Page 24 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)

“We are strategists in our own right. We can be shrewd and manipulative, have learned the arts so thoroughly that we’ve seen how disingenuous the world is, perhaps have created our own disingenuous worlds through our own ambitions and paranoia.

We became manipulative, and so we assume the same of the rest of the world.

Granted”—he raised an eyebrow at her—“those you fool and ensnare are typically left with fond memories, and I, well, I typically leave mine…” He rolled his hand, two of the claws pinched together as he lifted his sights in an effort to find the right word.

“Dead,” he said, opening his palm as if the word just rolled out like a loose die.

“Being powerful in my world comes with great cost. I have a slew of enemies. I can’t even trust my allies.

It is a high-stakes and dangerous game—warfare.

When I had my heart alone, I would not survive it because human hearts are not meant to, but her,” he said, looking back at Clea, gesturing to her.

“She simply is. I’ve come to measure the strength of a man by how much it takes for him to find satisfaction in something.

I pursued power in constant dissatisfaction, but she is satisfied in the simplicity of having a life, having the thing Venennin surrender thoughtlessly, being too blind to recognize it was all I needed.

Blind,” he muttered and then laughed, perhaps at some private joke. “She said that much herself.”

Iris watched him carefully. “So, this is real? Still, you just don’t seem like…”

“What?” He raised an eyebrow. “Her preference? Really?” He pushed with his words and then moved his eyes across the ceiling thoughtfully as he consented to her argument. “I was rather more self-deprecating. The only difference really is that I have truly embraced myself now.”

“I’m sure the world is much better for it,” Iris grumbled.

“Again, with the harsh words today.”

She scoffed and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “So, you’re trusting me with this?”

He beckoned her forward. With each pull of his finger, the chair scooted closer and she glared in resignation.

He neared her face, a smile dancing across his lips.

“To be clear, I don’t trust anyone. But she trusts you.

” He tipped her chin up with the point of his finger, lowering his voice to a murmur.

“I don’t want either of us to regret that, do you? ”

Iris glared, and he pulled away, straightening as he said in a normal tone, “I have to take her briefly to the temple of healing in Ruedom. I’ll be back in a matter of minutes. Can you make sure no one walks in?” Moving a finger to her chair, he released the invisible bonds.

Iris sighed, and in the sigh was annoyed agreement.

“Thank you,” he said, standing before peeling back Clea’s covers and hoisting her into his arms.

Iris watched them both together quietly as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

“This is…almost incomprehensible. You do realize that you, an Insednian of whatever renown that you are, would make her life impossible. I can understand why she wears that necklace, symbolic as it is. What I don’t understand is why you respect it and don’t often barge into her life like you are right now,” she said.

“Because I understand it too,” he said, looking down at Clea’s face, pressed against his chest, “perhaps in more ways than she does. As for why I respect it, I’m afraid if this happens again, I very well won’t have the will to bring her back.

Do you understand?” he said sharply “Had she called on me in a rather different state, I can guarantee that you and I wouldn’t be having a conversation right now and you’d be left with an empty bed. ”

They eyed each other for another long moment.

“Watch the door,” he said. “If you don’t, then—”

“You’ll kill my cat and cousin?” she said, standing to her feet.

He nodded once in brief agreement and then stepped through an opening rift.

Several seconds passed, and then he was back in the temple, Clea resting in his arms. He laid her down softly.

Tenida’s eyebrows lifted in surprise that he’d been able to produce the girl.

She inspected the body as the soul hovered over it in a faint golden sheen, the two pieces seeming unable to fuse back together.

Clea looked peaceful where she lay, dressed in a long white robe, her hair in disarray and now spilling over the side of the platform.

“Come on, hurry it up. It’s only a matter of time before someone notices her missing from her room,” Ryson urged.

“And her heart?” Tenida asked, seeming increasingly more suspicious the more that Ryson seemed to comply.

Ryson watched Clea’s face for the longest time, watched her slow, steady breaths.

His brows furrowed as he took in the sight of her under the light, tempted to touch her face, the silver tips of his fingers suddenly feeling too sharp, his energy too dark.

There was no evidence that touching her skin would harm her, but her state was so fragile he hesitated to reach out.

Instead, he crossed his arms again until his eyes flickered back to Tenida.

Wordlessly, he lifted a hand and tapped two fingers over his chest.

Tenida’s brows furrowed and then fell apart with understanding. They sat there in silence for a long moment.

“How?” was all she could say, looking back down at Clea and then inspecting the both of them as if trying to see the connection that might have bound two unlikely forces together.

Ryson sighed. “I’m tired of explaining it to the two of you.”

Tenida looked around as if someone else was there.

He continued, “Call it a rare product of rarer circumstances. It may very well be a reason she isn’t in a worse state now, and how her shattered pieces managed to congregate toward me.”

“By cien,” Tenida breathed, easing away from the platform. He could see her actively asking and answering her own questions. “What are you going to do to her?”

Ryson didn’t flinch at the question. Instead, at last, he reached a hand down, curling a light strand of hair through a silver claw and tucking it gently behind her ear and away from her face.

“Right now, it’s hard to imagine it would be worse than what she’s apparently capable of doing to herself.

I have speculated every number of things, but in the end, I don’t know.

” He allowed his silver-tipped fingers to move along her cheek, aching to feel her skin in its softness and warmth.

“It may depend on what she wants to do with me.”

His eyes flickered back to Tenida, who was watching him as if reevaluating not just the situation, but him. He read the disbelief on her face.

“Your vice is irresistible. For all your apparent civility, your darkness is the worst of them, Alkerrai. You’ll destroy her,” Tenida said harshly.

“Or she will turn me to ash,” he replied wistfully, which seemed to cause Tenida’s expression to falter.

He smiled, his fingers still lingering on Clea’s cheek.

“Maybe both,” he replied, “but it’s rather undeniable that the exchange won’t be riveting in every sense of the word.

I’d rather not be vanquished by anyone else, and if she consents to the path of destruction, then I’ll ensure she doesn’t regret a single second of it. ”

Tenida swallowed. “She doesn’t know what you’re capable of,” she began again. “Any Veilin who knows what you really are. You and Prince—”

“So, I see your predecessor told you,” Ryson said, still not looking away, still inspecting Clea’s face and, beyond all reason, urging her to wake up now.

In the moment, he was persuaded to do just what he wanted with her out of the smallest concern she might reject the monster that he was if he didn’t act soon.

He restrained its urgency, but it argued back with fervor.

He could keep her. He could keep her forever.

The bond of a heart was powerful and so were his own persuasions.

Her initial will would be nothing more than a suggestion in the back of her mind by the time he was through.

The heart bond that ensnared him, he reminded himself, ensnared her too.

There were so many ways he could enthrall her, mind, body, and soul.

He was a practiced expert in the art of each and they would both relish it.

He had her now, in front of him. He didn’t need to return her to Loda. She’d come to him for aid. Why ever let her go again? Why had he the first time? Why had he not found her sooner? She was in danger without him. This was proof. Could she not pay a price for his aid and be subject to stay?

His mind spun with the chaos of his own indecision, and he relished the challenge of his own will, feeling his power in the face of a formidable foe that she alone awakened.

Conflicted, he felt utterly torn and utterly alive, walking along a knife’s edge of having something irresistible and completely losing it.

A subtle, dark crackle fluttered through the room. Tenida stiffened beside him as if noticing the surge of dark energy.

“Now. Tenida,” he said firmly, with restraint, evidence of the battle of wills he now fought within himself.

She approached the platform, moving her hands over the fractured person who lay there, in need of a most advanced healing.

Ryson stepped back from the brilliance of it, feeling the heart in his chest twist as Clea was restored again in a swirling wave of light. Soon, she lay whole on that platform, and he approached her.

In front of Tenida, he combed his hands through her hair and leaned over her. His body was full of pain, full as it always was, but he could imagine what it might be to truly caress her, imagine her response. He still had the memories, sacred things, always free in his mind to repeat themselves.

Why had he let her go? Why had he not found her sooner?

Beneath it all, he knew the answer, that small, quiet whisper that bent the steel of his own desires one last time, urging him to give her back to her own life, to her own choices in which she was truly free without him.

The beast in him consented to release her only under the condition that if she ever asked for his help again, that would be the last of it.

She would be his, not just in heart, but in every other way. He would take her in his hands and transform them both. Tenida backed away, seeming to sense the intensity of the feelings as the air around them crackled with black sparks.

“Princess,” he whispered against her lips, preparing to set her free in a word, and willing her to call on him again, willing her to one day ask of him the world so that he could claim hers with such finality that he’d never have to part with her again. “Wake up.”