Page 83 of Bound By Roses

There’s nothing but fear in those eyes, and I feel it all the way down to my core. But it’s not fear of this place, the roses, or even the wraiths that hunt him. This is fear of himself.‘I don’t want to be a monster anymore.’

I blow out a breath because at least he’s talking to me. He warned me this would happen. Warned me that at some point, the panic would overwhelm him and replace logical thought with the thing he fears most.

I move to take a step towards him, but Jade moves first. “We both know why you came here, but it’s pointless unless you’re willing to go through with it.”

‘What is he talking about?’I ask Quinn, not caring that neither of the dragons can hear us.

Quinn’s gaze shifts from me to Jade, and then back to me again.‘I thought about pushing him into the rift. To save myself from this. I’m a monster no matter what I do. How am I back to this?’

I can feel his resolve crumbling. The same resolve he’s maintained since finding out he was fated to die. Since learning that his only way to live was to kill another or spend his nights embracing the curse that made him wish he were dead.

‘Petra told me. I know what Teagan wants you to do.’

His body tenses, and I know if he were human he’d have his hands balled into fists, tugging at his hair.‘I don’t want to lose myself again.’

I take a step towards him.‘You won’t. You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to do any of it.’

‘Yes I do.’An audible whine punctuates his words.‘But I don’t know what happens when I cross that line.’

“There’s another way,” I say aloud this time, because if he makes this choice, we’ll need at least one of the dragons to help. I have to swallow to prepare myself because there’s no right answer here. Someone has to die, and I’m not going to let it be Quinn. “Push the Guardian.” I know his name, but I can’t say it. I have to separate myself from him. From the knowledge that he was one of the good ones and that he deserves this less than any of the rest of them. “Or any Guardian,” I add on the off chance we can find another—not that it makes this much better.

Jade cracks his knuckles. “I’m happy to go hunting.”

“I think that will have to wait,” Rhett says from behind us. His voice is shaky, and when I see the corporeal mist floating out from the tree line, I immediately know why.

The wraith moves towards us, its form shifting into a man I’ve seen once before, on a night just like this.

Rhett’s father.

Jade confirmed that, once. Though Rhett was too young when he was killed to remember his face, the wraith somehow knows it. The wraiths always know the faces of the ones we’ve lost.

Rhett trembles and I take a slow step towards him, clasping his hand in mine. “It’s not real,” I whisper, and the faint squeeze of his hand tells me he knows.

The creature’s attention shifts to me, but it’s not Porter’s face I see this time.

“...Mom?”

I only recognize her from the single portrait that remained of her in Lunae. It was painted in the book that detailed the royal line, and even then, her image seems so different here. Older, in a way, but I see myself in her features and that’s all I need to know that it’s her.

She moves closer to me, her head tilting ever so slightly to one side, as if she—or the wraith—is trying to puzzle me out.

I shut my eyes, not wanting to see that face any longer. It’s a face I’d longed to see nearly every day of my life, but not like this. Not when it’s a stolen mask worn by the very creature that seeks to devour the man I love.

A warm, solid form presses against my leg and I know that it’s Quinn. He shouldn’t be anywhere near this wraith, but here he is. For me.

My eyes snap open as I ready myself to move in front of him, but find that Jade has already claimed the space in front of all of us.

The wraith has changed, too. Only, I don’t recognize its form at all this time. It’s not the man I’d seen before when a wraith set about enticing Jade to walk into the veil. It’s a woman.

A woman with long hair as black as ink, yet her eyes shine redder than any dawn. Redder than fire or blood.

Jade turns his face away from her, as if the image alone pains him. “Go get Merrick,” he says to Rhett. His teeth are clenched and neck is arched so sharply to the side in an effort to keep his eyes off the wraith that it can’t be painless. He’d stared at the image of his father once, as if entirely unbothered by it, and Quinn told me that when they were in this very clearing together, the wraith took Jade’s form. TheoldJade.

So why is this different?

“But—” Rhett starts to object, but Jade cuts him off.

“You can only carry one and I don’t have the control.” He may believe that to be true, but I’m not so sure. And even if it were true, why does he care? This is the man who has openly admitted to wanting me dead. The man with no memories and very few emotions other than rage and sorrow. He doesn’t know me, know Quinn, so why has he planted himself in front of us when clearly he wants nothing more than to get as far away from this phantom as he can? Even the Jade I knew was more calm and collected than this.

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