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A grin tugs at his lips, causing wrinkles to crease around the corners of his eyes. “Too bad such beauty is being wasted on little boys pretending to be men.” He stops in front of me. “But deep down, we both know who you really belong to.” He brushes his finger along my cheek.
I wince and step back, tripping slightly over the trail of my dress. “Don’t touch me.”
His smile is a mixture of tolerance and taunting amusement. “Look at you trying to be brave. Too bad things don’t work that way.” He snatches a hold of my wrist then and lowers his voice. “We both know that I can do whatever I want to you whenever I want, and no one will give a shit.” He jerks on my arm. “One day, you’ll be mine. This fate ceremony is just a staged act for a bigger show.”
As he pulls on my arm again, I curl my hand into a fist. I’m going to hit him. Fuck the consequences.
When he notes my fist, a laugh reverberates from his chest. “Go ahead and hit me, darling. We both know your father will punish you.”
I crane my hand back, not giving a shit—
“Al?” Blaise’s voice comes from someplace close by.
I stop mid-punch, and Levi hurriedly yanks his hand away while stepping back.
Blaise steps into my line of vision then. He’s wearing a black tuxedo with a red tie, and strands of his dark hair are perfectly styled. He looks like the god of darkness as he stares Levi down with a gaze that would make anyone wither.
“Did you just put your hands on my soon-to-be wife?” Blaise asks in a cold tone I’ve never heard him use before.
The corners of Levi’s mouth tugs upward, but the way he shifts his weight reveals that the faint smile is all bravado. “I was just giving your soon-to-be wife a congratulatory hug.” He glances at me, and this time, the smirk is real. “Congratulations, Allura. You make a beautiful bride.” With that, he ascends the stairway.
I inhale and exhale over and over again, trying to get my heart rate to settle down as I watch him walk away like a demon slithering back into the shadows. I can’t get oxygen into my lungs, though, as panic squeezes my chest.
“Baby, look at me.” Blaise levels his gaze with mine, takes my hand, and places it against his chest, right where his heart is beating. “Now match my breathing, okay?” He takes deliberate inhales and exhales.
I match what he’s doing, knowing the drill since this isn’t the first time he’s had to do this with me. Back when we were younger, and I’d have mini panic attacks about stupid shit, like giving presentations in front of the class, or having to ask my father for something. Now those things seem so trivial.
“Good. You’re doing so good,” he tells me as his chest moves beneath my palm.
That’s the thing about Blaise. While he has his moments of anxiety, he can be collected in the center of a storm. Maybe since he’s so used to the storm at this point in his life. He’s never had it easy—none of us have. In fact, I feel like we’ve been existing inside a lightning storm for our entire lives.
“Thanks,” I say once my breathing is even again.
His lips are pressed together as he assesses me carefully with question marks filling his eyes. He wants to know more about what was happening with Levi—I can see it in his eyes. But I can’t tell him for so many reasons, one being that I’m absolutely terrified to.
Right after it happened, I thought about telling someone, even attempted to do so with my mother. She shut it down before I could even get the words out, as if she knew and didn’t want to hear it.
“Please don’t ask,” I nearly beg, “because I can’t.”
A frown forms on his lips as his eyes search mine. “The ceremony is about to start. Your mother sent me to escort you up the stairs.”
“Okay.” I gather my dress, my fingers noticeably trembling.
He captures my hand, brings my hand to his lips, and kisses the back of it. “I promise things will be better soon.” His lips gently brush my skin. “Please just hang on a little bit longer.”
I clutch the bottom of his suit jacket with my other hand as my heart slams against my chest with so much force it nearly sends my legs buckling.
“I’m not so sure I can hang on anymore,” I utter the truth aloud.
“Yes, you can,” he assures me. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. You can do this—I know you can.”
Tears well in my eyes as I latch on to him tighter. This is the first time anyone has ever acknowledged the strength it’ll take for me to get through this.
When we were kids, Blaise was always the quietest of us but also the softest and kindest. Even after everything, that part of him appears to still exist.
I want to believe that the coldness he showed me over the last handful of years was for a good reason. I want to believe in that more than anything. So, that’s what I clutch on to as we pull away from each other and he offers me his arm—that at the end of this walk down the aisle of lies and deceit, truths will be waiting for me.
TWENTY-THREE
