Page 24 of The Devil In Blue
They cared. They were helping me.
No, they tricked me into believing I wanted to live.
They loved me.
Tears stung my eyes and my whole body ached with fatigue and hot anger and sorrow all at once.
I was trapped in a prison of bones and flesh.
I jerked backward and felt the thin material of my dress rip. Something gave and I toppled onto the floor, my head slamming on the hard marble. I didn’t even feel the pain before darkness took hold, plunging me into nothingness. With any luck, that was the end of it. No more wondering. No more fighting. No more rage and confusion and helplessness. No more pretending.
The giant crystal sculpture in the greenhouse toppled over with the force of my swing and shattered on the tile floor into a thousand blue pieces. Pacing, I balled my hands into tight fists, my fingers itching to be around her neck again but also stinging at the fact that I’d done it at all.
Briar.
The name that made my blood boil and my cock stiffen. The one who made my heart whole and then ripped it in two. My salvation turned madness.
I’d lost my temper in the dining hall. I didn’t intend to, but I also didn’t intend to bring Briar to Ferrothorn. My aim was to find her, remind her of her slights against me, and kill her all in the same night. Instead, when I heard her voice, my resolve turned to ash in my hands and I couldn’t do it. K
Weak. I was weak. It only proved how much power she had over me, the witch. The conniving, selfish witch. She deserved to suffer and yet when I saw those tears in her eyes when her necklace was shattered, my heart split in two all over again. The pain that lanced through my chest when I saw her weep over a mere trinket thrust me back fifteen years to a different time. A time that wasn’t so tainted by betrayal and hate.
Why? It was a necklace. A bobble with no real value. The gems were not even real. They were simply specks of colored glass. And yet she looked so broken.
And it killed me.
“My king,” a voice said, calm and collected.
She was always calm and collected, my Elanor. The ice to my fire, especially since Briar had left. I spun to find her at the entrance to the greenhouse, hands neatly clasped in front of her. No amount of rage and destruction deterred my oldest raven. She knew me inside and out and was surprised by nothing.
As it should have been. I had done well with her.
“She will live,” Elanor said. “It was only a cut to the back of her head, but the skull is intact.”
“I am better than that,” I hissed, scrubbing my face with my hands. “For her mere presence to send me into a rage like that… she remains to have this control over me after all these years. It’s sickening.”
“It was to be expected. We all thought she was dead.”
“To see her with that man,” I ground out, seeing that baron’s sour, aging face in my head. “To see her living in luxury as a mortal. She chose him over me.” Turning, I drove my fist down onto a long, glass table and watched a web of cracks burst out in all directions. “What could he have possibly given her that was better than all that we had together?”
“Mortals are fickle,” she said coldly. “They are constantly seeking more no matter how much they have. She was seduced by it, as I said she would be. Even souls wiped clean of their previous lives in the Labyrinth remain the base characters they were before. And she’s proven that. She must have been selfish in life.”
“She was better than that,” I sighed, feeling defeated. “Ithoughtshe was better than that. But to rip me open with words scribbled on paper rather than facing me herself… it’s unforgivable. If she’d have come to me, I would have… I gave her everything. And for fifteen years, she’s been masquerading as a rich noble.”
There was a stretch of silence in the greenhouse, allowing the faint howl of the wind outside to sing around us. I took a deep breath, letting the herbs and floral scents soothe my burning lungs.
“Then what do you plan to do with her? Forgive me, but if her presence torments you so much, then it should be obvious what your next step should be.”
“Should it be, Elanor?” I said with a glare, daring her to elaborate. “Because nothing about this seems obvious.”
“You’ve never let anyone live who’s wronged you, my king. And she’s wronged you more than anyone.”
“I thought it was simple, but it is not.”
“I can feel you, Rune. You forget that. I am closer to you than anyone and I feel the pain. I have felt it all these years and it was forgotten for a time until you saw her again. Relieve yourself of her, once and for all.”
“There is more to this, Elanor,” I barked.
“She is playing a game and you are falling into her web. Do not make me follow you into that poisonous trap again because you know that if you tangle your limbs in her silk, I will have to follow. If you are too warm to her deceptions, I will do it for you. You simply have to ask. I will doanythingfor you.”
