The guards enter, Robin’s restraints glinting in the feeble morning light. I’ve already turned my back on him, but I pause just long enough to meet his gaze one last time—to bring the axe down on whatever silken thread he might think still exists between us. “Oh, and you asked me last night who was better.”
The beautiful pink glow fades from his cheeks, the fury in his eyes slipping to hurt disbelief as he anticipates my answer.
“Him. Always him. I’ll always choose him.”
I run my eyes over him one last time—Robin, fresh in the morning on my own carpet, in my own home, everything I want.
“And not because he makes me,” I add. “Because I enjoy it. Because he’s your superior in every way. Nice try, though.”
I leave before I can hear or see another thing. Out of there, away from him, back to my bedchamber. Where the curtains are drawn, where it’s dark and silent, and where my pillow smells like him.
Where he held me all through the night.
Where the sheets hold the shape of his body.
Where I can lie down and breathe him in, and try my very best to hate him.
Chapter eighteen
Robin: Twist of the Knife
The guards shove me through the entrance to the dungeon, the iron door slamming shut behind me. The common room stretches empty. Even with the dim light spilling in from the corridor, the room is almost pitch black.
Thank fuck. Everyone’s still asleep.
I can’t let them see me like this—wild, gutted, raw, still smelling like him. Still feeling his hands on me, his mouth, the way he said my name in the dark. The way he looked at me this morning, like I was nothing to him.
My feet carry me across the stone floor without thought. Back and forth, wall to wall, like a caged animal. The anger builds with each step, hot and consuming, nowhere to go but inward. I yank at my hair, pulling until my scalp screams, but it’s not enough. Nothing’s enough to drown out his voice.
‘Him. Always him. I’ll always choose him.’
I should have known. Should have seen it coming the moment we kissed in the training room, his arms lying to me when they wrapped around me so tightly it seemed like he never wanted to let me go.
But Marco was never capable of that.
Five years of this place have carved Marco hollow. Five years of killing in the arena, of surviving whatever the Emperor does to him, of pretending he doesn’t bleed the same red as everyone else. Last night, when his hands shook against my skin and he whispered my name like a prayer, I thought I’d found the man underneath the weapon. I thought I’d cracked through all that scar tissue to something real.
But is there anything real left? Marco has become a machine. He learned how to shut it off—all of it. The fear, the pain, the hope. Everything that makes losing unbearable. Everything that makes living possible.
Yet machines don’t feel. They don’t ache. They don’t hold you like you’re the only thing keeping them tethered to earth, then wake up and look through you like you’re already dead.
My nails dig crescents into my palms.
“What’s the matter? Been kicked out already?”
I spin around. Jason leans against the corridor entrance, arms crossed, that familiar smirk twisting his mouth. How long has he been standing there, watching me fall apart?
My rage redirects, finds a target. I cross the room in three strides and grab his shirt, slamming him back against the stone wall. “Don’t fucking start. I’m not in the fucking mood for you right now.”
Jason shoves me off, stumbling but keeping his balance. “I warned you to stay away from him. You should have listened to me.”
“This has nothing to do with Marco.” The lie tastes bitter.
Jason’s laugh echoes off the walls. “When you’ve been here as long as I have, you notice everything.” His eyes glitter with malice. “Including when pretty boys with big egos get summoned to villas in the night like whores.”
Heat shoots to my face. I lunge for him again, but he sidesteps.
“It was the same with me, you know.”
