“Did you hate her? Is that why you killed her?”
He’s silent.
I wait for his answer, but now he may as well be made of stone.
“Did you hate her?” I ask again, my voice rising. “You ripped out her heart as if you hated her.”
Suddenly, I’m crossing the distance between us and I can’t stop myself from crashing into him. “Why did you kill her?”
My palms collide with his side, a half-punch, half-push that sends him back a step.
“Why?” I cry, the pain in my chest unbearable, so bad that I could believe I still have my heart. “Why?”
“Because I wantmyvengeance!” he roars, spinning and catching my fists, stopping me in my tracks. “Because I amowed.”
His eyes blaze at me, a light in them that makes them cycle, impossibly, through blue and gray and shadowy green and finally silver like his hair.
He drags in ragged, seething breaths and his lips move as if he will say more, but instead, he releases my hands and steps away from me, backing farther and farther away toward the darkest corner of the room, farthest from the fire.
“You should get away from me, Darkness,” he says, calling me by the name the panthers use for me. “I can’t give you what you need.”
I struggle to breathe against the weight of my options now. Or, rather, the absence of options.
All I achieved from confronting him was more pain.
I reach for my clothing, sweeping it up off the floor, only to find that the material is too shredded for me to put back on.
Closing my fist around the torn pieces, I turn my back on the keeper, pausing now to consider the book on the table. When Emil hoisted me onto the table’s surface, I must have bumped into the book because it now lies at an angle.
With a scream, I extend my claws and ram them down through the untorn parts of the book’s spine.
There is no burst of energy this time.
The book was already dead.
But it breaks fully, tearing into separate chunks, the pages strewing apart.
Claw marks remain in the table’s surface as I stride from the room.
I half-expect Emil to react to my sudden violence, but he doesn’t, so I move onward, deeper into the cottage.
I need clothing and surely, this little house of my creation will provide for me…
A few rooms down the hallway is a bedroom with a large bed and an equally large closet, both made of gleaming wood and elegantly carved.
I pull open the closet to find only a single dress hanging within it, its gauzy layers shimmering.
One dress, huh?
It looks like it’s designed to wrap around the body with a wide sash hooked through loops to keep it in place. It has an opaque inner layer that’s strapless and extends down to my knees so it will cover my chest and thighs, but the rest is gauzy and transparent, with several layers that form the elbow-length sleeves and a flowing skirt.
I can barely see past my anger as I pull the dress around my body and tie it in place.
Trying to release some of my rage, I attempt to take deep breaths.
I’m angry at myself. For so many reasons. Trying to force answers from the keeper is one. Giving in to my impulse to try to control him is another. Nearly using my own body to do it, well—I’m not sorry he stopped me.
But even so, not all of it was pretend.
