A Throne of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales #2)(3)

He’ll be mad as hell. He wanted to cut ties, or what do you think it means when someone drugs you to sleep, severs your connection, and leaves the equivalent of a breakup note?

He’ll be in a rage at first, sure, but it’ll turn to passion, just you watch.

Sure, passion immediately followed by regret and gruff barks not to touch him again. We’d been down that road. There was nothing for us there. Nyfain and his animal might want us, but they didn’t want to want us.

Time to go home.

This was for the best.

As I turned, my animal fought for control. Fire blistered through my body, boiling my blood, and a shock wave of power blasted out of her, out of me. It was her cry for him. Her misery at them severing the connection.

This is not the way to act in a pseudo-breakup, I said, wrestling her. This is the way crazy girls act. Ask me how I know!

How do you know?

Because I’ve taken this road before, and it just makes a person look like a fool. Let it go! It’s for the best.

It doesn’t feel like it’s for the best, she cried.

It was never going to work. Now it’s over. We move on. We have things to do.

She kept grumbling, but once I regained control, I pushed her away. I needed to maintain a hard grip on logic. Because yes, I did want to flail and cry and run to him. I wanted us to fight and argue and fuck. I wanted to bask in his strength and power, and quake in fear and excitement from his imposing presence. The prince was like a crowded everlass plant, lethal and potent and unbearable in almost all situations…except for the one that would save your life.

But it wasn’t my life that needed saving—it was his. It was this kingdom’s. He needed to focus on that, not on this strange push-pull he felt with a foul-mouthed commoner.

A hollow feeling permeated my middle, but I ignored that, too.

I walked home, thinking about Nyfain and crowded everlass plants. Thinking of ways to cure the villages of the plague, thus giving Nyfain more time to break the curse. We didn’t have to be together to work together. Just like we didn’t have to get along to feel the rush of each other’s kiss…which I probably shouldn’t be thinking about either.

Letting go of him might be a little trickier than I’d thought…





Two





Later that day, I stood beside Father’s bed, feeling more hopeful than I had in years.

“This is going to work, Hannon, I know it.”

I combined the ingredients of my new nulling elixir, which I’d dubbed the crowded nulling elixir to set it apart from the less powerful version, and added hot water. Father lay beside me, his mouth open and his cheeks sunken. How he’d held on so long I wasn’t sure, but I was grateful. This would do it; I felt it in my bones.

“But he’s not poisoned like Nyfain was,” Hannon said, as anxious as I’d ever seen him.

“The sickness is a kind of poison. It’s just not as potent as the venom that almost killed Nyfain. So the elixir’s not as strong, either. And given Father is about as bad as you can get, and the normal everlass elixir won’t work…”

“We’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Sadly, no.” I reached out and took his hand. “It’s going to work, though, Hannon. I can feel it.”

“Did you sing to the leaves?”

“Sable did. I think she was saying gibberish words, but that probably doesn’t matter.”

His brow knitted with a thoughtful look. “That plant is like a child.”

“Yeah, it is.” I mixed the brew, took a deep breath, and handed it over to my brother.

I dropped my hand to Father’s forehead, his skin clammy and too hot. I could very well kill him with this new elixir. His early death would be on my hands. But if I didn’t take a chance, he’d only have a few days to a week left anyway. The kids had said their goodbyes already, and now it was my turn. Hannon had said he’d be the one to administer the medicine, because I couldn’t bear to see Father die if I was the one who’d killed him. There was no antidote I could offer. There was no way out. If this elixir was too potent, there was nothing I could do to fix my error.

I took a moment to think back on the good times, when he’d been happy. We’d never truly gotten along, Father and I, always quarreling about something, but we loved each other as a family ought to. This house needed its leader. Its parent.

“It’s going to work,” I told Hannon again, feeling it in every fiber of my being. “That plant is of the dragons, and a cornered dragon is more powerful than a demon, any day. It will save the day, just you wait.”

I straightened up and ran my fingers through my hair. I hoped it worked, at any rate. I was running out of answers.

“I’ll be in the living room,” I said softly.

I closed the door behind me and gathered what I’d need to do the shopping. After that, I might go set some traps, anything to stay busy. I couldn’t let my mind wander. If it didn’t drift toward the aching hollow of Nyfain’s absence, it dwelled on my father and the others who were dying of the sickness.

Sable and Dash sat on the couch, their faces long, not speaking.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “It’s going to work.”

The more I said it, the less I believed it.