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Marius kept my gaze as I opened myself to him. The moment I had finished, I felt myself recoil. Out of embarrassment or shame, I was not certain.
But I had said it.
I waited for him to say something back. To see if my words melted the hardness that had returned to his face. The tough expression that I had not seen on him for a long while.
“When I change I suggest you hide. Do what you can to keep me away from you, and you away from me.”
Marius turned for the door and walked towards it. I wanted to call for him to not leave. To plead, demand, beg for him to stay with me.
But with each step away from me I felt my soul break apart. By the time he left me, alone, with his words of warning echoing between us, I feared that I would never be able to piece my soul back together.
Not that it mattered now,the thought taunted through my darkening mind.
It would end soon enough. All of it would. But most of all,Iwould end.
25
Iexisted through the following hours as though I was drifting through a river. Some moments were calm, and others rough and tumultuous. It was impossible to see when I would allow myself moments to breathe, not thinking about the final night that was creeping closer by the minute. Then I would remember what was to come and my uncontrollable emotions took a hold of me.
Marius kept away from me. Even Victorya did not show her translucent, all knowing face to me. Food was not prepared in the dining hall, nor were the candles relit. Even during the long, wasteful hours of daylight, the castle seemed darker. Colder.
A chill raced over my skin as I studied myself in the gilded mirror that was propped against the wall of Marius’s chambers. I was thinner, that much was obvious. Shadows in the shapes of half-moons hung beneath my dulled, viridian eyes. The cream shirt I wore hung off my frame as though it was sewn for someone twice my size, exposing my neck and the two marks nestled among the dark bruising across my skin. Raising a finger to circle the area, it still felt tender and sore. Not as much as it had once the evening with Marius had long faded. The skin around the puncture wounds was raised so my finger trailed over the twin bumps gently.
And all I could do was think of him. Marius.
I longed for his presence. Had to bite down on my tongue to stop myself from calling out for him during the darkest of moments.
But I feared that seeing his disappointed, distrusting face would only shatter me further. And I had a few pieces left that were barely being held together.
In the quiet, lonely hours I contemplated the many ways I would see the final evening through. I knew I could not kill him. Not as originally planned. So I allowed my mind to flirt with other possibilities — ideas of holding him off, keeping him at bay just long enough to see that bastard, red moon fall back into its resting place. It had always been discussed that he must be killed on the final night. Yet the possibility of holding him off until that night was over had never been brought up.
As though it was not a possibility I was permitted to imagine. Not for the sake of Mother and the coven and any other powerless witch surviving out in the large world beyond this castle.
No one had speculated what happened after the moon lowered, giving way for the day that followed.
Only that I would survive, and he would die. And I would simply return home just in time for breakfast the following morning.
I had gone over it in my mind countless times, enough to convince myself that I had hope. A small, simmering gleam of hope that we would both see it through.
Then I would remember that I knew nothing of what I was to face. Victorya was not available to give me insight, nor did the books that Marius had written give any indication of what happened during that final, fateful night.
I had seen him lose control, only slightly, but even Marius had warned it was nothing like it would be.
Remembering I was out of my depth seemed to smother that cinder of hope. A vicious cycle as I navigated the final hours in silence.
Tiredness caused my very bones to ache. It took little effort to stay awake during the evening, lying still in the broken bed, waiting to hear a sign that Marius was still dwelling within the castle. But it was silent.
No familiar footsteps, or chatter.
It was as though I was the only person in the world left.
And that was how I felt, even inside my dreams.
* * *
I had leftthe curtains open, rolling over to see the pink tinge that dusted across the full moon’s shape. Every time I looked I hoped to see a white crescent. But its colouring was a signal that I knew well.
Tomorrow night it would begin.And end.
