CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
EMMERY
As if she was caught in the eye of a hurricane, a wind swept blur, ears ringing, heart bursting, Emmery stared at Dez.
She reached into their bonds, her hand, her chest, anything to pull his attention, but his sunlight lingered too far away, barely a flicker of warmth. There and gone too fast to hold.
Blood streaked his hair, face, neck, and his thorns punctured through the fabric of his mangled black tunic.
A cold expression hardened his features, and once again, he became the same man she’d met all those months ago in Malheim.
The one that snapped necks and executed treasonous rioters.
The one who never begged, grovelled, or cared for anything. Not the one she’d opened herself to.
That man was gone.
“Dez—” she breathed, his name sour on her tongue.
He didn’t even spare her a glance, his eyes fixed ahead, frigid and hard, as if she wasn’t worth his time, or maybe he couldn't bear to look at her.
“Destonne. What’s going on?” He still wouldn’t meet her gaze, and her swollen, water-logged heart pounded, heavy and so damn sad. “Destonne O’Daire! Fucking look at me!”
All eyes slid to her as her world narrowed and his gaze met hers.
She swore his vestige wavered, flickered like a pulse, but he shoved his hands into his pockets, then blinked at her, bored, like she wasn’t tied to a chair, in danger.
As if they hadn’t been making love, uttering promises, and sealing them in blood only a day ago.
“Seems he’s done with you,” Thellonius taunted, his eyes bright like demonic fire.
“You gave him what he wanted. You shared your power and made it so easy. Such a pathetic little harlot.” Thellonius smiled.
“Spare a few pretty words for a whore and she will get on her knees. And that’s exactly what you did. ”
“You’re wrong! That’s not—Dez tell him. Tell him!” Emmery shouted. Her sanity slipped, her restraints on the verge of bursting, but she needed the right moment to get him out of here. Away from all of this.
Thellonius turned to his son. “What do you have to say?”
Dez huffed a breath, and the thorns wrestled inside him, a slithering insidious mass, same as the creatures. His eyes met Emmery’s, his brows pinched in confusion. “I’m not sure what you expected, angel,” he said.
His response sank into her gut with a dense thunk. “We—” She choked as a sob wormed up her throat. “We bonded. You promised and…”
“You should be cautious who you make deals with,” he drawled. His voice opened her ribcage and thrust a blade into it. He gave her the bored stare he’d once hidden behind, which left her cold and empty and aching.
“How could you?” she whispered. “This—you can’t do this!” Her voice rose, hysterical as her erratic heart. “No, Dez. You can’t, you can’t!”
He blinked slowly at her, that mask firmly in place. “I’ve never claimed to be anything I’m not. I told you as much.” His calm, unemotional tone chipped at her, whittled her down, and reduced her to a million bits of sawdust.
“You promised you would never hurt me,” she said, utterly pathetic, but she couldn’t hold it back. Couldn’t stop herself. “You promised me—”
“Promises are merely words. A series of letters strung together.”
His statement welded the pieces in her mind.
He’d warned her. He’d warned her all along. They all warned her. And she didn’t fucking listen. She—
She fell for it. All of this.
Had he been compelled to make her fall for him or had he concocted this plan by himself?
Had Reize been in on it too? Maybe he’d told her to lie and tell her the bond stemmed from love when it was bitter deceit.
And when he created the bond, he’d tested her feelings, her brittleness.
He saw her desperation, her loneliness, and her infinite power.
He’d needed her help to get his magic back, so he’d used her, and now, evidently, he was done with her.
Just as she’d feared.
Her despair morphed to anger, and she gritted her teeth, ready to feast on his marrow for what he’d done. “How fucking dare you!” As her hands heated, her temper flared with it. “I trusted you!”
Thellonius seized Destonne’s hand and narrowed his eyes on the bonds. “That’s more than a sterke.” His gaze flicked up to his son’s. “Seems you two embarked on something dangerous.”
“I had to. She insisted,” he replied flatly.
Thellonius said, “Very well.” Then he nodded at Emmery. “You know what to do.”
Dez took a step toward her, then another, his pace measured, ready to slit her open and drain her dry. Emmery’s stomach sank.
“Don’t—” Emotion snagged in her throat. “Gods, Dez don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t do this!”
His pace didn’t falter. Didn’t even slow.
Beside her, Vesper shouted, but the roaring in her ears drowned his words out.
She bared down on her magic, leaned into her flame, her heart a wild, caged animal as it thrust her magic through her veins.
Sweat trickled down her neck and a scream squeezed between her clenched teeth.
A golden plume of her fire burst through the iridescent restraints and disintegrated the rope.
The room erupted into shrieks and a whirl of magic.
With a wave of his hand, Dez cast a gust of obsidian ice, but Emmery knocked it away with a sweep of flame.
She assembled a wall of fire, not to harm him, but to deter, and surrounded herself in a torrent of golden flame.
Her magic devoured any creatures that dared near her though they slowly assembled.
Thellonius held up a single finger and they froze.
“Not yet, my pets,” he purred. “Let them play.”
Dez flung another burst of ice at her, this time at her legs, but once again she deflected his advance.
Their duel became a game without a victor—a swirl of his magic and a block of hers, a parry and a dodge, and she slowly backed toward the wall.
She eyed the door but she couldn’t run. If she left, everyone’s life would be bled out like Zyphira’s had. She couldn’t do that to them.
As Emmery’s back struck the wall, air burst from her lungs, hopeless and fleeting. Hand clawed in the air, Dez’s vestige pulsed in a crimson nightmare.
His magic bubbled in her blood like he’d slit her wrists and unravelled each vein. A warm, wet trail ran from her nose, the coppery scent thick and undoubtedly hers. Blood vessels burst in her eyes, her vision blurred, as metallic liquid pooled in her throat, clogged her lungs. Drowned her.
I will never let you drown, he had said.
Liar, she wanted to scream. Shriek. Hurl at him.
Thellonius called from afar, “We need only a flicker of life, but leave her blood untouched.”
Teeth bared, Dez’s feral growl echoed in the anarchy as he lunged for Emmery.
She rolled away, and spun into a kick to his ribs.
A tiny cry ripped from her throat as his thorns punctured through her boot into the sole of her foot.
The impact of her strike didn’t even rock him, and he seized her ankle.
She flailed and dug her heel into the ground, but he reeled her toward him, and she lost her balance. His hands balled in her tunic.
Because he’d always touched her with such gentleness, she’d forgotten he was infinitely stronger.
“Dez—” she pleaded, her frantic voice rising in pitch. “Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me hurt you!”
He wrapped his hand around her throat and slammed her into the stone.
Stars burst behind her closed eyelids, and suddenly she was Guthrie, shoved up against the alley wall.
Helplessly, her feet dangled, her legs and body trapped like a fly in his web.
She clawed against his hold, but the thorns at his wrists shredded her fingers, and even as her flame scrambled to her aid, his ice responded in measure.
It seemed they stood equally matched and stared at each other eye to eye, but there was one key difference. She loved him and couldn’t bring herself to harm him, while he readied to slit her throat and watch her bleed.
“C-come on, Dez,” she sputtered. Her air depleted and lungs burned as his fingers dug into her windpipe. “You don’t want to … do this.”
“Be quiet,” he snarled. “Stop messing with my head.”
“I’m not”—a stuttering breath seized her chest—“messing with y-your head.”
“Stop.” His eyes closed and when they sprang open, something flashed there. “Stop it!” he spat. His grip left imprints of his fingers in her neck.
His response and that flash spurred her on.
She gasped, “I know you care about me.” Blood bubbled up her throat and trickled down the side of her mouth. “You said you would never hurt me. You promised—”
“Stop. Stop, stop, stop!” he bellowed. His molars ground together, and he hissed as the crown tightened like it would crack his skull. Blood poured down his face, into his eyes, and dripped off his chin.
They both startled as the enormous entrance door burst open and banged against the stone wall.
Emmery’s heart nearly exploded as Fionn and Brennen strode into the room, followed by Vera and Cyrilla. Her saving grace.
Vera’s silver swords smiled hungrily in the moonlight, ready to shred through muscle and bone.
At her side, Fionn stood, bow aimed, and Millie coiled around his neck.
The serpent breathed fire onto an arrow’s tip before he shot it into the curtain, and it snagged in the fabric.
Fire spread with fervour despite the damp room.
Brennen surged into the throng and black blood spurted as he tore into the creatures.
Thellonius ordered the creatures in one drawn out roar. “Seize them!”
That’s when the silver spark at Emmery’s wrist flickered and began to glow. A high pitch noise joined the roaring in her ears.
It was about fucking time.
The roof shook, the castle’s foundation bowed, and the ceiling caved in as stone rained into the dining hall.