Page 304 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

I turned my face in time to see a devilish smile flash across the king’s face, his lengthened canines gleaming. But it was the black steadily devouring his eyes, stretching through the veins around them like demonic venom that had me cowering deeper into Adrastos’ chest.

Kade’s voice was wickedly seductive. “With pleasure.”

Bartholomew rumbled, “I’m right outside, brother.”

The door closed softly. A curtain of shimmering night rippled around the room, and the silence only powerful wards or a blanket of snow could bring settled over us. Then we were moving toward the bathroom.

And he held me.

As towels and glass bottles floated from the cabinets, as the showerheads flicked on and steam billowed, he held me.

“Moros cannot read your mind, witchling. Not like Ally.” Not like him—the unspoken understanding settled between us. “But he can feel your reactions to the horrors he spins. He cannot see the images cast by your fear, but he has an uncanny ability for sensing them.”

“What?” Broken. Barely a cracked whisper. “What are you saying?”

“When he cast his spell tonight, your body responded—your pulse, your breathing, your scent became fear and… well, it wasn’t hard to deduce what nightmares rose from the depths of your subconscious. It gave him ammunition. A weak point in your armor. I didn’t see him taking aim until it was too late. I swear to you.” Every word was weighted with the almosts and what-ifs, as though that horror was shared between the two of us and not simply mine to hold.

Silence settled between us again as our breathing steadied.

Adrastos shifted his weight once, then twice. His shadows lifted Kade’s jacket and Barry’s shirt away and peeled the silver heels from my feet.

Still fully clothed, Adrastos stepped beneath the steaming spray, and I sputtered as the warmth enveloped us, jolting me back into my body—back into my senses.

Panting against the onslaught, I fought for breath as terror and rage washed through me.

I pressed a palm against his chest, trying pitifully to shove away, but the bastard didn’t budge.

“Put me down,” I breathed, the sound closer to a sob.

To my shock, he bent his knees to comply, the marble warm beneath my bare feet. I pushed away from him, but my knees buckled, and he growled, scooping me back up. I would’ve protested, but he knelt and lowered me to the floor.

“Get away from me,” I whispered, a cracked, humiliating sound. I hid my face against my bent knees, desperately trying to remember exactly who sat with me. What kind of liar—what kind of two-faced demon—sat beside me.

Because he felt too much like Bellamy beneath the spray of water with my attacker’s blood on his skin. I craved his comfort like oxygen.

“Blythe.” Ragged. Desperate.

I didn’t care. Couldn’t.

“Get. Away. From me.”

He didn’t budge, his legs pressed to mine as he sat beneath the shower beside me. And I hated him for it. Hated him because I didn’t. Hated him because I wanted him there. Wanted the safety of this veritable wall of muscle and savagery.

And I couldn’t.

I’d never been able to, even before I knew who walked among us.

He’d been hers long before I’d known he was our enemy.

“Get away!” I sobbed, raw and primal—voice colliding with the marble and ricocheting back, amplifying the crack of rage through my control. “Get away from me!” The scream was a ragged thing, the edges shredded, the agony of all of it burning through words that felt too heavy for my mouth. I lifted my face to his, shoving at his unmoving body as I screamed it again. And again.

Hysteria broke open, and tears poured down my face. I didn’t have a single shit left to give. So I gave him my agony instead. A guttural bellow ripped from my chest, a sob that carried everything with it—Sorin, Zehra, Aideen, Jaycee, Ansel, Ally, Mags. Grief for them, betrayal for his part in it, anger at the hands that assaulted my body in a palace he’d helped to build—all of it came shredding through my lungs as I scrambled onto my bruised knees and shoved…

And shoved, and shoved, snarling wicked words and hateful promises, all while those ancient, haunted eyes stared at me, unwavering.

At last, his whiskey-burned voice rumbled, “I misjudged the threads, and I’m sorry, Blythe.” Then he left, just as I’d demanded.

The hollow space he left behind was its own kind of agony.