Alchemised, page 60
He sank into her, and her heart stopped, eyes going wide. She bit down on her tongue so hard she tasted blood, her eyes squeezed shut. He paused and kissed her, his lips so searing she felt it in her bones, and she nuzzled her face against his, but it hurt.
She’d known it might hurt if not done slowly, but she was glad it did.
Certain things were meant to hurt. She’d seduced Kaine when it was abundantly clear that this was a line he had no desire to cross. She had pushed and persisted and done it anyway, because she was desperate.
That should hurt.
His frame practically enveloped her, his lips nipping at her hairline. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, holding her tight against himself. She forced her eyes open, wanting a glimpse of what he felt in that moment.
Even now, his jaw was tense. His expression guarded. His mouth held in that hard, flat line.
But his eyes…
She could tell—
He was hers.
The realisation broke her heart.
Kaine dropped his head against her shoulder, moaning into her skin, pulling her closer, and then suddenly, it wasn’t merely a pleasure he was taking in her. Heat came to life inside her, her sense of control untethering as it threatened to engulf her. But shame and guilt rose equally quick, cold and bitter as seawater, until she was on the verge of sundering.
His body shook. He gave a low groan, slumping, arms still around her. His breath dragged across her skin as he panted, pressing a kiss on her bare shoulder.
Helena lay still, the weight of his body against her, suddenly aware of the cold radiating from the floor. The dirt and gravel and rough cloths that bit against her skin, rubbing it raw.
The only thing she could think of was how relieved she was that it was over before anything else had happened.
Even whores were not so low as to find pleasure in their work the way she nearly had.
She tried to lie still and not tremble. Kaine’s body and breath were the only warmth in that cold place. Then he went rigid and shoved himself away. His expression was drawn, and he didn’t even look at her as he scrambled off, pulling his clothes back on.
Helena slowly sat up, watching him because she didn’t know what else she was supposed to do.
He was growing paler and paler as he re-dressed. His expression disbelieving.
“Fuck—” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair before he pulled his shirt back on.
His breathing was growing unsteady. When his shirt was on, he fumbled for the buttons, and when he found some missing, he seemed blindsided.
He clamped a hand over his mouth as if he were about to be sick. His throat dipped, and he closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath before he turned to face her, his expression cold. He only looked at her face for an instant before his eyes dropped down, and the little colour remaining in his face vanished.
“You—were you a virgin?”
Helena looked down. There was blood smeared at the top of her inner thigh. No wonder it had hurt.
She pressed her knees together instantly and shoved her skirts farther. “It was assumed that was how you’d want me,” she said, trying not to think about everything the question insinuated.
For a respectable girl to lose her virginity was to give up everything, a career, education, alchemy. Only virgins were given Lumithia’s grace. If Helena were somebody of note, Kaine would be expected to marry her now. An indiscretion like this was the reason for his parents’ marriage after all.
Clearly he’d never considered her as belonging in that category. Her lungs shrivelled inside her chest.
“I—” His voice failed him. “I—I would have been gentler—if I’d known.”
She drew her legs closer, as if being smaller would shield her from being so seen.
“I didn’t really want you to be,” she said quietly. Her hands shook as she tried to get her clothes back on.
His mouth closed then, and the room went still. She could feel the change in the air between them. But she didn’t understand why it mattered, why this was the line he’d drawn.
The array must be part of it. Just after he was healed and fully internalising its effects, he’d kissed her. Wanted her. It had created a crossroads for him; that was why he’d stayed away for so long after that. Perhaps giving in, even once, was enough to tip the scales. Perhaps he couldn’t change course now; he’d made his choice.
Obsessive and possessive.
She had him. If she was smart enough to leverage it.
On his knees, ready to do anything, Ilva had said.
She still didn’t know how to do that, though. It wasn’t as if Ilva or Crowther would see any significance in the fact Kaine had finally slept with her; that was what they’d expected him to do from the start.
She was torn between the desire to laugh and cry, her mouth twisting in a grimacing smile.
“Well, you seem pleased,” he said in a bitter voice, his lip curling, “to have finally whored yourself.”
Her fingers froze, and the room went out of focus.
“That was my job,” she said. “You had to have known it was my mission.”
“Of course,” he said tonelessly, looking around the room as if he couldn’t quite believe he was there. His arms were hanging limp at his sides. “I just—I never thought you’d actually succeed.”
There was a pause while Helena finished dressing.
“I wasn’t going to betray the Resistance,” he finally said. “I was never going to. You were already losing when I made the offer, and you’re probably still going to lose now, but I never cared. I just wanted to avenge my mother.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and looked down at the floor. “Unfortunately, by the time I had an opportunity to offer my services, she’d been dead too long and there was the coroner’s report saying she’d died of natural causes. What could I possibly have to avenge?” The bitterness in his voice and on his face was unadulterated. “I knew Crowther well enough to know he’d only consider me as valuable as the strings he could pull, so I thought I’d give him a dead end to dig himself into.”
Then his expression turned vicious and disdainful. “I tried to think what could I possibly want from the Eternal Flame. A pardon, because it was as ridiculous as it was obvious. But the Resistance was losing, everyone knew you were losing. I knew I’d need a contact, someone who could retrieve messages for me and come when called. I didn’t want Crowther choosing one of his rats, and I thought demanding someone specific would play into—what they expected of me.”
He swallowed. “But the Eternal Flame’s noble families are too precious, I had to want someone they’d consider disposable, and Crowther was standing there, waiting for an answer. I had to come up with something. I remembered your name, on the exam lists. When I said Helena Marino, Crowther got this look in his eyes, and I knew he’d taken the bait.”
He sneered. “As if I would betray the High Necromancer for you. I knew they’d send you with instructions to try to play up the obsession I was supposed to have—to ensure I wouldn’t get bored or change my mind—but I wasn’t worried. You were no one, just an awkward shadow behind Holdfast, following him like a dog. I thought it would be funny, watching you try.”
He looked away from her then, his face twisting. “But you—you—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. You outmanoeuvred me. Or maybe I’m just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. You won.” He met her eyes for a moment, his expression bitter and derisive. “Well done.”
Then he went and leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes.
Helena watched him sceptically. She wasn’t sure what angle he was trying to play with this confession.
What he said about her was believable enough. It aligned with their inconsistent interactions, but to claim that avenging his mother was his true impetus? Avenging her for what?
“You switched sides because your mother died of a heart attack?” She gave a loud scoff, standing up, hiding a wince. “Her death wasn’t anyone’s fault, and even if it was, did you murder Principate Apollo by ripping out his heart by accident? Ran off with it and joined the Undying for three years, saw her die, kept going, and then what? You got so melancholy because you can’t get drunk that you decided to turn spy?”
She was baiting him. She knew it would enrage him. She hoped that if she goaded him enough, he’d finally tell the truth.
His eyes snapped open. They’d turned silver, and two splotches of colour flushed in the hollows of his cheeks. “Fuck you.”
She flinched but spat back, “You already did.”
Her back felt bruised, the skin rubbed raw from the floor, and her lower abdomen ached as if she’d been punched low in the pelvis. She’d never felt so cold as she did then, standing there, but she was so angry, and finally it was all out in the open. No more of this game.
“You are a monster,” she said, crossing her arms. “Do you expect me to forget what you’ve done? To think you became so high-ranking because of that delightful personality of yours? You think invoking your mother’s death can erase all that? Everyone has lost someone, and most of them, more than you ever could. If you want to blame her death on Morrough, then maybe you shouldn’t have spent all that extra time supporting him after she was gone. After you started this war. And chose to become Undying.”
He was so angry that she could feel his resonance humming in the air, pushing at her skin. He would probably flay her if she didn’t use her own resonance to push back.
“Do you want to know why I’m like this?” he asked slowly, his teeth flashing like fangs. “You asked once if it was a punishment, and I was honest when I said it wasn’t. It was the bargain I made.”
He walked towards her, rage radiating off him until she could feel the room warp.
“After my father’s failure, after he revealed Morrough’s plans, do you think the High Necromancer was understanding?”
Helena stared at him, frozen in place.
“I was still at the Institute, finishing up the year. Who do you imagine was alone with him when word came that my father had been caught and confessed to treason?” Kaine’s expression contorted with grief. “He had my mother in a cage when I got home. He’d been torturing her for weeks.”
His breathing grew ragged and uneven. “You sold yourself to save the person you care about. Well, so did I. What was I supposed to do, fail to kill Principate Apollo knowing I wouldn’t be the one who’d suffer for it? This”—he gestured towards himself—“this was how I proved I’d be loyal, how I got him t—” His breath caught. “—to stop hurting her.”
Helena’s head had grown light. “We—I didn’t know.”
His lip curled up in a snarl, but then he turned away and his voice grew thick. “She never recovered. Morrough and Bennet were short on subjects at the time. They liked to experiment together. I’d hear her screaming for hours sometimes. They’d do things to her and then reverse them, so there were no traces after.”
He shoved his hair away from his face, his throat working. “The whole summer. I couldn’t—do anything but tell her I was sorry. That I’d do it and come back for her. That I wouldn’t fail.”
He braced against the wall as if he were about to fall. The words, so furious at first, were turning into a tidal wave of grief that seemed to pour from him.
“When the Principate was dead and I brought the heart back, the High Necromancer let her out and made us leave with him before the Eternal Flame came for me. Even before that, my mother—she was never very strong. When she was pregnant, she wouldn’t listen when the doctors warned her what I’d cost her. She was always fragile after that. My father always said I had to take care of her. That I was—responsible. He used to make me swear again and again, growing up, that I’d always take care of her. I tried to make her flee. I got it all arranged but—she wouldn’t go. Not without me. Said she couldn’t leave me here.”
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I was trying to figure out if there was a way, and there were these parties they’d hold, the Undying. She said I should go, thought if I had friends, I’d be—protected. But that wasn’t why I’d been invited. They thought it would be interesting to find ways to make an injury that would last on one of us, and I was the youngest. Automatic short straw…” He blinked as if he wasn’t seeing the room anymore. “I thought she’d be in bed when I got back, but she’d waited up for me. She was by the door, and when she saw me, she started screaming. I kept trying to tell her that it would heal, but she kept saying it was all her fault, and her heart stopped, and I—couldn’t—”
His voice broke and he slid down the wall, shuddering as if he were about to split open. When he spoke again, his voice had deadened.
“After she died, I was being watched. Morrough knew I’d joined for her. I had to earn back trust before I could risk doing anything. I’m not one of your fucking idiots who thinks one moment of self-sacrifice can change everything. If I wanted my betrayal to matter, he couldn’t see it coming.”
Helena stood frozen in horror. How had no one known this?
“I am so sorry.” She felt faint with shock.
“I don’t need your false sympathy, Marino,” he snarled, but his voice was shaking.
He’d probably never told anyone what happened. His mother’s death had been dismissed by everyone. Why would a heart attack matter, when people were dying in battle.
But Helena knew the kind of torture a vivimancer could perform and fix without leaving a trace. She could imagine what that would do to a heart over time. Kaine had been carrying that guilt for years, trying to make amends as best he could, trying to exact some form of revenge for her, knowing the indescribable punishment that awaited him.
“I’m not lying,” she said. “I’m sorry. I am truly sorry for what happened to her.”
She drew closer to him. He looked so utterly broken, as if he were about to collapse into himself.
She placed a tentative hand on his arm, half expecting him to fling her across the room, but his shoulders trembled and he dropped his head onto her shoulder. She pulled him into her arms; he gripped her close and sobbed.
“I can’t—I can’t—” he kept saying over and over.
Helena didn’t know what to do. She ran her fingers through his hair and just held him.
“I can’t—I can’t do this again—” he finally gasped out. “I can’t care for someone again. I can’t take it.”
She blindly found his face, pressing her hand against his cheek, felt tears slide along her palm and down her wrist.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kaine.” She said it again and again.
She was apologising for everything.
For the first time, Kaine Ferron was fully human to her. She’d slipped through his walls and peeled away the defensive layers of malice and cruelty, and found that there he carried a broken heart.
She could use that.
Chapter 48
Janua 1787
When Kaine stopped crying, Helena sat back, studying him soberly.
His expression turned guarded and embittered, as if he’d wept out all his softness and once again only his venom remained.
She had him, she could feel it. She’d followed orders, done what she’d been instructed to do, but she still didn’t know how to prove that. The right way to leverage it into demonstrable loyalty.
Ilva would not lend any credence to a feeling Helena had. Caring about Helena didn’t make Kaine a dog she could command.
“If you really want the Eternal Flame to win, why keep climbing rank? What are you doing?” she asked.
His eyes shone like mirrors. She could almost see herself in their reflection. His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. If his face weren’t still wet, she’d never have known he’d been crying.
“It was obvious that my offer was only accepted out of desperation. The Eternal Flame may claim to be honourable, but Crowther is a snake. Ilva Holdfast can promise whatever she wants; she’s only a steward, and a Lapse at that. She knows full well that if they win, the Eternal Flame will pick and choose which of her actions were legitimate. Anything Holdfast doesn’t like will vanish like smoke. I assumed that once I’d outlived my usefulness, you’d blow my cover to take advantage of the instability it would cause. So.” His teeth flashed. “I tried to position myself to maximise that fallout.”
Helena furrowed her eyebrows, studying him. That seemed a bit too selfless for him. He might want to avenge his mother, but he had no fondness for the Eternal Flame. They were merely a means to an end.
“Why kiss me?” he abruptly asked. “What was the point—in all this?”
She looked down, not sure she had an answer. “I didn’t know you were supposed to die after we retook the ports. Apparently it was obvious, but I didn’t realise.”
Kaine gave a deadened laugh.
She couldn’t meet his eyes as she spoke. “They expected you to die from the array, and they were—waiting for that. When they realised you’ve been climbing rank, they assumed you’ve been playing the two sides against each other, so you’ll be the one who comes out on top in the end.”
“Did you think that?” he asked softly.
She swallowed hard, still not meeting his eyes. “No, but it doesn’t really matter what I think. They said just before solstice that I had a month to”—her voice dropped, lower than a whisper—“make you crawl or kill you, or they’d let Morrough do it instead.”
He laughed again. “One more meeting to go, then. So this was a goodbye fuck? Final payment for services rendered?”
A tremor ran through Helena. “No. I—I just—”
Her throat closed. She leaned forward, gripping his shirt, wanting to shake him. She hated the way he’d switch, one moment vulnerable and the next so bitterly cruel.
