Page 7 of The Lands Defying
He’s punishing himself enough.
That’s what Leo once said to me when he asked me to go easy on him. This is what he meant.
My eyes flick up to the back of his head. “You’re punishing yourself.”
“Of course I am,” he says without hesitation, looking at me from over his shoulder. His eyes are tired, but hard. His scowl is angry but somewhat defeated. “Of course I’m punishing myself, it’s theleastI can fucking do, Rhea.”
“But…”
“You think after our talk everything is forgotten after what I did to you?” He shakes his head, getting to his feet and stalking over to me, his steps heavy and harsh as he drops the whip to the floor.
I eye it, watching his blood drip from it before my eyes go back to him.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see the whip in my hand,” he says harshly, a snarl on his face. “I see your flesh being torn by each leather strip, see it split and bleed, and I see your body tense and shake. I see what I did to you. Every. Fucking. Day.” My eyes sting at his words, at his torment over what he did to me. His nostrils flare as he raises his hand to me, and I move my own trembling one to place it against his on the barrier, but he moves it just out of reach. “I see it all,” he tells me quietly. “My punishment. My regret. My worst mistake that I couldn’t even say aloud until that day with you in the willow gardens, like a fucking coward.” He stares as his fingers hover before my palm on the barrier, watches as his hand moves back and forth like hewants to touch me, but refuses. “How could I not do to myself what I had done to you?”
He watches as my magic flows into the barrier, looking and searching for a way to break it. I need to be close to him, I need to… comfort him.
I never wanted this for him.
I hadn’t thought much about how what he did to me may affect him. I didn’t even know he was sorry until that day, but hearing him speak of how often he’s tormented by it, how he sees what he did to me…
A tendril slips through, and I concentrate on it, moving it toward him. It reaches out, moving over his hand and resting there as I move it to his palm. Darius watches it, turning his hand over and a black strand intertwines with mine, holding there.
Keeping me there like he doesn’t want me to disappear.
“What I did was unforgivable,” Darius continues, never taking his eyes off of our magic. “I hurt you, so I hurtme.You bled so I will bleed.You were torn so I will tear,and you were scarred so I will fuckingscar,”he growls, his eyes coming back to mine as a tear falls from my eye. “There is no you, there is no me, there will forever be an us. Equal in every way.” He watches as another tear falls, and his jaw clenches, shaking his head. “So don’t cry for me, little wolf, I’m only doing what is deserved.”
My heart is hit with a sharp pain, and I rub my chest again as more tears fall from my eyes. He’s been harming himself formonths.Even before the full truth was out in the open.
He’s hurt himself more times than I ever was, and yet he didn’t stop.
Hasn’t stopped.
This isn’t what I wanted. What Ieverwanted. Especially after knowing he was threatened with his men if he refused Charles’sorder to whip me. I would do anything for my family, and that’s what he did that day. He protected them.
I can see it from his side, I would have chosen my family in a heartbeat over him back then.
We were still enemies.
Now… I don’t know what we are, but we are more than we were.
I think about the field of lesia flowers he made me, about the smile on his face as he watched over me as I played and spun forhours.
No. We are not enemies any longer.
“Stop it,” I whisper, closing my eyes against the onslaught of emotions rattling through me. “You don’t want me to cry?”
“Not like this.”
“You don’t want me in pain?”
“Of course not,” he snarls, the ground trembling.
My eyes spring open, and I take a breath. “You don’t want me to scar?”
“Never again!” He tilts his head, nostrils flaring as he growls. “I will not let another touch you to scar you, little wolf. Those that dare try will have a very painful death.”
“No,” I say, taking a step back, and my power along with it. His brows furrow as he watches me. “Not another…me.” I nudge the whip on the ground that I took from Leo. Darius’s eyes go to it, then slowly raises them to mine. They darken, those flecks appearing once again as he goes deathly still.
