“Damian, this isn’t you. Eljin is your friend. And I … I am … I was …” My voice broke, and I swallowed hard, trying to regain control. “You don’t want to let her kill me,” I finally said. “Somewhere in your heart, you have to remember that.”
“Aren’t you trying to hurt us?” The uncertainty in his voice gave me a sudden surge of hope. Maybe there was still a piece of him in there. The strong, unyielding man I knew and loved couldn’t be completely gone. Our only hope was that some part of him remained that I could reach.
“Damian.” Vera’s voice was sharp. She reached for his arm, turning him to face her, staring into his eyes. “You love me. You know you do. You can feel it, right?”
“Don’t look in her eyes!” I yelled, but it was too late.
“I love you,” he repeated.
“Yes, you love me,” Vera practically crowed in triumph. “Damian, this guard is a rebel. She’s trying to overthrow your kingdom. She just tried to kill me. You can’t let her get away with this act of treason.”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “We will have her tried and sentenced tomorrow.”
The exhaustion and devastation were too much; my arm that held my sword trembled. And then Damian lifted his hand. Suddenly, my arm was forced to my side, and I couldn’t move — bound by the sorcery he wielded.
“Please,” I begged, my voice barely above a whisper, struggling against my invisible bonds, “remember me. Remember us. You don’t want to do this.”
“There’s no time for a trial. She’ll find a way to escape, to come and finish what she started. You know how lethal she is. You must kill her. Now.” Vera glanced past him to me, a triumphant smirk on her face.
“Damian, don’t listen to her,” I pleaded desperately as Eljin collapsed onto his side, his eyes rolling in his head as he fought to stay conscious. “You love me, not her. Damian, please.” I had to get Eljin to Lisbet immediately or else he would end up dying.
Damian’s beautiful blue eyes met mine across the space between us and he grimaced, as though his head hurt. His hand faltered, and I felt the sorcery drop away, leaving me free to move again. “I … I love …”
“No. You love me. Look at me,” Vera commanded. “You love me.”
“Fight it, Damian — fight her control. You know it, don’t you? In your heart, you know you love me.” I stepped toward them again, shouting now to be heard over Vera as she reached up and turned his face to hers again, telling him again that he loved her, that I needed to die.
Damian moved back from Vera, shaking his head. Was he fighting her — trying to figure out what was real and imagined? That was the only reason I could think of why he hadn’t followed her order to kill me yet.
“She is a threat, Damian. Kill her now!”
“But, I … I love …”
“Of course he’d be in love with his disgusting, scarred guard,” Vera hissed, her voice no longer holding any pretense of sweetness as she spun to face me. “You think you can stop me? You think your love is strong enough to overcome my power?” She sneered at me, and all the beauty I’d been so jealous of before seemed suddenly stripped away, exposing her true self beneath the alluring facade. “Once you’re gone, it’ll take less than a day before he won’t even remember you existed. I will be his entire world.”
I didn’t dare continue to look at her. Instead, I kept my eyes on Damian, willing him to fight. To remember.
Vera suddenly stepped in front of him, blocking me, and pulled his face to hers, kissing him passionately. He didn’t respond at first, but then he slowly softened, kissing her back.
“Damian, please!”
He didn’t respond, continuing to kiss her until Vera finally broke away, her head still tilted up to his. He stared down at her, right into her eyes.
“Don’t look in her eyes!” I lifted my sword, but before I could rush forward, Vera yelled at him.
“Go to your desk, get your dagger, and kill her! Embed it in her heart and finish this! Kill her, so you can get your brother back!”
Damian immediately spun on his heel and marched over to his desk as though he were a soldier following his general’s command.
“She won’t stop you; she can’t bring herself to hurt you.”
My grip on the hilt of my sword tightened as he grabbed a long dagger lying on top of his desk and turned to face me.
“Damian, you don’t want to do this. If you kill me, Jax will die, too! I made a deal….” My voice broke as he advanced on me, his expression cold. My entire body began to shake, and helpless tears burned in my eyes. “I made a deal to save him.” The tears spilled out, running down my cheeks, but I didn’t care anymore.
“You made a deal with my brother?” Vera laughed, the sound echoing through my mind, burning into my brain as Damian stalked closer, gripping the dagger, preparing to strike me down.
I stared into his face, into his eyes — eyes that had once glowed with love for me but now held nothing but deadly intent — and let my sword drop to the ground beside me. My blade clattered against the stone floor. Vera was right; I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t stop him. If he was going to follow her orders, I couldn’t bring myself to fight back, to harm him. I was willing to do almost anything to stop her and her brother, to try and save Antion. But hurting Damian wasn’t one of them.
He stopped right in front of me, so close I could almost feel the heat of him. My entire body shook. I wanted his face to be the last thing I saw before I died. Even if his heart was no longer mine and his eyes held no love for me, they were still his beautiful eyes.
Damian was still the man I loved.
I held perfectly still as he slowly lifted the dagger above his head.
“Damian,” I whispered, wanting him — needing him — to know the truth before I died. I’d been lying to him for too long.
He paused, the dagger still above his head.
“Damian,” I repeated when his arm began to tremble and the dagger dipped down slightly. “You don’t love that woman. You love me.”
“Don’t listen to her! She’s trying to trick you. Kill her!” Vera shouted, making my ears hurt, but I refused to be silent. My only weapons were my words — my love.
“You love me, Damian. I know you do. She can’t take that from you — from us — unless you let her.”
Confusion and pain flickered across his face, but then Vera screamed at him.
“Kill her! Now, Damian! Do it now!”
His expression hardened, and he lifted the dagger higher again, his grip tightening on the hilt. This was it. Vera was going to win.
“I love you!” I shouted over Vera’s screaming. “I love you, Damian! I always have and I always will!”
Damian sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back a step, as though my declaration had physically slammed him.
“No!” Vera howled. “Kill her now!”
Damian’s eyes narrowed, and my whole body tightened, anticipating my death. He swung the dagger back, but as the blade began to arc back down toward my heart, he suddenly spun on his heel and threw it with perfect aim into Vera’s chest — directly into her heart.
I stared in shock as her eyes widened; crimson blood bloomed around the hilt of the blade, spreading quickly to soak the front of her silken shift. Her mouth opened and then closed wordlessly. She tried to lift a hand to the dagger, but while we watched, the color in her cheeks drained away and her arm fell uselessly to her side. With a choking sound, she dropped to her knees. Blood bubbled out of her mouth as she crumpled to the ground, her eyes open. Unseeing.
She was dead.
My frozen horror gave way to panic that made my entire body shake. Damian turned back to me, and when our eyes met, I nearly collapsed in relief. His eyes were his own again. Her death had released him.
And then his arms were around me, holding me, gathering me into the strength and comfort of his body. “Alexa,” he choked out, burying his face in my hair. “Alexa, what did I do? What did I almost do?” H
e trembled even as he held me. His arms tightened around me, and I couldn’t keep from crying out in pain. He immediately let go and stepped back. When he saw the blood on the sleeves of his tunic, his eyes flew to mine. “You’re hurt! What happened? We have to get —”
“Damian” — I cut him off, my eyes dropping to where Eljin lay on the ground unmoving — “Eljin needs Lisbet’s help now.”
“Eljin,” Damian repeated, horror blooming on his face as he spun to face his friend.
He rushed to Eljin, with me right behind him. Eljin’s face was ghastly pale above his mask. I dropped to my knees next to him and pulled the mask off, heedless of the scars he tried to hide. He needed to breathe, not to hide the evidence of a war we’d fought so hard to stop.
“Is he … ?”
“He’s alive,” I said, my fingers pressed against his neck. There was a faint pulse. “But not for long if he doesn’t get help.”
“Where is Lisbet?”
“Hiding in the same room as before.”
I glanced up at him, and my heart constricted at the pain on his face. “Go — hurry!”
He gave me one last look, his eyes full of remorse, and then he turned and rushed to the door. Once he’d gone, I turned back to Eljin.
“You can’t die — do you hear me? I didn’t want to hurt you.” I pressed my hands against the wound I’d given him, trying to slow the loss of blood. “I can’t let you die.”
Vera’s body wasn’t far away, but I refused to look at her. To look at her was to admit that she was dead, and what Damian didn’t know yet was that if we lost Eljin, he wouldn’t be the last one to die this day.
Jax was going to die as well.
WHEN I HEARD the door open again, I knew it was too soon for Damian to be back, and I glanced over my shoulder nervously, not knowing who — or what — to expect.
My captain walked in, rubbing his wrists, Mateo behind him, a little pale and his arm still wrapped in the bandage I’d tied around the wound I’d given him, but he was alive.
“Alexa,” Deron said, and I tensed, unsure of whether he’d still be under Vera’s power, even though she was dead. “What happened?”
I breathed a sigh of relief when he got close enough for me to see how clear his eyes were, though his expression was confused and troubled.
He stared first at Vera’s body, then at Eljin’s next to me.
“I need more bandages — something to help me stop this bleeding until Lisbet gets here,” I said. “Can you find me anything to use?”
Deron nodded and turned toward the dresser where Damian kept his clothes. Mateo came and knelt down beside me.
“What can I do to help?” he asked, looking at Eljin in dismay.
“I don’t know.” I continued to press my hands into his side as hard as I could, but blood still pulsed between my fingers, over my skin, staining me with the life that was draining out of Eljin right in front of us. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt any of you.”
Mateo reached out and placed his hand on top of mine, adding more pressure to the wound. I glanced over at him and was surprised to see not only grief but also empathy in his eyes. “I know you didn’t want to. You did what you had to do to save us all. Even if it meant fighting your friends to stop her.”
I shook my head, unable to speak, afraid I’d break into sobs if I did. I had to look away from him, back to Eljin, who lay unmoving beneath our joined hands. Why did it always come to this? Hurting friends — sacrificing those I loved — to battle the evil that continued to besiege us?
“Here,” Deron broke in, kneeling down on the other side of Eljin. “Will these work?” He held out some of Damian’s shirts, and I nodded.
“Push one beneath our hands, and then tear off a long strip from that other one, so we can tie it around him.”
Deron did as I asked. In just the brief moment that we lifted our hands to put the material beneath them, blood gushed with renewed force out of Eljin’s body. I couldn’t believe there was so much left. From the massive pool surrounding us, running over my hands, soaking my pants and boots, it felt as though he would run out at any moment.
We were just binding the strip of fabric around him, as tightly as we could, when I heard Lisbet’s cry from behind me.
“Eljin!”
She rushed over to us and dropped to her knees beside me, heedless of the blood. “Give me room,” she said, her voice urgent.
I did as she asked, pushing myself to my feet and stepping back. Mateo did the same, standing next to me. I was covered in blood — Eljin’s all over my front and my own down my back. I could still feel it dripping out of my wound.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask Lisbet if there was any hope. Deron still knelt next to him, watching as Lisbet ran her hands above Eljin, her whole body trembling from the sorcery she was using, trying to heal him, murmuring beneath her breath rapidly in Blevonese.
“Alexa.” A voice from behind us startled me — a voice I’d know anywhere, and one that I’d thought would never say my name like that again. I turned to see Damian standing there, his eyes on mine, clear at last of Vera’s control but filled with an infinite sadness that tore at my heart.
He moved toward me hesitantly. One step. Then another. I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. I was so tired, so beaten down. Death stained me — my skin, my heart, my soul. And still he came closer, slowly, as though he were afraid of spooking me.
When he was near enough to touch, he reached for me, but I flinched and he froze.
“I’m covered in blood,” I whispered, my voice thick with unshed tears and guilt.
“Did you mean what you said?” he asked quietly, urgently, his eyes unyielding on mine. His gaze stripped away all the defenses I had built up around my heart to protect it from him, until I was laid bare before him.
“Yes.”
And then his arms came around me, gently pulling me to him, careful of the wound on my back.
“But the blood,” I protested weakly.
“I don’t care about the blood,” he said, pulling back just enough to thread his hands through my hair, cupping my face, heedless of my scars, staring down at me. “All I care about is you.” His hands trembled slightly, and a muscle in his jaw tightened. “I can hardly bear to think of what almost happened … of what she made me …” He trailed off, self-loathing in his voice, his eyes dropping from mine at last.
“But you didn’t.” When he still wouldn’t meet my gaze, I repeated, “Damian, you didn’t do it. You fought back and somehow you overcame her control. I don’t know how, but you did.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but Deron suddenly said, “Sire! You’d better come over here.”
Damian’s hands dropped, and he looked past me to Deron. “What is it?”
I turned around to see Deron staring at Eljin with wide eyes. When I looked down at my friend, I had to choke back a sob of relief. Lisbet was bent over him, her entire body shaking, but the makeshift bandages we’d wrapped around him were gone, revealing that his wound had stopped bleeding.
“Will he live?” Damian finally dared ask the question I’d been too afraid to voice.
Lisbet didn’t respond right away, continuing to work on him. As we watched, the skin began to slowly inch together so that the wound shrank by half, the edges of red scar tissue starting to take form. She finally paused, falling forward onto her hands, so that she was on all fours on the blood-soaked ground next to his body. When she turned her head to look at Damian, her eyes were bloodshot and full of tears.
“He’ll live,” she said.
Relief hit me — so hard and strong that my legs went weak and I stumbled forward a step. Damian caught my arm, holding me up. He looked down at me sharply. “You’re exhausted — and hurt. We need to get you to your room. Is there anyone who can care for Alexa’s wound?”
“I need to have Eljin moved to my room so I can continue working on him. Then I can help Alexa.” Lisbet pushed herself up ont
o her knees.
“We can take him,” Deron said, gesturing to Mateo.
“But he’s hurt, too,” I said.
“It’s not that bad.” Mateo shrugged, flexing his hand as if to prove he was fine, though he had to conceal a grimace of pain.
“He’s not —”
“If he says it’s not that bad, then it’s not that bad.” Deron cut me off. He and Mateo bent down and lifted Eljin into their arms, Deron taking most of the weight. Lisbet stood on shaky legs and slowly led the way out of the room. Before we knew it, Damian and I were alone, with a massive pool of blood at our feet, Vera’s body beside it.
“Where is the rest of the guard?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to find out. I came straight here to try to stop Vera — and save you.” I paused, then added, “Well, after going to Lisbet and Eljin to help me find the secret passageways. Vera had the entire palace searching for me to kill me or throw me in the dungeon.”
Damian looked down at her body with disgust on his face. “I can’t believe I let her …” He broke off with a shake of his head.
“You can’t blame yourself. Their power is … well, no one can stop themselves once they take control.” I cringed, remembering Felton’s screams of agony the night before. And then with a sickening drop of my stomach, I remembered Jax huddling on the ground in fear.
“What do you mean ‘their power’?” Damian asked as I said, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He turned to face me fully, concern on his achingly handsome face. He knew how I felt now — he knew the truth. Had it somehow broken him free from Vera’s control? Or had he done that on his own?
But Rafe still lived, and that meant, regardless of Damian’s knowing how I truly felt, I had to leave him again. If I didn’t, Rafe would come for me — for us. Felton may have already heard that Vera was dead and left the palace to go report to Rafe. Or any of her other men — including the man in the black and white robes. If that happened, Jax would be forced to kill himself, because I broke my deal with Rafe to keep him and his sister from harm before returning.