Of Darkness and Crowns (21 page)

But I should know better. Even before the worst happened, Caben and I were never a simmer. We’ve locked blows and butted heads from the start. And it’s always been volatile.

Considering my life—the girl with a mercurial poison coursing through her—how could I ever believe my ending would be any less intense?

Abruptly, I feel the cold air jolt my skin as Caben releases my hand, taking his reassuring body heat from me. He grabs his head. A hoarse scream is ripped from his mouth. Anxiety tears through me at the shrill cry rending the air.

He halfway crawls, getting to his feet and stumbling toward a wraparound bar near the back of the room. I hear the
clink
and
slosh
of him fixing a drink, then Caben’s relieved exhale. He’s fracturing.

“Maybe,” I begin, then stop. Take a breath. “Maybe we should eat.” I’m sure he hasn’t eaten anything since he discovered drinking could block out Bale. Maybe even before. It could help absorb some of the alcohol and… I don’t know.

Can anything help at this point?

His hair falls into his eyes, obscuring my sight of them. When he lifts his head, the silver lining his irises blazes. The red dilating his pupils beams. “Always such a woman, huh?” A cruel smile tilts his lips. “Maybe it’s time you learned your place.”

Then he’s storming toward me, and I’m backing away on my hands and backside. I’ve seen this scene before. Lived it. In my home, between my mother and father…and I swore never to be her.

I’m on my feet, just pulling out of his grasp, before he’s on top of me. Instinctively, I reach for my sword.

He chuckles. “The fierce Nactue isn’t so tough without her weapon.”

I am, but not today. I don’t want to fight him, not when we only have hours left. I have to reach his humanity. “Caben, look at me. Look into my eyes.” I hold so still; hold my breath. “I’m not fighting you. I won’t. I’m not tricking you.”

His head inclines to the side as his gaze steals over me. “Good.” Then he turns and walks to a side room.

My breath whooshes out past my lips. I have no clue what I’m doing. Anyone who has any answers are far out of reach, and my instincts are misleading because of my feelings for him.

Will I be able to kill him when the times comes? When he’s in pain, suffering, calling out my name…maybe even pleading for me to do so? A cold chill sweeps over my skin. I really should have come to this answer long before now.

My thoughts end abruptly when Caben returns to the room. Something black and sheer in his hands.

He stalks toward me like I’m his prey. When he’s right before me, his hand whips out and grabs my throat. Even faster is the sudden, electric pain pulsing through me where his skin meets mine.

I’m forced to my knees, a strangled cry muted on my lips. Staring up at him, I plead with my eyes, trying to reach him one last time.

He releases me, and I gasp in a breath. “There. Better. It would be best if you submit willingly, but this works, too.” He shakes out the sheer material and holds it up. A very revealing gown. “Take off your clothes.”

The pain is ebbing, so it’s not what freezes me in place. The cool, calculating way in which he admires me does. We have no time left—I’m losing him.

Pushing aside any shame trying to sway me, I reach for the top button of my uniform.

♦
25
♦

Caben

H
ER SKIN CALLS TO
me. Silky and the color of cream. Beneath the beautiful cover, like a translucent taunt, swirls of silver flow. Like a map, inviting me to reach out and track my fingers down the paths.

I’m tempted, but in no hurry. Bale would have me kill her, and I nearly did. I even wanted to—and some part of me still insists it’s what needs to happen. When I’m sober and the dark goddess fills my thoughts, she has me convinced that she’ll not only spare me once she’s corporeal, but she’ll advance my power to that of a god.

It’s the line she’s fed me since the Reckoning.

But the alcohol—as ironic as it is—helps me see clearly. Bale has no intention of keeping me alive. That’s not part of the deal. There has to be a trade; one life for another. Mine for hers, so she can manifest on this plane. That’s how all dark magics work.

Since she’s already taking my life, I think I’ll take Kal for myself. Bale will have her moment soon enough. This is mine. And deep down, I know it’s all wrong. You can’t own a person or force them into submission. Only I can’t seem to quell my need for her any other way.

A chain around her neck catches my attention, and I look closer to see a ring there at its end. Not any ring;
my
ring. She recoils as I reach for it, but I’m quicker. Taking the silver ring into my hand, I hold it up to the firelight.

The red stone in its center glints. My crest, my family’s crest, fills me with longing. And the fleeting memory of when I entrusted Kal with it burns at the edges of my mind. Irritated at the emotions welling inside me, I unfasten the chain and slip the ring onto my finger. At least that’s one thing of mine properly returned.

Now, on to the other.

“Lift your arms,” I tell her. As she does, I slip the gown over her head. It falls slowly, touching every curve and cascading like water down her body.

My groin swells with need, and I release a shaky breath. Offering her my hand, I allow my gaze to travel over every inch of her. She takes it and I help her stand. Her breasts are beautiful against the barely there fabric, her waist and hips a tantalizing tease. My heart bangs against my rib cage painfully.

Kal’s not ashamed; I’ve seen her naked before. I’ve seen the glass plate that mars her chest and the cybernetic clamp just beneath. I’ve always thought her beautiful
because of
, not in spite of, her self-perceived defect. But now, she modestly places an arm around her stomach. A reaction, I’m sure, from a lifetime of trying to hide the mercury. “Why?” she asks.

It’s such a direct question, and one deserving of an answer. Why? “Because I have to.” It’s the only answer I can offer. My will is not my own. Not with Bale, not with Kal. Finding some semblance of control over my infatuated
need
for her requires a measure of dominance.

I dig out the collar in my pocket and move closer to her. Then I sweep her layers of dark hair from her shoulders and clasp the choker around her neck. Her hair still held aloft and warm against my hand from her body heat, I admire my beautiful possession.

A sense of calm settles over me. It won’t last, but it’s enough to prolong the torment I normally suffer.

Kal licks her lips, exciting me further. Backing up a step, her hair falling away from my hold, she says, “You don’t have to do this, Caben. I’m here by my own will. You can’t—”

“Can’t I?” I step into her and hook my finger into the metal ring of the collar. I envisioned a fantasy just like this not long ago, but the reality is so much sweeter. Pulling her face close to mine, I whisper, “Your rules, your queendom’s rules, don’t apply here, Protector. Hell, every rule that has ever existed no longer applies. The world is spiraling into chaos. But here. Now?” I lower my head and rest my lips near hers, just feeling the tremble of them against my mouth. “Our rules are the only ones that matter.”

She yanks back and the collar slips from my finger. “You can’t let her win. You think you’re shutting her out…that you’re controlling this…but Bale wants to kill me. Do you understand that? She’s still using you even now. I can’t trust that she won’t succeed, Caben. Because this”—she motions between us—“isn’t real. It’s not us—not the us that we found together.”

“How are you so sure?”

Her eyes narrow and her head jolts back. I can see her mind tussling with the question, evident by her pursed lips.

“How do you know what we would’ve been together?” I move closer to her, forcing her gaze to travel up to mine. “We were given all of what…days together? What kind of relationship would we have had, had it been allowed to progress? You a dominant female from Cavan, me a dominant male from Perinya?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

I chuckle. “Think about it.” I tap my temple. “There cannot be two heads in any relationship. Someone has to be subservient. Did you truly think it would’ve been me? Because why, you’re the Nactue leader? I’m a king!” I shout.

She flinches.

Grabbing her again by the nape, I look into her face. So precious and all that strength… “You are a leader, Kal. And leaders carry a heavy burden, I know. Maybe you’d have appreciated a man offering you the freedom of not having to be in control every waking second. Maybe that’s why you gravitated toward me. So you could relinquish that burden and responsibility, if only privately. Trusting me to guide you into something new, unknown yet exciting. Just give in to it.” I lower my voice. “This was always inevitable.”

A shimmer of tears coats her eyes, and it causes an ache to build in my chest. I grit my teeth against the annoyance. I can feel her giving over…just a little more…

“I’ll be gone soon. Bale will spring up in my place, and everything that we could have been will vanish.” Her tears spill over. I run my thumb over her cheek, wiping their trail away. “But doesn’t death come for us all? What difference does it make now or later?” Lowering a hand to the weightless material, I rub it between my fingers. Savor the press of her breasts against the shifting gown. “Forget the world. It’s damned. Trust me…belong to me. The way you were bound to.”

She inhales deeply, causing her chest to press against the gown more. My need for her is becoming intolerable; painfully straining against my pants. “Does this help you?” she asks.

I hike my eyebrows. “This?” I try to hold her gaze—the one faltering between tears and acceptance—but her body is begging for my attention.

Grasping the hand toying with the gown, she pulls me flush against her. “This,” she says, and links my arms around her, pressing herself so forcefully against me so that if she moves the slightest, I could release right into my pants.

“Does owning my body rid you of the parasite infecting yours?” Her warm breath skims my neck, and I close my eyes. Feel her. Inhale her. If I don’t taste her soon, the fissures in my skull will crack clean through, and the madness will take me.

But a haunting voice bleeds into my conscience. It lashes at the walls of my mind, trying to be heard over the roaring, infecting chaos:
Heart
.

Kal is my heart—but I’m not able to discern which is stronger. The heart or the mind. Love or power.

That faint voice grows into a bold whisper, insisting to be heard. Asserting that I don’t want Kal in this way. Regardless of how I’ve poked fun at her queendom, of how I was raised—the right and only way any of this works is through equality. But if I don’t possess her soon, Bale will shred through any sanity I have left, obliterating it and
me
.

I’m weaker and weaker by the second. I can feel my life draining. Bale will kill me, and then Kal will be in danger of being possessed by
her
. So rationally, the only choice I have is to take Kal. With or without her permission.

Better she be dominated by me than the dark goddess.

Yes. That settles it. My arms lock closed around her waist. My erection throbs against her body. “Yes, love. It helps. It’s the only way.”

She swallows. “Then I submit.”

A fierce quake rocks me at her words. Is this how the goddesses feel? Having all of humanity bow to them? It’s intoxicating.

And, I never thought the woman who fought fearlessly in the Cage, who decapitated giants, who threatened to slice me stomach to throat during our first interaction, would say those words. It goes against not only her very nature, but every assumption made of the strong, unattainable Nactue women. I’m suddenly wary that the earth will stop spinning and all manner of chaos will ensure.

Although, isn’t that its unavoidable course? I laugh aloud and watch Kal’s dainty features pull together.

“Isn’t that what you’re asking of me?” She tilts her head.

I sink my fingers into her hair and angle her head back. Time to test her. “Absolutely,” I say. “Now, on your knees.”

“What?”

And there it is—the flash of seething resentment in her eyes. Though she quickly checks it, schooling her expression into one of compliance, it was there for an instant. It’s such a waste that I only have hours left with her. A day isn’t enough time to truly own her.

Ah, but it’s enough time to pretend. All kinds of games.

“Fall to your knees,” I demand through clenched teeth.

Her mouth parts, and my angst amplifies as I wait for her to give herself over completely. But she doesn’t. Her obedience is stalled by her damned willfulness.

Heat explodes in my chest. I’m backing her against the wall before I realize my feet are moving. Her back hits the glass and my body traps hers.

“Caben—” My name whooshes from her mouth in a forced exhale. Her shoulders hunch as she recovers from the impact. Then she finds my eyes as I stare down at her, my hands pressed firmly against the wall on either side of her head. The only thing anchoring me to this world and stopping me from losing all control.