Do I want to leave my safety circle?
Never.
But I’m suddenly wondering how much of that has to do with me bleeding into this goblet every day for the past nineteen years, giving little pieces of myself to a man who was never mine. A man who’s givennothingof himself in return.
Nothing
Rhordyn’s simply a shadow that sometimes drifts through this castle. Just a specter that has a voice dense enough to make him seem real. And now he’s downstairs, sharing a meal with another female while I’m preparing to stab myself in the finger. For him.
I sigh, bottom lip caught between my teeth, looking down at the pin like it’s a sword about to pierce my stupid, vulnerable heart.
White-hot fire blazes through my veins.
Screw it. Screw him. And screw his fucking needs.
I let the pin fall to that little porcelain plate and set the goblet on the table. Stalking to my bed, I snatchTe Bruk o’ Avalansteand crack it open to a random page, pretending my insides aren’t churning.
Minutes pass, eaten by the constant tick of my bedside clock while I pretend to read, though I haven’t turned a single page by the time that long, slender hand kisses the thirty-minute mark.
Footsteps echo up Stony Stem—dense, thunder-clapping ones that could only belong to one person.
I hear the little wooden door being unlocked, then opened.
Silence.
The waiting sort of silence that’s deafening, stretching for over thirty seconds before the door slams shut and those same footsteps hurriedly descend.
I expel a mighty breath.
Five minutes later, more footfalls approach—as I’d expected them to.
They’re rushed. Frantic.
Familiar.
Knuckles rap against the wood, and I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, the silky strands damp from my bath. “You may enter.”
The door opens and Baze strides in, gaze darting around the room before landing on the book open in my lap. His brows bump up and he quickly catches my eye. “Sorry to, ahh ... interrupt. Are you okay?”
Interrupt?
“Better than ever. Just enjoying a bit of light reading. Why?”
He clears his throat and steals a quick glance at the pin still cradled by my plate. “Have you—have you forgotten something?”
I lift a finger to my lips and tap, pretending to think while my heart bruises itself against bone.
“No,” I finally answer, eyes dropping back to the page of ...God of Fertility.Crap.
Cheeks ablaze, I swiftly turn the page. “I absolutely have not forgotten anything.”
He retrieves the pin and walks over, waving it in my face.
I peek up, mouth popping open, hand coming up to cover it. “Ohhhh, that!”
Baze sighs, all terseness melting from his shoulders as he sets the pin on my bedside table and retrieves the goblet of water.
“I’m not doing that anymore.”
