Page 88 of Taken By the Lord of the Nocturne Court

I leave my cloak behind, because it keeps catching on bushes, and I only make sure my next step isn’t into some bear trap. I couldn’t predict that darkness would open in the ground in front of me. It’s too late when I run straight into the hole, but instead of descending, my body is fallingup.

My mind spins, and as soon as I manage to stand again, I find myself trapped in a black corridor with floors covered by a gray carpet. The walls seem to pulse with smoke, like Kyran’s sword did when he saved me from the tooth moths.

I dart through the first door, too frantic to look back.

I just… I just want to be safe. But as I dash for the door across from me, it just…. disappears, and my hands hit the wall. Frantic, I spin around, ready to find a different way out, but Kyran’s tall form fills the door, blocking my way.

“What did he promise you?” Kyran hisses, and unlike everything else around us, his form remains painfully sharp. “Did you forget you wearmycrest? That you’remypromised? That you moanmyname every night?”

My cheeks are hot, and I’m panting, but he is the master of this domain. There is nowhere for me to run.

“It had nothing to do with Anatole!” I choke out when I find my voice. My first instinct is to run, but when cornered, I will show claws.

Kyran’s eyes flash with a smoky glow as he steps closer, his chest pumping hard, as if he’s fighting the urge to squash me like a bug. “Then why did you seek him out? You wanted me gone so you could run to him! And you didn’t care that I’d be worried!”

I can’t believe thatthisis what his intuition tells him about me. “I was trying to find Carol!” I yell back, because what do I have left? He could kill me here and let the shadows swallow the body. “I wanted to talk to a Companion on my own, so I know what I’m actually in for!” I spread my arms and stand taller even though he towers over me.

Kyran opens his mouth, and his shoulders hunch, relaxing. “Carol? What? Why? I told you everything you need to know.”

“And how would I know if it’s true?” It hurts to say that, but something inside me is twisting, ripping, and it has nothing to do with the dark walls pulsing as if they’re alive.

Kyran stills, color gone from his features. His breaths shallow.

“You don’t trust me? After everything we’ve been through?” Were he someone else, I would have sworn his voice broke. “I give you everything you want…”

I want to hate him for the way he frightens me, for dropping me into the shadowild where I have no way out, but when I see the hurt in his eyes I feel only guilt. He needs to understand where I’m coming from.

I hug myself, taking deep breaths. “I can’t trust you because… because I can’t trust anyone. Ever. That’s just… gone for me, okay?” I sniff, fighting tears as I realize I never said that out loud. It’s always sat dormant on my heart like a cancerous growth I felt I had under control. But I don’t. It’s rotting me from the inside, and I don’t want tobeanymore.

Kyran reaches out for me, and while I’m on the verge of pulling away, when he curls his hands around my forearms, all I feel is relief. I’m no longer afraid.

“Luke, what do you mean? Why would it be gone?”

I try to speak but fall apart instead. The tears I was holding back spill down my cheeks, and I feel raw as if Kyran had taken a grater to my feelings and used it until no skin is left.

“I… I’ve been really hurt before,” I utter, sobbing like a crybaby when I should have long left all this shit behind me. “I was in… in a bad place.” This is useless. But when he pulls me close, when his long hair hides me from the world, and his scent?salt, wax, and leather?fills my lungs, all I want is to hand myself into his care.

“What happened?” Kyran asks, and all of a sudden the wall behind me turns soft like a mattress, the world’s gravity flips again with a gentle push from Kyran, and we’re lying on a bed.

I lean into him, all my walls crumble, and I can’t stop sobbing. He strokes my shoulder as I regain enough composure to speak. Where do I even start with this bullshit when my whole body balks against me spilling my secrets?

I guess the answer is that I need to take off my armor. Starting with the actual breastplates, since they clank against each other like two cans. Physical barriers are so much easier to crumble than the emotional ones, yet it still feels like opening a wound when Kyran helps me with the buckles.

I only speak when both our breastplates clatter softly to the shadowy floor.

“When… I was a kid, twelve or something, I started being, I dunno, my mom said ‘rebellious’, but I think she was just sick of me, and she sent me to this strict boarding school. I hated it with every fiber of my being. I hated having to do as I was told, I hated being alone, I hated the monotony of every day being the same, and I hated that they made befriending people impossible. Rewards and punishments depended on following the rules and snitching on anyone who didn’t. I soon learned I couldn’t trust anyone, including the teachers.”

Kyran’s chest is my safe space, and as I press my ear to it, listening to the strong rhythm of his elven heart, even the pain of the past is a bit more bearable.

“That sounds like a nightmare,” Kyran whispers, stroking my back in soothing circles. “I’m so sorry.”

I hug him, wishing I could melt into him. “I tried to keep my head down, do what I was forced to, just to get through it. But then puberty hit me, I met this boy, andI dared opening up. I didn’t snitch on him, I wanted to be around him, I wanted to be friends. And even though we didn’t have much education in these things, I was starting to understand I only liked boys. That was beyond unacceptable at this school. I thought I was smart by then, that I knew all the best hiding spots. But we still ended up busted. It was very innocent, we were just making out.

“They interrogated us about each other for fucking hours like it was some torture prison. I denied everything at first, but then the teacher got violent and I knew it wouldn’t stop until I told him what he wanted to hear. I couldn’t bear for them to hurt my friend, so I took all the blame. When they finally let me go with a promise of weeks of extra duties, all I could think of was finding him, to make sure he was okay.

“Turned out he was very much fine. Because he blamed the whole fucking thing on me, called me names, and didn’t want to speak to me again. I was so heartbroken, so defeated, so betrayed. I just wanted to disappear, needed to be free of that place. I stole pills, bartered for a razor, and… that’s when you found me.”

Kyran whimpers and cradles my face. “Luke… My sweet boy. He never deserved you. I’m so sorry,” he rasps, blinking as if his eyes are itching.