The Hour Mage (The Quarter Mage Book 2) by Angelina J. Steffort

Author:Angelina J. Steffort [Steffort, Angelina J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MK
Published: 2023-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe as his golden gaze held mine with a force of ice. Not that control of his power but something different, harsher, making something inside of me violently toss and thrash.

“You’re lying.” My words were thin like the smoke of an extinguished candle.

“Am I now?”

I staggered back a step, and another, my heart beating like a war drum dead-set on drowning out every thought, his every word.

I hadn’t told him how much I missed Tristan, about the guilt, or how I felt I wasn’t enough. How Rogue had figured out what was going on in my mind and, even worse, the chambers in my chest, I truly didn’t want to know.

Tristan couldn’t possibly have given me up. Not when he’d come to the palace in Jezuin to get me out. Not when—

Hot tears ran down my cheeks, and I hated myself more than ever for what I’d destroyed by taking Tristan’s magic with my final challenge. Or that I’d fallen in love, to begin with.

My back met the glimmering wall, the cool stone grounding me when all I wanted to do was scream at the stars. “You made that bargain with Cyrill before you talked to Tristan. He can’t possibly have traded me for his magic. He would never do that.” At least, that was what I kept telling myself in hopes of making it a truth.

“Perhaps he didn’t. And perhaps he said it because he knew there was no way he’d get his magic back, no matter what he offered.”

That was probably why. Because he knew there was no way.

“And yes, I made the bargain before I spoke with your Mage.” He followed me to the wall, stopping mere feet away from me, his eyes piercing through my screen of tears, full of cold rage. “But you know what’s truly wrong with all of this?”

I didn’t even manage to shake my head, the pain in my chest eating up the void, making me feel where emptiness had ruled for so long.

Rogue continued anyway, “That it doesn’t matter whether it can bring back his damned magic. You are not his to offer. You are nobody’s to offer.” The air became thick, tangible around him like a shield of invisible granite—like it had in Clio’s hideout—as he breathed in and out, in and out, the rage slowly fading and his hands no longer shaking. “What his offer says about him, I leave for you to judge.”

Silence fell in the hallway, the sun illuminating the frosty air with rays of paling light, and I could have sworn he was waiting for me to speak even when his face no longer yielded any emotion. He could have been wearing the bandit’s mask, and I’d still been able to read him better. But this Rogue—he was the keeper of a slumbering nightmare. And what he’d let slip onto his features, it was a wisp of what was haunting him.

But nothing inside my chest throbbed for him now, every last nook

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.