AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As if He Belonged to Himself
Numair watched her hit the bag and tried to shove down how desperately he needed to hit something. He figured only one of them got to let their rage overtake them at a time, and at the moment she was the one with a right to need it more.
But he couldn’t stop the earlier scene from replaying in his head. Walking into the solarium and seeing her in the courtyard with him. Forcing himself to pretend he didn’t care, to sit down and let Dahlia practically climb all over him.
There was a disjointedness to watching something unfold and knowing that everyone around you was seeing one thing, while you were seeing another. The courtiers muttering that yes, Clare was pretty enough, and young enough, and talented to be sure, but where precisely had she even come from? Why was Alaric so taken with her?
As if that hand gripping her chin had been a caress and not a demand for submission. As if they thought Alaric had spoken words of endearment to her rather than threats. As if the flush on her cheeks had come from excitement, rather than anger.
It had taken every shred of the self-control he’d been cultivating since he was fifteen to not ask her what his uncle had said. Because it hadn’t only been anger he’d seen in her eyes. There had been a blankness there too, as if Alaric had carved deep into her and hollowed something out and, with its withdrawal, the Clare he knew had been replaced with a doppelganger that thought only in terms of survival.
Whatever had passed between her and the king, Numair didn’t think it had to do with the power he suspected she possessed. Alaric wouldn’t have let her walk away from that conversation. She wouldn’t have responded to it so…personally.
Her breathing was ragged, her hands bloodied, her shirt soaked through with sweat, but he didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t try to tell her it was enough. It was never enough, would never be enough. He knew that better than anyone. Knew the only reprieve was exhausting the body until it was too tired to express the physical symptoms of fear.
And she was afraid—just not of Alaric. Or at least, not only of him.
Her hands finally fell away from the bag. Streams of crimson flowed down her fingers, plink plink plinking onto the mats that covered the floor. For a moment he saw the bright white of exposed knuckle bones. Then that cold, foreign power shivered through her and her skin was whole, quicker and neater than any healer could have managed.
Irritation crossed her face, as if the healing had been unwanted, and he had the sudden, ludicrous desire to leave with her. To just…walk out of this house, out of this city, and see if she would go with him.
As if either of them had that freedom. As if the world didn’t belong to Alaric and they could hide somewhere in it. As if Numair’s most minor absence from Veralna didn’t have to be planned and approved. As if he belonged to himself.
Her gaze went to the clock on the far wall. “I have something I promised to do. Put on a different face and come with me?”
“I’d like to.”
“But you can’t?”
He shook his head. He was already going to have enough to fix, following her out of the palace like that. But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
She turned to go, stopped, turned back. “If I come by tonight, will you be here?”
He wished she hadn’t asked that. “No.”
She didn’t leave, and now he wished she would. Wished the knowledge of what that no meant wasn’t sitting between them. Wished he was a different person.
“When will you be?”
“Clare.” He closed his eyes. Opened them to find her kneeling in front of where he sat.
“When will you be?” she pushed.
Her liquid green eyes were intent on him, and he searched them for judgment. Relented when he found none. “I don’t know.”
She gave a sharp nod and rose, making him realize she’d taken the truth he’d given her for a brush-off.
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But I’ll tell you when I do.”
She smiled. The first one he’d seen from her that didn’t look like a warning or a promise or a presentation. It just looked like…her.
Then she was gone and he was sitting there, staring at her blood drying on the floor and wondering if she had any notion of how much messier she’d made his already complicated life.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Who You Are
Something dark and chaotic churned in Clare. Something the strain of exhausting her muscles on the bag had tempered, and Numair’s no in answer to her question had coaxed from a diminished ember back to a raging fire. The flames licked at her bones, a deep burn that needed an outlet.
