“I don’t want your blood soiling my sheets.”
Fair enough. Blood stained something awful. I sent the dagger back to my bedside table. “Why were you screaming? Not that I care.”
She fisted her sheets, probably wishing they were my throat, despising me so much I could taste it. “That’s what hostages do, isn’t it? They scream.”
“Hostages only scream for a short while.” The covers smelled like her. Roses and soft skin. Innocence and sin. “Then they cry and beg. Will I make you cry and beg, human?” The thought alone left me itching to tug down the sleeves of her shift and taste her again.
As if she heard the direction of my wicked thoughts, she hugged her knees to her chest, holding them close, yet another barrier between us. “I was screaming because I hate you.”
Lie. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was screaming because I am sick and tired of being held hostage by someone as evil and merciless as you.”
Couldn’t she see that it was I who had been taken hostage? That her unyielding hold on me made it hard to breathe? That I wouldn’t escape even if I could?
Although I knew it was foolish, I summoned a tost. Tired of the games. Tired of the secrets. I wanted her to look at me the way she had the night before she died. “Am I holding you hostage?” I said. “Most of my hostages do not live in my home, eat my food, or stroll through my gardens.” Most of my hostages didn’t survive their first night. “I haven’t even gotten around to torturing you—and that’s my favorite part.”
If she wanted to be a hostage for the next year, that was on her.
“In Graystones, you are dead,” I reminded her. “You have no place to go and no means to support yourself. I’m not holding you hostage, Aveen. I’m giving you sanctuary.”
She remained quiet for the longest time before asking why I bothered.
I sat up, turning so that I could better see her shadowed face. “You’ll think I’m mad if I tell you.”
“I already do.”Truth.
Fine. Maybe I was mad. But I was mad about her. “You and I . . . We are meant for each other.
“This is that soulmate nonsense, isn’t it?”
Hold on. She knew? How did she—“I’m going to kill Tadhg.” That hadn’t been his secret to tell. Ah, well. Nothing I could do about it at the moment. I could kill him in the morning. “It’s not nonsense,” I insisted, taking her hand, forcing a connection. “Do you feel that?”
Aveen shook her head.
Without her speaking, I couldn’t taste a lie, but shemustbe lying. She had to feel this too. “Don’t lie to me. I know you do. I am cold and dead inside, but when you touch me, something ignites, and I burn. I burn for you just as you burn for me.” And I reveled in each and every fiery second. “I know I’m not good—that I don’t deserve you.” Such an incredible understatement. She was goodness personified, and I was sin. “I tried to let you go. Then you sought me out, and I thought maybe fate wasn’t playing some twisted game. Maybe something in my cursed life was finally going right. Maybe I wasn’t meant to give you up.”
She tugged free of my grasp, scrubbing her hand against the blanket, her face a mixture of emotions. Confusion. Fear. Anger.
None of the softness I longed to see. “I should’ve known better.”
The darkness may crave the light, but light could never crave the darkness.
I stood and started for the door.
“Why did you come to my room?” Aveen asked, her voice soft as a whisper.
“Because you screamed.”
* * *
Surprisingly enough, I’d slept after seeing Aveen. I tried not to think too much about why that was as I descended the stairs and swung by the kitchens for a snack. As good as the scones Eava had just baked smelled, I’d been eating too much shite lately, so I snagged an apple instead.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I had nothing to do but sit around and watch my “hostage” play in dirt. It was going to be a feckin’ brilliant day. I stepped out of the castle and down the stone stairs, turning toward the patch of earth Aveen had claimed as her own. Footsteps clattered behind me. I whirled, readying for an attack, leaving me entirely unprepared for a human with blond curls throwing her arms around me.
What the hell had gotten into her? Didn’t she know better than to touch me? Muireann watched us through wide, bulbous eyes. At least all she saw was my abject horror. More and more eyes fell on us each passing second. I had to do something.
I shoved Aveen away even though all I wanted was to pull her closer.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”