But it’s not enough.
I keep going—fingernails gouging, foot swinging, hand slapping, shoulder barging until I’m empty and spent and the sutures of my sanity split.
You’re staying right the fuck here ...
Rhordyn’s haunting words ring like a bell in my ears, and my knees give out, colliding with the floor in a way that would probably hurt if I could feel.
But I’m lost. Numb and broken. My entire awareness tunneled down to the failure gnawing at my insides ...
He pillaged my weakness. Offered me a drink from his well and I gulped with greedy draws until I was intoxicated and mindless. Then, he tossed me down the hole and left me there with no way out.
Now all I can do is drown.
My knees are bunched against my chest while I cradle my corrupted head ...
He locked me in his room.
I could look through all his stuff, discern my own thoughts on him from his personal space, but I won’t.
I’ve lost the will to care.
Now that he’s gone, all I can see is Mishka’s flat, unseeing stare. All I can hear is that gasp of surprise as Rhordyn put a blade through her heart.
The Vruk may have gotten to her first, buthetook her final breath, as if he wanted to bear the brunt of her death.
I wonder how much blood has wet his conscience over the years? I’ll probably never know because he gives me nothing but empty riddles.
I refuse to live in a world where you don’t exist ...
The skin on my neck blazes; a fiery stamp left from his firm grip that seemed to threaten me.
In that moment, my life was in his hand—one capable of crushing me with a single squeeze. It both thrilled and shocked me, because part of mewantedhim to grip a little tighter and shackle me with the emotions he hides so well.
I wanted him tosnapso I could prove just how resilient I really am. So I could prove that although I’ve hidden in his shadow all these years, I’m not some fragile flower who folds into herself after receiving a few bruised petals.
Perhaps that’s what he was waiting for when he pulled that sword from Mishka’s heart. For the pain to make me wither. But death plants a seed in you, and my insides are alreadylitteredwith shoots I can’t seem to hide from.
I lift my head, fingers sliding through my hair and gripping hard, staring at the opposite wall blank of anything other than a few tall windows reaching for the high roof and looking out across Vateshram Forest.
There’s nothing decorating Rhordyn’s room; the only softness being his lush four-poster bed and a black comforter that now reeks of the cloying scent of my arousal.
My gaze lands on the easel, on the delicate sketch no more finished than it was when I was here last.
I sigh, tipping my head against the door ... studying.
Wondering where he learned to draw like that, trying to picture him doing it. Jealous of that stretched piece of cloth for the careful attention it’s received ... for the way he’s left his mark upon its surface.
If he were drawing me, I would imagine him digging the coal into canvas—gouging through it in places—ripping cloth from the wooden frame, screwing the picture up, flattening it out again, forcing it to yield to his will.
It’s tempting to stalk over there and destroy the art out of spite. But then I realize that it, too, is locked in this room. Stashed away like some cloistered treasure.
I look to the door that leads to his personal bathing chamber, and my heart skips a beat, eyes widening ...
Breathcatching.
A soft laugh bubbles in the back of my throat, growing into something manic and twisted. The seed of realization blooms into a surging wave that promises to blow apart Rhordyn’s firm-handed control.
Leaping up, I jog to the door, but seize the doorframe as I pass, slamming to a halt ...
