My next hit lands squarely on his chest.
I must have split my knuckles at some point because my black blood splatters across his torso and up across his chin.
Which I aim for next, an uppercut that hits his jaw.
Smack!
The force of the blow knocks him back into the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen—the one room I didn’t want to go.
As his back hits the doorframe, his eyes fly wide, and then their shape and colors change.
There’s a flash of amber in his eyes and his irises become more wolfish than they’ve ever been, even in his many personas.
At the same time, his hands come up.
Dark light flickers around his left hand where he wears his crown, and he moves with a burst of speed that defies me.
He catches my hands and spins me around, gripping me from behind.
His arms feel like iron wrapped around my torso as he propels me forward—not along the hallway but into the kitchen where the curtains flutter and the room smells likehomeand I can hear my mother humming to herself.
“No.” A broken gasp is all I can manage before my remaining rational thoughts desert me.
I shove myself back against him, desperately trying to push him through the doorway and out of this room.
But he was already moving at an angle, and I only succeed in shoving him against the wall next to the door.
We’ve remained inside the room and now I’m facing it.
“No!” I cry, struggling against him.
“I won’t fight you!” His dark light streams around me, coiling like chains that propel me around to face him again.
If the light were solid, I could cut through it, but it’s energy—dark energy—and I have no defense against it.
“Stop, my Veda.” His arms rise around me, and now I can’t tell if he’s using his dark magic or his arms to pull me closer.
“I can’t stop,” I say, fighting the tears flooding my eyes. “I won’t stop until I understand why you did what you did.”
He shakes his head, the strands of his hair falling across his eyes, clinging to his forehead and cheeks, where sweat has gathered.
“You aren’t what I thought you would be,” he says. “I thought you would grasp the power that has been given to you and instead, you rip it up and throw it away.”
“Power? What power?” My voice is suddenly bleak. “Do you know why I reach for control as hard as I can, Keeper? It’sbecause I’ve never had any. My life was dictated to me. Captivity was my constant. And you?—”
I try to breathe. Try to speak.
“You walked out of the darkness with me.Youdid that. Out of the darkness.Withme. And now…”
He considers me quietly. The ropes of dark light disappear from around me, freeing me, even though all I want is for him to rage at me.
Rage like he did when he tore through the cottage only minutes ago. Tear me apart like an enemy would.
Instead, he’s silent.
It makes me realize that it’s his silence that I hate the most.
When I first escaped my cage, it felt like we didn’t stop talking.
