I licked his blood from my lips. “He dies.” My voice sounded as dark and cavernous as an abyss.
She crouched next to me and spoke in a whisper. “You worry about your humanity. This is the moment to prove to yourself you aren’t a slave to the blood. This is the moment to fight for your soul. Let him go.”
Her sweet scent reached my senses, and her words worked their way painfully through the haze of my bloodlust. A vision of my reflection becoming blurry shocked me.
As the urge to kill receded, the horror of the contact with Graves advanced. I shot up, watching the blood on his pale neck.
I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my shirt, ignoring the urge to drink more, to drink everything. “Someone take him inside and attend to him. This is the end of the conversation.”
I didn’t wait to see if my orders were followed and strode inside without sparing a glance at Graves. People hurried to move out of my way.
I shut the door to my bedroom with a kick and removed my jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, lobbing them on the floor. Graves’s blood stained my hands, and I wasn’t sure how it made me feel.
I heard Darius’s and Irene’s heartbeats before they slipped inside.
“How are you, mate?” He didn’t come too close.
“You shouldn’t have done it.” I scrubbed my hands with lye soap.
“Done what?”
“Don’t lie!” I couldn’t stop myself from growling. “You intervened.”
He scowled. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Liar.”
“I did,” Irene said. “I didn’t mean to, but I was worried about you, and my power came out. I don’t regret it. You were about to kill him. Why?”
“Why? Because that’s what I am!” I had to scrub my skin raw, or I would go mad.
Irene didn’t flinch. “You aren’t a murderer. Don’t hide behind your curse. You’re responsible for your choices, and you chose to kill Graves.”
“You don’t understand.” I used a brush to scour my face and arms. Harder. Harder. I needed the cleansing pain of the scrub. “He challenged me. He deserved to die. That’s the law of the court.”
“You’re the duke. You can do as you please.”
“And I decide who lives.”
She pressed her lips hard. She stood close enough to get wet with the drops of water. “You’ll never keep your power in the court if you govern through fear. It works for a while, but people need to trust you. You did a very poor job of that today. Would you please stop scrubbing yourself so hard?”
“I can’t! That’s what you don’t understand. I can’t be who you want.”
“No, you can’t, if you keep repeating that.” She stormed out of the bedroom.
Darius didn’t need to tell me he agreed with her.
I kept scrubbing myself, ignoring the urge to follow her. She had to understand my curse couldn’t be broken. I froze when I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror. It was slightly blurred on one side.
“I never admit to having made a mistake.” Darius picked up my dirty clothes and put them on a chair. “I don’t usually make mistakes, but I’ll admit that I should have been more helpful. I covered up your problem by pretending you didn’t fear touching people, and that created a whole new problem.”
He lingered as if waiting for me to say something, but I had nothing to say.
“Well.” He shrugged. “I’ll be in my bedroom if you need anything, like wisdom.”
He walked out of the room and closed the door softly. And I was alone with my demons.
44
