Daemon dropped his hand but held her gaze. “I’m not trying to stop you. But I don’t think this is something you should do by yourself.”
“What makes you think I’m going by myself?”
Daemon quirked a brow. “What did Ijusttell you?”
“Ugh,fine.Yes, I was going to go by myself.”
“Was?”
“Daemon, you may be able to read me, but I can read you, too. We both know that you’d follow me whether I wanted you to or not.”
She wasn’t wrong, and the fact that she called him out on it made him smile. “Good. Now that we have that understanding, lead the way.”
Auraelia didn’t budge. Instead, she crossed her arms and raised her brows. “And how, pray tell, are we going to explain your presence when yourfiancéemurdered my mother?”
Daemon barely suppressed the flinch that resulted from her words. Pasting a smile on his face, he took a step forward, closing the already small space between them. “Let me worry about that.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daemon
Using the shadows to conceal him from sight, Daemon followed Auraelia through the castle and down the spiral staircase that led into the dungeons, the temperature dropping the further down they traveled.
He’d been down there once with Xander while Auraelia had been in her catatonic state after her mother’s murder. He’d tried to help the prince question the maid, but all they’d received was bone-chilling laughter instead of answers.
After what felt like eons of silence, and he was certain that no one was near, Daemon stripped away the darkness surrounding him and asked, “Why hasn’t she been dealt with yet?”
Auraelia stopped two stairs down and took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to think of me as weak—”
Descending the steps between them, Daemon gently grasped her arm and turned her toward him. “I would never think that, Auraelia.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and continued. “I haven’t been down here since…since we put her in her cell. I couldn’t bring myself to face her. And I—” she stopped mid-sentence, worry lacing the delicate lines of her face.
“And you didn’t want to repeat what happened in the ballroom?”
When she nodded, his heart sank.
“I’m just still soangry. And my magic has been…well, you saw. I can’t always control it. I don’t want to kill someone in the name of revenge or in general. I just…I don’t want to be likeher.”
“Like Kyra?” he asked, though he was pretty sure she wasn’t who Auraelia was referencing.
“Kyra. Davina. They’re one and the same, aren’t they? Davina may not have been the one to actually poison my mother, but she was the reason behind it. She’s just as much at fault as Kyra is.”
Deciding to risk the small amount of progress they’d made and praying that she wouldn’t flinch away from him, Daemon cupped her cheek. She leaned into his touch without hesitation, and his heart damn nearly jumped out of his chest. “You’re not Kyra, Auraelia. And you sure as hell aren’t Davina. You’re one of the strongest people that I have ever met. Don’t let anyone make you think otherwise.”
Tears lined her eyes as her gaze flicked over his face. When they landed on his lips, the need to pull her into his arms, to kiss her until she forgot everything that troubled her, was nearly crippling.
A lone tear slowly trailed down her cheek, and her eyes fluttered closed as he gently swept it away.
Daemon took a step closer, his body close enough to feel the heat radiating off her but far enough away that she didn’t feel caged in.
Her hands landed on his chest, curling into the fabric of his tunic, her voice quavering as she spoke. “Daemon, I—”
Brushing his thumb across her cheek, he whispered, “I know.”
He didn’t need her to say anything; he justknew.Knew the words she refused to let loose. Knew that her mind was a scramble of mixed emotions and warring thoughts.
But he also knew—or at leasthoped—that she neededhimas badly as he neededher.
