Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(92)

When my dress slips down my body, pooling at my feet, he turns me, the better to survey his new belonging.

The possessive gleam in his eyes makes me bristle. The thinly veiled hunger. His appetites are so marked, I’ve barely been able to hold him off thus far. He is too intense, too carnal, too desirous.

The boy called Death is so full of . . . life.

He lays me upon our bed, then disrobes himself. Yes, he is beautifully formed—everywhere. My body helplessly responds. But I have control over my own appetites.

Once he joins me, he grasps my hand to kiss my palm. “Empress, I will make you happy, for all our days.”

Our limited days. If we exit the game, we will age. Though immortality beckons?

His hand is covered with icons, there for the taking. I disguise my greed as I count them.

With a proud mien, he twirls my new ring on my finger. A symbol of ownership? I can view it no other way since men of his culture do not require one, just as livestock do not brand their masters.

To me, the ring is as detestable as a collar, and that I cannot abide! When I taste bile, my path becomes clearer: I crave his icons more than I do his breathtaking body.

As he leans down to kiss my neck, I ask, “Will you fetch me wine for my nerves, my love?” I muster a teasing smile. “In this, I’m an anxious innocent.”

He inhales, quelling his eagerness, though it roils from him. His manly needs, his lusts. “As you wish.”

He turns his back to the Empress. How trusting. How foolish. The heat of battle rises, taking me over. Without a whisper of hesitation, I slip soundlessly from the bed.

Before he can react, I shove my poisonous claws into him, hissing in his ear, “Till Death do us part.”



I woke with tears streaming down my face.

Husband. He was my husband. And I had betrayed him.

Somehow he’d survived my poison. Somehow he’d gotten the upper hand and ended me.

“Forced me to kill my bride,” he’d said with such pain in his starry gaze. No wonder he hated me—he had every right to! How could I have been so evil?

It was one thing to battle an enemy, to fight and prevail; quite another to exchange sacred vows with someone you had every intention of murdering that very night.

No wonder I’d had no chance of seducing him. I don’t handle vipers. He’d learned not to trust, he’d learned so young.

All his hardness, his ruthlessness, had been honed by me.

That Empress had seen only his hungers. She’d ignored the tenderness in his expressions, the warmth in his eyes as he’d beheld her. He had intended to make her happy.

To make me happy.

Yet even when blind to all he offered, that woman had fallen for him. She’d just refused to admit it.

Could I?

Suddenly my feelings for him were clamoring, too big for my chest. I felt like his wife. I needed to explain to him that I would never betray him. But he remained away. Leaving me alone in his bed.

Return to me, Aric.

Silence. Too much silence. I didn’t want to be alone right now. Dashing my sleeve over my face, I hurried from the room, startling Cyclops. Together we climbed up one flight of stairs to Lark’s bedroom.

A light knock. I had no idea what time it was.

Lark opened the door, rubbing her eyes. “What’s up, girl?” She wore a football jersey and leggings. A baby squirrel peeked its sleepy eyes from her mane of black hair.

“C-can I come in?”

When she swung her door wide, I entered. In all this time, I’d never been to her room. It was just as I might’ve pictured it—posters of animals plastered the walls, cages and aquariums lining shelves. Her falcon rested on a wooden perch next to her bed like an alarm clock. She had a tiger lamp, kangaroo sheets, and a thick smattering of live butterflies coating the high ceiling.

I knew there were no monarchs. Months ago, Matthew had told me that the last two were thousands of miles apart and flying away from each other. Again, I felt gratitude that Lark was caretaking these treasures. Still, I couldn’t let her think I’d softened toward her too much. “Kangaroo sheets, Lark?”

“Dude. Don’t judge me,” she said without anger.

My presence had agitated some of her menagerie, but a single wave of her hand quieted mewls and caws. “So you wanna talk about it?” She climbed back in bed, scooting a snoring hedgehog from her pillow.

Did I? Where to even begin? As I sorted through my thoughts, I crossed to her bay window, staring out into the stormy night.

Somewhere out there both Aric and Jack roamed the world. Jack had broken my heart, and I’d broken Aric’s. “Did you know Death and I were involved in a previous game? Married?”

“Um, some cards speculated.”

“I just dreamed about it. About how he used to be.”

“I tried to tell you he’s not all bad,” Lark said. “From what I understand, you kinda put him to shame on the evil front. Like judges’ scores of ten.”

“I did. Nothing could be worse than what I did,” I murmured.

“Once he gets back, you two kids can work things out. I’m confident about that. You’ve seen the way he looks at you when you dance, right? Well, you can’t imagine how he looks at you when you aren’t aware. You’re still a lock.”

I sighed, not convinced. There was so much in our past to be overcome. When lightning flashed, I said over my shoulder, “I never see lightning without thinking of Joules.”