Chapter Seventeen #2
“You can’t fall in love if you push everyone away,” I said, throat tight as his behavior began making more sense. The puzzle solved at last. “Then I came along.”
“Sent to me by the red spider lily.” A fleeting smile touched his lips. “It appears to be a death omen after all. Meeting you was the beginning of the end. But to whose end lies the question. I can only pray that it’s mine.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What it means, little bird, is from now on, we should…” His gaze darted toward the fire. “Keep our distance. Just as we should’ve done from the start.”
“No.” I shook my head, feeling like someone had an ironclad grip on my sternum. “You said you weren’t going to push me away anymore.”
“That’s when I believed I could resist you.” He gathered me in his arms and dropped his face to my hair. “Now I see the fool I’ve been. I once said I’d burn myself into your soul, yet here you are burning yourself in mine.”
The air stirred from behind me as my men approached. Maddox and Callum first, then the others, their scents wrapping around me. The nudge to my ankle let me know Oreo had walked over as well.
“Come with us, sweetheart,” Maddox gently said, the heat of his body causing mine to tingle as his palm slid against mine.
“But I’m not ready to leave.” Holding Maddox with one hand, I used the other to grab the front of Onyx’s robe. Tears surged forward. “We need to sit back down and figure this out. Come up with a game plan. I don’t accept that—”
“The truth remains the same whether you accept it or not.” Onyx draped his hand over mine before slowly pushing it away from him.
He’d become emotionless once again. To Maddox, he added, “You were right when you said the danger to Evan is greater within my realm. Now more than ever. Should the day come when I fall victim to this curse, I expect you to do what needs to be done. Stop me by any means necessary.”
Maddox’s eyes widened slightly before he responded with a curt nod. An acceptance.
Wait.
“You can’t seriously be asking him to kill you,” I said, heartbreak and frustration twisting together in my chest.
“I’m not asking,” Onyx said, his attention unwavering on Maddox.
“Lord Onyx?” Rowan pushed from the wall, unsteadily. “Is this why you asked me to keep watch from the shadows, even when Evan was with you? Just in case you… if you—”
“Turned into a blood-crazed beast and tried to rip him apart?” Onyx interjected, putting more space between us. “Precisely.”
My heart broke. But not because I worried about myself. I was sad for Onyx. Angry for him too. Because of Saint Vera, he’d spent so many years isolated from the world. The only warmth he’d known was in the occasional fuck he allowed himself and never with anyone he saw himself ever caring for.
“And now?” Rowan asked him.
“I expect you to continue watching over him, just as you’ve done long before you ever stepped foot here,” Onyx responded. “Only now, I hope to give you the knowledge to protect him even more. That is, if you still wish to train with me.”
“I do.” Rowan’s topaz eyes seemed sadder than I’d ever seen them. Like a kid who’d just witnessed his favorite superhero get beaten down. “I take it you won’t be meeting with our little treasure anymore though?”
Onyx shifted his gaze to the floor. Said nothing.
But the answer was all too clear. He and I weren’t to be left alone together anymore. No more playful teasing, lustful bites, or any of those musical laughs that danced over my heartstrings. Those strings were too fragile now.
“Run off to bed now, little bird.” Onyx reached for my face but withdrew his hand before making contact. Reminding me so much of those earlier days when he’d fought so hard to push me away. “May only the sweetest dreams find you.”
I stared at him, a place inside me breaking.
“Come on, love.” Briar took hold of my other hand.
As my men guided me from the room, I glanced back at Onyx. He had turned to face the balcony with a rigid set to his shoulders. One hand was balled into a fist while the other rested on the part of his robe I’d held moments earlier.
It wasn’t fair. So much was stacked against us, threatening to stifle the glowing ember that’d only just begun to brighten. A curse that kept us from getting any closer than we already were. Not without one, or both, of us meeting a grisly end.
No one spoke for a long while after we reached the room. Not that I knew what to say even if I did. Their expressions hinted at the same, their thoughts spinning just as fast as mine.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs dangling but not long enough for my feet to touch the floor. “Onyx was right. Fate really is cruel.”
“It’ll be all right, Ev,” Callum murmured into my hair as he wrapped an arm around my waist and brought me against him. The soft rasp of his voice was like a balm for the sharp ache in my chest. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I’m more worried about Onyx,” I admitted, the burning in my throat traveling up to rest behind my eyes. “He’s shut himself off from the world for centuries. All so he could avoid the very thing I brought right to his doorstep.”
“There you go again…” Callum blew out a shaky breath. “More concerned about others than you are for yourself. You’re the one in danger here, Ev.”
“Not if Onyx doesn’t fall in love with me,” I reminded him.
“I reckon it’s too late for that,” Rowan said, propped against the wall in the corner of the room, his topaz eyes a faint glow within the swirling darkness. “He’s well on his way. Only a matter of time. He knows it too. It’s why he told us about the curse.”
Lake came to sit on my other side, his mouth drawn down. “Rowan’s right. The battle was lost the moment we came here. I can sense the stirring in Lord Onyx’s soul. The same yearning we all feel for you. There’s no fighting it. Not for much longer.”
My throat burned, and my chin did that annoying wobble that always signaled an incoming snot fest.
Oreo whined low in his little chest before rushing toward the bed and jumping on top of it. He shuffled over and wedged himself between me and Callum, licking my cheeks. Then he slapped Callum with his poofy tail.
“Hey,” Callum complained, moving the puppy’s tail aside. “Enough of that. Back to the floor you go.”
The Fenrir pup growled, and then, as though to spite him, he curled up on my lap and whacked Callum again with his tail.
Maddox watched the scene unfold with a slight curve to his lips. “Good boy, Yoyo. Protect our muffin. Use your teeth if you must.”
Callum sneered at his captain, then at the puppy. “Since when do you take his side? Have you forgotten all the times I let you chew on my boot laces?”
Oreo released a soft woof before sticking his butt in Callum’s face.
I laughed. It helped alleviate some of the hard pangs in my chest. Temporarily anyway. They soon returned though.
“What happens now?” I asked, staring at my hands. “Onyx is like all of you. We’re bonded. It’s not like I can avoid him. And I don’t want to. He’s…” My eyes stung. “He’s part of our family.”
“No. He’s not.” Maddox breathed out. “Nor will he ever be.”
A tear finally slipped free, quickly followed by two more from the other eye. Oreo whined and licked my cheek again.
“Best not tempt fate, love,” Briar told me. “You and Lord Onyx shouldn’t be left alone together. Not until we find a solution.”
“The solution is to leave,” Callum spat in a tone ringing of a raw desperation.
“To place as much distance between Ev and the demon as possible. We can take advantage of Nocturne’s retreat from the dark wood, pack our things, and march out tonight.
Only Stryder remains. While it’s not ideal, facing him is preferable to the demon lord should the curse awaken. Stryder, at least, is human.”
“You forget, although human, he’s highly skilled in magical attacks,” Maddox countered, dropping down onto the window bench. Sitting but definitely not relaxing. His muscles were too tense. “I still believe their departure from the barrier is a ploy to lure us out.”
“Even if it weren’t a ploy, where would we go if we left?
” Briar sighed as he sat in the chair nearest to the hearth.
The logs were cold, only ashes remained of the fire that’d kept us warm throughout last night.
“You remember what Reign and Draven said. Word of Evan has traveled beyond the capital. No city will be safe.”
“No city around here anyway.” Rowan pushed from the wall and sauntered over to the window, his gaze fixed outside. “Solynia is as far south as we could go. News wouldn’t have spread there.”
“Solynia?” I perked up, surprised. “As in, where you’re from?”
“The very place,” Rowan answered, his mouth hitching up in the corner. “We could hunker down in my old stomping grounds. I know the area like the back of my hand.”
“No,” Maddox said, putting an end to that idea on the spot. “Traveling that far would be too great a risk. We’d need to pass through cities along the way, at least for supplies.”
Briar rubbed at his jaw. “Unless we sailed there.”
As the three of them discussed how we’d find a ship, and also someone to sail said ship, I felt conflicted. Seeing the place Rowan grew up would be exciting, as would visiting lands I hadn’t seen yet. But they were forgetting one very important thing.
“Nocturne would easily be able to track me the moment I stepped foot from this realm,” I reminded them. “I’d be like a magical beacon that would lure them right to us. Like chum in shark-infested waters.”
“True.” Briar rubbed his lips together, visibly mulling over something. “However… while working with Phantasia, I’ve tinkered around with crafting another protection stone. One that might hide your life force once more and shield from magical attacks.”
“I thought you said another stone wouldn’t work,” I said with a frown. “The mercenaries are like hounds with my scent and would still be able to track me.”