Page 136 of The Night Prince

His pain sears my throat, and my breathing shallows. I shake my head. I lean forward and touch his cheek. He is cold. So cold. His eyelids flicker.

I wanted this, once. I wanted to defeat him. I searched for weeks for the answer to ending our connection. I wanted to break the bond. The power to do it crackles in my veins. I feel it. I could take it in my hands and snap it. If I don’t do it now, he will take me with him.

He tries to reach for me, but his hand flops onto the floor by his side. His body twitches.

Emotion surges through me, raw and primal. It has been so long since I have let myself feel the things I thought I shouldn’t—and this is the most forbidden feeling of all. It chokes me as the scent of his blood hangs in the air.

I need to let him go.

I cannot let him go.

He saved me once. I don’t know how he did it, what words he whispered into the darkness, but I feel for the bond. The life is draining out of me, and my limbs shake. My breathing is as raspy as his. I shut my eyes.

“Please. . .” he gurgles.

And I feel it. He wants me to break the bond.

I push my forehead against his.

Darkness.

***

We hurtle down toward a pit of shadow. The sound of scraping scalpels and screams fills my ears. I wrap myself around Blake, and press my head against his chest, but his arms are limp and cold. I catch a glimpse of a dark room, a candlelit cell filled with books and the scent of citrus, a torture chamber with workbenches that creak beneath the weight of tools and jars. We fall through the ceiling of a small room lit by a fire in the hearth. A woman holds a rabbit while a small boy cries.

Water splashes as my body makes impact with the ground. I’m sinking into soft mud. Rain pelts my back, and the air tastes like lightning. I claw my fingers into the earth, and push myself onto my knees. Thunder rumbles across the sky. I’m alone.

I’m not far from the edge of a small village. Small stone houses stand on either side of a dirt road. Lights flicker in their windows. Blake is nowhere to be seen, but something tugs my chest, and I turn.

Lightning forks across the sky and illuminates a well in the distance. A thread of light links me to it, spluttering in the rain and the shadow.

I put my arm in front of my face to shield me from the rain that is coming down so fast it feels like it’s cutting my skin. There’s another rumble of thunder, and the ground shakes beneath my feet. The ground is like sludge, and it threatens to swallow me with every step I take.

I walk. The wind hurtles into me and blows my hair into my face. It tries to push me back, but I fight against it. Igrip the edges of the well, and the moss-coated stone is slippery beneath my fingers. A small boy with ink-black hair cowers in the darkness, half submerged in water that is steadily rising. He is crying.

“Blake!” My voice echoes, then is swallowed by the darkness. The boy looks up.

He flickers, and changes into the man who tricked me, deceived me, manipulated me, saved me. His skin is white. He breathes in sharply. His chest and torso are bare. The wolf shines in his eyes, and his jaw clenches as lightening floods the well. “Aurora?”

The water drains, and the bottom drops beneath him. He gasps and grabs the sides, digging his fingers into the cracks in the stone. His biceps ripple and he grunts as he slides down. The bond between us jerks and pulls me forward. It flickers, a fraying rope between us.

“Break it,” he shouts.

Thunder rumbles, and he flinches and slips down a few meters. I cry out as my torso slams against the edge of the well. I grab the bond between us with my numb fingers. It jerks and frays.

“Break it!” His voice echoes. “You have the power! You always have!”

“No.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Aurora!” Rain rolls down his face, his lips. “I’ll pull you down with me.”

I think of every dream he wandered into, smugness etched onto his face as he told me to fight. The hypocritical, condescending, obnoxious fool. “You are not even trying!” I shriek.

His throat bobs. The thread of the bond flickers in front of his face. Blake’s gaze moves to it. I feel what he’s about to do. Panic bursts within me. “Don’t you dare.” I grip the bond harder and grit my teeth. “People like you and me, we do not let go, Blake.”

He’s breathing as hard as I am. He’s steeling himself for something, and I can’t tell what. His emotions no longer run through me.

“You will regret this, little rabbit,” he says.

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