Page 182

Lily twisted the small carving of a tree. “I didn’t know someone else raised you.”

“No one did. Her history was forgotten the day she died. The only thing I personally want from all of this is to give her the acclaim she should have had from the beginning. If I succeed, I want the stories to trace back to her. To her son who died too soon.”

So this wasn’t about him. Not really.

Draven didn’t want to hide his past under a new name. He didn’t even want redemption for himself. He wanted to give Jarek’s name the recognition he thought it deserved. For their mother.

Lily could only bury her sympathy and sorrows under her tongue. She suspected he’d had it hard growing up under someone like Valen, but what all he endured starting so young, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

Jarek’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t want you to worry for me, Lilith.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to die after all of this. It’s not fair that you have a second life you’ll never get to really live.”

“There’s no place for me in Eizreth. I don’t belong here. I never did, and I’ve no right to make one.”

He was right. The Serpent didn’t belong to him. The Asura family were victims in Valen’s conquest like the Evelians and the Argents. She focused on the feel of his left hand now wrapped around hers as she held his necklace—where there was no necro aura clinging to him.

“I’ve found it easy to keep myself separate from this time since I should’ve lived my life and died long ago." Jarek brought his right hand to her neck, his fingers caressing her nape while his thumb gently traced the fading bruises on her neck. “Unfortunately, I’ve been finding that difficult to do lately.”

Lily’s belly filled with fluttery wings, her heart dripping molten gold. “Then… I’ll make one for you.”

“Lilith—”

“The uncertainty of your future or the actions of your past shouldn’t make you question what your life is worth now.” She sought and found the Flare behind his eyes. “And it’s worth something to me.”

The rueful grin curling across his features faded as he took her in. Every impulse that told her this had gone far enough slipped away when she trailed her free hand over the muscular curves of his chest toward the collar of his shirt. She gripped it, inching up toward him.

Jarek kept her locked where she was so she couldn’t push herself further against him. Mouth parted, and soul as sharp as cut gems, he looked ravenously conflicted, like he was fighting the urge to devour her right then and there. “This would be so much easier if you resented me.”

“It’d be easier if you acted like the monster you think you are.”

His gaze softened. “I am a monster, Lilith. Just not yours.” He dipped toward her until his breath danced along her lips. “I won’t leave you to pay the price for my failures alone. I cannot promise my presence in your future, but with certainty that dawn follows the dark, I will give you one you deserve. I will tear down everything my family built from the inside out, ending every monstrosity and every life that dares think they can avoid your touch. And when their corpses are dried and decayed, I will rebuild your throne among the Pantheon with their bones. That, I will give you, and I want nothing in return.”

Lily’s breath caught. No one had ever spoken to her like that. Her heart ached low in her abdomen, caught between dread and wanting to drink in the sweet poison of his words.

An indistinct voice sounded in the hall. The lust faded from his eyes along with the fantasy of what just happened. Reality hit Lily, hard and unforgiving. She pushed herself away and off of the bench. Jarek also stood abruptly, looking as if he had woken from a hex.

They stared at each other in the cold distance, a dozen thoughts flitting through her mind, but she was unable to verbalize any of them.

I shouldn’t have done that.

Things are complicated enough as is.

This is a mistake…

But I wish it wasn’t.

The voice she could now identify as Sterling’s was obnoxiously in search of Jarek, who sighed, running a heavy hand down his face. He flicked agitated glances between the door, the floor, and finally stuck to the window.

“Stay inside, Lilith. Please.”

He vanished into his own shadow, and Lily exhaled like she’d been holding in air since he walked into the room. She quickly snagged her book and fell onto the bench, lifting it high so when Sterling inevitably walked into the room with the intention to cause trouble, it hid the flush on her face while she shooed him away.

Lily pinched her eyes shut as Sterling’s footsteps drifted back the way they came. She rubbed her arms in an attempt to quiet her heightened senses, the fabric of her shirt too tight against her skin.

He compelled her. That was the simple answer. But Lily knew it wasn’t true. The lust was all her own, and deeper, something unfamiliar she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

What are you thinking? With everything else going on?