Page 97 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

EVEN IF YOU WERE GONE

I roll the hilt of my dagger across my bare palm. Back and forth, as the rain hisses on the ground around me. My clothes are soaked to the bone. As I fixate on the way the raindrops splatter against the blade, all I can think of is that the Gods sent me this sign, I’m taking the right path.

Cole’s voice repeats in my head over the pouring rain. “ It was the closest I could feel to you…even if you were gone.”

My heart cracks, allowing each wave of emotion to spill into my chest, drowning out each breath.

I’d reflect on every last breath I shared with you. Every smile, every laugh, every kiss, and every touch.

The memories, the years, and every bit of Cole flashes through my mind in an endless torrent, threatening to sweep me down and out of sight. My eyes flick up to Daeja, and she blinks slowly at me in full understanding.

“Are you sure?” I ask, voice wavering.

“If you think it is the right thing to do.” She presses her forehead to mine, her eyes closing. “I will follow you into the dark and into the next life. And though we might not have had a lot of time together in this one, we will have it in the next. It is only destiny.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I lean my head into hers as I wrap my hand tighter around the dagger’s hilt, with my other hand scratching underneath her chin.

Her throaty purr rumbles through the air like deadly thunder, and tears spring to my eyes.

She shouldn’t be involved, and no matter how hard I try to convince her I can try and break our bond, she never wavers with that headstrong stubbornness of hers.

“Where you go, I go,” she murmurs again, reminding me. Like it’s anything but a question.

I pull my head off hers and meet her white, cat-like eyes. Raindrops snake through the crested ridges of her black scales into rivers gushing off her muzzle. She blinks.

Slow. Easy. As if her trust in me is as simple as breathing.

Shakily, I raise the dagger and press the end directly above my heart. Three inches, Darian said. That’s all I’d need. Each thundering beat, the thought grows louder and louder until it develops lungs of its own and fucking screams.

Do it.

Do.

It.

This is the easiest way. The quickest way.

It would be such a simple sacrifice. I’d save Cole before he even got halfway to the castle.

And knowing what I now know, that he’s truly the one the prophecy is about, it feels selfish to not sacrifice for the greater good of the realm.

Two lives to take out one. To save hundreds of thousands. The math is simple.

But the equation is not.

The shaking in my hand rackets up into a violent quake, and I wrap my right hand around my other hand to try and steady it. More tears slip free as I stare down at that beautiful, black ring around my middle finger on my right hand. The very physical piece of Daeja’s bond.

I’ve fought so hard to keep her alive, and yet, I’m the one who will end her.

All because she loves me.

Squeezing my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, I force the dagger down through my jacket, my shirt, my?—

An overpowering resistance blocks me from sinking the blade further, like I’ve hit an invisible wall. And that invisible wall pushes my hands farther away from my chest.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” a growl rips out from behind me a split-second later.

I flash open my eyes and find two scarred hands wrapped around the blade between my hands and my heart. Forcing the dagger away from my chest, blood seeps through their fingers as they slowly pull it away.

“Let it go!” the voice roars in my ear.

I fling my head back and connect with a hard mass, and the hands slip from my blade with a pained grunt before strong arms wrap around me, pinning my arms down to my sides. I fight against it, and Daeja rears back with a roar. I fight to free myself before I’m spun around to face my attacker.

Darian’s narrowed green eyes meet mine, his face hard with unkempt anger as he digs his fingers into my shoulders.

He slaps my hands down and attempts to keep the dagger from rising higher than my hip, then grapples for it. “Stop it! Let it go. I said, let. Go !”

He pries the weapon from my hand and chucks it off into the river. A sob works its way up my chest until I cry. As I sink to my knees, eyes fixed on the water, he snaps forward and catches me.

The two of us kneel on the ground, his bloody hands grabbing my face as he roars, “Look at me, look at me!” He fights desperately to pull my face up, before his voice softens. “You can’t. You can’t do that?—”

“Why? Why not?” I whisper, tears still blurring my vision. “It would be the easiest way?—”

“You don’t give up that easily! We don’t do easy!” He holds my face in his hands, and his gaze collides with mine.

“You shouldn’t be here…” I whisper, my voice trembling like I’ll crack and melt into his arms.

“I know, I know. But I didn’t mean what I said—” His breath comes out in quick, heavy rises and falls. “I—...I fucked up. And I…I hurt you. I’m...”

Everything slows around us.

He searches my eyes and brushes a thumb underneath my cheekbone. His voice trembles like it’ll collapse. “I’m …I’m sorry. ”

The words pierce me, sinking deeper than any blade straight to my heart. I’ve never heard him speak those two simple words. Never even hinted at it, after all the awful things he’s done. He’s never one to be sorry, but here and now…he means it.

I can see it in his eyes.

He shakes his head, the rain plastering his brown hair to the angles of his face and dripping off his thick lashes.

His anger melts into an array of other chasmic emotions I can’t quite place.

All at once, he pulls me into his chest, pinning my face right above his heart and holding me.

His heartbeat pounds underneath my ear, one hand wrapped around the base of my skull and the other rubbing my back. He holds me in the silence.

Silent tear after tear slips down my cheeks until I focus on the rise and fall of his chest, his gentle strokes down the back of my head.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again into my ear. “You were right, okay? I lashed out at you. I was scared.”

As my emotional overwhelm slows, he pulls my head back to look at me for a moment before darting a glare at Daeja behind us. “How could you let her even get to such a thought, you stupid flying lizard?”

“Tell him I’ll bite his head off and toss him downstream if he wants to call me that one more time,” she growls back.

An echo of a chuckle rumbles in my chest. All this time he called me kitten to taunt me. Flying lizard is just another one of his nicknames.

He directs his attention to me. “There’s another way, okay? We’ll save him. I’ll take you to Arterias.”

“How? The King will never let me within a league of the castle.”

He drops his hands from my face, his shoulders relaxing as he breaks our eye contact.

“What?” I murmur. “What is it?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“You’ve never been one to hold back saying what I won’t like. Let’s not start now.”

He drags his gaze up to meet mine, snorting like it’s a dastardly notion he already knows the answer to. “You’ll have to accompany me as my consort.”

I flinch, drawing back from him. “What?—”

He nods, slowly. His throat bobbing. “You’ll have to come with me…as my wife.”

A long growl rolls off Daeja’s lips, but he doesn’t break his eye contact with me.

“He can’t be serious. If you accept, you’ll have to lick my talons before I let you ride me again.”

I hold out a hand behind me like it’ll silence her displeasure and rise to my feet. A heat creeps to my cheeks and flutters in my chest. I’m waiting for the arrogant, mocking laugh that doesn’t come. As I stand with him kneeling before me, his eyes search mine. Waiting for an answer.

My voice is as shaky as I feel. “Y-your wife? You…you want me to…marry you?”

There’s that pompous grin. “You say that like it’s such a bad idea.”

I blink through the confusion and the absurdity of such a notion. I’m dumbstruck. He actually means it.

Rising up, he looks down at me from his full height. “It doesn’t have to be real. King Aaric just has to think it is. That’s how we’re going to get you into the castle.”