Page 121 of Silent Schemes
Then the mask slides back into place, iron control reasserted, and he pulls up my shirt, looking at the mark.
"This way, everyone knows you belonged to someone you betrayed," he says as he tapes the bandage down. "So you never forget what you cost me."
"I won't forget."
How could I?
Every time I look at our child, I'll see his eyes.
Every time I hear a Canadian accent, I'll think of Vancouver. Every time I see blood, I'll remember the warehouse.
Every time someone says the word 'king,' I'll think of him.
"Will?" I ask, needing to know.
"Alive. Barely. Three surgeries, but he'll make it." His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. "He'll never forgivethis. Never forgive you. He was just starting to come around, and Vincent shot him."
The guilt of that sits like lead in my stomach. "You?"
He's quiet for a long moment, looking at the city below us.
The sun is starting to rise properly now, painting everything gold and pink, beautiful and false as a promise.
Vancouver looks peaceful from here, like a city where people live normal lives, where children grow up with both parents, where love doesn't require blood sacrifice.
"I may have forgiven you, but I'll never forget," he says finally. "Every morning, I'll wake up reaching for you. Every night, I'll dream of this. Of you. Of what we could have been if we were different people."
"We are who we are, Varrick."
"Yeah, we are, Ruin." He turns back to me, and his control finally, completely shatters.
He kisses me—brutal, desperate, final.
It tastes like blood and goodbye and all the words we'll never say.
His hands are in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, mine are clawing at his back, trying to leave my own marks through his shirt.
For a moment we're just Varrick and Sienna, not the King and the traitor, not enemies or lovers or anything but two people saying goodbye the only way we know how.
When he pulls back, we're both shaking like leaves in a storm.
"I won this game," he says, voice rough, broken. "You're breathing because I allow it. The child lives because I allow it. Remember that when you think about coming back."
"I won't come back."
"Liar." His thumb brushes my cheek, catching tears I didn't know were falling.
They mix with his, salt and grief mingling. "You'll dream about it. You'll plan it. You'll look at our child and see me and want to come home. But you won't do it. Because next time, I won't hesitate. Next time, there won't be mercy. I'll kill you before I let you destroy me again. I might even kill you after that child is born, if the mood strikes me."
"I know."
He steps back, and the loss of his warmth is like dying. "If it's a girl, name her Raven. If it's a boy, Dante."
"Why?"
"Both are dark omens, just like the two of us. Reminders that beauty and death often wear the same face. And because..." He pauses, struggling with the words. "Because I want to have given them something, even if it's just a name."
He starts to walk away, each step taking him further from the life we might have had.
