The question hangs between us. Would I? Could I actually let Nesilhan walk away, knowing she'd be safer without me but also knowing that losing her would destroy what's left of my humanity?
"I don't know," I admit. "Which probably makes me exactly the monster she thinks I am."
"Or it means you're terrified," Emir suggests. "Fear makes monsters of us all, my lord."
Erlik. Who whispered fears into Altan's ear until my brother poisoned Isil out of jealousy and ambition. Who let his sons destroy each other over curses and paranoia he helped create. Who watched me kill Altan, then refused to lift the curse as "punishment." Who now orchestrates from the demon realms, pulling strings and creating schemes I won't understand until it's too late.
"How do I avoid becoming my father?" I ask. "How do I love her without consuming her? How do I protect her without controlling her?"
"You ask her," Emir says simply. "You tell her the truth, all of it, and you ask her what she needs. Then you give it to her, even if it destroys you."
"And if what she needs is for me to not exist?"
"Then you find a way to give her that too."
We stand in silence, watching shadows stretch across the realm as night deepens. Somewhere to the west, Light Court forces are preparing for another assault. In the palace below, Nesilhan is probably reading in our chambers, as far from me as possible while still technically sharing the same space.
Whatever trap Erlik has set will spring eventually.
And I'll have to find a way to protect my wife from my family's schemes without proving her right about every terrible thing she already thinks about me.
"Fifteen ways this ends in disaster," I mutter.
"Twenty," Emir reminds me. "At minimum."
"Right. Twenty."
Though honestly, when you're the monster in every scenario, what's a few more catastrophes among friends?
CHAPTER 6
THE FIRST MEETING
Nesilhan
The formal receptionhall blazes with shadow-light—those impossible orbs that cast illumination without warmth, turning everything into shades of silver and ash. I stand beside Elçin near the onyx columns, far from the dais where Kaan holds court, maintaining the careful distance I've perfected over time.
"You don't have to attend this," Elçin murmurs, her hand a steady presence on my arm. "No one would fault you for avoiding another tedious political performance."
"I'm not hiding." The words come out sharper than intended. "Not from visiting dignitaries, not from war councils, and certainly not from another of Kaan's relatives with ulterior motives."
Through our damaged bond—that constant, unwanted awareness—I feel Kaan's attention shift toward me across the room. Even now, even with the hatred between us solidified into something harder than the midnight-stone beneath our feet, he tracks my every movement like I'm something precious he might lose if he blinks.
Good. Let him watch while I refuse to break.
The doors open, and the temperature in the hall shifts. Not cold, exactly. Something else. Something that makes my pulse kick into an unexpected rhythm against my throat.
A man enters flanked by an elite guard of six shadow warriors, their movements synchronized in perfect unison. But it's not the guards that steal my breath. It'shim.
Dark hair falls in careless waves to his shoulders, longer than Kaan's cropped style. His face carries the same aristocratic bone structure as my husband—high cheekbones, strong jaw, lips that suggest cruelty and refinement in equal measure. But where Kaan's beauty strikes like a blade, this man flows like poisoned wine.
And his eyes. Gods, his eyes are the color of violet, warm violet that seems to glow with inner fire as his gaze sweeps the hall and stops—fixes—directly on me.
I know those eyes.
The realization steals the air from my lungs. Those are the eyes from my dreams. The ones that have haunted my sleep for three weeks, reaching for me through shadows that move wrong, whispering promises in a voice like silk. The dreams I confessed to Zoran and Elçin in the garden last week, desperate to understand why they wouldn't stop, why they only grew stronger.
The dreams that continued even after I spoke them aloud.
