Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Demir blinked rapidly, as if he could clear away the girl in front of him and instead see the girl he knew should be standing there. His Ruhi.
‘You just had to be in this cell and ruin my plans, didn’t you?’ I snapped as I morphed back into myself.
Demir looked pale, as though he would pass out, as the smoke dispersed. ‘How?’ he asked.
Brushing the dirt off my clothes, gone was the brittle girl I had been playing as my true presence filled the room.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, looking me over where the guard had touched me.
‘I am more than fine. It would not be the first time a man thought he could take what wasn’t his from me—it certainly won’t be the last—and every single one that has ever tried has turned into another mark on my skin, when I stole their soul from this existence.’
He nodded, seemingly relaxing his shoulders slightly as he unconsciously moved towards me; it was the pull of his Ruhi bond with me.
I could feel the tension simmering in the room, pushing me towards him, humming with explosive energy; but if anything, it made my skin crawl.
The feeling of having my body react outside of my control was something that brought me to the brink of panic, because at the centre of all the scenes I had witnessed during the Awakening with Sienna was a lack of control that had severe consequences.
And just like that, while sitting in this cell with my enemy, I had the most profound revelation of all my years.
The one Sienna said the Awakening would trigger over time, and now here it was, forcing me to confront the core of my problems. I had a deep, incessant need to control everything, and the moment that slipped away, so did my sanity.
‘Why are you here?’ Demir asked, meeting my gaze with all the steel he had left in him. He was battered and bruised, but not broken.
‘For you,’ I said, testing the waters, watching his reaction.
As I had hoped, something panged within him when I said those words; he wanted me to want him.
I needed him to feel this way, even if it made my skin itch in a completely different way than it did for those repulsive guards.
Demir, however, was far smarter than I gave him credit for, or perhaps I hadn’t done a very good job of concealing my smile at his initial eagerness.
‘You want to use me. You don’t want me, not the way I want you.
I can feel it when I touch you; the link between us is there, but there’s a wall I can’t penetrate to reach your core,’ he explained.
He knew far too much about the Ruhi, which made me feel as though I was on the back foot. I never quite liked that feeling.
‘Tell me everything you know of this bond. What is it? Why now? How can we break it?’ I asked, knowing it was futile given what information I had already come across, but maybe—just maybe—he knew something we didn’t.
‘I’ve never seen you so desperate, Princess.
You’re showing too many of your cards too early; it’s unbecoming,’ he mocked with that arrogant smirk that used to infuriate me, along with that now irrelevant title, but all it did in this moment was send a rush of sorts through me.
‘You’ll see with time how fate and this bond will unfold.
Now, tell me how you want to use me. I’m yours. ’
My stomach clenched at those last words as they fell from his lips, and my mind snapped back to Visarous, overwhelming me with guilt.
I had not thought about him once, as this bond claimed me more each day.
Maybe I was wrong because even with old magic such as this, if I felt anything genuine for him, surely I could not be so quickly consumed by thoughts of someone else.
‘Why?’ I asked, simply brushing away the nerves that were building inside me, uncertain I wanted to hear the answer.
‘The moment you became my Ruhi, all of my loyalties shifted. Nothing and no one in this realm or the next means anything to a Morgadian when you find your Ruhi. If you want to use me, then do it. If you want to kill me, I’ll hand you the weapon.
I am yours to do with as you will. My life is yours in a way you will never truly understand.
It is different for our kind; the way this soul bond affects us is unique.
I was raised with the knowledge of the Ruhi and what it means; for you and your people, a Zauvek is an old, forgotten folktale.
I know what this is and I know you’re not there yet. ’
My mouth felt dry at the implication of that last heavy word, but I had to ignore the gnawing feeling radiating through me. ‘You have a book. I need it.’
‘I’m sure you have plenty of books in Maureia, Princess, so what is this really about?’
‘You have a book with information I need to stop your father.’
Realisation dawned on him then, along with a hint of slight discomfort. ‘Everett hid it when they brought me down here.’
I stared at him in shock. ‘That overgrown idiot is the one you trusted with the book? Are you insane?!’ I demanded.
Demir smirked and leaned back, watching me. To anyone who knew me, this was a normal reaction, but to someone like Demir, an outsider, I seemed borderline hysterical given the persona I maintained outside my walls.
‘We all play our parts, darling. Now why is it that in all the years I’ve known you, I have never heard you say my name the way you just called Everett’s?’ he asked.
‘I am not a princess anymore, and I am certainly not your anything. I don’t speak the names of my enemies in their presence; you are unworthy.
Names are sacred—they are bestowed with hope and purpose.
I do not say them lightly in someone’s presence, and yours is one I swore a long time ago I would never utter in front of you,’ I said, forcing what I hoped was disdain into my voice, but we both knew I was failing.
‘So you have said my name then, to others. Now, I guess I’ll just have to imagine all the ways my name sounded on those lips. Now tell me, why did you swear to never speak it to me?’ he said as he bit into his own lip.
‘Like you don’t know, Princeling. You were awful to me at the Academy; you made my life hell like it was your own personal mission.’
He looked at me almost in confusion at my anger towards this. ‘We all had our parts to play, including me. I couldn’t stroll up to you on the first day of the Academy and befriend you, Princess. What would our allies have said?’ he smirked.
‘You didn’t have to be so cruel,’ I bit out, wanting to look away but forcing myself to hold his gaze.
‘You were the cruel one, Princess. The way you looked at me made me feel like I was less than nothing from the moment you saw me. So, I made it known I was someone—someone you could never escape.’
‘So it was all payback? For my resting bitch face?’
‘No. It was desperation. Tell me, what did I do that was truly so bad?’
‘You sent every ally you could over the years to try to poison me, break my bones or hurt me.’
Demir then laughed a genuine laugh. ‘I didn’t send anyone to do any of those things. Your mother had pissed off more than just my father over the years. I simply didn’t intervene when they did what they did. I thought you would be thankful.’
Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t fathom this man’s infuriating train of thought, but the most startling part of it all was that he was speaking the truth. ‘Why would I have been grateful for that?’
‘You always wanted to prove yourself. You would have thought I had ulterior motives for intervening, that I was planning something worse, because you could never see me through any other lens than the one your people created for me. Thinking I was just my father’s spawn.
But I suppose I did have an ulterior motive in staying quiet and letting whatever harm that came befall you. ’
‘Tell me,’ I seethed, almost desperate. I needed to know.
‘Because you’re so fucking beautiful when you’re covered in blood, pushing through the pain and rising to your feet once more.
The pure, unrelenting power in you that makes you unbreakable would have my dick hard each and every time.
’ Feeling my skin flush, betraying me, I broke eye contact with him.
‘Where’s Everett?’ I asked, turning away.
I needed the distance. Demir chuckled at my reaction.
I had not expected any of that to leave his lips and I was ashamed for how my core had pulsed at the thought of him hot and bothered over me, fighting to conceal it in front of everyone.
Everyone who wanted him, when he wanted me.
‘He’ll be here soon, he comes regularly to check on me.’
‘You’re not what I thought you would be like,’ I whispered into the void.
‘What did you expect?’ he asked, raising a brow in amusement.
‘Someone filled with hate—you played that part well all those years I knew you.’
‘I let you believe what you wanted to see, and I played it well not only for you and our allies, but for my father. A man who would do this to his only child for speaking out of turn is someone I have spent my whole life hiding the deepest parts of myself from, to the point where I have lost touch with them myself. Did you know my mother and your father used to be friends at the Academy?’
I felt the floor fall from under me.