Tears prickle my eyes again because loss once again reminds me of its presence. Faces of people who are not here with me—Mom, Kian, Dad, my siblings—flash behind my eyelids. Maybe it’s loneliness, maybe it’s Thanksgiving and I’m away from home, but I don’t want to be alone.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I won’t take your bullshit.” Slowly, I turn back and take a seat across from him. “You’re skating on thin ice.”
Those beautiful green eyes warm a smidgen, and he nods. A truce.
“The cake is a tradition.” Carefully, I remove the plastic lid and stick the candle in the middle. I click on the lighter, but it sputters uselessly.
“Here, let me.” He reaches over with his silver lighter and lights the candle.
Myheart heavy, I stare at the lonely flame emitting its warm glow. It can’t chase away the darkness in this house.
“Today is November twenty-fourth,” I murmur, needing to confide in someone. Elias is halfway to drunk, so he probably wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, anyway. “It’s the birthday of someone important. I light a candle for him every year.”
His breath hitches, and I look up, finding his gaze dark and riveted on me.
“Someone important?” His fingers are white-knuckled around his tumbler.
“Yes.” Heat creeps up my face at his intensity. I want to look away but can’t. In this moment, I’m a willing prisoner. “He’s someone I miss a lot. Someone who wasn’t family, who loved me for me, not because of my name or my money.”
Elias’s throat ripples and nostrils flare. The flickering flame casts his face in shadows, but emotions still swirl in his eyes.
I’m hit with an urge to solve him again. The same feeling that something lies beneath the surface. Something worthwhile.
I grip my pendant, and his gaze flicks to it.
“He gave that to you.” A statement, not a question.
I nod.
“And you kept it all these years.”
“He’s not someone you forget,” I reply.
The air stills as we stare at each other, both of us snared in its intricate web.
For a heartbeat, the violence, the fake marriage, all fall away. I stop remembering how much I hate the man before me, who’s looking at me like he’s beholding the cosmos.
The ache eases a smidge in my chest.
I close my eyes, needing to break our connection, and make a wish.
Kian, wherever you are, I hope you’re happy. I hope all your dreams came true.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Elias,” I whisper.
Then I blow out the candle. The darkness sings, warm for once, before swallowing us whole.
Chapter 21: DANCE WITH PHANTOMS
The Shadow King isin a good mood these days. I wonder if Thanksgiving two weeks ago had thawed something between us. But the man has made no mention of it, nor has he tried to touch me ever since.
It’s enough to make me question my sanity—if those heated caresses and rough words were figments of my imagination.
But I know they aren’t.
I’ve spent too many sleepless nights tossing and turning in my bed, thinking of how good it felt to be held by him.
How easy it was to burn out of control.
