Chapter 16
Chrome
Gray sprang to her feet from the ledge of the building back onto the rooftop, her eyes wide and her terror infiltrating my soul like a poison. I did my best to ignore it and focus on Valik, but her fear was too powerful. It confused me, making me think it was my own.
I focused on the unusual man before us. What was he?
“Where did you come from?” I asked, summoning a dagger, the blade illuminating blue.
Valik’s eyes drifted down to my weapon, his smirk spreading into a wider smile. “Oh, fun.”
I shifted to ensure I shielded Gray with my body while summoning a second dagger to my other fist. “Valik,” I warned. “Where did you come from?”
With an eye roll, he sighed. “A portal.”
“A…portal?” I questioned with a raised brow, still mind blown that those even existed.
“Yes. A portal. You know. Traveling between worlds. Dimensions. Realms. Whatever you wanna call it.” Valik shrugged and plopped onto the ledge, retrieving a knife from his pocket.
His brown waves were cropped short, but the longer tendrils in the front fell over his brow.
He ignored them as he dug the tip of his knife’s blade beneath a nail and cleaned it.
“Ah, that’s right.” Valik chuckled and shook his head as if it was a joke with himself. “You guys don’t do portals like that.”
“What the fuck, Valik? Why are you here?” I demanded, growing impatient, concerned that he was even here at all.
“You know him?” Gray spoke from behind me.
“Kinda. Not really,” I muttered. “Trying to figure it out myself.”
“‘It’ is sitting right here, by the way.” Valik waved as if he were invisible, a fake smile gracing his features that I could only describe as perfection. How? Who naturally looked like that?
“What do you want?” I asked, skipping any formalities.
“It seems you discovered something recently,” Valik said, intently focusing on his nails.
My mouth went dry. “What are you talking about?” I wished I had the ability to mute Gray’s hearing with sound manipulation like Peri. My shoulders tensed, and my fists tightened around the hilt of my daggers.
Valik stood, power emanating from his body as if he were power himself.
For the first time in my life, outside of my punishments with Grim, I felt small. I swallowed, swapping my stance to prepare to go on the offense.
“You met an Elemental the other night,” he said matter-of-factly.
I dipped my head, keeping my gaze locked on him. “Yeah, what about it?”
“He told you some things.”
“Sure. They all do.” I shrugged.
“Did he mention anything about the Endarkened by chance?”
“Yeah? ” I said, dragging it out in question. “I mean, kinda. What do you know?”
“Did you happen to gain any information about that claim?” Valik asked. Within seconds, he went from seeming childish and aloof to feeling like an ancient power that was better left untouched.
I kept my stare ahead, clocking all of the exits and quickest escape routes to get Gray to safety. “Maybe.”
“What did you discover?” he asked.
“I don’t know if it was actually—”
“Tell me, Chrome.”
I clenched my jaw, conflicted about whether to divulge my suspicions.
“This is important. I need to know.”
Gray’s fear cinched around my heart and squeezed it, reminding me of her presence.
She couldn’t know the truth yet. None of it.
It was too dangerous. All it would take would be for Forest to hurt her enough and she could spill it all.
I couldn’t risk her getting hurt, and I couldn’t risk the insurgency being compromised.
I shook my head. “Nothing. There was nothing.” Silently, I tried to communicate that I couldn’t talk about anything related to the insurgency with him right now. I mouthed “later” to him.
Valik narrowed his eyes, glanced at the princess, and held her gaze as he studied her with a tilted head. “Princess Gray. It is quite the honor to meet you at long last.”
I glanced over my shoulder at her as she shrunk away, looking back and forth between the strange man and me. Her bracelet was on, so hopefully she couldn’t sense that he was neither Elemental nor Kinetic.
“Who…who are you?” she stuttered. Despite the fear permeating my soul, the ice blue of her eyes cut like glacial spears at Valik, just a hint of a latent viciousness glinting through.
Valik snatched his attention from the princess to scrutinize me.
I sensed frustration bubbling from his aura and in the tightness around his saturated green eyes.
I got the message. We would be meeting again.
“I’m a friend of Chrome’s. Just heard so much about the rising Kinetic princess.
Once you get trained, you’ll be formidable. ”
Gray furrowed her brow at Valik. Despite her tensed shoulders and closed fists, I could practically see the wheels churning through the many questions that tumbled within her brain. “How do you know that I’m getting trained?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing.
Valik chewed on his lip. “Don’t you all start training at age thirteen?”
Gray’s face relaxed before she nodded. “Oh, well. Yeah, I guess that’s common knowledge.” She sighed, and I felt her relief flood through me, but it was soon replaced with more suspicion again. “Wait. What are you?”
Valik laughed a deep rich sound. The light beard on his jaws contrasted against his tanned skin. “I’m no enemy, Princess. Just a friend passing through.”
Gray shot an accusatory glare at me.
I smiled at her, feeling the tightening of my fucking pants again. Godsdamn hormones.
The princess rolled her eyes and peered over the building again, staring down at the busy street below. “I wanna go back now, please.”
“Wait,” Valik said. He held his palm outward facing Gray. Black ink began to spread across his skin and radiated down his arm, forming intricate foreign designs that were nothing I recognized. The tension in his face returned, his lip twitching as he kept his focus fixed on the princess.
Gray’s body locked up, her mouth falling open in shock that followed a gasp. “What…”
I lunged toward Valik, my dagger ready to slice his throat, but was stopped mid-step as my body lifted from the rooftop, levitating but having zero control.
I couldn’t move any part of my body, frozen in a paralyzed stasis above the roof, unable to do nothing but watch Valik perform whatever cast on Gray that he wished.
My protective rage flared to an inferno as it reached untapped heights. I needed to kill him. Nothing less.
How dare he touch her?
Not even words would form in my throat to shout at him to leave her alone. My fury was trapped inside my body, along with my power. I couldn’t do shit.
Gray’s eyes glazed over to a glassy film while she stood stiff, appearing just as trapped as me.
The black webbing of markings spread up Valik’s neck and jaws to cover his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his nostrils flared from the exertion he summoned to cast whatever magic he possessed onto the princess.
Iciness spiderwebbed through my veins as fear doused the rage consuming me. What the fuck was he doing to her? The fact that I had no way of knowing what type of magic he wielded made my heart bludgeon through my ribcage.
After what felt like an eternity, the black markings began to retreat from Valik’s face, then disappeared from his neck. He dropped his arm to his side, his back and shoulders slumping forward.
I still hung there, locked and suspended from the gravel. The moment my feet touched the rooftop, I’d be on him. Knife to his throat. Blood everywhere. I needed to see it. Feel its warmth on my face and hands. I needed to watch the life dim from his eyes.
With a glance up at me, he said, “You’re welcome. Now, she won’t remember me. So, I’m going to go now before her mind clears from the disoriented fog she’s in.”
I might as well have been punched in the face. He… “You…erased her memory?”
With a breathless nod, Valik straightened. “I don’t have much left in me. I need to get back, but my magic drains ten times faster here. Can I trust you not to kill me before I leave?”
“No.”
Valik chuckled to himself, exhausted, and looked up at the azure sky. “Fucking Twin Soul bond strikes again,” he muttered to the clouds. “Thanks, assholes.”
“Who are you talking to?” I asked, once again confused by his peculiar behavior.
“The dickheads responsible for everything,” he said with an exasperated sigh, waving nonchalantly. “Anyway, I must be off. I’ll find you again soon. Hopefully, without the princess in tow, since she is completely in the dark about literally everything. I presumed she had some knowledge of shit…”
“Dude, if Forest suspects she knows anything, he’ll hurt her…more. I can’t risk that.”
Valik dipped his chin in understanding, then sighed. “Ah, very well, then.”
Like the last time I saw him in the nightclub, he dropped into a lunging position and began to pull open an invisible door using what appeared to be every bit of strength he possessed.
Blinding white light infiltrated through a slit in the air, a stark distinction against the cityscape around us. I glanced at Gray, who stared at the building across from us in a daze as if nothing unusual was happening at all.
I continued to hang above the rooftop, hoping to the gods that his magic would wear off the moment he stepped through the portal.
Even if he released me right now, I’d still drive my dagger into his throat despite knowing that my Kinetic blade wouldn’t be lethal to him.
I couldn’t let him get away with forcing his magic on Gray without her permission.
The fucking audacity.
Once the slit opened into a wide enough gap, Valik held it with trembling arms, a strained grimace on his face, and forced out, “Until next time, Prince,” just as he stumbled through the beaming light, the portal slamming shut behind him.
Gravity took hold of me again, snatching me to the roof. I landed on my feet, regaining control of my limbs. Without thinking, I rushed to Gray’s side. I placed a hand on her shoulder softly. “Princess Gray?” I asked, trying my best to hide the rising panic in my voice.
Gray didn’t pull her lost stare from the building ahead of her, and the wide-open space suddenly felt stifling, making it a struggle to breathe. “Gray…”
Nothing.
I gave her a small shake, and at last, she jolted backward before looking at me with twisted confusion. In a panic, Gray scanned the rooftop, the buildings surrounding us, and then down at the street below before finally settling on me. “How…you kissed me…”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yeah,” I whispered, the air consuming my lungs again. “I did.”
“Why did you stop?” Her voice was small and unsure, as if she didn’t understand how she got there.
“Would you like for me to kiss you again?” I asked, my voice just above a whisper, bracing for the rejection I knew headed my way.
I was scared to breathe. Scared to blink. Scared to spook her with any slight movement. Although, I was hyper-aware of my palm touching her shoulder.
Gray looked down at her feet, blinking rapidly as her mind cleared before meeting my hopeful eyes. “Yes.”
I didn’t hesitate to cup her face in my hands and pull her lips to mine.
This time, a bit harder than the last. All the emotion from Valik locking me in a strange magical stasis, the fear and rage of him working his power on her to take her memory of him, and now the anxious worry for her well-being all came to a head as my tongue dipped inside her mouth and swiped against hers, our teeth knocking together.
I didn’t care, and judging by her slackening body in my arms, I didn’t think Gray did either.
A whimper came from her throat, and my head rushed from the sound as I took her bottom lip gently between my teeth before finding her tongue with mine again.
My brain was gone, consumed by her scent of vanilla and lavender, the softness of her hair, and my arm wrapped around her waist, flush against my front. She was going to be mine. One day. But at least for now, I could leave my mark so she couldn’t forget me.
Finally, I forced myself to pull back, placing a soft kiss on her lips before taking a step to put some distance between us.
Our breaths were uneven and ragged, but I’d never felt more energized and alive.
As if her kiss brought me back to life, turning my gray world to saturated color filled with rainbows.
“Let’s get you back to the palace,” I rasped out, my voice gravelly.
The wild look in her eyes only tempted me to take this further.
I knew she was a virgin, and I couldn’t and wouldn’t rush anything, especially when I couldn’t give her any commitments until her father was dead.
At my words, though, the bright blue in her eyes dampened to a shade of gray, and she dropped her gaze to the rooftop again.
Rejection and disappointment sliced into my heart, followed by the tug on the cord. She cleared her throat. “Okay.”
“I…” I started, lost for words on how to ask her to hold on for me, to give me some time to kill her fucking father, and then everything would make so much more sense.
Aren’t I just the poster boy for sanity?
“I…” I tried again and sighed. “Let’s go, Princess.”