I flinched and tried to step back to avoid it, my back hitting the post I’d been strung up against. Lonan’s arm lowered, and his chest hitched as he stared up at me.
“P-please—”
I sneered down at him, grovelling on his knees before me. After everything. As if he ever thought it would make things right.
“You think saying sorry now will change anything?” My gaze felt cruel as I stared down at him. As cruel as the Folk’s sharp eyes. “After you killed myfucking father?”
Lonan’s mouth trembled. He shook his head. “I d-didn’t—”
“You and your sick fucking mother tookeverythingfrom me. But that wasn’t enough, was it?” I hated the way my voice started to tremble, my eyes getting hot, but I couldn’t stop. “No, that wasn’t enough for you. Fucking fae. You had to find a way to ruin me completely, didn’t you? Let you fuck me, make me love you, then rip it all way? Give me a tiny bit of happiness after everything, then take that away too?”
Lonan gave a sob. “No—I didn’t—”
“You told me that what we had was nothing to do with her. Youtoldme.” My voice was shaking, and I tried to ignore the tears that streamed down my cheeks. “That was your own game. It wasn’t part of hers.”
“It wasn’t a game,” he croaked, trembling fingers wrapping round my ankles like manacles.
“I trusted you,” I got out, but the words hitched as more tears fell.
His breath shuddered out of him.
“It wasn’t a game,” he repeated hoarsely. “It wasn’t. I can’t lie—You know that—”
“No, youcan’tlie.” I stared down at him. “So you really can’t remember if my father said anything before you killed him. That’s what you said. You can’t remember.”
He shook his head, sobbing. “I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” I exploded. “Didn’twhat, Lonan? Are you trying to get me to think that youdidn’tkill him now? I don’t fucking believe you. I can’t believe Ievertrusted you. You said Caom was trying to worm his way into my bed, but that’s exactly whatyoudid. You tricked me into loving you because—what? It amused you? Kept you busy for a few months? So you could brag to your brothers that you fucked the clueless half-mortal?”
I stared down at him, shaking wildly. “I can’t believe I ever let you touch me.”
He clawed at my legs, wrapping his hands round the backs of my knees. “Please.”
I stood stiff and vibrating with tension, unable to even shake him off again. My chest heaved with a shuddering breath, but I forced myself to look down at him. To remember him like this, always. The cold, indifferent unseelie prince brought so low.
“You Folk all love your vows, don’t you? Your promises?” I was grateful for how steady my voice came out, even though it was still hoarse and thick. “So let me give you one now, Lonan.”
His breath caught, big black eyes tilting up to look at me, his face stricken. He swallowed, fingers digging into the backs of my thighs.
“Ash—” he whispered.
“Shut up,” I snapped. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. So just shut the fuck up.”
He pursed his trembling lips, breaths shuddering from his nose. Tears dripped with every blink of his thick, dark lashes, but he stayed mercifully silent.
“I vow to you, Lonan, that I—”
I stopped. I’d been about to say that I would never forgive him, but that felt too…impassioned.I wanted him to feel the cold, cruel indifference he’d shown me. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing my blood boiled with hate for him and his entire fucking family.
My words had never felt more important. In the silence, as I considered them, Lonan shook his head weakly and pressed his face to the front of my thigh.
“Please don’t—”
“I vow to you, Lonan,” I spoke loudly to drown him out, “that I will forget you and everything we had until the day I die.”
My voice shook, and hot tears fell as I blinked, but I kept going. “You’re nothing to me anymore. Nothing.”
Lonan openly wept against my leg, a pathetic mess on the floor at my feet. So far removed from the aloof, cold fae I’d met all those months ago, with his otherworldly beauty and sneering indifference.
I felt a sharp pain on my chest, like the scratch of a nail or thorn. I reached up to rub it absently, looking around at the huge hall. No one had come in to see me for hours. And I’d broken the chains—somehow.
Could I escape?
I went to take a step forwards, towards those arching doors, but something was wrapped round my legs.
I glanced down and froze in shock.
Why… why was an unseelie fae crying at my feet?
Why was he clutching onto my legs like he was about to die?