Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(20)

With that knowledge, however, I couldn’t seem to keep the monster inside of me completely calmed.

It still exploded out of me.

Do it now!

“You!” I roared, and his magic flared as it pressed into me, plastering me against the wall I had moved from. I stayed there, restricted by his power as I snarled like the wild animal Cail had turned me into, my eyes wide while I tried to figure out a way to attack him.

“Yes.” He moved toward me slowly, his eyes looking more like flames than the blue we had all inherited. I knew the look was meant in warning. I could feel it in the way he stalked me, the way his magic pressed against me so violently it was nearly impossible to force in breath.

I should have taken the warning.

If only my mind could see past it.

He’s right there.

Now is your chance.

I can’t move.

You can break this barrier.

You weakling! Kill him!

Kill him!

Kill!

“Let me kill you!” The words ruptured as my magic did, the powerful spark pressing on the barrier Ilyan had shrouded me with enough that my body slid down the stone, sagging into a broken pile. I was only barely able to recover before his magic snapped back against me like a rubber band, pressing me into the wall once again.

“Like you tried to kill Joclyn? Like she tried to kill you?” Treating me like the wild animal I was, his steps were slow and calculated as he moved closer.

She did!

You should have killed her first!

I know. I can fix that now.

Kill him!

All they do is lie to you!

Everything he says is a lie.

Don’t let him lie to you!

“You lied to me!” It was a roar to match the creature that approached, but nothing could ever match Ilyan’s anger. I was a fool to try.

I knew it, yet I could not stop it.

“I lied?”

He’s still lying!

“You said I could have her, that you were keeping her safe. But she’s not safe. She’s broken. She’s an ugly Drak, and she doesn’t love me anymore!” Sain flinched out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t care. It irritated me how precisely he followed his sight as much as the knowledge that Jos was just like him did. I had always been taught that Draks were nothing other than dirty servants. Slaves. It was that imbedded knowledge that was leaking out of me now. “You did that!”

“I did that? I made her want to kill you?” He was so close now that I could feel the heat of his magic against my skin, the burning power of it scalding.

Still, like the child I was, the fool I had been raised to be, I did not back down.

The voice wouldn’t let me.

Don’t let him get away with this.

Fight him.

I will.

“You lied to me!” I yelled again, desperately hoping to agitate him. I needed to get him drop his guard enough that I could break free from his hold and destroy him now before it was too late.

“I do not lie!” he roared, his magic shifting with the outburst, although it was still not enough to let me break through. “I kept her safe, but I could not stop him from destroying her. I could not stop her from being tortured and breaking your bond. I did everything I could, but sometimes, things do not fall the way we plan.”

“You liar!” It was a childish outburst, yet I couldn’t stop it. The words were rousted from deep inside my broken mind, fueled by my father’s voice as it echoed within me.

“Whatever our father has done to you—to both of you—it is deeply rooted in your souls. I am worried that we may never be able to reverse it.” His voice rumbled, even with the regret behind it, the desire to help that I had always known from him so thick it made me uncomfortable. It only fueled my anger more.

“You are saying that because you want her for yourself. Because you love her!”

“I do love her!” The words were ice and flame, and while they should have ignited the monster that Cail had implanted inside of me, they didn’t. It was like a cold water bath to hear the truth, even more so to hear the emotion behind it that Cail had almost missed. To hear the love.

“I have loved her for eight hundred years. Since the sight was first given that showed her to me, since the first time our magic bridged the gap of time and let me hold her in my arms, I have loved her. Her. Her laugh, her smile, her wit. I love the way her eyes sparkle when she plans a trick and the way she laughs to herself when she thinks of something funny. I love the way she sleeps curled into herself. I love her. And, because I love her, I would give her the choice. I would let her return to you if that’s what she wished.

“But all you two wish to do is kill each other. She is so terrified of you she cannot form complete sentences, and you cannot hear of her without the voice in your head exploding to life. Do not play me, Ryland Krul. I know what that look in your eyes means. I have seen it in her before.”

More lies.

No. These are different.

His rant sucked all the anger from the room, the powerful pressure of his magic ebbing from me as he paced before me, and the fire in his eyes extinguished to a manageable passion that made me feel somehow insignificant to the emotion they held.

I watched him pace, knowing it was my chance to act, to attack, and yet … I could not move.

Kill him. Stop waiting.