Page 67 of Radiant Shadows

I began to weep.

“Don’t cry, my sweet Julian,” she cooed. “Everything will be alright.”

I shook my head, my voice broken as I said, “No, it won’t. I’m a prisoner. And I’ve betrayed you.”

“Oh, Julian, you have done no such thing,” she said soothingly, putting her hand over her heart.

“Yes,” I protested. “I promised to always be faithful to you, and I allowed myself to fall in love with…” I squeezed my eyes shut, the guilt I’d been shoving down over my decision ripping through me. “Can you ever forgive me?”

She stepped closer, somehow closing the distance when I could not. She lifted a hand and laid it gently against my cheek, and I sighed with pained longing as I nuzzled into her touch.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said. “There are things at work that you just don’t understand. But you will know soon. You will see the truth.”

I pressed my hand over the top of hers, savoring the warmth of her touch and the scent of her skin. I turned my head slightly to press a kiss to her palm.

“So you don’t hate me?” I asked in a pathetic whimper.

“I could never hate you, my love,” she replied with a loving smile. “I am with you always. Even closer than you know…”

Like an image in water disturbed by a ripple, she and the room around me faded away, and I pleaded in futility as I desperately reached out for her, trying to grab hold of something that was already gone.

I woke to the sound of myself crying. My body was too drained of blood to produce tears, making my eyes only sting dryly as the sobs shook free of my parched lips.

“Alice, please come back,” I croaked over and over.

But no response came, neither from the gilded cage around me nor the delirious concoctions of my mind.

This would be life now. Forever. There was no getting out of this. And I couldn’t have Alice, nor the beautiful witch and steadfast gryphon who had stolen my heart. Piper would be at Hadrian’s mercy until he no longer had use for her. And the shifters would lose.

Fate truly was a cruel mistress.

Chapter 25

Shea

I had never felt more powerful or more free in my entire life than I did right now as I studied the grimoire.

The book was mine. Not just something unavailable and in my possession, butliterallymine. And after—accidentally—unlocking it with my blood, reading through its pages was my new addiction. Now that the countercurse for Tobias had been performed successfully, I could finally disappear into my room and throw myself back into it.

There were spells for everything in here. Love spells, hate spells, healing spells, curses and blessings. Spells for luck, spells for wealth, spells for truth and wisdom. With this at my disposal, there wasnothingI couldn’t do.

And no one I couldn’t help—or at least, try to help.

If only the Dome would accept such a thing from me. There were so many protection spells in here, it was ridiculous. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…

The only thing I hadn’t found yet was a resurrection spell. Not a lasting one anyway. There was a spell calledThe Dead Speak, which would bring a recently deceased person back for a few minutes only for the purpose of getting answers, but the warnings covering the page suggested even that employed major consequences on the caster.

As I’d learned, messing with the boundaries between life and death was dangerous and unpredictable—and not something to be entered into lightly.

And yet…I couldn’tnotlook for something. Julian said he believed Alice wanted him to be happy and that he was ready to let her go. Selfishly, of course, I wanted to keep him to myself. He was beautiful and kind, and tortured in a way that made him even more precious. But if I could do this for him, even if it meant living without him, how could I not?

Especially when I also had Caesar.

Okay, I still couldn’t really get over that. Two guys. I hadtwo guyswho were both amazing, and somehow, they both wanted me, enough to share with each other—God, it sounded crazy when I tried to put it into words like that.

If there was anything this situation had taught me, it was that love didn’t have rules or limits. If I could love both Julian and Caesar, and they could both love me and each other…wasn’t there also room for Julian to love Alice?

Though I couldn’t possibly expect her to be willing to share, and I was prepared for that. Sort of.

---