Page 50 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
It was his word against mine—his sketchy morals against my broken compass.
I released a breath of air with a long, dejected sigh. “You can give it a rest every once in a while, you know.”
Lucais slipped his hands into his pockets, but his shoulders tensed slightly. “Give what a rest?”
I gestured vaguely to his looming and overbearing frame. “The whole protective soulmate bit. Even when you’re sick of me, you’re still so aggressive about keeping me alive. I get it. You take your job seriously. Commendable work ethic and all, but you can tone it down.”
A blond brow stretched up into an arch on his forehead, and he rubbed his temple with one hand when he asked, “Are you trying to get yourself killed on purpose?”
“No.” I kicked at the gravel beneath my boots. I could admit to making decisions that didn’t centre around the preservation of life, but I wasn’t suicidal. “Not really.”
Groaning, both hands moved to his temples, rubbing small circles on his skin as if he was trying to stave off a headache.
“Why does it always have to beaboutyou, Aura? For the love of fuck, I don’t have to ask you to marry me—or whatever it is that you humans do—in order to feel guilty if you end up dead,” Lucais reminded me wearily, hands sliding into his hair. “For better or worse, you’ve monopolised my every waking moment since the day we met, and have you ever considered whatI’msupposed to do if you’re suddenly gone? What are you going to leave me with?”
“I’m not leaving,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I don’t want to die—”
“Then what else do you need to grant me the permission I apparently require to care about your life? SinceI love youclearly isn’t enough—”
I cut him off, incredulous. “You werepoisoned—”
“I was still perfectly lucid—”
“That’s a lie if ever I heard one!”
He dropped his hands from his head and clenched his fists. “I meant it when I said those words to you, damn it!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I spat back with a little more acid than he probably deserved. “It’s not you, and it’s not me, and we both know it!”
Lucais looked at me like I’d just hacked off my own nose to spite my face. “Are you dense?” he demanded. “You could be my least favourite person in the world, and still be the only one I’d save if it ended.That’swhat this bond means.”
“Exactly my point—”
“No!” he bellowed, cutting a line through the air between us with his hand.
I fell still, watching him like a storm rolling in on the horizon. A vein appeared on his forehead, his jaw locked, and he raised his pointer finger in the air. There was a dark part of me that wanted to lash out and bite it, so I turned my head away with my hands looped around the back of my neck.
“I decided to have these feelings for you all on my own,” Lucais vowed. “Trust me, even you yourself had very little to do with it in the end, considering you constantly berate me for saving yourfuckinglife!” He stared at me, wild-eyed, chest rising and falling rapidly. “Loving you is its own—”
“Stop it!” I seethed, jerking my hands away from my head. My fingers were so stiff that, for a moment, I worried they’d sprain as his infernal words entwined around my heart like live wires. I’d heard him the first time, and then the second, but I was very deliberately acting as though I had not. “Stopsayingthat!”
“Why?” he challenged me.
“Because Iknow!” I gripped two fistfuls of my hair on either side of my head, my eyes feeling like they were about to explode straight out of my skull. “I know you do. Or you think you do. I heard you! I just don’twantyou to—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aura.” Lucais cradled his face in his hands. “Why not?” he implored, lifting his head. “Is it the Oracle? The whole fate thing? The High Mother?” Dropping his arms back to his sides, I caught the roll of his golden eyes as he shook his head at me despairingly. “Who the fuck cares? You want me to summon them and demand they rescind their part in this? Because I’ll fucking do it—”
“No!”
“Thenwhat?” he yelled, so wretchedly I swore the wind changed directions and the empty warehouses shuddered.“What is so wrong with this that you can’t let me in for just a single fucking second long enough to show you what’s been right in front of your face since we met?”
“Because!” I screamed back at him mindlessly. I held no dominion over the weather, so I stomped my feet like a child and kicked up a small cloud of thin grey dust. A few measly stones scattered, clanging against the metal fence.
The High King panted as he watched, waiting for me to elaborate with the kind of patience that could wait out the death of a star. Lucais had waited so long already—he probably thought he had all the time in the world.
“You might love me,” I began quietly. The words tasted sour in my mouth. “But you are anasshole,Lucais. You think saying sorry is going to erase the fact that you werehorribleto me when we first met? You think that your good intentions are good enough?”
He watched me, calculating and cool, though his eyes were practically on fire. I stared back at him, shoulders trembling, and devoured the expression on his face that told me he really didn’t understand my problem.
