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My heart galloped, and the snow swirled, the squall thickening, churning. Walls were closing in, walls I couldn’t see, walls I’d made. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I had, and I could never erase the horror of it. I loved him and hated him. Was I even a man to feel these things?
The air in my lungs tightened. I slumped over, pushed my hands into the snow, and breathed around the hurt, trying to keep above its smothering onslaught.
“My dear, Devere.” Adair’s hand settled on my back, between my shoulders, and burned like a brand. “It is time.”
Time.
Time to end this, time to let him go, time to open the cage and set the bird free. Time, with its clockface and ticking hands. Endless time, yet there was never enough of it. It was time to save Valentine.
This had begun as a nightmare fueled by hatred and fear. But with time, it had changed. I’d changed, and so had my heart. I no longer wanted vengeance. I no longer grieved for young love, betrayed and kicked in the dirt. Time had healed those wounds.
Adair’s presence simmered beside me. His touch burned through my clothes, my skin, sinking into my soul. Among the swirling snow, hunger and greed blazed in his eyes. He was not the benevolent friend, father, or lover. He did not care about any of this, including Valentine. He only wanted what he could not have. Me. His obsession was all I deserved.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“What does it matter? Let him go, or it begins again, Devere.”
No, I’d done terrible things. I knew that. But Adair had played this game too. He’d been alongside me this entire time, and he’d reveled in it, twisting my torture into his pantomime.
I shoved Adair, knocking him back, and got to my feet.“Where is he!”
“It’s too late!” Adair snapped back. “You rejected him. The fae have him now, and by the time they are done, his mind will be shredded with pleasure and agony.”
No. This wasmygame. My rules. Adair didn’t get to ruin it. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done. I may be the architect, but you twistedmy design!”
His horrid smile grew. “You give me too much credit, but I’ll take it.”
I was done with him. His words were lies wrapped in truths. He knew I’d lost myself to my own madness and could have enlightened me at any moment, yet he’d watched us all dance around and around. “If I am the puppet master, I will end it my way.” I hurried up the steps.
“If he learns of the truth, he’ll despise you!”
And that would be right. It was all I deserved.
I dashed back inside the mansion. Sticky warmth and sickly sweet scents wrapped me in a honeyed embrace.The fae.They were everywhere. Each one a stranger. Each one enjoying this ruse.
I had to find Val before the fae poisoned him. I had to set him free.
ChapterThirty-Five
Valentine
The two men had approached me at the dinner table. One with midnight skin and the other with skin like milk, golden hair, and vine tattoos climbing his neck. Claude and Vine. I’d never seen them before, not in Minerva or Rochefort Manor. Friends of Rochefort, they’d said, with smiles full of perfect teeth.
They had to be two of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen, and Massalia had not been lacking in beautiful people.
As they talked, their long-lashed sultry glances hinted at other motives behind their approach. They spoke of Massalia and its freedoms, reminding me of the city I’d left behind, and as they spoke, they touched each other. A skim of the hip here, a brush there, a hand on his shoulder, a whisper in his ear. They were clearly intimate, and as we talked, their touches skimmed my thigh, my shoulder, a whisper inmyear.
Every new touch spilled sparks down my spine and stirred neglected desires. I knew what they wanted, and perhaps I wanted it too. Devere had forgotten me, and the thought of fighting the lie all over again was enough to have me drop to my knees and sob. So I drank and laughed, and the room spun, with me inside it, until I found myself following along behind the pair, heart pounding, instincts ignored. Somewhere far, far away, I suspected this was wrong, but what harm was there in three men taking a walk away from the crowd?
Claude—with eyes of amber—opened a door into a bedroom, and while it seemed like a foolish idea to go, I was already drifting in through the doorway, admiring the lavish spread of silken drapes around the four-poster bed and its many cushions.
I still had the whiskey glass in my hand—somehow refilled; how many had I had?—and took a sip.
The door snicked closed, drawing my sloshing gaze back to the blond beauty of Vine turning a key in the lock. His gaze caught mine, and his fingers went to the tie at his neck and quickly began to loosen it. Moving like water down a brook, he sauntered toward me.
Claude’s firm chest pressed against my back. He plucked my glass from my hand. “Do not fret,” his deep voice rumbled, his lips brushing my neck. “We will do nothing your body does not crave.”
Crave…Yes. That was the word for this feeling inside, the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my own skin with need. It had been so long since I’d been touched,loved. And Devere did not want me. Probably never had. It was all a madman’s dream.
