Chapter 35
EVER
Ihate to interrupt this memorable moment, Everielle, but you owe me your essence.”
My mother’s lifeless obsidian eyes crush my soul. Her neck is bruised purple with my fingermarks. She’s only feet away with a knife in each hand, both Eli’s and neither the one I took. “I don’t owe you shit. You’re not even—”
Eli’s rocking halts, and he pulls out, cutting me off with his callous words at the same time. “You want her? Give me a minute, and I’ll be done with the slut. I told Zandrite I would need at least an hour before he sent you down here for her body.”
He can’t mean that. I look up at him, waiting for a quick glance, a soft touch—any sign that he’s bluffing—because I was finally starting to trust this man again. It has to be an act. But it’s not okay. “What in the immortal asshole fuck is wrong with you?”
“Shut up. Your mouth is as loose as your pussy.” He tightens his hand around my throat.
Suddenly I feel everything I couldn’t before. The cold, hard stone against my back. The fingernail cuts on my chest. The weight of him on top of me. But even though his dark aura surrounds me like an endless drop into blackness, his lightness pushes through with the scent of morning dew. I’m pushed and pulled, caught in the gray.
And I don’t know if it’s an act or not. I only know my mother is here to kill me. And I want to scream. I want to curse. I want to tell her exactly what I think of her.
And I can’t.
Not with how tight he holds me, just enough slack to let a whistle of air through.
The Centress mumbles, looking between us. “You’re working with Zandrite? He did say I should wait a while.” She holds the knives steady, maintaining the upper hand.
“And you can’t fucking listen,” Eli scolds. “What do you think I’m here for? Someone has to finish the job if he’s so damn incapable of taking a simple life. You should be grateful for all I’ve done. Who do you think arranged your rescue from Milo’s house? Who made sure Zandrite would partner with you? Who left knives for you in the passage?”
“I should have put the pieces together.” Her disgust appears as faint wrinkles on her nose.
If he’s faking, he’s got her believing every damn word. If not… thenhisballs are going to end up in a bloody sack.
“You should have,” Eli says. “But you’ve doubted my loyalty from the day you asked me to take her away from her cell. All I’ve ever done is play the part you wanted, even if it meant pretending to be against you to keep your secrets safe. I delivered every damn time. You know we want the same thing. The least you could do is stick to the plan.”
“I am still the Centress,” she snaps at Eli, flipping her long hair back with a blade, as if she were important.
“And I’m a being from the beginning of time,” he says. “Would you like to fight someone who can’t die—or wait for me to finish fucking your daughter before you kill her?”
“Hand her over,” she says.
My soul flattens. She’s so casual about it.
I try to think how to take her down. How to fight. If I had any role at all in the collapse of the pit, the shaking and breaking of the earth, if I can do that, then I can do more. But without plants, without dirt, I’m left with the raw stone floor and the water. I have no idea how this works or with what, but I try anyway, calling to the springs, to the cascades down the walls, the stone under my hands.Do something. Give me a wave to distract her. Crack open the ground and swallow her up. Drown her. Anything.But it all ignores me. The water is calm, the stone undamaged.
“Do I have to ask you again for a godsdamn minute?” Eli gestures to our naked bodies. “You could at least turn around.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she hisses.
Eli’s jaw clenches. He tilts his head as if trying to calm his rage, then releases my throat and pushes off me with a rough hand on my chest.
I inhale the steamy air and clutch my throat. “Why?” I rasp. I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t even threaten his balls. My heart is sobbing too hard.
He looks down at me, lying flat on my back on the stone. And I still only see coldness in his eyes, sharp and traitorous. My mother peruses his body… his hard length, still shiny with moisture.
But it gets worse.
“Go ahead. She’s all yours,” he says, stepping back from me.
My body finally catches up with my heart. I rise to my knees, lean forward and slam my hands onto his bare thighs, pushing all the pain I can conjure into him.
“Shit!” He stumbles back.
