by Nadine Mutas
“Oh fuck,” Lily whispered on the other end of the line, “you did, didn’t you? You let him take it? Merle?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She was unable to form even one coherent thought. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
Lily cursed violently, then caught herself. “Merle, listen, you gotta run. Once your powers are absorbed, any spell you’ve cast which relied on your magic to remain active will be rescinded. That means the binding spell that partly leashed Rhun to you is lifted, and he’ll think he can now kill you without being kicked back into the Shadows.”
“No.” Merle’s breathing went erratic, rising panic vying with stupefied disbelief. “He wouldn’t… He could have killed me already. He didn’t.”
“Yeah, well,” Lily said, voice dripping with cynicism, “maybe he wanted to play with you a little first.”
Merle covered her mouth with her hand, choked back her sound of dismay.
“You need to get out of there,” Lily urged. “Get away from him now. Just because he didn’t kill you yet, doesn’t mean he won’t do it any time soon. He’s a demon, he’s taken your powers and you are now at his complete mercy without any means of defending yourself. So just run. Like. Hell. Forget about everything else for the time being, it’s your life on the line now. Get the fuck away from him!”
Merle swallowed, her heart thumping at record speed. “I will. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
The silence after she disconnected the call was deafening. Not a single sound in the whole apartment. Merle held her breath, listened, her mind struggling to work, and then she figured out what had been niggling at her since she’d peeled herself out of the bed.
Rhun was nowhere around.
Her pulse kicked up. She could just run. If she was lucky, he’d taken off, had left her, and wouldn’t come back to—she couldn’t even finish that thought. Wanting, needing to believe he wouldn’t harm her, she tried her powers again, searched for some proof Rhun hadn’t done the unthinkable, hadn’t ripped her essence from her when he knew, knew her magic was as vital to her as the air she breathed.
The emptiness she encountered inside hurt like a torn-off limb.
Shaking her head against the onslaught of emotions barreling her cracked heart, she started toward the hallway when a faint creak made her stop dead in her tracks.
The front door clicked shut. A moment later, the heavy sound of boots on hardwood floors came from the hallway. Merle’s heart skipped a couple of beats. The footsteps halted for a few seconds at the level of the bedroom door, then moved on toward the kitchen.
Fear trickled into her veins. Breathing gone shallow, she glanced around, searching for whatever she could use as a weapon, and her gaze fell on the boning knife at the sink. She made a grab for it, swiveling around just as Rhun appeared in the doorway. Hiding the knife behind her back, she forced her heart to slow down enough to speak. Maybe she didn’t need to use the knife. Yet.
“Where have you been?” Okay, so she’d brought her pulse down to speaking level, but it was still fast enough to make her voice tremble.
Rhun’s face was shadowed, his features strained. “Taking a walk.” He stepped into the kitchen with measured calm, even though an underlying tension vibrated in his movements. “Had to clear my head.”
She couldn’t read him like that, without his aura, couldn’t guess at his state of emotions, his intent. Just a few short hours ago, she’d have never believed he’d harm her—well, she’d also been convinced he’d never betray her like that. But he had.
He’d taken her powers.
The realization speared her heart, pierced through a part of her that had been untainted by the mounting betrayal surrounding her. Not anymore. That part of her heart was shriveling by the second, crumbling to dust. If he was guilty of stealing her magic, what else was he capable of?
“Sounds good,” Merle said with forced calm, her eyes on Rhun as she inched toward the door, putting the kitchen island between them. “I think I’ll go for a walk, too.”
“Merle.” He followed her, his gaze level on hers. “It’s not what it seems.”
“Oh?” Eyes stinging with tears, she glared at him, breathing past the panic tightening her chest. “So you didn’t take my powers?” A part of her hoped against hope he’d say no, that somehow, somehow he wasn’t responsible for the hollow ache tearing her apart on the inside.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I did.”
What was left of her heart shattered into shards, each one stinging with enough force to puncture her lungs, make her choke.
“Listen,” Rhun began, but Merle couldn’t, wouldn’t anymore.
“Stay the fuck away from me!” Every beat of her heart sent more fear through her veins. Her thoughts were scattered, her mind hazed, her instincts screaming Run, run, run!
Rhun made a move, and she snapped. With her breath caught in her throat, she threw the knife at him. It rammed into his chest, and he jerked back. Merle knew she’d hit his heart when his eyes widened and he choked, tumbling, grasping the kitchen island for support. He wheezed, his hand slipped, and he collapsed onto the floor.
Unbidden, a sob tore out of her. Even with panic riding her hard, it tore her apart to have struck Rhun down. It wouldn’t kill him, would only stun him for a few minutes until he healed, and still it felt like she’d slammed that knife right into her own heart as well.
She had to leave before she joined him on the floor.
Stopping only to twist into her shoes, she fled out of the apartment and onto the street, and then she kept on running. It was raining hard, water pouring down, flowing in torrents over the dark, deserted sidewalks and streets, and she was soaked through within seconds. But she didn’t pause, didn’t slow down, not until her lungs burned and her legs wouldn’t hold her up anymore.
Breath coming in hard, fast pants, she turned into the roofed entryway of an apartment house, hid in the corner out of sight from the street, and then slumped down with her back to the wall. While the rain drummed down through the black of the night, Merle’s scrambled mind put the pieces together.
She’d been such an idiot. Such a fucking idiot. She’d trusted Rhun, with her feelings, with herself, and he’d taken that trust and crushed it, along with her heart, not even batting an eyelash.
He’d stolen her magic.
The betrayal cut soul-deep, tearing into her, right into the dark ache where her powers should have been. She’d never, ever, felt so fucking naked and vulnerable. Rhun had wrenched away the most integral part of her identity, had left her feeling as if her very soul had been amputated.
And it hurt. So. Much.
She’d felt safe with him, hadn’t even thought for one second he might harm her. Now, she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. The world had slipped from its axis, and on top of all the gut-wrenching treachery she’d had to encounter from her own kind, she’d just been stabbed in the back by the one person she’d come to rely on above all others during the second darkest time in her life.
How could she have been so stupid?
Fighting down the tears threatening to spill, she fumbled for her phone. Maybe she could get Lily to pick her up, but in any case, she had to start moving again soon. If she lingered, Rhun would find her, she was sure about that. She only wished she could still be so sure he wouldn’t harm her once he did.
Her body had cooled down from her frantic run, and now the aggressive rain and the chill of the night took their toll. Cold clung to her dripping clothes, crept through her clammy skin and into her muscles. With numb hands, she tried to pry her cell open. It slipped through her wet fingers, tumbled down the steps of the entryway and skidded onto the waterlogged pavement of the sidewalk.
“Fuck!”
Merle staggered down to retrieve it, the incessant rain pummeling onto her back as she bent to pick it up—and caught a movement in the periphery of her vision. She froze. Her heart stopped, then leapt up into her throat.
Rhun had run aroun
d the corner a few feet away. Drenched in rain just like her, his white T-shirt bearing a dark stain over his heart, he paused as he spotted her.
Inch by inch, Merle straightened up, the phone clutched in her hand. Her eyes were locked on Rhun, and for the longest moment, they stared at each other in silence, the only sound that of the rain pelting down on them.
Then, she swiveled around and ran.
Rhun uttered a foul curse behind her, and only seconds later he slammed into her back, taking her down to the ground. For a frozen moment in time, Merle thought she’d crash head-first into the concrete and that would be it.
She never made contact with the sidewalk, though. In a preternaturally swift move, Rhun flipped them both over, cushioning her fall with his body. They came down hard, and he grunted from the impact, holding her locked in a tight grasp. For all of five seconds, the crash knocked the breath out of her, and she wheezed on top of him, her back to his front.
As soon as she could suck in air again, she struggled against him, panic pumping through her blood. She elbowed, kicked and hit any part of him she could reach, fighting with every last ounce of strength she had left.
More grunts from Rhun, followed by a snarled, “Stop!”
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Her brain had switched to desperate survival mode.
With a growl, he rolled them both over, turned her around and hauled her with her back up against the wall of a building.
“Stop and fucking listen,” he ground out.
Pinned to the wall by his body, unable to hit him anymore, Merle went limp, all fight gone out of her.
“Save your breath,” she whispered, “and just kill me.”
Rhun jerked back as if she’d struck him. For a moment, he only stared at her with something akin to shock, then his expression hardened, his eyes flashing hotly. “Kill you? You think I want to kill you?” He gritted his teeth, drew a deep breath through his nose. “I tell you that I love you,” he said, his voice rising, “and you think I want to kill you?”
“What else am I supposed to think? You fucking took my powers!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Yeah, right.” Bitterness turned her heart to acid. “You planned this all along, didn’t you? Everything you said, everything you did, even that you loved me, it was all an act to get me to trust you so you could take my powers and break free. That’s why you didn’t lower your shields when I did. You didn’t let me in because you didn’t want me to know. Am I right?”
Breath heavy, eyes hard, he looked at her. “Yes.”
And just like that, Merle’s heart shattered a second time, smashed to smithereens. “You fucking bastard,” she ground out, hurt beyond her capacity to understand, her breath catching on a sob. “You’re such a cold-hearted son of a—”
“No,” he cut her off, his eyes haunted. “Just listen. Yes, when you unbound me from the Shadows, I planned to gain your trust and take your powers so I could kill you and leave. I spent twenty years in pain and darkness after being bound for a crime I did not commit, not to the extent of warranting this punishment, at least. I didn’t know you when you unleashed me. The only thing I knew was that I wanted, that I needed to be free, that I couldn’t go back to the Shadows no matter what. I didn’t care—I didn’t want to care—about anything or anyone but me.”
She shivered, from the cold, the rain, from the impossible hurt pounding inside her.
Rhun’s gaze drilled into her. “But I do. I fucking do, Merle. Suddenly I care about saving a witch I don’t know, a witch who shouldn’t mean anything to me. Only she does. Maeve means something to me, because she means everything to you. When I told you I loved you, it was the fucking truth. Somewhere along the line, you snuck up on me, little witch. You snuck under my defenses and changed everything. I made the decision to give up on my plan, to stick to our deal and let you bind me in the Shadows again, because for the first time in my life, I care more about someone else than I care about myself.” He made a pause, his voice going quiet. “I didn’t want to take away your magic, Merle. And I didn’t lower my shields because I was ashamed to let you know I ever even considered doing something like that to you. I swear I didn’t mean to take your powers.”
Tears, hot and scorching, spilled from her eyes, mingled with the cold rain. “But you did.” She clenched her hands to fists, and in the small space Rhun had given her, she punched him in the chest. “You did take them.” She punched harder, a sob tearing out of her. “You did!” More punches. “I trusted you!”
Rhun didn’t stop her from hitting him, let her pound his chest with the force of the despair wrecking her inside. There was heartbreak in his eyes, echoing her own. When she finally collapsed against him, crying into his chest, he put his arms around her and laid his forehead on top of her hair, exhaling a shuddering breath.
“Why?” Merle asked after an eternity of silent tears. “You took my magic.” Her voice was hoarse from crying. “Why, when you didn’t mean to?”
Rhun’s curse turned the air blue. “Because I didn’t know it would happen automatically. I didn’t know.” There was pain in his words, such pain. “When you asked me to take all three from you, I hesitated, because I knew taking blood, pain, and pleasure was the key to absorbing the powers. I thought I’d have to make a conscious decision to steal them, though. I didn’t know—” He cursed again, drew in a strangled breath. “I shouldn’t have taken all three at once, no matter what.” His fingers dug into her back. “I fucked up.” Pressing her closer, he buried his face in her hair. “I’m sorry, Merle. I’m so sorry.”
Her tears wouldn’t stop, even after she thought she had no more emotion inside her to cry out. Rhun stroked her back, held her, while she fought for breath.
“I feel so empty without my powers,” she whispered, her voice as broken as her heart.
“I know.” Rhun’s own voice was hoarse, too, sounding as raw as if he’d scratched out his throat with a cheese grater. He swore a long streak of obscenity that would have made Merle blush if she hadn’t been so empty of anything. “I want to give them back to you.”
“Then do it.”
Silenced stretched taut between them.
“I don’t know how,” he finally said, quietly, pained. Helpless.
Merle hiccupped, a sound between a laugh and a sob. “How can you not know?” She grabbed his T-shirt in a fist.
“Because even with demon magic, there is always a part that eludes you.”
And didn’t that just fucking figure?
He took a trembling breath. “I’ve been racking my brain for some info that I might have missed, trying to remember whether I knew it once. I’ll find out how to do it, Merle, I swear I will. We’ll find Maeve and then I’ll give you your powers back, and if I have to appeal to Arawn to find out how, I don’t fucking care. You’ll have your magic back, little witch, and then you can bind me in the Shadows again.” The last part he said softly, with a note of gut-wrenching resignation.
It tore into Merle. The pain she felt at the thought of binding him again, it tore deep, much deeper than—she drew in a sharp breath. Losing Rhun… it would hurt her more than losing her powers. With everything that had happened, she still wanted to hold on to him, against all reason and hope.
“I don’t want to bind you again,” she whispered, voicing the impossible. How could she feel this way, even though his betrayal was still an open cut inside her? “I want to keep you, Rhun. I want to keep you.” Despair pulled at her heartstrings, those strings which she’d thought had snapped and withered. She almost stumbled with the confusion churning in her mind.
Rhun pressed her closer, kissed her hair. “It’s okay, little witch. I know you can’t.” Against her cheek, his chest vibrated with his voice. “Just…tell me you forgive me. That’s all I ask of you.” A shuddering breath, hot in her hair. “Don’t let me go into the Shadows without that.”
“Rhun…”
Releasing her, he sank to his knees, grasped her hand
s—and bowed his head. “Please.”
Merle uttered a choked sob. She stared at the demon in front of her, this dark, powerful otherworldly predator—kneeling at her feet, begging her forgiveness. The sight of it let something click into place, loosened the knot of pain and betrayal deep inside her chest.
Taking a breath, she cupped his face, turned it up so he would look at her. “I forgive you. How could I not? Gods help me, but I love you, Rhun. And I don’t want to see you like this.” It wasn’t so much him being on his knees before her—it was the devastating pain, the genuine regret, the tormented guilt shadowing his eyes. He’d meant it when he’d told her he hadn’t intended to take her powers. It still hurt like hell, but the thought of him suffering, aching because he’d done her wrong, it was unbearable, eclipsing her sense of betrayal.
Love, she thought, is feeling someone else’s pain more than your own.
Leaning down, she kissed him, whispering words of forgiveness against his lips, and he breathed her in, trembling, and pulled her down into his arms. He held her like this for the longest time, his heart beating against her chest, in sync with hers.
“Don’t ever run away from me again.” His breath was hot on her ear. “And don’t you ever think I’d harm a hair on your head, little witch. I’d rather slit my own throat.”
She swallowed hard. “I can’t promise you that.”
He tensed.
“I will run away from you,” she went on, making a small, deliberate pause, “so you can catch me on a flight of stairs again.”
Rhun pulled back, stared at her—and then he kissed her so hard it stole her breath. Dragging her into another crushing hug, he only let her go when she shivered again from the cold and the rain.
After he’d brought them both to their feet, he rubbed her arms and back, studying her face. Slow warmth spread over her skin, enfolded her like an invisible blanket. He’d wrapped her in his powers. It didn’t dry her clothes, but it was enough to stop her trembling.
“Better?” he asked.