Page 64 of Prince of Never

Chapter 28

Imogen

Islippedthroughthecrack in the wall, the stones scraping against my clothes as I went.I wasn’t entirely sure why I was returning.I had spent the afternoon traipsing the streets of the nearby village, and I was sure I could have convinced Ethan to hide me away somewhere.Maybe I never would have seen Tarian again.But I hadn’t even suggested it because the thought of never seeing him again felt like a kick to the stomach.How had he managed to endear himself to me?I’d guarded my heart so carefully my whole life.

Until now.

Slipping through the tiny crack was less frightening than before, but only just.The feeling that I was going to get stuck was ever present but some part of me remembered that it was big enough, that I would fit, and that kept the fear at bay.When I parted the vines, the breath left me in a rush of relief.I would be glad not to have to do that too many more times in my life.Facing my fears was not something I made a habit of in the human realm, but it seemed to be a constant part of life in this place.

Perhaps the next time I snuck out would be the last.I was surprised at how sad that thought made me, but I pushed it aside as I moved towards the castle.

Suddenly, I stopped dead as if my feet had sunk in cement and the cold flush of panic washed through me.A figure was sitting in the moonlight on the stone garden bench, leaning back against it.

‘Tarian,’ I said, as if he’d pulled the word from my throat.Seeing him now began to stir a string of complicated emotions in me, the ones I had spent the past few hours trying to repress.

He looked me over with an inscrutable expression.‘I wondered if you’d return.’

‘You didn’t assume I’d just escaped again?’I asked, wondering why he hadn’t just come after me as he had the first time I’d slipped away.Was he hoping I’d die out there in some marsh, lured to my death by wisps or some other ungodly creature?He shrugged and I realised there was something different about him.My eyes found the glass in his hand, the bottle on the bench nearby.‘Are you drunk?’

He frowned at the glass.‘Not yet.’

I quirked an eyebrow before I could stop myself.‘What are you doing here if you thought I’d left?’

‘Perhaps I was making sure you didn’t come back.’

‘Oh yes, you’d just love to be rid of me.Though escaping is far less permanent than death, which I suppose becomes an option again once you’ve broken this fucking bond,’ I snapped.I hated that he wanted to break it.I hated that I didn’t.What the hell was wrong with me?‘What are you really doing out here?’

‘Making sure you came back,’ he said, his words barely more than a whisper and my heart thudded.He was different like this, more vulnerable, maybe, but my anger hadn’t subsided.How could he say that to me when this morning he’d been perfectly happy to sit back and let his mother attack me?After the night we’d spent together?Didn’t he realise the damage he was doing?Didn’t he care?

‘Why?You’ve made it more than obvious that you don’t care about me.Is this some mate bond bullshit?Because I’m tired of it, Tarian.I’m tired of watching you hide behind that excuse.Just bite the bullet and put an end to it already.’

He stared at me for a long moment.‘I know how to break the bond.’

‘And yet, here you sit, drowning in your cup.I thought you’d beoverjoyedto finally be rid of me,’ I snapped, letting my anger free.

That muscle ticked in his jaw but instead of answering he took a sip of his drink.‘It’ll break if I kill you.’His eyes dropped to the bench beside him where a knife lay, the blade glinting in the moonlight.

It surprised me how much it hurt to see it there.‘I thought you couldn’t,’ I said, hurt wavering in my voice.‘Hasn’t that been the problem since the beginning?’

‘I went to see someone who gave me a way to get around that little problem.’

‘Of course you did,’ I said bitterly.

He placed the glass on the bench beside him and picked up the knife, twirling it in his hands.‘She told me to cut out your heart.’

I swallowed the lump in my throat.He needed my heart to be rid of me and he came prepared to take it.To cut it from my chest as if I was nothing, as if I didn’t matter.Of course, I didn’t matter to him.I was as crazy as everyone had always accused me of being to have thought any differently, even for a moment.‘Well, that works out well for you, doesn’t it?You finally get to kill me, like you’ve wanted from the start.’

‘You think Iwantthis?’he snapped, rising to his feet, the knife hanging from his fingers like he’d forgotten he was holding it.

‘I think that you’ve been breaking my heart since you found me.Why not just rip the fucking thing out and have done with it?’My anger drew me closer to him, and I didn’t feel even the smallest lick of fear.Not of the knife, not of him.He didn’t deserve my fear, and if he really thought he was cold and ruthless enough to kill me, he could look me in the eye when he did and know I hadn’t cowered.

‘You’re human.A mate bond is nothing to you.It doesn’t affect you like it does me.’Hard lines were scored through his brow and around his eyes as he scanned my face like it held the answers to a question he hadn’t asked.

‘Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings, Tarian.Not that I’d expect you to understand what those are.’

‘I’ve hurt yourfeelings?’he repeated, drawing closer, compressing the space between us.‘How?’

I lifted my chin, refusing to lower my gaze.I wouldn’t be ashamed of my pain.‘Have you even for one second considered what its like for me to know you’d do almost anything to break this bond?Have you even thought about how that feels, knowing how much you hate being bound to me?Did you think about that when you when you kissed me, or when you were in my bed last night, or any one of the moments when you made me wonder what it would be like to keep you?’

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