Page 72

The Spectral Guards do not follow.

Because they know better than to stand in my way.

Because they feel it—the heat rolling off my skin, the barely controlled storm brewing beneath my ribs.

I do not stop.

Not as I stride past the throne room and push through the towering doors of my chambers. Not as I tear the ruined gown from my body, shredding the delicate fabric with a single pull, tossing the remnants to the floor as if I can rid myself of her that easily.

But it isn’t enough.

She is still on me.

On my skin.

In my lungs.

The scent of her—salt, storm, and something uniquely hers—clings to me like a ghost.

I grit my teeth, my claws flexing as I stalk through my chamber, through the archway leading to the spiraling steps downward.

Down into the depths of the castle.

To the baths.

The onyx floors are cool against my bare feet, the air damp with steam, thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and heated stone. The large inground pool shimmers in the dim torchlight, water black as ink, cut only by the glimmers of molten gold veins that ripple beneath the surface.

The moment I reach the edge, I do not pause.

I step in.

The heat envelops me, curling around my skin, licking up my thighs, wrapping around my waist like a lover’s grasp.

I sink deep, until the water closes over my shoulders, until I am swallowed by the warmth, until my body no longer feels like my own.

But it’s still not enough.

The filth of her betrayal is still here.

The memory of her hands on my body, her mouth at my throat, her magic curling around mine—it clings to me.

Like poison.

I grab the cloth from the bath’s edge, scrubbing against my skin with brutal force. Harder. Until my flesh is raw, until my nails rake along my own collarbone, until I feel something other than this wretched, twisting ache in my chest.

She betrayed me.

She made a fool of me.

And now, because of my weakness, my people are dead.

I scrub harder, my breathing ragged, my claws dragging down my arms, my legs, my stomach, as if I can carve her away, as if I can cut out whatever piece of me allowed her to get this close.

But no matter how much I scrub, no matter how furiously I wash her away I cannot stop the way my chest tightens. The way my throat closes. The way my eyes burn.

And then, the first tear falls.

A single drop of blackened grief slipping into the water, vanishing into the abyss.