Page 8 of Skyshade
Isla frowned. “What did the gardener do? Lynx doesn’t bite unprovoked.”
Grim narrowed his eyes. “That beast tried to bite me. And I haven’t done anything but house and feed him.”
“You provoke him with your very presence.” She took another sip of wine.
Grim sat back. He picked up his own wine. Casually turned it in its glass. “So, is this it, then? You’re going to pretend to hate me?”
She was out of her chair and on her feet in a moment. “I’m not pretending,” she spat, glaring.
He stood too. “Really? I can feel your emotions, heart. If you’re going to lie, you should get better at it.”
Her hands shook at her sides with anger. “I’m not lying,” she said, raising her voice. “You’re only lying to yourself if you thought waging a war would get me back here to be your loving, naïve, idiotic wife!”
Any amusement left Grim’s expression. “I didn’t wage a war to get you back here. I did it to try to save you.”
“And how did that work out?” she demanded, her voice echoing through the room.
Grim was silent. His eyes weren’t gleaming anymore. Any light in them had shuttered away. She had hurt him. Good.
They stared at each other from each end of the table, chests heaving, her heart hammering.
She wanted to hurt him more.
She wanted to rush into his arms.
She was two people—Isla from before the Centennial, who married the Nightshade ruler; and Isla from afterward, who had battled against him.
“I—I can’t do this,” she said, meaning it. She couldn’t sit here having dinner, pretending Grim hadn’t been her enemy just days before. She couldn’t pretend he wasn’t still her enemy.
She couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a prophecy that said she was just as likely to kill Oro as she was him.
She darted for the door. Grim appeared in front of it right as she reached for the handle.
“Please,” he said, his eyes wide. Desperate. “Please don’t go. I’m sorry. Hate me,” he pleaded. “Hate me all you want. Hate me forever. Just—just don’t leave.” He took a step toward her. “I love you, Isla. I need you.”
She didn’t need Grim’s ability to read emotions in order to understand the depths of devastation in his eyes. To know she really was his heart, the center of his life, and she had been ripped away from him. She had left him. She had chosen Oro, and it had clearly left its mark.
But he had done it to himself.
Her voice was shaking as she said, “You had me. And you lost me all on your own.”
She didn’t think his devastation could deepen, but it did. And this time, when she shoved past him, he didn’t stop her.
WRAITH
Isla stared at the necklace against her pulse and wished she could rip it away.
She really couldn’t do this. Sitting across from Grim, sleeping in the room they once shared—it was too easy to slip into the past. Too easy to forget that half of her heart belonged to someone else—someone she had fought the urge to run back to every moment since they’d parted.
Oro. Her eyes burned as she thought of him. As she remembered the look of pure devastation on his face when she took Grim’s hand. Even when they were nearly gone, he had reached for her.
He had reached for her.
It had been only two days, but it felt like a lifetime away from him. Her hands curled in fists, her marred palms biting in pain. This wasn’t how the battle was supposed to go.
By now, she was supposed to be on a stretch of golden sand, just him and her, Oro’s favorite everything in his favorite place. She closed her eyes and could almost see and feel it—her cheek pressed against his warm chest, his hand making lazy strokes down her bare back, the unrelenting sun blazing against every inch of her skin.
She opened her eyes.
