Page 125 of Lady of Ashes

“Careful, my pet, no one has won our game yet,” he retorted sharply.

“I am no longer worried about such things,” she answered, lifting a hand so shadows writhed in her palm.

Mikale sucked in a breath, but instead of a ?ash of fear in his dark eyes, it was … desire?

“Such beautiful darkness,” he said, his eyes ?xed on the shadows she wielded. His head tilted to the side as he continued, “You know, when they ?rst appeared all those months ago in my house, I did not know what they were. I am considerably younger than the other Lords. I knew what was inside of you, but having never seen it … Well, you can understand my wariness.” He stepped closer again, regaining the distance that had been put between them. “We only ever desired to help you learn to control it.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she deadpanned.

His dark eyes slid to her, and that knowing smile pulled at his lips again. “As I was saying, we’ve been so patient with you.”

“I was unaware I was being vexing.”

Mikale’s jaw clenched as he swallowed down some sort of retort. There was a note of restraint in his voice as he continued. “He’s been patient, but as he told you, his patience is growing thin. He even attempted to make peace with you by denying me access to your body, and you threw it back in his face.”

Scarlett couldn’t help the laugh of disbelief that burst from her. “Oh yes,” she drawled, “how ungrateful of me. He wouldn’t let you take from me, but your hands were allowed to roam. I was still chained to a fucking wall. Still denied food, water. Still forced to watch him torture and nearly kill Cassius.”

Mikale’s hand came up again, and she raised her own, her shadows striking for him as quickly as asps.

But they dissipated before they came close. She tried to summon them again. Tried to summon her ?ames. Something. Anything. But she couldn’t. Somehow, in this dream world, Mikale had managed to cut her off from them. Had given her a false sense of security.

Her heart leapt to her throat as his ?ngers skated down her cheek. She was leaning back, away from him, but that meant she was also leaning back over the balcony railing. This may be a dream, but that was still a drop to death below her, and she didn’t want to test if her death in this twisted dream world would result in her death in the real one.

“What he is going to do to you when you return,” Mikale mused to himself, clearly getting lost in his thoughts. He stepped further into her, her back arching more as she tried to keep distance between them. One of his arms looped around her waist, holding her in place as he brought his face inches from hers. His hot breath fanned over her cheek when he spoke again. “When you return, you will be so broken, you will beg to take that Blood Mark.”

“Cassius lives,” she managed to rasp out.

Mikale shrugged his shoulders slightly. “For now.” His ?ngers ?exed where they held her waist, and he forced her back over that railing even farther, her feet coming up so she was balancing on her tiptoes. “But if you think that was the last time he will willingly give his life to keep you from breaking, you are sorely mistaken. That is the life he is cursed with as your Guardian. Eventually, he will not survive it.”

One of her feet slipped, and a gasp escaped her as she fought for purchase on the balcony ?oor. Her bare foot trying to catch on anything. Mikale only laughed, his other hand coming up to grip her jaw and force her eyes to his.

“That is his message for you, my pet,” he said, nothing but dark amusement staring back at her. “Eventually, everyone you love will give their lives for you. That is their curse for knowing you, for choosing to follow you. You will be the cause of their death.”

Tears stung at the back of her eyes, and she swallowed, willing them back. She tried to shake her head in denial, but Mikale’s grip on her jaw only tightened, becoming bruising.

“How sel?sh of you to allow them to give up their existence so you can live,” he continued, his tone becoming soft.

“I would never ask that of them,” she rasped, her feet completely off the ground now as Mikale held her balanced over that balcony railing.

“Oh, my pet,” he crooned with mock sympathy, “you won’t have to. That is their curse for knowing you, remember?”

CHAPTER 29

SORIN

Sorin slowly rose out of the depths of slumber.

Until he reached for her to ?nd her side of the bed cold.

He jolted upright. It was rare he did not feel her wake. Rarer still that he did not feel her get out of bed.

“Scarlett?” he called into the dark room. A glance at the windows told him it was not even dawn yet. He threw back the blankets and quickly pulled on a pair of pants. He could feel her. She wasn’t far.

Scarlett …he sent down their bond.

He hadn’t used it much. Hadn’t let her use it much either. It wasn’t out of spite. It wasn’t out of some twisted desire to teach her a lesson of some sort. But it was about protecting these Courts. It was about forcing her to speak to him, talk with him about her thoughts and plans, rather than assuming he knew them because of the bond. It was about getting her comfortable recognizing and voicing her emotions rather than forcing them down or trying to ignore them all together. It was about making heraskothers, askhim, what he is thinking, what he is feeling.

He didn’t know how else to get her to start trusting him. To start trusting the others. He didn’t know how else to get her used to asking for help, how to get her comfortable asking for input and how others felt about things. She’d been doing everything alone for so damn long. She hadn’t depended on others so thoroughly since Juliette and Nuri, and they’d been raised together. Trained together to the point of being able to know each other’s thoughts and next moves on instinct alone. But that had becomefractured with Juliette’s death, had been on rocky ground before that even, and he wasn’t sure what the dynamic between the three would be now.

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