Page 136 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

“You have to understand,” he said after another long moment, “how much my life has been fueled by hate. Centuries of it. It’s too much.”

“Stop speaking in riddles!” The sudden shout made her clamp her mouth shut. Anger would not help her.

“I should’ve left that night.” He watched her like a scorned animal. “I should’ve let Loren kill me.”

“Do not ever say that.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then make me.”

But what happened next underscored his words. At first, she moved toward him when he doubled over, clutching his middle as he groaned in pain. He held out a hand to force the distance between them. Several loud, sickening cracks echoed in the room, and he clamped his mouth shut to muffle a scream. He grabbed his head and writhed in place before his knees gave out, landing him in a heap on the floor.

“Azriel!” She touched his shoulder gently, and he choked back a cry, whipping his head around to look at her.

Her mind went blank. The air stuck in her lungs and, after struggling with it for several deafening heartbeats, she released a mortified breath. Azriel did not look up at her. Those perfect, peridot eyes had vanished.

Instead, a pair of eyes as bright as rubies stared back. His mouth opened for another scream, baring two rows of sharp teeth, and a navy hue crept across his tan skin. From his hairline, two black horns spiraled out like a ram’s.

Before she could find her voice, a dhemon swayed to a standing position where her husband had been a moment before. The Caersan clothing stretched to its limits across the larger form. His chest heaved, and the expression twisting his face as he leveled his gaze on her was one of shame.

“It was you,” she breathed, mind numb. “It was you.”

“Listen to me.” It was not Azriel’s voice—it was a voice she had prayed to never hear again. A voice that haunted her each time she recalled those moments of struggle in her bedroom—the voice which told her to stop screaming before clamping a hand over her mouth as she called for Darien. “Please listen.”

“You.”

“I didn’t have a choice—”

“There is always a choice!” She slammed her hip into the corner of the desk as she backed away. “You said it yourself.”

The dhemon—Azriel—stepped forward, and her heart launched into her throat. “Ehrun had Madan—was going to kill him and—”

“So you ruined my life instead?” She could not wrap her mind around it all. The dhemon who stole her from the safety of her own home stood before her. Her abductor. The one who delivered her into that hell. She had kissed him mere moments earlier.

“I never intended on any of it.”

“You gave me to him,” she gasped, backing into a chair and nearly tripping. “You let him do…everything to me.”

“No,” he gasped and took a deep breath.

He screwed up his face in pain again and, faster than the transition into the form of a monster, that of her husband returned. As he stumbled, gaze unfocused, she started for the exit. The room spun around her.

“Wait!” Azriel fell against the door, blocking her way. “Listen to me, please.”

Ariadne shook her head, eyes stinging. “You have spent months lying to me. You let me fall in love with you when, the entire time, you were the one who destroyed everything.”

“Let me explain.”

“No.”

“He’s your half-brother!”

That made her stop. She stared at him, incredulous. “What?”

Azriel’s face glistened with sweat, and he blinked several times, eyes still unable to focus on her face. “Your father was married to my mother, and he hated me because he knew I wasn’t his, but Madan…he was.”

“My father’s first family died.” She gaped at him. “Dhemons killed them.”

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