Page 56 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“I couldn’t. She forbade it,” he answered dryly.

“You could have found a way.” He could have left something for her to see. To find.

“It won’t have changed anything.” The casual frankness of his answer felt cruel.

So cruel she took a step back from him. “Maybe it would.” It sounded childish.

All the more as he retorted, “No. It would have been all the same.”

He was so unfazed, so free of remorse, that she let out a warning snarl, baring her teeth at him. He was right, but this was wrong. She deserved to know. The gesture would have sent every other man fleeing for his life, but Caryan didn’t so much as spare a side-glance at her.

As if she was nothing more than a nuisance. A fly on his food. Gods, she’d love to throw something at him. The bottle of wine she’d had, that chair. Or probably, most likely, herself.

“Do not, Blair.” His voice was a cold, but subtle, silken warning before he turned his powerful back on her, the runes twining and untwining, ever-changing, dancing over his shoulder blades.

She hissed. “Fuck you.” No one, not even Caryan, turned his back on a witch.

All he said was, “You know what the most tiresome truth is you learn when you gaze into the Abyss of eternity? It’s that everyone is so predictable.”

Blair felt as if something tried to crack her open. “I’m not.” She felt like a child the moment she said it. But fuck him. Fuck this. She was tired and bloodless, and she just learned they’d be flying to fucking war tomorrow. “You know what? You’re a fucking ass sometimes!”

He whipped his head to her so quickly, his pupils flaring open. Despite her anger, she took a step back, banging into the desk behind her. He stepped closer, watching her in that cold, assessing way of his that always made her feel as if she was a book and he was reading all her ridiculous little secrets.

His sullen mouth pulled into the shyest hint of a smile when he noticed her startled heartbeat. Her breathing. For a second, she glimpsed the yawning fissure deep inside him. Before his face shuttered.

“Careful, Blair.”

Two simple words laced with hundreds of years of violence. It was always that tone of his that sent a thrill through her body and bones. A dark king’s voice.

“You look scared,” he drawled.

She was. Sometimes hedidscare her. Even now, although she’d had him over and in her for the better part of a night.

But the look in his eyes was just so deadly.

It scares me that I love you,that’s what she also wanted to say.That I could lose my mothers, could lose you.It got stuck in her throat.

Her eyes widened as he trapped her, keeping her against the desk.

“Are you?” he asked. Oh hells, the bastard knew her all too well.

She leaned in, taking his lower lip between her teeth, and bit down until she tasted his blood filling her mouth.

Then she whispered right into him. “Just fuck me.”

18

Melody

I shower in the tiny open shower that looks too much like it comes straight out of the human world. But then, so does the rest of the place.

After that, I put on the fresh set of clothes someone has left for me before I venture down those long corridors.

Everything looks different during the day. Brighter in the sunlight that falls in through the huge windows. Peaceful.Sunlight.For a second I don’t trust my eyes. It leaks in in thick, buttery columns and I gingerly stretch out my hand, pale and bruised, but beautiful in the new morning light. I marvel at the warm sensation on my skin, so much better than I could have ever imagined it back in my bleak room. As if my whole body came alive for the very first time. And against my will, against the lump in my stomach and my nervousness a smile spreads over my face.You will not be afraid. You will have a life one day.For the first time, those words feel true.

Finally I force myself to move on. Doves sing in the lemon and persimmon trees that grow in the courtyards and sparrows bathe in the water of the fountains, ruffling their feathers.

Again, I briefly pause to watch them. I would love to linger, love to soak up some of the warmth and sunshine, but I’m already late.

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