My cheeks burn with the tears of frustration I’m refusing to let fall. “It wasn’t your choice to make, Kaelis. You can’t force me to be at your side by pretending to be something you’re not just because you think it’s what I want or need. You have manipulated me and maneuvered me. You took me to your bed without telling me things about you I should have known—I had a right to know if I was to ever be yours.”
“It’s true what they say, I am void-born.” An eerie calmness overtakes him, as if to say it he must detach his mind from his body. “I can wield reverse tarot. In fact”—a haunted and hollow laugh—“I can wield it easier than normal cards. Every card seems much more…natural…when I twist it.” He moves a palm through the air, and a card dances on his fingertips, rotating as he speaks. With a flick of his fingers, he dismisses it to his deck.
Finally, Kaelis returns his attention to me, and I’m rooted to the spot with the look. It is raw, desperate, and real. Everything I’ve longed to see for months finally comes to the fore. This man and his magic, forbidden and fearsome…I can finally see it all.
“I do not wish to languish, cast to the side as a spare. Nor do I wish to exist only as my father’s tool. I wish to thrive…to be the king deserving of the throne at your side. Deserving of your wisdom and rule.” The words nearly choke him. Kaelis seems to manage to get them out only with sheer force of will and spite.
“What am I to you?” I’m pulled toward him, even when my better sense tells me to run. I am drawn to him, wanting us to collapse into one being that I can never escape from.
“Everything.” Kaelis drops to his knees as I come to a stop before him, taking my hand in both of his. As thoughheis swearing fealty tome.“You are my love in every age. The keeper of every incarnation of my heart. My reason. My aspiration. My fate. You…youare my World.”
Chapter 68
A primal instinct tells me to be terrified. Yet my heart skips a beat. My whole body feels light, despite the blood of my enemies that covers it.
This man might be a monster, but he ismymonster.
A wry smile crosses my lips. Perhaps I have truly gone mad, but I say, “And you are mine. Who else could I destroy the world with?”
Kaelis’s eyes widen, and his lips part. But no words come. I’ve truly shocked him.
In one fluid movement, Kaelis rises to his feet and envelops me in his arms. He pulls me to him, his mouth on mine; the kiss is as fierce as the way he grips me. One hand is on the back of my head, holding me to him, as the other is wrapped around my waist, clutching me as though I might disappear at any moment.
He tastes like desperation. Like tears unshed. He holds me as though I’m the last real thing in his entire universe. Magic washes over me like the pulsing, radiant heat of his body. I feel it rippling under my clothes and caressing my skin. Sweat and grime and gore are magically swept away from us both by his command.
I try to find purchase against him, but my arms are pinned between us. All I can do is grip his collar as the daylight is blotted out by shadow and night. Behind my eyes, a thousand stars bloom and fade to dust.
I push forward and forward still. We tilt, off-balance. Maybe he expected my next movement. Maybe he had a different plan. I’ll never know, because I act first. The Chariot barely has time to rise from the deck at my thigh and bloom into ribbons of silver and white light that’s quickly swallowed by his radiant shadow.
We slip through the veil of reality. We’re standing near the edge of the Clan Hermit crater one moment; the next, we’re falling into his bed. Kaelis breaks apart and grabs my hand once more, kissing my knuckles, licking down my palm, and biting my wrist. He kneels over me as his cards clean our bodies—worried about blood on his sheets until the last.
“I will worship you through this morning,” he growls against my hot skin.
“It is well past morning,” I needlessly remind him, though I’m not sure why; the last thing I want him to do is stop.
“I didn’t mean ‘this morning’ as a couple mere hours ago…I meant thiscomingmorning. I meant you shall not escape me for the rest of the day or night.” With his other hand, he frames my jaw and runs his palm down, gripping my neck, then moving between my breasts. Kaelis leans back, admiring me. “I’m not stopping for anything.”
“Do your worst.”
He unclasps his cloak, then unfastens his shirt underneath. He could remove it with magic, yet he doesn’t. He moves slowly; he wants me to wait, to watch.
“Do you have any idea what my ‘worst’ might be?”
“I want to find out.”
He slips out of his shirt, revealing the familiar expanse of lean muscle and faint scarred lines I know well. Kaelis leans down, kissing me deep but brief. “I want to treasure you, worship you. Yet I also want to wreck you. Now, spread your legs.”
I do as I’m told.
Kaelis shifts between my legs. He drags a finger down my neck. “Are you afraid of my power?”
“No.”
“Some would call you stupid for that.”
“Yet you’d call me ‘wife.’ ”
He growls at the idea of it. At the notion of what we once could’ve been—what we were in another world. What we will yet reclaim.
