Chapter 55
Asoft, warm breeze against Dominic’s neck sent a shudder down his spine.
Her breath was as gentle a caress as the soft fur blanket draped over them.
Kissing her was reckless. He should be worried about the consequences of his confession, but all he focused on was where Adara’s skin met his, their chests rising and falling in synchronized breaths as she lay on him, their legs a tangle of limbs in the sheets.
Adara shuddered as his fingers drifted over the sensitive scars that marred her back, feeling how horribly her skin had been shredded. He moved his line of gentle patterns he’d been tracing from the scars to the fiery wings tattooed on her back, wondering if the wounds still hurt.
He felt different now, strange. A weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
She’d snapped at him, believing that she’d truly thrown herself to her doom at his hands by proposing this war of hearts.
That he’d hated her and was using her for her key all this time.
There was nothing he wanted more than to prove how wrong she was.
Regret should have settled in by now. He should have realized that this could all be a ploy to give Adara his key, to bring him to his demise.
But there was something new between them.
A spark, and they both began to fan the flames to burn brighter.
They were strangers with memories that grew into something more.
Finding each other again in the midst of chaos.
He hadn’t yet decided how he felt about those memories that he had recovered after Adara told her story.
A story that he fit in, a missing puzzle piece that she did not yet know existed.
Dominic wasn’t lying when he told her that if he was going to let anything be the death of him, it would be her. He’d already come to the somber conclusion that no matter how this war ended, it would be the death of him in some way.
If Adara won, she’d use him to get her revenge.
Then she’d probably murder him in cold blood—especially if she ever found out who he truly was to her.
Dominic detested himself for omitting the truth, but if Adara found out, she’d never forgive him, never fall for him.
All that care and admiration she gazed at him with would wither away in a single heartbeat.
She would abhor him all over again, and he wouldn’t be able to stand it.
If Dominic won, he’d have no choice but to kill her, unless he wanted to die by Andreilia’s curse. The thought of the afterlife sent a cold shiver down his spine.
He knew that being the cause of Adara’s death would be the final straw.
If he killed her, he would not be able to deal with the pain he’d feel after.
He already ripped out his heart and wiped his memories, yet the imprint her soul had left on his was still felt throughout all those years he couldn’t remember.
Her hand slid across his bare chest, lingering on the jagged scar where he carved out his heart. Dominic’s hand fell atop hers, gently tugging the pads of her fingers away from the scar. Something inside him shattered every time she reached for what he could not give.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he muttered. “You won’t find what you’re looking for.”
Adara’s eyes met his, weighed with sadness. For him? For his lack of heart, his lack of humanity? Or was it merely a reminder to her that she could never fall for him, for that hope dwindled in her eyes, like she suddenly remembered all that he was.
“You made others fall in love with you, trying to forget, to feel nothing at all for the girl you loved, whose affections were not reciprocated.” Adara’s soft, angelic voice cut through his jumbled thoughts.
Cool metal sent chills across the back of his neck, her vambrace brushing his skin as her fingers idly stroked his hair.
Even lying next to him, both completely bare, she’d refused to remove the vambrace.
Not that he minded. He understood perfectly clearly that she was unwilling to be utterly defenseless.
The part that confused him was that she could incinerate him with a single thought if she wanted to, rather than making a bloody mess with a dagger.
His chest tightened. “Yes,” he uttered softly. To feel nothing for you.
“Did it work then?” she murmured against his neck, trailing kisses along his jawline.
“No.” Nothing ever worked to get Adara off his mind, not even erasing his memories of her, for she eventually found her way back to him, clawed her way to where his heart should be, and made a home there. Her soul was so deeply entwined within him, and she had no clue.
Adara propped herself up on an elbow. “What about now?” she asked, eyes sparking with amusement.
Hel no, he thought as he stared at the girl he loved years ago. The girl who’d grown into something else entirely and still managed to make him want her. “Yes,” he lied. He wondered if it was possible to fall out of love with someone. He hoped so, or he’d lost this war before it even began.
“Good,” she said with a smug smirk.
Dominic slid his fingertips up and down her spine, tracing an outline along the jagged ridges of the mirrored scars between her shoulder blades. His brows pulled together, lips pressing into a thin line.
“What happened?” he asked softly. Although his memories were returned to him, Dominic had never known what torment had been inflicted upon her back. She trembled slightly, her eyes squeezing shut. Dominic moved his hand to rest on the small of her back.
“The empire,” Adara said quietly, breath coming a little ragged, as if reliving the pain. “They—They cut off my wings.”
Dominic’s mouth parted, but no words came out. Something inside his chest strained. Fury coursed through him, but it was quickly washed away with sorrow at the misery evident in her features. “I’m so sorry,” he said, though no amount of apologies could make up for what had been done to her.
Tears pricked at his eyes as he imagined Adara in her half-shifted form—all human except for the scaled wings—kneeling beneath knights of black armor as they hacked away at the base of her wings, tearing them out from the roots.
He imagined the gaping gashes on her back, skin ripped apart, bone gleaming white through the spurts of blood gushing from the lacerations.
He imagined her curled over her knees, rivers of scarlet running down her back, pooling around her lifeless wings that lay broken on the floor.
He cringed at the sound of her tormented screams that echoed through the dungeons.
It was like he could really hear her shrill cries, her uncharacteristic begging, promising anything to keep her precious wings.
“It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt,” she said sorrowfully.
It was a relief to be drawn back to the present with her voice.
“After years of torture from their experiments, I thought they had already broken me down to nothing. Clearly, I was wrong.” She shook her head mournfully, eyes distant.
“Just when you think you’re done, that there’s nothing more they can do to hurt you, they always find a way.
You’re not broken until you’re dead. And when you’re dead, they win. ”
Despite the sadness in her voice, Dominic noted the anger that fueled her.
Her skin heated against his, warm and comforting. “Eventually, I grew strong enough to grow them back. But before then, the gods marked me with a permanent pair of my own. Ones that no one could ever take from me.”
Sorrow turned into undiluted rage. The Shadow Empire had taken everything from her.
They’d taken her from her family along with all the other heirs to the kingdoms, giving her friends only for her to watch as they tortured and experimented on each one of them.
Sliced off her wings to undermine her power, to remind her she was weak in their presence.
Then they took the ones she loved by enslaving their thoughts and turning them against each other, and threw her into a portal to never return home.
He wanted to kill the ruler of Zenura for all the suffering that had been inflicted upon her.
No, he wanted to give the emperor a fate worse than death. But that was Adara’s revenge to take. So he would march into battle by her side and watch the empire crumble beneath her fiery fingertips.
“Adara.”
“Hmm?”
“When this war of hearts is over, no matter who wins, I’m helping you get your revenge,” he vowed.
Her eyes searched his for any indication that he was lying. She wouldn’t find anything. Then she broke into a timid smile, eyes gleaming. “You’d do that for me?” she asked in disbelief.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then let his hand rest along her jaw, thumb drifting over her cheek.
I’d walk through Helfarrow and back. I’d follow you to the end of time.
I’d do anything for you. With his other hand, he held out his pinky for her to hook hers around.
He wouldn’t let her walk into the arms of those demons again, not without him.
“Of course, love. I promised you’d never fight alone. ”
Her smile widened into a radiant grin, her teeth as white as the moon. “Till death and beyond,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck, pulling him into a crushing hug.
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, breathing in her sweet lavender scent, and smiled, forgetting all about their game of love that cursed their hearts. A game that ensured eternity with one another was out of reach.