High Voltage (Fever #10)(93)

“I couldn’t forgive myself,” I said softly. “It was a betrayal of the love we’d shared. I refused to see you because I knew what I’d do and I couldn’t resolve the conflict. But I would have,” I added heatedly. “Within a few months at most. You could have texted me, checked to see how I was. But you never did. Not once,” I said bitterly. “Your turn. Where did you go? And why were you starved when you got back?”

    He smiled faintly, mirthlessly. “I never went anywhere, Dani. I never left at all. I was right here in Dublin the entire time, beneath your feet, under the garage behind Barrons Books & Baubles.”

“What?” I exploded.

“You walked above me once, feeling lost. I tried to send you a thought but the pain was so intense by then, the hunger so consuming, I’m not certain it got through. It was either make Barrons imprison me in a spelled cage I couldn’t escape, where he’d once contained his son, or cut my brand off you, and risk you getting lost. I was never going to risk that. If you’d called me, Barrons would have released me. If you’d used IISS, it would have bypassed the spells holding me.”

I stared. He’d been locked in a cage for two years? Barrons’s son—what the hell? I knew nothing about a son! I filed that away for future questions. Right now all I could think about was Ryodan trapped like an animal, as he’d once been so long ago as a child. As I’d been. We both knew the hell of cages. I would never go back into any kind of prison again. Couldn’t imagine any reason to willingly commit myself to two years of isolation, locked up. Oh, God, the whole time I’d been so angry that Ryodan had left me alone, he’d been alone, too, suffering! He’d been starved because he hadn’t eaten for two years, shut away in the ground!

“I turned into the beast shortly after Barrons completed the final spell, and never changed back again. I knew it would happen when I went in. We can only go so long without eating. After that it was madness. I lost all sense of time. Marked moments by your most intense emotions. My beast raged every time you fucked. My beast wept every time you cried. With some small part of my brain, I kept thinking you’d call and it would end. I’d be free. We’d be free. Together.”

    The horror of it flooded my heart. All that time, waiting for me to call. But I never did. “Why?” I cried, incredulous. “I don’t understand!”

Shadows rushed in his silvery, crimson-flecked gaze. I would have killed every man you slept with, Dani. I’d have left a trail of dead men behind you, guilty of nothing more than being chosen to share your bed. You’d have hated me for that. And I couldn’t control it.

“But you controlled it with Dancer,” I said.

Locked beneath Chester’s. I killed three of my men the final night you spent with him. That you loved him and were loved in return was enough to give me an edge over the beast. But lust, ah, Dani, that my beast can’t accept. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t win. I’m not human. Despite my appearance, despite my efforts, I’m beast first and it’s not always controllable. That’s what I was trying to tell you when I told you Lor wouldn’t have stayed to watch you dance. We know our weaknesses. If we can’t control them, we avoid them. We live by a rigid code. We didn’t always. Barrons developed and enforced it and one by one we all adhered. You have always been my greatest weakness. You had every right to take men to bed. I had no right to stop it. I stopped myself the only way I could.

I stared at him and began to cry. Not ugly, just big, silent tears slipping down my cheeks.

“Christ, don’t do that. Not when I can’t—ah, fuck. Close your eyes.”

I did, because I couldn’t stand looking at him, knowing I couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t bear the expression in his eyes, identical to my own.

Then he was holding me and my eyes flew open but he hadn’t moved.

“There are benefits to the bond we share. Close your eyes, Stardust.”

I did, again, then his hands were in my hair and he was cradling my head, holding me to his chest. I could smell his skin, feel the unflinching strength of his body.

    I opened my eyes and the illusion vanished.

“It only works if you keep your eyes closed.”

“Ryodan, I’m so sorry,” I said miserably. “If I had known, if I’d had any idea this would happen…” I trailed off. We’d both wasted two years. I’d wasted it. I’d never called. And I’d wanted to so many times.

His silver gaze locked with mine. You, Dani O’Malley, have always been the greatest mystery of my existence, the one thing I’ve never been able to predict. Linchpin theory means nothing where you’re concerned. My actions may not have been the wisest either. But whatever’s happening changes nothing. You’re so bloody beautiful to me—any color, any race, any skin, any species, woman, I will love you across all of them. If you turn into a Hunter, my beast and yours will run together. We’ll fight wars, save worlds, become legend. He smiled faintly. I’ll be the only beast in the universe in love with a dragon.

His words took my breath away, slammed into me with a painful blend of joy and sorrow. In a moment I would pull myself together.

“As will I. That’s what we do, you and I,” he said quietly.

And in a moment we would get down to determining how to save our world.