Nothing is free. Nothing is fair.Vesper’s warning rang true.
“Silence,” Senka snarled. She waved Shade forward. “Come now. Don’t you want to greet your love?”
Emmery’s heart stilled, her chest constricted to the point of pain, and she turned to Shade, fearing her soul may leave her body entirely with just that glance across the room.
“Emmery?” His voice echoed that same familiar call from far away.
But then he advanced on her, and she was in his arms, and everything was alright. Everything in the world came together, her purpose, the prophecy, and they could leave this place now.
“Shade,” she whispered into his shoulder. “Why are you—why do you look like this? I don’t understand. You said this wasn’t what you…” She swallowed hard, her throat like sandpaper. “I don’t—”
He pressed a finger to her lips, and said, “Hush now. Everything is alright.” It was such an unShade-like thing todo. She blinked up at him. Her brows pulled together and she opened her mouth to speak but—
He kissed her.
Emmery’s arms wound around his neck, pulled him closer, and she wanted to feel him, for him to fix those broken bits of her, to soothe the ache and hollowness inside her that only seemed to grow.
But his mouth was cold, lifeless, hard, and unforgiving. None of the things that fed her soul. And her mind wandered back to the dream with Dez.
Until it dawned on her.
That first day, Senka had rifled through Emmery’s mind. And all of this, the labyrinth, the dreams, the games—all of it was a manifestation of all their fears. She knew as much, but it hadn’t exactly unfolded like this in her mind until now. This fear played out before her. That her and Shade wouldn’t be right for each other. That he wouldn’t love her.
Or perhaps, thatshewould never love him.
That she would always long for another.
Emmery bit back the urge to shove him away. Because every piece fell into place like a neatly stacked row of dominoes.
As she kissed this Shade imposter, her gaze flicked to Destonne. He watched her, a flat, dead sorrow etched into the lines of his face. Blood trickled down his throat from where it appeared he leaned into the blade, and between it, the crown, and the thorns punctured through his skin, a mess of crimson soaked him, but the pain in his eyes was something else. Like a fragment of something he’d clung to now came apart. Frayed at the seams.
Shade pulled back and Emmery gasped as if she’d held her breath.
“What’s wrong, love?” Shade asked with a mocking tilt of his head.
Somehow, she knew. It was like that dream she had. He didn’t smell right. Didn’t hold her right. Didn’t have that same pull that Shade had. The feeling that reached inside her chest and held her heart in a way that couldn’t be replicated.
Emmery whipped her head towards Senka.
The demon grinned back. “You must choose.”
Emmery lifted her chin, fire in her eyes as she said slowly, sure to announce each word, “I choose Dez.”
Because she wasn’t sad or desolate. She was fuckingangry.
Shade staggered back from Emmery as if she had struck him. “Why? Emmery, I love you. Don’t you know—”
His words broke off as a gnarled claw punched through his chest.
Shade glanced down at the hole in his abdomen. His green eyes flared wide, his mouth agape as his hands hovered over Senka’s fist. And for a moment, Emmery wondered if she’d made a mistake.
If she had made a horrible, miscalculated mistake.
But then Shade exploded into a burst of ice and shadows and Emmery was left standing there with her heart racing and no way to calm it.
“You thought you could trick me?” Emmery spat. Venom practically bled from her eyes. “For a demon, I thought you would be better at this.”
Senka sneered. “Yes, well, we are not done just yet.”