But I don’t. I face him. I look at him. Dead in the eye. I turn that last part of me, that last bit at my command, into a weapon.
He hates it. That lack of deference. That lack of fear.
It’s hard to be truly afraid when I’m perpetually hovering on the edge of the After. He keeps me balanced there, so carefully.
The blood runes are the problem.
When he’s not in the room, obviously. Otherwise, he’s the insurmountable obstacle in my way.
Whose blood, etched across the walls, ceiling, and floor, could be so powerful as to keep the universe at bay?
On some subconscious level, I understand that if I think about it too much, the answer will be obvious. But I cannot fathom the how, so I don’t think about the who. I try to not think about the who … whose blood?
He sweeps me into his arms, dragging half the silk sheets and bedding with me. I’m wearing a long silk nightgown, no underwear, no socks or shoes, but I’m completely covered from my collarbone down past my ankles. This gown is rose gold, but the color changes.
Someone changes me after he feeds. When I’m unconscious.
I refuse to believe it’s him who cares for me.
It hurts to move, even cradled in his arms. It hurts as he sits in the upholstered chair situated in the corner with its view of the bed. Sometimes he just watches me from this vantage point, trying to get me to engage. Yes, he wants conversation.
The Cataclysm says he wants a partner. But what that really means is he wants me broken enough to stand by his side and let him wield me as he wills.
As if I’m not already subjected to the will of the universe itself.
But today must be a feeding day.
He arranges me the way he likes across his lap, nightgown smoothed over my legs, but carefully not touching me any more than he has to. He hasn’t raped my physical body, hasn’t even hinted of that as a possibility. That’s not the sort of partnership that interests him. Not with me, at least. But he takes everything else from me — my freedom, along with long draughts of my life force, my soul.
He brushes the hair away from my neck, gaze lingering on the burning wound — his seething bite — on the curve at the top of my shoulder. He frowns, displeased rather than confused.
I meet his eyes when they shift to my own. As I always do, for as long as possible.
“You will eat, little Conduit,” he says in that smooth southern accent that’s at complete odds with the monster, the creature he really is. The Cataclysm. Not a man. Not a shifter. “Or I will have you force-fed. Again.”
I don’t answer him. I never do. I don’t think I’m starving myself deliberately. I’m not trying to die. He’s just forcing me too close to the edge of the After, over and over again. Not even a steady diet of milkshakes and fries would entice me to eat now.
The Cataclysm’s red-rimmed eyes sweep over my face assessingly. “I thought you’d be … more. You had such promise as a child, and with everyone throwing themselves between us to protect you … why?” He shifts me more upright in his arms.
Agony aches through my bones, through my blood, but I hold it all within … I relax into it, forcing myself to stay limp in his hold. He doesn’t get my pain. He doesn’t get my tears.
I won’t fucking beg him, not for anything.
The Cataclysm snarls, abruptly vicious. “I won’t allow you to leave me again. I will never allow you the freedom you’re so willing to die for.”
He’s not talking to me — not to Zaya. He thinks he’s addressing the Conduit, obsessing over the aspect of the goddess that is supposed to be anchored within me. But incredibly stupidly, with all his blood runes and near-continual draining of my essence, he’s chased the goddess away. Forced her to retreat, maybe even into a catatonic state.
Leaving only me — me, Zaya. Only I remain for the Cataclysm to extract whatever revenge he needed to take from my aunt. The soul-bound mate who rejected him.
“Weak,” he snarls, baring those elongated canines and grabbing me by the back of the neck when my head rolls back, out of my control. “Pathetic. Is this all it takes to conquer you?”
I laugh. It’s a terrible, pain-filled noise, ripped from the depths of my soul. It’s the first noise I’ve made around him in … however long I’ve been locked away in his plush prison. I meet his gaze dead-on, and I laugh.
I’ve died over a half-dozen times — twice in the month before I was brought here. It’s not weak to wait, to assess. It’s not weak to not fight back — or at least to not fight in a way the creature who has managed to cage me understands. I have no claws, no sharp teeth.
Right now, I’m not even really the Conduit.
I’m just Zaya.
