Page 21 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

THE BALL

Everyone is scrambling to set up the ball.

It seems counterintuitive to have a celebration when your realm is ripping at the seams. But that’s exactly why we’re having it.

The people are getting antsy. Though there have been a few weeks of relative peace near the scar, thousands have been killed in the last few decades—hundreds in the last year alone.

They need a distraction. I would rather be anywhere else.

I would rather be with her .

I tasted her disappointment when I told her that tonight I’m occupied. It only sharpened when she had asked if she could attend the ball and I forbade it.

The idea of her—my beautiful, perfect hearteater—in the center of the depravity so common at these functions ...

The idea of anyone admiring her ...

This possessiveness over a woman I do not possess at all grips me in my bones.

The ball itself is tedious. I sit on my throne, watching, but not truly seeing. In my mind I’m with a hearteater with stained lips and green eyes that see far beyond my armor.

Women approach, trying to get close to me—each desiring to be the one to tempt me—but my shadows flare, making them scatter.

I don’t like to be touched .

I find myself not only bored, but restless. I count the minutes until sunrise when I can finally leave my throne. A swirl of emotions surrounds me: Lust. Excitement. Delirium. They bleed together into a meaningless sea of nothing.

In the haze, I find myself craving her red shade of emotions, the way they cut into me like knives, the way I can taste them on my tongue. Their claws sinking into me, bringing me out of my own shadows in a way no one else has even tried.

Before her, I was sure my heart had hardened forever. I thought myself incapable of the emotions I often sensed in others.

Now, I know my own were lying dormant. Waiting centuries for someone worthy.

Someone I am not worthy of, and want anyway.

My desperation is so palpable that my mind manages to summon her, an illusion. She’s suddenly there, in the middle of the crowd, a single blooming rose in a field of ash.

But I don’t just see her. I can feel her.

Impossible .

I sit up straight. It isn’t an illusion.

I know her.

I could never not know her.

The crowd parts.

And there she is. Radiance embodied. The world dims around her. Nothing can come close to her brilliance.

Everyone is watching her.

Of course they are.

In every room, in every realm, in every universe, she is its center.

I realize all at once: She defied me. I should have expected it. Normally, I might be amused, but here, she is in danger. I’m struck by a brief flash of fury. She has no comprehension of the risk she’s taken.

I’m angry for other reasons too.

As if recognizing my anger, she smiles and blows me a taunting kiss.

I stand immediately, ready to portal her away.

I hardly care that my subjects have turned to watch me; I don’t care about anything at all except for her and the poor excuse for a dress she’s wearing—just shreds of almost sheer black fabric.

Not out of place at a ball like this, but on her? On her, it’s ruinous.

In response, she disappears back into the crowd, which converges around her as their merriment continues.

As if she could hide from me.

Yet—

She is not mine, I remind myself. She is a ruler of realm. If I take her away now—revoke her freedom—she will hate me more than she already does.

Teeth clenched and jaw locked tightly, I sit back down.

I manage to glimpse her dancing alone, and strain to follow her movements through the packed room. I command everyone in this realm, but it is she who commands my full attention. Always.

Then, a man offers his hand in invitation.

I resist the urge to use the nearest shadow to cut it clean off.

The hearteater meets my gaze. I narrow my eyes, daring , just daring her to say yes.

She smiles at me. Then, at the man. She accepts, placing her hand in his.

I barely leash the urge to turn the entire room to ash.

My knuckles whiten as I grip my throne with iron fists while watching her dance with someone else.

It should be me. I should have asked her.

Instead, I’m here, imagining all the ways I’m going to kill that man.

He’s dead.

His hand grips her waist, and yes, I will be cutting it off. He smiles and his teeth flash. I will be yanking those out, one by one, taking great satisfaction in mutilating his face.

How dare he touch her.

How dare she allow it.

She turns, holding my gaze as she dances, her body pressed against his, and I wonder if she realizes she has sealed this man’s fate.

I wonder if she knows I’ve never been jealous in my life until now. No one has ever had anything I’ve wanted until now.

I’ve never wanted anything, I realize. Not really.

Not until her.

There’s no getting rid of it. I’ve tried. This want, this desire for her, is rooted into my very soul.

Just when I think the pain in my chest can’t get any worse, the man draws her away. Together they slip through the crowded ballroom toward the hall beyond.

I reach for her emotions from across the room; I feel around for fear or hesitancy.

But I don’t feel either. Quite the opposite.

She wants to go with him. She wants him to touch her.

My regret burns through me like nothing I’ve felt in ages.

It should be me. I should have invited her to the ball. I should have given her a room of dresses to choose from. I should be leading her to the hall, ready to offer her everything she wants.

Because then she might have wanted me.

This is her choice. I must respect it, as hard as it is. I resolve myself to sit with my pain, until I catch a glimpse of her face just as she leaves the room.

Her cheeks are red. Redder than I’ve ever seen them.

In an instant, I recall her accepting a goblet the man offered. It all makes sense. I should have suspected it—

Fury coils in my bones. I’m in the hallway in seconds. I find her instantly, pressed against the wall, the man’s mouth on her neck, his hand traveling down her stomach.

Her emotions. They hit me at once, as always.

And she feels ... nothing. Nothing like when she’s with me.

My sword is through his stomach in a moment. It isn’t honorable, stabbing him through his back, but given his actions, this man deserves nothing, least of all her.

He sinks to the floor, and then there she is, eyes wide, staring at me.

“Don’t worry, Hearteater. He’s not dead. I will make sure of it.” I step closer, and lean down, so I can say it right above her lips, “Because I’m going to bring him to the brink of death a thousand times before I will finally allow him the mercy of dying.”

She stares back at me in shock. “Because ... he kissed me?” she asks, chest heaving.

Yes.

Because he kissed you.

Because he touched you.

Because first, he drugged you.

That’s not what I say, though. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want her to know that if she somehow survives my plan, for the rest of her life I will kill anyone who wrongs her.

“No, Hearteater,” I tell her. “Because he poisoned you.”

She’s confused. “What?”

“The drink he gave you. A few minutes more and you would find yourself paralyzed, a motionless vessel for his pleasure.”

At that, I can taste her fear. True fear.

I’ve never tasted it before, from her.

Which means she’s never truly been afraid of me.

“How do you know?”

“I didn’t until you were leaving. Your face and chest are flushed scarlet.

It’s a sign.” I want to kill anyone who noticed and didn’t help her.

I want to kill everyone who made this poison and allowed it to be distributed.

I will kill everyone who had a hand in this.

Starting with this man. I tilt my head at her.

“You feel it, don’t you?” In my hand, a vial appears, portaled in from the castle supply.

An antidote. I hand it to her, and she swallows it down.

Relief slides through me when her flush fades away. “Better?”

She nods.

Good.

Now that she’s better, my anger rises to the surface, threatening to overwhelm me. I look down at her dress, this dress that will haunt my dreams, the fabric wrinkled where she let the vile man touch her. The pathetic excuse for a man now bleeding out at our feet.

“Hearteater,” I say, my voice mocking, as I succumb to my hurt. “Who knew you were so desperate for pleasure?”

She glares at me, speechless.

“If you wanted someone to bed you so badly, all you had to do was ask.”

I regret it as soon as I say it. I’m sickened by the petty jealousy I feel in the wake of her brush with real danger. And yet, I can’t stop myself. I’m too lost in a roiling tempest of fury at the man at my feet, the world, anyone who ever tried to hurt her .

Her eyes narrow. She takes a shaking breath. “I would rather die than have you touch me, demon,” she says.

Her words are brutal yet deserved. Her feelings, though ... they say something different. I frown. “Is that so?” I dip my head lower, bringing my mouth closer to hers. “All right. I will not touch you again until you ask me to.”

She shivers beneath me. I can practically taste her growing desire.

“I won’t touch you again until you beg me to .”

Her breath hitches. “That will never happen,” she tells me. “I hate you.”

I wait to feel that hatred. It never arrives. We can pretend, though. She can pretend to hate me as long as she likes. She can scream how much she hates me as I worship her, every night. I don’t mind. As long as all her feelings—her hatred, her desire, her love—are mine.

“You can hate me, Hearteater, and still want me in your bed.”

She laughs, right in my face. “In your dreams, demon.”

How does she know? “All the best ones.” I study her dress, which clings to every inch of her. I never thought I would envy a sheet of silk. I hesitate for a split second. Then, “We do such depraved things, in my dreams.”

In my dreams, she doesn’t leave my room for days. In my dreams, her dresses are in tatters, and she doesn’t let us sleep. In my dreams, she is tangled in my sheets.

In my dreams, and only then, she is mine to keep. Forever.

And I am hers.

Isla opens her mouth. Closes it.

I lean even closer, hoping she closes the gap between us, hoping she kisses me. But she doesn’t.

Not yet.

And that’s fine. I can wait.

“When you finally do beg me to touch you—and you will—you won’t want anyone else to touch you ever again, Hearteater,” I say. “Late at night, you will think of me touching you. With my hands. My mouth.”

I think of all the dreams I’ve had of her, the ones I wish I could make real. There is no holding back; not anymore.

“And you will dream of me too.”

I step away, then reach down and grab the man who dared touch her, portaling him with me down to the dungeons.

As I rip him limb from limb—as I cut off the hands that dared touch her, as I rip off his lips with my shadows, as I listen to his screams and begs for mercy—all I think of is her.