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I was going to do it. I had to do it.
Her body opened like it was made for me as I thrust into her. My hands rested on her shoulders for a brief moment before I reached for the dagger, the blade shaking in my grip as I pointed the tip straight at her back, physical bliss and mental anguish running through me as I pounded into her.
“Scream for me,” I ordered. Maybe if she screamed in pleasure, it would disguise the scream of pain that was coming for her. The scream of ultimate betrayal. “I want to hear you scream my name, Petra.”Louder. Please, for the love of the Saints, louder.
“Calomyr,” she moaned. It was like the name took the blade from my hand and drove it straight into my chest. Because it wasn’t my name. She wasn’t making love to me, she was making love to Calomyr.
Blade still aimed at her back, I willed myself tofucking do it.
No. I couldn’t stab her in the back. If she was going to die as my Queen, she deserved the rightful dignity of the title. I pulled her to me, her head tipping back instantly, her eyes closed as I hooked one arm around her and aimed the dagger for her ribs. I reached my other hand between her legs, needing her to scream louder, needing her dying screams to sound something like ecstasy.
My mouth was pressed to her neck as I tried to keep myself from groaning, but it was no use. “Oh Saints.” Her head fell forward and a part of me hoped she’d see the dagger, turn it on me, and end this all-consuming anguish. But her head quickly tipped back again as her body seized against me, completely unaware that her death was near and I was the one who would deliver it. My hand trembled and my knuckles were white as Petra pulled on every heartstring, gripping my soul between her delicate hands, threatening to break it in half.
She fit against me like the Saints had sewn us from the same cloth, carved us from the same stone, sculpted us from the same heartache. It was like they’d lit both of our fires with the same flame. But my flame was metaphorical. Petra’s flame was real, and it would be the end of us all. She had to die.
I plunged the dagger inward–
And stopped short when she let out a whimper. The tiny, insignificant sound resounded through me. It grew louder and louder as it ricocheted off my last bit of will.
No.
I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. No part of me was capable, no matter how necessary it was.
I pulled back, just enough to toss the dagger to the ground, thethudmuffled by the thick rug. It landed out of her line of sight as I grabbed her by the hips and turned her toward me.
Autumn eyes full of emotion met mine, and all the air left my body at the sight. I didn’t care if she was prophesied to be the destruction of the world. Hell, I’d help her start the fire. “I want to look at you,” I breathed. I hoped, in that moment, that my eyes could tell her everything I couldn’t say. I hoped that she could figure out the truth that I was bound by blood against my will to keep hidden. I entered her again, watching her eyes widen as I pushed deeper, held tighter, fought harder.
I was done. I was out. I would march to Castemont and tell him I’d have no part of his plan any longer, consequences be damned. Petra would know the whole truth. As soon as it was safe to tell her, she’d know.
My lips brushed against her mouth as I leaned over her. “For as long as I live, I will remember this night.” It was a promise that I intended to keep, knowing very well that Castemont may be the reason my life was cut short. But if it meant that she lived, then I’d gladly die tomorrow.
I unleashed on her, years of pent up resentment and self-control escaping through my movements as I drove into her again and again, feeling her tightening around me as she moved closer and closer to release.
She cried out, and it was the sweetest music I’d ever heard, enough to do me in. I reared back and clutched her waist with one hand while I pumped myself with the other. I wanted to scream out the truth, but it was her name that sounded instead. “Petra.” OhSaints, she stared into my eyes as we came together, her body writhing beneath me. “Fuck, Petra.”
I would spend the rest of my life making her feel like this, no matter how long that life may be. If the prophecy was true then she didn’t need my protection, but I knew in that moment I’d fall on my own blade if there was even a chance it would keep her out of Castemont’s hands.
Her fingers caressed my cheeks as I stared, my soul laid bare for her. “Every day,” I breathed, “I thank the Saints every day that they sent you to me.”
PART I
PETRA
Chapter 1
“Fuck you.” I spat the words through gritted teeth, ready to incinerate the man who stood at the other end of my reach. The hot fury that coursed through every part of me was still foreign, but I let it grow, let it build into the firestorm I knew it could be. It hurt —Saintsit hurt, like my body was being damned by Noros, Saint of Pain himself.
Seeing Lord Evarius Castemont’s face further stoked the flames that were scorching me from within. His narrowed brown eyes, his nauseating smirk. “This is exactly where you’re supposed to be, Petra,” he replied nonchalantly, taking a step closer.
“Come any closer and I’ll–”
“You’ll what, dear?” His voice was thick with condescension.
I let myself explode, let Katia and Rhedros take control of me as I unleashed every ounce of my rage, every ounce of Benevolence and Blood as fire shot from my palms. The wind came next, punishing and ruthless, and Castemont’s figure was obscured by the inferno. I let my head drop back in sweet relief knowing that somewhere among the flames that whipped and crackled, his dying screams were growing more anguished, more frantic, more–
A sudden pulse of energy pushed me back, my feet sliding against the gray stone floor of the Taithan throne room as adrenaline and confusion combined. The energy I expelled was hitting a wall, and that wall was growing, expanding, pushing harder and harder against me. Blue flames collided with mine, the force blowing me back even further as I leaned into it, desperately trying to keep my footing.
The light was near blinding as I tried to make out what was on the other side. Those blue flames grew higher, quickly overtaking mine as I felt the power inside me begin to waver and weaken. I opened my mouth to scream out for Katia or Rhedros — my mother and father — for any help against whatever this was, but the words died in my throat as my flames died too, snuffed out as if they were simply a candle in a hurricane.
