Page 48 of Sorrow & Strangers

@1015

So that we understand each other.

My attention flits back to the photo, and I absentmindedly lick my lips clean before I realize what I’m doing. I use my blazer to scrub at my mouth, but it’s too fucking late. I’ve already licked them clean of all evidence, and the taste haunts my tongue.

@1015

Enjoy my taste, little fae?

I curse and toss my phone to the side. Wiping my mouth again, I stand up and stumble to the bathroom to take the coldest shower I’ve ever had. I need to rid my body of more than just Max.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Stranger

Ireplay the clip of her on my phone over and over. The way her tongue darts out for more of my taste, unable to help herself. Even when she’s tasted it all, her tongue searches for more on her lips.

I’ll give you more, little fae, soon, and I’ll enjoy making you beg for every single drop.

She crossed a line today, and she pushed it even further with her lies. I know she was hoping they would wound me, but they only spurred me on. Even as enraged as I am with her, I already look forward to seeing more of that spark of defiance back in her eyes. Her anger, frustration, and desire all prove that she is willing to live, and I want to taste all of them.

She is such a brat, but she is my brat, and I’ll enjoy the challenge of making her my little pet.

Glancing at the spells that monitor her, I watch as she scrubs herself down in the shower. Is she hoping to rid herself of her little liaison from school? She won’t be able to scrub off my touch so easily. I’ve slipped beneath her barriers to imprint myself on her in a way that she’ll never be able to escape. She can try for a thousand years and still fail. I learned from a very early age how to play the long game. That is what happens when the game becomes a matter of survival. I didn’t really have a choice, and now I am an expert. There are so many chains to keep track of, both locked to me and to others. It takes a master’s touch to know which to pull, which to break, and which to solder shut to keep the horrors trapped forever.

Their screams rip through the night, then just as suddenly stop. Ash fills the air, clogging my throat. Was something alit? Did I fall asleep and a fire start? I remembered the torture, the way they took the skin from my back in two far-apart slices, then removed the skin between so it wouldn’t heal properly. They wanted me marred past the point of healing. I wailed for relief, my small child’s body trying to escape my captor’s hold, and then there was only blackness until the smoke woke me.

My lungs try to expel the ash from my throat. My eyes feel sealed shut, from my tears or my blood, I can’t tell. What happened?

Bracing myself, I wipe my face, trying to clear my eyes enough to open them. Once I succeed, I wish I’d kept them closed. Then I wouldn’t have seen⁠—

My power surges, and the lamp next to me shatters. A shard of crystal cuts my cheek, snapping me from the past. That was careless. I wipe my blood from my cheek, staring at the way it stains my hand.

There was a time I felt nothing.

There was a time when I couldn’t tell if my heart continued to beat only to force me through an eternity of suffering, betrayal, and devastation. As if the rebellious organ only functioned as some form of penance for the crimes I’d committed.

Over the years, it slowed more and more, barely beating until it went still in my chest, or as close to still as it could get while still keeping me alive. I still lived, but I felt nothing. For centuries I lived like that, a shell of a cold, unfeeling male, the perfect assassin. Not only was I gifted with the natural ability to kill anything with just a brush of my hand, but I felt no remorse when I took that life. I played at being a person, when in reality, I was little more than cold rationale with powers so deadly that even the greatest of arcane beings trembled before them.

Absently, I rub my blood-slicked fingers together.

Those days of feeling nothing are gone. A fae made my heart slam so loud I thought the realms were finally ending, and now, I would do anything to keep hearing my heartbeat, to keep my fae close. She is mine, mine alone. No matter who I have to kill.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Summer

Alice knocks on my door later that night, and I look up from my book. I’ve started reading fiction again. For a while I couldn’t, ­because it hurt to delve into other worlds with fierce main characters and strong-jawed love interests. It reminded me too much of myself last year, and what I’d been so close to having.

Alice peeks her head around the door. I know she’s still uncomfortable leaving me on my own, even for an hour, which is why I’m surprised she left me for two hours to read. I heard her creep to the other side of the door, listening to make sure I didn’t need her, but she had given me the space.

“I have to do an overnight botany thing at the alchemy lab,” she says, looking a little nervous.

I nod. “All right.” How am I going to be alone all night? I haven’t done that in months, but I am going to have to figure it out. Alice is really enjoying alchemy, and I love that she’s finally taking an interest in school.

She pushes the door open, concern alight in her eyes. “Are you going to be okay?”

I nod and try to pull my lips into a smile. I know I’m half-successful because my cheeks ache from the unfamiliar movement. Alice still looks skeptical, so I continue, “Yeah, there’s a rerun of The Source on tonight.” It’s not my favorite show, but it’ll at least mute the silence.