“That’s all I’m trying to do, too, you know. Annihilate the threat to you.”
“Yes, but you don’t have the full backing of Hekan law behind you. They do,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “But that’s a different story. It won’t take them long to start running through the list of people who would want a Councilor dead. And once they do that, it will take even less time for them to land on your name. Or mine.”
“Don’t kid yourself. They’ve already landed on our names. I’m expecting to receive notice of a command performance any hour now.”
Just the thought makes my stomach hurt. “What are we going to do?”
“Not much, besides go see them.”
I stare at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Tell me you don’t honestly want to walk straight into the belly of the beast—knowing its claws and teeth are aimed straight at you.”
“I already told you what I wanted to do,” he answers with a sardonic lift of his brow. “And you didn’t seem any more impressed with that plan than this one.”
He’s right. I know he is, know I’m being impossible, but I don’t know what to do. I’m a princess of Ipswitch, have been surrounded by the dark power struggle that accompanies politics all of my life. If my powers weren’t forcing my involvement, none of this would be all that new. No, Councilors haven’t been murdered in my lifetime—all part of the power and stability my mother brings to the throne—but it isn’t the first time in history this has happened. And it probably won’t be the last.
But that doesn’t mean I want Declan, my family or myself to be caught up in it in any way. Because when things like this go bad, they go really bad, really fast.
“We need to stop this,” I tell him.
“Kind of hard to stop it now. Alride’s already dead.”
“Yes, but there’s no guarantee another Councilor won’t follow. We need to figure this out before someone else dies.”
There’s an urgency to my tone that I know Declan hears, but for the first time in forever, he doesn’t respond. Instead, he just leans his back against the wall and watches me, his arms crossed over his chest. Though he doesn’t say anything, I know him well enough—even after only a few weeks—to recognize a hell no gesture when I see it.
“We can’t just let them all die.”
“No one’s saying anyone else is going to die. This could be a one-off thing with Alride.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“No.”
“Then we need to do something.”
He lifts a brow. “Why? Seems to me whoever’s doing this is taking care of a problem. I’m more than okay with that.”
“Taking care of a—they’re killing people, Declan.”
“People who need to die. I already told you I have no compunction whatsoever about that. I’m not a hypocrite, Xandra.”
“I never said you were. But we’re talking about people’s lives here—”
“The same people who had no problem fucking around with your life. The same people who actually hired someone to kill you. I’m not going to forget either of those things just because you want me to.”
He bends down, starts yanking on his boots while I search desperately for something to say that might change his mind. Even as I do, I have a feeling I’m too late. In his head, Declan condemned these people to death—even the innocent ones—the moment he realized they were responsible for what Kyle did to me. The fact that someone else is killing them might bug him—knowing, as I do, that he wants to do it himself—but at the same time, it must be kind of nice. He gets the outcome he wants without having to face me after doing something unforgivable.
“But what happens to the Council?” I finally ask. “If all the Councilors are dead, what happens to the whole Hekan community?”
“Same thing that always happens. They’ll be replaced by more corrupt witches and wizards and the whole thing will start all over again.”
“Exactly.”
“So, what’s your point?”
“The point is, killing them isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Yeah, but their gruesome deaths will stand as a warning not to mess with you.”
“Who else is going to mess with me? It’s not like my birthright doesn’t offer me some protection.”
Again, Declan doesn’t look impressed. “The world’s a fucked-up place, Xandra, filled with fucked-up people who will be drawn to a power like yours. The Council went after it once and it’s only a matter of time before they go after it again. Once that rabbit’s out of the hat, it won’t take long before every asshole with a little magic and a plan comes calling.
“What’s so special about me? I’ve been latent for twenty-six years and now that I’m not, I can see dead people. It’s not exactly a power that’s in high demand.”
“I keep telling you. You don’t know what your magic is yet. Yes, communing with the dead is the first power to have woken up in you. But there’s a lot more still buried. When they come out, you’ll be more powerful than your mother ever dreamed of being.”
His words strike a chord deep inside me, send me reeling, though I work hard not to show it. “You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“How?”
“The same way you can sense my magic. I feel it deep inside you.”
“And you think my magic makes me a target?”
He gives me a no-shit look. “I know it makes you a target. Otherwise, the ACW never would have come after you. Their deaths will prevent that from happening again—especially if I kill one or two of them.”
His words send terror skittering through me. “You have to stop thinking like that,” I tell him firmly. “Self-defense is one thing, but revenge is totally different. You can’t actually sanction the killing of eight people just because you think it will keep me safe.”
He’s never looked more serious than when he says, “I’d let a lot more than eight people die to keep you safe, Xandra. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know me at all.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m not that special, Declan.”
“You’re that special to me. I told you yesterday. Nobody hurts you and lives.”
The shadows are back, and in that moment I see him more clearly than I ever have before. It shakes me to my core as understanding, true understanding, of his perspective, seeps in for the first time.
We see things differently—magic, the world, ourselves and each other—will probably always see things differently. For some people and some things, that’s fine. I don’t care if he likes red wine while I like white or that he’s a night person while I’m definitely all about the day. Those differences don’t matter. But our magic, our power, those differences, change everything.
I understand Declan’s anger. I do. If someone tried to hurt him, kill him, I’d hunt the bastard myself. Take great joy in watching him rot in prison forever. But vengeance of the type Declan demands? Sanctioning violent, premeditated murder? Or doing it himself? That I can’t understand—or get behind.
He doesn’t say anything as I think this through, just sits there watching me with implacable eyes. There’s a part of me that wants to throw myself into his arms and beg him to see reason. But there’s another, bigger part that knows that he won’t. That he can’t. Not as long as the darkness surrounds him like a cloak.
As the realization sinks in, I want to scream, to cry, to beg the goddess to—what? Beg her to do what? I ask myself a second time. To take the soulbinding away? To take Declan from me? Because if I can’t accept him, walking away is the only route left to me.
No! It’s a soul-deep cry, an instinctive claiming that goes deeper than black and white or right and wrong. I will never ask the goddess for that because I will never let him go. Declan is mine. Above and beyond the soulbinding, above and beyond family and duty, magic and mayhem, he’s mine and he will stay mine.