“Just. . .” David stood tall again. “Just get out. Everyone.”
No one moved.
“I said out!” he screamed, grabbing my arm as I went to pass. “Not you.”
“David.” Mike’s hand came down on David’s wrist, making a tight grip as he forced it off me. “I’m not leaving her—”
“You will do as you are told, or I will have you whipped.”
“Go ahead. I’m not afraid of a lashing.” He stood halfway between David and I. “You might be the king, but she is still my best friend, and I will not leave her at your mercy.”
“Then I officially relieve you of your duties.” He walked over and opened my door, leaning out to look down the corridor. “Guards!”
Mike took a step back, his eyes holding the deepest, most feared apology.
“Arrest him for violation of matrimonial rights.”
“David, please? Don’t take this out on—”
“Silence.” He pointed right in my face. “Or this gets worse for all of you.”
I backed down, shaking my head at Mike.
“It’s okay, Ara,” he said, laying both hands behind his back as the guard cuffed him. “It’ll be okay.”
“Not for her, it won’t,” David said coldly, and before Mike could react, his eyes going wide, his foot lifting only an inch to move toward me, the guard cupped his chin and the back of his head, twisting until his neck snapped and he went down hard.
“No!”
David’s arm shot out and blocked me off. “Stay away.”
“He’ll be okay, Ara,” Blade said, dragging me backward. “He’ll recover from that.”
“That wasn’t fair.” I hid my face in my hands. “He was just trying to protect me.”
“And the same fate awaits anyone else with any stupid ideas,” David said, turning to me. “You are entitled to the protection the law allows, Ara. Nothing more. And it does not protect you from me.”
“And what about Jason?” I asked.
David’s eyes darkened, his lips parting to say something, when Falcon cut in, his knuckles going white where they fought to restrain Jason. “Orders, Majesty.”
“Throw him in a cell.” David waved his hand at them. “I’ll deal with him later.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Falcon bowed.
“David, please,” Jason begged. “Please. Do what you want to me, but don’t touch her. She’s ca—”
“Blade,” David ordered. “See that Falcon gets him to the cell without incident.”
“As you will it.” Blade bowed his head, obeying, but his soul and heart would never be at David’s command. He looked Jason in the eye, muttering an apology, and twisted his arm up behind his back.
“Let me go!” Jason yelled. “Blade, you know what he’ll do.”
“You can’t protect her, mate,” Blade said, his voice strained with the fight. “None of us can.”
But Jason wouldn’t give this up, not even for his friend. Limbs tangled and blurred between them, like cars moving fast down a freeway, the rest of us watching on, just waiting for the uneven odds to work in someone’s favour.
“Ara, just run,” Jason screamed. “Just—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Morgaine groaned, tossing the dagger from her belt to Blade. “Just shut him up.”
“Got it.” He caught it with one hand, forcing his arm down over Falcon’s as they slammed Jason face first into the doorframe, pining him there. “I’m sorry, mate. This is gonna hurt me a lot more than it’ll hurt you.”
Jason cried out, the dagger slipping between the bones in his neck, paralysing him to submission in one strike.
“No!” I screamed, but the door slammed shut on the empty room.
“Don’t cry for him,” David ordered, shoving my hand down from my mouth. “Don’t you dare shed one tear for him, Ara. He will get more than a dagger to the spine when I’m done with him.”
I let my hands fall to my sides, my fists tight. “If you touch one hair on his head, I—”
“You’ll what?” He moved in, startling me with the speed of which he came up. “You’ll what, Ara? Leave? Good. Fuck him to hurt me? Already done that, so what else can you do? What else can you possibly do that’s going to make me give two ounces of shit?”
“I—” My mouth hung open, nothing coming out.
“I don’t know how to deal with this, Ara,” he said, his voice softer than before. “I don’t know what to do with you—what to say, what to feel. I—” He touched his chest, swallowing like his throat had narrowed, and sat down on his side of the bed—his head in hands.
“David? I don’t know, either. I—”
“Don’t talk. If you know what’s good for you, do not let one word come out of that f**king slut mouth of yours.”
I was so taken back by those words that I forgot everything I planned to say.
The silence lingered in the room for so long then. I tried not to breathe, not to do anything that would alter the pattern of his thoughts. My life, and Jason’s life, rested on his decisions right now, and he was so clearly hurt I was sure he was capable of anything, even carrying out my punishment himself.
“It’s over,” he said suddenly in the quietest breath, as if the very notion had just struck him, bringing down all the realisation of the lonely centuries to come on top of it.
“I know,” I whispered, but it was so low he wouldn’t really have heard it.
“You made a promise, Ara. That’s it. I trusted you, believed you. I. . .” He stood up and faced me, touching his chest. “I gave you the one part of myself I never ever gave to anyone else because I believed you would hold it sacred, protect it, cherish it like I did yours. I would never have hurt you that way, Ara. Never in a million years.”
“I know.” I sobbed, sucking the streaming tears from lip. “And I loved you too, I—”
“But my eternal love just wasn’t enough for you, was it? And who’s the fool?” His voice broke. “It’s not you, is it? No.” He shook his head. “It’s me. I’m the fool. I’m the one stupid enough to believe this was real—that anything outside death, murder, hatred, loneliness was real.”
“It was real.” I stepped a little closer.