I didn’t move.
Menace swam in his gaze. “What’s the matter? Afraid? Quaking in those grubby sneakers of yours?”
Was that supposed to be an insult?
Swallowing my anxiety, I kept up my rigid posture. “I’ll give you the first move.”
He took a few seconds to answer, his grin dimming. “Brave executioner facing down a god. Brave executioner trying to appear powerful and unafraid. But I see him. I feel his suffering and the exquisite torment of my betrayal.”
Shit. That hit me right in the emotional core. I defended against it as best I could, but its spikes breached my walls.
“Always remember there is light in any darkness,” he mocked me, quoting part of the rules we’d been told to live by after he’d liberated Quintrealm all those centuries ago.
Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies.
The word swirled in my head, breaking me down and dialing up my anger.
“Poor elf prayed so hard,” he added. “Poor elf on his knees. Poor elf begging, hoping, calling to me, seeking my love and comfort in so many dark days.” He took a step closer toward me. “The worst of them when his sister was brutally murdered.”
Ice flooded my veins.
“Pearl,” he prattled on. “Pearl Raine, his lovely twin. Betrayed by a so-called friend, body mutilated, poor Paris’s heart broken.”
That ice turned to fire. “Don’t say her name,” I warned, tears instantly rolling down my cheeks as if he’d opened a faucet.
Fuck.
“Pearl, Pearl, Pearl,” he said, every beat cruel. “And I heard you. I did. I heard your pleas, I heard every word. For I am Aidan and always have been. Everything you believed nurtured me, your threads connected to me.” A wider grin followed.
I wanted to scream and scrap, not listen to this.
“But none are more connected than you and me,” he said. “And I want to keep it that way.”
My knees were about to give out, my strength fading.
This wasn’t happening. This had to be a nightmare. And what the hell did he mean?
“Because you freed me,” he added.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. More blows to my core, more guilt taking swings at me for being the one to break his chains.
Kill him.
Just kill him.
“Fuck you,” I retorted, on the cusp of attacking now. I just needed to break the hesitation keeping my feet glued to the floor.
Kill him.
Just kill him.
“No thank you,” he countered. “I’m not Silvanus.”
My lips drew back in a snarl.
Kill him.
Just kill him.
