As my mask clattered to the ground, Ethan physically staggered backward. His mouth dropped open in a combination of utter horror and complete shock, terror flashing in his eyes as the dagger fell from his hand. “Emma?”
Tears ran down my face. I held my side, gritting my teeth to speak through the pain as blood poured from my side. “You can take the mask off now, Ethan. It’s all over.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ethan
No thought permeated my mind except the notion that this was a terrible betrayal. My heart was racing and breaking at the same time.
Emma was the White Rose? She was the one who had tried to stop me from ending the Black Claw, the one who’d tried to prevent me from ending Elijah and Gabby’s reign of terror?
This wasn’t right. It didn’t add up.
“You can’t be the White Rose,” I said in a rush. “You... you were attacked by her. How does that make any sense? This has to be some kind of illusion. Answer me!”
I was bellowing, on the verge of losing control. Emma winced and forced out, “Delmare... took my place. It was a setup. She and Stefan know. No one else.”
Delmare and Stefan were in on this ridiculous charade? Who else had stabbed me in the back?
“Ethan, I’m going to bleed to death.” Emma’s face was turning white, voice faint as she began to slump to the side.
A sick horror infected me when I realized then what I’d done. It’s like I transformed from one person to the other in seconds. “Gods, Emma, I hurt you!”
“You fucking stabbed me!” she hissed, blood leaking from her fingers.
I knelt by her side, observing the injury. My insides twisted with guilt as I saw the gnarled wound. I’d done this to my mate.
I didn’t deserve to live.
My self-hatred wasn’t going to save Emma’s life. She had to get care. I couldn’t take her to the hospital— I’d reveal her as the White Rose. I had the instinct that would be a bad idea.
“Put your mask back on.” I lifted Emma into my arms— she sloppily fitted the mask over her face as I began carrying her down the stairs.
I didn’t know whether Emma was my enemy or my friend, but it didn’t matter. I needed to protect my mate. She bunched the skirt of her dress around the wound to hold the blood in as I carried her— though I wasn’t sure if she was trying to mend the cut, or prevent droplets from scattering across the floor. I stuck to the walls and shadows, feeling nauseated as Emma’s limp form settled in my arms.
I had to get her to my room. There were supplies in there I could use to stop the bleeding.
Both of us bristled when we heard voices. There were guards up ahead. Their armor scraped as they moved. “Prince Ethan is missing from the party,” I heard one speak.
“Find him,” another ordered. “The future king wants him in eyesight.”
I pressed against a wall as the guards marched by. Emma put a hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face from the pain of the wound.
“I’m sorry, Emma, it won’t hurt for long,” I promised.
She didn’t answer. I took the winding staircase up, and didn’t settle until we were safely inside my bedroom. I laid her down on the bed, then locked the door before I rummaged through my trunk, throwing things everywhere.
I tossed the hated Phantom mask off my face, and it fell to the floor. I refused to wear that wretched thing. It was a reminder of everything reckless I’d become, a dismal memory that I couldn’t control my darkest impulses.
“You don’t have anything that can help,” Emma protested weakly.
“Yes I do.” I grabbed a pain-relief potion from the trunk, and crossed over to Emma. I lifted her neck and dribbled it past her lips. She sipped at it slowly, and the pupils in her eyes dilated.
“You have to move your hands,” I said briskly. She did, and I ripped the ruined dress in half. She was all but naked underneath, with only a thin pair of panties beneath the dress. When I lifted the fabric away from the wound, blood spilled onto my sheets. I pressed the fabric back down. “I didn’t puncture any organs. Merely sliced the skin on your side,” I explained.
“Merely?” Her voice was incredulous.
“You need stitches.” I returned to my trunk. I found a curved medical needle, with thread to make sutures, gauze