His face is jarring in the way that déjà vu can be, like seeing a figment of your imagination materialize outside your mind.
I could barely see him atop the roof, draped in darkness. And that was dangerous. Dangerous to pretend that he was anything but the man who murdered my father. It was pathetic. It was a distraction. And I will never be so weak again.
But I see him now for what he is to me—dead.
Stubble shadows his sharp jaw, accompanied by the blood leaking from his lip, reminding me of how I’d bitten him. I shake the thought away, vowing to never think of it again.
His dark brows rise in shock, his gray eyes piercing mine. He has a sort of rugged look to him, like the face I grew annoyingly fond of in the forest.
He’s horrifyingly exactly how I remember him.
Every dark lash lining those silver eyes. Every twitch of his too-familiar lips. Every lock of ebony hair falling in waves atop a tanned brow. Every piece of him perfectly in place, exactly how I’d left him. The sight of him so preserved, so seemingly the boy I came to care for, feels like a taunt. Like a mockery of every moment that amounted to nothing.
I can barely make out the muffled voices in the crowd, barely focus on the many fingers pointing at the prince. I’d heard the rumors in the streets. Heard whispers of the Enforcer slinking through the city in search of the Silver Savior, though I wasn’t sure they were true until I laid my own eyes on him.
Flame.
The cocky bastard called himself Flame. The fire to my shadow.
Insufferable son of a bitch—
The knuckles he sinks into my cheek catch me by surprise. My head whips to the side as pain laces through my face and down my neck.
He’s definitely not holding back anymore.
Before I can repay the favor, his hand grips my chin, roughly turning my face back toward him. “That was a mistake, darling.”
Darling.
The title is now void of endearment, empty of all empathy.
When his hand pulls down the fabric covering my nose and mouth, I do the classiest thing I can think of.
I bite him.
“Shit,” Kai hisses through his teeth, snatching his hand away from my wicked smile. “What the hell was that?”
I shove him hard, pushing him toward the center of the ring. “What? Not classy enough for you?” I throw a punch I know he’ll duck beneath. When he jabs for my stomach, I catch his wrist as I spin behind him to press it to his shoulder blade. He sucks in a breath, biting his tongue against the pain I know is shooting up his arm.
“It’s shocking that anything you do still surprises me,” he grits out before hooking a foot behind my own and tugging. The bastard has me tumbling to the mat. He’s straddling me before I have a moment to catch my breath, pinning my arms beneath his knees. I writhe under him as he grips the scarf still covering my traitorous hair. “Move again—bite again—and everyone will see what a fascinating hair color you have.”
I pant, livid, frantically searching for a way out of this. “Fine. I’ll come quietly. But we need to end this fight.” I relax my body, willing myself to look defeated. “Let me tap out.”
I wriggle a hand that’s trapped beneath his knee. He gives me a skeptical look before slowly lifting the pressure off my arm. Then I move my hand to the side, giving the crowd full view of the palm I’m about to smack against the mat.
Except that instead of hitting the mat, it’s his face my hand connects with.
He curses loudly, not wasting a second before pinning my wrist above my head. I smile. His legs have loosened their hold just enough for me to thrust my knee up into his groin once again. He grunts, but I’m already using the distraction and my free leg to flip us over.
I press my full weight atop his chest as I slip the short, wicked blade from my boot. The same one I should have sunk into his chest the minute he climbed onto the roof. Leaning close to his face to conceal the illegal weapon, I press the knife onto his cheek. The shock that slips through his mask of cold indifference, settling in his wide eyes, has me smiling down at him.
“You’re going to cut me open? Here, with a room full of witnesses?” His voice is steady, but I can feel his betraying heartbeat pounding against the ribs where my legs are pressed. “You should have killed me on the roof.”
I break skin at the mention of what should have never happened between us. “It would have certainly saved me the trouble of having to do it later.”
“Go on, then.” He lifts his head slightly off the ground, pressing the blade harder against his skin. Taunting. Testing. “Do it. Wouldn’t be the first time you spilled royal blood.”
His eyes flick between mine, seemingly haunted by the very sight of me. By the sight of his father’s murderer on the brink of becoming his own. I vaguely wonder if he can even stand to touch me, to brush the hands that are covered in his father’s blood. I wonder if he can barely look at me in the light without seeing the brutal way his father died.
Because that’s what he feels like to me. Like a constant reminder of my father’s fate.
“Go on, my Silver Savior,” he muses bitterly. “Be my undoing.”
And this time, I will. I’ll do what I should have done on that roof.
The hilt grows slick in my sweaty palm.
Do it. Damn the consequences, the crowd, and do it.
I told myself I wouldn’t hesitate again. And yet, here I am. His life cupped in my bloody hands while my head and heart haggle for control.
Do. It.
My throat has gone dry. Blood pounds in my ears, drowning out the rumbling crowd along with any rational thought. I grip the handle tighter, pulling back slightly as I prepare to swipe the blade—
A calloused hand catches my wrist, the one I’d been too preoccupied to notice slipping out from beneath my legs. He pushes my arm away from his already bleeding throat while his other hand lifts up, up, up….
No, no, no—
I’m powerless to stop him from ripping the scarf from my head.
