“We’ll have to disagree on that,” he replied. “What was…done to you then and now wasn’t and isn’t fair or right. Neither is what has been thrust upon you.”
“Unfair to me?” I nearly tripped as I stopped, staring at the shadowstone between the shelves. “What about to you? The last thing you need is knowing that…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. “It’s not fair to put my survival on you.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Well, we’re not talking about me either.”
“Disagree.”
Whatever incredibly lacking restraint I had that put a tether on my temper snapped as I spun on him. “Why do you even care how I feel about any of this? You don’t trust me. You don’t really even like me. The only reason I’m still standing here is because of the embers of life inside me.”
Wisps of luminous silver began to swirl. He said nothing as his fingers finally stopped their damn thrumming upon his knee.
An ache pierced my chest, so painful and real that I almost looked down to see if a blade had been thrust there. I looked away, inhaling deeply. “Look, I get it. I do. This whole situation is messed up. You have every right to be furious with me. To hate me for what I planned. I would if I were you, so—wait. Can you even hate since you can’t love?”
“Hate and love are not two sides of the same coin. One comes from the soul, and the other from the mind,” he said. “Hate is a product of atrocities committed against someone or is birthed from what they have done to themselves and their hellish entitlements. There couldn’t be two more different emotions.”
“Oh. Okay, then,” I murmured, wondering how he knew that when he couldn’t love, but…whatever. What did I know?
“You think that’s why I’m angry?” Swirling silver eyes locked with mine. “That it stems from your plans to kill me?”
“Is that a serious question?” I asked. “Uh. Yes.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Learning that you planned to seduce and kill me was annoying.”
“Annoying?” I repeated, my brows lifting. “I would use a much more descriptive emotion than that, but okay.”
Nyktos seemed to take a deep breath, and I supposed I should be grateful that patience didn’t stem from the kardia. “What you plotted to do isn’t something one easily forgets. But what enraged me is that you had to know what would’ve happened to you even if there had been a small chance you’d succeed. If one of my guards didn’t get to you, Nektas would have. Your act would’ve meant your death—the final kind.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I…I know that. I’ve always known that. Even before I learned that the draken were bonded to you.”
Nyktos tilted his head, and a lock of reddish-brown hair glided over his temple. “That is what infuriates me. From the first moment I saw you, you’ve behaved as if your life holds no value for you.”
The back of my neck tightened. “Those shit, now super-dead gods killed a babe. If striking out at them had resulted in my death, then it would’ve been worth it.”
“I’m not talking about that,” he snapped, leaving me confused. The only time he’d seen me before was when he refused to take me as his Consort. I’d been quite well-behaved then. “You should value your life as much as you do the lives of others, Sera.”
Heat crept to the front of my neck. “I do value my life.”
Nyktos laughed, turning away. “That is a lie, and you know it.”
Anger rose quickly. “Are your super special abilities some sort of lie detection?”
“Life would be so much easier if that were the case. But, no. Emotions can be faked, especially if someone is determined to hide their motives and how they truly feel.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that nothing I had felt around him had been a farce. How much his words and his touch had…pleased me, and that what I’d felt then was real. I had finally felt real. But he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t expect him to. He knew I had been groomed from a young age to carry out my duty. And I had been determined to do so…until I hadn’t. But if I were in his place, I wouldn’t believe a word I said either.
I looked down at the scuffed toes of my boots. “Then you can’t possibly know what you claim to.”
“Except all of your actions tell me what I need to know,” he said. Several moments passed. “I mean no offense when I say that you don’t value your life. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
I snorted. “Sure sounded like one.”
“I apologize if that was how it came across.”
My head jerked. “You’re seriously apologizing to me? Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. Half of this conversation doesn’t matter. What I was trying to say is that there is no reason to go through with this coronation. Whatever protection being crowned as your Consort offers cannot be worth it.”
He slowly leaned forward. “Your safety is worth everything.”
“Even the Shadowlands?”
His now-swirling eyes had never left mine, but, somehow, he’d moved without me even realizing, crossing the space between us. “Yes.”
The breath I inhaled rattled through me, full of his citrusy scent. “You can’t mean that.”
“I mean it with every part of my being, Sera.”
Sera. Not liessa. He hadn’t called me that since I’d been in his bed, after I’d given him my blood. That had been a slip of the tongue then, something done in a moment of pleasure.
Nyktos loomed, a good head or two taller than I was. “You are…” His jaw flexed, nostrils flaring. “What you carry inside you is far too important. They have to be part of the key to ending what Kolis has done. You may value those embers as little as you do your life, but I do not.”
What I carried inside me. The embers were important. Not me. Never me.
I backed off, taking several steps. Did I expect him to say something else? That I mattered? To him? And that he cared for me, even though he couldn’t love? After what I’d plotted? I didn’t.
I just wanted it to be different.
Nyktos’s chest rose sharply. “Sera—” A knock on the door interrupted us. His head cut in the direction of the sound. “What?” he barked.
My gaze flew to the entryway. I wouldn’t have been surprised if whoever was there had simply backed away.
The doors opened to reveal Rhahar, his skin a warm, deep brown in the soft glow of the lamplight. Though nothing about his expression was warm as his gaze flickered over me. “There’s a problem at the Pillars.”
Most souls faced judgment at the Pillars of Asphodel. They were either rewarded with the Vale or sentenced to the Abyss. The Pillars couldn’t judge some; their lives were far too complicated, and it required Nyktos’s presence.
“How urgent?” Nyktos demanded as Rhahar’s cousin drifted in behind him.
“Urgent enough to risk interrupting you,” Saion replied blandly, a hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip.
Nyktos cursed, shoving a hand over his head as he stalked to the credenza.
“Is everything okay?” I asked as Nyktos reached the cupboard.
Rhahar didn’t look in my direction as he nodded, not elaborating. Pressure clamped down on my chest, even though his reaction didn’t come as a surprise. My betrayal of Nyktos was a betrayal to all of them.
Breathing through the tightness in my chest, I turned to Nyktos as he grabbed the back collar of his shirt, then pulled it up and over his head. My eyes nearly fell out of my face as the lean muscles running down the length of his spine appeared, along with the swirling drops of blood inked into his skin—drops that represented all the lost lives Nyktos believed he was responsible for.