The Dark Prince (The Dark Light Series)(152)
His eyes begin to well up with tears, matching my own. I don’t even breathe as his pained grimace turns into a hopeful half-smile. “So I did something I hadn’t done for centuries. I prayed. I wailed out to the Divine, begging him to help me. Asking the he take me instead and leave you to live a happy life. I screamed and cried until I had no voice left, until the sobs tearing through me made my body ache. All the while, I kept trying to save you. Kept trying to heal you. I couldn’t accept that you were gone. I couldn’t.”
He pauses, his eyes searching my face for reaction. All I can do is look at him in disbelief. Dorian leans forward and rests his forehead against mine. We sit there for several long moments, soaking in the closeness, before he speaks again. “I don’t know how, but I healed you,” he whispers, his cool breath washing over my skin. “Don’t you see? My love for you is so deep and so strong that the Divine heard my cries. Felt my excruciating pain. And something within, something that had been dead inside me awakened. And I healed you.”
He pulls back just a fraction to press his lips against mine. “I love you,” he says between feather-light kisses. “So much, Gabriella. I love you so much.”
He kisses every inch of my face, yet I am too shell-shocked by his account to reciprocate. I died? Dorian saved me? Then I was on a beach in Skiathos? It all doesn’t seem real to me. Like a fuzzy, bootleg version of Inception…a dream within a dream. Yet while the view may be hazy, the memory of the pain- the excruciating ache throughout my entire body- is crystal clear. I remember the agony, the desperation. The unrelenting fear that consumed the fight in me. The sudden need to survive it all though I knew I couldn’t.
“I was in Skiathos. On a beach. With you,” I say, trying to make sense of it all.
“Yes,” he replies, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I gave you that illusion while your body healed. I didn’t want you to feel any more pain. And I didn’t want you to be alone.”
“Thank you.”
My eyes search Dorian’s hopeful face, taking in the sight of his relief. Then I spy his attire, all thoughts of hope leaving me. I push against his chest a bit to put some distance between our bodies. “Are you wearing…a tuxedo?” My eyes grow wide at his stoic silence. “Oh my God, Dorian, you did it, didn’t you? You married her.” His tailored black dress slacks, crimson-stained white dress shirt, and unraveled bow tie say it all. He was at his wedding.
Dorian shakes his head, releasing a breath. “No. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I felt how badly you needed me. I knew I had to come to you. I left her…at the alter.”
Relief creeps in but I quickly push it away in exchange for skepticism. “But if I hadn’t been in trouble, if you hadn’t felt those things from me, you would have done it, right? You would have married her.”
Aggravation flashes across his face, colliding with the visible regret spilling from his eyes. He can’t lie. And his silence tells me everything I need to know.
“That’s what I thought,” I mumble, pulling away from him altogether.
Dorian tries to recapture my hands but doesn’t fight against my refusal to let him. “Gabriella, I need you to understand what this marriage would have meant to me. It would have given me the influence- the power- to end my father. Once the throne was mine, I had planned to kill him. I couldn’t tell you that because, as you know, my thoughts and words were not safe. There’s no reason to hide this from you now. I’m as good as dead. I’ve committed my final act of treason by walking out on that mockery of a wedding.” He smiles weakly but it translates as a grimace.
I nod, soaking it all in. “So all of this…was just a trick? To get to Stavros?” Part of me knew. But after all the lies and deceit and half-truths, I just couldn’t follow my instincts. I want to believe that Dorian has always been completely honest with me but the truth is he hasn’t. He’s fed me too many betrayals. Betrayals that were eclipsed by my love for him.
“It was. And to be rid of Aurora. I had planned to imprison her. Strip her of all her power and leave her with just enough to exist…”
“Petrify her,” I whisper, speaking of the same punishment that still haunts him.
“Yes,” he nods. “But none of that matters now. I had to come to you. There’s no way I could go through with all that while you were suffering.” He runs his hands up and down my bare, unmarred arms, igniting pleasurable goosebumps on my skin.
I let myself relax under his touch, my body fighting fatigue from the day’s events. The thought brings me up short and my eyes snap to Dorian’s. Without thinking, my hands are on his face, pulling it within inches of mine. His eyes close reflexively as if expecting me to kiss him, and as much as I want to- need to- I know there is so much more that we have to discuss.