He blinked slowly at her, that mask firmly in place. “I’ve never claimed to be anything I’m not. I told you as much.” His calm, unemotional tone chipped at her, whittled her down, and reduced her to a million bits of sawdust.
“You promised you wouldneverhurt me,” she said, utterly pathetic, but she couldn’t hold it back. Couldn’t stop herself. “You promised me—”
“Promises are merely words. A series of letters strung together.”
His statement welded the pieces in her mind.
He’d warned her. He’d warned her all along. Theyallwarned her. And she didn’t fucking listen. She—
She fell for it. All of this.
Had he been compelled to make her fall for him or had he concocted this plan by himself? Had Reize been in on it too? Maybe he’d told her to lie and tell her the bond stemmed from love when it was bitter deceit. And when he created the bond, he’d tested her feelings, her brittleness. He saw her desperation, her loneliness, and her infinite power. He’d needed her help to get his magic back, so he’d used her, and now, evidently, he was done with her.
Just as she’d feared.
Her despair morphed to anger, and she gritted her teeth, ready to feast on his marrow for what he’d done. “Howfuckingdare you!” As her hands heated, her temper flared with it. “I trusted you!”
Thellonius seized Destonne’s hand and narrowed his eyes on the bonds. “That’s more than asterke.” His gaze flicked up to his son’s. “Seems you two embarked on something dangerous.”
“I had to. She insisted,” he replied flatly.
Thellonius said, “Very well.” Then he nodded at Emmery. “You know what to do.”
Dez took a step toward her, then another, his pace measured, ready to slit her open and drain her dry. Emmery’s stomach sank.
“Don’t—” Emotion snagged in her throat. “Gods, Dezdon’t. Don’t do it. Don’t do this!”
His pace didn’t falter. Didn’t even slow.
Beside her, Vesper shouted, but the roaring in her ears drowned his words out. She bared down on her magic, leaned into her flame, her heart a wild, caged animal as it thrust her magic through her veins. Sweat trickled down her neck and a scream squeezed between her clenched teeth. A golden plume of her fire burst through the iridescent restraints and disintegrated the rope.
The room erupted into shrieks and a whirl of magic.
With a wave of his hand, Dez cast a gust of obsidian ice, but Emmery knocked it away with a sweep of flame. She assembled a wall of fire, not to harm him, but to deter, and surrounded herself in a torrent of golden flame. Her magic devoured any creatures that dared near her though they slowly assembled. Thellonius held up a single finger and they froze.
“Not yet, my pets,” he purred. “Let them play.”
Dez flung another burst of ice at her, this time at her legs, but once again she deflected his advance. Their duel became a game without a victor—a swirl of his magic and a block of hers, a parry and a dodge, and she slowly backed toward the wall. She eyed the door but she couldn’t run. If she left, everyone’s life would be bled out like Zyphira’s had. She couldn’t do that to them.
As Emmery’s back struck the wall, air burst from her lungs, hopeless and fleeting. Hand clawed in the air, Dez’s vestige pulsed in a crimson nightmare.
His magic bubbled in her blood like he’d slit her wrists and unravelled each vein. A warm, wet trail ran from her nose, the coppery scent thick and undoubtedly hers. Blood vessels burst in her eyes, her vision blurred, as metallic liquid pooled in her throat, clogged her lungs. Drowned her.
I will never let you drown,he had said.
Liar, she wanted to scream. Shriek. Hurl at him.
Thellonius called from afar, “We need only a flicker of life, but leave her blood untouched.”
Teeth bared, Dez’s feral growl echoed in the anarchy as he lunged for Emmery. She rolled away, and spun into a kick to his ribs. A tiny cry ripped from her throat as his thorns punctured through her boot into the sole of her foot. The impact of her strike didn’t even rock him, and he seized her ankle. She flailed and dug her heel into the ground, but he reeled her toward him, and she lost her balance. His hands balled in her tunic.
Because he’d always touched her with such gentleness, she’d forgotten he was infinitely stronger.
“Dez—” she pleaded, her frantic voice rising in pitch. “Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me hurt you!”
He wrapped his hand around her throat and slammed her into the stone. Stars burst behind her closed eyelids, and suddenly she was Guthrie, shoved up against the alley wall. Helplessly, her feet dangled, her legs and body trapped like a fly in his web. She clawed against his hold, but the thorns at his wrists shredded her fingers, and even as her flame scrambled to her aid, his ice responded in measure.
It seemed they stood equally matched and stared at each other eye to eye, but there was one key difference. She loved him andcouldn’t bring herself to harm him, while he readied to slit her throat and watch her bleed.