“I decide what is worth my time,” he snapped. “Ichoose, Luna. No one else may dictate my actions for me, not even you.”
“You don’t under?—”
“I swear, if you tell me I don’t understand one more time…” He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closing before his next hushed words. “No, I wasn’t there when your parents died, but I relived every second of it through you and our bond. I understand bloody well enough what this means to you.”
It was odd.
For a split second—as she faced saying words that had somehow become the most terrifying thing she could ever utter—she wasn’t Lunara anymore. She was just a passing breeze. A shaft of moonlight. A moth flitting by as it looked down on two lovers in an intimate moment.
She watched them from above. Beheld them breathing one another in and out, and wished she could stay like that forever.
But she crashed back into herself all too soon, reality with her, and she couldn’t put it off anymore. He’d stopped her before, but she hadn’t made herself clear enough.
“Then you also understand why I have to leave you.”
There, you’ve said it out loud. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you get the fuck over it.
“Now that”—He sat back and pierced her with a searing look—“I absolutely donotfucking understand. Not if my life depended on it, which it bloody well does.”
“I am theKeeper, Brand. What else is there to say?”
“You can start by telling me why you’re suddenly so fucking sure you have to go! How it could be so easy for you to walk away!”
The tiniest trickling of emotion finally broke through whatever barrier was separating them.
Agony.His.
No. You have to be strong.
She brought her hands up between them and pressed her fingertips into her eyelids, sending golden sparks across her blackened vision. It was easier that way, as if she was speaking to nothing but darkness. Easier when she couldn’t see the betrayal on his face.
“There are exactly two Sorcerit, at most, that possess the ability to mist.” Tears pricked, the wound so fresh that it physically pained her. “Whichever Imperial is High Ambassador to the Evesong, and the Keeper.”
“So Araxis finally informed us—apparently a very well-kept secret among Nachthellians. That doesn’t answer a damned thing, Luna.”
She looked up at him, lip trembling. “Doesn’t it? You heard what happened. You know the history of the Keepers. We already know the Elder Council is comprised of snakes and liars. I was terrified enough of being one ofthem!Instead, I’ll be their fuckingpet,Brand. And as I slowly go mad, they’ll have more and more control until I can’t remember who I used to be before they owned me. Until I finally snap and they cull me.”
Lunara started to reach out, to cup his face and feel him beneath her hands, but stopped herself shy of contact. “When it gets to that point, it will be because I finally crossed a line not even they can ignore.” Her head drooped. “I can’t remember doing it. I m-misted thrice, and didn’t know? I’m… I’m already losing it, and I don’t even have Illamiata as an excuse. I won’t put your life in danger.”
Brand stood with a snarl. “What aboutyou?” He surged towards her, gripping her upper arms with anguish in every biting finger. “You are mymate,given to me by the Sisters, and you’re telling meyouare going to die.Yourlife is in danger, whether by their hand or your own! You expect me to just accept that? I cannot. I will not.”
Why were whispered words sometime so much worse than bellowed ones?
He swept her hair back, as he always did, gripping it behind her with both of his hands. “The only madness I see here is that you believe there’s any life I’d want to live without you in it. That you’d ever think stepping off of a fucking balcony is something that would be good for me.”
“I just wanted to protect you. I still want to. Iwill.”
His hands tightened, hazel eyes boring into her. “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Anotherflashof memory—her parents, lifeless in their funeral shrouds, their skin colorless and shadowed beneath the grotesquely glowing flowers that surrounded them—and she snapped.
“No it’s not!” she screamed, only centimeters from his face. “I refuse to let them take one more thing from me!”
No one had even known she was there, thinking her dead. Her body lost to the destruction. She’d used her power to leave her likeness behind in Cordelia’s tower, and snuck to the garish service. Had watched false tears fall from traitorous eyes, Sunestra—Malachyr’s mate—among them. She’d been so fucking alone it had sickened her.
“The Council isn’t here, Lunara.Youare the one taking away.Youare the one trying to deny your own happiness,and mine.”
“I’m trying to save you!”
