Page 52 of Prince of Night and Storm
“You called me. I was ten thousand years ago and I heard your voice. It took me time to find you, and then I couldn't look away.”
Dread blooms in my gut. Dread, and awful betrayal. I'm sometimes stubborn, often historically uninformed, but never stupid.
“How can you be ten thousand years ago?” How can I? Darkan is me.
“The same way you can be here. Where do you think we are?”
“In my mind.”
Darkan laughs, the laugh of a fallen angel. “My sweet, halfling girl. We were never in your mind. We were always inmine.”
Darkan is?—
Time stutters. Sunlight kisses my skin with warmth, as real as if I'm awake, and Darkan's heart beats steady in his chest. I have never felt his heart beat before.
“You—no,” I whisper, trembling.
A veil pulls away from my mind and I know, Iunderstand.
He's been manipulating me for years, muting my questions, even the desire to ask questions, so I don't consider all the incongruities.
Words tear out of me. “What have you done? Why?”
His lips press against the top of my head. “You are my anchor, my inevitable, though I fought to never fall victim to my father’s obsession. I told him I would be different. Now I know why he simply smiled.”
I swallow, my throat dry. “Why would you need an anchor?”
“I am too old, Aerinne. Sanity is the dream of my distant youth and I no longer know the way back. I should not have done this to you, but I will make you strong enough to bear me and in return anything you want will be laid at your feet. Including me.” The back of his fingers brush my jawline.
“I know who you are. I know?—”
Shock and horror choke my words in my throat. My knees buckle and I fight to wake, the misty place dissolving as my Dark angel releases me.
No. Not mine. Never mine.
And yet. . .as much mine as my own soul.
“Rinne—”
The awful familiarity with which he says my name.
“Don’t. Don’t speak.”
Theannoyingfamiliarity with which he slips into a lecture at the worst possible time.
Can't imagine a life without him. Can't imagine the emptiness. Can't imagine the agony of giving him up. Because now I must.
I never understood true internal conflict until now.
Because now I know his real name, not the girlish moniker I gave him at fourteen when I realized “Dark angel” was melodramatic.
Slowly, so slowly, I turn.
Stare into blue, blue eyes, and for the second time, shatter.
No.
The garden shudders.
