Shadowy figures loomed in judgement during a pointless trial. Dommik’s despair deepened as he waited for his punishment, and his heart shredded as he watched Kaia be publicly drained in front of the entire Northern Hive. The light went out of her eyes to the sounds of hungry hissing and a chorus of cheers.
This wasn’t justice. It was cruelty personified.
I gasped as I fell back into my body.
Dommik’s shoulders were slumped and his thumbs tumbled over each other. I’d never seen him so defeated. A glimmer of light reflected from the corner of his eye. I cradled his face and wiped the tear away with the pad of my thumb.
Too weak for the Northern Hive, too monstrous for the Southern. No wonder Dommik was a lone wolf. He didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
I was looking at him with new eyes. Seeing him more wholly than I had before.
“I’m so sorry,” I said and he lifted his hand to meet mine, still cradling his cheek.
It wasn’t the death that bothered him. Death didn’t affect Dommik. But a loss of this magnitude is one that leaves a person scarred, wrecked, broken, and the depth of vampiric feelings were more vast and consuming than I’d ever experienced before.
“Thank you for showing me.”
He nodded and blinked, curling his fingers around mine. His traces would be on my hand, and that would need explaining. But he’d alsocarried me, saving me from Eryx’s thralls. Surely Rhazien would understand.
Rhazien had to understand. He’d understood Dommik and why he had a relationship with a human woman.
“I realize now why it must be so hard to be around me. What you felt for her was profound.”
“By the fucking Four, Reyva.” He stood and paced away. With his back to me, he leaned his forearms on the cellar wall.
I twisted my body to follow his movement, but my stomach threatened to empty its contents if I remained contorted like this. I stood and moved to him, unable to contain my need to comfort him after what he’d shown me.
“Dommik.” I reached for his back and stroked his spine, the same way he’d consoled me earlier. “Don’t push me away.”
“Stop.” His dark hair shook.
“What’s wrong?” I ducked my head beneath his raised arms, trying to capture his gaze. Wild, unraveling eyes peered down at me from his rigid stance.
“You don’t get it.”
I wanted to reach for him, hold him the way he’d held me, but that would probably only make things worse. I huffed out a breath and said, “Then explain it to me.”
Dommik’s nostrils flared.
“You scare the shit out of me.”
Had the cellar ground just fallen out from underneath me, or did Dommik say what I thought he said?
“Me?”
“Yes, Reyva.” I knew just from the way he said my name that his seriousness was not to be toiled with. Dommik stood to his full height, towering over me as he said, “You’re right. When I look at you, I don’t see just you. I see her too.”
I rolled my lips together, intent on listening and ignoring the jealousy that stirred beneath my nausea.
“I. Failed. Her,” he bit out. “I failed my father, I failed Eryx, I failed her. I have lived a life of constant failure. I’ve served Rhazien faithfully for five decades, and it’s only a matter of time before I fail him too. And you…”
He’d had my blood, I’d lived in his memories. We’d both shared more of ourselves than we’d ever intended. But the weight of perpetualunmet expectations was all too familiar. I’d crumbled underneath the feeling dozens of times and I could see now he was crumbling from them too.
I shook my head softly. “You’re not?—”
My sentence was cut short when Dommik opened a palm and slammed it against the wall. “I cannot fail you, Reyva. I could not bear it. But I’m trying to be better than I was before. Leave that old version of me behind. But when I think of you, when I am with you, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do to see you safe. To protect you from danger. There’s a darkness in me that threatens to break free when it comes to matters concerning you.”
He was more animal than man and I panted beneath him, reveling in the weight of his words. A twisted piece of me didn’t only believe him, but had yearned for it to be true. For him to be completely consumed by me.
