CHAPTER TWENTY #2
A gentle hand shook Emmery’s shoulder, pulling her from yet another nightmare. She nearly leapt out of her own skin as she sprang up in bed, her lungs stained, and her skin and sheets damp with sweat.
Her head swivelled as she took in the shadowy room. It was cut by only a sliver of moonlight, but her eyes locked on the dark figure crouched at her bedside. She yelped, and her fist swung, connecting with—a chin? Whatever it was, pain sang through her hand and radiated up her arm.
“Ouch,” the intruder grumbled.
Oh, fuck. Of course it was him.
Destonne rubbed his jaw. He was dressed in a dark cloak and the scent of night air clung to him. What was he doing here and why did it seem he’d just returned from outside? It had to be at least—
Well, she had no clock for reference, but at least two in the morning.
Emmery clutched her aching fist to her chest, her knuckles throbbing. “Oh, it’s just you. Damn it, were you trying to scare me half to death?”
“Just me? Does that mean you can strike me as you please?”
“You frightened me,” she gasped, her heart thundering. “What did you expect?”
“Not to be punched,” he groaned then dropped his hand.
“Baby,” she muttered under her breath.
Punching Destonne had felt good and he damn well deserved it for what he’d done today. He’d humiliated her, stolen her property, and ruined her book. Or she supposed it was really his book, but either way, it was wrong.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded. She clutched the covers to her chin and squinted her eyes to make out his features in the dark.
“You were crying in your sleep. Sobbing, really.” He glanced behind him at the ajar door. “I thought you might be in distress and I knocked but you didn’t answer.”
Emmery rubbed at her tear-streaked cheek. “Sorry.”
“So you apologize for not answering the door but not for punching me?”
A few tears escaped her eyes and she let them fall, thinking it was too dark for him to see, but Destonne tracked them as they rolled down her cheeks.
His brows drew together and his hand twitched, like he thought about wiping them away.
Vesper had done that for her the night they summoned Maela as she battled through that agony.
But Destonne wasn’t Vesper. He wasn’t even Emmery’s friend.
Then her stomach rolled. And lurched.
Emmery stumbled from the bed, legs wobbly, head swimming, and wine burning the back of her throat as saliva pooled in her mouth.
She threw open the door to the bathing room, crashed to her knees, and emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet in one violent heave.
The alcohol burned like vile acid, her eyes and nose watery, vision blurry.
She pressed her palm against the cool white tile as her body tensed and another wave overcame her. This was self-inflicted, laced with shame she wouldn’t have felt otherwise, which made it so much worse. A groan rose from the depths of her soul. Oh gods, she wished it would stop. Please, stop.
A hand pressed into her clammy back, and another swept her hair aside to collect it at her neck. Her body convulsed again, but there was nothing left. Nothing but a numbing despair in her belly.
“How much wine have you had?” Destonne asked, shockingly calm.
Had he seen the empty bottle at her bedside? Likely. And he’d witnessed her drinking anyway, especially that night after they visited Reize. He knew who and what she was. Knew all of her weaknesses and revelled in them. Collected them for later to use against her.
Destonne rubbed a soothing pattern of circles into her back as she gagged again. She couldn’t have pulled away if she tried, but she didn’t want to. It was nice to have someone hold her, even if it was him. Even out of pity.
“Tell me you’re not doing this alone every night,” he said, his voice so low she barely heard him.
But why would he even ask? He didn’t care. She was merely a means to an end: a way to retrieve his magic. He just needed to drag her through this pactum and then he would toss her aside like everyone else. Once she wasn’t of use anymore.
Emmery spat the acrid taste of bile into the bowl. “Why do you care?”
She swatted the lever to flush the toilet. Her arm fell back to the tile with a thud, but her disoriented dizzy state stole her ability to care. She wanted to crawl back in her bed, alone, and hide under the covers while she prayed for a merciful death.
He continued that calming rhythm against her back. “Tell me why.”
As Emmery hauled herself to her feet, Destonne hovered with his hands under her arms, ready to catch her.
After she rinsed her mouth and washed the beaded sweat from her face, she braced her hands against the counter and contemplated.
Would there be any harm in telling him? And he was asking.
For gods sake, he’d just held back her hair as she vomited, something she still couldn’t believe had happened.
Maybe telling Destonne would help or maybe she was too tired to fight anymore.
Maybe she needed to spill this from her festering soul to free her mind and release the confession into the world.
Or maybe she didn’t want to face this by herself and feel so damn alone anymore.
Destonne followed while she dragged herself back to the bed and flopped down, her limbs impossibly heavy. A long breath escaped her as her head struck the pillow and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her empty stomach ached. He pulled the quilt tangled at her feet over her like he had for Soren.
Impossibly gentle, his finger brushed a damp lock of hair from her face. “Do I have to coax the answer out of you, Emmery?”
Her heart skidded at her name like a plea on his lips. Like he really wanted to know why she did this to herself, but she didn’t have a good explanation. So she said, “I have nightmares.”
She knew it was foolish to cry over the fears manufactured by her own mind, and drink herself into oblivion to find a few peaceful hours of sleep. It was stupid, weak, and reckless.
“I gathered as much.” Destonne looked her over in a way he never had before. “What sort of nightmares?” he asked, each word slow, carefully chosen.
People burning alive, their screams echoing in her ears, a city collapsing at her hands, the very scene she’d witnessed after tossing the Stone of Refraction into the khaos flame.
Losing Maela again and again, drowning then waking only to drown again.
Her failing Vesper and him dying in her arms. Nathaniel’s bruising hands, the roughness in which he’d claim her, his friends taking turns. How she could never fight back.
Emmery shook her head as an answer.
Destonne nodded like he understood, as he formed his next response, shaping it into whatever he desired to gain from this night. “How long has this been happening?”
“Since my sister was murdered.” Emmery sloughed it off, though she felt like dying. ”It’s the only thing that calms me enough to sleep. Some days I—” She swallowed the shame. “I can’t move past it. Can’t get on with my day. But surely you have something like that.”
Destonne twisted his mouth to the side.
“A vice?”
He shrugged.
Come to think of it, when they’d had that dinner together, he’d poured a glass of wine but hadn’t touched it. “You don’t drink? I know you said you don’t partake in drugs, and you don’t like sweets either.”
“How very flattering of you to remember that about me.” The corner of his mouth pulled up ever so slightly. “No. I don’t have anything like that.”
A throbbing ache formed behind her eyes. “How do you cope, then?”
“I suppose … I don’t.” Another silence swelled in the dark room and they watched each other as his response drew them further apart. Clearly, he had self-control and she didn’t. How wonderful for him. She stifled the urge to laugh at her own misfortune.