He’d lost an arm, and I’d lost my life.
“What am I doing here?” I ground out.
“I wanted to talk.”
He wasn’t alone. When the woman came into view, Auster dropped his right hand from the doorframe so she could slip out. My stomach immediately turned.In all my years I’d never come across anyone with hair like mine, yet here she was, with silver hair and arms covered with silver tattoos that, despite whatever starlight matter enhancement potion she took to imitate me, weren’t right at all.
She gave me a sheepish smile, looking perfectly composed with her clothing and hair impeccable despite what I must have intruded on. She slipped out, and I watched after her with a million thoughts.
“A frequent courtesan of yours?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered unashamedly.
I dragged my sight back to him with more disgust from discovering his particulardesiresrolling in me.
Auster stepped aside so I could enter his rooms, and I had to tear my feet from the roots binding me to the floor.
The familiarity hit me, spinning my mind as I took in the surroundings as flashes of memory stole me away. The worst part was that they weren’t all unpleasant.
In the armchairs by the blazing fire, we’d talked for endless hours into the night. About our wants, our dreams, about Vesitire and Althenia, and about nothing at all.
In his dining area we’d shared countless meals, and I could almost hear the echoes of our laughter.
On his bed…
I spun away from looking at it, having to close my eyes just tobreathe.I thought back to the times when it was easy between us. Simply as friends. Very good friends. Then we grew up, and the idea of marriage and romance felt expected because of that childhood closeness. For a while, in our early adulthood, we both suspected the bond. Auster started to lean into the idea of a Bonded life together, and I tried to reciprocate.
If I hadn’t found love and passion with Nyte, I might never have discovered what that truly meant in a life with Auster. But I still wanted Auster in my life back then; I still loved him on a different level and always would.
“Why wasn’t that enough?” The pained whisper slipped out of me before I could bite my tongue. When I opened my eyes, I turned to him, relieved he’d put on a plain white shirt. My voice picked up with grating resentment. “Why was my friendship never enough for you?”
He considered me for a moment, moving idly toward the bed.
“It wasn’t that. It waswhoyou rejected me for. You’d turned your back on everything we’d built, forhim.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“There was nothing to explain.”
“Your perception had always been singular and biased. After all we’d beenthrough you didn’t give me any grace to explain to you what I saw in him, why I fell for him.”
“You think I wanted to hear it?” he snarled. Then he laughed. A single venomous sound. “You really are so fucking selfish, Astraea. And naive. And damn stubborn.”
“I’m selfish?” I seethed, feeling livid now. “You can’t keep pretending all you’ve done is in the name of your duty and protection of the people against Nyte. You couldn’t set your pride aside and consider the possibility that maybe we were all wrong about him.”
We drowned under the flood of our past.
“You could have found love with someone else,” I continued, my bitterness festering. “You couldn’t let go of me because of the power and status I would grant you above your brothers. You loathe me now, yet you’re still grappling with the idea of us. Why?”
“To break you as much as you broke me.”
We exchanged our words like knives, and I didn’t know who would bleed out the fastest.
“I didn’t break you, Auster Nova, you did that yourself. You can pretend all you want, but it wasn’t just me who felt passionless when we were together. There was always something else on your mind.” I laughed, a little deliriously. “I thought it was me, that you weren’t attracted to me. But I felt your love in every way except when we tried to be intimate. So when I felt what was missing with Nyte, I thought…” A new piece of my heart broke off as I stood watching our anguish tighten; there was pain in his eyes too. “I thought for one moment of fantasy you might behappyfor me.”
Auster’s hand tightened on the bedpost he leaned on. His expression turned scarily firm.
“Happy?” He bathed that word in acid. “You thought I would be happy to hand over a reign that was rightfully mine? My Bonded, a person who was supposed to bemine.You thought I would be fuckinghappyto watch the most heinous creature in our land have it all instead? No, Astraea. The moment I learned of it from Nyte’s father, I wanted to kill Nyte more than ever before. I wanted to kill you. I wanted tostopthe plan the two of you started to contrive together when I didn’t know how far ahead you had gotten. I saw only one option, and that was that you had to be stopped.”
