“So you’re saying you didn’t know about this party yesterday?”
I dropped my hand to my side as I stared at her. Merda. She was baiting me. I could tell from her icy eyes that she already knew the answer to that question.
“I thought so,” she said in a hard voice. “I could tell you were hiding something from me when you came back from that meeting with your father.”
I looked down at the empty glass in my hand. Seconds ago I’d wanted to hurl it against the wall, to take my frustration out on it since I couldn’t grab her and shake some reason into her. Now I didn’t know what I wanted.
I was just tired. Tired of trying to do the right thing. Tired of fucking up. Tired of making things worse when all I wanted was to make them better.
I dropped down to the step, set the glass on the hardwood beside me, and scrubbed a hand through my hair.
“I give up.” Exhaling, I leaned forward to rest my forearms on my knees, the fight slipping out of me. “Since all I keep doing is the wrong thing, you tell me what I should have done. What I should do now,” I corrected.
She was silent for several seconds, then said, “You need to let me go.”
I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead, fighting a whopper of a headache I was pretty sure was only going to get worse before this night was over. “I will. When the party dies down and I know you’re not going to accidentally be seen by someone.”
“No, I mean, you need to let me go for good.”
For a moment, her words circled in my head, their meaning ambiguous. Then they contorted into the shape of a dagger pointed directly at my heart, causing me to lift my head and look at her. Really look at her, standing in those ridiculous heels, that insanely short dress, wearing that odd wig while her arms were secured above her head.
There was no more anger in her blue eyes. No more hurt. Only absolute honesty and a pleading that would have sent me to my knees if I’d been standing.
“I can’t keep doing this, Luc. This isn’t me.” She glanced up at the chains above her head, rattled them, then met my gaze once more. “I’m not this jealous woman. I know you weren’t doing anything behind my back, but your family, this House... They’re making me crazy. It’s too much for me.”
My heart picked up speed. She wasn’t saying what it sounded like. She couldn’t be.
She drew a deep breath. “Maybe away from your family, if we had a normal relationship, I could deal with everything, but not here. Not with your House doing everything it can to sabotage us. It’s already changing me, making me do things and react in ways that aren’t me. And you know I’m right. You told me once that you liked it when I challenged you. But this isn’t challenging you. This is stupid. And dangerous. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I know it’s not safe. But this... All of it... It’s turning me into someone I don’t want to be. Someone I can’t stand. And I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t want to one day wake up and be like your mother.”
Panic surged inside me, pushing me to my feet. “That won’t happen. You’re nothing like my mother.”
“Maybe not now. But I will be. The way you keep me in the dark abou—”
“I won’t anymore.” I crossed to her, my heart pounding double-time as I cupped my hands around her jaw and lifted her face towards mine. “I’ll tell you everything. No more secrets. I was going to tell you about this party today. This morning before I left, I said there were things I wanted to talk to you about. I was planning to tell you then ab—”
“You don’t get it,” she said softly, blinking damp lashes up at me. “I don’t want to know. That’s part of the problem. I can’t handle it. None of this is normal. And this...”
She looked down at my shirt. “This relationship between us is too much. It’s too intense. It’s not healthy. When I’m with you, it’s like a high I’ve never known. But when you leave, like today, and I don’t know what’s happening or when you’ll be back, I can’t breathe.”
“Natalie.” I gently tugged the mask over her head, dropped it on the floor, then tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at me again. “I already told you, I would never—”
“I know. And I believe you. Now. But what happens in a year? Or five years? Or—”
“You’re the only woman I want. The only one I will ever want.”
“We both know that one day soon, you are going to take over your father’s spot with your House,” she said, “and when you do, the choice won’t be up to you as to what you can or cannot share with me. And I can’t live like that. I can’t live with the secrets. With the worry. With the never-ending doubt. One way or another, it will destroy me, Luc. It will destroy us even if neither of us wants it to.”
She stared up at me, eyes damp and filled with so much agony, I ached to console her, to hold her. I reached up for the buckle on her right cuff. “That won’t happen. We won’t let it happen.”
“Tell me honestly. Do any of the thirteen Knights have happy, whole marriages?”
My fingers froze against the restraint, and I faltered as I stared down at her, because we both already knew the answer to her question.
None of the Thirteen had happy marriages. They didn’t because of the rituals. Because of the things they were forced to witness. Even the strongest broke down and eventually participated.
“Luc,” she whispered. “I don’t want to face the day—maybe years from now—when you look at me and feel nothing, all because we didn’t have the strength to admit our reality now.”
“That’s not going to happen.” I flipped the buckle on her restraint, freeing her right arm.
While I reached for the other buckle, she looked up at me and whispered, “It will because I love you.”
Heat and life and joy burst inside my chest as I released her other arm and looked down at her. But before I could grab her and pull her against me, she shook her head, the agonizing look in her blue eyes stopping me.
“I love you more than I thought I could ever love another person,” she whispered. “And that’s the problem. Maybe if I didn’t love you this much, I could deal with everything else and be okay. But not this. Not this gut-wrenching emptiness every time I think of you leaving me. I’ve survived a lot of people walking out of my life, but I won’t survive you. It’ll break me. For good. If you love me, if you care about me at all, you have to let me go before that happens.”
I stared at her, torn between elation and anguish because that love was only causing her misery.
“I...” My voice was thick, my mouth like cotton. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. It’s not safe. Yo—”
“It is safe. It was safe for Sela. It’s still safe for her and dozens of other girls.”
Her meaning hit me like a two-by-four to the head, sending me back a step. “You’ve already talked to Felicity.”
“Not about me specifically, but about how it works... Yeah.”
In that moment, I knew she hadn’t just talked to Felicity. She’d already considered all the ramifications and consequences. And she still wanted to go through with it.