I swallow, my throat almost too dry for words. Yesterday, I might have said me. Today… “Loyalty,” I answer, my stomach cramping hard. And loyalty means telling the truth.
“So you do listen?” His grip tightens painfully. “Not just talk?”
I gasp. “Griffin! You’re hurting me.”
He glances at his hands and then releases some of the pressure on my upper arms. “This is the reason you didn’t tell me who you really are? Getting caught?”
“Getting caught?” A surprised, slightly unhinged laugh flies from me. “I didn’t tell you for much more selfish reasons than that.”
He frowns. Heavy lines bracket his mouth, and starkness wars with the dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Then you were just waiting. Biding your time. You never wanted to be here. You always wanted to leave us.”
By us, he means him. And he’s wrong. “I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t bear for you to see me the way I see myself!”
He stares down at me, his expression still hard but also unnervingly blank. “What?”
“I’m not right for you.”
“What?” he snarls, shaking me. The back of my head thuds against the wall, and he stops.
“I don’t belong here! It was only a matter of time before you figured that out.”
“What are you saying?” Griffin demands. “That you’re too high and mighty? Too good for me?”
What? No! “I’m saying I’m not fit to lick the dust from your boots!”
Anger flashes in his eyes. For a horrifying heartbeat, I think he’s going to hurt me. I’m strong, and I’m fast. Griffin is stronger and faster, and he’s immune to harmful magic, so even the terrifying amount of Dragon’s Breath I have stored up can’t stop him. When we killed Sybaris, I absorbed everything I could of the She-Dragon’s deadly Fire Magic. It’s mine now. Despite that, the frightening truth is, if Griffin wants to punish me, he can.
His breathing turns erratic. The wild look in his eyes scares me as he pushes me flat against the wall, his hard body caging me there. His grip is biting.
“Ow! Griffin! Let go!”
His nostrils flare. Some of the fury clears from his expression, and he steps back, dropping me so fast I stagger. The sheet starts to unwind from around me, and I grab it, yanking it back into place. Griffin retreats, one foot behind the other. Slowly. Watching me.
“Let you go.” He takes another step back and then looks around the room like he’s never seen it before. He keeps backing away from me, backing toward the door. His big hands clench and unclench by slow degrees, pulling inward toward his sides. His eyes sweep the rage-battered room again before skating back to me.
“Griffin?”
His gaze hits mine with the force of a thunderclap. He looks…appalled. “I-I won’t do this. I can’t…be with you.”
My lips part in shock. Tears flood my eyes. He can’t mean that. What happened to our vows? What about his promise to never give up on me?
My heart plummets, the crash painful, wrenching, and fast. I know what happened—me.
Before I can think of anything to say, any way to keep him with me—now and forever—Griffin jerks his sword from the cracked wood of the table and then storms from the room, leaving.
Leaving me.
CHAPTER 2
I CAN’T BE WITH YOU.
I slide down the wall, a deep, painful ache spreading through me and settling fast and hard into every corner of my body, inhabiting my blood and bones. Tears distort my view of the ruined bed. I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking the sight. Trying to block the tears. But they keep coming, hot drops tracking down the sides of my face. A sob scrapes its way up my burning throat. Hot and clawing, it rises, making the whole room quake.
I slap my hands down, my eyes popping open as I brace myself against the rumbling floor. I swallow everything in a panic—my heartache, this magic, and my terrifying potential for destruction. The glacial shard in my necklace pulses with magic, and I force a powerful flood of cold through me, shocking my body, numbing my pain, and calming the storm. The room settles.
Shaken, guarded, I breathe shallowly, my lungs too tight and my pulse hammering like a drum. The Gods only know if I could have brought the whole castle down with the force of my emotions. Trying to stay numb, I gather the wrinkled sheet around me. It smells like Griffin, and me, and my heart shatters all over again, nearly toppling my fragile control.
Balling the material in my fists, I press down hard, feeling the sting of my own nails. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Griffin asked me to take a chance. On him. On trust. On love. I did, and look where it got me. That my misery is my own damn fault doesn’t escape me. It just makes it worse.
Pressure clogs my throat. I think only a raw, primal scream might clear it, but I don’t let it out. I’m too afraid of what I could unleash.
The numbness I forced upon myself wavers dangerously as I take in the devastation of the room, the destruction an accusation, the wreckage the ruins of what I almost had.
The stone around me groans with a low vibration, and I scrape my fingers over my scalp, dragging my loose hair back and burying my face in my knees. Rocking, I try to hold myself together.
Griffin and I exchanged a vow. But he’s Hoi Polloi and not bound by promises like Magoi are. The magic in my blood makes verbal pledges permanent and unbreakable, physically binding for the rest of my life unless Griffin releases me.
I curl in on myself. He won’t release me. He’ll never release me. Griffin needs the Kingmaker, even if he doesn’t want Cat.