Page 55 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

“But why?” I couldn’t help the vulnerability in my voice, wrapped around a simple, complicated question. “Why am I damned?”

He moved closer, but he was careful, eyes shifting between mine as he spoke.

“Ezra’s full title is Supreme Sovereign, the Unerring Arbiter of Unmaking and the Infinite, and the Keeper of All Realms, Keeper of Guardians.

His power lies in the future while mine lies in the past. He can see what lies ahead.

A thousand paths of possibility and it’s his nature to unmake those that would destroy everything.

When Sylvie was born to Alastor and Irri, he saw a dangerous path.

The Huntress would be the one to break the balance between the gods.

The Fates confirmed it with a prophecy about you.

But it was always only a possibility. He told me there could be peace here.

He denies it now, but I’ll never forget those words. ”

“Then why not let me die?”

“Before I met you, I thought that was the way forward. I trusted my brother implicitly to know what I didn’t just as he trusted me.

But he shouldn’t have. Because I wanted the power you promised.

I believed the prophecy meant that you would choose a brother to reign and a brother to fall.

I sought you out, determined to be the chosen.

Determined to let Ezra fall if it meant my rise. ”

I stepped away from him. “So, you’ve always been a selfish bastard.”

He followed, fully aware of what his proximity did to my resolve. “Yes. Always. But never more than the first time my soul saw yours and knew immediately what you were.”

“Weak?” I asked, stepping back again.

“No. You’re my other half. My Ever. Whatever damnation your soul carries, so does mine, because we share it.

And there’s no way in any realm, any universe, that I could be anything but fully yours.

My heart is consumed by you. My mind, broken by you.

But my soul? My soul, Paesha? It’s not just mine.

It’s yours, wholly and completely. Every shattered piece, every spark of light and shadow, it all belongs to you.

And it always will, no matter how many times we break and mend and break again. ”

A new voice swirled through my mind. Not the cold tone of Winter’s nor the serpent that felt like Sylvie.

This was honey. This was grace. This was pure logic.

You knew this would be hard. He’s had a thousand lifetimes of experience to break down our walls.

You’re smarter than this. You know what will happen if you let him in.

It’s not about dying. It’s about living.

You need to make a choice to die beside him or live without him.

That’s the only way this ends. You can leave him here.

You can take Irri back to Alastor and leave him behind.

All you have to do is use us. Let us break the door once you’ve passed through, just like you broke the veil.

Let him live here and forget. Maybe there’s peace in that for him too.

It felt like there was mercy for us both within those words. A difficult choice, but ultimately, probably the right one. He couldn’t know. He would try to stop me. And he’d kept his fair share of secrets so this felt like redemption.

“Come back to me,” he whispered. “I can see you slipping away to the madness. Don’t. Don’t cave to the voices.”

My eyes snapped to his. “All these lifetimes, it’s always been because you think you have some kind of claim over me?”

Thorne shook his head, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“No, Paesha darling. It’s because you have a claim over me.

That’s always been our ruin. You have led, and I have followed.

You have breathed, and I have suffocated.

You have danced, and I have stumbled, trying desperately to keep up with the wild, untamable rhythm of our soul. ”

He reached out, his fingers hovering a hairsbreadth from my cheek, close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin, the crackle of power that always seemed to emanate from him.

“I am yours, Paesha Vox. In this life and every one before. I’m bound to you, not by destiny or duty, but the simple, inescapable truth that my soul knows yours, and it will never stop seeking its other half. ”

I stepped away, needing distance, needing air. Because I could break for this man and I knew it. I could hear the logic in his words too. Was there justification to his ruse if it was done to save my life? Would I have rather been lied to or have that fucking arrow pierce my heart?

“Do you know what it’s like,” I finally asked, “to have your entire world shattered in an instant? To discover that everything you believed was built on lies?”

When I turned back to face him, I expected to see that same pleading expression, that desperate need for absolution. Instead, I saw something that made my breath catch—raw, unfiltered grief.

“Every time,” he said, his voice cracking. “Every single time I’ve lost you, it’s been exactly that. The world doesn’t just shatter, Paesha. It ceases to exist.”

I took another step back but Thorne followed, his body crowding mine until my back hit the rough stone wall. His hands came up to cage me in. “I can’t change the past. But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You will if I tell you to. That was the bargain, remember? You can’t stand in my way anymore.”

“Then I’ll stand on the sidelines.”

The heat of him, the scent of him, it filled my senses until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

I looked up at him, my gaze drawn to his lips.

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to close the distance between us, to lose myself in the taste and feel of him.

To let myself be selfish before I walked away.

To take and take from him as he’d taken from me.

Do it. Let him think he’s finally broken through your defenses.

I hesitated, torn between the desire to give in, to lose myself in the intoxicating pull of his presence, and the knowledge that this was a dangerous game, one I couldn’t afford to lose.

But as he looked at me, as he loomed over me filling every inch of the room with that beautiful body, the decision was made.

I could take what I wanted. Give him one taste of what could be, before I ripped it all away.

The thought was cruel, calculated, and entirely too tempting.

I let that temptation consume me, transforming me from the woman who wanted to run into a vengeful siren who could bring a man to his knees with a single smile.

“I can’t deny there’s a part of me that doesn’t want you on the sidelines,” I said, glancing between his lips and those fucking eyes. “But I think you know that. I think you’ve always known that.”

He lifted my chin with his hand, before sliding his fingers down to rest gently on my throat. “Of course I have. We share a soul.”

I moved to my toes, sliding my hands up until they locked behind his neck. “I already know I’m going to regret this,” I said truthfully.

He smiled, leaning down until his lips were less than an inch from mine. “Welcome to my entire existence.”

And then I kissed him, deeply, fiercely, with all the pent up passion and fury of a thousand lifetimes. He froze for an instant, before melting into me with a groan that sounded like surrender.

I poured everything into that kiss, every ounce of the desire and desperation that had haunted me.

I nipped at his bottom lip, soothed the sting with my tongue, and reveled in the way his fingers tightened on my throat, pulling me impossibly closer.

It was electric, magnetic—a clash of wills and a meeting of souls that left me breathless and aching.

But beneath the heat and the hunger, I could feel the colder, more calculating part of myself waiting, biding its time. This push and pull between us was over.

I broke the kiss, inching back only enough to look into his eyes, to see the hope and the love and the unguarded vulnerability shining there. And I smiled, a slow, wicked thing that held the promise of pleasure and the threat of pain in equal measure.

“Paesha,” he breathed, my name a prayer and a plea on his tongue.

But I was already stepping back, slipping out of his grasp like smoke.

The voices in my head hummed their approval, urging me onward.

I turned away, a small, secret smile playing at the corners of my mouth.

Thorne would follow me to the ends of the world, into the heart of the Forgotten.

And when the time came, when I had what I needed, I would leave him here to suffer the same fate he’d condemned so many others to.

It was a betrayal, cold and calculated and cruel.

But it was necessary. To save us both, to break the cycle of love and loss and endless suffering, I had to become the monster.

And as I stepped out into the waiting dark, I felt a piece of my humanity crumble away, replaced by something harder, sharper, forged in the fires of the Forgotten.

“We should go,” I said, stopping at the opening of our shelter. “I don’t want to be in this place any longer than we need to be.”