A Soul to Embrace (Duskwalker Brides #8)

Chapter 24

The moment Zylah materialised into a dimly lit cave, she ripped her arm from him. She stumbled as she tried to get her bearings, her mind swimming while the sound of the rain pelted too loudly in her throbbing ears.

A black blur darted past her, and she gasped and tripped while trying to move away when a vicious hiss resonated. Cowering in the corner, a Demon swiped its claws.

She managed to catch Jabez appearing out of thin air next to it before they both disappeared. In the seconds they were gone, Zylah placed her hand against the wall for support to catch her breath and steady her accelerated heart rate.

She was getting used to the sudden teleporting, the waves of dizziness dispersing faster than before.

I can’t believe he lied to me...

The betrayal that seeped into her chest was nasty and sickening. The onslaught of sadness and anger binding together into one agonising emotion was the cruellest kind of wound.

Just as her sight stopped spinning, Jabez reappeared next to her. She turned to him, her orbs flaring red as she let out a confused roar of anguish.

He did nothing. He didn’t even flinch or bother to look afraid. That only infuriated her more. She hated that he had such a powerful ability to evade her by teleporting – it made him cocky and arrogant!

“You!” she snarled, her anger deepening her voice an octave, like when she was in her monstrous form. “You are the king of Demons!”

“This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” he answered dully, as if he felt no regret. He rolled his shoulders back, folded his arms, and straightened his head superiorly.

“You lied to me!” she shouted, only for her lungs to wheeze at how much knowing that hurt.

“Actually, I didn’t. I never lied to you.”

Her fur puffed, and she stamped a foot forward while she swiped her arm through the air, wishing she had the strength in her heart to slash at him with her claws. He was making her want to be violent when she usually didn’t feel that way at all.

“You never told me,” she snapped.

“Exactly,” he stated, cocking a brow. “An untold secret isn’t a lie. It’s merely the absence of truth.”

Her sight shifted to blue, sadness winning against her anger as it pooled behind her sternum like burning molten fire. She couldn’t believe he was defending his actions. Does he not care about how I feel? He was smart – he should have known how distressing this would be to discover.

Instead of trying to soothe her, he was being cold and callous. She hated that she wanted him to be sympathetic, to look apologetic, to give her warmth and tenderness like their time in Spiral Haven.

Was how he treated her a falsehood just to make her compliant? It only made her wonder what he really wanted from her, why he’d done all this, why he’d been... kind to her. What did he want... if he hated Mavka enough to want to eradicate them? Why befriend her or help her?

Was it all a trick?

“You spoke of yourself as if you were someone else,” she stated with a whimper, the bottom of her orbs breaking like glass. Ethereal tears floated around her eye sockets, obscuring part of her vision as she gripped at her chest right where her heart felt like it was bleeding. “You deceived me.”

“Yes,” he admitted, his expression empty. She’d never known how cold crimson could look until it was reflected in his eyes. More than ever, it sent a chill through her. “It’s the most cunning form of manipulation.”

“Why?” she whimpered, her claws cutting deeper into her flesh.

“Because you couldn’t speak properly at first, and then you lacked the comprehension skills to understand what the fuck I was saying until recently.”

“I know that!” Zylah shouted, her tears floating faster and disappearing into glitters. “But I have been able to understand everything for weeks.”

“And we began to speak about it. As I told you, I would eventually explain all this to you, and I preferred to do it my way. Not forced upon me by a pair of Demons in a dusty bookstore.”

“It’s not my fault you fell asleep and dropped your glamours!”

“I never said it was,” he replied, his brow furrowing. “Before I could speak to you about this, you went into your heat cycle and I was forced to take you to Fayren. I prioritised what I thought was most important for you.”

“How was that more important?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “I would have preferred to know the truth first.”

“Because if you came to hate me for what I told you, you had knowledge that would protect you in the future.”

Zylah didn’t know how to respond to that. It sounded like he foresaw Zylah’s reaction, and correctly summarised that she would feel a mingle of betrayal, hurt, and anger. She wanted to believe he’d chosen the events of the past few days purposefully to protect her, but she just didn’t know how to swallow this.

The tightness of his folded arms loosened a little, and he let out a small sigh. He ran his fingers through his long hair, brushing it back from where some had fallen over his features.

“Zylah, I have lived an exceptionally long time. The pain that lack of knowledge could have caused is far more brutal than me withholding the truth from you for a few more days.”

It didn’t feel that way. Currently it felt like her insides were being gouged into ribbons, just like her flesh had been torn apart by Demon claws. Because of him , because of his stupid kingly decree to have Mavka hunted by Demons, because of his personal aggression against her kind.

“You were the one who shared our secret,” Zylah said with a curt whine rattling her chest. “You were the one who wanted us destroyed. Because of you, they... hurt me.”

“I know.”

“Why?!” she screamed. “I have never hurt anyone purposefully! I tried to heal creatures I found, hoping they would stay with me. I never attacked Demons unless provoked. I stayed away. I... I even healed you! Why do you hate us so much that you want us destroyed?”

“I don’t hate Mavka,” he answered quietly, averting his gaze to the entrance of the cave.

Rain was collecting at the entryway, and she realised then that this was their cave. He’d brought her... home.

“Then why?” she rasped, her voice cracking from her anguish.

He covered his face in what could only be exasperation before palming it downwards.

“Because my age doesn’t prevent me from being an idiot?” he said, lifting his palm away with a noticeable scoff. “For a hundred and eighty-seven years, that human woman I told you of was my companion, and she hated Mavka. The wolf-skulled one in particular. In her own right, she had every reason to, despite her own shortcomings. She wanted revenge, and I sought to give her that.”

“What did he do that was so bad?” Zylah asked, lifting her hands in exasperation. She just couldn’t see anything being worth death for the entirety of her kind.

“What they did to each other is exactly why I took you to Fayren’s. I wanted to prevent that from happening to you.” When she shook her head to signal she didn’t understand, as she couldn’t fathom how intimacy could be wrong, he gave her a sigh. “It’s complicated. It’s nearly two hundred years to unpack, and much of it regretful on my part.”

“Then try?”

“I don’t fucking know how!” he roared, unfolding his arms to swipe through the air like she had. She startled at the loudness of his yell, the bass of it, and the fact he’d gone from emotionally empty to distressed within a heartbeat. “My best friend was a fucking Mavka! That’s why I know so much about your damn kind. I watched him grow intelligent, helped him do so, just as I did for you. I’ve never hated your kind, but I did care for my human companion enough to not care about anyone other than Merikh. Orpheus meant nothing to me; he would just be another death among the thousands I’d already caused. Human, Demon, Mavka, it didn’t matter to me so long as those under my protection were content.”

“But what about the rest of us? Those who had nothing to do with Orpheus. You wanted us all dead by sharing our secret.”

“Because I was angry, Zylah!” he shouted, his nose crinkling in rage. “Orpheus’ little bride killed Katerina, and I was angry, I was mourning, and I only know how to destroy what displeases me. I also needed to hurt Weldir long enough to lower his ward so that my people could leave this wretched fucking realm! That required me killing your kind in order to weaken him. Any time I tried to fuck with his ward, he would awaken and near kill me.”

Her enclosed fists loosened. “So this is about the vendetta you have against the Elves?”

The moment those words left her, she realised she should have figured it out sooner. He said he lived in a castle. She should have put it all together. Only kings lived in castles, only those in a position of power built and governed villages like Spiral Haven.

I’m so dumb, she thought, tears rapidly floating from her once more. How did I not see it?

“It’s always been about my vendetta,” he answered coldly. “Everything I have done has been in the pursuit of my own revenge and survival. Every needless death, every bit of torture, every deception I have woven, was cleverly designed to bring me to Nyl’theria to destroy the Elvish. That has alway s been my goal.”

Zylah covered her orbs when she wished the tears would stop. She didn’t want him to see them or her pain, when he was the cause of both.

“Couldn’t you have found another way?”

“I did,” he stated, causing her to lower her hands. “And it was too late by the time I discovered it. I’d already learned that breaking your skulls was the answer to killing your kind, after centuries of trying to find out how, and I gave my decree immediately upon gaining that knowledge. Once I let go of my anger surrounding Katerina’s death and finally breaking free of her hatred fuelling my own, I figured out the answer. But, like I said, it was too late. Decrees and bounties take time to spread through the Veil, and even longer to undo them. If you were attacked within the last five months before my ‘death,’ then I’d already removed my order and it mattered naught. I even told my army to leave your kind alone completely.”

“You undid it?” she asked, hope flaring in her chest.

“Yes, but what did it matter? The path I took to discover how to kill your kind means everything I did was unnecessary. I wasted years on a pointless vendetta for another person, and ruined my own.” His right hand fisted as he threw his head to the side with his features twisted into what she thought, hoped even, was shame. “I allowed it to go on for too long.”

“So you made a mistake?” she asked, creeping a foot forward as she dipped her head to the side he’d turned his own.

Please say it. She wanted him to admit to it, to apologise for it. She wanted him to regret it, because if he did... she may be able to forgive him. She wanted that more than anything.

Zylah... adored him. She didn’t wish to lose that if it was over something that brought him shame. People made mistakes. Of course, not as horrible as this, but she also didn’t care for anyone outside of them.

Well, perhaps she now cared for the few kind Demons she’d met recently, but that was only because she’d come to know them. Fayren, Rook... both these people had known her as herself, and they hadn’t shunned her. Instead, they welcomed her warmly and gave her a sense of self she didn’t know she lacked.

One without him. A sense of independence. She was capable of befriending others on her own.

She didn’t need him anymore, but she... longed for him. Could that be enough? She wanted it to be. These feelings of betrayal hurt, but so did the idea of losing him.

The past few months were hard to let go of, even if this startling revelation was painful. He’d done much for her, more than anyone else had. She also didn’t want to be alone again.

“Of course I made a mistake,” he answered, shrugging one of his shoulders. “It’s the nature of those with intelligence, no matter what species. But the cost of certain mistakes is irredeemable, and I’m aware of that. I lost my friend many times over because of my fuck ups, and I doubt this conversation will end any other way but the same. I’ve always known that, which is why I sought to give you all the knowledge I could before then.”

Once more, hope fluttered in her chest.

“Did you help me to make up for it?” she asked, her tears ebbing until her orbs turned solid once more – despite the bottoms of them continuing to waver.

From the corner of his eye, his gaze slid to hers. Hardness befell his features as he said, “Partly. You did save me from death, and I felt indebted to you for that.”

She hated that he used the word partly , and a soft growl came from her. “You’re still hiding things.”

“Of course I am,” he said with a cruel chuckle. “The further you dig, the more you’ll find how much of a despicable person I am. The question is: how much do you want our time together to weigh on you painfully?”

His response made her gut tighten with worry. She chittered nervously and scratched at her collar of fur in thought. But she knew her answer.

“I want to know everything.”

“You really want to know?” It sounded like a warning and a threat all rolled into one.

Her shoulders turned inwards as anxious uncertainty made her want to hide. “Yes.”

Once more, his expression grew dark and unfeeling. And Zylah saw it for what it was: a wall. Not for her, but for himself. It was his way of hiding from his own emotions, to the point he suppressed them under callousness and emptiness.

“My main goal was to manipulate you enough that you felt indebted to me and disregarded your own wellbeing. And if you sought my companionship so deeply, you’d want to follow me anywhere, which meant becoming a tool I could wield in Nyl’theria. You would protect me as I made myself a champion with the Elvish Demons, convincing them to join my war and take over the Elven city. To essentially be my living shield and sword in a realm ruled very differently to this one, and one in which I am a nobody and my power is unknown. Once they saw your loyalty after you’d spilled your own blood for my sake, and the undying strength I wielded through you, then witnessed the overwhelming strength of my magic, they would bow to my whims until they gave me what I want. That is initially what kept me to your side.”

Of its own accord, her jaw fell in disbelief. Her sight deepened in its saddened hue, and she turned her skull away as a painful whine ripped up her throat.

“Quite horrible, isn’t it?” he said coldly, and she looked away even further until she couldn’t see him at all.

Zylah hugged her midsection, wishing the answer she’d sought wasn’t so despicable. She whimpered uncontrollably when it felt like her heart was about to give out.

“That is the kind of person I am. Everything I do is enveloped in cruelty and selfish gain. I take what I want with very little care for others, so long as I complete my goal.”

“So everything was, essentially, a lie.” She was determined to hold back her tears this time, even if she sniffled and whimpered.

“In the beginning, yes,” he confirmed, and it felt like a claw strike right to her being.

“Everything you’ve done for me... taking me through Spiral Haven, to Fayren’s, what happened after you got back your magic... all of it was to trick me into feeling more for you so you could make me some kind of tool? You even used my enjoyment of books against me.”

“No. None of that was intentional,” he said, his tone surprisingly gentle.

Confused, Zylah covered her bony face when she couldn’t hold back her tears. “What does that even mean ?”

“You are missing the parts where I said initially and in the beginning ,” he answered. “My intentions changed quickly when I could see you didn’t want to cause harm to others. The feelings I wanted to manipulate were platonic. I’ve never been the kind of person to manipulate a female’s affection for my own gain. It becomes entangled with anguish too quickly. It’s also easier to manipulate someone when I feel nothing in return.”

“Then why did you do everything?!” she shouted, her orbs, and therefore her tears, flaring into crimson. “You are being needlessly confusing!”

“I’m answering your questions, that is all. Zylah, I began teaching you for two reasons: one was entirely selfish, and the other was as a way to make up for what I’ve done. If I could save one Mavka from my own actions, and ensure they live a better life, a part of me hoped that would assuage my own guilt, which, once again, was inherently selfish. I gave up both of those weeks ago.”

“Explain it to me in a way that is easier to understand, because right now, you are making me hate you.”

Exasperated, Zylah lifted her skull and looked at him from the corner of her sight. As if he didn’t realise she was now looking upon him, she noticed his brows were narrowed, while his eyes were crinkled in what could only be sympathy.

Something became startlingly apparent.

“You are doing it on purpose. You want me to hate you.”

The expression was once more hidden by his false indifference. “Hate is a much easier sorrow to bear. It kills one’s affection for someone swiftly and far less painfully.”

“It doesn’t feel any less painful!” she shrieked, her right hand curling into a fist. She wasn’t sure why, maybe to finally fucking hit him!

“This conversation will end only one way,” he said, tilting his head. “After today, I doubt you will want to be near me. The least I can do is share the worst about me to make that easier for you.”

“I want the truth!” she roared, baring her claws when she wanted to slash out at him and gouge out her heart at the same time. “All of it!”

Her ribcage felt so tight around her anxiety-filled lungs, squeezing against them from the inside. It was as if her entire torso was being strangled tighter and tighter until something would break or die within her. Every breath that escaped her was so sharp with pain, she was almost wheezing.

“The truth comes with consequences. Concealing them is what is best for you.”

“I don’t care what’s best for me. I am the one who gets to decide that. You don’t get to have a say!”

His features dropped into a small glare. “I do when it involves me.”

Zylah scoffed. “Coward. You are hiding for yourself. After this conversation, even I can see that.” What else was that but cowardness?

“You’re wrong,” he snapped back with a small growl.

Oh! She probed a sore spot. She guessed he didn’t like being called a coward, or at least someone seeing past his false exterior.

A small, spiteful laugh left her. “Am I? Because it doesn’t seem that way.”

Mimicking him from earlier and wanting to appear indifferent, Zylah folded her arms and lifted her head superiorly.

Honestly, she was one last push from telling him to just... leave. The only things stopping her were that there was more he was hiding, and she could tell that’s what he wanted. He was still here for a reason; he would have disappeared otherwise.

It felt as if Jabez was just waiting for Zylah to give up and push him away permanently. Like if he truly killed enough of her affection, she’d no longer want to be near him.

She wanted to be wrong, but the ache in her heart told her otherwise.

“I just... want to know what was real and what was a lie,” Zylah eventually stated with sorrow. “I feel like I at least deserve that.”

Zylah gasped and unfolded her arms when the stone ground cracked beneath his right foot, just as a charge of magic sparked in the air. When she brought her sight back up to his face, all she saw were screwed-up features and his ears darted back in rage. Eyes narrowed into a deep glare, his lips curled back to bare his fangs in a deep and vicious snarl.

Even his arms shook with anger, his fingers curled like he wanted to stiffen them for a debilitating claw strike.

Fayren did inform her, in front of him no less, that he had a horrible temper. He also admitted to it. After how badly he’d upset her, she refused to feel shame in using that knowledge against him to get what she wanted.

She wanted him angry, and therefore irrational.

Zylah let out a bitter laugh, her head lowering while she curled her left hand into a fist. “What is worse than what you have told me? You already admitted to wanting to destroy my kind, to wanting to use me like I’m nothing but a... a bloodthirsty monster . I thought at least you, of all creatures, would not think that way about me.”

The charge in the air became more chaotic, to the point her fur lifted in alert, warning her of imminent danger.

“You said you didn’t lie–”

“I already told you I didn’t,” he snarled, his eyes sharpening.

“But all you have done is lie. In your actions, your kindness, in everything you’ve done for me, it was all just to manipulate me. Nothing was genuine!”

“Zylah,” he warned.

“You’re either a coward who cannot admit the truth, or you think so little of me that you believe I cannot handle it!”

The ground cracked a little more before he stomped his foot forward in anger.

“I wouldn’t have shoved my head between a female’s thighs for manipulation, but because I wanted to know what she fucking tasted like! That shows how little you know of me.”

Goosebumps erupted across her flesh in a sudden wave at his unexpected admission, causing her fur to puff with the most confusing and alarming arousal.

Trying not to let her heart stutter, she shouted, “Because you refused to tell me anything!”

“Because I care about you, you silly female! Why do you think I stayed by your side when I realised obtaining your help was fucking pointless? I knew it when I told you ‘the king of Demons’ shared how to kill your kind, and yet I didn’t know how to admit the truth to you because I didn’t want to . And I have been questioning every action I have taken since then.”

“That was weeks ago,” Zylah stated, shaking her head.

“Exactly. But a part of me didn’t want to leave, and yet I knew the moment I told you the truth, that would be the end. Fuck’s sake, Zylah. Do you think I would just take anyone through Spiral Haven for fun? I only did it because I wanted to bring you joy, when it gained me nothing. I risked my own discovery to do so, knowing my magic use was making me sick. I didn’t faint simply because I was tired.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” she tried to shout, only for it to come out softer than she intended as guilt weighed on her.

She hadn’t known it was making him sick.

“No, but I did it because I wanted to.” He covered his face just as the sparks of magic in the air began to dissipate. “I don’t know why I feel this way about you. In all regards, it makes little sense. What I’ve done to your kind should have been enough of a barrier for me, yet I find you attractive all the same. Like I said, entangling affection into manipulation is idiotic, especially when it comes to my own. Yet, no matter how much I told myself I should reveal everything to you and leave, I found you alluring to the point I just couldn’t. ”

He finds me alluring? Zylah thought, her head rearing back in surprise. Her stomach betrayed her by fluttering in joy.

“You want the ugly truth so bad? Fine.” He lowered his hand so his gaze bore into hers unwaveringly. “How I feel changes nothing. It doesn’t fix what I’ve done, or how I’ve wronged you and the rest of your kind. It doesn’t matter that I find your beauty otherworldly, or that I think your personality is charming. Or that every time I look at that cute little tail of yours, it drives me fucking insane to the point I want nothing more than to shove my cock in you until I hear you scream.”

Despite the horrible emotions swirling in her chest, her sight flickered purple against her will. That was not what she had been expecting him to say, and her pussy immediately clenched in reaction, the image compelling and wild.

Noting the flicker of desire in her orbs, his eyes crinkled in... anguish? She wished she could properly decipher it.

“And whatever it is you feel for me is irrelevant. I’m a very broken man who is incapable of feeling anything truly deep. I’ve lived my life purposely guaranteeing no one can get close to me. Asking for anything more is a foolproof path to disaster.”

Zylah cupped her hands to her chest to fidget with them. “But maybe I can...”

“Do what? Change me? Fix me? I’ve worn my flaws as a shield from the moment I left Nyl’theria. It is what has kept me alive, and no one has managed to change me in over three hundred years.”

“But maybe I could be different,” Zylah whispered, gripping her left biceps.

“You are different,” he admitted, making hope flare in her chest.

If what he said was true... then the past few weeks, the only ones that truly mattered, were genuine, and her feelings didn’t need to change. She wanted to hold onto him, to the way she felt about him. It touched her to know he wanted her, desired her, found her beautiful, alluring, and cute. He’d never said remotely anything like that to her before, and it instantly made tenderness spread throughout her chest.

She thought those things about him too.

Sure, he’d lied to her by withholding the truth, but he’d admitted to not wanting to because of his own affection . He’d wanted to... be with her, even if it was hidden behind deceit to simply prolong their time together.

He’d even once said he would share all this with her eventually, but he wanted her to like him more first.

She’d thought little of it at the time, figuring he was just being playful because she’d assumed nothing he told her could truly be that bad. It was all horrible, and had he kept quiet about how much he desired her, she may have truly come to hate him.

But she could see he regretted his past actions, that they did hold weight to him. He’d even tried to undo them. He really has been trying to protect me. From himself, the world, from everything that could potentially be a danger.

She now understood why he’d been refraining from being intimate with her, or being affectionate with her when it was obvious she wanted more. He knew she’d feel betrayed by learning all this and hadn’t wanted to deepen that.

Even if he’d done many cruel things, he’d never purposefully done them to her. He didn’t even know her before two months ago. Sure, he had been intending to manipulate her, but if he was being honest and he truly had disregarded that weeks ago, then... she knew she could forgive him.

Her reasons for keeping him hadn’t been fuelled by innocence. She wanted someone intelligent to teach her, but even before that she’d wanted someone, anyone , to ease her loneliness. She hadn’t cared if it was a fox, a human, or him. Just something.

And she’d killed many creatures in her attempts at that. If the raven-skulled Mavka hadn’t taken that redheaded human from her, she likely would have killed her too. But she had disregarded the danger she presented to the little female in the hopes a human could ease her loneliness.

That was considered selfish, wasn’t it?

“You knew telling me this would stop me from hating you,” she eventually stated, figuring that out on her own.

“Which makes the wound that much harder to bear when I leave.”

Zylah swallowed thickly. “B-but I don’t want you to leave.”

His lids lowered in obvious annoyance. “Come now. You can’t say you want me to stay after everything I just told you.”

“Why not?”

His head cocked like he hadn’t expected her response. “Because it would be foolish. I just told you I’m incapable of giving you anything of value, that I have caused immense pain to your kind, and I have deceived you. This will irrevocably destroy your trust in me. You will question everything I do and say from here on out.”

“But if you promise to be honest from now on, then I could,” she rebutted, tilting her head. “I understand enough about my own feelings to know what I want and know what I can forgive.”

Perhaps it was na?ve of her, but she did think if she showered him with affection, he’d truly return it. He’d already admitted to feeling something for her. Could that be enough? Zylah didn’t know the depths of what she wanted, but maybe they could discover that together.

She still had questions, like what a bride was for a Mavka. She didn’t even know what that was, and she’d instantly felt a pull towards him upon just learning of a possible deeper connection. She longed to know what it meant, and why her orbs flared pink when she’d looked at him when they were sitting on that tree branch in Spiral Haven.

His brows narrowed deeply and his ears drooped. He frowned, like he couldn’t understand her, to the point he even shook his head.

“I always knew you were hiding things,” Zylah admitted, bringing her hands down to fiddle with the bottom of her skirt in nervousness. “No, I didn’t know they would be anything like this, but I was hoping you’d come to care for me enough to share everything about yourself. I already knew some of it would be dark and nasty, and I did prepare myself a little.”

His lips pulled tight in disbelief, and he waved a hand through the air. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve seen people try to mend broken trust time and time again, and it always fails.”

Zylah hated how he immediately dismissed her. He was purposefully trying to kill her feelings for him, and she was beginning to wish that was possible. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pushed for the whole truth, since she really was finding it difficult to accept him leaving when she knew he felt something for her.

She didn’t even care how small that something was, which made her feel unbelievably pathetic.

The bottoms of her orbs wavered, but she tried to stop herself from crying again. A small whine ripped from her, just as the inevitable happened and floating droplets obscured parts of her vision once more.

“Why am I not good enough for you to try ?” He said he cared, but he wasn’t willing to try, and that felt worse than anything else.

“Because I’m a monster!” Jabez roared, his fingers curled to bare his sharp, near claw-like nails as he threw one of his arms to the side. “What I have done is not forgivable! From the moment I stepped into this godsforsaken realm, I have been nothing but a darkness upon it. I have killed in leagues, tortured, bullied, and done everything in my power to get my way. I made sure anything that didn’t worship me feared me instead, and what retaliated against me died without remorse.”

He stomped closer, and the rage she saw was entirely directed inwards. It was nothing like before when he’d charged the air with chaotic magic. Instead, she thought she may be witnessing anguish, regret, and... self-loathing.

“You know nothing of what I have done, or what I am truly capable of. I would kill my friends so long as it benefited me. I tortured one of your kind, Zylah. You are holding on to tenderness for a monster who brutalised someone who had done nothing to warrant it. I plucked him from the inner ring, and I shoved him in fire, drowned him, buried him, cut off his head. I cut him open while he was conscious because your kind is indestructible, but I wanted fucking answers. I did anything and everything I could to see how to kill your kind because I’m fucking evil. ”

“I don’t even know who that is!” she shouted back, trying not to flinch or grimace at the horrible things he was saying. “You want me to feel pity for someone I don’t know because you think it’ll make me hate you!”

“It should make you hate me. I know you Mavka can be driven by your emotions, that your familial ties mean little to you unless you develop a deeper bond, but this stubbornness is foolish!”

“What difference does it make to me? You already admitted to torturing people. So long as you stop–”

“When have I ever stated I would stop? I told you, I’m incapable of change. Nothing you do or say will stop me from going to Nyl’theria and trying to take over that world. I will not waste the last twenty-one years of my life by giving up now. What I will have to do there is instil fear, as they are brutal Demons who will refuse to follow someone like me.”

“Someone like you?”

“I am part Elf, Zylah! My scent gives off that I am different. If they don’t fear me, they’ll hunt me until they have consumed me. They war among themselves to further their own completion, consuming each other as there is nothing else left to feed on. And the only way to instil fear is to hurt everything that tries to touch me until they worry for their own demise. My hands are coated in blood, and I am willing to shed more.”

“Then I will go with you!” Zylah blurted out.

“You can’t mean that,” he grated out, his head flinching back as his face twisted with confusion, like he couldn’t fathom why she was being so stubborn. “You have no desire to hurt others. Taking that journey with me will only bring you pain.”

“I know... and I don’t care,” Zylah whispered, before hugging her midsection again. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to go with you so you could finally destroy the Elvish?”

“Yes, but...” His words died when his eyes crinkled in an emotion she couldn’t read.

He didn’t finish what he was saying.

She wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know what he wanted to say, or if he was withholding something important. She knew pushing further would get her nowhere.

“I’m offering to help you, to give you what you want.”

“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“Because I want you to stay with me.”

He let out a sigh, his expression falling into something that appeared numb. He covered his face and shook it. “I think you need time alone to think about the weight of that offer, and what it truly means. I won’t accept the emotionally driven words of a person who’s obviously in distress.”

How dare he! Zylah knew what she was saying!

She snapped her jaws at him in warning, stamped her foot until it made a dull thump, and produced a growl with her sight flaring red. “If you leave, I will be angry.”

His lips twitched in annoyance as he rolled his eyes. “You’re already fucking angry.” He ran his fingers through his hair, a sign that he was deeply frustrated. “You’ve already proven how little your anger matters to your own sense of morals. You’re being irrational.”

“If you leave now, maybe I will not want you to come back then!”

She instantly knew she’d said the wrong thing when he grimaced.

But she wanted to resolve this. She wanted answers and to feel better – she could only do that with him here. She didn’t want to be on her own, not when it felt like part of her heart had been ripped out of her chest cavity.

She wanted him to make her feel better.

“Another lesson to teach you, Zylah. You should watch your words, as they can have lasting effects.”

Before she could even try to take them back, he was gone.

With nothing but the sound of rain and his lingering scent to help her through this, Zylah covered her face as a whine rattled her chest. She crouched down to make herself feel smaller, to shelter the pain that lingered in her abdomen and made her sniffle and heave.

What am I supposed to do?

She no longer knew how to feel.