Chapter 47 #2
“No.” My voice broke. “Not more than you already have.” I turned my tears to rage, spinning out of his grip and shoving him off of me with both hands while grunting through my pain. I knew it only worked because he let me. “Do not touch me ever again.”
He stepped back and didn’t fight me, his face filled with regret and sadness.
But his empathy was too little, too fucking late.
I had done everything he asked and then some.
I had excelled in training, sucked lethal snake venom out of his wound, and leapt off a horse mid-sprint.
I had almost killed for him. That should have been enough.
My rage got the better of me. Without giving it much thought, I snatched my knife from my side and threw it toward him as he walked away.
The impulse was completely reckless. I could have killed him, but I knew I wouldn’t.
The blade grazed his ear and flew past his head to stick in the wooden door he was walking toward with a resounding thump.
I had spent hours practicing the one thing he taught me to perfection. This was proof of that.
Gasps and screams erupted, but then silence and stillness descended as if Nyxar’s void power—still nowhere to be found inside me—had ripped the life and breath from the room. Elias slowly turned back. I expected him to be furious. Appalled. Ready to retaliate.
He wasn’t. He was shocked, yes, but… devastated.
Blood dripped off the tip of his right ear.
Down his neck onto his shoulder, glistening on his perfect leathers.
Whispers rose into a panicked swell around me.
They had every right to kill me for what I’d just done, for throwing a blade at their commander—their prince —while his back had been turned.
Valda and three other lieutenants swarmed me immediately.
“No.” Elias held up his hand, and movement and sound ceased. “Leave her.”
“Commander,” Valda pleaded, fastening a painfully tight grip on my arm. “She could have killed you!”
“She didn’t.”
But Valda didn’t listen. She gripped my arm and shoved me forward, toward the ground?—
“Do not fucking touch her!” Elias roared.
The fingers around my arm disappeared. Shocked eyes from every corner of the room stared at him, but he was staring at me for a few long, painful moments, until he blinked twice and nearly stumbled backward out of the hall.
Three days passed, and nothing got easier. Other than the physical pain. Once I felt my power completely return two days after the attack, I fully healed my broken bones but left the bruises visible. If they disappeared too quickly, it could appear suspicious.
I didn’t consider myself a spiteful person, but I was starting to feel a little insane. Chalk it up to lack of sleep combined with nagging headaches caused by quiet weeping in the bathroom where the twins couldn’t see or hear me. It hurt. It hurt so terribly I couldn’t stand it.
Every time I thought of him, which was constantly, I wanted to go where he was.
It felt wrong being anywhere but with him.
I had to stop myself multiple times a day from running away from the fortress, finding Damond, and demanding he search with me.
Shera kept reminding me that wasn’t what Gavin wanted, that he’d sacrificed himself so that I could live .
The guilt resulting from that truth held me back.
How had he survived alone like this for four hundred years?
The only things that kept me going besides the twins were the final test in four days and finding ways to torment Elias.
Particularly on nights like tonight, when he was watching me worriedly from his seat at the head table.
The twins claimed he was becoming increasingly irritated every time another man got close to me.
Mavic found it hilarious.
I’d been spacing out like I used to in Warrich.
When I did, Mavic or Mina squeezed my hand to bring me back.
Tonight, I sat between them in the mess hall for supper.
I hadn’t said a word for at least fifteen minutes.
Mavic’s hand on me caused Elias to stiffen in his chair and glare like he’d caught us in the act.
Then again, maybe I was feeling unhinged enough to give him a show.
What did it even matter anymore? The one my heart wanted was gone.
“Hey, Mav?” I nudged him with my elbow.
He put down his drink. “What’s up?”
“You like being right, don’t you?”
He chuckled and faced me on the bench. “You bet I do.”
I broke my stare with Elias and looked at my friend. “You think Elias Winterton gets jealous of other men around me?”
“Not think,” he scoffed. “ Know. ”
“Do you want to help me prove it?”
“How—”
“Kiss me.”
Mina groaned and covered her eyes.
His brow furrowed with concern. I knew my eyes were red and swollen. I knew I looked crazy, and my proposition was ridiculous.
“You sure?” He searched my face. “Yes.”
Mavic contemplated for a few more seconds, then flashed his handsome, oafish smile. “ Nice .”