Page 13 of Queen of the Wicked
“She will not be going,” he says, like it’s a truth carved into stone. Like Adelasia’s say has no sway in the matter. Like honoring that one sentence somehow will protect her from what is to come, and makes up for every other time he’s silenced her with half-truths.
“Yes, she will,” I say. “She’ll go with or without your support. She’ll slip out when your back is turned if she has to. And I will help her if she needs me to.”
Kaius grabs me by my neck and slams me into the wall. He growls at me like a beast, but I continue to push, choking out my words.
“She’s drowning, Kaius. If you love her the way you say you do, stop holding her head under the water and pull her out. That rot inside her that you keep pretending you can just love away will fester and consume her. It’s already started. I can see it clearly in ways you won’t. You will not be able to fix this with whispered devotion.” I push his hands off me. “I am not here to fight you.”
“Are you here to take her from me then?” he asks, venom dripping from his teeth.
“No,” I snap. “I wouldn’t have to, anyway. Your actions will push her into my arms soon enough if you’re not careful. But Kaius, I meant what I said when I told you I was going to honor the vow we made to keep her safe. Help me do that.”
Kaius takes a long breath, leaning against the wall and looking up toward the vaulted ceiling.
“Something broke in me when I snapped her neck,” he says quietly, like he’s ashamed of admitting it out loud. “I hear that sound echoing in my head all the time. I can’t even stand to watch her dance anymore, because the sound of her shoes hitting the floor is too similar to the way her neck sounded.” He takes another deep breath, shaky, and I watch his lip slightly quiver. “The way it sounded when I killed her.”
He turns his head to meet my eyes with the crimson in his. “I’m not strong enough to bring her to danger again.”
I watch him for a long moment, the weight of his confession settling like dust in the silence between us.
Kaius Voroninov, the great Vampire King, sounding like a man who doesn’t know how to breathe anymore. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the arrogance in his voice a thousand years ago, back when we thought we were untouchable. But now, standing here under crumbling stone and silence, all I see is a man holding his shattered pieces together with bloody hands, pretending he doesn’t notice they’re still dripping.
“You think danger waits for her at the Well,” I murmur, softer this time, “but danger is already inside her.”
He recoils like I’ve struck him, but he doesn’t answer. I step closer, lowering my voice until it’s just for him. “This magic rotting her from the inside out doesn’t care if you keep her locked in a cage, Kaius. It doesn’t care if you wrap her in silks and whisper every vow of love in every tongue you know. It’s going to take her, piece by piece, until there’s nothing of her left to love.”
Something flickers in his gaze. Not anger, not quite fear, but recognition. And I hate it. I hate that I’m right.
“I can’t lose her again,” he says finally, and it isn’t possessive. It’s a prayer. A plea, threaded through with centuries of grief.
I nod once, because I understand more than he thinks I do. “Then fight for her,” I tell him, quiet but sharp. “Not against her. And not against me.”
For a while, we just stand there in the hall like sentinels outside her door, listening for movement inside, but there’s nothing. Not even the whisper of her breath through the cracks.
The silence stretches until it frays my nerves raw.
I drag a hand down my face, feathers ruffling faintly at my back, restless. There’s something in the air tonight, heavy and wrong, and I can feel the Well permeating the air. Whatever waits for us in the Blackwood, it’s already reaching for her.
I glance sideways at Kaius, who’s staring at the door like if he looks hard enough, she’ll come back out soft and smiling and whole. “The Well is calling, and you know she’s going,” I say, low. “And you know I’ll follow her.”
His crimson gaze slides toward me, sharp as the first strike of a blade. For once, though, he doesn’t argue.
That says more than anything, but I still have more to admit.
“Kaius…I felt it.”
Kaius doesn’t look at me, but I feel the shift in his stance. “Felt what?”
I exhale. “A tether. A bond. With her.”
I brace for impact, expecting him to come for me, to harm me. For a moment, the air thickens, pressing down on me like heavy hands on my shoulders. But there’s nothing, except the very obvious tension of two men who refuse to meet each other’s eyes.
“It was the first time I saw her in the courtyard, and it hit me like the blade she held against my neck. I think–”
“Don’t say it.”
“Fine. I won’t. But I thought you should know. We can’t control fate.”
I leave him there, leaning against the cracked stone, and take the long way back to my chambers. My boots echo against the marble, the sound carrying down the silent halls, but there’s no comfort in it. I can still feel her magic buzzing under my skin, like static clinging to my veins. It’s alive, restless, angry. And I know, deep down where I don’t like to admit things, that whatever’s coming, it’s going to ask more of me than I’ve ever been willing to give.
