“But he killed her.” Ashforth’s eyes filled with tears. “He killed her before I could save her.” He blinked rapidly, that granite expression returning. “I made sure he died in prison. Yet I’d lost, hadn’t I? I’d never won that battle. I vowed to myself that it would never happen again. If I could become as invincible as any man could hope to be, nothing would ever make me feel weak or helpless like that again.”
He glared at her, his eyes filled with hate. “I admire you almost as much as I despise you for being born with gifts you’re not even grateful for. You’re almost impossible to kill and you’ll never die of old age, Thea.
“Immortality. I didn’t know it then, but it is everything I have ever wanted. And until I have it, this emptiness inside me will never abate. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope that you can understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. Maybe if I’d explained all this years ago, things would have turned out differently.”
Thea sighed, her heart pounding at his confession. “It’s not going to work,” she told him, the words echoing around the great hall. “Instead of a hundred years of emptiness … it’ll be a goddamn eternity of it.”
“No.” He pushed back from the table. “You don’t understand. You don’t know enough about the world of the fae. They live forever there. They … wouldn’t live forever if their lives weren’t everything it could never be in this world.”
He was crazy.
Thea knew that.
But listening to him … talking about a place he had no concrete evidence even existed, Thea realized the utter depths of his insanity. And she feared that it had started long, long before she even knew him.
“Eirik killed three of the kids, you know that, right? You can’t open the gate.”
“One is not enough.” Ashforth shook his head. “My research is sure on that. But two will suffice. You’re not the only one I’ve been hunting for six years.”
Her heart lurched again. “Have you found one of them?”
He smirked. “I’m getting close.”
“And how does the gate open?”
“Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”
Thea let her hatred for him show. “Is it worth it? Is this worth all the death … Amanda’s death?”
“Don’t you speak her name,” he spat, a rare moment of discomposure.
“She was afraid of you. The only reason she didn’t come with me was because of Devon.”
Ashforth abruptly nodded to someone behind her and two seconds later, she felt the hands around her neck, a quick burn, followed by the sound of a loud crack before the world went dark.* * *It couldn’t have been that much later when Thea woke up. She healed fast, even from someone breaking her goddamn neck.
As she sat up in the unfamiliar bedchamber, she rubbed at her nape even though it didn’t hurt. Still, she winced. A neck break was unpleasant. She’d forgotten just how unpleasant.
Suddenly she had the urge to apologize to Conall for that time she’d broken his.
Conall.
Thea moved her hand from her throat to rub at the ache in her chest. Her eyes caught on the new scars around her wrists.
“You’ll never be free of the marks I’ve made on your life.”
Until the moment Ashforth said that, Thea had begun to bear her scars like a warrior would. Because of Conall. He made her feel proud of them. They were evidence of everything she’d endured. She’d especially been proud of the scar across her wrist where she’d cut it with the iron blade to save Conall’s life.
Now it was concealed by the much wider scar caused by Ashforth’s shackles.
Marks from Ashforth to match those on her back and the one on her lower gut.
He’d stolen their meaning from Thea as soon as he’d turned them into brands. And now, if she lived, she was stuck with the fucking things, always remembering it was him who had done this to her.
“You’re awake.”
She startled, whipping around to look behind her.
The bedchamber was small, the exposed brick covered with paintings and tapestries, much like it was in the great hall.
Standing in the gothic doorway was Devon Ashforth.
Thea drank him in, nostalgia hitting her in wave after wave.
She could see them running around the Ashforths’ Hampton estate, playing in the ocean, laughing together at school.
Devon was older now, of course. His jawline no longer soft with boyishness but angular and covered with a little designer stubble. There was an unkemptness to his blond hair that matched his style, which wasn’t preppy like it had been six years ago. He wore faded blue jeans and a fitted sweater that showed enough of his physique to tell Thea he worked out. The hardness of his body matched the pitiless expression in his eyes.
This was not the Devon she’d left behind.