Page 29 of Pain Run Rampant

“What?” I ask even though I’ll probably regret it.

“You.” Invictis pauses. “You are unlike everyone else. I… I find it strange. I cannot explain why you are unlike them.”

I look down, my gaze falling to his chest—what’s eye-level for me, basically. “Maybe I’m unlike everyone else because of that tiny piece of you inside me.” It’s not out of the question. It’s very possible he can feel the connection between us the same way I can, and that tiny piece has to be the reason.

“Perhaps. It would not surprise me to learn that you are only great because of me.”

Okay, that’s too smug. Angling my head back, I glare up at him, ready to say something smart, but the moment we lock eyes, any witty retort that might’ve been ready on my tongue disappears.

He’s not frowning anymore. His frown has been replaced by an even more attractive smirk—God, I hate myself for thinking anything about him is attractive. I hate myself even more for wanting him to take a step to the side and box me in against the balcony, place those strong arms on either side of me and…

No. Bad, Rey.

“Or,” he whispers, “perhaps you truly are one of a kind. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until fate brought us together.” Invictis moves, almost like he read my mind or something, and places himself in front of me so that my lower back now leans against the stone wall on the balcony’s edge.

My breath catches. Gazing up at a man so beautiful, how could it not? Ancient evil or not, he’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life.

This is usually when I remind myself the face he’s wearing isn’t his, that, technically, it belongs to Empress Morimento’s son, but this time I can’t remind myself of that. This time all logical thoughts vanish in my head.

“I was… enraged, hateful, all the time. All I could think about was getting free and killing everyone. It’s what I was made for.My purpose. I am that which never dies: death itself. You were meant to be a stepping stone, a tool to unite me. I am still filled with fury. I am still death made flesh, but you make it—”

There are a million ways he could finish that statement, and yet the word he says isn’t one I anticipate and it makes my heart do something weird in my chest.

“Less,” he offers up the word simply, as if it should be obvious. “You make it all lessen. I do not understand why, nor do I understand why I want more. It is a human trait to crave more. Your limited time makes you gluttonous. I should not feel this way.” He sounds almost angry when he adds, “I should not feel this way about you.”

Everything he said to me in that dream comes tumbling back, and though I’ve done my best to ignore it and forget about it, standing there with nowhere to go, with his intense expression bearing down on me and his body blocking out my escape route, I’m forced to.

He said he wasn’t lying. I didn’t believe him.

I didn’t want to believe him then, and I still don’t want to. What does that say about me if I do? If I believe him, if I accept it, if I say I want him, too? How many lives were lost in Laconia because of him? How many people has he killed? My mom, Prim… the list goes on and on.

What kind of person will I be if I want this, if I want him?

“It’s as if whatever invisible force has been guiding me since the dawn of time itself now pulls me in another direction entirely,” he says, his voice dropping to a bare whisper. “It’s pulling me to you.”

I want to say something, but I’m damn near speechless. This isn’t a dream that’ll end right before things go too far; this is real life. I know I can always command him to shut up and take a step back, but am I strong enough to?

Maybe I’m too weak. Maybe I want this after all.

How wrong is that?

“Seeing you injured in the first labyrinth… it brought back the same feelings I had when I—” He abruptly stops and lifts a hand, placing it above my shirt, on my side, near my abdomen, where he impaled me with a blade of light.

Of course, my shirt is once again fucked up and covered in blood thanks to the first magical guardian. It really is like déjàvu.

Invictis sounds conflicted when he whispers, “I thought I would feel nothing but triumph when that blade pierced your skin. I believed it was your destiny, that you would fall as everyone else had. I was wrong.”

Thankfully he’s only touching my shirt and not, you know, actual skin. If those fingertips brush against my skin beneath my shirt? It’ll be game over.

“You make me weak,” he whispers, and his accented voice makes it sound as though he’s disgusted with himself over it, like he doesn’t understand why. Like weakness is the worst possible thing that could happen to him.

It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, mostly because this conversation changed so quickly I have whiplash from it, but also due to how serious he is, how heavy his blue gaze is as he stares down at me, not to mention the way his hand firmly presses against my side, where I have nothing but a scar to remind me of the day he stabbed me and nearly killed me.

And then he brought me to Laconia and healed me.

“It’s not weakness to have emotions besides anger and hate,” I say.

“A single girl who knew nothing of magic a year ago was able to defeat me and bind me to herself. If that’s not weakness—”

---