Amriel spits at the Shadow, his whole frame tensing with the effort. A strand of blood-stained hair sticks to his cheek as he glares down. “Just stay away from her.”
The Shadow kneels there, his head bowed, his laughter soft and despairing. “I won’t, though. Not out there. If you want her safe, then keep her out of the Wildwood.”
“I can’t,” Amriel snarls. “Iwon’t.”
The Shadow lifts his head, his fangs gleaming as brightly as the accusation in his eyes. “Then when I hurt her again, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”
Amriel steps back. Silence rings in the hall, and when I glance around, half the crowd watches their king, their expressions unreadable. The other half watches the Shadow, varying degrees of understanding painted across their faces.
Not a single fae here looks surprised.
“I have no choice,” Amriel says finally. “You know that.”
“You do, though,” the Shadow hisses. “More of a choice than I do.”
Amriel laughs once—cold, abrupt, unfeeling. “I don’t.”
Without another word, he turns and strides from the hall. He doesn’t glance back. He just disappears through a vine-choked opening, probably aiming for the nearest wine bottle.
I stare after him for far too long, the mate bond reaching for him with hungry fingers. I reel the feeling in. Strangle it into nonexistence. When I turn back, the Shadow watches me, exhaustion and regret simmering in the air between us.
“I’m sorry, Princess,” he says. “Forgive me. Please.”
Murmurs ripple through the hall. The crowd’s focus shifts, its weight settling across my shoulders.
“It’s all right,” I say slowly. “It wasn’t you out there. Not really. I could tell by the way you looked at me.”
“No, it wasn’t.” His whisper is broken, his expression wrecked. “It was my body, but not me. But I still need your forgiveness. I think I’ll die if you don’t give it.”
A few heartbeats pass in silence. “Then I forgive you,” I say.
“No. Words aren’t enough. I need toearnit.”
A frown tugs my eyebrows together. “Earn it? How?”
The Shadow’s look turns pleading. “With blood.” Then he drops to all fours. And crawls to me.
The crowd’s murmuring intensifies. My stomach wobbles as he draws closer, but I remind myself that this isnotthe same goblin who charged me in the forest. I know, in a place too instinctual for language, that this version of him would never hurt me.
The Shadow makes his way through bloody puddles, his knees painting purple trails across the floor. When he reaches me, he sits back on his haunches.
We face one another, silent, both of us bloodied and bruised and beaten. And it strikes me, then, that I’ve had both my mates on the floor tonight. Both of them kneeling before me. Now this moment blurs with the one in my room, because the Shadow looks so much like Amriel that for a second, my vision wavers, unable to separate the two.
Then the Shadow gropes for his dagger, and the illusion shatters. He tugs the weapon free and offers it to me, hilt-first.
I eye the blade. Pink light collects along its silver edge. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Hurt me,” he says in a low, harsh rasp. “Hurt me like I hurt you.”
My throat tightens, the mere suggestion kicking up some instinctual horror. “What? No.”
“Please. It’s the only way to make things right.”
Silence binds my tongue. I look around, searching for guidance, only to find a dozen heads nodding along. As if it makes perfect sense for me to dig a knife into my mate. As if brutality like this is completely normal.
A soundless exclamation rises in my throat and dies there. Ishanna help me, but I’m truly lost in this place. None of this would ever happenin Aethrolia. No man would ever beg a woman to repay his debt using pain as a currency.
And yet I can’t ignore the plea in the Shadow’s eyes. Nor can I stop myself from squaring my shoulders, or from reaching for the knife. The moment I take it, the Shadow turns his attention to his armor, yanking at the buckles, freeing himself of the shaped leather.
