In the vision, she was lying on the cold, marble floor of his realm while he kneeled beside her, gripping her shoulders.
She had reached up to gently press her palm to his cheek, a gesture that was far too compassionate to be shared with an enemy.
I continue speaking past the lump in my throat. “As if seeing you brought her deep sadness.”
He’s quiet, but now that I’m pressed up against him, holding on to his arms, he isrealto me. He can’t slink back into the shadows as if he has ceased to exist.
His response is wooden, and it’s like an echo from the past, a repeat of what he said to me when things were far simpler between us. “I am a dark creature, and I have the power to choose.”
It isn’t an answer.
Unless it’s an answer within an answer to a question I haven’t asked yet.
I remember when he first said that same thing to me. It was in the context of him explaining when he would drain life to feed his dark magic. He made it clear to me thathewould choose when to take life.
But very soon after, when we spoke about his choice to become the keeper of dark magic, he made it clear that…
“Choice is an illusion,” I say.
So, then… which is true?Does he really have the power to choose or is his belief in choice an illusion?
My head spins as I try to focus on why I stepped into this cottage in the first place. “I need to know how I destroyed the book. I need to know about my mother’s family. You have the answers, I know you do?—”
He cuts me off with a sudden snarl. “Lie or truth, you cannot trust my answers. Even less than you can trust what anyone else tells you.”
Beyond frustrated now, I can’t stop myself from spinning in his arms, my claws snapping out to press into his chest. “I will give you a truth and here it is: I want you to hurt as much as I’m hurting.”
Despite his snarl only moments ago, his response is quiet. “Your heart’s pain is already mine.”
His arms drop away from around me to hang at his sides. When I last saw him, he was wearing a white tunic and matching ivory pants, but now he’s bare-chested.
Only the long pants remain, along with the belt with a harness that’s empty of whatever weapon might be intended to rest within it.
“Whatever pain you’re feeling,” I say, shaking my head at him, my claws extending further, dangerously close to cutting his skin. “It isn’t enough.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Emil barely reacts to the threat of my claws, even when pinpricks of bright red blood form across his chest and little droplets slide down his skin.
His green eyes search mine as I try to rein in my anger, desperate to keep my rage in check so that I can persist in seeking answers.Somehow. I can’t give up yet.
With his right hand, he brushes the wayward strands of my hair from my face—the gray ones that sit closest to my cheek and turn blonde at the ends.
His voice is barely above a murmur. “Why did you come inside this place when it hurts you to be here?” Then his expression hardens. “Is it because you know I feel your heart’s pain and you wanted to hurt me more?”
I grit my teeth against the ache in my heart, even though his accusation isn’t true. “Will you answer me one thing truthfully? Does our deal still stand?”
“Our deal?” He narrows his eyes at me and a cold smile touches his lips. “Be honest, my Veda, it isn’t our deal that’s at the heart of your question.”
It’s my turn to narrow my eyes because I’m not sure what he’s getting at.
He shakes his head at me, a slow, side-to-side motion, while his other hand rises to press against my lower back, drawing me closer, inch by inch, even though my claws press more deeply into his chest.
“Ask what you really want to ask, my Veda.”
Take control of the light and the dark.
That insidious whisper suddenly echoes around in my mind again, but it isn’t the book’s darkness I’m thinking of now.
