Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Time slows, and the world around me falls out of focus, everything except the gleam of pure hatred and glimmer of success in Dane’s cold, amber eyes.
While my father could hardly ever look at me because all he saw was the face of my mother, it’s obvious now that Dane does not. He looks at me and sees something entirely different: my father, or simply the person who was supposed to give him what he wanted, but now is standing in his way.
Dane has done nothing but take from me. My mother and father, my childhood, my chance at saving her, and now he’s trying to take my life. I will not let him take any more. I will not let him win.
I am going to stop him, or die trying.
His grip tightens around my throat, his thumbs pressing in, and crushing my windpipe. He lifts me off the ground, and my eyes widen, the weight of my body worsening the pressure and making my mind scream for air.
I grip his hands, clawing at his fingers, trying to pry them from my skin.
Air. I need air.
I kick my legs wildly, trying to land a blow, anything that will get him to drop me, but his reach is too long, and my boots barely brush his body.
Tears stream down my cheeks, and my mouth opens with noiseless gasps.
Nails digging into his skin, I scratch and scrape, but he only squeezes harder, his sneer widening as he watches my panic set in.
“Lennox!”
Weston’s roar sounds muffled, from somewhere far behind me. His cry is so feral, it’s unlike any sound I’ve ever heard him make. He yells, again and again, but the noise in my ears dulls, covered only by the slowing beat of my heart.
My vision blurs, my view narrowing as darkness bleeds into the sides.
I need to breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Booms. Thuds. Grunts. Screams. There’s no indication of anything happening in the throne room around me, except for Weston’s roars.
Focus on him. He is the only one I want to hear in the end.
Because this is it. This is the end.
This is how I die.
At the hands of someone who once convinced me he loved me, and I loved him.
At the hands of someone whose hatred of my family precipitated this lifelong plot to tear us down, and steal what he claimed was his.
At the hands of someone whose evil has ruined the lives and hopes of the people I call my family.
My limbs turn leaden as I still fight to break free, but with every breathless moment I’m losing the will. My thrashing slows, my grip slackens, and my head spins.
Resounding thuds continue to rumble, chains rattle, wood splinters. Swords clang together, and I search through the sounds for Weston, begging the gods that he’s far enough away that he won’t be able to see the light leave my eyes.
I hope he knows how much I love him.
I regret not having said it more.
After all the years of being alone, I hope the short time I was able to love him was enough to give him hope he will find it once again.
Maybe my father and I will have another chance together in whatever afterlife greets us, and I will wait for everyone else to one day be by my side again.
I hope it takes a while; that they will get to live the long and full lives that were stolen from them.
And one day, maybe soon, I’ll finally meet my mother.
My eyelids droop as weakness overcomes me. Dane’s face blurs, and my body falls limp, my hands dropping to my sides, finally giving up on the futile fight.
I love you, Weston.
My head lolls to the side, the world blackening around me, and I’m in a void. I’ve been here once before. The darkness is all-encompassing.
Then, there’s light.
Burning erupts in my chest as my body heaves in air.
Pain lances through my throat, my neck, my chest, my head.
But the pressure lessens, and the hands wrapped so tightly just a moment ago slacken enough for one breath.
My eyes are slits. The darkness barely dissipates as bright lights flash over my vision.
My chest begs for air, and my body uncontrollably seeks it, coughing and gasping as tears stream from the corners of my eyes.
My eyes focus just enough to find Dane staring at me, with blood pouring from his mouth.
Pain resonates through my body as I slam into the floor, the already minuscule breath knocked from me once again. Dane crumbles beside me, his lifeless stare boring through me as blood pools around his body, and standing in his place is my father.
Blood drips onto the stone dais from both the tip of his king’s dagger and the wound oozing in his abdomen. He stares down at Dane for only a moment before his gaze slides to me. A sigh of relief huffs from his mouth before his knees give out and he collapses to the floor.
“Lennox!”
I hear him again. His voice cracks with strain and fear, and I know that this cry is even worse than all the rest. But I can’t think. I can’t move. I can’t look around and my eyes flutter shut, freeing me of the throne room’s complete and utter unrest.
Everything is limp. Heavy. Impossible.
Warm hands press into my cheeks, and relief floods my body.
He’s here. I don’t have to die alone. The monster who killed me won’t be the last person I touched in this world. I will die knowing the last caress of my skin came from someone who truly loved me.
“Lennox, sweetheart, open your eyes.”
His voice is urgent and filled with the strength I have found so much solace in, but I hear it waver, and my already almost still heart threatens to shatter. I can’t be the one who defeats him, this powerful man who, even in moments when he needs it, is still being strong for me.
“Lennox, open your eyes!” He’s pleading with me, and tears and panic fill his voice. “Breathe. Breathe! Come on, Lennox, you have to fight. Fight for me.”
My mind screams at me to listen to him, to follow his command, to open my eyes and reach out and pull myself into him, but I can’t.
“Where are the keys?” The boom of his yell would startle anyone, but not me. I soak up every detail of him I can, but it’s interrupted by the scuffle of nearby footsteps, followed by the clank of iron hitting stone.
Then I’m in his arms. He crushes me to his chest, one hand weaving through my hair as he clutches the back of my head. His lips brush the shell of my ear, and pain coats his voice.
“Please, sweetheart, don’t leave me. Just open your eyes.”
My head falls back, supported by his steady hand, and I try. Try to answer him, to do what he asks, what he needs, but everything is too weak. I feel the whisper of something dampening my face, and my mind screams at me.
No, Weston cannot cry over me. I can’t leave him. Not like this, not because of Dane.
I am locked inside the cage of my own body and mind, and no one else can hear me screaming and thrashing against it, all to get back to him.
My breaths are short and shallow, my chest barely rising and falling as another tear hits my cheek just above where the pad of his thumb softly caresses my skin. A flurry of heat burns inside me, and I want to rage against the walls closing me in.
I have to fight. I will not let Dane win.
A choked gurgle barely escapes my lips as I try to force out a sound, any sound. His body freezes, his hand on the back of my head clutching me tighter as I plead with my body to move, to say something, anything that will tell him I’m still here, and I’m trying.
Open your eyes.
It’s a command to myself, because the desire to live can’t just come from him. I have to want it just as badly. I cannot give up, despite my body begging me to.
Weston watched me die once before. He brought me back to life, and I watched the relief etched on his face when I took that first breath. But that was before; before everything happened between us.
The friendship, the trust, the oath, the love.
The promise of a future.
His forehead presses to mine so that the tips of our noses brush, and I feel his body shudder as he cradles me tighter.
“Don’t let go. Not yet. I love you.”
Broken.
Weston. My Weston. The captain, the First Guard, the protector, the one who holds strong so no one else has to, is broken.
The voice that falls on my ears is filled with despair, but worse, failure.
No matter how hard he fought, how hard he tried to get to me, to protect me, to save me, he couldn’t.
His oath, not only to the future queen, but to me, breaks with my final breath.
I will not let him endure that pain. I will not let him live the rest of his life knowing that he failed me, because he didn’t.
He never could. There’s nothing Weston could have done that would have altered Dane’s plan, that would have changed the trajectory of this night, not without risking him being in my place, and leaving me to endure the rest of my life without him.
He needs to hear it from me. I need to do exactly what he commanded me.
Fight with all my years of pent-up anger, and strength, and determination.
It’s now or never.
My mind screams. My soul rages against the dark prison trying to overtake me, but I only focus on getting back to him.
It takes everything I have left inside to will my eyelids to slowly flutter open, and if I had the strength to wince against the light of the throne room, I would.
My sight focuses on him, still pressed against my forehead.
Eyes screwed shut and tears moistening his lashes, his brow is furrowed so deeply, his jaw clenched so tightly, he looks like he might implode.
But he’s there. I can see him. I came back to him.
For how long, I don’t know, but I’m going to soak up every second that I can, even if he doesn’t know I’m there.