I wasn’t the same girl anymore—I didn’t even feelhuman—and the soft and tender spaces that used to make up Willa Darling Fredrik were too delicate to expose to the monster I am now. So, I’ve left them locked away, to wither and die alone.
The idea of facing those parts, of sorting through whatever remains after being neglected for so long, is terrifying.
Niko cocks an eyebrow in challenge, and his mouth twists in disapproval as he runs his eyes over me in frank assessment. Like he can scent the sudden fear radiating from me. “Your abusers are long dead, and yet, you continue to allow them control. To steal your power from beyond the grave.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snarl, my pulse beginning to hammer against my temples. How dare he speak to me of the past dictating the present, when his own fuels his every movement?
Niko’s face isn’t at all pitying. If anything, his expression only grows fiercer. “You’ve created the shadows, Willa. You can create the light.”
“This isn’t a fucking dream, Niko,” I spit out furiously. Rage spills through me in an acidic wave. It sparks in my veins, buzzes against my skull. “I didn’t create anything! My original abusersare dead, but there’s thousands more waiting in the shadows to take their place if they ever find out what I am—”
Niko’s head cocks curiously, and my heart plummets as I realize I’ve said too much. Tilted too far into the dark places of myself. And with a man like Niko, who crawls through every fracture to sift through what hides beneath, a mistake like that is catastrophic.
Worrying my lower lip between my teeth, I force myself to breathe. To calm the fire lapping at my veins, at my heart. There’s too much heat—the heat of anger, of regret, ofwant—it’s impossible to determine where it originates. I only know it’ll burn straight through me if I let it.
“And what exactlyareyou?” he asks in a low voice, his eyes searching my face.
I school my features into indifference, shrugging. “I just meant they can’t find out who I am. If they find out I escaped, they’ll drag me right back.”
The king’s eyes narrow further as he gives a disbelieving laugh. “You know I respect your self-preservation, Willa. But I cannot, and will not,everbe able to stomach your cowardice. You’ll never be powerful if you can’t even face yourself.”
I shiver beneath his gaze, my face carefully blank, even as familiar panic races through me. I’ve seen the way Niko goes after what he wants: with singlehanded determination. He’s caught the scent of something in my mistake, and even if he isn’t sure what it is, he won’t let it go. Not until it’s his, just like everything else in this godforsaken kingdom.
Niko already wants to use me for a power I’m not even sure I have. What will he do when he discovers mytruesecret? I’ve spent so long hiding, protecting it is no longer a decision, but a primal instinct, as natural as breathing. An instinct that’s driven me to sacrifice everything, including myself.
I plant my feet and narrow my eyes on Niko. “You wanna call me a coward while you’ve been rotting away in a palace for centuries, waiting around for someone to come fix your mistakes for you?”
Niko’s eyes flare, and the color leeches from his lips as he presses them into a tight line.
“Moping around, staining everyone around you with your own pathetic misery. Seems like you have no authorityat allto speak to me about cowardice,” I hiss, taking an aggressive step toward him.
He measures it, keeping the same few inches of space between us. The small movement, the distance Niko keeps, is like a spark to kindling. Embarrassment, fury, and something else I dare not examine, flare so brightly inside me that I grab Niko’s gloved hand in mine.
He rears back in surprise, but I’ve already yanked the glove free. We both watch it flutter to the ground, as the world appears to slow around us, pulled tight by our tension. Hatred, desire, anger, intimacy. They’re all so blurred in the spaces between us, and they have been since the moment we met.
When Niko slowly raises his gaze back to mine, I should be terrified of what storms in the depths. But I only smirk sweetly, shaking my head with an irreverent tsk. “No wonder Letum is dying. Aren’t kings supposed to be brave? And here you are, too spineless to even touch your skin to mine and take what you so clearly want. What you’ve wanted since the moment you met me.”
Niko’s jaw works and his bare hand tightens into a fist at his side, before his fingers spread wide once more. The tendons in his neck go taut, but this time, it has nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the invisible leash he keeps himself tethered with.
I’ve unsettled him, just as I intended, and the monster inside me crows victoriously as I take three more steps toward him. He measures them all, backing up slowly toward the terrace, his dark gaze soldered to mine.
“I see the way you watch me,Your Majesty,”I drawl, half-mocking. Another step, and we’re both in the open air, the sweet breeze blowing in from the sea tangling in my hair. “And you’re too scared to even try.”
With each step I take, each bit of space Niko cedes, the fire inside me grows. It began as anger at having to hold onto my secret so tight, I’m forced to cut down anything that dares come too close. But now, it swelters through my lungs, smolders in my heart, until it’s an inferno of rage. As I stare up at Niko’s beautifully monstrous face, I think it’ll consume me whole.
Because though I’m now the one in power, the one distracting him and pushing him away—he’s letting me.
And I want to scream at the unfairness: that no one, not even the King of Death himself, is strong enough to withstand the black hole inside me. A fathomless chasm no one will ever be able to cross.
Half-mad, and one hundred percent furious, I pull the gladius from where it’s sheathed at my hip and point it at Niko. His death begins to swirl wildly around him as I take another step. There is no more room, and he bumps unceremoniously into the stone railing.
I dig the blade into his sternum, just hard enough to draw a pinprick of black blood. “Who’s the true coward, Niko?” I let out a dark laugh. “You won’t even touch me to save yourself, will you?”
Niko sneers, the lines of his face baleful and sharp in the starlight. “Your crude nature grows tiresome.” Ignoring the sword at his chest, he rakes his eyes over me in disdain. “PerhapsI overestimated your capabilities, as here you are once more, doinganythingyou can to avoid claiming your power.”
He leans further into my blade, more blood beading on his pale chest, his eyes devouring every bit of light around us. “I am the lord of death, centuries old…the most powerful man in this world and the next. You could shove this blade straight through my heart, and it won't matter.” Niko’s expression is furious. “You are nothing more than a powerless, petulant child.” His ribbons begin to swirl frantically, their writhing forms a blurred void around our feet, as he whispers, “I’d have to bepatheticto want you for anything more than opening my wards.”
Humiliation conflagrates in my chest, burning away anything logical and igniting a primal fury that began when my father abandoned me and has only grown, twisting into the dark thing it is now. I can’t kill Niko, but I can hurt him the way he’s hurt me. Make him bleed like I do, every moment of every day, a seeping wound.
