Chapter 58
Fear overwhelmed him. Brows knitted together, lips turned down, Dominic shook his head gravely.
His hands cupped her cheeks, holding her face as if it would protect her.
“No, you don’t,” he whispered. There was not a single piece of his soul that wasn’t touched by hers, but he did not want the shadowy crevice of where his heart should reside to snuff out her light. “It’s too dark for you.”
It killed him to hear such yearning in her voice. Adara stared at him with such sympathy. He felt utterly naked beneath her gaze. So vulnerable. It terrified him.
Her fingers grazed the back of his hand, calm, unfaltering. “Then it’s too dark for you, as well,” she said.
He shook his head gently. “I’ve grown used to it.”
“You don’t have to.” Sapphire eyes that matched the stars shone with such longing in them as Adara gazed at him.
“I’d burn if it meant I could provide a light for you.
” The words slipped through her mouth with so much desire that she couldn’t be lying.
It might kill her in the end, but she was falling through infinite endings, praying he’d catch her in one where they could be together.
Dominic had always been good at winning hearts. But he’d also only ever known to carve them from their chests, not cradle them with gentle, loving hands.
He prayed he wouldn’t let her down.
The stars tried their hardest with their brilliant blue glow as they danced across the sky, telling stories of the gods, but not even their magic could tear his eyes away from the allure that was her. Hope sparked, hot and bright inside him.
Dominic pressed his lips against her forehead. She leaned into him and it felt like a thousand promises of the future.
“I appreciate that, love,” he said softly. “But I could never let you do such a thing.” His arms wrapped her in a tight embrace, drawing her in as close as possible. Holding her as if he could hold her broken pieces together, long enough for them to mend.
Adara rested her head against his chest. Her hair was silky and damp upon his cheek as he leaned his head against hers. Her arms wrapped around him, clinging tightly, as if never wanting to let go.
“Out of all the things that have gone terribly wrong in my life,” he whispered against her hair, “you, Adara, are the only thing that has ever felt right.” That had ever made him feel. Something he’d been trying to evade for centuries. But with her, it all came rushing back.
Adara’s eyes met his, and it took everything in him not to end this war right here. Not to say those three words that would lead to his demise.
“You’re not afraid I’ll hurt you?” she asked, eyes searching his, desperate and pleading. A deep fear that had settled within her for all of her life, as someone whose power was meant to destroy.
He let out a bittersweet laugh. “Quite the opposite, actually,” he admitted. His blood rushed, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He hated her so much. She made him feel so much. It terrified him more than anything he’d faced in his lifetimes.
Dominic’s lips brushed hers, an easy escape, but he forced himself to draw back to tell her the truth so it would stop weighing on him. To tell her the truth because that was what her eyes were begging for.
“I’m terrified you’ll hurt me in a thousand ways,” he whispered.
“And the worst part is . . . I’d let you.
Just to know that you feel anything at all for me.
Just to know that it’s you making me feel something, even if it’s pain.
” He kissed her again, tasting her as if he’d been starving for centuries.
Against her lips, he murmured, “Darling, you could set the world on fire, and I’d gladly burn in the flames of desire. ”
A teardrop rolled down Adara’s face. He lifted a hand to brush it away.
Pain shot through his chest, sharp and deep as he gazed at her. She was looking at him with such agony, such despair, that it physically pained him to see her like that.
What was wrong? Hadn’t this been what she wanted? To finally know the real him. To see his armor peeled away and his soul laid bare for her to piece back together. He couldn’t fathom why her sapphire eyes glowed with such immense sorrow.
“Good,” she said. Her voice came out as a hoarse, cracked whisper, barely getting the words out. The muscles in her neck worked like she was choking on unspoken words.
He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but she cut him off with her lips pressed to his. Her tongue swept into his mouth, so passionate, so desperate. She kissed him with reckless abandon, like she’d never have the pleasure of tasting him again.
Dominic pulled her closer, kissed her harder with a burning desire that could devour him whole.
His hand found her hip and pressed her body to his, needing to feel every inch of her.
With his other hand in her hair, he angled her head slightly upward, giving himself more access as his tongue explored her mouth.
He stepped forward, slowly guiding her backward until her spine was against a tree. She moaned softly as he pressed himself against her. That sound was his undoing, letting his lips wander over her skin, across her jaw, down her neck to her collarbone.
“Dom,” she gasped, hand threading through his hair as she tilted his head up, pulling him closer to kiss him again.
He responded with a ravenous desire he’d been suppressing all this time. Her body against his and her soft lips as she kissed him was all he wanted.
Adara was all he wanted.
He didn’t think about anything but the passion flowing between them as his hands roamed over her, and he pressed his lips to her with feverish longing.
She stopped him with a hand on his chest.
Slowly, breathlessly, she dragged her lips away from his. As if she, too, didn’t want this to end. Another tear streamed down her face, steam rising in its path.
“Then burn,” she breathed, breath hot against his lips still inches from hers.
Her eyes glowed with an emotion he couldn’t place.
Pain, scorching and electrifying like lightning, arced through his chest. Something cold and sharp twisted inside him.
Warm liquid coated his tunic. A low groan escaped Dominic’s lips, growing into an agonized scream as fire ignited along the blade embedded in his chest. His eyes bulged, throat aching from the scream that ripped through him as Adara twisted the flaming dagger deeper inside him before yanking it free.
Scarlet sprayed on her as Dominic fell to his knees.
Blood bubbled from his lips. Gasping for breath through the torture ringing through his body, he covered the gushing wound with a hand, the other braced on the dirt to hold him up.
“That’s for Cal,” Adara spat, wiping her blood-covered dagger on her pant leg and sheathing it in her vambrace.
“Adara,” he breathed, words barely leaving him. His vision was edged with black, but he could see the wrath clearly etched on her face. Her eyes blazed with fury. “Please,” he said. He kneeled on the ground in a pool of his own blood, magic fighting to mend the wound.
She turned to leave.
“Adara, wait!” he shouted, attempting to crawl after her. Every word, every movement, agony racked his body. He collapsed, landing in the bloodied grass with a wince. It felt like he was on fire, but the icy magic in his veins had repelled her powers.
She paused at his command, though her back remained to him.
“It was you,” he breathed. “You were the reason I ripped out my own heart and erased my memories.” Salt coated his tongue along with copper, tears mixing with blood.
He didn’t know what he should feel more ashamed of—lying to Adara or his cries and pleading for her to stay.
“I lost you.” His voice broke. “I couldn’t take the pain of losing you.
” His heart broke. “I can’t take the pain of losing you.
” For it was her betrayal that pained him more than the knife she’d stuck in his chest. That he’d laid himself bare and admitted he was afraid she’d hurt him.
He was so stupid, so foolish. His words were practically an invitation, and she’d gladly accepted.
But he was more terrified of the pain her absence would bring.
Of once again feeling the anguish that had him ridding himself of his heart and mind.
“Please, don’t leave me,” he said. Tears flowed freely down his face.
Pain lanced through his chest. A deep, throbbing ache that came with the sorrow of a broken heart.
One that he already lost. He couldn’t lose her, too.
“I can’t lose you again,” he pleaded weakly.
Her back stiffened. Finally, she turned to face him.
Nothing but pure hatred shone in her eyes.
She strode toward him, determined, unyielding.
Dominic strained to push himself up, angling his head to peer up at her as she loomed over him.
Every muscle in his body protested, threatening to bring him crashing back to the ground.
Adara glowered down at him, flames rippling at her fingertips. Crouching before him, she lifted his head with a burning finger. His skin blistered beneath her touch, but he didn’t dare pull away.
“You lost me long before today,” she snarled in his face. “I only just now realized it.”
She let his head drop, the motion so forceful that his body followed. He landed in a heap on the ground. “Adara, please . . . ” He coughed, blood spurting from his mouth. “I can explain.”
“Too late, Dominic,” she said. He’d never heard her voice so cruel, so cold.
“Or should I say Alecsander?” she spat. Adara pulled something from a hidden pocket in her black vest. He blinked through his blurred vision until he saw an old parchment, yellowed and wrinkled with time and dust, clutched between her fingertips.
“Your letter already explained it for you.”
His brows furrowed in confusion. What letter? Worried he might someday need his memories back, Dominic must have written everything down and hidden a letter before drinking the elixir, wiping away his memories of the past and where he’d stashed it.
Another wave of pain shot through him, nausea roiling inside him.
“After all the lies you’ve told, your words mean nothing to me. You are nothing to me,” she hissed.
He shook his head frantically, swallowing down the agonizing pain with every word. “Adara,” he breathed. “Don’t do this. I didn’t mean it,” he tried to explain.
She whirled on him. “I never should have trusted you,” she seethed.
Adara bent down to his level and gripped his tunic.
It sizzled under her touch. She pulled him forward, her face mere inches from his.
Her lips twisted into a sadistic smirk, but Dominic could see the hurt masked beneath it, the tears welling in her eyes.
“It’s all a game, Dom,” she snarled, voice dripping with abhorrence.
Then she kissed him, one last time.
He tasted the salt of her tears as her lips moved against his in one final farewell. Then she shoved him out of her grip, sending him reeling back before he could catch himself. He hit the ground hard and let out a grunt, anguish rippling through him.
She shook her head softly. “Your move.”
Before he could beg her to stay, plead for her forgiveness, Adara’s wings flared behind her, and she soared high into the sky.
Dominic could only watch her disappear over the horizon as he lay motionless from the pain in his chest and mind as he bled out on the forest floor.
He didn’t have the strength to get up, to follow her.
After a lifetime of being hated, cast aside, unwanted . . . After a lifetime of never wanting anything more than to survive, Dominic had finally felt something.
He wanted her. Perhaps loved her. But she didn’t want him. Would never love him. Not the first time, and definitely not now. He didn’t blame her for stabbing him where his crooked heart should be. Didn’t blame her for that loathing in her eyes.
He hated himself, too.
But he wanted nothing more than to believe that she’d loved him.
The pain of heartbreak was too much for him to face again. He let himself bleed. He deserved it. He deserved every agonizing moment of torture she inflicted on him.
It was all he could think as he let the pain overwhelm him. Let himself fall into sweet, dark, numb oblivion.