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Page 45 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

He moved away from her. “Oh, I deserved all of that and more, nightmare,” he scoffed. “It is the way of things, and you and I both need to be all right with that.”

But he wasn’t all right with it. He’d buried those thoughts deep, though, because he knew his purpose. He had chosen to serve them as they served him. The other gods had been selfish with their followers, and he refused to be like them.

Elric knew he had to put some distance between them.

He needed space to get his mind straight again.

There were rules to interactions with witches, rules he had created to protect himself.

Breaking those rules had gotten him here, touch-starved, weak in the knees for the slightest attention.

It could have been anyone. It wasn’t because she looked at him with hope in those dark eyes or that he saw a bit of himself in her or because she was so fucking kind, even when others weren’t kind to her.

“Elric?”

Damn him.

Damn her.

Because the moment she called out his name was the moment that he froze and waited to hear whatever would drop from those beautiful berry-red lips.

“Nightmare?” he said.

“Don’t go.”

He had to. He was going to shatter in front of her, breaking into a thousand pieces, because the longer he was with her, the more he wanted .

“I am not like them. I do not wish to be. I made a vow to you and I intend to keep it. What they did to you was—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted, squeezing his eyes shut against the memories that threatened to overwhelm him. “That was not for you to see. I was not prepared for you to see who I really am.”

“I know that, but I… I saw your memories.”

“I have spent centuries creating the Deathless God. Years upon years developing a terrifying vision of a god who could not be killed. One who served the witches that were feared throughout these kingdoms, and who was the source of all their wicked power.” He took a shuddering breath.

“And now you see the man beneath it all, Jessamine. I do not know what to do with that.”

And that was the problem. He didn’t know how to go back to what they had been before. Not when she knew the true depths of him, the bleeding underbelly of the beast he had built out of his home.

He walked away. Each step felt heavier the farther he got from her.

She almost-shouted, “I want you to teach me spellcraft!”

He looked over his shoulder, raising one eyebrow with curiosity. Phantom chains slithered around his torso, binding him to her as he had feared they would. “You already have a teacher. Sybil taught you all that she knew and more. You have books to read and research, do you not?”

“I was a terrible student who didn’t understand a single word Sybil tried to teach me. She said I wasn’t focused enough, and that magic always came at a price.”

There was a long pause, and finally he turned back to look at her. She sat on the edge of the sarcophagus, her legs dangling off the edge, not even reaching the ground. This tiny woman held so much power in her hands and she didn’t even know it.

“What do you think I could teach you that she could not?” he asked.

“Everything,” she replied, lingering on the word as though it was both blessing and curse. “I’ve been so afraid of this magic, but the closest we have gotten to discovering who is behind murdering me was when I used your magic on Benji.”

“You hated how that made you feel.”

“I did. I do.” She scrunched her face and shook her head.

“I don’t want to know how to light candles with a thought or how to beckon a god to my side.

I want to know how to protect myself. I never again want to be put in a situation where I must either kill or be killed.

I want to be able to stop any attacker before that. ”

Well, she always did surprise him.

Elric tucked his hands beside his back and strode toward her. “Is that really what you want? You barely talked for a week after Benji’s untimely death.”

“It’s your magic that allows me to kill people, not mine,” she whispered, not breaking eye contact with him, but clearly uncomfortable with what she was saying. “I want to know how to control your power so that I don’t have to kill people. I can choose not to.”

This was more under his control. He knew how to have this conversation, because he had had it a hundred times before.

Tucking his finger under her chin, he forced her face up. “You have seen how different I am now. You feel how close we have become in just a short amount of time, yes?”

“Yes.”

“If we do this, you will be drawn even closer to me. You are not a worshipper, Jessamine, you are mine . There is a significant difference between you and Sybil. You choose to do this, and there is no going back.”

She swallowed, that pretty neck of hers working to gulp down her apprehension. “If that’s the price I have to pay, then I will pay it.”

“Is that so? You don’t even know what it means.” He smirked. “You always were an intriguing little nightmare.”

“Does that mean you’ll teach me how to use your power?”

“Not the same way other witches use it, but yes.”

A tiny wrinkle formed between her eyes. “Why is it different from the witches who worship you?”

“Haven’t you been listening? Witches like that are limited in what they can use.

They sacrifice to me. I gift them power.

It is a give-and-take relationship.” His finger turned into a claw under her chin, the black nail digging into her skin.

“You are a gravesinger, and you are mine. Any power you desire is directly linked through me. You can take as much as you want, and I have to give it to you.”

“Then why sacrifice you at all?” she whispered.

He winced. “Because people don’t enjoy having to beg for their power. It’s still my magic, no matter how much you take from me. And wouldn’t it be all that much more wondrous if the power was yours and yours alone?”

He watched the thoughts flicker through her mind, and then she blew out a long breath. “No,” she answered, so honestly it hurt to hear the word. “No, that sounds like more weight than I wish to carry.”

She left those words ringing in his head, walked around him, and started toward the front of the cemetery. But then she paused and stared down at a very small grave. The cracked headstone was little more than a name, split in half and covered in moss.

“What is it?” he asked, meandering up to her side.

“Isn’t this… you?”

He looked down to see his own name on the headstone.

Elric Hellebore. May he forever rest in anguish.

Shaking his head with a snort, he put his arm over her shoulders and dragged her away. “Witches have a funny sense of humor.”