“For alliance. For loyalty. Foryou,” he says, frustrated. “You are mine.”
“Not like this,” I say. “Not if I have to share you.”
He laughs sharply. “You would deny me what I am owed?”
“I am asking you to see me,” I say. “To choose me.”
His patience finally shatters.
“You will not dictate my nature,” he roars. “You will not punish me with silence and tears.”
“I loved you,” I sob. “I still do.”
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he says.
I scramble backward, but he follows, relentless. His face is twisted now, eyes too bright, fixed on me as if I am the only thing left in the world.
“You think Iwantthis?” His voice shakes, not with doubt, but with fury barely contained. “You’re in my head. Every hour. Every night. I can’t drink you away. I can’t sleep you away.”
My back hits something hard, a book case. There is nowhere left to go.
“You look at me like I’m a monster,” he continues, breathragged. “You make me feel it. You make me lose control.” He starts hitting his head with his palm, as if he is trying to shake me from his mind.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
His hands close around my throat.
“You drive me mad,” he says, almost pleading now, almost desperate. “Do you know what it’s like? To want someone so badly it hurts? To belong to them like this?”
Air vanishes. Panic detonates in my chest. My hands fly up instinctively, clutching at his wrists, useless and trembling. Every part of me screams to fight—to strike, to escape, to survive—but my body lags behind my terror, stunned into disobedience.
“This is because of you,” he mutters. “Because I love you.”
My vision blurs. Black creeps in at the edges. My fingers scrape against his skin, weak, frantic, as the world begins to narrow to the sound of my own pulse and his voice, still spilling over me, still claiming me, even as everything starts to fade.
This is not how it was supposed to be.
I have imagined death before: dramatic, meaningful, a sacrifice, or a stand. I never imagined it would be like this. Never against a palace wall. Never with his face so close to mine. Never at the hands of the man I love most in the world.
My chest burns. My lungs ache. The room darkens, narrowing to fragments: his breath, my pulse roaring in my ears, the terrifying certainty that I am disappearing.
I try once more to fight. My body trembles, then gives.
The world fades.
* **
I wake on the floor, alone.
My body aches in places I don’t yet dare examine. My throat burns. My head throbs.
I understand now.
And I will never be the same again.
Click.
