Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
I’m going to lose my mind.
Honestly, the clock is starting to piss me off.
I fluff my pillow and will sleep to come.
Sleep flips me the proverbial finger.
I pull the blanket up off my feet. Then I tug my feet up under the blanket. Rinse, repeat.
I glare up at the fairy lights, which are sparkling just like they have since classes began. Now, though, I want to rip them down and stomp on them.
I tell myself I’m twitchy because I suffered through both a chem quiz and the Valdez do-over earlier today, and my brain can’t manage to power down.
Except that’s a lie, and I know it’s a lie, and lying to myself at one in the morning is apparently my new hobby.
Except it’s not the quizzes.
It’s him.
It’s been over a week since I left the Nightmare Realm, and somewhere in that time, Adric stopped being a problem I think about and became a thing I miss.
I don’t know when it happened. I didn’t approve it.
And god knows, I’m blissfully happy most nights in Chase’s arms. Except tonight I can’t be in Chase’s arms. Tonight, Chase and Mr. Griffin are in Paris, chasing a pack of mares who apparently are camped out in the catacombs.
Which, honestly, is far too on-brand. I mean, what self-respecting real-life mare would go for that cliche?
But they did, and now Chase and Mr. Griffin are working with some Europe-based Hunters to take down the nest.
I wanted to come along—Chase even said I could. But studying for the damn make-up test got in the way. That, and I knew Chase couldn’t do his job as well if he thought he had to watch over me.
And, of course, Tia is crashed in Riley’s dorm, supposedly cramming for an exam this coming Friday.
I don’t believe it. I think they’re doing what I wish I was doing with Chase. Which, of course, means I can’t blame them.
But I can be jealous. And I’m going to sit here and stew in my jealousy until sleep finally takes me. Hopefully, a lovely, boring, dreamless sleep, because right now, the mares that are interfering in my love life are pissing me off.
And as for my other option…
I let the thought drift, not wanting to go there. Or, rather, not wanting to go to him. Not after what I saw. What he did.
I shudder, thinking of all the blood that spilled in that courtyard, and Adric standing there, presiding over the deaths that came from nothing more than his order.
I rub my temples, wishing I could push him even further out of my head, but I can’t.
I keep revisiting our tent in my mind. I keep thinking of his hands, just as I think of Chase’s mouth.
Of the way each of them looks at me, and how each of them touches me.
Even Adric, who spoke a word and ordered death.
And now I crave his touch.
I shudder. What is wrong with me?
It’s a question I can’t answer, and so I try to ignore it. I close my eyes, try to will myself to sleep, and after another twenty minutes, I log another failure.
Well, damn.
I tell myself I should just pop over to the Nightmare Realm and have it out with him.
But I won’t. Because I know too damn well that being near him is dangerous. Not because he’d hurt me, but because I want him. And that will inevitably lead to pain.
I flip the pillow again, flop down, and sigh.
And catch the faintest scent of smoke and ash.
A shiver runs through me. Could it be…?
But no. That makes no sense. Probably something outside. After all, the window’s cracked open.
Except it isn’t.
I closed it before getting into bed. And it’s not just the scent I’ve caught—there’s also a light breeze.
I sit up. And the closet door opposite the foot of my bed swings open a tiny bit. Then a bit more. Then more after that.
The inside of the closet is dark, but as I watch, it turns a muted shade of orange. And there—beyond where the back of the closet should be—is an endless stretch of sand.
My breath hitches, and I don’t move for a long second. Then I slide out of bed. My bare feet hit the cool floor, and I move to the foot of the bed and pull the closet door the rest of the way open.
He’s standing in the sand a few feet behind where my clothes hang, his coat of shadows fluttering in some impossible breeze.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t step forward. He just looks at me and slowly smiles.
The closet’s hinges creak in the silence.
“Chase is going to go ape-shit. You promised.”
“I promised to stay out of the Real.”
“You’re in my closet. This is about as real as it gets.”
“I’m not in the Real,” he says. “I’m in a liminal space. Neither the Nightmare Realm nor the Real.”
“Oh.” I frown. I’m not sure what to say to that. “But it’s my closet.”
“So it appears. But while the closet may be yours, the sand is mine. And it is in my Realm.”
“That is really splitting hairs.”
“I did not promise not to split hairs.”
I stare at him. He stares back.
After a moment, his lips twitch. “If you want me to go, I will.”
He means it. I can see that. The thing is, I don’t want him to leave. I was completely mortified by those horrible, violent executions, and yet I still want him. Just like I want Chase. Which, I guess, makes me a greedy little bitch without a clue how to choose one over the other.
Maybe pick the one who didn’t execute six people and doesn’t plan to set mares loose in your backyard…
I shove the thoughts away, then do nothing. I just stand there at the foot of my bed looking at my betrothed in my closet beach and wondering—as I so often do—how this is my life.
“Step through,” he says quietly. “You made no vow to ignore me if I managed to find a loophole.”
I have to laugh. He’s right about that.
I take a quick glance over my shoulder, because I really should just slide under the covers and sleep.
But of course that’s not happening, so I do what Adric knew I’d do—I step into the closet, push past my shirts and favorite hoodie, and then step out onto genuine sand as Adric extends his hand to mine.
I take it, and a rush of desire shoots through me, warming me. Exciting me. And making me very aware of the heat building between my legs.
I turn back, suddenly afraid I’m trapped here, but there’s the door frame, alone in the sand like a sculpture someone abandoned at the edge of a beach.
Adric closes the distance between us in two strides and pulls me against him.
He doesn’t kiss me. He holds me close, letting me feel just how much he wants me, and his restraint is what cracks me open. Because I want him desperately, even though I’m so angry at him I can barely breathe. Which, frankly, is infuriating.
I plant my hands on his chest and push back enough to look at him.
“I watched you order six men to die.” I mean to shout the words—to batter him with the horror in my voice—but instead my words are a whisper, heavy with the memory of what I’d witnessed.
His face doesn’t change, but his posture stiffens, as if in some grim way, he’s been waiting for a throw-down.
“You are my betrothed. You needed to see it.”
“Needed? The hell I did. And I didn’t just see it. You made me part of it. A fucking prop. An exhibit.” My voice is shaking. “You used me to send a message, and you didn’t even give me a hint of warning. And then you ordered Kali to kill them like you were asking her to take out the garbage, and—”
I snap my mouth shut.
He says nothing. Just stands there waiting for me to continue.
“And you didn’t even have the balls to do it yourself,” I finish, my voice hard and sharp as I finally say the thing that’s been sitting in my gut since the courtyard.
I expect him to flinch. To defend himself. To get cold and kingly and tell me I don’t understand how things work in his realm.
Instead, he looks me in the eye. “Is that what you saw? Clean hands?”
“It’s what you did.”
He shakes his head. “I will not let you carry a comfortable version of me when the truth is worse.”
His hand is still at the small of my back, not gripping, just there. “Those men are mine. Their deaths are mine. I decided their fate, and there is no realm or court or god that I would let take a single ounce of that weight off me. I do not have clean hands, Cora. I have never had clean hands.”
“The hell you don’t. Kali’s the one who used the damn blade.”
“Because me holding the blade would have been a mercy.”
“Oh, please.” My voice is almost a sneer. “I hardly think they care who killed them.”
He shakes his head. “Not a mercy to them. To me.”
I frown, completely confused. His jaw tightens.
“Do you truly not understand? If I take the knife in my own hand, I get to feel that I paid something, too. I walk away with blood on me and call it penance and sleep a little easier for having suffered the doing of it. That is a gift, Beloved. The catharsis of the executioner. And I did not give it to myself.”
He takes a single step back. “I ordered six deaths, and I made myself stand there with empty hands and feel every one of them and earn no comfort from any of it.”
He draws a long breath. “Kali holds the blade because that is her office, and because a king who needs to feel the cut to believe in his own justice is a king who should not be making the decree.
I taste salt and realize I’m crying. Not sobs, just a few quiet tears escaping as if to release the pressure inside me.
“I hate that it’s a good answer,” I whisper.
“It is neither good nor bad. It is simply true.”
I nod. “They were plotting against you. I keep telling myself that.” I press my forehead against his chest because it’s easier than looking in his eyes.
“But I stood there and watched men die, and I didn’t look away, and I think—I think the part that scares me isn’t that you’re capable of it.
It’s that I stayed. That I belong in a place where a thing like that can happen. ”
His arms come gently around me. “You stayed because you are braver than is good for you,” he says into my hair. “And because some part of you already understands the heaviness of a crown. You lightened my burden a bit tonight.”
I almost laugh. “By chewing you out for not taking responsibility?”