Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)

I lie awake for a while, listening to the bullfrogs and the crickets. Gabriel joins me only after the fire dampens.

“Gabriel,” I say into the stillness, hoping he’ll answer. “The soldiers earlier… Are you preparing for war?”

“Yes.”

My chest aches at the implication behind his words. War will take him away from me. Not that I have any intentions of staying after I carry out my mission.

He’s the one I hate to leave.

“Has Hector returned?” The question bursts free before I take time to think it through. I’m glad I asked it, though. I must know.

“Yes.”

I trail my hand down Gabriel’s arm and to his hand. I squeeze my fingers around his, marveling at the warmth. My body doesn’t care he’s Bloodstone.

He rolls over and pulls me until I’m tucked close to him. “Tomorrow, we will move all the women and children further into the mountains. I want you to go with them.”

“Why are you moving everyone?”

He brushes his fingertips along my cheek, tracing over my scar. “This is the way of my people. We scatter. Hide. Conceal. Otherwise, the other five tribes would annihilate us.”

“Is that why you protect Hector?”

“Yes, and why we concealed Roland’s death,” Gabriel says, finally admitting to what I already knew.

It took Malachi to tell me.

Gabriel continues, dragging my attention back to him. “The moment the other tribes learned of Roland’s demise, they would have hunted Hector. We couldn’t afford to lose another leader.”

They would hunt Hector like I am hunting him.

The reality sinks into my bones. The very man my husband protects and conceals, I aim to kill.

“How can Hector lead if he isn’t here?”

“By having a solid foundation of men around him he trusts.”

“Like Alden and Luc?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like Hector? Is he a good leader?” I’m not sure what spawned the questions. Maybe I need to know what kind of foundation my husband has. What does he believe in? Who does he believe in?

“Why do you ask me that?” he asks after several moments of silence.

I rise on my elbow, needing to see his face, needing to look into his eyes. “I want to know if you believe in Hector.”

“I believe in his intentions. His integrity. His honor. His devotion to his people.” Sincerity sparks from Gabriel’s words.

“He’s never here.”

Shadows flicker in Gabriel’s eyes. Things impossible for me to put into thoughts.

Maybe I have said too much.

“He’s where he needs to be.” Gently, Gabriel slides his calloused fingertips along my jaw and lifts my chin. “Why do you care?”

“Because he is your leader.”

“Is he your leader?”

My breath catches at that question. What is Gabriel’s purpose? Maybe he means to trap me and rip open my secrets.

“I’m in Astarobane, and I’m married to a Bloodstone warrior. So yes, he is my leader.” The words sour against my tongue.

“Am I?” The question comes out low, husky. “Do you believe in me, Sol?”

Is he asking as my husband? Or does he simply want to know if I believe in his goodness?

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Then tell me why you have come here. Tell me everything, so I may believe in you too.”

Tight bands wrap around my chest, my heart, my breath.

“My people…” The lie curdles in my throat as I break eye contact and sink to my back. “I was shunned when I couldn’t cast magic like everyone else. I wanted to belong to a place where I wasn’t an oddity.”

It’s true. I was an outcast. I was banned from the apothecary.

But none of those reasons are why I came here.

“Sol.” Gabriel grabs my chin and turns my face back to his. “Speak the truth to me. Why were you desperate to stay here?”

Something shifts inside me, something determined to connect with Gabriel in a way I have never connected before. Something longing for his trust. Something desperate for forever beyond my mission.

“For Roland,” the truth bursts free and settles around us like a thick, humid morning.

Gabriel drops his hand and stiffens. “You came here for Roland?”

No. No. Please, don’t pull away.

Admit that Roland was evil too.

Admit it, so I can believe in you, Gabriel.

“Yes, to avenge my mother. Roland murdered her in front of me.” Vivid memories paint my mind. Mother’s cries. The fires. The flames. The way she fell.

I blink, pushing aside the pain and speak in a raw voice. “He slaughtered her and threw her body into a fire like she was nothing.”

A muscle ticks in Gabriel’s jaw as he clenches his fingers into fists.

“He was evil,” I say, freeing all my anger, my fire.

“I’m aware.”

“Surely, you don’t condone his actions?”

Faster and faster that muscle jerks in Gabriel’s jaw, but he doesn’t answer, doesn’t agree with me.

“Gabriel!”

“What would you have me say, Sol?” he asks, his words empty, low, defeated. “He’s dead. But because of him, people like you won’t leave my people alone.”

My chest aches at his reluctance to agree with me. I need a connection, a tie between my heart and his. He offers me nothing. No threads to weave together a path. No insight into his world.

Bitterness twists Gabriel’s mouth into a deep scowl as he climbs from the bed and speaks in a caustic tone. “You’re no different from anyone else who comes here and tries to kill our leaders.”

“I was heartbroken and vengeful.”

He moves to the table and yanks up his surcoat. “Last summer, the Seer told me I’d marry a woman with a serpent mark on her wrist. She failed to mention she’d be vengeful.”

I swallow through the rawness in my throat. “I cannot help my story, Gabriel. Nor can I change my past. You asked for my truth, and I gave it to you.”

“You asked me why I didn’t bed you.” His lips form a thin line. “This is the reason. I couldn’t trust you, and I cannot bed a woman I don’t trust.”

He has every right to feel that way. Every right to not want to go that far.

I bring my knees up and rest my hands against them. “What does that mean for us?”

He glances at the closed door. “You will not like my answer.”

“Just speak,” I say, my words flat, emotionless.

This isn’t the ending I wanted when I decided to give him honesty. I thought by being truthful, I might garner his trust.

Instead, I lost everything.

His stare lowers to me “You stay here as my prisoner.”

“Your prisoner? Isn’t that a little dramatic?”

Before I comprehend his intentions, he moves closer, leans down, and swoops me from the bed. I land on my feet with a thud and my body tucked close to his.

“You wanted revenge. I want the power of your mark,” he says in the flattest voice I have ever heard.

My breath squeezes from my lungs as I jerk my gaze upward. “What?”

“Your mark will give my people magic again.”

I gasp and try to jerk away. His grip tightens, trapping me like an iron cage to his larger, taller frame.

“How dare you pin such an evil thing on me?”

“Evil?” A scowl forms on Gabriel’s mouth. “Bloodstone magic isn’t evil.”

“It’s dark. The opposite of light.” The words snap out of me.

From the time I could walk, Father implanted that truth in me. “Kyanites,” he’d say, “are the light. Their magic is light. Bloodstone people are the opposite. They once wielded dark, unthinkable magic. They must never be allowed to call on their gifts again. It’s our duty to make sure they never do.”

The scowl deepens on Gabriel’s mouth. “It’s not dark. It’s simply different than what a Kyanite can cast.” He grabs my arm and turns my wrist to the torchlight. “The Seer prophesied I’d marry a woman with a serpent mark, and she’d bring back magic to my people.”

“No!” I yank free. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s the truth.” Frustration burns in his eyes. “Why else do you think I agreed to this farce of a marriage?”

I turn away as his words break something inside me, shattering the part of me that cared for him.

Hatefulness and spite grip my tongue, but I cannot speak. Instead, I try to compel kindness.

“Gabriel, let me go.”

“Let you go?” Anger flares from his tone as he continues. “You just confessed to wanting to murder my leader. I would sooner let a lion free in the city.”

“Roland is dead!”

“And you—” he grabs my chin and brings my face toward his, “—aren’t. I can never let you go. You are here to stay and give my people magic.”

“I would sooner rip my heart out.”

It’s an empty threat. Kyanites don’t kill themselves. They believe they will have no afterlife if they do.

But he probably doesn’t know that.

His brow rises at the vehemence behind my statement. “Ah … there’s the anger I expected from a Kyanite. I must admit, you almost fooled me into believing you were a simple woman. But you’re not. You’re a tiger who tries to act like a cat.”

Breathe.

Relax.

You can think your way out of this.

“How am I to give them magic?”

“In the cave of reflection.”

My breath hitches. I have heard of the cave of reflection and how it can help people obtain their missing powers. But you must have a source to pull your gifts from.

Surely, it’s not me.

It cannot be me.

“I won’t go with you.” I lift my chin, staring him straight in the eyes, defying him in a way I have never dared to before.

“You will do whatever I say.”

A hoarse laugh escapes me. “You will find me a very unwilling participant.”

“If I tell my people the reason you came here, they will annihilate you. So, if I were you, I would listen to me.”

“Tell them. I prefer death over giving even one Bloodstone magic.”

He jerks me around until my back is facing him and pins my hands together. I wince as he tightens his grip and walks me from the room.

Silence weighs heavy as he guides me into the main room and finds my dagger sitting on the table.

“What are you going to do, stab me?” I ask, my words like ice.

“No.” With one hand, he keeps me pinned. With the other, he yanks at the hilt enough to loosen it and reveal a red stone fused to the edge of the blade.

I gasp. It’s bloodstone. The very stone the gods took from them.

“I don’t understand.” Something binds my gaze to that weapon, to that stone, to that horror. “How do you have that, and why did you put it on my dagger?”

“So, you could use magic.”

Ash grips my throat as I shake my head. “Impossible.”

He slips the hilt back on the blade and shoves it into the sheath. “It’s not impossible. You require kyanite and bloodstone to heal. That is why you couldn’t heal when you were with your people.”

“No.” It’s not true. None of this is true.

I squeeze my eyes shut, needing this moment to end, needing Gabriel to not be right. With everything in me, I fight his hold, seeking my escape, my freedom.

His grip tightens. “You cannot leave, Sol.”

“I’ll go quietly. Please.” I put all my desire into that last word, all my desperation to get away from here.

“No,” he says, his tone final.

I go limp in his arms and allow my eyes to flutter shut.

“Sol.” He shakes me a little. “I know you’re pretending.”

I slow my breathing to shallow breaths and command my body to stay perfectly still.

“Sol.” Concern lingers from his tone as his arms slacken enough for him to turn me. He releases my hands and lifts my chin and trails his fingertips down my jaw. “Just open your eyes.”

It’s now or never.

I react, jerking away from him, and shoving his chest with all my strength. The surprise knocks him off center. He lands with a hard thud against the table.

My heart slams against my ribs as I scramble for my sheathed dagger. My fingers grip the hilt as he reaches me. I rotate with it in hand.

His brow rises as he folds his arms, his body language far too relaxed for someone in his position. “Are you going to try to murder me?”

“Not unless you give me a reason to. Let me walk away.”

Clouds swirl in his eyes as he speaks in a pain-filled voice. “I can’t.”

Tightness squeezes around my chest. “I would turn this dagger on myself before I allowed you to use me to bring magic back to your people.”

He steps closer. I jerk back and raise the blade to the center of his chest. His stare lowers to the point inches away from his surcoat.

“Lower the dagger,” he says, his words low, honed with warning.

“Or?” Defiance sparks in every inch of my body as I stand up taller and glare.

“You don’t want to know the answer to that,” he growls. “Lower the dagger.”

My stare shifts between the man with smoldering eyes and the front door. I could stab him and run. Or I could drop the weapon and become his prisoner. If I did, he would try to use me. I’d be bringing death to Tarrobane. I cannot.

Something shifts in his expression, as if he knows the internal war raging inside me. He reacts, his movements fast and overwhelming. He jerks swiftly to the right, avoiding my steel, and smacking my wrist hard enough to break my grip. Ripples of pain shoot up my arm as the dagger plummets to the floor. He steps on the hilt.

“We could have done this easy.” Coldness laces his words and dives into my heart.

The mercenaries taught me how to use both of my hands equally well. I use my left to strike Gabriel in the throat. He gags and stumbles backward. I grab my dagger and scurry away from him as he doubles over, coughing.

I run for the front door and thrust it open. The hot, humid night assaults me as I run wildly away from the cottage and the man I wed myself to.

Run.

Faster.

Soon, Gabriel will catch me.

He’ll make me pay for striking him.