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CHAPTER 34: Cleared Of The Red Smoke

The location of Nocturne Academy was still under the mindful clutches of Athena Darkling, who’s powers were still more unknown to me than Martin’s words of whom I deserve in life. The nanobots were supposed to just control his anger, much like anger management classes only this is more of an up-close and personal approach than to sit down in a circle of people or just one qualified therapist and talk.

This changed his vision, perhaps showed the soft underbelly of him, but I wasn’t falling for anything. I’ve seen too many sides I didn’t like, the lycanthrope was going to have to change or no woman would be dumb enough to bow to him.

The council argued their case on tradition of the so-called initiation that really was just a disgusting, perverted stunt that made them think they had rights, when in reality, under my orders, Martin was shocking the kingdom by being so bloody unpredictable. Arthur and his wife didn’t know what to make of it when Martin ordered a team and brought himself along to walk the village, help those in need like a good king. While I was always in the shadows, thank the moon goddess for that. Athena was patient but sharp. Every illusion or dream created within the heated walls of the temple was a scenario in which I needed to use my powers in my mind first and then in the physical form.

Like the tree when Alastair was there. Elias and him were around, always watching too closely. Alastair knew what Athena was helping me with, but Elias was finally the clueless one. His helpless eyes followed my form as I moved in a blood red ruby dress. Martin’s coronation was not mine, and again, that was another order on my part, one that shocked the council, until they saw it as punishment for not consummation shit in front of their eyes.

When Martin returned from his visit across the wider scopes of the kingdom, I found him staring into the distance in his rose garden. He had a fucking rose garden now.

I step towards him, “How was the trip?” I question.

He trails his silver eyes to mine, “Insightful. You and Athena are getting along well, I’m glad for that.” He murmurs, making room for me. I reluctantly sit down and cautiously keep a good amount of distance between us. He stares at me.

“You’re beautiful.” He whispers.

I narrow my eyes, “How was the trip insightful?”

He sighs next to me, cupping his hands on his lap and turning back to face the roses, “Arthur coloured the kingdom in rose-gold, tinted it to make it seem taken cared for. The rest of the kingdom and people within were affected in ways he didn’t bother to look at. He uses his mate to initiate pain against others, but he doesn’t rule—he didn’t rule anything. I think that’s what allowed the council to immediately reinstate me on the throne and they can’t do a thing about you. My men are still cautious about me while I’ve had Robert to train the newest members from the local combat academy. I built a green farm today.” He adds that last part with a shrug.

I trail my eyes over the texture of the roses, “That’s good.” I mutter.

He looks at my profile again, “There will be a ball held Friday evening for everyone. Not just in the kingdom. Many of our people will be there. I was wondering if you...if you would sit by me. I won’t ask of anything else. Just to sit by my side.”

“And condone what you’ve done to me?” I ask him, sending a side glance his way.

“No, just so I know you’ve eaten a meal.” He mumbles.

I snap my eyes to him, “What the hell is that suppose to mean?” I spit. He snaps his eyes to his hands, falling short of hiding the trembling there.

“You’ve lost weight.” He murmurs.

My nose twitches, “That shouldn’t matter to you. Your focus is to right the wrongs left in this forsaken place, not to check on me and feign worry.” I instruct.

His shoulders slouch, “Okay.” He stares at his ring, fiddling with it. I bristle, now he’s making me look like the bitch. He made me who I was because of his personality before this. I make a mental note to research just what was in that serum, if it was more than what Kade had described. It’s dead silent between us, so I stand and was about to step away when he stands abruptly.

“Please don’t go, I—we haven’t talked in a while. We don’t even need to talk, you’re just never...here.” He blurts out. Staring at me pleadingly. I glare at him, pointing to just sit back down and leave it alone. He steps forward, I tense where I stand and he stills, seeing it. He lowers back onto the bench seat.

I purse my lips and fold my arms, moving around him, I sit and he straightens. For the longest of time, we say nothing before he moves and drops to his knees in front of me. I roll my lips in and face away when he drops his head on my knee, relaxing. I stare at his bent head.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you told me to ‘fuck off’.” He says to the air around us.

“Do you feel like a puppet in your own skin?” I ask him, ignoring the statement that was targeted at all his wrongdoings with me. I couldn’t capture the sincerity in his voice, I’d already known and felt still of what he’s done to me. Maybe he’s now seeing the cruelty of it, but this was no enemies-to-lovers kind of story, not between him and me. He was a cruel, devilled son of a bitch and I...was a damaged unknown to myself and to the world, but no one, not even me, would ever call me a weak, powerless ruin. I was no virus, I didn’t infect the way Martin did before.

He shakes his head against me, “I did when I hurt you.” He confesses.

I look at him, “What do you mean?”

He straightens the hem of the dress, “I hated it, it hurt every time I hurt you but I couldn’t stop it until that car ride, until I dozed off and it stopped. Everything just stopped and while I felt different the moment we arrived, I had still acted the same, but so much had changed. Felt like the world had lifted off my shoulders and the pain—it was there, but it wasn’t repulsed like it use to be. Like I had to reject the pain to show strength.” His words made me listen and gosh did I hate to listen to Nicolai Matin Darkling.

My tormentor, the reason for my hatred and yet here he was letting his emotions to settle on the surface of a lone ocean that I’m only now seeing in the clearing of the red smoke that he had over him when I first met him.

With that first rejection.

And everything that came after it.

“Who taught you that?” Who made you the monster you are today?

He had no answer for me on that one, just moved his head back down and I narrow my eyes, “You made yourself that monster before you even met me.” I mutter, his eyes and head trail up and before I knew it, he had me caged between his arms, looking down to me. Those silver irises had streaks of black forming out of the pupil like lightning, before they strike red like red smoke in a storm.

I sit up and force his form to straighten too, “I would be extremely careful about what you say or do next—”

He fiercely slams his lips onto mine. A desperate attempt to raise or Elliot some sort of feeling in me. Cupping my cheek, one against the back of my neck. It’s a heavy dance, only this time it wasn’t dominance from him, it was a faint-hearted boy looking for forgiveness when I couldn’t ever give it to him. His hand smooths down my shoulder, my arm, to my waist as he pulls me closer. I pull my lips back as I look up at him, all these months, I still didn’t feel it. He presses his forehead to mine, “All I’ve wanted was for you to just look at me and say yes.”

Yes to what? To him? To a life? To everything he’s wanted while I shrivel in the shadows, just awaiting for death while he tries to nullify everything he’s done, I trail my eyes away to Elias, who stands there with a clenched jaw, “What is it, Elder Elias?” Martin questions, looking over to him. I step away from Martin, his eyes snap to mine: they’re pleading, begging to just look back at them.

“I need to speak with Celestine for a moment. Privately, my King.” That title, like Martin was above him. They reached the same damn line, Elias just didn’t want to admit it. I step past the two of them, moving swiftly to the very edge of a brick-way, a tunnel to the other side of the gardens to the palace, when tingles shoot up from my arm and I tense before my back is pressed against the hardness of a stiff, chiseled chest.

I tense in shock when Alastair presses his cold fingers against the fabric over my stomach, “What are you doing?” I ask him, ripping away.

Elias steps forward, eyes narrowed and on me, “We need to talk. It has come to my attention that you and myself, as well as my true King share a bond more true than the one Nicolai is insistent you have. And there’s more than that.” Elias says lowly.

I look to Alastair, who runs his eyes over me, “What? You thought I wouldn’t hint at the fire wolf.” He slithers in behind me, I watch him, unsure which one of us is the predator. Before fingers move a curl of mine aside.

Elias had gotten closer, “The reason for my immortality and his pause on his vengeance.” He mutters, studying me. I punch him hard, kicking Alastair who chuckles, dodges but couldn’t miss the roundhouse kick I slammed against the Ice King’s face. The burn felt good. Only there was one different when Elias spins me around and grasps my cheeks.

“You lied to me.” That dark hiss on his tongue made mine shiver.

“Because I can’t trust someone like you.”

“Someone who was just doing their job? You saw me as a bloody professor, old enough to be a great grandfather. How do you tell a child she’s yours, and not by blood, but by bone. Having you engraved in bone is difficult. I did not know you had elemental abilities, meaning that request of yours to venture to the elemental runes, a substance that tells the truth and only the truth about your mate. Or mates, as I can now fucking see.” I’d never seen the darkness parade like a carnival in his eyes. He glides them to my lips while I still the moment hands move to my waist. Hands from behind me as my hair moves aside. Cold breath on my neck. Elias’s eyes darken more.

“I don’t do males, Alastair.” He grits out.

“Neither do I, but you should share.” Alastair plants his body against mine, I trail my eyes over my shoulder to look at him.

I’m stuck between them both, and I hate it.

“No.” I say aloud.

Both pause, “What do you mean ‘No’? We haven’t done anything yet.” Alastair says, smirking above me.

I don’t think, grabbing his dagger, I drop to a knee, slicing up his thigh through the fabric, he rips himself away before I kick out Elias’s legs from under him. Keeping the blade pressed against his neck, I straddle the man I thought I once knew.

He stares up at me, “I underestimated you.”

“You did more than that.” I whisper.

He closes his eyes, “I followed the wrong orders.”

“Oh thanks.” Alastair mutters sarcastically from ahead of me, healing his leg and glaring at me, but the heat in his usually cold corpse eyes shows me otherwise, the fucker was undressing me now. After showing him I couldn’t be cornered, after continuously fighting against them in a manner so verbal and so strongly when he just won’t get it. Neither of them will.

“If fate chose the two of you, then I will choose my own destiny. Martin. You. Alastair. None of you are good. None of you will hold me the way I deserve to be held. I don’t understand why.” Why they’re so—

“Why we’re flawed? Huh. Because everyone’s just so fucking perfect in your Princess eyes?” Alastair spits ahead of me, hands out wide while he exclaims. I lean up from Elias and step off of him. He sits up and moves to a stand, leaning on the wall, right next to me.

I stare at Alastair, he looks me down, an intimidating stance that held mistakes and flaws, but hurt deeper than I knew, “I didn’t say I wanted you perfect, I just wanted someone who’s destiny was to manipulate me to getting what they want. Martin, Elias, then you. All you people ever want from me is either submission, acceptance of another man or to force me onto that other man for vengeance no one understands. So what if you gave Elias the information of my elemental abilities. You should’ve guessed it while I was working with Athena.” I mutter, shaking my head at him.

He growls and steps forward, “Really? I spent decades in the making at taking the bastard who ripped my family apart down, and if I had to use a female he’s grown so attached to, to get it done, then so fucking be it. It doesn’t mean I’m a sexist asshole to everyone, Princess. But one girl, no matter who you are to me can stop this. He took away my blood because he couldn’t handle his animal side. A dog is put down if they aren’t tamed. Yes, I used you. Yes, I treated you like you were nothing. Your words, your finicky public speeches that hold little to no value when all you do is strut around here showing no difference does nothing to change my plans about a male you claim you have no feelings for, when you don’t use his first name, you call him Martin. Not Nicolai. Not Darkling.” He lists, pointing a threatening finger at me.

I close my eyes, “You’ve been waiting around for so long, do it. End it. Kill him. Does it change what happened? Does it bring back who you lost? You’re at a goddamn standstill, Alastair. You’ve got nothing. I can feel it against my skin. You’ll use your mate just to run with the saying ‘an eye for an eye’? You have done nothing!” I snap, shaking my head at him when I look at him.

He rolls out his shoulders, “You want me to do something, little wolf. Fine, let’s do something.” He snaps, before shooting like a bullet towards me and I still in horror when his lips press against mine and something in my changes. Because of a bond I couldn’t control. A bond I couldn’t cut ties to, something snapped into place when smooth, but ice cold lips parted mine in a rough, horrifying sensation that sizzled my blood, boiled it and fried whatever thoughts I had before when he parts my lips with his. He’s not nice in his kiss, in truth he’s like a dark, wet concoction of shadows and ice. As if on a snowy white mountain, gaining the frostbite that was numbing and igniting all at once. And he fought for dominance—

“GET OFF MY QUEEN!”

He’s shoved back from me, Martin grabs me by the waist and hauls me behind him, he stills as he stares at the one man he probably thought he’d never see, “Ares.” He whispers.

Alastair stares at me, not him, “Step away from her.” He murmurs.

Martin rolls out his shoulders, “It’s been far too long since I’d seen a face like yours. Talked to Artemis’ ghost much?” He wonders.

Alastair drags his eyes over my form, “Step. Away. From. Her. Before I send you to a quick, early grave, even when I wanted to take my time. Like I’m doing with her.” He points at me. Before I feel the presence of another, she moves with grace and nobility. Age, wisdom and beauty that was captured on the essence a long time ago. I hated that I didn’t notice her until it was too late to understand what was happening. See, Elias looked like he wanted to punch Alastair in the teeth. Martin looked like the ice King in front of him was another war he wished he’d won before I was brought into the picture and of all things...

Alastair looks like he really isn’t done with me after that kiss.

Athena slowly moves out from behind the vine-wall and claps slowly, “You three are truly the best live entertainment I’ve had in centuries.”

She didn’t include me in that picture.

I trail my eyes behind me, “Move and I trap you, Celestine.” Alastair read where I was headed.

I look at him, “Fuck you.”

He dampens the air and looks at me, “Believe me, you will.”

Martin shifts in front of me, and then all hell breaks loose.