AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER3
LEON
“We can’t allow you to live,” Jakub says, his words ringing in my ears as my fingers circle Nought’s throat, my thumb pressing against the unsteady thrum of her pulse, my palm squeezing over tendons and muscles.
“Time’s up, Nought,” I whisper against her lips.
Her eyes widen in shock. Her lips parting as she gasps for breath.
Not yet.
I loosen my hold and her breaths are frantic as she desperately tries to draw air back into her lungs. Behind me Konrad and Jakub look on, waiting for me to end this game of cat and mouse. The air is thick with the metallic scent of blood, with fear. Behind us the Baron is nothing but an empty sack, his innards spilt out over the floor. The Numbers are gone, entertaining our guests in another part of the castle.
It’s just us.
The Masks and The Dancer.
“Leon,” Jakub warns. I hear the impatience in his voice. His need for this to be over and done with, but there’s something else too, something close to…regret, maybe?
I ignore him and his confusion, struck by the colour flooding back into Nought’s lips. Caught by the way her birthmark lightens as she draws oxygen into her lungs. Captured by her different coloured eyes and the way they beg me to stop. She is undoubtedly beautiful regardless of her flaws,becauseof them. Truthfully, everything about her rouses something within me, and I can’t help but bury my nose into her hair and breathe in deep.
Fuck, I’m drawn to her.
I’m drawn to her in a way I can’t explain.
There’s this pain in my chest every time I’m near her. I don’t understand what it means. It fucking hurts, but it also reminds me of something else... It reminds me of what it feels to be alive. For the better part of my life, I’ve been dead inside. Until her, until she came back into it.
She has cut me to pieces and made me bleed.
She has held up the mirror and made me see.
She woke me up.
“I want you so bad, Nought. I want to crawl inside of you and make you mine. But I can’t. I fucking can’t. I have to end this now for the sake of us all. Ihaveto. You don’t belong here.”
Pulling back, I cup her cheek with my free hand, my fingers around her throat stroking her gently, reverently. Her eyes are brimming with tears, her pupils blown so wide that there’s almost no more colour left. For a moment I’m struck by them. By the dark pools, glittering under the candlelight, so like the pond that I carried her into as a child.
She’s breathtaking.
She. Must. Die.
Those three words spin around and around in my head as Jakub’s command merges with my father’s voice travelling all the way from Hell. The Collector is always there in the back of my mind, reminding me every day of who and what I am.
A monster.
“I have to finish what I started, Nought. Don’t you see? It’s the only way to set us all free.”
Behind me Konrad says something, and even though I hear the words I make no sense of them. Right now it’s just me and her, just us. Exactly like it had been when I’d laid her down on the damp grass the night of the fire. Our story, hers and mine, has come full circle. Perhaps her mother had been right, perhaps fate has brought us together for a reason?
Break the cycle once and for all… Let. Her. Live.
Nessa’s plea lingers in my mind as I hold Nought’s life in my hands. Do I release her and allow her to live, or tighten my grasp and finish this once and for all? Right now there is no pressure around her throat, just indecision and the feeling of her pulse thumping beneath my fingers.
“Tell me what I should do…” I whisper.
Kill. Her.My Father’s voice strikes like a bullet to my temple. I’m blinded by the pain of it.Kill her and end this.
My fingers flex then tighten. She chokes.
