Page 103 of Dancing With Demons

“No, he wasn’t!” Ronin grabbed me shoulders, his eyes huge and beseeching. “Dammit, Charlotte, he was lying! Why do you think human souls are so precious? So valuable? Because you can’t get them fucking back after you’ve lost it!” All the emotions he was tamping down and hiding over the last weeks bubbled to the surface as Ronin grew more ragged and haggard before my eyes. “He. Was. Lying.

“He was saying whatever you wanted to hear to get you to make him the All Hallows, because not even a god can resurrect a mortal soul! And once he’s a god, why would he fucking care?” His words were bullets shot from his lips, shredding me open. “Why would he hold himself to a piddling little contractless deal he made with a powerless mortal?

“He was never going to bring her back, Charlotte.” His fingers dug into my shoulder. “I didn’t take your sister from you. I just stopped you clinging to her corpse!”

“Agh!” I screamed, shoving him away. I didn’t want to hear this. Ronin didn’t get to do this. He didn’t get to keep justifying himself. He didn’t get to keep believing he did me a favor! “Just get out! I never want to see you again. I want nothing to do with you!”

“Why are you being like this!” Ronin flung himself back. “Just because you don’t want to accept that doing things your way would’ve ended in both of you fucking dead, doesn’t mean I’m an evil bastard for not playing along with your delusions!”

“I didn’t ask you to play along! I asked—hic hic,” I cried. “I asked you to protect my sister.”

His eyes were hard. “I never cared about your sister,” Ronin dropped on my head like a brick. “I only ever wanted to protect you.”

“Why!”

“Because!” he bellowed back. “Because I— Because you—” His eyes bugged, face reddening as he stumbled over the words. “Because it’s you! Because when you laugh, sirens cut and bash themselves against the rocks just to get closer to the sound. And when you smile, your eyes light up like oblivion gemstones—perilous to the sight but impossible to resist. Your cheeks dimple and your nose wrinkles so cutely, so perfectly, that whenever I see it, I know I’m a fraud because the most beautiful creature in all existence with the power to make men fall to their knees with a mere look in her eyes... is you.”

I could only gape at him. “What the hell are you blathering about!”

“Your smile,” Ronin hissed, reaching for me. “It’s unlike any other. The first time I saw it I knew, I wanted it—and you—for myself.”

A niggle of something broke through the pain and grief.

Rage.

“Are you kidding me?” My voice was low—dangerous. “So everything you’ve done... lying to me, siccing those demons on me, tricking me into the sub bond, drugging me, forcing yourself on me, and ordering me to murder my sister! All of that was because you were obsessed with seeing me smile?!”

“Why not?” Ronin dared to shrug. “You were obsessed with that sister of yours because you were spat out of the same woman. Why is my reason for loving you worth less than yours?”

I rocked back, truly stunned. “L-love? Have you gone mad?” My voice shook. “You don’t love me.”

“I do. I put you first. That’s what you said love was.” He stroked my cheek. “I saved you.”

I slapped his hand away, and agony swelled in mine. I doubled over, biting back screams as I collapsed on the bed of silk, tofu, and shards.

“I know it’s hard for you right now.” Ronin’s words, his voice, his awfulness, his obsessive psychosis clung to every inch of me—suffocating me. “But you’ll see that everything I did was for you. It was all to make you smile again.”

Loud, hiccupping sobs slowed. “N-no, Ronin,” I rasped, my hand closing on a jagged shard of bone china. “It’s you who doesn’t see”—I shoved up, pressing the shard against his throat—“that you’ve ruined everything.

“It’s over now,” I whispered. “I can never love you now.”

“Charlotte, put that down. Even if you wanted to kill me, the sub bond wouldn’t let you, but it will punish you horribly for trying!”

I barely heard him. “You did this,” I choked out, strangled by the terrible things he’d done in the name of loving me. “Because of you, I’ll never smile again.”

“Hunter! Put it—!”

Grabbing my lips, I swung.

“Nooo! Charlotte!”

I shook—body spasming as I stared uncomprehendingly at the two pieces of me lying on my palm. It was strange, but I didn’t feel pain as rivers of blood ran down my chin, neck, and soaked my dress.

I didn’t feel anything.

“Charlotte!”

I couldn’t do that anymore.