the side as he examined the scarlet trailing down my neck.

He guided my face back to center, tilting my chin upwards to meet his gaze.

The hood of his black cloak cast his face in shadows.

I could barely make out the whites of his eyes.

And I thought Alaric was wrath incarnate, but Sebastian was pure malice. The reaper come to collect.

A growl ripped from his throat as he rounded on the gate. I nearly fell over as I latched on to his arm trying to hold him back.

“Sebastian, no! Please. His entire army is in there. Now is not the time.” He dragged me behind him. “Please, just listen to me. Just wait!”

He halted, and as he looked at me slowly over his shoulder, I couldn’t help but shudder.

I stood in front of him, cupping the sides of his face in my hands.

“We will get him back, but now is not the time. This is what he wants. He wants your anger. He wants you to be sloppy. We need to do this the right way.”

What shrouded his eyes dissipated, but what it revealed nearly knocked me down to my knees.

“He bonded to you?” Intricate threads of pain weaved through his words.

I nodded. A sob caught in my throat as tears burned down my face.

An eternal bond that could never be broken.

But it could be rejected. I felt it as I pushed at the forced workings of fate, what wanted to fall into place, to be sealed forever.

I kept the edges far apart. Though the pain remained, an emptiness nestled right next to a sempiternal flame.

Alaric’s bond could never be like Sebastian’s.

And for some strange reason, there was a breathtaking sadness at that.

“Why did you come alone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

My heart fractured as he said each word.

“I didn’t know what he would do if I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t know who he would go after next.” A strangled sob constricted my throat. I heaved in a breath.

He placed his hands on either side of my face, pressing his forehead against mine before pulling me into him, wrapping his arms tightly around me. I fell apart as he held me together.

* * *

We rode back to the manor in silence. Sebastian followed me back to my room. I had a feeling he would not leave my side anytime soon. As I opened my door, I halted at the sound of rustling blankets. Pari shot up in my bed. Bits of hair escaped her thick braid, and her eyes were heavy with sleep.

“Charlotte, I finally got word that you’re back.

I came to check on y—” Her eyes narrowed, landing right on my neck.

On the blood that was still there, then on Sebastian behind me, who went entirely rigid.

My head was clouded with such a thick haze, I didn’t even think to clean up before entering the manor.

“Charlotte,” she whispered.