Free The Kraken King, Part 7 by Meljean Brook

ever alone?”
    You won’t be,
he almost said. But she would. In less than two hours.
    The anger drained away. Only the pain and the dread remained. He couldn’t fight two battles at once—and her walls were as strong as ever.
    By showing his anger, he might have made them even stronger.
    â€œAriq.” By her smile and voice, she was striving for a lighter tone again. Yet her fingers were clenched tightly at her chest and her body utterly still. “They’re only plans. Not intentions. And you’re the Kraken King—so even if I did try to go, you wouldn’t let me. Would you?”
    He froze. Yes, he was the Kraken. The man who held on until the end. And Zenobia was a woman who feared being trapped. Who was terrified of losing control and losing her options.
    If he held on when she tried to go, if she believed he would trap her, then the heavens help him—she would only leave faster.
    Hoarsely he said, “I would.”
    Her face whitened. “You . . . would?”
    Throat aching, he nodded.
    Her hand flew to her mouth and she stared at him above her splayed fingers. “You would let me go?”
    Did he have any choice? “Yes.”
    All at once she seemed to shrink in on herself and a soft sound escaped her, like a mouse crushed under a boot. But she didn’t move, only stared at him with her hand still covering her mouth, her face a white mask and her eyes glassy with tears.
    His heart on fire, Ariq started for her—then stopped, because he was a liar. Never would he let her go.
Never.
If she ever left, he would follow her to Fladstrand and continue fighting for her heart.
    How would he console her now? With a lie that left her shattered? Or with the truth that he wouldn’t honor her choice to leave? He lost either way.
    He
wouldn’t
lose her.
    At the mere thought of it, the anger was rising again. The frustration and pain. He couldn’t push them aside—and both might push her away. Every time he slammed into her walls, they only grew stronger.
    He abruptly stalked to the chamber doors and slammed through them, instead.
    ***
    So the world could drop out from beneath her, and she would live. She would live.
    But Zenobia didn’t want to live like this.
    The crash of the doors was still echoing through the chamber when her first tears fell, when a sob ripped from her chest. Pain crushed her heart.
    Ariq would let her go.
    He’d said he wouldn’t.
Liar.
He was a damned slithering liar and she was stupid, so stupid for believing him. After he’d already betrayed her trust once. And rescued her. And made certain she had everything she needed.
    And loved her.
    Just as quickly as they’d started, her tears dried, leaving her stomach in a knot and her chest hollow.
    Her head felt as empty. He
had
always made certain she had everything she needed. He
had
said he wouldn’t let her go—and it wasn’t in his nature to let her go. Yet he’d just told her that he would. So why had he believed she needed to hear that? Blindly she stared at the closed doors, her brain desperately trying to make sense of his abrupt departure before she got up and went after him.
    And she
would
go after him. She wasn’t letting him leave for Krakentown with this between them.
    Why had he thought that
she
would be leaving? She’d explicitly said that she didn’t intend to. But had he misinterpreted something that she’d said?
    Or something that she hadn’t said.
    The realization dropped like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. All this time, he’d been fighting for her. In the jellyfish balloon, he’d told her that his every action was designed to break through her walls. Too afraid to expose her heart, she’d never told him he was already in. Did Ariq believe that he still needed to fight? Yet now he was being forced to leave. To give up.
    Oh, she was
such
a fool.
    Heart pounding, she surged to her feet.