He sighs and it comes from a place deep within him. I steal a glance at his perfect profile. He’s holding so much tension in the sharp line of his jaw, but his eyes are sad. “You could never be no one to me.”
“Then what am I?”
I’m begging for him to say something gallant likeyou’re the love of my lifeoryou’re the only person I’ve ever truly wanted, but he disappoints me.
“You’re... Ivy.”
“I don’t know what that means anymore.” Moonlight has leached the color from the gardens, leaving Emmett and me looking like ghosts of ourselves.
I turn to walk away, but he captures my wrist in his hand and spins me to face him. The space under his eyes is dark with bruise-like circles; there’s something about him that looks as wounded as I feel.
I hear the unicorn’s death knell like an echo in my ears.
“Don’t go,” he says softly.
I tear my arm from his grasp. “I hate this place.”
Devastation makes his shoulders sink lower. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I ask. “It’s awful. I used to dream of coming here, did you know that? It was all I wished for as a child. Every night I’d close my eyes and lull myself to sleep, picturing streams runningover with starlight, faerie cakes that tasted of sunshine, and a noble, handsome suitor who would love me as I am. But it’s nothing like that, is it? It’s rotten to the core and it’s rotted all of you with it. I don’t know who Lydia is anymore and you—” I stop.
Emmett’s eyes meet mine with bruising force.
“You used to love me and now you can barely look at me.” My voice cracks.
“That’s not—” He struggles to find the words. “This place isn’t all bad.”
“How could you of all people possibly say that?”
“Me of all people?”
I gesture to him, to the bags under his eyes, to his too-long hair, to his pallid skin.
“It looks like you’re being devoured from the inside out. Whatever is happening here... it’s eating you alive.”
He physically recoils, but I don’t relent.
“The Emmett I knew would have fought. Heneverwould have left me alone in that forest to kill a helpless creature while he got drunk with Bram.” Now that I’m yelling at him, it feels as if I can’t stop. Heat races across my collarbones, down my arms, and into the tips of my fingers.
“I trust you to fight your own battles!” he shoots back. “And did it ever occur to you that me staying behind with Bram, making him think I am complacent,isprotecting you?”
I laugh sarcastically. “You used to be filled with fire and now you’re just a husk. You used to be better than this. You used to begood.”
His eyes narrow. “I used to be a lot of things. The day I thought you died, I died along with you.”
“But I’mnotdead.” My voice is strained. “I’mhereand I need you.”
“Do you? Do you really, Ivy?” He doesn’t raise his voice, but I still resist the urge to flinch. He’s never been angry at me like this before. We’ve bickered, but never truly fought.
A gust of icy wind blows a lock of dark hair across his forehead. “You’re the one who left me first, I’ll remind you. I was willing to run away with you. I was ready to leave everything I ever knew, burn my life down, just as long as I could have you in the ashes. But you walked across the hall to my brother’s room like it was easy.”
Here it is, all out in the air.
I think back to the night that he’s referencing. Queen Mor had just told me that I had lost the competition for Bram’s hand and so I knew if I still wanted to break her bargains and save England, I had to convince Bram to run away with me. But first, I stopped by Emmett’s room. Things spun out of control, a spark that turned into an inferno. He took me into his bed and I let him. I wanted him to be the first to touch me like that, because, in a way, it made me his. If I was going to be ruined, I wanted Emmett to be the one to do it. But it didn’t feel like ruination. Not even a little bit.
I can’t believe he’s throwing that night back in my face. “I was only doing what we’d planned for all along. Youknewthat I loved you. How can you possibly think that was easy for me?”
“Because you bargained to forget me!” His voice bounces off the frost-cloaked trees.
