Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,41
going to hurt you publicly. I couldn’t let that happen.” I grind my jaw, fighting the rising flood of panic.
“You should have let him.”
I hate the cold mask hardening his features. The way he suddenly feels a thousand miles away even though we’re inches apart. I’ve wanted this exact thing for months and now it suddenly feels wrong. “He would have killed you.”
“Don’t you know that seeing you give yourself to him is worse than death for me?”
Bile sears my throat, an invisible band constricting my chest. What was I thinking? How did everything go so wrong so fast?
My world is spiraling out of control and it’s only the first day.
“He probably wouldn’t have actually killed me,” he adds flippantly, as if we’re not discussing his death. “He wants me alive. Otherwise, how would I witness him force you to be his wife?”
He chokes on the word wife as if it’s glass cutting him to shreds.
I want to say something to make this better, but what?
In light of that truth bomb, my actions seem foolish, if not outright stupid. Once the wedding goes through, Hellebore has no reason to keep Valerian alive. If anything, I’ve sped up his execution.
Still, something nags at me. “I-I remember realizing something—something important that would make the risk worth it.”
He quirks a sharp midnight-blue brow. “It’s not that I don’t doubt your clever mind, but you have a severe concussion. You weren’t thinking clearly.”
“No. An idea came to me, I swear. A way to fix all of this. I just . . . can’t remember.”
Valerian’s icy gaze thaws as he drags the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. “Fae hells, what I would give to stay in this moment forever. To fall asleep and wake up to this view.”
Emotion clogs my throat. “Valerian, don’t give up on me. On us.”
A dark shadow falls over his features. “Summer. I told you I will deal with Hellebore. No one keeps you locked in a cage, understand me?”
For some reason that only makes me feel worse.
A whisper of dread shivers down my spine. What do you have planned, Valerian Sylverfrost?
He may be my mate, but right now I have no idea what he’s planning and that terrifies me.
Why did I have to challenge Hellebore? Maybe I didn’t have a plan. Maybe I was just terrified of seeing Valerian whipped in front of everyone like his grandfather used to do.
Maybe my true mortal nature came out and I acted on emotion, not cunning.
If that’s true perhaps I don’t deserve the title of Summer Court Princess . . . much less queen.
“I’ll train every spare moment I have,” I say, talking fast, as if enough words might make this crappy situation better. “I might stand a chance. It will have to be somewhere private so he doesn’t know I have magic. That’s how I’ll beat him.” I force my mouth into a weak smile, trying to feign more confidence than I feel. “Surprise.”
He tweaks my nose, but there’s no amusement in his eyes. Whatever he’s feeling, it’s hidden behind an armored wall he’s spent thousands of years fortifying. An armored wall that until Hellebore rocked my world, was open to me. “Such a cocky, violent little thing. If only they could see how wondrous you are, Summer, they would never dare question you.”
There’s a sadness to his words that I don’t understand. It pits in my belly, growing with every second he looks at me like that.
Like I’m slipping away.
Like . . . like he’s already lost me.
Desperation claws to the surface. “We could consummate the bond.”
I shiver at the way his eyes darken with lust, the raw primal energy that suddenly takes over.
“Summer.” My name comes out as a growl. The animalistic tone should scare me but it does the opposite. “We can’t. Our combined magic wouldn’t be enough to stop the poison in my veins, and even if it was . . . we would be marked for death by both sides.” I sigh as he traces a finger over my ear, gently pushing back a strand of my hair. “When I take you to bed, it will be somewhere private, the decision won’t be made out of desperation, and you will not be wearing another male’s mark on your flesh.”
Tears of frustration and helplessness gather behind my eyes, the dull ache nothing compared to the vise crushing my heart.
The silence stretches out between us. His eyes drink me in the way Ruby slams Mountain Dew,