Scorched Treachery (Imdalind, #3)(94)

“Y…you w-w-will?” My smile left as the stutter took over, the shake of my voice taking my newfound happiness away.

“I will,” he sighed, his body shifting to move closer to me. His knees pressed against the heavy blanket I had covered myself with. I focused on the pressure, leaning into it. I leaned into the warmth I felt from his touch and the ripples of heat coming off his body, my body hovering precariously away from the pressure the alcove provided me.

“How are you feeling?”

My eyes widened at his question, at the barely concealed worry behind it. I don’t know why, but his worry seemed to calm me. Just knowing how much he cared seemed to steady my frayed nerves.

I’m not sure if I am fine or if I am broken.

“It’s okay to be both, Joclyn.” He sighed, his hand moving to rest against my cheek, but it wasn’t skin I felt. I turned my head toward him in confusion, my eyes narrowing at the heavy bandage he had covered his hand with.

My heart beat quickly at seeing it there. Ilyan had hurt himself. For the first time, I worried about what had happened while I had been trapped in hell, while I had been tortured. Ilyan had been injured. Heavy emotions swirled through me, once forgotten and now foreign, as I began to remove the heavy bandage.

Ilyan’s heart quickened as I removed the covering, my breathing shaking as the angry red marks came into view. The red welts stood up from his hand like a burn, but the skin was still wet in places.

What happened? I asked, my fear for him overriding my personal demons for the moment. He didn’t need to tell me. I could see the moment replayed in his head, the horrors of those last moments in my hell a swirl of color and fear in his eyes.

This is how you brought me back? The Black Water?

He nodded once, and I pulled the hand toward me, my back arching as I brought the scars against my face, another mark that Ilyan would bear forever, another scar he had taken for me.

Thank you.

“Haven’t I told you enough? I would do anything for you.”

His voice was so soft I barely heard him. I leaned toward him as I pressed his hand against me, his magic pulsing through me. It was so warm and delicate, within me. I could feel it reach into every part of me, cradling me as if I was something precious, which is how I knew he looked at me.

I could feel his emotions whisper it to me now. I could feel his heart ache; his love for me that was always held behind the strict barriers of what he felt was right, broke through, and bared between us. I stared at him as his thoughts and emotions swirled toward me.

Then, they changed. He second-guessed himself somewhere along the way, his emotions withdrawing and his insecurities taking their place.

As his doubts and fears took hold of him, they also seeped into me. I moved away from him. I wanted that feeling back, that love that I had felt emanating from him only a moment ago. I felt my heart hunger for it, need it.

What’s wrong? I asked, unable to keep my worry inside of me, not wanting to let it change into something else if I held it back.

I should have tried harder to keep my thoughts at bay. Ilyan looked at me with pain in his eyes, his mind pouring out his sadness before his mouth even opened. His first word brought the panic I had kept at bay until this point.

“Ryland has asked me…”

“No!” My voice caught him off guard, his eyes widening at the power behind my one word.

I couldn’t stop the panic that flowed through my body. I moaned as I curled into the blanket, every nerve ending tensing in agony, in fear of what was to come. I felt Ilyan’s magic surge into me and my own magic joining his as I attempted to calm myself, to take the fear away.

I could see Ilyan’s thoughts in front of me, his worry for his brother and his friend and his desperate need for me, and I could hear Ryland’s words in his head. I tensed as they hit my mind, my body tightly wound before Ilyan’s magic was able to calm me again.

I will not see him. I answered the unasked question inside his head. I will kill him if I see him. I want to kill him.

I narrowed my eyes at him, my jaw tensing at the calm agony his eyes showed me. I curled into the wall, my mind fighting against my better judgment as it begged me to run away.

“You won’t kill him,” Ilyan said as calmly as he could, and I felt my anger rise and my magic pulse. For one fleeting second it was stronger than the crazed anxiety that still overtook me.

I will.

“No, Jos,” he whispered, and I couldn’t help the thunk of my heart at my nickname on his lips. “You don’t want that, not really.”

I do, Ilyan. I begged him. I begged through the panic, the fear. I needed him to understand this. To understand my need. The anger was a fire inside of me, the need for revenge fanning it ever higher. He hurt me… he…

My thoughts stopped as Ilyan’s hand moved against my neck, the sharp jolt as his skin made contact with my mark stopping my words. I sighed at the sensation, at the pleasurable heat it gave me, before staring into Ilyan, knowing it had been his intention to stop me.

“You don’t want to hurt him. You don’t want to kill him. It’s not really you that feels that way. You think it is because you are still so scared and confused at what has happened. You were hurt, Joclyn, but not by him.”

His eyes dug into me as he spoke, his words pleading with me to believe him. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t see beyond the panic and pain. It consumed me. A part of me wanted it to. In some ways, the pain and the anxiety made me remember that I was alive.