End the exile.
My hand rises toward the latch again.
No.
I watch it, horrified, as my hand closes around the handle. A terrible sensation sweeps through me, like my mind is detached from my own body. The latch clicks, and I step into the corridor.
My feet carry me down the passage toward Taliesin’s room. Earlier, on our way back from the tour, Rhian pointed it out to me. She mentioned he intended to rest before the ceremony to prepare himself in case something went wrong and he was forced to use his power.
End the exile.
The command slams through my skull again, and searing pain ignites at the back of my neck.
A horrifying realization tears through me. The talisman is controlling me. Or rather, the Order is controlling me through it. They must have done something to me in their camp, and now they’re taking that magic and twisting it against Taliesin Wynn.
I strain to reach behind my neck, desperate to tear the thing free, but my body no longer obeys me. My hand won’t move, and my feet keep moving forward until I find myself standing outside Taliesin’s room.
My fingers wrap around the latch. Inwardly, I scream and try to force it back to my side, but they’re already tightening around it. The latch clicks open, and I quietly ease inside.
The room is dark, quiet. I glance around, hoping to spot Bryn curled up somewhere, ready to attack when she senses my reason for being here. But there’s no sign of her in the small space. Only Taliesin.
My heart pounds a frantic beat in my chest. He’s lying on his back with his eyes closed, and his chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm beneath the wool blanket. I’ve never seen him look so peaceful before, like all the tension he carries hasfinally loosened its grip in sleep. Moonlight spills across the strong lines of his face, softening him into something almost unbearably vulnerable.
I can’t hurt him.Please.Of all the people in this godsforsaken world, not him. The only person who has ever truly looked at me, seen the truth of what I am, and didn’t flinch away.
But my body moves of its own volition. With my heart raging against my ribs, I slowly—carefully—sink one knee into the mattress and slide one over onto his other side so that I’m straddling him. He doesn’t even shift, his breathing as steady as it was before.
I gaze down at him and drink in the sight of his silver lashes fanned across his cheek. His soft, curving lips.
Tears stream down my face as I lean forward and wrap my hand around his throat.
End the exile.
A sob scrapes its away out of me.
“No,” I manage to force out.
But my fingers tighten against his skin, so tight I can feel the pulsing beat of his heart beneath them. A heart that will stop if I can’t fight against whoever is controlling me. Taliesin will never again open his eyes. Not unless I bring him back.
End the exile. Make him your revenant.
I hiss and release his neck, the thick taste of horror clogging my throat. The Order still wants me to complete my assignment. After infiltrating the camp with Taliesin and the rebels, they must have realized I’d never do it now of my own accord. So they are forcing me into submission.
I can’t do this.
And as I lift my leg from around his middle, Taliesin cracks open his eyes, gently take my arm, and tugs me back against him.
“If you’re going to be my undoing, at least stay,” he murmurs.
I inhale sharply. His hand snakes around my lower back, holding me flush against him. All the hard planes of his body press against mine, and for one long, torturous moment, I forget what I came here for. The heat of him seeps through every layer between us, warm and solid and devastatingly alive.
I forget the Order. I forget Osian’s face as he backed inside that tent. I forget all of it. All that exists is this beautiful man beneath me.
“I will say,” he says, his deep voice rumbling through me, “when I imagined you in my bed, this is not how I thought you’d get here.”
A burning heat spreads through my cheeks. “Taliesin, you need to let me go. You don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea.” His hand tightens against my back. “You came here to finally kill me.”
