Page 23 of The Fate of Black Hearts

Chapter Seven

Dom releasedEvie from the supportive hold he’d kept on her up the slippery steps. That hug…

His heart skipped several beats when Evie marched up the last two steps like an avenger covered in the blood of her attackers, proud and undefeated. Stunning.

He was feeling far too much. Hell, he shouldn’t be here, tempting the Conclave with ripples in the Source. He rotated the gemstone of the ring into his palm and fisted his hand to cover the obsidian that they used to monitor him, not that it would do much to buffer the potency of his feelings.

No one touched him by choice. Even the few humans he’d slept with over the long years required a bit of mental coercion to get them past their fear of him. A squeeze to the cilice around his thigh was supposed to flood him with immunity from this kind of desire, but it didn’t.

When she had dragged him out of the river that night, she entangled their fates.

He may have said he didn’t believe in life debts, but he did.

He wanted to believe his heart hardened and black, but…Evie. Nothing counteracted his drive to protect her. Not the constant threat of the Conclave who always claimed to be ready to annihilate him out offrustration. Not the cilice. Not the thought of triggering doom for all around him if he acknowledged what he felt.

That no one else could see Evie as a conquering queen baffled him. He had assumed the order of things called for her to be mated to a lycan. The sap should’ve fallen to his knees in reverent thanks to be gifted such an exquisite mate. Instead, Willem imprisoned her. He exerted control over her with the efficiency of a tyrant and empathy of a rock. Even more baffling was that she let him torture her. After discovering themhis,it finally made some sense.

He had watched and occasionally protected her. He may have even pushed Willem into injury a time or two, not that the lucky bastard would die. The Fates kept Willem around to torture Evie for some reason he had yet to understand.

If the mages of the Conclave realized he couldn’t let her go, they’d destroy her, which was why he had remained in the shadows of her life. Until now. He didn’t think the Conclave would destroy him no matter how much they threatened to do so, not so long as he remained the Fates’ errand boy. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try to imprison him in some way again.

And shock of all shocks, Evie eavesdropped onhimas a dream walker. Sometimes he liked to mess with her when he felt her watching. He’d do ridiculous, nonsensical things until she gave herself away laughing or gasping in shock. That was the only communication he ever got from her. She couldn’t speak to him in that state. He couldn’t even see more than a shimmering suggestion of her.

With those ghost-like visits she offered him a glimpse of lightness in a life full of repetition and doldrum. Even so, he wouldn’t touch her. Not for real. Because of the prophecy. Because she evoked more emotion from him than anyone he could recall since the one woman with whom he had thought himself in love. Back then, he’d been wrong.

He’d still protect Evie.

Always.

Tonight had been hard to watch. He wanted to eliminate the threats against her. He could’ve killed all the humans attacking her in seconds. Yet, he forced himself to be patient. She needed to learn to fight on her own. He’d assisted, of course. He’d never let her die.

At the top of the steps she stood, a hand poised to knock. “If I knock, he’ll think I’m begging?—”

With barely a stretch of his power, he blew the door inward. Let her make a grand entrance. He jogged up the step, held her hand while waving to entreat her to enter with his other, and he bowed ever so slightly.

She giggled, a lighthearted noise that tickled all the way to his gut.

Before she went in, he squeezed her hand to pause her. He lifted his pendant over his head and put it into her free hand.What the hell am I doing?“I’m going to say the incantation to pry the curse free of you. When the moment’s right, you must touch Willem and say:I choose Willem to take the mhis.After that, put this on.” He wrapped her fingers around the pendant. “It might prevent it from bouncing back to you.”

“I can’t accept this.” She stared at it. “This looks old enough to be a relic.”

It is.“It’ll protect you from most curses and spells.”

She tried to press it back into his hand. “You need this more than me. If those dreams were real, then I’ve seen the damage caused by whatever you fight.”

“You need it right now.” He pushed her closed hand into her chest.

“I’ll borrow it. Perhaps this is a good moment to?—”

“What the hell?” Willem trailed off when he did a once over of her and sneered. “You’re filthy.”

A glance down seemed to remind her that human blood splattered most of her. The upper left portion of her dress had been partially blown off by the rifle, leaving her arm exposed up to her collarbone and her left breast barely covered.

“Be invisible,” she whispered to Dom.

“Already am, miri thagarni.”My queen.

Coming face-to-face with Willem, knowing he couldn’t smash in his face until his airway was clogged with blood, killed a piece of him. This was her fight.