I kiss her back. “I’d do anything for you. Never doubt it.”
After we’ve kissed so long she has to stop for breath, I reluctantly sit up and put her back in position across from me. “As much as I’d like to continue that with you naked and me buried between your thighs, I’m afraid it’s time to switch.” I hold out my hands.
She eyes them, her gaze growing dimmer as shadows creep across her heart.
“Don’t be afraid.” I wish I could take it all from her, carry those memories inside me and lock them away where they can never hurt her again. But I can’t.
“I want you to see, but I just don’t want you to seeme. If that makes sense. It probably doesn’t.”
“All I ever see is you, my heart.” I keep my hands out and hold her gaze.
“When you say stuff like that, what am I supposed to do?” She blows a lock of red hair from her face and loosens her shoulders. “Okay, fine. I can do this. I can.”
I nod. “You can.” I just have to control myself, because scorching Emma isn’t an option. No matter what I see, I need to turn my emotions inward and hone them into a sharp blade.
Her hands tremble as she puts them in mine. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I’m transported to the first time she wakes. In a crypt, Eraldon whispering in her ear and touching her body, then forcing his blood on her. Then more, Eraldon violating her with his blood, his lies, and his false promises. Each time he touches her, my ire creeps up a notch. The memories come faster.
I feel how elated she was when she first took flight. The pain in her back was enormous, but she fought through it. But then I see Eraldon, his seekers crawling and seething under his command. He forces her to take his blood again and again. Each time she falls under his thrall, he feeds her lies, and her hatred grows. Her hatred ofme.
Eraldon is vicious and calculating. I can understand him on those levels. But the parts of her memories that disquiet me are the ones where he’s almost kind to her. A touch here, a look there. I thought he’d taken her only to spite me. But each touch, look, and word stack up until I realize he truly wants to claim her. Not to spite me, but because he sees her. Through a twisted lens, one streaked with blood and soot, but heseesher. And when I realize that, I have to break the connection.
I open my eyes and pull my hands away before the sun flares from my skin and burns Emma.
She shields her eyes with her arm as I struggle to get myself under control. “Solano?”
“Just a moment. I just need a moment.” I stand and stride away, heat rolling off me in waves as I run my fingers through my hair and stop to look up at the sun.
She moves quietly behind me. “I’m sorry. I know what you saw, what you felt. I hate it. I hate the hold he had on me, the way he fed me poison over and over until I thought it was real. I thought it would sustain me.”
I turn, my fire finally dying down. “I don’t blame you, Emma. I don’t.”
“But I do.” Tears streak her cheeks. “He’s still here.” She pats her chest. “Inside me somewhere. Maybe not in my blood, but he took something from me that day when he turned me.” She moves her hand to her collar and pulls her shirt to the side. My two claiming marks are plainly visible, but mixed in with them—done in faint lines that are almost indistinguishable—is another mark.
“I am yours. I will always be yours. But when he did this, he bound me to him. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake him.”
“It’s because he loves you.”
She shakes her head. “He can only love himself.”
“In his way, Emma, he loves you. I could sense it in those memories. It’s a sick kind of love, one born of the Spires that’s nothing like a true mate bond. It’sobsession. It’s the need to control you, to own you. And if he can’t have you …”
“He’ll destroy me,” she whispers.
“He’ll try.” I pull her to me, her arms wrapping around my waist as I hold her. “He’ll try, but he won’t win.”
“He’ll never stop haunting me.”
She’s right about that. As long as he lives, he’ll shadow her steps and cloud her future. “There can be no peace between our realms until he is dead.”
“I know.”
I kiss her hair. “You are so strong. Forged from the night and given wings. You are not a dark thing, Emma. You shine like your mother moon.”
She arches a brow. “Let’s wait and see how your nobles feel about it.”
I sigh, knowing all too well what they’ll start whispering. But it doesn’t matter. We are at war, and they can either support their realm or they can join Gwenarie in the dungeon.
