Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“What happened?” he demanded.
“Happened?”
“With you. Something happened. You’re being avoidant.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I…didn’t want to say anything in front of anyone else.”
He went around to his desk and leaned against it, waiting for her response. “No one else is here now.”
“Right.”
Still she said nothing. Her silence was deafening, and he finally dropped his head with a sigh.
“What is Lorcan’s plan?” Graves asked. “He’s coming to the conference. So you spoke to him. What did he say?”
“Well,” she said gently, “it isn’t to mess up the heist.”
His eyes crawled over her as if he wanted to read her thoughts without touch. “Are you okay?”
It was then that she realized she was shaking. That she was terrified. Of what had happened and Graves’s reaction. Telling him right now was probably not the right time to do it, and yet there was no other time.
She was not okay. She had kissed Lorcan under the influence of some stupid soulmate magic. She had gotten herself out of it, and she had walked away. But she had still kissed him. A part of her had wanted to kiss him. A part of her hadn’t wanted to leave at all.
“Lorcan kissed me.”
A soft laugh of disbelief escaped him. “Of course he did.”
“Graves, it was…” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. Maybe you should just read me.”
“Forgive me. I don’t ever want to see that.”
He reached into his desk and pulled out a disassembled handgun, working over the parts with expert precision.
“What are you doing?” she asked slowly.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Putting together a gun.” She took a step toward him, hand raised. “I’m not sure tonight is the night to go after him. He’s at the height of power right now.”
“He’s expecting me,” he said as he inserted the magazine with a soft click.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“Because I walked away,” Kierse said. “There was a—I don’t know—magic connection when it happened. Like the binding was trying to happen without the ceremony. I used your technique to regain control and broke it apart.”
“You resisted a binding?” he asked in apparent shock.
“I guess so. He didn’t think that was even possible without the ceremony.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“I guess it’s because I have Saoirse’s magic.”
Graves’s eyes widened. “You what?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what Lorcan said. That’s how he knew immediately after the spell. Our magic was already connected once, and it was like…reincarnated into me.”
“Oh,” he said as if that made perfect sense. “That explains a lot.”
“Anyway, I told him I was making the choice that Emilie couldn’t.”
Graves paled at those words. “What did he say to that?”
“That she couldn’t make a choice because…”
“Because she’s dead.”
“And you killed her,” Kierse whispered.
“Ah,” he said, setting the gun down between them. “That I did.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I tried to use my magic to break the bond,” Graves said, staring down at the weapon. “She asked me to do it when we ran out of options. I thought I had that kind of power. I was so arrogant.”
Kierse’s stomach twisted at the thought. “Did you do it?”
“No. Well, I thought I had started to make it work, but it went all wrong so fast.” He shook his head. “I removed memories of the bond and her soulmate and everything related to it.”
“I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“It is delicate work, and I rarely use it anymore. One change can have a ripple effect through the entire mind. It can crush a mind. The one memory taken from you has left a ripple,” Graves explained. “Just touching it causes you physical pain.”
“And that’s what happened with Emilie? You did too much and she died from it? That sounds like an accident.”
He looked directly into Kierse’s eyes when he said, “I want you to understand that I am not the hero.”
“None of us are heroes.”
“I am what he says I am in this. I was overly confident, arrogant, and convinced of my rightness. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Trying to do anything to shred the bond with my own crushing power.” His eyes never left her face as if he wanted to impart the truth to her as clearly as possible.
“But that still sounds like an accident,” she tried to argue.
“It was not an accident,” he said, his voice stern. “I decided while it was happening that I’d rather she was dead than with him.”
Kierse’s heart ached for him. “You were so young. That doesn’t sound like the reason it happened and more like your own self-loathing.”
“I should loathe myself after what I did. What Lorcan says is correct. I robbed her of her choice. I killed her, Wren. I did it.”
Her stomach twisted.
“And I swore I wouldn’t make that mistake again,” Graves said, reaching for the gun. “I’ll kill him this time.”