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If there isone thing I hate in this life, it’s being made a fool of.
Second to that, I hate being blindsided.
Trust Beckett-fucking-Knight to do both.
The ebb of embarrassment isn’t one I can squash quite as quickly as I’d like, but what makes it worse is the shame of knowing my second chance with Andreas ended almost as brutally as I had been led to originally believe.
The fact he’s been under the same roof as I have and I hadn’t a clue isn’t an easy pill to swallow, and I don’t know if draining the entire Thames would help make it easier. I think I always knew that, confronted with the ghost of Andreas, I would have to beg for forgiveness, knowing it wouldn’t be easily given. I threw our entire friendship out of the window the moment I dared Beckett to take aim and fire.
That’s my bed to lie in.
And that’s why I need an escape the most. I have to let this sink in and realign because I’m losing my touch every minute I’m here. No doubt how Beckett wants it. I left them behind without another word and without a clue where I would end up. In a daze, I find myself in the west wing of the building, almost rounding on the door to my parents’ quarters.
Part of me feels calm at the prospect of being in a room I haven’t been to in years, knowing a piece of my past and legacy is close enough to touch. When I left, my father hadn’t even thought about changing a thing, and while he led people to believe my mother was nothing more than a pawn to give him an heir, he loved every piece of her. That only grew after her death.
Getting to their door, I barely leave room for hesitation. Instead, pushing my way into a room that’s my only tie to family nowadays. Much like my room, nothing’s changed. Just crossing the space to their bed, nostalgia licks at me with hot flames, consuming me whole.
Sitting down heavily on the mattress, I take in the stillness. Slowly, my brows begin to pull together as I try to make sense of everything that has transcended since I got tangled up in this web of lies.
For all the time I knew him, Andreas never had a bad bone in his body. He always saw the good in anyone he could because he knew what the sharp end of the knife felt like. He granted me more chances than I ever felt I deserved, but now that luck has run out and I’m left feeling adrift.
I thought his death had scarred me. Adding another notch of grief to my belt, I thought I’d carry that with me, but mourning his physical state was better than mourning our friendship.
Swallowing hard on that bitterness, I understand Beckett’s game. Thinking clearer than I have in days, I understand now how he made me believe I’m alone in this world, but really, he had an ace up his sleeve.
His power moves are bold and cunning, and now mine feel slow and pathetic.
The plan I had gets murkier with every minute that ticks by. I have no upper hands in a kingdom where I have no allies. My father would always argue that, in this life, you’re more dangerous with men by your side than without. A lone wolf is unprotected territory, after all. All I’d ever known was me with Beckett, shrouded by the power of our names, and I hadn’t known how to leave that sort of existence—purely because I’d never had to.
Then, one day, I was alone.
I was in the world, unprotected, unwanted, and exactly what my father hated—a lone wolf.
Looking back, it was the best thing that happened, but only because I was away from imminent danger. I wasn’t among enemies. I didn’t walk the fine line of betrayal. I stayed away, grew in so many ways, and I was stupid enough to think I was enough to take on a kingdom.
Now, I’m isolated, and nothing will change that. Beckett is about to show me how dangerous loneliness can be. What he doesn’t know is fear isn’t something I can give him. Not easily, and not at his will, anyway.
Rubbing my brow, I think back to what just transcended. Beckett did a good job at name-calling, but he’ll have to try harder to hurt me where it really leaves a mark.
Andreas did. He knew I was in love with Beckett before I even wanted to admit it. Telling me the man I loved to hate and hated to love didn’t love me back is a truth I know, but not one I want to fully acknowledge.
Part of me felt it—that zing of chemistry that always kept me on my toes is hard to deny.
Beckett and I are a sorry state of affairs. Twisted by pasts, corrupted by them too, but bound for eternity no matter what happens. We are one another’s until death, and no amount of time or distance will ever alter the fact. I always thought even in death we’d find one another. Seeking no escape, finding no peace in a world with or without the other. Only because no one could have the power to love or destroy us.
After all, it takes a monster to kill a monster.
It also takes a monster to love a monster.
Ironic, really, isn’t it?
We’re nestled so closely to one another, inevitably wrecked, and no amount of solitude or atonement can alter that sad fact of our love.
Sometimes, fate is a motherfucker.
“I told my son to get rid of loose ends.”
I lift my gaze to find Alistair silhouetted in the doorway. I can’t work out every feature, the room still partially dark from the slightly drawn curtains, but I can work out the leer he saves purely for me. I worked out pretty quickly how he still seems to think his presence scares me. An afterthought from seven years ago, I’m sure, and maybe I should be terrified. He has the same power as Beckett, and he’ll have countless chances to use it.
