Once Betrayed, Twice Shy

Conflicted

CASPIAN

The whisky burns going down, a sharp, familiar heat that should numb something in me by now, and yet it does nothing at all against the image that’s carved itself into the inside of my skull—her face, tilted up at me in the low light of that room, eyes wide with a fear I put there and a defiance I can’t stop thinking about even as I hate myself for thinking about it at all.

Serapha.

Or whatever name she’s wearing this time around, as if a new name could ever disguise what she actually is underneath it.

I should have ended this the moment I had her chained and helpless in front of me. One clean motion and centuries of this particular torment would be over, and instead I stood there and negotiated with her like she’d earned the right to bargain for anything, like some starved, foolish part of me wanted an excuse to keep her close instead of finishing what should have been finished the second I recognized her scent in those woods.

No matter how devastatingly beautiful she is.

No matter how much some broken, traitorous piece of me wants to give in to the ruin she’ll bring down on me all over again.

A knock lands against my office door, sharp and impatient, and I set the glass down hard enough that liquor sloshes over the rim and onto the polished wood of the table before I push up out of my chair and cross the room to yank the door open.

Marcus stands on the other side, arms folded over his chest, one hand stained dark at the knuckles in a way that tells me he’s been handling something he doesn’t intend to explain to me tonight.

“I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” I say.

“You’re playing with fire,” he answers, flat and unbothered by my tone in the way only Marcus has ever been. “You can’t trust yourself to be rational where this girl is concerned, and I refuse to stand by and watch you make the same mistake all over again.”

I turn away from him, disgusted—disgusted by how true his words are, disgusted with the whole tangled mess of a fate I never asked for, disgusted most of all with myself for not having a single argument to throw back at him.

I drop into my chair instead, reaching for the bottle again.

I’m already halfway through it, and even with the tolerance centuries have built into me, I can feel the liquor working through my blood now, loosening things I’d rather keep locked down, though clearly not loosening them enough.

“What did she say?” Marcus asks, lowering himself into the chair across from me without waiting for an invitation.

“She insists she remembers nothing.”

I take another pull from the glass.

“Do you believe her?”

He reaches over and takes the bottle straight from my hand, tipping it back for a swig of his own, and I watch him do it without any real irritation, too tired to summon the energy for it.

“She’s lying,” I say, the word coming out rougher than I intend. “Every word out of those lips is a lie.”

And then, quieter, almost to myself, because there’s no point pretending Marcus doesn’t hear everything I try to bury:

“Even though I want so badly to believe them.”

“Perhaps.” Marcus shrugs, setting the bottle down between us. “Doesn’t matter either way, does it? The prophecy stands regardless of what she remembers or doesn’t. You just have to learn to control yourself around her. You’re volatile, Caspian. More than I’ve seen you in a long time.”

I want to snap at him, want to remind him exactly who he’s speaking to, but the anger doesn’t hold because he’s right, and there’s no satisfaction in shouting down a truth.

I’ve let my judgment slip more times in the last four days than I have in the last four decades, and every single slip has had her name written somewhere underneath it.

“What did you come here to discuss?” I ask instead, because I’d rather talk about anything else.

“I’m in the process of brokering a deal with a weapons trafficker,” Marcus says, leaning back. “Negotiations are slow, dragging longer than they should. I was hoping you’d help move things along.”

“We give them an offer they can’t afford to refuse,” I say. “That usually speeds things up.”

“That’s more or less the plan.”

He rises from the chair, straightening his jacket, and pauses at the door.

“I’ll visit your prisoner tomorrow. But I want to point out, for whatever it’s worth to you, that she hasn’t eaten since she arrived. Do with that information what you will.”

“I don’t care,” I say to his retreating back.

The words leave my mouth easily enough, practiced, familiar—but even as they hang in the empty air of my office, I hear exactly how false they sound.