His hand still hovered in the air, asking her to take it.
Zephan used a single finger under her chin to direct her gaze to him. He stared deep into her eyes. “What will it be, my sweet young thing? Would you like to stay with me? I promise you won’t regret it. Or would you rather return to the lair of this…” He turned his head to curl a lip at Lucian. “…beast.”
Arabella sent a tortured look Lucian’s way, searching his face.
She’s hesitating. It tore into him as if Zephan had lodged magical blades in his chest, and he was slowly twisting them, degree by degree.
“You don’t belong here,” Lucian begged, his hand still out for her.
The frown drew deep and slow across her face. Then she turned back to Zephan. “I want to go home.”
He let out an elaborate, dramatic sigh. “Very well.” But the smirk tugging at his lips made Lucian’s blood run cold. The fae were nothing if not complex—lies within lies, always telling the truth, but never revealing their hand. Zephan was playing some kind of game here, and Lucian wasn’t foolish enough to think Arabella’s choice held a losing hand for the dark fae.
Zephan shooed Arabella away, then lifted his chin to Brokk. “As much as I’d love to strand them in the Mojave desert, that might run afoul of that pesky treaty.”
“Perhaps a return to the Drakkon keep?” Brokk smiled. “Not our fault if they tear one another apart.”
“Points for style, but no.” Zephan gave that fake sigh again.
“A return to the perimeter, then?” Brokk asked.
Zephan nodded, turned his back on them, and vanished.
Arabella was back to studying the floor.
Lucian realized his hand was still reaching for her.
He slowly let it drop to his side.
Every time she traveled through a magical door, Arabella’s stomach lurched.
But when the tall fae from Zephan’s Winter Court escorted them to a rocky ledge on the side of a mountain, depositing her and Lucian there, it wasn’t the thousand foot drop off the edge that had her stomach still twisting in knots long after the fae guard left them.
Lucian stared off into the distance at the House of Smoke, all lit up from within, blazing a warm light that spilled across the night-shrouded mountainside around it. The fae had said something about the perimeter, and they must be near it, or at least inside whatever cloaking magic they used to conceal the House from the world. When Lucian turned to her, the torment and sadness on his face was too much for her to bear. Two parts were warring inside her—the part that wanted to throw her arms around him and take away that pained look, and the part that was terrified of touching him.
What if he were secretly a monster, just as Zephan said? What if he had simply been using her and manipulating her all along? That thought had her stomach doing Olympic-level gymnastics as she second- and triple-guessed herself. When had she ever been able to see a man’s lies and manipulations before it was too late? That familiar distrust of her own instincts was a poison rivaling the idea that Lucian had torn apart his own mate to get at the dragonling spawn he needed to survive.
“Let me take you to the keep,” Lucian said softly, his dark eyes flashing a glimmer of the golden dragon inside him. “You can decide what you want to do from there.” The pain on his face was too much. She didn’t care if it was past midnight. She didn’t care if they were standing on a cold, rocky ledge in the middle of the mountains. She had to ask him. Now.
“I need to know why you did it.”
His wince was so painful to watch, Arabella felt like something physical was actually spearing through her.
Lucian dropped his gaze to the dirt at her feet. “Why I did what?” His voice was a whisper.
That soft question angered her. The heat of it welled up and mixed with her fear, and she threw the combination into biting words directed squarely at him. “Why did you kill your mate with your bare hands?” A sob followed the words on their way out of her mouth. Why? Why couldn’t you be the dream man I thought you were? That was the question she really wanted to ask.
He wasn’t answering her. Wasn’t moving. Just stared at the ground. It took her a moment to realize his fists had turned to talons and were clenching and unclenching.
A shot of terror struck her heart. She was alone with him. On a rocky ledge in the middle of nowhere. He could kill her in an instant, toss her over the side, and no one would ever find her body. She backed up, breath catching in her throat, but there was really nowhere to go—her body was quickly plastered against the stony wall of the mountain.
Her motion made him look up.
Tears were streaming down his face.