Jessica reached the bottom landing and turned to head down the hall toward the lobby, intensely aware of how much she appreciated this place after seeing everything the world beyond the Gateway had to offer. Even the customers—which wouldn’t be stopping by now anyway after hours—would be a welcome sight at this point.
They were easy in comparison.
‘So you’re actually gonna go tell him yes.’ The bank chuckled. ‘I’m so ready.’
No, I’m just going to talk to him.
‘And tell him you’re gonna make him your slave. Hey, that’s perfect. You’re both obviously into the weird stuff—’
Okay, we both know now that I can take this necklace off whenever I want. I need to think, and I can’t do that if you won’t shut up.
‘But you wouldn’t actually take it off, though.’
“Wanna bet?” Jessica grabbed the pendant and started to lift it over her head. The lack of a highly painful jolt of heat and energy only confirmed what she’d suspected.
Handing over the bank to Ben as the temporary steward had apparently leveled up her freedom status.
‘Okay, okay, okay! I’m shutting up. Just leave it on.’
She dropped the pendant against her chest again and reached the end of the hall with a smirk. “As long as you don’t give me a reason to—”
Jessica almost walked face-first into Leandras when she rounded the corner. She did actually end up stepping on his feet and knocking her legs against his as she reeled backward. He reached out to catch her elbow, then quickly released her.
“Leandras.”
“Jessica.” He stared at her intently, his dark gaze roaming across her face and that same dejected, hopeless frown darkening his features.
“I was—” She stepped back again and took in the sight of his fresh black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled neatly up to just below his elbows and the hem tucked crisply into a new pair of charcoal-gray slacks. “You...brought a change of clothes.”
“I imagine brought is something of a relative term. But I have access to them, yes.”
His calm, expectant stare drove her crazy, because there was no denying now that he wanted her to make her decision and give him an answer. That had to be what all this gloomy silence was about, right?
“So you’re leaving?”
He took a deep breath and scanned the hallway behind her. “If that is what you want.”
“I never actually said I wanted you gone.”
The fae’s eyes widened. “Then you’ll agree to performing the Thon-Rothím?”
No, they hadn’t gotten into the specifics of naming the damn torture spell that would rip him out of one set of chains and clamp him down into another—the chains leading right back to Jessica. But sure, if that was what they wanted to call it.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I see.” Leandras dipped his head and looked away. “I was hoping for a glass of water, Jessica. Perhaps some ice.”
“Oh. Sure.” She stepped aside, and he swiftly brushed past her to head for the kitchen.
‘Wow.’ The bank snorted. ‘Good talk.’
Well I didn’t think he was literally right around the corner.
‘And you’re stalling. Go say what you have to say, then let the guy mope in peace, huh?’
Rolling her eyes, Jessica slowly backtracked down the hallway.
A cabinet door opened and gently closed, followed by the freezer and the clink of ice in a glass. She peered around the corner of the kitchen’s entrance to see Leandras standing at the sink, staring at the tap water rushing into his glass before he slowly reached up to turn off the faucet.
The guy moved like he was sleepwalking.
Or depressed.
Given his options, that wasn’t too surprising.
Whether or not he noticed her peeking in at him, he drank slowly, his eyes closed, and didn’t stop until the glass held nothing but slightly melted ice.
Jessica took a deep breath and swallowed.
She’d never figure out what the next right move really was if she didn’t face this head-on.
“Leandras, we need to talk about this.”
He opened his eyes and stared straight ahead before setting the glass gently down on the counter. “I’m not certain there’s much more I can say.”
“Okay, then just listen. Because I’m...” Stepping into the kitchen, she hoped he’d look at her so she at least saw something of the fae she thought she knew. And at the same time, if he kept staring at the blank wall in front of him, she wouldn’t have to see this new version of him that made this whole thing feel so wrong.
“Honestly, I have no idea what the right choice is.”
There. She’d said it.
Leandras didn’t move.
“But I really don’t think I’m the one you should be asking to do this.”
“Oh?” Finally, he turned away from the sink to look at her, but now his stoic blankness morphed into an angry sneer. “So it’s a matter of preference, is it?”
“I mean...yeah.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I’d prefer not to have to make this choice at all—”
“And who, exactly, do you believe is more equipped than you to handle it?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not like you couldn’t find someone else to rip you apart and put you back together again.”
A bitter laugh escaped him, and he nodded at the blank wall. “That’s what you think this entails.”
“I got a quick rundown, yeah.”
“From the bank.”
Jessica took a deep breath. “Yes. The bank told me what you need—”
“What I need?” Leandras whirled toward her again. “This isn’t about what I need, Jessica. This is about severing the last of what binds me to the one we are trying to overthrow!”
“Don’t say it like we’re staging some kind of political coup, okay?” Despite how coolly she’d intended to have this conversation, that just apparently wasn’t in the cards. Jessica stepped toward him and spread her arms. “We’re about to start a war, Leandras.”
“We already have.”
“Even better!” she snapped. “And now you’re waiting for me to give you permission to destroy yourself. Just to gain a little upper hand. You don’t even know if it’ll work.”
He swallowed and pressed his lips together, staring at the counter now like if he didn’t move, he’d be more convincing. “It will.”
“Well if you hadn’t spent the last few thousand years not even bothering to try it, I might believe you.”
“It will work, Jessica. Because you will be—”
“You don’t want me!” Tongues of pitch-black, smokey flames burst around her fists. A thin tendril flickered away faster than the rest and bashed against the door of the fridge, sending the empty boxes of Ziploc bags toppling to the linoleum floor. A small dent lined in black char now marred the fridge.
Not that it was in particularly good shape to begin with.
Jessica lifted both hands and stared at them. “See? I’m not the better choice.”
A tiny, bitter smile lifted the fae’s upper lip as he stared at her smoking hands. “You have no idea how wrong you are, Jessica.”
“I’m not wrong. I know what you’re—”
Leandras lurched forward and snatched up both her flickering, sparking black hands in his. With a hiss, he clamped down even harder and stared at her.
“Stop.” She tried to jerk her hands away, but he pulled her back toward him. “We’re not doing this again. Let go.”
Small black lines of her destructive magic blazing against the fae’s skin slowly spread across his hands, down his long fingers, inching toward his wrists like splinters of shattering glass.
Jessica tried to pull her magic away from him and back inside herself, but she couldn’t.
No matter how hard she focused, her magic wouldn’t respond.
Leandras’ hands trembled around hers, his face contorted in a grimace of pain as he
held her in the kind of sadistic embrace of which only the Laen’aroth was capable.
If he didn’t let her go—if he didn’t let her magic go, however the hell he’d managed to hold it there beyond her command—she’d kill him right here in the kitchen.
Judging by the way he looked at her now, he clearly understood that was exactly what would happen.
Chapter 21
First he wanted her to break the bonds on his soul so he could hand it over to her, and now he wanted her to destroy him in the kitchen before she’d even given him her answer.
Forget magical suicide. Leandras was gunning for the real deal.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, staring at the thin black lines snaking up his wrists. “Leandras, you have to—”
“Do it,” he growled. “Let it go.”
“Let me go before you end up with no hands at all!”
“If you’re as lost as the one I serve now, then end it right here. End me, and your problem solves itself.”
“That’s insane.”
His hands tightened around hers, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. A vein bulged on his forehead. His entire body shook with the force of holding her there while her magic ate away at him. Still, he didn’t release her.
“You think the darkness inside you is more than I can bear?” he muttered. One eyebrow flickered in a daring question before his scowl of concentration returned. “Do you truly believe this is worse than what I’ve endured over thousands of years?”
“It will be if I kill you.”
“Then kill me.” He pulled her closer and leaned toward her over their trembling hands locked together in his agonizing grasp and the consuming force of her magic. “Be who you are so terrified to become.”
“I’m not terrified—”
“Yes you are. So am I. Prove me wrong.”
Jessica’s mind reeled, and for a moment, she considered doing exactly what he asked. It would solve all her immediate problems, wouldn’t it?
She could feel the life inside him, raging just below the surface of his hands now turning an ashen gray beneath the snaking veins of black.
Leandras was giving her an escape route now—one she’d never considered because she’d been trying so damn hard not to be the worst version of herself.
It would be so easy to stop trying. So easy to let go.
He grunted, his eyelids fluttering as sweat dripped down his brow. “Be the wrong choice, Jessica.”
“I...”
“Do it.”
“No!”
She didn’t think about whether tightening her grip on his hands would rip them off or shatter them into an oblivion of black specks. She didn’t think about anything other than how wrong she’d been, just like he’d said.
How wrong this was.
A brilliant white light blazed from her hands and raced up the lines of chaos and consumption crawling halfway up Leandras’ forearms now. If that light felt like fire on her own palms, it had to be excruciating for the fae locking her in his grasp.
It very clearly was when Leandras snarled and staggered forward, crushing their fierce grasp between them.
Jessica stared up at his eyes, which flashed silver over and over as the lines of her magic he’d tried to use to end his own existence pulled themselves down his arms, away from his fingernails, shrinking beneath the white light of a power she’d never known she had.
No one could have guessed the vestrohím Guardian was capable of playing with both sides of the veil—life and death, chaos and healing, pleasure and agony. Especially not at will.
But she willed this now just as fiercely as anything else she’d ever truly wanted. Which wasn’t much for someone like Jessica Northwood.
And still, what she wanted—the truth, trust, survival—was apparently something else she had to earn.
The white light shrank into a hot, condensed glow between their hands, then it was gone.
Jessica swallowed thickly and wondered how long it would be until she could breathe again.
Closing his eyes, Leandras apparently gave up standing strong through his round of self-inflicted torture. Now that it was over, though, he didn’t look relieved or grateful or even smugly vindicated.
He looked miserable.
Jessica pressed their clasped hands firmly against his chest. “Sorry to disappoint you. It’s not happening.”
“In no way whatsoever am I disappointed,” he muttered. When he opened his eyes, she thought she might see him cry again. More silver tears like in Ahárra. But it didn’t happen.
Then again, if Jessica wasn’t crying over manipulated chaos magic, she didn’t really have the right to judge.
That didn’t mean she had to be completely relieved, either.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“No.” Leandras slowly flexed his hands, stretching his fingers away from hers before gently placing her hands against his chest and holding them there.
Not exactly the reaction she’d expected, but okay.
“No matter what choice you made, that was only intended as a one-time ordeal.”
“Obviously.”
“Jessica.” He tilted his head and studied her face, his warm palms pressing against the backs of her hands, the heat of his chest flaring through the fresh new shirt he’d somehow pulled out of thin air. “You are the only choice.”
“I’m...” With a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes and finally let all her muscles relax. What was the point of straining against him like this when he’d just proven what she hadn’t been willing to test out on her own?
Again.
“I might be right now. But with a fae sworn to me, there’s no way to know how that’ll turn out.”
“Exactly how it turned out just now.” Leandras released one of her hands to brush her hair away from her face and cup her cheek.
If he pulled her any closer, they’d be even more tangled up in each other than they already were. Jessica couldn’t bring herself to pull away, no matter how strongly doubt and hesitation made her want to. “You don’t know that.”
“You’re right. There is no certainty to any of this. I do, however, have a strong suspicion, and I’m willing to rely on that if nothing else.”
She tried to roll her eyes, but her eyelids just fluttered instead, and a small, weak laugh escaped her. It sounded like defeat, but maybe there was something to giving in, after all.
“Suspicion of what?”
“That you would no more turn to the darkness once I am freed than you did just now. And, perhaps, neither would I.”
“That doesn’t...” Jessica bit her lip and tried to find the right words.
How could he see everything she couldn’t figure out on her own but still couldn’t understand why she wasn’t jumping for joy at the idea of being the Laen’aroth’s new master? Even if they didn’t call it that, they’d essentially be swearing a bigger, way more powerful binding with no expiration date and zero loopholes. Except the ones Jessica commanded all on her own.
How could she not take the opportunity to cut off the one tie their unstoppable enemy still had so they would, in fact, actually have a chance at stopping him?
“This is different,” she finally added. “I didn’t...give in this time. But if we do this Thon-Rothím spell, if you have no choice anymore because you’re just switching one vow for another, I could still change my mind. And you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”
A low hum escaped the fae man holding her against him.
Maybe it was the fact Jessica hadn’t pushed him away or warned him not to touch her—which she honestly didn’t understand herself right now—but Leandras didn’t seem all that concerned anymore about giving her a lot more personal space than this.
When his small smile returned, yes, he looked a lot more like the fae she’d kind of let herself fall for, including all the aggravation that came with it. “Despite my longstanding allegiance I do very much hope to break, I have
made all my own choices from the beginning, Jessica. That will not end with you.”
“You say that now, sure. But you haven’t actually tied yourself to me. Anything could happen after that.”
“Well, I could tell you the Thon-Rothím is only a formality with the convenience of ensuring we both survive.”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Jessica’s breath escaped her in a rush.
Where was he going with this?
Trying to anticipate it made her pulse race. She hadn’t given him a decision yet. No promises. No spell. No swearing of souls.
But somehow this felt a lot more important, and it made no sense at all.
A small chuckle barely louder than a whisper escaped him before Leandras brushed his thumb against the corner of her bottom lip. “But truth be told, Jessica, I’ve already sworn myself to you. In my own way. And still, I choose to do this. If you’ll agree, of course.”
He’d already sworn himself to her.
Half of her wanted to throw him across the kitchen and call him a liar. The other half of her—the half standing here with the Laen’aroth caressing her cheek and the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her hand—wanted to give him everything he wanted.
Maybe he felt like he still had a choice, but Jessica couldn’t let herself believe this was the only way.
She wanted to trust him. That hadn’t exactly worked out the last time she bit the bullet and went all in with this ancient magical from a world she really, really despised.
“I still don’t know,” she whispered. “This doesn’t seem like the right...circumstances for making a decision.”
Honestly, she’d expected him to turn away from her after hearing that, but Leandras only grinned. “Yes. I imagine we’re both somewhat compromised at the moment.”
Suggestive. Tempting. Also not the right time.
“So when do I need to decide?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I suppose it’s only fair for you to want a timeframe, Jessica, but I honestly can’t say. Sooner is better. We risk being discovered and undermined. But I will not force you to answer on my own terms alone.”
“Well...thanks.” Of all the things she could’ve said, a thank you seemed the least likely to ruin this moment—whatever this moment was.
The Spellcast Gate (Accessory to Magic Book 5) Page 22