Maisie
His hands had a slight tremor on my skin but his expression otherwise remained dull and empty. I fought the urge to touch him.
"The humans stood outside and cheered. They cheered while my family burned alive. I rembered looking back and seeing my Da trapped beneath a beam. My brothers screaming. My mother shoved out the window in ti for everything to explode."
My stomach twisted with horror and I didn’t know when my fingers threaded through his. Or when my throat clogged. Or when tears brimd in my eyes.
His gaze drifted sowhere far away and his lips curled into sothing that wasn’t quite a smile. "I shifted for the first ti that night and I killed every human I could find."
There was no pride in his voice. No remorse either. "I don’t rember most of it. Only blood. Fear. Running. They caught eventually."
Cold. My chest felt so cold. His fingers felt like ice.
"They kept in a cage because they didn’t know how to kill . So they experinted." Another tremor ran along his shoulders. "They burned and branded . But in that form, it did nothing. They drowned . They tried cutting pieces off but could never co close enough. They buried ."
He shuddered. I didn’t think I was breathing any more. I felt sick.
"They poisoned . Sowhere, they figured aconite, your wolfsbane, made queasy. Sowhere they realized the reason the cage held at all was because there were traces of silver tal in it. They poisoned with the mix. But it didn’t kill . So they starved ."
The horror must have shown on my face because Jericho’s gaze softened. "I don’t rember all of it.
He paused. "I rember being hungry." His voice cracked slightly. "For years, I rember being hungry."
"Jer..." I exhaled softly.
It was as though calling his na pulled him out of the mory, because he blinked twice and the glazed look was gone from his eyes. "The Queen found after seven years."
He had been thirteen. A child.
"She walked into the cage and sat beside . She talked to , even as I tried to rip her head off. And when she hand fed and healed my wounds, I felt warr than I had in seven years." He exhaled. "’You’re safe now, Ivashkov. Let take you ho. You must be exhausted.’"
His amber eyes rose to mine. "When you are drowning, malyshka, you don’t care who tosses you a rope. You take it."
Understanding began creeping in slowly.
"I followed her," Jericho said with a silent laugh. "I would have followed her anywhere. I did follow her everywhere. She fed . She helped shift back. Taught how to speak again. How to behave. How to live among people. And I grew attached to her. She beca my entire world, all that mattered, all that I lost. I would’ve done anything for her if she so asked for it. And for years, I did. I wanted to please her. It was all I lived for. There was no other purpose to my being."
My breaths had grown shallow.
"When I grew older, things changed." I already knew where this was going. "I was sixteen when I realized people looked at differently. They no longer saw a feral beast or the Queen’s weapon. They saw a man." His lips pursed. "At seventeen, the Queen noticed , too."
He glanced away. "One night, she summoned . I’d been with other won at the ti, but it was the first ti I’d watched her with her mates. In hindsight, I thought she wanted to see her that way. She had an assignnt for but even days after, I couldn’t get the image out of my head.
"I rembered feeling angry. I didn’t understand why. I only knew I belonged to her. And she should’ve belonged to , too." He licked the scar on his lip. "Sowhere in the last few years, I’d convinced myself into believing she was mine and I was possessive.
"So when the Hunt ca around, I thought this was the chance I needed to make her see I was no longer a child. By Lycan standards, I hadn’t been a child since I was thirteen anyway." A pause and the next words ca out slightly embarrassed. "I thought I was in love with her. And so, I fought and I won the Hunt, and after our night together, she asked to be her sixth."
Sothing lodged in my throat.
He swallowed. "I accepted. I thought it was everything I’d ever wanted."
My fingers curled inwards as sothing uncomfortable settled in my chest.
"But it failed. The convergence wouldn’t take . The priestess didn’t understand it. I was stronger than her mates, even at that age, and a perfect fit. I didn’t understand it, either. I didn’t understand it either, until I found you."
I knew why he was explaining this to . I understood that he was trying to tell that it was a trauma bond. Dependency. That a child had taken the first hand that had shown him kindness and latched onto it.
I felt so sad for him.
But sothing hot burned in my chest anyway, a tangle of complicated feelings I didn’t know what to do with.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I could... asure up to that. I’d previously thought it was just sex, but now that I understood the depth of it, I couldn’t breathe right.
It felt like... I wasn’t his first choice. And I didn’t know why that mattered when I shouldn’t have cared what I ant to them anymore.
All I could think of was, "If the convergence bond had snapped into place for him, would he have chosen at all?"
I didn’t realize I had blurted out the wretched thought until Jericho’s hand found my face, his thumb nudging my chin. "It could never have snapped into place because I wasn’t hers, and my soul recognized that way before even I understood it. And the emptiness, the hole I had been looking to fill... it had always been you."
My lips quivered. There was a heaviness sitting on my chest. "Stop it. Stop... talking."
He leaned into , brushing his nose against mine, our foreheads touching. "You are my light, malyshka. Take all the ti you need, but I do not—cannot and will not—exist without you, and so you must forgive whatever dubious ans I choose to adopt to ensure you don’t leave ."
I drew away from him, breaths rushing out of , but he caught , holding firmly, his thumb tugging down my bottom lip as he caught my upper lip and pulled it in a slow, teasing kiss.
Warmth pooled in my chest, spreading like liquid fire. My heart raced so fast it made dizzy, the bond humming between us like a live wire.
But he pulled away then and kissed the top of my head, causing to shiver, and when he shut the door behind, my body mourned at the loss.
I realized I was screwed. How, exactly, was I supposed to remain strong for an entire year?
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