Chapter 73 Nikolai
Nikolai
My breathing is uneven, and my chest feels like I could split down the middle.
I step out into the cold night air that blows in from the desert.
The same air Taera wants to return home to.
My fingers tremble as I remember the rush of her magic, how it flooded me with her want, and then her hurt. I flinch away from the memory.
“You did this to her.” My shadow glares at me. I shove it away; it’s only an illusion. A sliver of my own fragmenting mind. But it reappears at my other side. “And then you abandoned her.”
I roar into the night, stifling the sound before it can wake the house. My magic aches, my fingers itching deeper into my pocket for more power, for stronger amulets, anything to numb the twisting sensations into nothingness. I clench my hands into fists until my knuckles burn.
I’m furious at myself. Repulsed. I take something pure and sweet like Taera and use her until she bleeds. Taera deserves someone who won’t fucking lie to her.
“You left her there like a coward.”
“Shut up.” I fling a bolt of magic at my shadow. He’s slipped out of my mind again, but he laughs even as he dissipates. “I freed her.”
My shadow’s voice curls out of the darkness. “With the same pendant you stole from her?”
I crumple.
“She bared her heart to you. She told you she wanted you, even knowing it would only be for one night.”
“I know.”
Taera deserves an apology. She deserves the explanation I can’t give her—deserves for me to get on my knees before her and grovel and offer her everything I have. But I can’t do that.
“You’ll only destroy her.”
“Fuck you,” I growl, pacing to get away from him.
“She wanted you to.”
I turn back to the house—then stop myself.
The image of her lying alone in my bed claws through my chest, ripping me apart.
I want to comfort her. I want to hold her until the hurt fades.
But I imagine breaking, for her, giving in and not being able to live with myself afterward.
Why did she have to fall for me? I can’t save her from this.
If I go back to her, I’ll consume her. I’ll breathe her in like air—her scent warm like the sun and sweet like anise—and I’ll shred the last of her innocence out of my own gluttonous need, destroying us both.
She’s probably still lying in my childhood bed, waiting for me to return.
But I won’t ruin her for someone who deserves her.
I was stupid to bring her here. They all get along so easily: Taera and Hazel and my mom. It makes it too easy to forget who I am—forget the things I’ve done.
I climb inside the carriage and collapse on the bench. The unyielding wood is the opposite of Taera, but I don’t disguise the surface into anything more comfortable. I don’t deserve it.
Tucked beneath me, in the hidden compartment, is the mirror my source put together for me. Compulsively, I retrieve it and trace my fingers along the seam of the missing shard—the shard she shattered, the one that made me leap on instinct to protect her.
I shove the mirror away.
I need to take her home before I can’t anymore.