Still kneeling on her back, he reaches out and tips my chin up, finding my eyes. “She’s your mother.”
I pull my head away. “She doesn’t want me!”
“Then kill her.”
“I’m trying!”
The Centress lifts her head from the stone, her face bloody and molded into features of pure hatred. “It shouldn’t be that hard. After seeing the coward you are, at least I know I was right to give you up. You’re worthless.”
The number of holes that drill through my heart is staggering.
My hand glides the knife into her neck, the motion involuntary. Warm blood robes my rings in red. I leave the blade in place, entranced by every escaped drop, the life that pulsed through her now only red liquid. It flows into the spring, a rivulet running from her neck to the surface. It’s… lovely.
Chapter 36
EVER
She's wortheverything," Eli grits out as my mother coughs blood onto my naked chest. And with that, Iknowit was all an act. All doubt vanishes.
He abandons her dying body and joins me in the water with a splash. I release the handle, leaving the blade embedded in her neck, and reach for Eli’s face. The tremor in my fingers travels up my arm, and higher, settling in my brain. It tries to rattle free some feeling. I press harder on his cheek, but I can’t stop the jittery movement. His chest expands with a sudden breath at my touch. I trace along his jaw, his scar, his cheek, spreading her blood over his stubble as that crawling sensation travels down my spine. Warm air caresses my face. His dark and light auras mix. But apart from the physical sensations, I’m unaffected. No push or pull. I beat the curse.
“Which one of us did that?” I ask, eerily stoic, as emotionless as her. Maybe even dead inside. “Who killed her?”
“You pick.”
“I don’t think I want to know,” I admit as he slides his cold hands around my lower back, a stark temperature difference to the hot water. He holds me close. “But I do need to know what you meant when you said my body isn’t the only thing you can control.”
“Your mother is dead,” he says, as if that’s all the reason I need not to pry into his brain and carve out chunks with real answers.
My eyes dart back toward her body. Then the bloody water we stand in. The steam that I’m convinced is tinted red. “I’m aware.”
“Forget what I said before.” His grip on me tightens.
“My hands just put a knife through my mother’s neck, and I don’t even know if I did that or you did. So you’d better tell me if you’re controlling something else of mine.”
Silence.
“Eli”—I tap my fingers on his chest and look straight into the black of his eyes—“I’d much rather leave the begging for when your head is between my legs, sodo notmake me do it now.”
One imploring look from him, the fret in his forehead near heartbreaking, and I brace myself for his response. He talks fast, his words gushing as if he’d held them in for months. “I have to remember all the time. I can never let go. I didn’t want to do it—I had to. It’s the curse. We can’t trigger the other half.”
“Didn’t want to do what exactly?” I push away from him. Water rushes around me to fill the space I put between us.
“Control your heart.”
“No.” I clutch my chest, daggers spearing it, leaving me breathless. “How?”
“The same way I control the rest of your body… with that piece of you I took.”
“You’re controlling it right now? Making me hurt like this?”
“Yes—no. I’m keeping you from loving me. That’s it.” He tries to put a hand on my cheek, but I step back again. “I let you be you.”
“Except my heart!” I heave breath after breath, expelling more air than I can possibly suck in. “How do you know if I’d even love you if you weren’t controlling it?”
He glances at my mother’s dead body, as if that were easier to look at than my face. “I don’t. But I have to make sure you never do. I’ve been controlling it since the night I rescued Milo and you from the Ring. And we’re not supposed to be having this conversation. I’m supposed to be pushing you away, not telling you my secrets!”
Despite his words, he comes closer, pushing through the water. I put my hand flat on his chest to keep him back as I force out one steely word at a time. “What triggers the other half of the curse?”
