Until the World Falls Down

Chapter 20

20

L ost in pitch blackness the moment I returned to Enver’s castle, I barely had time to process my surroundings before shadowy hands seized me. I shrieked as they knocked me off my feet, holding onto me so tightly it was painful. “Get off me!” I cried as they dragged me through the dark. “Stop it!”

I tried to grab at the shadows, but more hands circled my wrists and forearms, forcing me still. My pulse raced in alarm, but I gave up fighting, letting the shadows take me wherever they were leading me. The familiar nausea from the shadow portals rushed through me, and a moment later, cold air met my exposed skin. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the moonlight that nearly blinded me, such a sharp contrast to the dark nothingness.

The shadows still didn’t release me, adjusting my position and making me kneel on the ground of what appeared to be the top of the clock tower. Each tick of its hand shook the stone under my knees. They twisted my hands behind my back, looping around my wrists to bind me. The wind whipped my hair around, a howling echoing around me as it swept through the stone pillars and columns of the castle.

I went still as my gaze fell upon a figure standing on the battlement of the tower.

Enver.

He watched me silently, his face cloaked by shadow, his posture tense and coiled, like a predator ready to strike. Physical shadows like the ones keeping me captive curled behind him like a dark aura, twisting and swirling. His silk top billowed around him, the strap at his waist now undone, leaving his chest bare. His pale scars glowed under the moon, and the shadows at his back looked almost like wings. He shifted, and the moonlight revealed the darkness of his expression. The fury that burned in his eyes. The hard set of his jaw.

My heart skipped a beat. Something was wrong.

He no longer resembled the statues of gods I once thought he did. No, he was something different—something darker, more dangerous. Terrifying, but devastatingly beautiful at the same time. I didn’t know whether I wanted to run away or move closer.

“There you are,” he said.

“Enver, let me go,” I said, feeling too vulnerable with my hands bound when he was acting so off.

“No.”

My eyes widened at the sharp edge of his tone. “What?”

“You heard me. Do not make me repeat myself,” he said, his voice cold, his words clipped.

My skin prickled with unease. “What’s wrong?”

He stepped off the battlement, his footsteps soundless as he crossed the roof to me. “I grow weary of this, my little lover.”

“This?”

His hand came to my jaw, roughly gripping it, forcing my gaze up to meet his. “This chaos you cause within me. I have had enough. This will end. Now. ”

I tried to pull my face away, but his grip only tightened. “Enver?—”

“I have tried to play fair with you and allow you to try for your freedom, but I am tired of it all. Tired of the way you tear me apart with every layer of the labyrinth you complete. Tired of how I am driven mad by every moment I must wait for you to come back to me, plagued by the thought you may never return at all. I did not ask for you to come here and bring out these wretched emotions within me, yet here you are, turning my sequestered world upside down, making me want things I cannot have and feel things I do not wish to feel.”

My throat felt tight as I watched his jaw work. I’d never seen him like this before. I didn’t understand what could have changed from the time I’d left for my challenge, and now. “Enver, what?—”

He cut me off with a squeeze of his fingers. “You are mine. I will not let you leave my side again. I will not let you ruin me further. And if I have to force you to stay here with me, then so be it.”

Fear trickled into my blood at the threat in his words. “No, you can’t keep me here,” I whispered.

“I can, and I will,” he said icily. “You cannot escape me. You will remain here at my side.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It is time you realize I am everything you claim I am. Heartless. Cruel.” His grip on my jaw tightened. “Yours. Forever.”

The dark promise in his words made my breath catch. “Enver…”

His thumb grazed my bottom lip. “And you are mine, even if you despise me for it.”

“No,” I started, my voice dying as his eyes narrowed threateningly .

“Yes,” he responded, releasing me, and sweeping his arm out.

The shadows holding me pulled me down so I was flat on my back against the cold stone. They curled around my bare legs and slid up to my thighs, smothering me in darkness as they engulfed my body. “Enver, wait!” I cried, trying to break free, panic rising in me as the shadows continued to rise higher. “Stop it! What’s wrong? You can’t do this! I need to finish the labyrinth!”

He gazed down at me, cold and unforgiving, and his words carried a deadly clarity when he spoke. “You have already lost.”

I lost ?

Tendrils wrapped around my throat and over my mouth, leaving me unable to speak. They covered me completely, sinking me back into the darkness. Tears pricked at my eyes as a suffocating feeling came over me, the shadows pressing in on me from all sides. I couldn’t breathe. My mind raced, wetness coating my cheeks. Was I about to die? Could I drown in his shadows? My lungs burned as I fought to take in air, and I fully believed I could. If Enver could tear someone’s heart out, who was to stop him from suffocating me?

Just when I thought I would pass out, the darkness receded, and I choked in my rush to take in a breath. My hands shot to my throat, finding it freed as the shadows slid off me. I was still on my back, but inside now, looking up at a vaulted ceiling with intricate plasterwork.

Enver entered my line of sight, offering me his hand.

I scrambled back, sliding across the smooth onyx stone of the floor. A second later, shadows wrapped around me again, forcing me back to my feet. “No, let me go,” I said, attempting to wrench myself free of them.

Not expecting the shadows to actually let me go, I used too much strength, nearly throwing myself off my feet again as they freed me. I fell into Enver, and he steadied me with a firm grip before bringing his thumb up to my cheek, gathering the moisture that lingered there with his thumb. “Do not cry, my little lover. You must have known it would end like this—with you bound to me forever. Now you have nothing to worry about. I will take care of you.”

I stilled under his touch. “What do you mean I lost? Did I run out of time?”

A moment passed before he answered. “You did not run out of time. Not yet.”

“Then why did you say I lost?”

“Because I will not allow you to face the labyrinth anymore. I will not allow you to continue to torment me. It is over. Accept that you have lost, and I will forgive you for the chaos you have wreaked upon my existence.”

My eyes widened in disbelief. “What? No! You can’t do that. You can’t decide that for me?—”

“You seem to forget who holds the power here.”

“Enver, what’s going on?” I demanded, jerking out of his grip. “Why are you acting like this?”

He allowed my escape, watching me with an icy gaze. “I have already told you. I am tired. Do not fight me on this. You will only make it worse for yourself. I have lost everything once before. I will not lose it all again.”

“No,” I said, a surge of anxiety gripping me. “No. You can’t keep me here like this. I’m finishing the labyrinth. I’m going home?—”

“ No ,” he snarled, and the shadows rose behind him again, his rage stirring them. “You will not leave me. You will never leave me. Do you understand? You are mine.”

The possessive ferocity of his words caused me to tremble. Anger hardened his features as he glared at me, and I suddenly recognized the expression on his face—it was the same look of obsession that Silas wore around Rielle. The same desperation and desire. The same need and want that had led him to lock her away.

Now Enver wanted to do the same to me.

Except Silas’s feelings had manifested over months, giving him time to adjust to the intensity of his emotions, to have some level of control over them.

Enver’s emotions must have hit him in full force the moment Silas and Rielle completed their challenges, and the reaction was explosive and immediate. Obsession wasn’t an emotion, though, so what awakened in him that drove him to such extremes? Anger? I’d seen it on his face, but did anger lead to obsession?

Either way, I had to tread carefully.

“I asked if you understood,” Enver said, voice dangerously low.

I swallowed, my hands balling into fists, resisting the urge to fight back. “I—yes.”

His shadows receded. “Good.”

I glanced around the unfamiliar room we were in. There were no windows, making the room feel enclosed and isolated. The only light came from a sole chandelier hanging on the ceiling. My eyes followed an onyx-colored carpet adorned with black embroidery up to a raised dais where an imposing throne sat. Made of black marble, it shone under the light of the chandelier, its high back adorned with carvings of roses and vines. Black leather cushioned the seat, plush and luxurious.

My gut sank. Enver had brought me to the throne room. I had asked him how to get inside. I never asked him how to get out.

I was trapped.

“The throne forged by my shadows was a poor mockery of the one it sought to replicate,” Enver spoke, his voice now a seductive murmur as he circled behind me and pressed his lips against my ear. “Perhaps you would like to sit upon the real one while I taste you as before?”

Goosebumps broke out across my skin. “No.”

“No? Would you rather I sit upon it with you on my lap? Naked and writhing against me while I drive into you again and again?”

“No!” I repeated, twisting away from him, my stomach rolling. “Stop it. Don’t talk to me like that.”

“What is wrong, my little lover?” he asked, reaching out to encase my wrist in his grasp. “We have shared pleasure so many times before. Why deny us both the same now? When we can enjoy each other here for eternity?”

“Enver—”

“Quiet,” he commanded, drawing me back to him. “Do not forget, I know what you desire. How you crave and yearn for my touch. How you convince yourself it could be enough for you time and time again.”

I drew in a shaky breath, tensing.

“How I could be enough for you,” he breathed, his fingers curling around my neck. “And I will prove to you I can. I will worship you. I will give you everything. Be everything you ask of me, so long as you belong to me, and me alone.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not yours.”

His gaze darkened. “You are mine. You were mine from the very beginning, and you will be mine forever. Mine to touch, to hold, to taste, to fuck…”

I trembled, turning my face away from him, knowing what his next words would be. “Stop it. Don’t say it.”

His fingers moved up to dig into my jaw, forcing me to meet his gaze again. “To love.”

Love . The word tore through me, leaving a hollow ache. “No,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “You want this. You want me.”

“No— ”

“You want me to love you,” he murmured. “So, let me love you. I will love you, Eleanora.”

His words, spoken so softly, felt like a knife through my heart. It hurt because I did want that, no matter how much I told myself I didn’t, that I couldn’t. I wanted Enver to love me. Wanted to love him. I wanted his touch, his kisses. His smile. His laugh. His heart. I wanted him. All of him. So badly that it ached.

But I didn’t want him like this.

My hands shook as I brought them up to Enver’s face, cradling his jaw. He let go of my chin to cover my hands with his, lacing his fingers through mine, and leaning into my touch. The anger in his expression faded as he gazed at me. It made a lump form in my throat, but I swallowed it down. “Enver,” I started, keeping my voice even and gentle. “This isn’t love. This isn’t what I want.”

He went still, his shoulders stiffening.

I forced myself to press on. “You can’t ever give me what I want, no matter how much I wish you could. You said yourself how not having all of me won’t be enough for you, and it’s the same for me. I can’t have all of you, and that’s not enough for me. It will never be enough. We both know this.”

“I can be enough,” he said, and the desperation in his hoarse voice made my soul ache. “Let me be enough.”

“You can’t,” I said, shaking my head, feeling my throat tighten. “You can never be enough for me. So, stop this and let me go.”

“No,” he whispered, his hands clutching mine desperately. “Stay here with me. Do not leave me alone again. I cannot lose you.”

My breath hitched as I watched his expression crumble, his mask of anger breaking and revealing the shaky vulnerability underneath. Everything suddenly made sense—the way he lost his temper, his obsessiveness, his need to possess me .

Enver was terrified.

I could see everything clearly now. His fear. The anger he used to mask it. The overbearing loneliness fueling them both. Every beautiful groove of his face and every strained line of his body revealed his emotions now. So different from the usual stoicism he displayed and so heartbreakingly raw.

But even as I recognized his new emotions, the fear quickly veered to anger again. He yanked his face free of my hold, his hand moving to wrap around my throat. “Why do you do this to me?” he demanded, his voice low and raspy. “Why do you force me to feel these emotions I cannot control? Why do you bring out these desires in me that I cannot satisfy? Why do you make me want things that cannot exist? I am exhausted by it all. I never asked for this?—”

“I never asked for this either!” I cried, grabbing his wrist and digging my fingernails into his skin. “I never asked you to bring me here! I never asked to do your labyrinth! I never asked for you to do this to me!”

“You are ruining me, so why should I not make you suffer the same fate?” he responded sharply, his thumb pressing into the hollow of my throat.

I sucked in a shallow breath, his hold restricting my airflow. “Do you think I’m not suffering too?” I gasped out. “From the fact that I know deep down I want to stay with you despite knowing I will lose everything in the process? That I constantly go back and forth, torn between wanting you and wanting to be free? Between choosing you or choosing myself? That no matter what I choose I will never have all of you? That I will suffer either way? What I want is something I can’t have, and it’s tearing me apart. You are ruining me, too, Enver. We are ruining each other, and neither of us asked for it, so just…” I struggled to breathe, to speak. “Let. Me. Go !”

His grip slackened.

And then his entire body jerked violently. He didn’t make a sound, but his eyes widened, his gaze dropping to his chest as his hand slipped from my throat. I looked down, too, to the scar that marred his flawless skin. Sharp metal glinted under the lights. Metal that protruded from his pale skin. Sharp metal coated in crimson.

Blood.

His blood.