P R E V I O U S L Y
"And so do I," Edwina swore. "Thirteen nights from now, I swear by Uranus. We will get them back."
CALCHESTER CITADEL, STEFFITH.
EDWINA
I CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND Eric with a soft sigh and turned back to the wedding suite. The decorations from the wedding night were still up. A lone god lingered against the balcony, leaning on the handrails in peaceful solitude.
Quietly, I made my way to Tristan. His back was still to me, but his voice was still first and foremost in my head. It kept on booming in my ears, his voice.
The way you keep on hurting me, woman, it doesn't make you any different from the rest. You're just more of the same.
He was casually leaning on the balcony, observing the gardens down below. His white hands drummed restlessly on the marble, his jet black hair ruffling in the breeze like silken flags. I bent down quietly to observe his face. It was impassive, still as white marble, devoid of emotion. The only color came from his magnetic eyes, gleaming with misery like the depths of the deepest ocean.
"Valmont?" I whispered, picking my words with care. I had an apology to make.
"What?" he snapped brusquely, and his head whizzed up. The dark eyebrows frowned again in anger. "Come to hurt me some more, Tremayne?" Tristan hissed.
"No."
"Let me guess, then. Here to hurl some more insults at my dead sister?" he asked solemnly, turning his gaze to the gardens below, refusing to meet my eyes.
"I come to... ask for forgiveness," I said softly.
"There's nothing to forgive. Not that you've left anything," he laughed cruelly, misery cloaked right into his voice.
"Forgive me," my voice rang in the hollow silence. "Forgive me for a tongue sharper than poison. For being too full of chaos. I never meant to say what I said to you, Valmont. I didn't mean it. I should have respected the memory of your dead sister, and I didn't."
He said nothing.
"I'm sorry," I gently whispered into his ear, my fingers itching to lose themselves in his messy black hair.
"She's dead," Tristan said hollowly. "Your father killed her."
"Kill me," I whispered, putting a hand around his shoulder and pulling him up. "Kill me, Valmont. Get revenge for your sister. My father killed her, you should kill me. Go on," I pressed, as he turned around to face me, his expression radiating an unknown aura.
I placed a knife into his open palm.
"It is the children who ultimately pay for the crimes of their fathers."
As the words left my lips, his arm flung itself around my shoulders and drew me to him, eyes blazing as if I had stated a grave crime.
I was in his arms, and all I could see was the blue in his eyes. They were bluer than I had ever seen. His scent overwhelmed all my senses, his protective gaze searing right through all the layers of clothing I wore. Little chills traveled down my body, although they had nothing to do with the cold air.
I curled his hand around the knife, and gripped it in my fist. That cold, white hand. I lifted our joined hands, and the tip of the knife gleamed wickedly.
I brought it to my heart.
"You can do it," I urged, my voice steely and steadfast. "You've done it so many times before. You know it's easy. Just drive the tip into my heart."
My hand nudged his, pressing the cold metal into the fabric of the silk covering my breast. I was still not able to figure out what was it in the mention of his sister that nearly drove him to tears.
"You look just like your mother," Tristan silently observed, holding me to his chest and looking right into my eyes.
"I know."
"You have her eyes too," he continued softly, touching my hair with a light hand, voice laced in heavy anger. "They were the same. Like emeralds shining in the dark."
My hand rested on his chest, feeling the star flecked blood flow within.
He carefully wrapped another arm around my waist and pressed me to his chest, making me reel from giddiness and intensity.
"This rage, though. That is one thing you got from your father," Tristan spoke faintly, his silk voice brushing past my ear.
"Yes."
"You are a killer too. Just like your father," he replied in a rasp.
"Just the same as you, Tristan Valmont."
He breathed sharply and his grip tightened, making delicious tightness spiral down my neck. His hands splayed over my shoulders, sending traitorous, lustful feelings to the bare skin under my robes. There was an aching need growing in me, a need to be consumed and devoured, and I feared I would burn alive if he didn't give it to me.
"Don't," Tristan pressed a finger to my lips, eyes blazing. "I am falser than vows made in wine, woman. I've destroyed things. People. Places. I can't get rid of the angry fires raging under my skin. I am a killer. Just like you."
He looked so lost, the expression in his eyes crushed me into a thousand pieces. They held such sadness, such profound sadness.
The stars in his eyes stopped shining, gleaming faintly with flickers of misery.
"Your mother was my aunt too," he murmured into my ear, fueling my insatiable hunger and making it harder to stay on my feet.
"You were never a nephew to her."
"You want me to end this?" he said quietly, voice shaken but strong, choked and hoarse.
"End me, and turn my death to poetry that whispers syllables of death on your lips," I murmured. "Kill me and get your revenge."
The strength in my voice surprised even me. In nearly all the four centuries I'd lived, I'd never once given a thought as to how I would die. But here I was, putting a knife in my husband's hand, asking him to drive it into my heart. Things never worked out the way we wanted them to.
"I wish I could," Tristan said. This time, his voice was undeniably gentle, a far cry from its usual.
"What's stopping you then?" I whispered.
We looked into each other's eyes for a hard, long second. My head reeled with emotions, confused and lost and wanting to know what he meant by that. More than that, I wanted absolution, I wanted finality, I wanted the truth.
His truth.
He drew closer to me, and I bloomed in his warmth like a sunflower turning to the sun, my body ready to played to pieces like a fiddle in his hands. Those blue eyes were unnaturally dark, gleaming with unnamed, wanton emotions, flickering slowly to my lips. I tried to calm my racing heart under the intensity of the scorching gaze.
It was pointless.
No, my brain weakly resisted even as my knees went weak. No, you shouldn't do this.
Tristan flung the knife out of my hand and spun me to him by my waist.
"You," he growled in a low, husky rumble, with a voice that ignited all my nerve endings and made me melt into a pool of raw sensation. Warm, pliant and flowing, like lava.
Then he grabbed me by the shoulders, slammed my back against the wall and possessively crashed his lips onto mine.
• • • • •
Y E S.