by Dahlia Lu
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Shall I escort you to find her?”
“If you would tell her that I came, that would be good too. I’m coming down with a brutal headache. I think… I think I ought to leave. Bunny would understand. I’m sure she would.” She retrieved a small blue gift box from her clutch bag and handed it over to the Lycan King. “Give Bunny this for me.”
The Lycan King nodded. “I’ll have Dimitri escort you home.”
“It’s fine. Let D enjoy himself.” She respectfully bowed her head and then turned.
As she headed for the exit, Noctis sensed a shadow slipped through the wall of the room. Only a few people seemed to notice. The massive chandelier hanging in the middle of the domed room was starting to move on its own just as his bride was passing underneath.
The crystals hanging from the massive chandelier above her were chiming against one another, catching her attention. Amara looked up, wide eyed and helpless when the chandelier dropped from its place. She heard Artemis cry out in horror. She quickly ducked to the floor, slammed her eyes shut, hands instinctually defending her face from the sharp shards. They would pierce through her. It was only simple physics. Of all the deaths she had imagined for herself, never had a fallen chandelier occurred to her.
Amara slowly opened her eyes after a long still moment. If she had died, she was glad she didn’t feel any pain. But it was not so. The crystal chandelier was suspended picture-still above her, its sharp shards only mere centimeters from the surface of her skin. Too stunned to move, she laid still on the floor while the immortals stared with the same incredulity.
She heard very light footsteps echoing toward her amidst the unusually quiet atmosphere. Slowly, she turned her head. Her lower lip was still trembling from the fright. Her eyes traveled up the length of him, but before she could see his face, he bent down to collect her from the floor.
She had her suspicions, but it was his scent that she recognized almost immediately. Amara didn’t dare to look up. If she did, he would disappear like he so often did in her dreams. So she stayed quiet just to feel him close a moment longer before the alarm clock put her back to her own bed.
After he set her firmly on her feet, he moved past her. Then, she heard the women screaming in pure horror. Amara couldn’t help but look up then. She saw him holding up his arm. Piercing blue eyes flickered dangerously. His powers sent two of the women across the room and directly to the floor. His eyes then turned to the remaining woman who was frantically looking behind her for an escape. Even if the witch did deserve it, Amara still couldn’t stand idly by and watch. She leaped at his arm and pulled him back. He turned to her, their eyes met for the first time in years.
Even through the mask, she knew who he was. His six-foot-five frame, his scent, in combination with the blue of his eyes, couldn’t belong to anyone else. Still, she needed to be sure. Her shaking fingers reached for the mask on his face and slowly removed it. She felt her guts being tied in knots. His confession the last time they saw each other rang in her ears and brought a bright blush to her cheeks.
He returned his attention to the crowd. He then moved again, in very slow and graceful steps that forced the immortals to back off, even if it were only by an inch or two. They recognized him. Three years hadn’t been nearly long enough for them to forget who and what he was.
“No,” she whispered with a light shake of her head. The stern look in his eyes told her that he wasn’t done. “Home,” she said very softly. “I want to go home.”
He turned his gaze to the three women who were staring back at him in absolute fright. He shot them a warning glare, got his message across, and did as Amara asked of him.
He swept her off her feet as though he thought she wasn’t capable of walking and carried her out of the ballroom and out of the private mansion. No one said a word to stop him.
He did not teleport them both home like he usually did. Instead, he took her home in the cab waiting outside the gate. She would have thought he had lost his powers if it weren’t for the demonstration earlier. Was he being considerate of her because he knew she would have a terrible headache if they were to teleport?
It was hard to think of him as a considerate person. It was very hard.
They were home and in their bedroom sooner than she realized it. She was staring at him the entire ride home as though he was still a part of her dream. He had been gone such a long time that she had almost fictionalized him as part of her imagination.
He let her down on the soft bed. She propped her head on one arm and watched him move around the room. He was scrutinizing around the place to see what had changed.
She hadn’t changed anything in the bedroom since he left. Everything was as it had been except for the new bedding and pillows. Finally, he turned to her. She gave him a small smile, but didn’t know what to say. She should have asked him how he escaped his time trap, but the answer didn’t seem to matter that much to her. He was here now. He was in their bedroom.
She wasn’t used to him being so quiet either. For several moments, he didn’t speak. He came closer to her; his hand tilted her chin and turned her head to the side. It was then that she noticed that it was stinging. Her left hand covered the area and then brought it in front of her. There was a small amount of blood on her fingertips. A loose shard must have grazed her skin. She was probably too panicked to realize it when it happened.
“I… err… I’ll go get a Band-Aid.”
Before she could get up, his powerful frame came over hers. Her heart was hammering inside her chest when he lowered his mouth to her neck. She hissed a breath when his lips came in contact with her skin. It has been so long since they’ve been intimate that his touch felt so excitingly strange to her. Amara closed her eyes and sank back with a sigh.
Lost, she thought, so lost.
“Have you brought another man into our bed in my absence?” His voice was rough against her ear.
Amara lifted her dark lashes and stared into his fierce blue eyes. They were questioning her, interrogating her. She didn’t want to answer him. Not because she would anger him if she admitted that she did, but because she would be angry with herself if she admitted to him that she didn’t. She was afraid that he would ask why. She didn’t want to tell him why.
“No,” she whispered the truth; her lower lip trembled as she spoke. She prayed silently that he would not question her further.
“I believe you.”
She hadn’t expected him to say that. Not straight away. There was no question in his mind? No doubt at all?
He lowered his head and fully claimed her mouth with a possessive kiss. He had no idea how much she missed the taste of him. How many times she had fantasized that he would kiss her this way again. How many times she had fantasized about kissing him.
And now she could. She would.
Amara wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her. It felt necessary, so necessary that she pulled herself up against him to have him even closer, to kiss him even deeper. In the beginning, there was raw chemistry. And now… and now… there was more.
The baby’s cry startled them both.
Amara pushed him back and sprinted off the bed. She rushed for the door, but he was one step ahead of her. The first instinct that came to her was that she couldn’t let him near the baby. She couldn’t let this dangerous man anywhere near the helpless child.
“Hold on!” He paused when he heard her call out to him and turned back to look at her. His blue eyes were speculating. It worried her that he might be thinking about what she thought he was thinking about. In fact, it gave her chilling goose bumps. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on its ends.
He couldn’t possibly think…
Before they had parted, he thought that she carried his child in her womb. How could she explain to him now? How could go about telling him the truth?
“There is something that you should know…” she began shakily. She could tell that he was becomi
ng more anxious to the baby’s crying, but he didn’t move an inch from where he was standing. He waited for her, but she didn’t know how to utter those impossible words. That she lied to him. She had deceived him into thinking she was pregnant when she never had been.
Amara swallowed. “I…” she lowered her eyes, contemplating it once again. She shuddered when she imagined how angry he would be. What he would do to her… to Raya… to the innocent baby in the next room.
He wouldn’t!
She couldn’t let them face his wrath. But something inside her was telling her to have faith in him. That he wouldn’t do all of the things she had feared. That he would understand why she had done what she had done. She was asking herself to trust him with the truth and secretly hoping that she could afford to.
“I’m sorry…” she muttered apologetically. “I’m sorry that I…”
He was quietly reading her and it made her feel shamefully transparent. She wasn’t quick enough to explain. He impatiently turned from her to answer to the cry.
“I…I…” She bit her lower lip to punish herself. She inhaled a deep breath and then tried to speak as calmly as she could possibly convey. “I never had the baby.” Her voice was a little more than a whisper, but she knew he heard it.
He stopped. A gut-wrenching moment of silence followed. He spun around, his expression disorderly.
Amara was standing still for him to judge her. She didn’t turn her head to the side or dodge her eyes away from his gaze. She knew that she had done him wrong and she was prepared to face his sentence. All this time, that one little lie had attached itself to her conscience like a ticking time bomb. She didn’t want to carry it around any longer.
“The baby in the next room is Lizzie’s,” she explained as calmly as possible when his blue eyes questioned her. She inhaled a deep breath and mustered, “I never had the baby.”
The man standing before her didn’t move a muscle. Through his blue eyes, she could see his thoughts breaking down. His mind began to wander, chasing his scattered thoughts. When he returned his gaze to her again, the whites of his eyes had reddened. His usual proud expression crumbled into a hurt expression that made her heart ache painfully. Why did telling the truth feel equally horrible as telling the lie?
When she took a step closer to him, he stepped back.
“Don’t,” he ground out.
He is putting up walls again, she thought, as she tried to make out the invisible boundary he had set. And who could blame him? He was reliving his horrible past and all because she had made him believe he had a child and then killed it with the truth. She felt nothing but scalding shame dousing over her head because she knew just exactly what she was doing to him – to a man of distrustful nature who had long turned his back on all of the good in the world. She feared that she may have become another reason.
“I’m so sorry…”
For that one moment, she wished she could see exactly what was going on in his mind. The look on his face was chewing at her insides. She had no idea how badly he wanted a child of his own.
His blue eyes lit up in brilliant rage. “Who…?”
Amara shook her head. She hadn’t a clue what he was asking her.
He strode toward her, put both of his broad hands on her shoulders and lightly shook her. “Who is responsible?”
Misty grey eyes looked up at his raging blue ones. She gasped aloud when she understood what he was asking. She hadn’t realized how misleading her confession was until now. Hidden behind that fiery fury was the kind of hurt that she had never seen in any man, immortal or otherwise. It was loss she saw in his piecing blue eyes. A great loss.
He thought… he thought that she had a miscarriage.
“No… I…” Her chest felt so constricted that she could barely breathe. Her head was telling her to let the matter settle where he had concluded it, but her conscience was screaming at her to tell the truth – the truth that could end life as she knew it.
She tried to think back to all the times he had mistreated her and convinced herself it was no less than what he deserved, but she couldn’t get herself to believe it. She could easily shake off his insults and sleep off his fear tactics. They hurt worse than beestings, but they did go away in a day or two. What she was doing to him was far worse than anything he had ever done against her.
“I’m to blame for everything,” she said, each word shakier than the last. “It’s entirely my fault. If you must hold someone responsible… blame me.”
What else could I have done? The truth would endanger everyone.
All she wanted to do was apologize, but she knew he didn’t want to hear it. She searched for the right words, but deep down she knew nothing she said could lessen the severity of the situation. In the end, all that she could utter was an apology. It wouldn’t help him, but it could save her.
She heard the door in the next room opening and closing. The Necromancer’s voice could be heard through the baby monitor on the bedside table. The crying soon stopped.
It was as if the floor had slipped out from beneath him and he was struggling to stand firm. His mind couldn’t make sense of anything with his bride constantly murmuring an apology.
“Be quiet for now,” he said to her. His voice was soft, but graveled. He was busy collecting his thoughts and piecing together a shattering emotion that he was unfamiliar with.
No other words escaped her lips, but the tears began to overflow from her lovely grey eyes. He could hear his chaotic breathing filling up the room. Two lines of tears on her delicate face were spilling endlessly. The sound of the heavy droplets breaking against the cold hard floor was the only other sound he could hear.
A long moment later, she whispered another apology. He didn’t want to hear it. Why did she apologize to him for something that might as well be his fault? He had broken his promise to her. He wasn’t there to protect her, and he wasn’t there when it, for whatever reason, happened.
Would he dare to ask why? Would he dare to ask how? Could he face the truth that could lay the blame on him for not being there when he was needed? Could he have done something about it? Could he have prevented it all together? The air thickened all around him. The courage that he had always carried about him failed him at that very minute.
Instead of a question, he said the few words of comfort he could think of. “There is no need for you to apologize to me, Amara. There is no need at all.”
And for whatever reason, that seemed to have brought out an audible sob from her. He looked at her once again, but she slowly shied away from his gaze. Then she whispered another apology. He thought he saw something in her eyes, so he took a few steps toward her and reached for her chin. He gently guided her eyes to meet his. He looked deep into her eyes to find the answers to the questions he was afraid to ask aloud, but what he saw puzzled him. There was no sadness or sorrow or even the slightest bit of grief in them; only guilt. All he could see was guilt masking over the tear-filled eyes. Only guilt.
“There is no need for you to apologize,” he repeated in a firmer tone. “It wasn’t intentional.”
She bit on her lower lip, pressing her pearly white teeth against the rosy flesh until it bled. Her strange response defied everything he thought he knew. Why did he ever think that she was a good liar when everything about her was so transparent?
“Or was it?” The question slipped from his mouth before he could stop it. Sparkling grey eyes widened. Regret came instantaneously. “Don’t answer that.” He immediately retracted the question with a demand that sounded almost like a soft plead. “Don’t.”
He didn’t want to know the answer to that question either because deep down, he didn’t want to admit that he knew it was possible. She had once declared that she didn’t want the child in her womb because she didn’t want any part of him. She had once used the life of their unborn child as a negotiation tool against him. She had threatened to roll down the stairs unless he gave into her demands. She had even gone as far as jum
ping out of the second floor window while she was with child to pressure him to cave in.
It may have been because he was too arrogant or it may have been because he was so blinded by his own desire for a second chance to see that she didn’t want any part in it. Or maybe because she had been so receptive in his bed that he had forgotten that she was never a willing bride.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, turning from her to the exit. He desperately needed to be alone to clear the toxic fog that was poisoning his mind against her.
Chapter Two
Amara didn’t sleep a wink that night. All that was running through her mind was the image of him turning his back to her. At that moment, she felt the coldest chill passing through her very soul. It felt as though her beating heart was being ripped out of her chest. No, she hadn’t lied, but she had intentionally misled him. It was no better.
She had never thought of herself as cruel until last night. She hated herself for it. She loathed herself for the pain she had inflicted. This morning, she was so ashamed of herself that she couldn’t even find it in herself to face him. She ended up hiding behind the door to the dining room, silently watching as he sat as still as a statue on the dining table waiting for her to show up for breakfast. He was staring out the window with a melancholic expression. She never thought that she would see that look on his face. Right then and there, an emotion stronger than anything she had ever felt swept through her. In its wake laid bewilderment and confusion. When her reason grabbed a hold of her and restored order to chaos, what was left behind was the kind of sadness that weighed down her already heavy heart. She had no idea how or even when they’d reached this point. How had it come to this?
It started from one little lie to save a friend, Amara reminded herself, and then another, and another, until it spun her life out of control. She had let a hideous monster into her life, and it would feed on her soul, bit by bit, little by little, until the day there would be nothing left of her. She was letting it hurt the man she cared about more than she was willing to admit.