Well, maybe it is.
I exhale.
Scream into the water.
A roar that rips through my heart and mind and into the waves. A sound that shreds my memories into bloody pieces.
I was loved?
Fucking. Lies.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Irise from the water, digging my feet into the sand, letting the water stream off me. Ribbons of darkness fall within it, my blood washing away.
The keeper is standing much closer to the water’s edge than I expected, right where the waves lap at the beach and rush across his now-bare feet.
Black light glows around his fingers, his shoulders are tense, and his weight is on his front foot, as if he were about to dive in after me. He’s wearing his angry face. The blue-eyed one with the beautiful cheekbones and fucking perfect lips.
I’m not concerned about where he might be drawing his energy from now. If this is an island, it’s a vast one. A wash of thick greenery stretches out far into the distance. The keeper said there’s a jungle at the center of this island, and I don’t doubt it for a second.
I splash toward him, not caring that I’m still naked, picking up speed until I’m running, my strong legs carrying me forward in a matter of seconds.
He braces when I don’t slow down, his fingers flexed and the light around the crown on his forefinger gleaming brighter.
I ram into him so fast that I knock him off his feet, forcing us into a tumble. White sand glistens around us, kicking up into the air and sticking to our skin when we end up in a near-heap.
But somehow, I’m on top, my legs on either side of his hips, my palms resting near his shoulders, and my claws digging into the sand beside his neck.
My voice is nothing more than a guttural snarl, but I can’t temper it. “Why are you still at my side?”
In the face of my rage, he dares to grin up at me, his eyes alight with energy. “There you are, my Veda.”
“Answer my question!” I snap. “Why are you still here when your vow to me means nothing anymore?”
A faint crease appears in his forehead. “What are you talking about?”
I glare down at him. “I asked you to help me kill the man who murdered my father, imprisoned my mother, and stole the empire that should have been mine.”
Still, his brow remains furrowed. “Yes?”
My fingers curl around his shoulders, my claws dragging through the sand and stopping dangerously close to cutting his skin. “Well. My father’s alive. It’s highly likely that my biological mother wasn’t imprisoned, after all. And the Nostra Empire isn’t mine to claim while my father lives.”
“Ah.” He doesn’t look away, his dark eyes gleaming up at me as the furrow in his brow vanishes. “But that wasn’t what I promised you.”
I’m surprised. And wary.
My whisper is filled with skepticism. “What?”
He certainly doesn’t seem remotely alarmed by the proximity of my claws. His dark gaze passes across my face while the tension releases from his shoulders, as if whatever he sees in my expression now reassures him.
“I promised you that in return for the power in your heart, I would give you the vengeance you seek,” he says. “I vowed that whatever you need to achieve your revenge, I would do it.”
His hands have come to rest low on my hips and now his thumbs stroke down toward my thighs. “When you asked me to help you kill the man who murdered your father and stole your empire, that was only thehow. Not thewhat.”
His fingers stop their downward descent to trace my curves upward while a challenging light enters his eyes, as if he’s testing how much he can soothe me with his touch. “Thehowcan change in the blink of an eye. But thewhatremains the same.”
It isn’t the response I expected.
