I summoned all the training that had been drilled into me since I was seven years old, the control of my emotion, the pain and suffering I had to conceal every single day and the strength to start it all over again. Nothing could get past these few minutes, no emotion I ever felt, not the sound of my pleading heart and my crashing soul, not the heat in between my legs that even now, reacted to Galenor’s presence.
I had to stay focused, count my steps and calculate the exact movement that would take him away without adding more pain. The knife concealed at my back, buried into the waist of my pants, burned my skin, making me aware of every heavy second that passed.
“Come, let’s get you settled,” I helped him stand while doing my best to keep my tone even and my eyes pinned anywhere else but him. I could not look into those beautiful emerald eyes while knowing what I was about to do.
Without protest and fully trusting me, Galenor limped slowly from the living room and into the bedroom, placing himself on the side of the mattress, careful to make enough room for me.
His eyes remained on me, covering me with endearment and hope. Like he was preparing to breathe easy, knowing that he’d reached safety.
Me.
Ellyana, don’t fucking give up now!It took every shred of strength remaining in my body not to drown in sorrow right then and there, to beg him for forgiveness and to take that knife and punish my own heart for what I was about to do.
“Muffin,” he sighed, his arms still wrapped in iron, preventing him from moving comfortably and keeping his chest perfectly stretched for me to insert the blade.
I had to do it, I had to do it now, while he was still hazy from his return, while he still didn’t understand what my new instruction was. I had to do it.
“Galenor,” I raised my eyes to his, feeling the sting of new tears. No matter how much I’d tried, I could not contain them.
“You can start working on the chains when you are ready, muffin,” he said, his voice a half sigh, the pain he was in due to the chains audible in his tone.
On their own accord, my hands lifted to his jaw, cupping his face and caressing his skin while my fingers shook from urgency and despair.
Wordlessly, he leaned into my touch, his head tilting to the side to allow his lips to shift and place a gentle kiss on my palm.
Gods, make this end now, I howled on the inside, my bones shredding into pieces under the weight of guilt dripping through my veins.
Forcing myself to act, I pushed Galenor back, making him fall onto the mattress, his arms still wrapped in iron, bound together.
What a bunch of cowards this entire unit was. They didn’t even allow the man a chance to defend himself.
Cutting the agony short, I launched myself at him, straddling him while my hips pinned him in place, preventing his pelvis to jolt. A grin appeared on his lips, the smirk of a lover who knew how much he’d been missed.
Yet, he had to abruptly awake from that dream.
His eyes widened at the sight of the knife, jiggling in my shaking hand.
“What are you doing?” the fae cried out, smile frozen, a new line of betrayal appearing on his features.His emerald eyes burnt into me, consuming me with a sudden slash of mistrust, the realisation on his features painted like a scar. Understanding dawned on him. I was not his safety. I was his pain.
“It has to be me who does this…” I felt my voice break, words barely coming out in between sobs. The air remained petrified in my lungs, too afraid to escape.
A straight palm from the collarbone. We’d been told many times where to find the heart, how to slice through bone and enter it at an angle to cause irreparable damage.
My arm slid with the force of lightning, slicing through both my heart and him. Without explanation.
At the perfectly rehearsed angle.
It took a beat for blood to start gushing out of his chest, for Galenor’s eyes to fly open, flickering with betrayal. For his throat to escape a wail of pain.
I leaned to his chest, ripping the knife away to make way for more blood to abandon his body. His heart pounded with desperation, howling from the impact, from pain and betrayal while his eyes remained pinned on me. Filled with dread. Blinking with pain.
My cries stamped out through the room, scratching at the corners with the talons of my pain while I remained pinned to his chest, the side of my face drowned in crimson as I listened to the sounds of his flickering heart. Each time beating slower.
“I love you…” I cried out, my voice inaudible, crawling with agony. Before his chest stopped beating, I risked a final glance into those once emerald eyes, now pale and slipping from life. “I will see you soon.”
Galenor’s pupils shut his gaze away before I finished the sentence.
The sound of my heart breaking was overshadowed by a storm of applause coming from the ceiling, the entire team of observers clapping and cheering the death of an innocent man. It made me sick to my stomach and all I wanted to do was explode and take them all with me.
