Page 63 of Blackwarden
“I would choose death over spending another day chained toyou.”
Thick silence clung to everything as his words settled into my bones.
The sound of a blade being pulled from a sheath scraped across my consciousness as Bevgyah’s lips curled into a snarl.
She would kill him.
And I would watch him die.
He took a sharp breath as she pressed a dagger to his throat.
“Ishouldkill you. All the hardship you’ve caused me. Your traitorous heart, your unfaithfulness. You thought you could outwit me, could fool me into stealing my crown.” She shook her head slowly. “I should have killed you long ago, you wretched beautiful beast.”
“Then do us both the favor,” he said, his voice even and fearless.
I channeled his bravery. If he could be fearless in the face of death, then I could too.
I stepped from the bathroom.
Bevgyah’s eyes snapped to mine, a fury so thick burning in them my knees felt weak. A wicked smile crept across her flawless face.
“I knew you’d found your little plaything,” Bevgyah said as she looked back down at him, pressing the blade harder against his throat, a dark trail of blood running over his Adam’s apple.
“Please, don’t hurt him,” I begged, but words weren’t going to save him.
“I can do whatever I want with him,” she said as she took a fist full of his hair with her other hand and jerked his head, the dagger slicing into his skin a little deeper. “He’s mine, and he will always be mine.”
“I’ve asked for death, Bevgyah,” he said with a deep contempt staining his words, leaning into the blade at his throat. “Kill me.”
“Keres, no!” The words slipped from my lips as I took another step closer.
His name seeped through me, hot and perfect, and with it my memories came flooding back all at once with blinding, painful ferocity. The Gatehouse with its dark hallways. Volunteering in place of my sister. Renee. Keres, the stubborn, gorgeous Dark Fae. The frustrating brazier outside my suite. The ever-changing mural. His soft, decadent lips. His boring breakfast of two eggs and toast. The book of children’s fairy tales. The delicious weight of his body. His laugh. A green apple. His silky soft skin beneath my fingers. The surprise in his eyes when I’d asked a question he knew he couldn’t answer. The single tear that had slipped down his cheek before he’d brought me through the portal.
Keres.
My head felt as though it would split in half, my knees trembling beneath me. I’d spent eight days with him. Eight maddening days. They had been both the most terrifying and the most amazing days of my life. I spent those eight days breaking down his walls to find a very different Keres than the one I’d first met.Perhaps it had all happened too fast, but standing here, watching Bevgyah hold a knife to his throat...
I remembered everything.
“I love you, Keres,” I whispered through the pain in my skull.
The room went dreadfully still.
Like melting ice, Bevgyah slowly shifted back from him, taking the dagger with her. She shook against whatever force it was that held her.
“What are you doing?” she said with a shrill voice. “You can’t use your shadows on me! I own them! They’re mine!Youare mine!”
Keres rose from his knees, wings spreading wide like a magnificent, midnight dragon. His hands were fists at his sides. I risked stepping closer as Bevgyah fought against whatever invisible force held her in place. But it wasn’t invisible. Shadows crept around her legs and snaked over her skin to wrap around her wrists and neck. They pooled between her and Keres, thick like muddy water—the same shadows she’d used to restrain him at the last revel.
Keres took a smooth step forward and ripped the dagger from her hand as if she’d been turned into stone.
“May this thaw your fucking cold, dead heart, Hag.”
And he plunged it into her chest.
Chapter 32 ~ Out of Time
Keres
