I open my eyes. See the room’s spinning.
Repress a whimper.
Get inside—just get inside.
I twist the door handle, stumbling as I push it wide. My legs buckle, and I watch the stone floor rush toward my face—
I’m jerked upright, bolstered by a hard body.
“Fuck,” a deep, familiar voice hisses.
Kolden.
He sweeps me into his arms and shuts the door, then carries me farther into my suite and sets me on the bed. Shafts of silver moonlight pour through the open balcony doors, making my broken heart ache.
Mind drifting amidst the muddy haze of my heavy thoughts, I reach for the light, wanting to tangle my fingers through it …
Kolden takes my outstretched hand and wraps it around a glass, nudging it toward my mouth. “Drink,” he orders, tipping it to my lips.
I force the water down my throat until there’s no more, and he lowers the glass, crouching before me.
An aching quiet settles between us as I gently untwist a vine from around my ribs and spine, gathering it like a spool before pulling its roots from the tender organ in my chest. A vine that sprouted from the splits in my heart, blooming a burst of dull, silvery flowers while Cainon clawed at me—his teeth so deep in my flesh I could feel them grating against my tendons. Like it was trying to tell me this is wrong.
It’s all wrong.
I pinch the petals closed on the big, ashy blooms nipped with streaks of silver, tuck them amongst the vine’s coiled mass, then reach for one of my ready-made domes and ease it into the hollow, cradling its wilting corpse until I can no longer watch it slip away. Until I can no longer feel its dying breath kissed upon my brow.
Don’t cry.
I pin it against my insides with all the rest of the domes that are starting to look like gravestones.
“You need to go,” I whisper, blinking, a tear rolling down my cheek. If Cainon catches Kolden in my room, there will be another burning.
I’d rather die than go through that again. Than watch those flames gobble him up.
“No,” he growls, the impasse boiling. “With all due respect, my loyalties now lie with you.”
“Why?”
He sighs, holding my stare as he says, “They just do.”
My face crumbles, and I look away, desperate to avoid his eyes while this sudden surge of emotion strangles me.
The air between us tightens, and I feel his gaze scrape across my throat. Across that raw ache thudding in my neck, making my stomach pitch with the need to vomit.
My cheeks burn as I reach for my freshly bound braid and drape it over my shoulder. “I’m fine, Kolden. I asked for it.”
His stare hardens. “Asking out of want and asking out ofneedare two entirely different things.”
What I want, what I need, and what is right are three entirely different things.
The backs of my eyes burn, Rhordyn’s words landing a different blow than they did when I was bound in a red dress and my own cloistered naïvety.
I told him I wasn’t as innocent as he thought. He told me I’d look back on the moment and realize I was wrong.
It hurts how right he was.
Nipping a glance at the door we came through, Kolden clears his throat. “What do you need me to do, Orlaith?”
