apter 217

    bChapter /bb217 /b

    April POV

    Eryxsugh is still loud and ringing in my ears even long afer Xander has pulled me back and he’s gone quiet. It’s not theugh I know, it’s not the one I fell in love with either. It’s cold, jagged and hollow. It’s so cruel I feel sick when I hear it, it’s the sort ofugh that crawls under your skin and makes you chest ache so much that you can’t breath.

    I didn’t even realise that I had fallen to my knees until they begin hurting so much I don’t know if I’m crying from his words or from the pain. My hands clutch at my stomach, like I can shield the baby, like I can protect the tiny life growing inside of me from the venom that he’s spitting. Tears blur my vision, they are hot and endless now, and I can’t look away from the man chained to the wall. The one I love, still, despite his rejection and hatred.

    He’s Eryx, my Eryx, at least I thought he was, he’s not my Eryx anymore. Not like this, not right now.

    His head is lowered, and his dark hair hangs across his face, in this way, he looks like the Eryx I knew and loved, he doesn’t look like the monster he became. Every so often he pulls against the chains nad thashes like a wild animal. The metal groans under the strain. I can feel his eyes on me, I can’t see them, but I can feel them watching me. My heart twists painfull, because those eyes used to hold warmth, they used to hold me.

    “April,” Xander murmurs, crouching beside me, but I shake my head violently. Damon may have lied about what Eryx said to him, but he didn’t get it wrong. Everythign Damon told me Eryx said, he just did.

    “He hates me,” I whisper, the words breaking as soon as they leave my lips. Damon was right in what he said. “He hates me. Did you hear him? He said he wanted to watch me burn, he said he’d kill the baby-” My throat closes, and I press my palm harder against my stomach as if I can protect it from his words. “That’s not the Queen. That’s him. That’s really him. It wasn’t her voice, it wasn’t her manipting him, Damon was right.”

    Xander’s face hardens, but his hand is steady as he grips my shoulder. “It’s not him.”

    1 shake my head harder, the tears spilling faster. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare lie to me. That wasn’t her voice, Xander.

    That was his. He wanted to hurt me.”

    For a moment, Xander looks at ime/i, and doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t try to tell me I imagined it, or that I’m crazy for thinking it. Instead, he exhales slowly, almost like each breath is carved from stone. “You’re right April. That isn’t the Hollowed Queen taking control and speaking. But that doens’t mean it’s him either.”

    Turning, I look at Xander, my entire body trembling. “What do you mean? If it’s not her, and it’s not her control, then it’s him, it has to be him-”

    “No, it doesn’t, April.” His voice is sharper now, like he’s trying to make me listen. “It’s not her speaking not directly anyway. But her darkness, that is,She’s poisoned him, she’s twisted everything inside of him until he can’t tell what’s real anymore. His emotions are being ripped apart, anger, hate, pain. They’re all bleeding into one another until he can’t seperate them from himself.”

    I freeze, the words sinking in slowly, painfully.

    “He’s losing all sense,” Xander continues, his eyes flicking toward his son behind the bars. “He’s losing the line between what he is and what she’s made him. The darkness it’s taking over the happiness, the good. When he speaks like that, when he says those things… it’s not the Queen putting words in his mouth. It’s the darkness inside him, twisting his own

    09:33 Sat, 30 Aug W

    thoughts, poisoning his reality.”

    I swallow hard, my stomach turning to stone. “So it is him.”

    b+23/b)

    “Not the him you knew. Not the one who imed you. Not the man who cried when he held you just nowi./ii” /iHis hand squeezes my shoulder. “You saw it, April. For a moment, he was himself. That was real. That was him. When have you ever saw him hate his own mother? He does it to her, that’s proof it’s not him, not really.”

    My chest aches so badly I almost wish he’d just stabbed me with a de instead. Because he’s right. For a heartbeat, Eryx was back. He held me like he thought I was a dream, like I was the only thing tethering him ito /ithe world. And then it was gone. Snatched away and swallowed by something I couldn’t stop.

    ?

    “He hates me,” I say again, quieter this time, like if I repeat it enough it’ll stop hurting. “Even if it’s the darkness, even if it’s twisting him… he hates me.”

    “No.” Xander shakes his head firmly. “He doesn’t hate you April. He hates himself and he hates what’s happening to him. He loves you, he hates the way the Queen has turned him into this.” His jaw tightens. “But you? You know deep down that you are still the one he loves. That’s why it cuts so deep. That’s why he fights so hard, even if it doesn’t look like it. He rejects you with his mouth because the other option is destroying you with his hands.”

    My throat burns as I force the sobs down. Hugging myself tighter, I rock slightly where I sit on the floor, the cold of it seeping through my clothes. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can watch him turn into this and still believe in

    who he used to be.”

    “You don’t have to,” Xander says gently. “That’s not your burden, April. It’s ours. It’s mine. You’ve already carried enough. We’re fixing it, you don’t have to see him like this, you don’t have to face him right now.”

    But I shake my head. “It is my burden because I love him. Because he’s the father of my child. Mostly though because no matter what he says, no matter what poisones out of his mouth, I can’t stop loving him. And it’s killing me. It’s also me, he took it to save me, so he’s my burden.”

    e of

    Silence settles between us, broken only by the rattle of chains as Eryx thrashes again, snarling something under his breath that makes my blood run cold. I can’t make out the words, and maybe I don’t want to.

    Finally, Xander helps me to my feet. My legs are weak, my body trembling, but I let him guide me back down the corridor. I don’t look back. I can’t.

    The guards straighten as we approach, their eyes wary. They can see the wreckage written across my face. Xander’s growl rumbles low in his chest. “You let her through because I didn’t say not to”

    One of them hesitates, his mouth twitching. “We made a mistake, we shouldn’t have allowed her in, and when the main guards did I should have stopped her, I ept that.”

    Xander’s fury snaps sharp. “Common sense should’ve told you it wasn’t safe, and when she stepped foot in here you tell her to get out. Do you know what could’ve happened if I hadn’t been there?” His voice drops, lethal and quiet. “If he’d gotten his hands on her? On the child?”

    The guards look down, their silence an admission.

    I don’t say a word. My throat is raw, my heart is heavier than it’s ever been, and all I can hear in my head is Eryx’sugh

    09:33

    30 Aug ulli/li/ul

    still. I can hear the sharp and cruel, sound echoing even after we leave the cells and walk out..

    b55/b%

    +23)

    Back in the halls of the packhouse, the air feels too heavy to breathe. I press a hand against the wall to steady myself, and Xander’s hand hovers near my elbow like he’s afraid I’ll copse again.

    “He hates me,” I whisper once more, because the words won’t leave me, because they feel etched into my bones now. Because what he said, was so cruel, even my mind is still locked on them.

    “No,” Xander says, his voice grim but steady. “He doesn’t hate you. He’s lost in the dark, and until we find a way to cut the Queen’s poison out of him, you won’t see the man you knew. But he’s still in there. And if there’s one thing that can keep him tethered, it’s you and that child. You can’t give up on him, April. Not yet.”

    I close my eyes, the tears spilling again despite my effort to hold them back. Because I want to believe him. I want to believe the Eryx I love is still somewhere in that darkness, waiting for me to pull him back.

    But the sound of hisughter keeps ying in my head, and I don’t know if love is enough to reach him anymore.