Chapter 33: 28: HAUNTINGLY FALLEN
MEDINA
The night air is thick with betrayal, its weight pressing against my chest as I storm through the corridors, my footsteps a wrathful symphony upon the polished floors.
Phillip had only just set me down, and already my body moved of its own accord, driven by an anguish so profound that it scorched my very marrow. I feel unmoored, as though the world I have meticulously constructed around myself has crumbled into dust, leaving me to drift in the wreckage of my own delusion.
A breath shudders from my lips. A hand trembles as I push open my door. The silence within is deafening, and yet my mind screams, replaying the horrors of the past hour, refusing to grant me even a moment’s reprieve.
I had been confident.
The glass vial in my hands shimmered with promise, the liquid within infused with my own craft, my own power. A spelled aphrodisiac, a delicate yet potent concoction, designed with one purpose—to unravel Elijah’s stubborn will, to remind him of what has always been his.
The scent was subtle, rich with the kind of sweetness that lingers upon the tongue long after it is gone. A mere whiff would awaken his wolf’s hunger, would set his body alight with the need only I could fulfill.
He has resisted me before, but not this time. This time, he would yield.
I pressed a single drop to my pulse points, to the hollow of my throat, to the soft skin of my wrists, watching as the potion melted into my flesh, becoming a part of me. A slow smile curled my lips.
He is mine. He has always been mine.
Elijah has had a thousand flings, faceless women whose names he never bothered to remember. I have always been his constant, the one who remains even when his bed grows cold. He would come to me, weary from battle, restless from the weight of his crown, seeking the solace that only I could provide.
And yet, never had he truly chosen me. Not with the fullness of his heart. Not in the way that mattered.
But tonight—tonight, he would remember.
I made my way to his chambers, my steps slow, measured, anticipation curling through my veins like smoke. Yet as I pushed open the door, I was met with an emptiness that left my breath shallow. The bed was undisturbed, the room untouched. My lips pressed together. His study, then.
The corridors stretched long before me, torchlight flickering against the stone walls, casting my shadow in jagged, restless shapes. The scent of aged parchment and burning firewood reached me first, a familiar prelude to the space where he spent so many of his nights. But something else lingered, something that made my steps falter.
A sound.
A low, guttural groan, the kind that comes only from the deepest of pleasures.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat.
No.
No, it could not be.
And yet, as I took another step closer, another sound followed—a sharp gasp, a choked moan, a name whispered in a voice I did not recognize as mine.
Celeste.
My hands trembled, my pulse roaring in my ears. No. He would not. He could not. She was nothing. A prisoner. A disobedient, ungrateful thing who had dared to stand in defiance of him. A girl whose very existence was an insult to me, to everything I had sacrificed.
I should have turned away.
I should have fled before the truth could cut me deeper.
But I am not a coward.
With a whispered incantation, my vision shifted, the wall before me dissolving into an ethereal haze, allowing me to see what should have remained unseen.
And I saw them.
Elijah, moving above her, his body desperate, frenzied, lost in a passion that I have never known from him. His hands branding her skin as if she were the most precious thing he had ever held. His mouth, parted in pleasure, murmuring words too soft for me to hear.
His eyes—
Gods above, his eyes.
Dark with obsession, with reverence, with something that has never, never been mine.
A sound tore from my lips, a silent, wretched thing as my vision shattered, the spell breaking under the weight of my agony.
I stumbled back, my hands pressed to my chest as if I could hold together the pieces of my breaking heart.
He has had a thousand women. But none had ever been more than a single night. None had ever held him past the dawn.
And yet, it has not been one night with her. It has not been fleeting.
What has she done to him?
The question burned through me, fierce and unrelenting.
It cannot be real. It cannot be true.
That little wretch—loud-mouthed, ungrateful, defiant—she has bewitched him, ensnared him in some spell that has made him blind to the truth, blind to me.
Rage clawed through my grief, its sharp teeth sinking into my skin, replacing sorrow with fury. I turned sharply, my feet carrying me away, my steps gaining speed until I was running, tearing through the corridors, uncaring of who saw me.
My room was a blur as I entered, my hands moving before my mind could catch up, grasping, clawing, ransacking through my things. Bottles shattered, fabric tore beneath my nails, the destruction of it all a balm to the wound in my chest.
Let her come. Let her try to stop me.
I would not let her have him.
I will not let her take the man I have loved for over a century, the man for whom I abandoned my family, my kind, my place among the heavens.
Celeste will not win.
The present crashes back upon me like a tidal wave, and I find myself standing before the mirror, my reflection a portrait of ruin.
My hands are shaking, my eyes wild, my lips parted as if in prayer or in curse.
Slowly, deliberately, I reach for the edge of my towel, allowing it to slip from my shoulders, the fabric pooling at my feet.
And there, upon my back, the truth of my existence remains etched into my flesh.
The place where my wings once were, where they had been torn from me in the moment of my fall.
The scars are hidden beneath ink, beautiful patterns of midnight and gold that stretch over my skin, a poor attempt to mask what will never be erased.
To the world, they are art. A masterpiece of resilience, of defiance.
But I know better.
They are a mark of my failure. A reminder of all I have lost.
And yet, if I could survive being cast from the heavens, if I could survive the searing agony of my wings being ripped from my body, then surely—
Surely, I can survive her.
My hands curl into fists, nails biting into my palms.
I will not lose him.
My gaze shifts to the shelf at the corner of my room, to the dust-laden books that have remained untouched for years. But there, buried beneath the weight of time, is what I seek.
An old spell book, its cover worn, its pages heavy with forgotten power.
My hands tremble as I run them over the book’s spine, my breath coming slow and heavy. Dust clings to my fingertips, a relic of years past, of magic long abandoned. I hesitate for only a moment. Then, I pry it open.
The pages whisper against my skin, fragile and worn, yet brimming with power. The scent of aged parchment mingles with something darker, something old and waiting. My pulse quickens.
My eyes trace the words, written in a language that no longer belongs to this world. Forgotten tongues, sacred invocations. I can feel the magic thrumming beneath each syllable, alive and breathing, eager to be spoken once more.
I know the dangers.
I have seen what happens to those who reach too far, who grasp at powers meant only for the divine.
But I have already fallen.
There is nothing left to lose.
I skim past spells of healing, of protection, of blessings once meant for the righteous. None of them serve me now. My fingers halt upon a passage marked in deep crimson ink, the letters curling like vines, thorns hidden within their beauty.
Elijah will belong to me.
I press my palm to the page, the magic surging up my arm, as if it, too, knows my desire. A slow, wicked smile graces my lips.
Celeste has taken what is mine.
But she is nothing.
I am the one who has waited, who has suffered, who has bled for him.
And soon—very soon—Elijah will remember exactly where he belongs.
With me.
My fingers brush over its surface, a slow smile curling upon my lips.
Celeste thinks she can take what is mine.
She has no idea what she has awakened.
I flip the pages.
And I begin.