Of Darkness and Crowns (22 page)

“I will do whatever I can…” She squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again, her resolve is in place. Rivers of glowing silver swirl around the contours of her cheeks. “
Whatever
I can to make this easier for you, because Goddess knows I deserve your wrath, even some humility. But I will not bow to your manipulation.”

I feel my forehead crease. “Manipulation?”

“Yes, Caben. You’re confused, and I might be confused, too. Because really, I’m the most inexperienced woman when it comes to matters of the heart. And this is difficult for you, I know, to discern the difference, but you would have never forced this on me before. You won’t control me by using my fears against me. I’ve told you how badly I fear my role as a leader, it’s no secret. I may have even craved some loss of control…but the man I love and trust? He’d have made me feel safe first. Able to let go and know that I’m protected. Not manipulated.”

My hands slide down the wall to grasp her face. Run my thumbs over the silvery wisps circling her skin. “Only someone like
you
would see this through such a skewed perception.” The power begins to build, and I have to forcibly hold it back. “Why can’t you accept this!” My breaths come faster, my chest expanding with each painful intake of air. Her jasmine scent searing me from the inside out. A groan wrenches from my throat. “So fucking infuriating!”

“Release me, Caben.” She latches on to my wrists and maneuvers out of my hold. Then she reaches behind her head and unclasps the choker. Throwing it the floor, she says, “I will love you to the end…but I won’t indulge in a lie, not even to escape this sadistic reality for a second. I can’t. I want too badly to hold on to what was real between us.”

Her admission should be a comfort, releasing me from the thrall—putting an end to my unyielding desire. But her rejection over my affections ignites my anger anew. I’m not sure if I can rein in my power once it’s fully unleashed, and it’s dangerously close to that.

“You’re giving me no choice,” I hiss, my feet swallowing the short distance between us.

She holds up her hands, just bringing my steady advance short. “You can still fight this, Caben. We can fight this together. Let me try again… Please, can you not trust me? I can help—”

“No!” I grab her shoulders. “This is it, Kal.
This
is it. Do you understand?” I pull my lip between my teeth, biting down on it to stunt my words. Then, “If I asked you to run me through, would you kill me? Could you take my place?”

Her eyes widen in fear, or relief. I’m not sure which. And I don’t care. Her hesitance betrays her conviction. “You won’t. And all I wanted was for you to accept my love in its rawest form—the only thing I have left to give you. But your thundering righteousness won’t allow you to even grant me that one, last request.” I move closer to her, my fingers gripping her bare arms. “Seems the only logical solution to our conundrum is to depart together.”

I release a high dose of my power into her, and watch her eyes flicker closed. She moans as I ramp the level, just enough for her to physically taste it. It’s the same thing I attempted at the palace, but this time, Bale isn’t mocking me in background. I’m giving Kal just a taste of the freedom she could obtain if she’d just relinquish her stubborn, insufferable ways.

With a tremor in my limbs and the power crackling over my fingers…before I can pull back…I give her the full dose.

“Let me in, Kal,” I say. And now when her eyes open, I see her empathy. Understanding. Her renewed devotion to me, and lust fueling her senses. She’s only partially feeling what I feel for her every waking, bleeding moment. But it’s enough.

And maybe it is yet some of Bale—not totally me—controlling the outcome. That deep pocket of Bale’s
own
soul that she buried, seeking herself within the girl before me. Trying to reconnect. I don’t know.

But I’m too tried and too weak and just too damn greedy to examine the difference.

Kal’s body relaxes. Her stiff posture slackens into a languid pose against the wall. I scoop her into my arms. Her head lolls back, and I shift her so that it rests on my chest. I walk past the popping fire pit and out of the brightness of the den, and start my climb to the loft.

Which isn’t the easiest thing to do while carrying a limp girl. A week ago or even yesterday, I’d have bounded right to the top, Kal a feather in my arms. But the reality is finally sinking in. It’s all over.

I just need enough strength for my next act and then I’ll let Bale have my wasted carcass.

With difficulty, I reach for the top rung and pull us up to the loft. Exerted, I curse under my breath. Why does she always have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t she just accept the love I was trying to give her? It’s all I have to offer…it’s everything.

But that’s what drew me to her in first place, didn’t it? I remind myself of this as I lie her down on my bed, my muscles straining from the effort to be as gentle as possible.

Then I admire the sight before me. Kal’s black hair spread around her. Her head tilted back, revealing her enticing neck. Her legs parted just enough for me to slide my hand between her thighs…

She opens her eyes, and the green of her irises startles me. It blazes, jewel-like. The mercury beneath her skin illumes like the tail of a comet streaking the sea of her skin. Just under the thin gown, I can see the clear casing of the clamp. The streams of glowing silver flowing around it. She’s such a beautiful sight that it makes my hands clench into fists. My stomach knot. My head ache with the pressure of a million bees attacking my brain. My groin pulses with an irrepressible need.

I bite down on my lip again, taste blood, and turn away from her. I have one window in my loft; a glass wall that overlooks the cove. I go to it now and press my palm against the cool pane. The glass ripples as the dark tint blocks out the sun.

Such deeds are not done in the light.

“Caben?”

I pull myself away from the window and my morbid thoughts, and turn toward Kal’s soft voice. Toward the most inviting vision I’ve ever laid eyes on.

And an unadulterated feeling of disgust sweeps over me.

I clutch my chest and sink to my knees. My heart pounds loud in my ears as it beats against my rib cage with violent lashings. Stripping my cover of existence down to its barest bones.

I’m damned.

My body, mind, soul—I’m thoroughly damned.

Only one morsel of salvation blinks dimly in the sea of darkness.

With the last of my sanity, what clean shred remains, I turn away from her—my light—and leave.

♦
26
♦

Kaliope

“W
AIT—STOP.” THE WORDS
rush out in one breath. Caben halts over the ladder entrance of his loft. The only acknowledgement he heard my soft plea.

I can’t seem to summon the energy to say more, or at least in a solid, audible tone. All energy is focused somewhere else—on the humming, vibrating core within my body. Coaxing me into a liquid puddle on his bed.

Inhaling deeply, I breathe in Caben’s scent. Oleander and pine. It’s so powerful here; where he lays his head, tangles in his covers. It pervades my senses and beckons me to him. But he’s still stalled at the ladder, his focus on something other than me.

That causes me pain.

Pushing myself up onto my elbows, I angle myself better to see him. My head is dizzy and light, and I can’t quite grasp an annoying thought that lingers just out of reach. Something’s…off. But that thought is soon submerged below my conscience when the building desire sparks anew in my belly.

I’m on my hands and knees, crawling toward Caben, before I latch on to it fully.

Rising up, I let my fingers bring the seam of my gown along with me. “You don’t want to taste what’s yours?” I rub one of my hands up and down my thigh, the other continues to lift the gown—and then Caben’s gripping both my wrists.

“You’re infected,” he says, his eyes intense. “Stop.”

Confusion and hurt and rejection spear through me all at once. My breathing quickens. And then the pain starts again. A piecing rhythm of unsatisfied yearning. “Please,” I beg, wriggling my arms from his grasp and linking them around his neck.

I press my body to his, writhing against him and trying to end the torment. “Don’t you feel it?” I ask, skimming my lips along his neck, my hands finding the buttons of his shirt. “It’s so close…” I can feel the moon heading toward its destination, just as I can feel Caben’s struggle to fight it.

Impatient, I yank his shirt the rest of the way open. My nails graze smooth skin and the hard seams of muscles as I arch my body, squeeze my thighs together to repress the persistent ache.

A groan rumbles from his throat, deep and long. I look up into his face. His eyes are shut against his pained expression. He’s in agony, too. “Let me help,” I say, and dip my hand lower.

I’m just undoing the button of his pants with difficulty—his erection pushing so hard against the seam—when he growls and his hands clamp onto the backs of my thighs. He lifts me off the bed, and I wrap my legs around his waist. Then my back hits the bedding. All his weight bears down on me, the feel of his rough pants and the hardness underneath puts just enough pressure on the ache to make me gasp.

His fingers dig into my flesh as he thrusts his hips, rubbing the throb until I’m moaning and clawing at his bare back. His strained muscles work under my hands, and his hot breath sears the skin of my breast where his mouth roams.

My hands move to his hair, my fingers tangling and gripping. Then he’s pulling at my wrists again, and a whimper releases from me as he removes my hands and places them above me. He lifts his head and peers down, livid.

“I have no control,” he grits out. His chest pants with his quick, short breaths. “None. You fucking strip me of any and all control I have over myself. I am trying so hard not to let her take you—”

He breaks off and turns his head to the side. His body trembles. If he’d just give in to the emotions and passion trying to claim us both, he wouldn’t hurt so badly. I try again to seduce him with my body, tempt him to obey the desire crippling us, and squirm beneath him, arching my hips against his.

Only this time, his eyes seethe rage when they fall on me. I stop.

“I know it’s painful, love,” he says against my lips. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…I will never forgive myself…and I’m sorry.” He repeats his whispered words of penance over and over until they’re so low, they’re barely in the room with us. The only sound other than the knocking of my heart.

I want to tell him that he shouldn’t be—that I belong to him;
am
his. But that nagging thought far off in the corner of my mind ceases my words.

As he pushes my hands higher above my head, I glimpse the shimmer in his frenzied eyes. Tear tracks mar his perfect face. He seems…broken.

“I hope you forgive me…please, one day,” he says. Then cold metal surrounds my wrists. A loud
click
locks them in place.

“What are you doing?” My stomach clenches into a sick knot, replacing the ravening ache between my thighs.

“What’s right…I think,” he responds. “It’s almost time. Bale won’t be banished with alcohol or my simple, frail human body any longer.” He cups my face between unsteady hands, studies my face. His gaze roams slowly over me, as if he’s committing to memory every detail. One clear tear falls from the corner of his eye and lands in the hollow of my neck. I want so badly to reach down and wipe it away, to wipe his away, but I’m trapped.

With a shaky exhale, he lowers his lips to mine. Caresses them into a long, slow kiss that builds achingly into a passionate intake of air. Our breaths intermingle. His tongue swipes over my lips and into my mouth until he’s tasted me whole.

Against my will, my body responds. Desperate for him to sate the unfulfilled need burning inside me. I feel his want for me, not unrequited but forbidden. Even as I latch my legs around him, pull him closer, he’s breaking the kiss. Turns his head away with a harsh curse.

Then he pushes onto his knees and, with one last, pained glance, leaves me and my body unsatisfied.

“Don’t…” I say, my voice a hoarse whisper. “You can’t leave me like this.”

Caben drives his hands through his tousled hair, gripping at the roots, and rips a frightening shout from his lungs. He marches toward the ladder, ramming his fist through the wall as he goes. Blood stains the splintered wood. And then he’s gone.

I hear his muffled voice barking orders below. “Lake, bring them now! Just do as I say.”

The hatch bangs open and closed. The echo of it seeps into my lost spirit.