Before I Let Go (Skyland #1)(11)

The door clicked closed behind me, and I tried to hold in the gasping breath that was desperate to beg him not to leave.

“My room is directly across the hall.” He crossed his arms as he moved toward the bed. It was covered in layers and layers of white fabrics and fresh flowers set on the table at its side, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was the one to give me this even though he had taken me in the name of his kingdom.

It was grander than anything I had ever had. The bed called to me, and my bone-deep tiredness hit me as I stared at it.

“But you won’t be there.”

It wasn’t a question. It was the truth, and it was clawing at my chest as I glanced back to the door.

“I will be for a few days, but then no, I won’t.” He looked away as he said it so nonchalantly. He said it as if him leaving me didn’t feal like the biggest betrayal of all.

“Why?” I shook my head and balled my hands into fists as I looked up at him.

“Why am I leaving?”

“Why would you bring me here if you were just going to leave? Why would you bring me here at all?”

“Would you rather I had left you?” He spat the words at me, and this was what I needed. His anger I could deal with because it was easier to swallow. I was angry and scared, and it was all crashing against my chest, begging for release.

“I would rather you not lie!” I stepped toward him, and my magic snaked under my skin, uncontrollable and feral. “For the first time since you’ve met me, just tell me the truth.”

“The truth, princess, is that I have no choice but to return to the Fae Court. I cannot allow my father or the queen to think that I am the one that took you. We cannot afford for them to think anything other than the fact that we were attacked. They will know that the Blood Court took you, but I need to influence their next plan of attack.”

I shook my head, but he simply continued.

“If they find out that I am the one that took you, the fae queen will not stop until I am dead and you are laid bare before them. I have to find out what they know, what they suspect.”

“And what if they know the truth?” My stomach turned and chills broke out against my skin.

“Then I will be the one to deal with those consequences, and you will be safe under the protection of my kingdom.”

“No.” Fear clawed at me, and I balled my hands into fists as black smoke swirled around them in a mist of my terror. “I will not allow you to go back there. You are not going to get killed over me.”

A smile tipped on Evren’s lips, but his normal cockiness wasn’t there. Instead, it was replaced with a ghost of who he was as sadness filled his eyes.

“I don’t have a choice, princess. Neither of us do. This is bigger than either of us.”

His gaze snapped down to where my magic was growing. It crept closer and closer to him with every breath I took, and I couldn’t stop it. It was searching for him, begging him for things I wouldn’t dare speak out loud.

“Of course, we have a choice.” My voice was much softer than I meant it to be. It lacked conviction, lacked the anger I protected myself with.

He reached out his fingers, meeting my magic and toying with it in a gentle caress that had my breath catching in my throat and my knees threatening to buckle.

“If I had a choice, I would never go back. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have brought you here. I would have run.” He stepped closer to me, my magic wrapping around him and pulling him closer still. “I would have taken you anywhere in this world where it could have just been the two of us.”

“Why didn’t you?” My voice was weak and full of longing for us to be anything other than what we were. The memory of what I thought we were had become a weapon, and it pierced through me effortlessly.

“Because you would have paid the price for my selfishness. You, along with all of my people, would have suffered so that I could make sure my hands never ached to touch your skin.” He reached forward and his fingers, still wrapped in my own magic, grazed against my cheek. “Everyone would have paid the price for a selfish prince who wanted nothing more than to disappear in his mate.” He stopped and his dark gaze searched my face. “And there is nothing in the world I want more, princess, than to disappear in you.”

I stared up at him, breathless, because even though the taste of his betrayal was fresh on my tongue, I couldn’t stop the next words that passed my lips with no thoughts of the consequences. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” He nodded before pressing his forehead to my own. His hand snaked to the back of my head, and he tangled his fingers in my hair as he held me against him. “But I will come back. I will always come back for you, princess.”

His words crashed into my chest, but they left nothing but a deep ache. Fear, pure and unrelenting, settled deep inside me, and refused to leave.

He was my mate, but I shouldn’t have cared this much. He had used me, betrayed me, and I should have been more than willing to let him go off and get himself killed. But I wasn’t. His betrayal blared in front of me, but I had learned none of the lessons it was damned to teach me.

I closed my eyes and tried like hell to pull my magic back into me. “Come,” I commanded it over and over in my mind. I could feel its hesitation, its own fear of letting him go, but if I was going to survive this kingdom, I needed to hold on to my anger like the lifeline it was.