Page 59 of Stolen

Laurent stood in the center of the big space, plush carpets under his feet. He wore all black, as was his custom. Dark hair waved back from his forehead, the lamplight turning it almost purple in places. Silver winked in his ear, and silver eyes locked with mine. But they weren’t completely silver. I knew that up close they were shot through with streaks the color of moonlight.

In Eldenvalla, I hadn’t let myself think about the night I left Lar Katerin. I’d pictured the obsidian walls of the Sanctum, and I hadn’t dwelt on prophecies and betrayals.

But I did now. At last, I allowed myself to feel. Emotion broke over me like rapids, the flow so fast and violent it was all I could do to keep my head above the deluge. I’d loved Laurent from the start, when he was a dark prince with knowing eyes. He probably didn’t realize it, but he’d saved me during those years when waking in my father’s house had made me wish I wouldn’t wake at all. And then he’d saved my life in earnest on that frozen beach. What we’d built together in the years since wasn’t perfect, but it was precious to me. Because every time I was with him, he saved me a little more.

“We can tell each other anything. No matter what.”

I’d carried that promise under my heart since I was sixteen years old. I’d been foolish, storing his words in such a vulnerable place. I should have known that in breaking one he would break the other. I hadn’t prepared for this moment, and now that it was upon me, I didn’t know what to say.

I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a strangled, “Why?”

He pressed his lips together. Tipped his head back and stared at the tent’s ceiling like it might offer some answers. When he lowered his chin, his eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

I took a single swift step toward him. “That is not an answer.” My pulse pounded in my head. I jabbed a finger in the air between us. “I didn’t ask if you’re sorry. I want to know why you plotted behind my back in the name of some prophecy. Why you steered me into accepting your marriage and a place between Given’s thighs so you could fulfill some mystical quest.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Gods, Varick.”

“You lied to me about everything,” I said, a haze of red descending over my vision. “From Jordan to the reason you wanted Given in the first place. And when I asked you about it—multiple times, I might add—you gave me one bullshit excuse after another. And when I tried calling you on your bullshit, you doubled down.” I felt my mouth twist as my tone grew vicious. “Trust me a little, baby. Remember that? You fucking asshole.”

His lips parted, but no words emerged. After a few tense seconds, he dropped his stare to the ground.

“I’m waiting for an answer,” I bit out. I’d waited on him for such a long time.

He closed his eyes on a long blink before looking at me again. “Nothing I say can excuse what I did.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “I understand if you don’t forgive me.”

Suddenly, I had him by the front of his jacket, the fabric bunching under his chin as I hauled him up. A hot tear ran down my cheek, and its presence was like fuel tossed on the inferno of hurt and anger raging inside me.

“You don’t get to take the easy way out,” I grated. I bared my fangs and tried to hiss, but the sound emerged more broken than threatening, and that just made everything worse. “You used me. Do you understand what knowing that does to me? Planning to murder my child was bad enough, but you took my will away. Can you even for one minute comprehend how that fucking wrecks me? And you were going to do it again and again until I gave you what you wanted. Damn you, Laurent, I should choke the life out of you right now!”

“Do it,” he rasped, his eyes stark. “I want you to.”

“Fuck that,” I snapped. I shook him a little, and my voice rose with my fury. “Stop being a coward and answer my question. Fucking tell me why. Tell me why you did this to us!” My body went numb as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I released him and stumbled back.

We stared at each other, the truth of my statement as precise and devastating as a knife’s edge. Laurent hadn’t betrayed me. He’d betrayed us, and his deception had smashed the foundation our relationship was built on. Now there was nothing to hold us up. Nothing to bind us together. And I didn’t know how to be without him. I wasn’t at all confident I was capable of standing alone, untethered from his support. I’d grown with it, taking for granted that it would always be there. Now that it wasn’t, I realized I’d never learned how to exist without it.

Laurent’s eyes were wide—and scared.

My anger bled away, leaving gray desolation behind. It hurt to breathe. I felt like I might crack apart if I tried to move. But looking at him hurt more, so I turned away. I staggered a couple steps and stopped, my chest rising and falling like I’d just sprinted up a staircase. My knees loosened, and I fell into a crouch. I squeezed my eyes shut and put my head in my hands, my fingers spearing into my hair.

Silence fell, and I waited for it to swallow me. Erase me so I wouldn’t have to feel anymore. But nothing happened. The ground remained solid beneath me, and I continued breathing and hurting.

“I was selfish,” Laurent said behind me. “I was losing the Deepnight, and I was becoming everything my father said I would become. Weak. Unfocused. He always claimed I didn’t have what it takes to do the truly hard things. I thought he meant throwing people into the Rift, but I realized he meant…everything.”

Behind my closed lids, images of Laurent as a boy flashed through my head. Before he’d been mine, he’d been an enigma to me—the charming crown prince everyone doted on. Then my father took me to court and I learned there was pain behind the prince’s easy smiles. King Nicolae resented and feared the priests, so he’d forced a powerful priestess into his bed and sired an heir he could use as a weapon. He wanted a son who could set the throne above Petru and the Sanctum. In his delirium, Nicolae thought he could raise his heir—and the crown—above the gods. Paranoid and slowly going mad, he made Laurent study blood rites and ancient rituals until Laurent collapsed from exhaustion. As a teen, Laurent would kneel in the Sanctum for hours, the sound of dripping blood his only companion.

And when Laurent showed signs of being every bit as powerful as Nicolae desired, the mad king turned his paranoia toward his son.

Laurent spoke again, his voice a thread of sound. “I used to think my father was wrong. My mother was right, and I was going to be a better king than he ever was. I knew it, you see, because I could speak to the gods and he couldn’t. They favored me, putting the bly’ad on my tongue. But then the Deepnight started disappearing. I went to the Sanctum. I did every rite, purifying myself and beseeching the gods over and over. But I couldn’t reach them anymore. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t— I didn’t want to tell you. I should have. I realize that now. If I’d just talked to you, maybe we could have figured something out. But you were gone so much.” His breath hitched. “I d-don’t mean that as an excuse. I’m not— It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I don’t want you to think that’s what I’m saying.”

I opened my eyes. He was rambling, and Laurent never rambled. Always, he was confident and sure of himself. Arrogant in front of everyone. Arrogant in front of me until I forced him to submit and then punished him for his arrogance. And he loved it and I loved it, but I didn’t love this.

“When I learned of the prophecy I thought it was stupid,” he said. “I wanted it to be. You have no idea how much I wanted it to be, but the Deepnight was disintegrating and the gods weren’t listening to me. I thought, all right, maybe this is a test. Maybe I’m supposed to be tempted to turn away from the gods, and this prophecy is something I have to ignore. And I tried that and it didn’t fucking work.”

I put a knee on the ground and turned at last. He knelt behind me, his eyes red-rimmed and his face pale as a sheet.

“You should have told me,” I said.

“I know, but—”

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