Confusion sweeps through me. “Because it’s my fault Gunter is gone. It’s my fault. It should’ve been me, not him. I was the one who was supposed to die.”
The muscles in Nox’s face go lax, and something like understanding coats his pale eyes, causing them to shimmer. “I don’t blame you, Blaise. I’m the one who killed him. I’m the one who…” He swallows, then places both hands on the counter and leans over it, steadying himself as he lets out a strained exhale. “You need to get away from me.”
This time, it’s not hurt that punctures my throat. Just sorrow. Sorrow for my friend. So I steel myself and grind my bare heels into the cold stone floor and say, “I’d rather not.”
His sharp exhale straddles the line between a laugh and a scoff. “I’m going to hurt you.”
I shrug, then slip my hand into his. “If you do, I’ll just burn you again.”
The exasperation that lines his eyes is the closest thing to looking like Nox that I’ve seen yet, so I sidle up next to him and tuck myself between him and the workbench, pressing my cheek to his chest.
At first he goes rigid and his arms remain plastered to the counter, pinning me against it.
But then he starts to shake.
“Please. Let me be here for you,” I beg.
I give him a gentle squeeze, and his warm hands respond in turn, sliding up my back and pulling me close.
He doesn’t bury his face into my neck. He just sets his chin atop my head and shakes for a good long while, tearless sobs convulsing his chest.
We’ve been silent for what feels like hours when he finally says, “How are you not afraid of me?”
I bite my lip, close my eyes, and listen to the steady beat of his heart against my ear.
“I am afraid of you, Nox,” I say, because it’s true. Because I’ve never feared anyone more in my life. “I’m just afraid of me, too.”
CHAPTER 34
NOX
I’m at my desk, craning my neck over a stack of Gunter’s notes, my fingers tugging at strands of my hair and the skin on my forehead, halfway nodding off to sleep when there’s a knock on my door.
The gentle glow of the candle atop my desk warms the interior of my eyelids, which jolt open at the rapping noise. At first, I think it’s Gunter, eager to wake me with a late-night revelation he can’t keep to himself, but then I notice the way the wax dribbles down the candle, pooling into the bottom of the dish.
Pooling like Gunter’s blood on the floor.
I shove myself from the desk, sending papers scattering as the legs of my chair scrape against the ground, and stumble over to the door.
I open it to find the queen’s pale face hovering in the hallway, her body obscured in shadow as the candle she holds illuminates her face.
She reminds me of the full moon.
“What do you want?” I don’t bother with the “my queen.” It’s probably foolish of me to disrespect her so openly when my family’s wellbeing is on the line, but the queen’s been too distraught over my state to bother punishing me.
There’s nothing this female can do if not coddle.
She was there. Every second of my recovery, stroking the veins in the back of my hands with her palms, careful to trace the patches of skin the sunlight hadn’t touched.
I sang myself to sleep with fantasies of ripping her throat from her neck.
I hated her before, but now that Gunter’s dead, the hatred has warped.
Before it was hot and livid and passionate.
Now it’s numb. Cold. Slow. The way frostbite can be equally as lethal as burns.
“A delivery,” the queen says, pulling a parcel from her robes and handing it to me.
“I would have thought it was beneath your station to deliver packages.”
Indeed, the parcel is simple, wrapped in thick burlap and heavy in my hands.
“I thought you might not wish to be alone when you received this one,” she says.
My heart gives a little lurch, and I turn the parcel over in my hands.
It’s addressed to Gunter.
I feel as though the chicken blood I drank with dinner is crawling up my throat. The taste of Gunter’s blood cakes my mouth, dribbling from my lips. The coppery sourness of it burns like acid.
Gunter’s last words play on repeat as I lay awake, making me hate myself even more.
I just hope one day you might forgive me
He’d claimed that he’d never been able to replace my father, but it wasn’t true.
I hadn’t wanted him to—not at first. Not when it felt like a betrayal of the male who had sired me, raised me, loved me.
But my father would have wanted me to have a father, if I couldn’t be his son.
And I was Gunter’s son, through and through.
I’d spent the past few years bargaining for my blood family, but I’d forgotten to protect Gunter.
And in the end, he had apologized to me.
“I’m sure you have better things to do,” I say to the queen, refusing to let emotion twinge the impact of my words.
It’s easier than it should be—to keep your voice even when you’re numb all over.
The queen reaches out to me, and this time when she caresses my jaw with her fingers, I don’t have to fight back the cringe.
Because I feel nothing.
The disgust, the anger, the horror are gone.
All that’s left is the fact that I will be the end of this female.
