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“They’ll let him out.” He beckoned me with his finger.
I just stared back at him. “What are you doing?”
“Kiss and make up?” he suggested.
My blood heated, but I didn’t move. “We have to fight first.”
He sighed and picked up an apple from the bowl on his desk. His sharp teeth snapped its flesh as he nodded.
“You had no fucking right.” My voice trembled, but I was past giving a shit.
His hand dropped to his side, the apple forgotten as his eyebrows shot up. “No fucking right to what? Save your brother’s life?”
“To…insinuate that something is going on between us.” I paced the path Channing had worn into the rug—well out of Lach’s reach. I didn’t trust him to keep his hands to himself, and I needed to maintain a clear head.
“Something is going on between us,” he said slowly.
“Yes, you own my soul,” I shot back, “so I’m forced to live here.”
His nostrils flared, twin veins straining in his neck. “Any closer to figuring out my end of the bargain, Cate?” His tongue licked his lower lip. “Are you trying to figure it out when my fingers are between your legs? Or when you spend all day with my sister? When you sleep in the safety of my home? Eat my food? Are you any closer to breaking it when you kiss me? When you tell me you’re coming home?”
Angry words with an undercurrent of accusation that cut through me. Because he was right. I had stopped trying and I had started trusting—the biggest mistake of all. And now, as that sharp truth sliced straight to my heart, I refused to let him see me bleed.
“So you think that gives you the right to brag to my brother about it? Because you own me? Because you’ve stolen half my life from me? Tell me, Lach, what choice have you given me?” He shifted, his hands clutching his desk with such force that it splintered like he’d done to my bed. I flinched at the sound, but I didn’t stop. “What about Ciara? And Shaw? Can I learn how to love my brother by watching you ruin your family’s lives like you ruined mine?”
The words were out of my mouth, flung without thinking and impossible to take back. He flinched as they hit their mark. His knuckles blanched white, the wood creaking under his grip.
Lach released the desk, and I froze, waiting for him to stalk toward me, for him to… I had no idea what he would do to me. But he simply straightened, his voice dull. “I told you I would ruin you.” He checked his watch, but he didn’t look at me, didn’t move toward me. “I have a meeting.”
He vanished without another word. I stood there long after he was gone, those hollow words replaying in my head on repeat with my own.
Then ruin me.
I had granted him permission, but I had not realized how he would do it. He had ruined me in a way that I didn’t quite understand. Because he was right. I wasn’t looking for a way out of the bargain. I was working to help his court, to help him. I slept in a bed he owned, wishing he was in it with me. I laughed with his sister and groaned at his brother’s jokes. I came home to this place, to them, to a family, to him.
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I stared at the empty space where he’d been moments ago, the fight echoing in the cavernous vacancy he’d left in place of my heart.
We’d ruined each other.
Chapter Thirty-One
I avoided everyone for the rest of the day, but I couldn’t escape my own head. I’d figured out a thing or two about fae bargains in the last few weeks. Lach had sworn not to harm Channing, but it was stupid to assume that promise extended to other fae, even those under his direct command. And when he’d warned Channing that our bargain would hold even if something happened to my brother, I’d realized how foolish I had been.
Still, no one had touched Channing, even when he stormed into the Avalon and threatened an Infernal Court prince. Because Lach had protected him, even though that wasn’t part of our arrangement. Lach had done it for me, and I had thanked him for it by directing the anger and disappointment I felt with myself at him.
Because I’d given up on trying to break the bargain.
Because part of me didn’t want to break it, and instead of admitting that to myself, I’d thrown our bargain in his face.
Because the ruin he promised was something more terrifying than I could ever have anticipated. It was a family, a home, a million tiny things I’d never allowed myself to have. He had ruined my isolation, my fear, my ability to see a future where I didn’t want more.
And while he had clearly stepped out of line with Channing, he wasn’t the only one who had been wrong.
So I dressed for the event that evening alone while working up the courage to apologize. All I knew about the handfasting ceremony was that each court would be there to bear witness, so I dressed in Nether Court green. No one had instructed me to do so, and I wondered if Lach would object after this morning’s argument. If he would even look at me. But it felt right to represent his court—the one that was beginning to feel like my own.
My gown’s filmy fabric, spun from emerald and obsidian threads, was tailored tightly in the bodice to lift my breasts, twin straps woven of pure gold keeping them covered. The dress cinched my waist before loosening into several overlapping panels that brushed the floor while allowing my legs to slip through. I pulled my hair up in a loose twist, applying smoky shadow to my eyes before I swept them with ruthless strokes of coal-black liner and painted my lips crimson. And when I looked into the mirror, I saw a creature fit to stand beside the Nether Court’s prince. If he would have me.
Lach had failed to return my necklace, so when the clock told me it was time, I made my way into the foyer of the shared floor. Roark leaned against the table in its center, playing a game on his phone. He glanced up and froze. I cringed, looking down to see what was wrong, half expecting to find toilet paper on my shoe.