Chapter 21 #2
Ace looked at him—truly looked at him—as if seeing Dominic for the first time. As if seeing the raging storm in his mind, the hollow ache in his chest. His eyes filled with sympathy or pity, Dominic wasn’t sure, but he sure as Hel wanted to punch the expression right off Ace.
“But Dominic, you should know this,” Ace started softly, as if treading lightly around a rabid animal. “You shouldn’t try to get your memories back.”
Dominic opened his mouth to object.
“It won’t do you any good. You’re better off without them.
” Ace spoke with strength and authority that no one else had ever dared use toward Dominic.
“I don’t know what happened when you left, but you came back completely destroyed.
You locked yourself in this room, not allowing anyone in, never uttering a word.
Hel, you wouldn’t even move to eat or drink. ”
Dominic glanced around the room, as if he’d see the image Ace’s words painted. As if he’d remember being so broken he didn’t move for days.
Nothing came to mind. In fact, it sounded insane. With all Dominic had faced before coming to Andreilia, he didn’t know how there was any part of him left to be broken.
But something had caused him to rip out his heart, to take his memories away.
What if Adara had been the reason? What if she had been the one to cause him so much pain and misery?
“I thought you died of dehydration or starvation!” Ace’s voice rose to a high-pitched panic.
His brown eyes shone with tears, face twisted in agony.
What the Hel had Dominic done? “And when I finally broke down your door . . . ” Ace’s voice faded into a quiet sob, tears running freely down his flushed cheeks.
At the sight of Ace—hands trembling, lips quivering as his mouth opened and closed but could not get any words out—something twisted inside of Dominic.
He’d never seen Ace like this. He was always calm and collected.
One of the reasons Dominic had chosen him to be his second.
In Dominic’s absence, Andreilia would need a leader who wasn’t so easily riddled by emotion.
“I thought you were dead!” Ace yelled, hysterical.
Dominic flinched.
Ace shook his head in misery. “I wasn’t expecting to find you in a state worse than death.” His chest heaved rapidly, trying to gulp down air through his cries as he went on.
Dominic hated seeing him like this, but he needed to know what happened.
“You were lying there on the floor, weak and in a haze.” Ace gestured to a spot on the floor near the edge of Dominic’s bed, as if seeing him there.
“Blood everywhere,” he breathed and ran a distressed hand through his brown hair.
“There was so much blood.” Ace’s eyes were glazed and distant, reliving the memory.
His hand drifted to his chest, where he knew that jagged scar was. Dominic sucked in a deep breath. He knew exactly where this was going.
Ace braced himself with a hand against the wall, taking deep breaths and closing his eyes, as if the dark would cleanse the memory from his mind.
After a few moments, he continued, still shaking, but with a little more certainty.
“You lay there in a pool of blood, a gaping hole in your chest that was shredded.” Ace clenched his teeth, his frustration palpable, like he couldn’t decide whether to pity Dominic for what he’d done to himself, cry because he’d almost lost a friend, or rage because Dominic had left them all with the monster he’d turned into after removing his heart.
“On the floor was an empty vial”—he took a deep, steadying breath— “and a bloodied heart, practically ripped to pieces.” Ace’s hand found his own chest, like it would shield his heart from what Dominic was capable of.
“When you finally woke up, I asked what happened. You told me you didn’t know. You said you only knew that there was so much pain . . . and then it was gone.”
The next few days after drinking the concoction were such a blur. Dominic only remembered that he had deposited his broken heart into the Plagued Sea, where it could torture the creatures of the ocean rather than him.
Ace sighed and shook his head. “You can’t get them back, Dominic.”
How weak and pathetic did Ace believe him to be? Dominic didn’t need his protection, his pity.
Ace’s voice cracked. A broken, desperate plea. “I can’t see you like that again.”
Dominic stared back at him, loathing whatever writhed inside his chest, his head, at seeing Ace like this. But it didn’t matter. Ace was a dead end. He didn’t know, and Dominic still didn’t remember.
Something inside him burned, skittering along his bones, eager to be released.
Dominic’s features twisted into a sickening snarl, and suddenly he was upon Ace in a blur.
The room, the trees, the whole damn island, shuddered at the impact of Ace’s back slamming into the wall.
Wood groaned beneath him. Ace’s eyes shot wide open as Dominic’s hand wrapped around his throat, fingers squeezing so tightly that his nails pierced Ace’s skin.
Dominic’s lips twitched upward at the warm blood sliding over his fingertips.
Hands clawed at Dominic’s arms, but he ignored Ace’s struggle, lifting him off the floor. “Listen here, and listen closely,” Dominic sneered through gritted teeth. “Don’t ever tell me what to do. This is my life.” My pain, he thought. “It is my choice if I want to remember.”
Feet dangling inches above the floorboards, Ace’s legs kicked back and forth, scrambling for purchase. His hands raked across Dominic’s, attempting to loosen his iron grip.
A stone against which the force of the sea crashed and could not move, Dominic held on tighter. Who was Ace to say what completely destroyed Dominic? To make demands thinking he knew what was best. Dominic could never be destroyed. He’d made sure of that by becoming the King of Keys.
Maybe Ace was lying to him. Lying straight through that mouth that gasped for air that would not come beneath his crushing grip. Perhaps Ace knew everything and was keeping it from him.
But Dominic didn’t care. His voice dropped low. “You disobey me again, and I’ll make what a lykren can do to you seem like child’s play.”
Ace trembled beneath his grasp, and Dominic couldn’t think of anything more satisfying.
“Understood?” he demanded, teeth clenched so tightly they might shatter.
Ace frantically nodded—as much as he could beneath Dominic’s suffocating hold.
“Good.”
Fingers splaying, Dominic released his grip. His second collapsed to the floor, hands flying to his neck, rubbing at his bruising skin.
At his feet, Ace gasped for breath, fear filling the room.
Disgust spread through Dominic like a wildfire. “Get out of my sight.”
Despite Dominic’s threats, Ace didn’t listen. “Dominic,” he started cautiously, “what happened?” He lifted a hand, motioning to his abdomen.
Ace’s gesture seemed to draw all the fight out of him, anger ebbing away and pain seeping into his muscles.
“What?” Dominic asked with furrowed brows as his fingers drifted to his stomach, coming away slick with blood.
“Shit,” he muttered at the sight of scarlet on his hand.
The fight with Adara had opened his wound again.
He lifted his shirt, assessing the damage.
It wasn’t bad, but it should have been gone by now.
Ace, noting Dominic’s distress, thought aloud, “Shouldn’t your magic have healed you by now?” His voice rose anxiously.
Dominic swallowed the knot in his throat. “Yes,” he confirmed.
“So, why hasn’t it?” Ace pushed, eyes locked on him, searching for answers.
Dominic sighed and settled into a chair. He placed his head in his hands, running them up his face and through his hair in distress. Dominic couldn’t bring himself to admit defeat, especially to someone like Ace who looked at him like he was invincible.
“Dominic.” Ace’s voice was incredibly stern, commanding. “Why hasn’t it?”
“It’s my price to pay!” Dominic snapped, unable to control the fear and rage.
Ace startled back. Dominic wouldn’t say more. It hurt too much. Too agonizing to think about the bleak future and how he’d manage to fix it all.
The Andreilians knew the solution. They just didn’t know they knew. Dominic had played this war of hearts many times before. The Andreilians had always thought it was only for power, to feed his ruthless ego, to satisfy the monster lurking beneath his skin.
Part of it was, but they didn’t know the entire truth.
There was a cost to the magic of Andreilia.
A curse that the island would eventually take the magic back.
A price to pay for selfishly taking the power, ultimately leaving his friend for dead.
He had to maintain the power connected to his life.
After a while, Dominic found that his magic would weaken.
His wounds closed slower. The elements wouldn’t bend to his will. He’d begin feeling frail and ill.
That was when he started stealing keys, making people fall hopelessly in love with him through his cruel machinations.
When they fell hard enough to give up their key, Dominic used it for himself.
With its power, he could suck the life out of its owner, transferring it to himself, leaving them dying with betrayal in their eyes.
He’d never forget that look. No matter how many times he took a key and killed someone to save himself, seeing that look in their eyes as they died was the worst part.
It was much easier to harm someone who hated him, to know he’d defeated an enemy.
But watching someone fall in love with him, seeing their eyes light up with admiration, then ripping it all away was such a horrid thing to do.
It was wrong, but it made him feel such a thrill.
It made him a monster.
It was nice to be loved, but none of it was real. He’d killed everyone who ever grew to love the demon he was, but they only loved him because he wore the mask of an angel.
Adara saw him for who he truly was, which was why she’d never grow to love him.
But he needed her to. He needed to win her key because Dominic was paying the ultimate price for being the first to drink Andreilia’s enchanted water.
He gained the elemental magic laced with the island, and now the land was taking it back, draining it from him, sucking all the magic and life from his marrow and returning it to the island where it belonged. It was slowly killing him.
And with his life being tied to the island, especially now with its magic being the only thing keeping him alive without a heart, he wondered if Andreilia would go down with him.
The only way to save himself was with a key. And the best way to acquire one was to kill the one who loved him and trusted him with it. In this case, it had to be Adara.
“I have to win,” he finally muttered to Ace as he lifted his head to meet his friend’s gaze. “I have to get the key, and I have to kill her.”
Ace crossed the room and cautiously took a seat beside Dominic. “Whatever it is you’re going through, you can tell us. We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on,” he consoled.
“You can’t help me,” Dominic replied with a shake of his head.
“This is my battle to fight alone. I gave you all a home. I’m not letting anything take that away.
I will win this war,” Dominic said with determination.
Even if he had known Adara in his past, even if she was the reason he carved out his heart and wiped his memories, he would win.
I will not let her break me again, he thought.
But another voice whispered from the confines of his mind, Oh, but what a privilege it would be to be broken by her. To shatter the monster he’d become so she could pick up the pieces and glue him back together, molding him into something she would hold so dearly in her heart.
His thoughts turned sinister once again. Perhaps that was how he’d win. Let Adara believe she’d saved his soul from the darkness . . . then let it consume her.