Chapter 233: Encore
HAZEL
My fingers traced lazy circles on Baruch’s chest. His skin was still warm, still damp with sweat. The rhythm of his heartbeat thrumd beneath my palm.
"I’m going to have to marry pretty soon," I said.
His chest rose with a breath. "To that Alpha heir?"
I nodded against him. "He was a choice on my mind for the yearly shifter ball. I didn’t think it would be remotely possible if I’m being honest." My finger paused mid-circle. "But the universe still paid
in kind despite what Fia tried to do. Despite what the goddess punished
with."
The words tasted bitter. I swallowed them down.
"I would much have preferred being able to keep my born title," I continued. "Lysander. That’s his na, by the way. He’s strange. I feel uneasy about him." My stomach twisted just thinking about it. "He seems like the kind that would make you work for anything you want from him. And it doesn’t help matters that he basically confird he was in love with my sister. Can you believe that? What even does Fia have that would make anyone that fixated on her? Crazy part is they t once. Perhaps there is sothing about that bitch I have yet to discover."
Baruch said nothing. His silence stretched between us like a held breath.
"The marriage will be a loveless one," I continued. "I know he won’t touch ."
I then tilted my head to look up at Baruch’s face. Really look at him. "I don’t think I can live a life without pleasure."
A smile curved my lips. It felt good there. Natural.
"It’s a good thing I have you though."
Baruch moved. It was not the gentle shift of a lover adjusting positions. No, he pushed
off him entirely. I stumbled to the side as he stood, the mattress dipping and rising with the sudden movent.
He reached for his clothes.
Sothing cold settled in my chest. Sothing wrong.
"Did I say sothing wrong?" I asked.
He pulled on his briefs. Then his pants. The fabric rustled in the quiet room. He didn’t look at .
"No," he said.
"I can feel sothing off now." I sat up, pulling the sheet around myself. "Don’t tell
no."
"What’s off?" He asked.
"Well... We had sex and you just beca cold. I thought you knew what this arrangent was. You please
and that’s it."
He grabbed his shirt from where it had been discarded on the floor. The muscles in his back flexed as he pulled it over his head. Then he turned and walked toward . Each step was asured and deliberate.
He stopped at the edge of the bed.
"I am very knowledgeable about what our arrangent is. Are you?"
His eyes t mine. They were different now. Harder and devoid of the warmth they used to hold. Was I just reading too much I to this?
I scoffed. "What is that supposed to an?"
"You sound like you’re in love with ."
Heat flared in my cheeks. Anger and sothing else I didn’t want to na. "Don’t flatter yourself."
"What is the point of fantasizing about keeping
around when you can find another willing low born who is willing to climb up to the occasion at Lily of the Valley?" His voice was flat. Empty. "So don’t fantasize about playing house with ."
My nerves started to burn. That familiar fire that ca before I did sothing reckless. Sothing I might regret.
"What if I am?" The words ca out sharper than I intended. "I know you like
too. I know you love ." I leaned forward. "Has that changed because I’m no longer a Luna? You like the thrill of having a woman leagues beyond you and—"
He leaned in. Close enough that I could see the flecks of the color brown in his eyes. Close enough to kiss.
"Love you?" His lips curved into sothing that wasn’t quite a smile. "Who could ever love you?"
Pain exploded at my neck. Sharp and sudden and wrong. I gasped, my hand flying to the spot. When I turned my head, I saw it.
A syringe. In Baruch’s hand. And the worst part, it was empty.
My eyes went wide. I opened my mouth to scream, to shout, to demand answers, but his hand clamped over my lips. He forced
back onto the bed, his weight pinning
down. His palm pressed hard against my mouth, cutting off any sound I might have made.
Fear crashed through . Real fear. The kind that made my heart hamr against my ribs and my breath co in short, panicked bursts through my nose.
"I do not love you," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. "I never have. But I am so glad I gave you such a beautiful performance."
I tried to speak through his hand. The words ca out muffled, strained. "What did I do to deserve this?"
"I am Milo’s brother." He watched my face as he said it. Watched the recognition dawn. "The one you killed in cold blood."
No. No, no, no. My eyes went wider. My chest heaved with breaths I couldn’t quite catch.
"I infiltrated my way into this pack and your life to find a way to finish you." His hand stayed firm over my mouth. "There were many tis where I just considered taking your life. But I had family to take care of and I would be damned if I let the likes of you be the reason I get beheaded."
This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
I had been fucking the enemy? I told him things even.
"It made
sick every ti to have your hands on . Your breath on
and your tongue inside ." His lip curled. "It was repulsive."
Dizziness swept through . The room tilted and blurred at the edges.
"That must be the drug starting to work its magic." He said it like he was comnting on the weather. Like he hadn’t just destroyed everything. "Don’t worry, it’s not poison. You’ll just be as fucked as a vampire on fae dust when you wake."
He leaned closer. His breath ghosted across my cheek.
"I just wanted you to know I played a part in your downfall. I wanted you to know that it was ." His eyes bore into mine. "I enjoyed your pain and struggle all throughout. And I want to assure you that it will not get better."
Tears burned behind my eyes. I blinked but they ca anyway, hot and shaful.
"Though it pains
you still have to breathe after what you did to my brother, I will sleep easy knowing you will never forget tonight. You will never forget my face despite tonight being the last ti you will ever see it." His thumb brushed against my cheekbone, a mockery of tenderness. "When you fall ill from your now weakened immune system, when you get the phantom pain from being without your wolf, rember I played a part in it. And you were too dumb to see through
because narcissists are too busy thinking about themselves to realize that they’re getting played."
He smiled. Actually smiled.
"I loved those words. Your own words."
He lifted his hand from my mouth. I tried to speak, to move, to do anything, but my body wouldn’t respond. The drug had turned my limbs to lead. My tongue felt thick and clumsy.
Through blurry eyes, through tears I couldn’t stop, I managed four words. "I did like you."
"No." He stood, looking down at
like I was nothing. Less than nothing. "You liked the power I gave you over
and how I made you feel. How I bent over backwards for you."
"I will hunt you down." The words ca out weak. Pathetic. Even I could hear it.
"No you won’t." He grabbed his sentinel jacket from the chair. "After tonight’s I disappear off the face of the earth. And... What power do you have now? What power will you have in Lily of the Valley too? You will be just Luna in na alone and everyone there as well as here knows how you ca to be a bride. A murderer escaping justice."
Fresh tears poured down my cheeks. They soaked into the pillow beneath my head. I couldn’t even lift my hand to wipe them away.
"You monster," I whispered.
He paused at the door and looked back at
one last ti.
"It takes one to know one."
Then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him. The sound echoed in the sudden silence.
I lay there, unable to move. Unable to do anything but stare at the ceiling and feel the tears slide down into my hair. My body felt foreign, disconnected. The drug coursed through my veins like poison even though he’d said it wasn’t.
Everything hurt. Not physically. Not yet. But sowhere deeper. Sowhere I hadn’t realized was still vulnerable.
He’d played . He used . He took everything I’d given him and laughed while doing it.
And I’d let him. I’d trusted him. I’d thought...
What had I thought? That he actually cared? That what we had ant sothing?
When had that even happen? When did my heart soften for him?
The room spun. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.
I’d killed his brother. I knew that. I rembered Milo. Rembered the way his blood had looked on my hands after I took a picture of his head. I’d told myself he deserved it. The fool was going to out
Now in the grand sche of things, it felt like it didn’t even matter.
It all ca out in the end.
Though this one hurt. More than I would even like to admit.
The thought followed
down into unconsciousness. Down into the dark where I couldn’t escape it.
Betrayal tasted like blood coupled with tears and the ghost of kisses that had never ant anything at all.
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