The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Forty Five

Valka

The first time I met Thane was the first time I died.

Not in the battle camps of Silvermoor. Neither was it on the streets of Voss, when I’d awakened and died in the body of a human infant. Neither was it when I’d fallen off the cliffs and died by Malachy’s spear.

The first time I met Thandric, I was in Lucien’s arms, already dead.

What happens after death?

Stillness.

It was upon the floors of our private home, hidden away in the hills, surrounded by the bodies of the servants who had become family, who had attended me and raised my daughter to her little age of six, that Thane had found me.

I was long gone, the only thing keeping me tethered to Earth being the bond between Lucien and I. The bond between Erasthais that transcended life and death. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t rest. Because he wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t want to leave, either. I wasn’t ready to leave. I had the rage of a thousand glaring suns in me. I had pain to inflict. I had vengeance to gift. I had men to kill, their wives, their mates, their children to murder for taking mine from me.

"Do you understand what it is you seek, child?" Thandric asked, a wind I could not feel ruffling his white hair. It was strange. I never realized how much he looked like Lucien.

Lucien could not see or hear us. He was far too gone in his grief to notice the shift in the air. It might have been hours since he found us. Days maybe. I couldn’t say. I no longer had a sense of time. I’d sat by his side, watching him try to stitch my wounds together and roar whenever he failed.

The man had been a bastard. But I’d never seen him cry like a babe like he did when he knew my body had begun to decay. When he knew he’d have to set fire to my skin and collect my ashes.

"Yes," I said, rising to my feet. My gaze met ancient violet ones. "Bring me back."

Thandric’s lips curled in mild annoyance. "Wanting it doesn’t mean you deserve it. There is a trade to be had. A life for a life." His eyes dropped to my belly. And it was then I truly understood what else had been stolen from me. "A son."

"Whatever it takes," I said. If the dead could feel, I might have burned with grief. For the child I never knew. For the child I did know. For the screams she gave. "Make it stop," she’d cried. "Mama!"

Thandric’s head tilts. "State your purpose."

My purpose. My purpose. My purpose.

I didn’t know it. All I knew was I had to come back home. All I knew was I had to avenge the lives of those who tried to buy me time. To avenge my daughter. I had no answers for Thandric. I only had answers for myself.

War.

Whatever Thandric saw in my eyes, in my shredded garments, on my soiled skin, my stolen dignity and the bruises that told a story of how they’d reveled in ripping me apart piece by piece, it was enough of an answer.

"Then hear me, and understand what you ask," he said, voice like stone sinking through water. "You will not awaken in your body. It is ash-bound and empty. I will cast your essence into the vessel of another. A child still soft and unformed. Two souls in one shell. This is no rebirth."

"Possession," he said simply. "You will not own the body. Not yet. You will share it. Fight for it. Your will against hers, your essence against her essence. If your will is stronger, you will consume her, wear her bones, speak with her mouth, live her life as your own. If her will proves greater, she will bind you inside her soul like a chained wolf, make you a part of her, and force your power to serve her purposes. And in the case that neither of you wins, you will fuse. Permanently."

"Then you return to me," he said. "Only to be cast adrift once more. Forced to behind again. Again. And again. Until you succeed. Make no mistake, Ilya Blackspire. Should you consume them, you will have killed them completely. Their lives, their loves, their attachments, all gone. You steal their chances to live here and in the After." He leans in. "Is that something you’re willing to have on your conscience?"

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