Chapter Nineteen #3
Sound rips through the hall, sharp and violent, and fissures spider up the pale surface toward the ceiling. Gifted scream and run, the beast allowing them to break free of the calm he put them under, as pieces crumble and fall, shattering on marble. Still the smoke keeps reaching for me.
Legend’s wide shoulders shake.
His magic tears apart at the seams because it can’t decide which direction to go.
Toward Arabella, out of desperate habit and whatever fake bond Creed shoved into his chest. Or toward me, because every cell in his body recognizes what I am even if his conscious mind has been ripped from fate’s hands herself.
“Having trouble, my king?” My lip twitches.
And there it is—something in his eyes cracks open, something he’s been fighting since the moment I crashed through that portal. Maybe even before then.
He goes to speak when Arabella whimpers behind him. Her hand reaches for his ankle, fingers brushing against his boot, and he flinches like her touch burns.
“Because it does,” the Nightkin laughs. “Everything he touches that isn’t you is about to fucking hurt.”
“Wrong, beast,” I correct. “He’s going to hurt when he touches me, too.”
I don’t need to elaborate. Under the desperate need to reclaim what is meant to be mine, the betrayal burns bright.
“What is that?” the gifted whine, slamming their palms over their noses as a pungent smell drifts across the room.
The question is followed by a chorus of vomiting and violent heaves. Even London gags, spinning away and hopelessly fighting for a breath that isn’t tainted.
I don’t try to avoid it. I let it sting my eyes and throat, needing to feel every part of this, if only to keep my head.
Arabella makes another sound behind him, raising her hand from his ankle to his calf, and the movement rips a raw groan from his mouth.
He’s confused. Why the fuck is he still confused?
I cock my head. “Oh, that’s how she controls you, isn’t it?”
I stomp on her wrist, pinning it to the floor, delighting in the cry of pain that escapes her.
His face shutters, but those baby blues don’t leave me.
“It’s working,” the Nightkin murmurs. “It’s working, little mate.”
A sickening feeling wraps its claws around the stupid organ that beats wildly in my chest. “I…I don’t think I want it to,” I rasp.
It aches for this man, but—
“Haide. I am here. Trust in us,” the Nightkin begs, and it sounds so wrong for a fucking demon. “Mate, please.”
My demon.
My eyes narrow on Legend again and it’s like he can see my turmoil.
Knight shifts a few paces away, shoulders tight, coiling as if ready to interfere the second the situation turns dangerous.
Their king looks like he is about to come apart at the seams in front of a room full of Argents. Guests who came to witness a sacred bonding and ended up choking on their own secrets.
They should not see him like this.
I should not see him like this.
Pity twists my stomach, and I hate it as much as I know he would. My ribs tighten when he sways, like my own body is bracing for the moment he falls. It’s almost invasive, too much, to feel him this deeply. I don’t know how I’ll get used to this after being alone for so long.
A tiny part of me, the embarrassing part that’s hurt, doesn’t want to.
“He is your mate,” the Nightkin says, softer now, and it’s not his attempt to comfort. It’s fact. “You can be angry with him, you can hate him, but you will accept him.”
“Maybe I don’t want him,” I snap back, and the lie tastes like acid on my tongue. I do want him.
I think I always did.
Legend winces.
The Nightkin hums a low laugh. “You do not have to want him to claim him. He’s yours either way.”
My gaze drops to the smoke curling around my ankles up toward my shin.
Legend’s chest rises in a hard jerk, and the smoke flares brighter as if fed by my attention. The white of his eyes are ringed with something feral. His lips part, but nothing comes out but a broken exhale.
I take a slow breath, forcing control into my muscles the way I had on Exile when panic got you killed.
This is not Exile.
I look past him for a heartbeat, needing to understand the cost of what comes next.
Arabella lifts herself to her knees, shakily trying to push to her feet in her ruined dress. Her hands claw at the marble like she can dig her way back into whatever illusion she lived inside.
Sweat slicks over her face, pupils blown wide as she fixes him with a pleading look that goes ignored. Then, her gaze cuts to me.
A possessive rage blazes across her features, furious that her toy has stopped working.
It’s the look of a girl who has never lost anything she claimed as hers.
A raw sort of rumble pushes past Knight’s lips, fighting for control with every passing second. He’s not going to get it.
None of them will until I allow it.
The Nightkin might be a nice little boost in my veins, the calm that’s been forced into those around us, and the chaos that will follow. But the main source of the power locked in this space is mine.
Legends starts to buckle.
A handful of Argents have started backing away, their expressions torn between horror and fascination, like watching a king break is a sin you cannot stop yourself from committing.
I swallow.
This is what the bond does: it forces you to care when it’s not always deserved. This is why I didn’t want or need the bond. It’s why I don’t like emotions in general, but then this motherfucker came along and forced them on me.
He should suffer.
He should choke on every consequence.
But he is their king.
And he is breaking in front of them. They’ll see him as a weakness, and I can’t have that. I might be angry, but that’s my own shit to work out.
He doesn’t deserve this. If anyone gets to make him or see him weak, it’s me.
Not them. Never them.
Knight observes me with that careful, worried stillness that says he knows there is no clean way through what is coming, and it’s for me to decide.
I drag my gaze back to Legend.
His mouth opens again, a raw and strangled sound pushing free.
“Haide,” he whispers, and it’s like every single barrier in his head just broke.
The Nightkin presses against my spine. “Do it, mate,” he murmurs. “Stop thinking. Take.”
Before I can change my mind, my hand shoots out to grip Legend’s jaw. The second my skin meets his, his head whips back like I struck him.
A violent scream rips from him.
His eyes blow white again, fully, and then the magic surges up from his skin in a brutal spiral that claws at the air. It whips around us in a current of smoke and shadow as the bones of the place crack louder, unable to contain the magic.
Arabella shrieks through the surge of power, her panic and outrage tearing through her fake bond.
Legend chokes back a gasp, struggling with the fight. His eyes glisten with tears that spill down his cheeks, even as he grits his teeth like he would rather bite his tongue off than let anyone see him come undone.
I open a portal.
It tears open beneath our feet, black fire splitting the marble with a hiss, and the second the edge forms, I yank him forward with me.
We crash through to the polished floors of Rathe Castle and slam onto stone.
I land on my feet, though I stumble backward a step, boots skidding against the floor.