But the image twisted as lightning cracked inside my thoughts.
“Kael, please, don’t stop!” Selena moaned. She wanted me to continue whatever I did to her, however unpretty it was.
The light surged around me, blinding and wild. The last warning before my control slipped.
“Please, Kael. Please continue.” Her moans turned to desperate pleas.
Was that how much she hated herself?
Something inside me broke free, shattering the fragile hold I had on control. I pushed myself off her, releasing her and myself. She squealed and twisted in protest.
The storm swelled within me, lightning coiling down my arms as her voice dissolved into the thunder’s roar.
She looked over her shoulder, and I saw pure fear. Her legs trembled as if they were about to give beneath her. She made herself small and covered her ears.
“Kael, no!”
I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to. Lightning burst around us.
She screamed, collapsing to the ground, knees and palms sinking into the grass as my thunder roared.
“Kael, snap out of it! I beg you… You’re going to kill me!” Her voice shattered into a million pieces.
“If you want to beg, do it right. Don’t look so pathetic.” It wasn't my voice anymore.
One last thunderclap split the air. Lightning struck Henrich’s statue across the alcove, marble splintering in roots and branches until it shattered.
And behind my eyes, I saw only Evie, the mark burned into her shoulder, the horror in her gaze.
My breath came in shallow gasps. Selena didn’t move. She squeezed herself, tears flowing, strands of hair stuck to her face.
I didn’t say what I should have said. Instead, I heard myself say, “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.”
The alcove lay in shadow and ruin, the statue split, the air scorched. Marble dust drifted like smoke. I left Selena there, crumbled in the grass against the tomb, silent now, her arse wet and raised to the moon.
I didn’t apologize. I never did.
Maybe I should have.
The storm had emptied, but not enough. It never was.
I fastened my breeches and turned toward the castle. The wind carried the faint scent of roses again, as if the night itself mocked me. Because even after that, I still thought of Evie.
I hadn’t known she’d been there. Hadn’t felt the eyes watching from the edge of the garden, too far for the light to touch.
Hadn’t seen her turn away, her tears shining like glass in her doe eyes.
Hadn’t seen her run.
Behind me, the garden still smelled of dust and roses.
Chapter 16
Evie
Not a bone in my body wished to move. As with every morning since the Academy Ball—this was the twelfth, I’d counted them—I woke with my limbs numb and a sharp pinch in my chest. Sleep offered no peace. I couldn’t get those images out of my head, nor the sinful sounds of flesh on flesh and the raw, broken screams of pleasure. Those memories haunted me, relentless as ghosts.
I’d heard the sounds drifting from the necropolis garden, from behind Henrich Eisenberg’s tomb, before I caught a glimpse of Selena through the hedge. She’d writhed and moaned like a siren in worship, Kael a dark figure pushing behind her, and the sight had cleaved something open inside me.
