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When you have nothing, you live only for those who promise you everything.”
I will her to walk through those doors. If not for this kingdom, then for me. I need her to come back to me. She is willingly my weakness, and yet, nothing has ever made me stronger.
reducing my feelings for Paedyn to something as juvenile as a scandal is absurdity. Only, it does not matter that every beat of my heart belongs to her. Because she does not belong to me.
But when that blood-splattered face turns in my direction, I nearly smile. This formidability is not unfamiliar to me. I’ve seen it within her since the moment she saved my life. Her eyes meet mine, and it feels like relief.
“I worry about you, Malakai.” The sound of his full name has those gray eyes fluttering closed. “If I die—” “Stop.” “If I die,” I repeat sternly, “I need you to find something else worth losing yourself to. I won’t let my impending death be yours as well.” I press my forehead to his, voice breaking as I say, “Promise me that. Please.” “Pae.” His voice is ragged. “I would lose my life for you before finding something else worth living for.” His fingers weave into my hair, slide along the back of my neck. “You are my inevitable. In life and in death.”
He tastes like a secret I wish to scream, a word on the tip of my tongue that will never be mine to utter. So I say his name instead, as if I could claim him so easily. As if I’m not thinking of three damning words when I say it. I love you.
“She is powerless.”
OMGOMGWHAG
It reminds me of Adena and her boy from Loot.”
AHHH MAK
“Has it been three dances? If they have any more, the court may begin to think our little brother is trying to steal away your betrothed.” “Oh, I doubt that’s the brother they’re worried about,” Kitt says evenly.
DANG KITTTT
I’m breathless at the sight of her, doomed by the hope of having her. It’s a beautiful ruin, a devastating devotion. This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch. And I hold her shoes.
“I declare,” I say slowly, my spine straightening, “a dance between the three of us. Unified as one.”
Ew
I look down to my left. Kitt—crown crooked atop blond hair, smile shockingly wide, demeanor that of the boy I befriended so long ago, not the one I’d betrayed. I see hope when I look at him in this moment. A blooming companionship. I look down to my right. Kai—black hair curling over his brow, eyes bright, and dimples that I curse beneath my breath. But above all, love. It lingers in his gaze, in his touch, down to the very curve of that smile I know belongs to me alone.
“I want to tell you a secret, but I’m scared of it.” He offers to say it for me. I nod. I notice what is hooked around his fingers, dangling from the hand beneath my knees. “You found my shoes!” He whispers the three-worded secret. “You found my shoes for me.” Another murmured declaration of devotion. Tears prick my eyes. “… you found my shoes for me.” He says he loves me. Again and again.
AUGH J VANT WJTH THE FHEY NEEDA BE ENDGAME
“It has been said that the Plague may have even altered… animals. There are stories of enhanced creatures—bigger, faster, stronger than before. Because of that, many believe there to be some creature living in the Shallows.” “A beast that belongs to the sea,”
Foreshadowibg???
“Is the water always this choppy?” I ask, looking over at the brothers. “No,” Kai answers dully. I let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good.” “It’s usually worse.”
Nothing and no one has ever devastated me more. Not the sand, the sea, the slow brush of Death’s hand. Because maybe, just maybe, he is the most ruinous thing of them all.
She looks at me, eyes as bright as the sea itself. I stare into them, memorizing the multitude of hues they hold in the flickering lantern light. My favorite color is a shade of her, a sliver of the vibrance she exudes. And I will gladly drown, gladly burn, gladly fall into those blue eyes until the day she looks at me for the last time.
HELP
My sword plunges into his heart at the same moment he throws Paedyn over the railing. A scream rips from my throat, lost in the raging storm.
WHAT AHHH
Yes, he does enjoy this. Fear is power. And where there is power, there is something for him to wield.
“There is love within duty, and duty within love. You can’t have one without the other, and yet”—she takes a deep breath, her gaze distant—“you can never truly have both. So choose, Kai Azer. The girl. Or power. And whether or not she is worth the destruction of everything you are.”
“I’m selfish, Paedyn. I burned your home to the ground just to have you and now it is all of Ilya standing in my way, tempting me to light a match.”
You said to be on my best behavior, and I can’t possibly do that if I’m in the same room as you. Besides, all I do is spend my days in the training yard, attempting to teach a bunch of lazy bastards how to punch. Reminds me of when I had to do the same for you. And don’t roll your eyes; I know you loved it. For now, this will have to be our pretend. Kitt spent most of the morning with me, and he seemed good. Great, even. But I know my brother. I think he’s trying to keep me away from you, slowly distance us. Maybe he wants you as badly as I do, but not at the price of losing me. He wants us
...more
My duty may be to the king, but my heart, Pae, is wherever you are. It is in the palm of your hands, the pad of your thumb. So if you leave, I will follow. If you stay, I will bow. Because there has never been a moment when you did not own the only piece of me that mattered—loving you made me matter. And I ache to be full again.
I hear a little girl crying over her father’s dead body and surviving despite it. I hear the roar of an Elite crowd, chanting for the Ordinary beneath their noses who crafted her own power. I hear strength where shame once was, fearlessness where I would once cower.
I nod, because it’s the agreement he wishes for. I stand, because the look in Paedyn’s eyes say she will find me later. And I leave, because she is not mine to worry about.
I can feel the exact moment my heart shatters. It’s when I turn, my eyes crashing into ones well memorized. When mist meets the deepest sea. When a Shadow faces its Flame. When inevitability meets its end. When I stare into the face of what it is I love most.
OH NOOOCFJAXBJAV HWHFD QUZV
This is not an opponent. This is the boy who braids back my hair and dances for the both of us. The boy who would chase me to the ends of the earth if it meant he could hold me one more time. This is a man who would bury another for me—would bury himself, if only I asked. He is a fool for me. He is my fool. This can’t be happening. Why would Kitt allow this?
His shadow falls over me, and terror grips the heart that once felt nothing but love for him. He is devastation dressed with the shell of devotion. So this is it. In the end, an Azer will always choose duty. And my death has just become that.
Fight back, Pae. I need you to fight back.
BRO I CANT
“It’s okay,” I whisper, my voice as broken as the body still hanging before him. The toes of my boots whisper above the sand I’m dripping blood onto. “Adena died here. I want to die here too.” Blood trickles from my ears, mingling with the tears racing down my face. “I couldn’t save her then. But I can save you now.”
But I whisper it now, over and over. “I love you, Kai. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Agony.
wraps around my torn neck, pressing a damp cloth over my
I am grief. I am sorrow. I am anguish alike.
Swallowing, I force out the string of words. “I watched you die in that arena. I watched my own dagger sink into your chest with my hands wrapped around the hilt. And then, you were slipping away.” I blink, gaze blurry. “And I hadn’t even said those three words I was so sure would take you away from me. It took your death to find my courage, and by then, you were… you were gone.” My voice trembles. Cracks. Crumbles with my composure. “But I can’t wait for another tragedy. So I’ll tell you now, because fate likely won’t allow us a future. Kai, I—” “I love you.”
“Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my inevitable.”
“You are my inevitable. In death, and in love.”
There is strength in sacrifice. And that is what this marriage is. So I smile at my reflection, unable to recall the last time I have.
Because no matter how much our feelings grow or confessions spew, we will always remain precisely as we are. I will tease her until my dying breath, spar until I’m buried six feet beneath her feet. I am forever her rival, and I revel in it.
I’ve never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly right for me, for this kingdom, this hope of a united Ilya. And I fear I may forever be in awe of her. Looking at Paedyn Gray, I see a reckless sort of fearlessness, a power that swells from her vibrant soul.
“I am Ordinary. Elite. A power of my choosing. And I will be your queen—all that I am and fiercely what I am not.”
In my search for comfort, it is him I crawl back to. Peace is the place he resides, and passion is a word I only understand when I look into his eyes. He is the freedom I cannot grasp. We are inevitable. We are tragedy. “Pae.”
“You are my forever.” Shadow and Flame. Formidably inevitable. “Forever my undoing.”
Nothing makes me stronger than the weakness that is you, Paedyn Gray. And if, in the next lifetime, you choose to steal from me again, I would happily give you my soul if it meant a place beside yours. But until then, I will watch you become another’s reason to thank the Plague. You, Pae, are my inevitable. (I love you.)
One foot in front of the other. My chest heaves. I do not want this. Kitt reaches for my hand. I do not love him. I hesitate. My heart stutters, begging me to damn sacrifice and choose selfishness. Choose Kai. Choose love.
I failed him. I failed us. Still, he musters a small smile. It is the look of letting someone go. And it tears me to pieces. He was going to save me.
Shadows skitter over my skin, as if summoned by the darkness brewing within me.
EMO AHH
Paedyn rivaled me, the stars, the very sea with her gaze. She had me in the palm of her hand the moment she grabbed mine in that alley. And for the first time since I was a boy, fear gripped my heart. Right then and there, I knew she would be my undoing. We are inevitable, the Silver Savior and me. Our pasts are as irrevocably intertwined as our futures now will be. But it is not love that has tied our souls together. It is duty.
“I said I’m fine, Paedyn,” he snaps, eyes suddenly wild.
Alpha
Hello, Father.
HUHHHHGDCAIVUGUG JG KBBKS
“We are half siblings,” Kitt finally blurts. I blink at my husband, then down at the ring on my finger. The thought had somehow never crossed my mind until this very moment, and now I feel as though I may be sick. “Holy shit,” I breathe, because there is little more to say.
AHAHAHAHAHWHAHAHSUHSHAHAJAHAJAAH
